by Susan Cundiff  (Reprinted from the Eugene Register Guard, November 20, 2013) When the earthquake and tsunami hit Japan in 2011, the world watched in horror as scenes of devastation unfolded in Fukushima. Then we learned about the additional catastrophic events at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Plant, and the horror multiplied. Since the Trojan nuclear power plant near Rainier shut down in 1993, people in the Northwest may think we’re free from the threat of a similar nuclear disaster. Few realize, however, that there is a Fukushima-style nuclear power plant operating on the banks of the Columbia River — the Columbia Generating Station. Never heard of CGS? Not surprising. It was originally known as Washington Public Power Supply System Nuclear…

by Ellen Finkelstein At the annual MLK Day commemoration at Seattle’s Garfield High School, Tom Ewell (Whidbey Island FOR) & I led a workshop on King’s “Call to Conscience.” We featured a PBS Tavis Smiley Special Report that includes some video and audio of King’s historic April 4, 1967, “Beyond Vietnam” speech at Riverside Church in NYC as well as interviews about the impact of the speech in 1967 and its relevance today.  You can watch the video: http://www.pbs.org/wnet/tavissmiley/tsr/mlk-a-call-to-conscience/ I am pleased to be adapting the workshop for the PJALS (Peace & Justice Action League of Spokane) annual conference on March 7-8. [Kristin Stoneking, FOR Executive Director, will be the keynote speaker.] What most struck me as I viewed the…

by Marcia Mullins Are you committed to securing justice for those experiencing our court system? If so, read on for a way to put that commitment into action. At the Nov 2013 WWFOR Fall Retreat, many of us had the great fortune to hear Mary Paterson (keynote speaker) talk about the No New Jim Crow Coalition – Seattle, “dedicated to ending mass incarceration in America, beginning in Seattle/King County.” The work of this group is exciting and is expanding quickly into many areas of legal reform such as abolition of the death penalty. An encouraging program from the City of Seattle also seeks reform by focusing on Restorative Justice: moving from retribution to reconciliation and healing of all parties. (Event…

by Larry Kerschner The Korean War was fought between 1950 and 1953 between South Korea and United Nations forces and North Korea and China. While this was promoted as a United Nations action, 88% of the troops were supplied by the United States. The fighting ended on 27 July 1953, when the armistice agreement was signed.   Sixty years after the armistice to halt fighting was signed a state of war still exists.  The last elements of the Chinese Army left Korea in 1958. The United States still has 23,000 troops occupying South Korea. This unfortunate reality is due to the persistent U.S. government opposition to signing a peace treaty with North Korea.  Recently as part of Obama’s military shift to…

by Bernie Meyer After watching the impressive documentary, The Ghosts of Jeju, at Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action on Martin Luther King Jr. 2014 weekend, I was prompted to ask, “What is the religious makeup of the young police who were arresting the blockaders at the U.S. Navy Base construction site entrance?” (Jeju is an island off the South Korean coast.) These young men and women arrested Catholic nuns and priests, Buddhists, officials of the village, and many lay people who were courageously acting on a daily basis to prevent the construction. I wondered what was going through their minds. The response was that Koreans are 80% Buddhists, 10% Christian, and 10% other religions. And, “most are conservative.” What…

by Larry Kerschner The United States government was, in theory, designed to “promote life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”  It was also not necessarily envisioned to be permanent. “That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it …”  Corporations were also originally viewed as having a license granted by the government that was time-limited and designed to accomplish a specific social good.  Capitalism, despite predictions of its demise by Marx, produced some semblance of prosperity gaining a general sense of approval among the working class.  This approval allowed corporations, over time through financial support of politicians, to gain control of all three sections of the…

by Robert Poteat December 23, 2013, was the one hundredth anniversary of the signing of the Federal Reserve Act.  This Act is arguably the greatest attack on humanity in all of history.  It is the culmination of centuries of political, financial, intellectual, and moral corruption.  The corruption has only increased in the one hundred year history of the Federal Reserve Banking System.   Stated purpose of the Act:  An Act To provide for the establishment of Federal reserve banks, to furnish an elastic currency, to afford means of re-discounting commercial paper, to establish a more effective supervision of banking in the United States, and for other purposes.  The Act gave the power and privilege of creating the nation’s money supply to…

by Bert Sacks    We can learn the essential facts of the killing of President Kennedy in Dallas from just two sources.  The first source is the book JFK and the Unspeakable: why he died and why it matters by Jim Douglass.  The second is the November 25, 2013, issue of Time magazine.  Yes, Time magazine! It’s not that Time intended to inform us of what actually happened 50 years ago in their commemorative issue “The Moment that Changed America.”  The blurb on the cover gives away their intention: “Inside — The Conspiracy Industry.”  This, despite the disclaimer in the article, “I don’t mean to belittle the passion of the Kennedy investigators when I say their search has become an industry…

The 2013 WWFOR Fall Retreat, “Realities of the ‘New Jim Crow.’ What Will I Do? What Will We Do?” brought together about 60 activists from the region. You can watch the excellent keynote by Mary Paterson (of No New Jim Crow Seattle). Mary and our other presenters offered workshops that allowed participants to learn more and explore future actions. We hope that the follow up from the retreat will reinvigorate FOR members to connect racial and economic justice to issues of militarism and to work with our allies on these issues. Here are a few other “follow-up” opportunities: Join Ruth Elder and Kathy Wilkinson in the new Washington State Chapter of CURE (Citizens United for Rehabilitation of Errants). CURE is…

by Larry Kerschner There is a saying that “Hitler’s arms were only three feet long.” The same can be said of any war or act of government violence … can only happen with the actions and agreement of those who are part of the government machine. Soldiers kill others. Presidents usually do not directly kill others. There would be no war if the soldiers did not kill. This seems simplistic but most things that are true are ultimately simple. The military likes to pretend that, especially in a “volunteer” military, troops are obligated to participate in any “war” they are sent to. This begs the question of what a “war” is. In the United States the legal war authority for…