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June 5, 2006

WILPF's Other Press...

I was looking for information on the WILPF* West Gathering this summer, a triennial event held for our West Coast members. (It's every three years because during the other years, we have an International Congress and a National Congress). Googling "WILPF West gathering" led me to this intriguing history of WILPF on "Discover the Networks.org: a Guide to the Political Left."

At first I thought, wow cool! Someone is trying to do movement building via a website. Ha! It's a right-wing observation of left wing movements. While it offered some fascinating WILPF history, it also conflates WILPF US with WILPF International. It refers to WILPF as One Entity, whereas anyone who has been involved in WILPF for a fraction of a second can tell you that we're anything but cohesive. I'm also offended that they haven't updated our listing recently. And I wonder why some members' activism in support of Mumia Abu-Jamal is listed so prominently (which as far as I know was never made a WILPF US campaign, or even an official WILPF US stand, other than the fact that WILPF US is firmly against the death penalty).

In any event, it would be interesting to see if the historical information in the listing is at all an accurate description of the outcomes of our International Congresses.

And just as a point of information: I do not believe WILPF ever shied away from discussing the USSR. Indeed, there was a women-to-women dialogue created by US members with USSR women. But honestly, we aren't a front for the Communist party. And we claim more of Jane Addams' activist time than any of the other organizations she co-founded.

Emily Greene Balch was an economics professor fired by the trustees of my alma mater for her "radical peace activities," but during my time at Wellesley College, the college officially apologized and created an internship in her honor.

The basically offensive listing for WILPF is here.

The WILPF US homepage is here.

The WILPF US blog is here.

The International WILPF webpage is here
.

PeaceWomen, working towards full implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 1325 on women, peace, and security; a project of WILPF.

Reaching Critical Will
: reaching for a critical mass of political will for nuclear disarmament, a project of WILPF.

Despite what the wingnuts say about us, WILPF is not entirely focused on the UN. WILPF US has a Save the Water campaign and a Women Challenge US Policy: Building Peace on Justice in the Middle East campaign. We do agree with our international sisters that Israel is building an apartheid wall, but our challenge is to the US government to stop its financial, military, and diplomatic support of the Israeli occupation of Palestine. We have 36 active sections around the world, including sections in Israel, Palestine, and Lebanon.

I am the Program Chair of WILPF US, and spend almost all of my activist time working on WILPF, hence the lack of postings to this blog.

*WILPF = Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, the oldest women's peace organization in the world. I am a life member! (I recently completed the $500 necessary for life membership on an installment plan and I'm very proud of this accomplishment.)

Posted by cj at June 5, 2006 10:25 PM

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