International Uranium Film Festival

International Uranium Film Festival Comes to Asheville

March 23 & 24

Brought To Western North Carolina By 

Physicians for Social Responsibility

Sponsored by Veterans For Peace

Details Below 

 

Memorial Day Observance: Monday, May 29, 2023

We will gather at the Western North Carolina Veterans Memorial* on 

Monday, May 29, 2023 at 10:30AM to grieve ALL fellow humans around the 

world and through all time who have died because of war.

*74 College Street, Asheville

PEACE TALKS in WNC! - Thursday, May 25, 2023 - 7PM-9PM

PEACE TALKS in WNC! - Thursday, May 25, 2023 - 7PM-9PM

@ Land of the Sky United Church of Christ,

15 Overbrook Place, Asheville, NC

Veterans For Peace - Western North Carolina is excited to invite you to

the first of our quarterly symposiums intended to educate and promote

action associated with issues that impact our ability to achieve peace

in our world. There are so many such issues that it should be obvious that

not just “peace people” are invited, but all who yearn for the just peace

that underpins genuine peace and all those who want to know and do more.

Each symposium will focus on just one main topic of concern with video,

readings, discussion and action planning, but there will be more to each

symposium than that.

Our main topic for the first symposium is titled,

"The Monroe Doctrine, Revisited: How 200 Years of U.S. Policy Have Helped

to Destabilize the Americas.”

Beyond the focus of our main topic we intend to include time for broadening

and deepening our community’s lived commitment to achieving peace

through reporting on our actions, results, plans, and celebrating all that

makes our corner of the world a place that nurtures a peace that catches

on well beyond our beautiful mountains.

Throughout the rest of 2023 at each symposium we will be celebrating

ourselves, Veterans For Peace Chapter 099, in observance of

our 20th anniversary in existence… and we will do that with CAKE!

Please join us, bring anyone you want to enjoy a world at peace with,

and spread the word about this. Any questions, please let me know.

Any assistance you’d like to offer is appreciated.

Bruce Carruthers/Save Our VA Initiative Gets Radio Time.

The Veterans Administration healthcare system outperforms most hospitals in the private sector. Why then do privatization efforts of VA healthcare continue? Join our guest Bruce Carruthers as we try to separate fact from fiction. Bruce is a US Army veteran and serves on the steering committee of the Veterans For Peace National Save Our VA Project.

More interviews at abetterworldcommunity.com

Handout for WNC Veterans for Peace Chapter 099 vigil on February 21, 2023

Veterans Challenge Islamophobia
 

Veterans Challenge Islamophobia is a broad based call to all veterans to defend the values of religious freedom, equality and individual rights. These are the very same values embedded in our Constitution that many of us believed we were defending when serving in the military. The campaign is initiated and coordinated by Veterans For Peace.

A promise of diversity, openness, and compassion for people of all faiths are the fundamental values we risked our lives to serve. These values for which so many of our sisters and brothers rendered the ultimate sacrifice, must be the foundation of our nation's future. Fear-mongering in the form of politicized and weaponized rhetoric has been used to cultivate a culture of fear, hatred, and animosity, allowing for a state of violence and perpetual warfare to persist at home and abroad.

Our values, as a nation, cannot abide and will not long endure amidst the divisiveness of hate speech and Islamophobia. Therefore, we call upon all in the United States and around the world to let their voices be heard and to stand up for the values of tolerance, respect, and love for all people and all faiths.


To join Veterans for Peace, or to sign up for VFP e-News, go to: https://www.veteransforpeace.org
Western North Carolina Website: www.vfp099.org /  Facebook: Veterans for Peace
Western North Carolina Chapter 099                   Email: president@vfp099.org
Mailing address: VFP Chapter 099, PO Box 1024, Asheville NC 28802

Handout for WNC Veterans for Peace Chapter 099 vigil on February 14, 2023

 The Doomsday Clock is Still Ticking

 The Doomsday Clock that the atomic scientists came up with in the late 1940s and still use today provides us with a fascinating way to look at our world in 2023.

If the stroke of midnight represents the end of civilization as we know it, then the closer the minute hand creeps to that moment, the worse off we are.

What’s moving that mechanism?  Our propensity to assemble nuclear weapons and our willingness to use them.

We should immediately sign on to international treaties that ban the creation and testing of nuclear weapons; we should denounce first-use policies; we should take the decision to use nuclear weapons out of the hands of one individual; and we should divert our tax dollars from the military’s inflated treasury into domestic infrastructure projects.

To join Veterans for Peace, or to sign up for VFP e-News, go to: https://www.veteransforpeace.org
Western North Carolina Website: www.vfp099.org /  Facebook: Veterans for Peace
Western North Carolina Chapter 099                      Email: president@vfp099.org
Mailing address: VFP Chapter 099, PO Box 1024, Asheville NC 28802

Handout for WNC Veterans for Peace Chapter 099 vigil on February 7, 2023

 VFP Iraq Water Project

     Clean water is an essential for any nation pretending to care about its people. Iraq at one time was well along the road to providing this necessity, but a whirlwind of conflict sucking up Iraq, Iran and the United States swept all this progress away in a matter of a few years. Politics is murky, but the consequences upon people are not: life for most Iraqis went to hell. Safe drinkable water became a luxury, and the poor, the aged and infants suffered the worst.  These many years later precious few can even now count on something so simple as a safe cup of tap water.

     VFP's Iraq Water Project has supplied small water purification units, ultraviolet and reverse osmosis, to various public institutions throughout Iraq, primarily hospitals, clinics and schools. These devices, pricing out somewhere between $1000 and $1500, are affordable for us so long as contributions keep coming in. 

    All the same, Iraq is still a war zone---of our country's making, to a large degree. IWP can only look forward to the day when a more stable Iraq will once again provide for its own water needs without us.

To join Veterans for Peace, or to sign up for VFP e-News, go to: https://www.veteransforpeace.org
Western North Carolina Website: www.vfp099.org /  Facebook: Veterans for Peace
Western North Carolina Chapter 099        Email: president@vfp099.org
Mailing address: VFP Chapter 099, PO Box 1024, Asheville NC 28802

Handout for WNC Veterans for Peace Chapter 099 on January 31, 2023

Costs of War: Soldiers and Veterans

Lies in the Recruitment Process
According to the New York Times, nearly one of five United States Army recruiters was under investigation in 2004 for offenses varying from "threats and coercion to false promises that applicants would not be sent to Iraq." One veteran recruiter told a reporter for the Albany Times Union, "I've been recruiting for years, and I don't know one recruiter who wasn't dishonest about it. I did it myself."

PTSD
Over two million service members have been to the wars and returned since 2001. Recovery from the trauma of military training and service is not automatic. There are estimates that 20% of veterans suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder. Child abuse has been three times higher in homes from which a parent is deployed, for example, and police and courts are dealing with skyrocketing partner abuse rates, which are up 177 percent in Army families since 2003.The Veterans Administration estimates that 300,000 veterans are homeless on any given night. Unemployment rates have been two percentage points higher among war veterans than civilians.


To join Veterans for Peace, or to sign up for VFP e-News, go to: https://www.veteransforpeace.org
Western North Carolina Website: www.vfp099.org /  Facebook: Veterans for Peace
Western North Carolina Chapter 099            Email: president@vfp099.org
Mailing address: VFP Chapter 099, PO Box 1024, Asheville NC 28802

Handout for WNC Veterans for Peace Chapter 099 vigil on January 24, 2023

 From VFP eNews: Call for End to U.S. Blockade of Cuba

    The Golden Rule anti-nuclear sailboat, crewed by U.S. veterans and friends, has successfully completed a historic voyage to Cuba. The 34-foot wooden ketch, which in 1958 was sailed toward the Marshall Islands to interfere with U.S. nuclear testing, is owned by Veterans For Peace, and carries out an important part of VFP’s mission, “to end the arms race and to reduce and eventually eliminate nuclear weapons.”     

     Five crew, including several members of Veterans For Peace, sailed the Golden Rule from Key West, Florida, and, after 22 hours at sea, arrived at Havana’s Marina Hemingway on December 31, just in time to celebrate New Year’s and the 62nd anniversary of the Cuban Revolution. The Golden Rule was sailed to Havana under a General License issued by the U.S. Treasury Department that allows U.S. residents to travel to Cuba for educational and people-to-people purposes.

     The Golden Rule crew was joined by seven others who flew into Havana to participate in a weeklong educational program. The Proximity Cuba tour agency organized an arts and culture program that highlighted many facets of the rich and diverse Cuban culture, including Afro-Cuban music and dance. The Golden Rule delegation also held a well-attended press conference that was featured on the top of the Cuban TV news and in other Latin American media.

To join Veterans for Peace, or to sign up for VFP e-News, go to: https://www.veteransforpeace.org
Western North Carolina Website: www.vfp099.org /  Facebook: Veterans for Peace
Western North Carolina Chapter 099           Email: president@vfp099.org
Mailing address: VFP Chapter 099, PO Box 1024, Asheville NC 28802

Letter to the Editor by WNC Veterans for Peace Chapter 099 member

 Published in the Mountain Xpress.

Let’s discuss principles for land use and development        

  Posted on January 23, 2023 by Letters          

On Dec. 16, a small group of local citizens representing Reject Raytheon AVL went to the Biltmore Farms LLC office in Biltmore Park. We delivered a letter signed by 40 of us asking CEO Jack Cecil for a meeting to discuss his plans for the development of 900 of his privately held acres.

Our understanding is that he has been working with the Asheville Area Chamber of Commerce to follow up the recent establishment of the Pratt & Whitney plant with a full-fledged aerospace industrial park.

In this day and age, the aerospace industry is an integral part of the military-industrial complex, heavily fueling the climate emergency and making enormous profits from the business of war.

Reject Raytheon AVL finds these plans completely antithetical to the idea of working toward a peaceful, just and sustainable future for our children and grandchildren. It is this that we want to discuss with Mr. Cecil. This was our third attempt to have a meeting with him about it.

In our letter, we listed the following nine principles we have formulated for local land use devoted to economic development in Western North Carolina:

1. Commit to just, equitable and sustainable development that prioritizes the needs of communities of color and other historically marginalized and disenfranchised people.

2. Mitigate the climate emergency.

3. Protect the Earth by exceeding the state environmental protections regarding water, air and soil quality, and maintaining green spaces.

4. Oppose recruitment of and investment in war or fossil fuel corporations.

5. Invest public money equitably in local and regional businesses, not multinational corporations.

6. Generate jobs with a living wage that guarantee workers’ right to organize.

7. Focus on essential community needs, such as deeply affordable housing, health care, education, social services, infrastructure and renewable energy.

8. Hold new industries accountable to the community by requiring contributions to essential community needs in exchange for tax incentives.

9. Make no secret deals — engage the public in meaningful and transparent decision making from the very beginning of the economic development process.

Once again, we have received no response from Mr. Cecil. It is time for a wider community discussion about this. If interested in having this discussion, please contact rejectraytheonavl@protonmail.com.

— Ken Jones
Swannanoa

Editor’s note: Xpress reached out to Jack Cecil with a summary of the letter writer’s points but did not receive a response.

Letter to the Editor from WNC Veterans for Peace Chapter 099 member

 

 

 Published in the Smoky Mountain News.

VA — the best care anywhere!

Wednesday, January 18, 2023

To the Editor: To crib part of a title from Phillip Longman’s book — “Best Care Anywhere: Why VA Health Care Would Work Better for Everyone” — this describes my recent experience at the VA Medical Center in Asheville. 

I woke up Wednesday morning, Nov. 16, with intense stomach pain. At 2:30 a.m., I went to the local emergency room. A CT scan revealed that I had gall stones and needed surgery. 

After a rough weekend, I called the Asheville VA on Monday morning. That afternoon a VA surgeon called me and scheduled an appointment for Tuesday morning. I completed pre-op that day, and Thursday morning, the 24th, I was on the operating table. The procedure was completed via laparoscopic surgery and I was discharged that day. My recovery has been quick and smooth. I needed pain medication for less than a week. I returned for a follow-up appointment on Dec. 6 and I was cleared to return to normal activity in a week. 

I couldn’t be any happier with the care I received from the VA. The personnel there responded immediately to my call, and everything was handled efficiently, promptly, and with real concern. This is the kind of care all Americans should receive. I went to the local emergency room because it was the middle of the night, and the VA is about a half-hour drive for us. Had I gone to the VA emergency room, I am certain the surgery would have been scheduled even sooner. 

Rather than attempting to privatize the VA healthcare system, which will be a great disservice to those who have answered the call to duty, Congress should be seeing it as a model for healthcare for all Americans. Numerous studies clearly show that VA care is equal to and often better than private care, is more cost effective, and offers an integrated, holistic approach as opposed to the costly, fragmented, and inefficient private sector, which leaves so many Americans poorly served, if not served at all. If you support veterans and want to do something concrete to show that support, instead of thanking us for our service, go to the website Save Our VA / Veterans For Peace and join our campaign to stop the privatization of the VA healthcare system. 

Bruce Carruthers 

Waynesville

 

Handout for WNC Veterans for Peace vigil on January 17, 2023

 Direct Action to Stop the War Machine:

Want to take bold nonviolent action to stop the war machine? Join Veterans for Peace for a two-hour workshop on organizing creative and dynamic direct actions to meaningfully challenge the war machine and create space for a more just and peaceful future.

This workshop is the first in a series of workshops on creative direct action. During this workshop we’ll cover the fundamentals of direct action including strategic uses of direct action, assessing and preparing for risks, working together as part of an action team, and using actions to amplify our message.

This workshop is free and open to VFP members, allies, and anyone interested in taking direct action to stop the war machine. To register, go to: www.veteransforpeace.org

Date is January 22nd, 3pm (ET), 2pm (CT), 1pm (MT), 12pm (PT).

To join Veterans for Peace, or to sign up for VFP e-News, go to: https://www.veteransforpeace.org
Western North Carolina Website: www.vfp099.org /  Facebook: Veterans for Peace
Western North Carolina Chapter 099

Email: president@vfp099.org
Mailing address: VFP Chapter 099, PO Box 1024, Asheville NC 28802

Upcoming event on January 17, 2023

 SAY NO TO U.S. WARS!

TUES. JAN 17, 4:30 – 5:30
PACK SQUARE, ASHEVILLE


STOP ENDLESS WARS AGAINST
IRAQ, SYRIA, SOMALIA, PALESTINE
NO WAR AGAINST RUSSIA!
NO WAR AGAINST CHINA!

MONEY FOR HUMAN NEEDS – NOT FOR WAR

CALLED BY THE UNITED NATIONAL ANTIWAR COALITION AND THE WNC CHAPTER OF VETERANS FOR PEACE, CHAPTER 099

Handout for WNC Veterans for Peace Chapter 099 vigil on January 10, 2023

 

Handout for WNC Veterans for Peace Chapter 099 vigil on January 10, 2023

 

Handout for WNC Veterans for Peace Chapter 099 on January 3, 2023

 The Christmas Truce

The Christmas Truce occurred on and around Christmas Day 1914.
At the first light of dawn on Christmas Day, some German soldiers emerged from their trenches and approached the Allied lines across no-man's-land, calling out "Merry Christmas" in their enemies' native tongues. At first, the Allied soldiers feared it was a trick, but seeing the Germans unarmed they climbed out of their trenches and shook hands with the enemy soldiers. The men exchanged presents of cigarettes and plum puddings and sang carols and songs.
Every year, Veterans For Peace celebrates the anniversary of the Christmas Truce. Once again, we urge our leaders to follow the example set by the Christmas Truce soldiers who rejected militarism and the glorification of war. We call on all leaders to honor all those who have died in war by working for peace and the prevention of war.

To join Veterans for Peace, or to sign up for VFP e-News, go to: https://www.veteransforpeace.org
Western North Carolina Website: www.vfp099.org /  Facebook: Veterans for Peace
Western North Carolina Chapter 099

Email: president@vfp099.org
Mailing address: VFP Chapter 099, PO Box 1024, Asheville NC 28802

Letter to the Editor from WNC VFP Chapter 099 member

 

Letter: Focus on spiritual values, peace and nonviolence

Posted on December 19, 2022 by Letters

What makes you come alive and wake up in the morning, eager for the day ahead? I encourage local parents, teachers and the general public to consider what it takes to inspire wonder, awe, enthusiasm and courage to actively participate in changing our way of life. It seems to me that to achieve this, one has to examine one’s inner life — many call this the contemplative and active life.

Our local holiday parade modeled a glimmer of a coming together. A coalition of 15 local groups calling for positive changes in our society marched. I do not speak for this coalition, but I support the positive messages they displayed. These nonviolent group activists are usually described as “protest,” but their activities are directed at what is best in America.

For example, Ken Jones of the Reject Raytheon group suggests that “we can generate more jobs with investments in sustainable energy, education, health, infrastructure” [“New Plant Is Leading Us in Wrong Direction,” Nov. 30, Xpress]. I see this as a call not to merely criticize, but to actively work at discovering what we really want. Promotion of the “arms race” is a reckless way to create jobs. This suggests that we pay more attention to more meaningful jobs, meaningful work and a living wage.

My temptation here is to back up Ken’s factual information with more facts pertaining to the now Disunited States of America. But I don’t think more information will change the hearts and minds of many Americans. So, this brings me back to schooling our children, supporting families and the workers of our country. Why do we teach reading, writing and arithmetic in our schools? Is it to become better consumers of material possessions and entertainment? If so, this implies the tendency to consider material possessions and physical comfort more important than spiritual values.

Do yourself a favor: As you make your way through life and learn from your experiences, practice expanding your worldview by getting out of your comfort zone. Read, study, contemplate and, if inclined, pray. Pray, not to ask something from your God, but to remind yourself what really matters. Read not merely for information or entertainment, but for inspiration to contemplate on things that really matter and pass this down to our children. There is no liberal, conservative or even one religious or American way to eat, breathe, sleep and survive. We are all human; a miracle of life.

Focus on your own lives on spiritual values such as compassion, kindness and loving relationships, friendships and family life, etc. It will positively affect your second half of life, including your retirement years. And it will be a gift to future generations.

I suggest to parents, home schoolers and teachers: Teach peace and nonviolence in school and give equal time to peacemakers. But educating our children is not a single issue. All of us can do the work of informing ourselves, even when family and work responsibilities limit our democratic participation. One resource that might help is Free to Learn: Why Unleashing the Instinct to Play Will Make Our Children Happier, More Self-Reliant, and Better Students for Life, by Peter Gray.

I offer a challenge from Maya Angelou. “I am convinced that most people do not grow up. We find parking spaces and honor our credit cards. We marry and dare to have children and call that growing up. I think what we do is mostly grow old. We carry accumulation of years in our bodies and on our faces, but generally our real selves, the children inside, are still innocent and shy.”

Ask yourself: “What is calling you to the heroic in you?”

(For information on our local coalition or resources, contact esacco189@gmail.com.)

— Ed Sacco
Asheville

Letter to the editor from VFP Chapter 099 member

 Letter: Priority shift could reduce community needs

Posted on December 11, 2022 by Letters

Regarding the article “Corporate Caring: Local Companies Prioritize Hands-on Giving” [Nov. 16, Xpress], which features Pratt & Whitney employees: I am thankful and grateful for the community service of local businesses and corporations.

However, what if the USA stopped starting and supporting wars, and then some of the billions of dollars of the defense budget that go to military contractors were spent on affordable housing, food, health care, education and other necessities for those here at home who do not have access to them?

Although those working for corporations that develop, manufacture and sell weapons/weapons-delivery systems, like Pratt & Whitney and its parent company, Raytheon, worth billions, might not fare so well, the USA might possibly have fewer veterans with combat-related PTSD and a healthier, better-educated population.

Should we ever arrive at such a utopian but not unreachable goal, those military-contractor employees who lost their jobs could be trained to work in more life-giving/sustaining, rather than life-taking, professions, and the need for community service would not be so great, leaving those wanting to serve to expend their energy in other underserved areas, thus still engaged in “corporate caring.”

— Cynthia Heil
Asheville

Handout for WNC Veterans for Peace Chapter 099 vigil on December 20, 2022

 

As veterans who have learned the hard way that serving our government is not always serving our country, members of Veterans For Peace may be more likely than most to distrust pronouncements from the so-called “Defense” establishment. We remember the fraudulent use of the Tonkin Gulf incident which victimized so many of us, the WMD hoax preceding the invasion of Iraq, the use of the “bomber gap” of the 1950s and the “missile gap” of the 1960s to advance the influence of the Military Industrial Complex about which President Eisenhower warned us.

To join Veterans for Peace, or to sign up for VFP e-News, go to: https://www.veteransforpeace.org
Western North Carolina Website: www.vfp099.org /  Facebook: Veterans for Peace
Western North Carolina Chapter 099Email: president@vfp099.org
Mailing address: VFP Chapter 099, PO Box 1024, Asheville NC 28802

Letter to the Editor from VFP Chapter 099 member

 Letter: New plant is leading us in wrong direction

Posted on December 5, 2022 by Letters

On Nov. 16, Pratt & Whitney had a ribbon-cutting ceremony to mark the beginning of its administrative occupancy of its new plant. Production is expected to begin in the spring.

In its press release about the event, P&W happily stated that it has met or exceeded its own goals for greenhouse gas, water and waste management, and that the building has obtained LEED certification.

An Asheville Watchdog article said, “The company noted during the ceremony that its airfoils help improve jet engine efficiency by up to 50 percent.”

Let’s be clear that war is not green, and the burning of jet engine fuel is one of the largest contributors to climate change. No amount of greenwashing or increased efficiency is sufficient to address the existential emergency humanity is now facing.

Yet, at the gala ceremony, Gov. Cooper celebrated the growing aerospace industry presence in North Carolina and our supposed status as the most military-friendly state in the country.

And Rep. Brian Turner and the Asheville Area Chamber of Commerce’s Clark Duncan talked exuberantly about recruiting more aerospace companies to fill up the 900 additional acres that Biltmore Farms has set aside for this purpose.

What tragic tunnel vision our elected officials and business leaders have. With their eyes set only on so-called economic development, they fail to see or act on the very real threats to our very existence on this planet.

What does it matter that a plant is better at environmental design when it is intended to make products that continue to add huge amounts of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere?

How do more military-related jobs here keep us safe from the global threat of nuclear annihilation Raytheon and its fellow war corporations increasingly provoke in their endless quest for growth in arms sales?

There is plenty of research to show that we can generate more jobs with investments in sustainable energy, education, health, infrastructure, almost anywhere other than the military-industrial complex.

Isn’t it apparent that a primary reason that P&W is moving its operation here is because it will be able to use high-tech methods and exploit nonunion labor in order to put less money into people and more into its own profits? This is what multinational corporations are good at. And our local leaders eat it right up.

The shiny object that is the P&W plant and the plans for more of the same are not economic developments that our community should be feeling proud about. They are shameful concessions to a powerful war industry that is leading us in exactly the wrong direction.

— Ken Jones
Swannanoa