June Actions Information and Resources
[DOWNLOAD PDF] Toolkit for Jobs Not Wars June Actions
See the list of actions
Toolkit Contents
- Connecting with Partners in Your Area
- Ideas for Organizing Actions
- Researching Federal Cuts to Social Programs
- Researching Military Contractors and CEOs in Your Area
- Focusing on Economic Conversion
- Sample Press Release
The Jobs Not Wars campaign proposes actions throughout the country from Friday, June 21st to Wednesday, July 3rd. We are asking endorsing organizations to organize local actions or events that highlight the disparities between military contracts and social spending in the federal budget, as these play out in our communities. The aims of the actions are:
- to make visible the sites and corporations where military contracts enrich a few, or serve immoral and useless wars, and the places and people hurt by federal budget cuts to social programs;
- to put forward the vision and prospect of converting military spending to projects that both generate jobs and serve desperately needed and socially constructive ends;
- to help create coalitions of local people, especially those who have not worked together before; and
- to reach people that previous actions have not reached.
Activists Protest Possible Cuts To Food Stamps Share
MON JUNE 17, 2013
By PAUL TUTHILL
Activists held a series of demonstrations across the country today to call on influential Democratic members of Congress to prevent cuts to the food stamp program. One of the demonstrations was in Springfield, Massachusetts.
June Actions
CA San Francisco Bay Area July 2 2013 “Gather at 3:15 pm at Civic Center BART Station, Rally at 4 pm” “Anti-Militarism / New Priorities component to CA Asn of Retired Americans (CARA) and SF Labor Council Social Security Rally” Feeder march from Civic Center BART Station to the Federal Building for 4pm Rally with speakers; human chain to surround the Federal Building to object to “Chained CPI”.
Iowa Des Moines June 23 2013 Events at 1 & 3 pm “Voices for Creative Nonviolence -Walk Against Drone Warfare “ “Walk ends in Des Moines, Iowa PEACE RALLY
National Guard Base, 3100 McKinley Ave, 1:00-2:30 PM
Friends Meeting House, 4211 Grand Ave. Des Moines, IA
MO Kansas City June 28 2013 Film “Dirty Wars” The World is a Battlefield Tivoli Cinemas, 4050 Pennsylvania, KCMO 64111 Mary at mhladky@earthlink.net
MO Kansas City July 2 2013 Noon to 1 pm Human Chain Against the Chained CPI 101 W. 31st St, KCMO 64018 Steve at kcscq@yahoo.com
3 PM – Sponsored by Catholic Peace Ministry – To Learn More about this Drone Walk and its schedule visit http://vcnv.org/covering-ground-to-ground-the-drones
MO Saint Louis June 22 2013 Building Peace in the Loop. 11am to 2 pm, Vintage Vinyl, 6610 Delmar Come on out to Vintage Vinyl this Saturday! Peace Economy Project will be there in conjunction with the Jobs Not Wars
Campaign to collect signatures for our Congressional Appeal that tells Congress we need to cut Pentagon pork, not vital domestic programs. For more information visit
http://peaceeconomyproject.org/wordpress/?p=1728&future=true
NY New York June 28 2013 8:30 AM – Rally “Peace Action & Military Families Speak Out Rally at government employment offices in Harlem – all groups welcome”
For more info contact Lionel – lionel24h@yahoo.com
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The Sword Drops on Food Stamps
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Congress is about to slash food stamp funding in the midst of a deep economic recession, when more people rely on food stamps than ever before. The only hope now to at least moderate the cuts is a band of House Democrats who have pledged to fight the food stamp cuts ferociously.
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It’s official: Congress will slash food stamp funding in the midst of a deep economic recession, when more people rely on food stamps than ever before. Monday night, the Senate passed a five-year farm bill that contained $4.1 billion in cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) over ten years. This ensures that the only debate now will be about how much to cut – and it’s likely to result in cuts much deeper than $4.1 billion. The House Agricultue Committee passed a farm bill last month that cut $20.5 billion from SNAP by removing “categorical eligibility” (more on that here), which would take food stamps away from 2 million Americans and hundreds of thousands of children. |
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More Sequester Impacts
Sequester Impacts: June 8 – June 14
Another week of impacts: Much more news about losses of rental vouchers and increased rents for low-income tenants. In New York City, housing agencies will not release 6,000 vouchers that had been planned for distribution, and 37,000 households that have vouchers will face rent increases of $100 – $400 a month. And more Head Start cuts – in Massachusetts, they estimate 1,359 fewer children will enroll in Head Start come the fall, a larger reduction than originally estimated by the U.S. Department of Education. In Minnesota, between 500 – 600 children will go without Head Start in the fall. It will be harder for disadvantaged students to get to college (and to stay there) because of deep cuts in the TRIO programs, which offer preparation and support to low-income students. TRIO will serve 40,000 fewer students because of the sequester. More than 785,000 victims of crime will not get help through the Crime Victims Fund, more than 310,000 of those losing out due to sequestration.
And that’s not all: For this week’s summary, click here.
To see all the weekly summaries since March, click here.
And a heads-up: enormous cuts to SNAP/food stamps are threatened in the House of Representatives next week. The House is expected to take up its version of the farm bill, with more than $20 billion in SNAP cuts, denying nutrition assistance to 2 million people. Worse yet, floor amendments are expected to propose even deeper cuts. The bill may be able to be stopped in the House. A certain number of Republicans do not want to vote for it (in some cases because they want even deeper cuts). On the other hand, 30 or more Democrats are inclined to vote for the farm bill – but they must be persuaded that the deep SNAP cuts mean the bill must be rejected.
On Monday, we will send you more background information about the House farm bill, and a request to call your Representative on Tuesday, June 18. Please be looking for that alert - and please call!
Afghan War Vote More About War Fatigue Than Forcing Drawdown
CQ NEWS – POLICY
June 14, 2013 -4:28 p.m.
By Frank Oliveri, CQ Roll Call
When the House on Thursday overwhelmingly approved an amendment directing the president to remove all combat troops from Afghanistan by the end of 2014, it was far more important in reflecting the nation’s current mood toward the Afghanistan war – and war generally – than in having any practical effect on administration policy.
Indeed, scholars, senior congressional aides and lawmakers acknowledged the amendment merely restates Obama administration policy, lacks any enforcement provisions, and in no way calls into question the balance of war powers between the executive and legislative branches under the U.S. Constitution.
“This amendment requires the president to stick to his timetable, accelerate it if he can,” said Jim McGovern, D-Mass., who sponsored the amendment along with a bipartisan group of lawmakers. “And depending on your point of view, this amendment puts the wind at the president’s back, or holds his feet to the fire, to fulfill the promises he made to our brave troops, their families, and the American people.”
Read MoreMcGovern-G.O.P. Alliance a Sign of Shift on Afghanistan
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/06/14/mcgovern-g-o-p-alliance-a-sign-of-shift-on-afghanistan/
By DEREK WILLIS
An unusual groundswell of support from House Republicans for a Massachusetts liberal’s measure is a stark example of changing sentiments on Afghanistan.
Representative Jim McGovern, Democrat of Massachusetts, offered an amendment to the annual defense authorization bill specifying that combat operations involving United States forces in Afghanistan be completed by the end of 2013, and “the accelerated transition of military and security operations by the end of 2014.” More than half of the House Republican caucus, 120 in all, supported Mr. McGovern’s effort, and the amendment passed by 91 votes.
Compare that with a 2009 House vote on a McGovern amendment requiring that the Pentagon report to Congress on an exit strategy for American military forces in Afghanistan by the end of that year. Just seven House Republicansvoted for it. They included skeptics on the Afghan war like Walter B. Jones Jr. of North Carolina and Ron Paul of Texas, who had made a military pullback part of his 2008 bid for the Republican presidential nomination. Mr. McGovern’s amendment failed by 71 votes.
Four years later, a wide range of Republicans from across the nation, including six from Texas, 11 from Florida and four of five Kentuckians, joined all but nine Democrats in voting for Mr. McGovern’s amendment. It was the most Republican support any amendment by him has ever received on the House floor.
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