31st War Abolition Walk – Wednesday, May 24

3:30 pm at Rep Pocan’s office — 4:00 pm walk to Sen Baldwin’s office — 2:30 pm possible visit to Sen Johnson’s office — details below.

Hello War Abolitionist friends all!

Do you remember the times, last year, when our calls for the end to the war in Ukraine were met with hopeless, “impossible with Putin”, or “war is inevitable”?

Well, as you may already know, last week, an open letter from the Eisenhower Media Network to the Biden administration was published as a full page ad in the New York Times. It is here: https://eisenhowermedianetwork.org/russia-ukraine-war-peace/ This group defines itself as “an organization of expert former military, intelligence, and civilian national security officials”; it unequivocally declares that a major factor of misguided NATO expansion in Eastern Europe was “profit from weapon sales”; and it unapologetically calls to, in their own words, “ Let’s make America a force for peace in the world!”.

Dennis Fritz, the director of Eisenhower Media Network and a retired US Air Force Master Sergeant, was interviewed on Democracy Now!

https://www.democracynow.org/2023/5/17/dennis_fritz_ukraine_war_diplomacy_letter

What a welcome development!

And the usual suspects continue their fearless work: CODEPINK Women for Peace, as part of the large Peace in Ukraine Coalition, has placed another ad, this one to be published in The Hill newspaper next Wednesday 5/24.

This ad, besides expressing a direct demand to Presidents Biden, Putin, and Zelensky for ending the war in Ukraine, contains a petition. The petition, calling for the same, has been signed by countless organizations and individuals. It is here: https://www.codepink.org/notoww3

The goal of this national effort is to deliver those two ads to the local offices of congresspeople on the same day the the ad is printed in Washington. The coalition is urging local groups and people to visit their legislators’ offices to highlight these latest developments and to point out the need for their leadership and advocacy for diplomacy in their capacity as legislators.

Here in Madison, we’ll be doing just that. Will you join us? Here’s the plan:

Wednesday, May 24

  • 3:30 pm meet at Rep Pocan’s office; picket, banner, deliver letter
  • 4:00 pm walk to Sen Baldwin’s office; picket, banner, deliver letter
  • 2:30 pm possible visit to Sen Johnson’s office. Sen Johnson has called for negotiations to end the Ukraine war. Would you like to take the open letter and petition to his office? Please send us a note at warabolition@gmail.com to let us know you can do that. We’ll put you in touch with others who can too.
  • letters to present to each individual legislator are here. If so desired, you can either print and sign your own, or sign a hard copy that we’ll have available at the sites.

Stefania and Janet, Madison War Abolition Walks, Madison for a World BEYOND War
warabolition@gmail.com