WLOE E-Newsletter 30 January 2003:

Globalization; Don't attack Iraq!; Women's action

This month we launch our e-mail ‘Newsletter’ service in German and English, with brief reports on women and peace, globalization and ecology, offering links to useful websites. In this time of tension and war, international solidarity is crucial. Help us grow and be part of the international web of information and support. Make a contribution (see end of message); copy this newsletter and send it to your friends.

• GLOBALIZATION
  
  In January tens of thousands attended two major international gatherings of the “surging movement against corporate-driven globalization” (Focus on the Global South newsletter): the Asian Social Forum in Hyderabad, India and the World Social Forum, which met for the third time in Porto Alegre Brazil, January 23-28. Our next issue will have more women’s voices from these meetings. Here the views of economist-activist Susan George from Porto Alegre:
  “In one sentence, our movement must accept the most difficult task ever undertaken in human history: we have to democratise the international system and force it to serve the needs of everyone. As we are all aware, that system and its major actors currently serve only the need and the greed of a tiny minority.” Read her full speech and more from the World Social Forum at: http://www.ipsnews.net/fsm2003/27.01.2003/nota17.shtml and from Focus on the Global South http://www.focusweb.org
  
  
• DON’T ATTACK IRAQ!
  
  "Shock and Awe": read this commentary from The Black Commentator (commentary, analysis and investigations on issues affecting African Americans) “The War Party wants the world to know that there is no escape from the raging superpower. Very soon, the U.S. military will stage a show more shocking and awful than can be imagined, for the benefit of a global audience. As Ullman envisions, it will be "rather like the nuclear weapons at Hiroshima." The intent is to break the will of the species. Iraq is merely a convenient stage, Saddam Hussein an extremely unfortunate prop.” http://www.blackcommentator.com/27/27_commentary.html
  People around the world are saying NO to the Bush & Co. plans for war on Iraq. What can people do? Mina Hamilton has updated her “Twenty-Five Things You Can Do To Resist the War Against Iraq”, which you can find on our website at:
  http://www.virtueller-exhibitionismus.de/wloe/WLOE-en/action/25ways.html
  George W. Bush Must Answer to the People - adapted from Ramsey Clark's address to the half a million demonstrators at the January 18th National March on Washington to Stop the War on Iraq organized by International A.N.S.W.E.R. (Act Now to Stop War & End Racism): "The U.S. Constitution provides the means for preventing George W. Bush from engaging in a war of aggression against Iraq, and from advancing a first strike potentially nuclear preemptive war. It's called impeachment." http://www.votetoimpeach.org
  
  Vote No to War: the A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition also has a “vote no to war” petition campaign.
  It reads: “The U.S. Congress did not represent me when it voted to authorize George W. Bush to carry out an illegal war against Iraq.    Thousands will die needlessly unless the people stop this war drive. I join with millions of people who believe that the $200 billion planned for war against Iraq should be spent instead to fund jobs, education, housing, health care, child care, assistance to the elderly and to meet people's needs.”Download a petition for signing at: http://www.votenowar.org/printable.html
  
  
• WOMEN’S ACTION:
  
  “Oh, be joyful to be a warrior in this great time!” – “Granny D” at age 93
  “Yes, we must stop this war. We must stop this attack on our Bill of Rights.  But we are bailing out our flooding boat with our straw hats if we do not look to the cause of this insanity.” Doris "Granny D" Haddock celebrated her 93rd birthday this past weekend. On Jan. 25, 2003 she spoke to a cheering crowd of 400 in Keene, New Hampshire USA, near her hometown of Dublin. We are include her remarks in full because they eloquently express an ecological-feminist world-view, and because this brave elder deserves to be heard. Check out her website for good links and more speeches: http://www.GrannyD.com and http://www.cppax.org
  “My family belongs to a group of families who, together, provide for the annual income of a local farmer, in exchange for the food he produces. It is an organic operation, which not only means that dangerous chemicals are kept out of the foods, but also out of the soil and the water that flows eventually into the rivers and seas. How we live shapes the entire world. I am no angel. I buy clothing that is a bargain and I look at the tag with guilt if it is from some faraway place where the workers may be abused. My part of New England used to be a great textile center, so I also care about the fact that my purchasing may take jobs from my neighbors.
  What we drive, what we buy, the entertainment we choose, the way we use electricity and water -- all of these things matter. Our little decisions work for or against our dream of a fair world that spins along with nature in balance and with people living well in their local economies.
  Poverty happens, war happens, imperialism happens, when all the little bad  decisions of a nation's people accumulate and find political expression. Just as an unbalanced mind can accumulate mental stresses that can grow and take on a life of their own, so the little decisions of our modern life can accumulate to the point where our society finds itself bombing other people for their oil, or supporting dictators who torture whole populations --all so that our unbalanced interests might be served. When we look at Mr. Bush and his war machine, and his rising campaign against our own freedoms and civil rights, we must think of it all as a mental illness that has come over the American mind. It is our illness.
  Yes, we must stop this war. We must stop this attack on our Bill of Rights.  But we are bailing out our flooding boat with our straw hats if we do not look to the cause of this insanity.
  Sanity is in finding alternative energy rather than blowing up our Appalachian Mountains for their coal. Sanity is in buying bicycles or at least hybrid cars rather than bombing other people for their oil. It is in  supporting our family farmers, especially the organic farmers, rather than suburbanizing all our land and turning to factory foods that are more health hazard than nutrition.
  We cannot have world peace without peace in our own lives. We cannot attack our planet by the way we live, and then go off to a peace rally and hope to set right all the imbalance we have caused.  Peace is first a private matter. It cannot grow except from there.
  I know I will be in jail before Mr. Bush is out of the White House. I know some of you will too. I know I will give my all to stop this unwarranted invasion of the world by this disturbed man and his disturbed friends. I  urge you to fight as well. I urge you to go to the peace march in New York City on February 15 and be a part of the largest American uprising in modern history.
  But I ask you to do it not in anger, but in joy. Not in frustration, but in peace. Aren't we privileged to live in a time when everything is at stake, and when our efforts make a difference in the eternal contest between the forces of light and shadow, between togetherness and division? Between justice and exploitation?  Oh, be joyful to be a warrior in this great time!
  And be joyful because your house is in order. Your friends have your friendship. Your lover has your love. Your community has your support. Be peace itself at war with war itself. Take time for yourself and for your peace of mind. Look at your lifestyle and begin to make the adjustments you think wise and appropriate.
  Will we rise to this battle? If so, we cannot lose, for rising up to it is our victory. Will we rise up? Will we represent love in the world? If we represent love in the world, you see, we have already won.”
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  Women and Life on Earth is an international, multi-lingual project on women and peace, globalization and ecology.
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