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Double your contribution for peace and justice! Thanks to a generous donor, new WNPJ memberships in 2013 will be matched, up to $2,000. Not yet a member? Please join and help us build a stronger statewide network! Already a member? Why not get a gift membership for a friend who shares your commitment to peace and justice? |
The Wisconsin Network for Peace and Justice (WNPJ) donated funds for a water purifier filter in a school in Iraq last December. Sami Rasouli of the Iraqi-American Reconciliation Project, MN - has a goal of installing 1,000 water purifiers in Iraqi Schools - can you help? If your group is interested in supporting a water purifier system in Najaf, Iraq - please contact: Sami Rasouli, Muslim Peacemaker Teams, Najaf, Iraq through www.reconciliationproject.org
On September 18th, Dennis Bergren will receive the Linda Sundberg Civil Rights Defender Award in Madison at Union South, 1308 West Dayton Street. All welcome from 5 - 7 pm that evening to join in the celebration with Community Shares of WI as we recognize this year’s Award Winners: Matt Dannenberg (Wisconsin League of Conservation Voters); Kim Hogan (Disability Rights Wisconsin); and Dennis Bergren (OutReach). Backyard Heroes will also be recognized, including WNPJ's Sheila Spears and Mary Beth Schlagheck, To RSVP by 9/7, call CSW at 608-256-1066. Suggested donation is $40. Read more below, about Dennis Bergren, former Board member of WNPJ:
4/27 Sat 9:30 am - 12 noon "Inheriting Legacies of Peace and Justice" Jane Addams Children's Book Awards - Chicago. At the Jane Addams Hull-House Museum, 800 South Halsted St. First awarded in 1953, the Jane Addams Children's Book Awards honor exemplary children's literature that most effectively promote peace, social justice, world community, and gender and racial equality to young readers.
Two hundred environmental, peace, consumer, religious organizations and small businesses -- including WNPJ and eight other Wisconsin groups -- have joined together to blast the newly introduced Kerry-Lieberman “climate” bill, called the American Power Act, as a taxpayer bailout of the nuclear power industry and other dirty energy interests that would be ineffective at addressing the climate crisis. The groups pledged to oppose the bill unless substantial changes are made, including removing all support for nuclear power.
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Four former Guantánamo prisoners |
Since the opening of the U.S. military prison in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, a well-orchestrated propaganda campaign has stoked our fears of those held in the prison, who have been routinely referred to as the "Worst of the worst." After President Obama announced a plan to transfer Guantanmo prisoners to a prison within the U.S., the fear-mongering kicked into high gear and Congress capitulated, blocking funds for the transfer, based on the irrational belief that no prison could be secure enough to protect us from Guantánamo's super-terrorists.
But some towns are now shaking off the fear and fighting back against the fear-mongers with an unusual tactic: Town-hall resolutions that invite the Federal government to relocate a released Guantánamo detainee in their town.
A Dane County circuit court judge has issued a permanent injunction blocking Wisconsin's voter ID law, ruling that it creates a “substantial impairment of the right to vote” guaranteed by the state Constitution. The court ruling was in response to a lawsuit filed by the NAACP and WNPJ member group Voces de la Frontera. The injunction means that the law, which would have required a state-issued photo ID from all voters, will not be in effect for the November election, although Wisconsin Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen has said he intends to appeal the decision.
In 2007 Wisconsin Books To Prisoners began a LGBT Project thanks to a starter grant from the New Harvest Foundation of Madison. This project sends new and used books to LGBT prisoners nationwide, addressing an often marginalized and mistreated segment of the national prison system. New Harvest has twice renewed its support during which the Project has grown from seven prisoners who had requested LGBT materials in mid 2007 to over 860 LGBT prisoners who have received at least one package of books today. WBTP is grateful to NHF and also to OutReach LGBT Community Center in Madison for their support and continued donations.
"After much debate, a western Wisconsin school district will change its Native American logo," reports WEAU-TV.
Winter School District Administrator Penny Boileau said, "If we're offending our students, neighbors, friends, it's not appropriate, it's time to change."
Public input is being sought on a new logo, while sports teams are now using a "W."
"It's a step forward where we can start to heal and grow with that collaboration," Boileau explained.
The Homeless Veterans Initiative sponsored by Milwaukee Veterans for Peace Chapter 102, a WNPJ member group, continues to grow. Partnering with St. John's Lutheran Church at 5500 W. Greenfield Ave, the homeless program has opened the first veteran food pantry in Milwaukee. The doors will open every Tuesday morning to the 100+ veterans that Veterans for Peace has been delivering food to every week.
By an overwhelming 26 to 4 vote, the Vermont Senate voted to deny a request by Entergy Corp., the operator of Vermont's sole nuclear plant, to extend its forty-year lifespan by an additional twenty years, forcing a shutdown of the aging reactor by 2012. The vote marks the first time a state has moved to shut down an operating reactor, and deals a severe blow to the troubled nuclear industry, which had hoped for a revival after President Obama made massive federal loan guarantees to promote construction of new nuclear plants a centerpiece of his proposed energy policy. Pictured: Collapsed cooling tower, 2007
608-250-9240, Wisconsin Network for Peace and Justice, 122 State Street, Suite 405A, Madison, WI 53703, Send an email to the office diane@wnpj.org.
WNPJ is a member of the Community Shares of Wisconsin.
