The Tom Paine chapter of Veterans for Peace is sponsoring, with Upper Hudson Peace Action co-sponsorship, a public reading of John Hersey’s classic book, Hiroshima, which follows the true stories of six people caught up in the atomic bombing of their city. Starting at 11:00 AM on August 6, the event will take place in Townsend Park, in downtown Albany, NY. Those interested in reading can sign up to participate. Please bring folding chairs. The rain site is the Social Justice Center, located at 33 Central Avenue, Albany. 

On August 6, 1945 the United States of America used the atomic bomb for the first time to destroy the city of Hiroshima, Japan. On August 9, the U.S. used the atomic bomb again on Nagasaki, Japan. Over 200,000 people died immediately in the two bombings and over a hundred thousand more died in the following decades as a result of the effects of the radiation. Hiroshima by John Hersey tells the story of the bombing on August 6, 1945 by following the story of six of the survivors. The book version has been in print since 1946.

For more information contact Dan Wilcox, 518-482-0262, dwlcx@earthlink.net

Times Union Article

In 1958 four Quaker peace activists sailed the Golden Rule toward the Marshall Islands in an attempt to halt thermonuclear weapons testing. The US Coast Guard boarded her in Honolulu and arrested her crew, causing an international outcry. Arrest of the crew and rising awareness of the dangers of radiation and nuclear war led to worldwide demands to stop nuclear testing. This spurred the U.S., the U.S.S.R., and the U.K. to sign the Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty of 1963.

In 2010, the Golden Rule was rebuilt in Humboldt Bay, California, and is now “Sailing for a Nuclear-Weapons Free World and a Peaceful, Sustainable Future.

”With tensions so high between nuclear armed nations and a new nuclear arms race, it is more important than ever to bring a message of nuclear disarmament and peace. Come see the boat and learn what you can do to support the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty, and the total elimination of nuclear weapons.

Tuesday, July 11 Between 4 & 7 PM The Golden Rule will arrive and dock on the Hudson in Albany, NY next to Dutch Apple Cruises and the USS Slater. The land address is the intersection of Quay Street and Broadway.

Wednesday, July 12 9-5 Tours of the boat will be available at that location.

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Details: This talk contains some useful green investment and banking strategies for all of us – no need to have a stash of cash

Discussion Will Include Information About

Personal Banking – find community banks and credit unions that use deposits for local ventures.Credit Cards – find alternative cards that do not invest in fossil fuel projects.

Home & Auto Insurance – find local, small insurance companies that don’t invest with fossil fuel projects.

Retirement Investments – learn about your current investment fund and how to find alternative greener investments… and how to find an environmentally conscious financial advisor.

About the speaker: Lifelong activist, Michael Richardson, is co-founder of Rivers & Mountains GreenFaith, an inter-faith group of climate activists in the Hudson Valley of New York State in coalition with Stop the Money Pipeline, Third Act, and GreenFaith (international).  He also is on the steering committee of NY Renews, the force behind the landmark NYS Climate Act.

By Not Investing in Fossil Fuels & Weapons

Free Online Interactive Talk With Michael Richardson, Co-founder of Rivers & Mountains Greenfaith

Date:  June 14, 2023     

The recording of the session can be found here:

Links mentioned in the talk:
https://www.rivers-mountains-greenfaith.org/
https://www.rivers-mountains-greenfaith.org/divest-invest-workshop
https://fossilfreefunds.org/
https://weaponfreefunds.org/

Details: This talk contains some useful green investment and banking strategies for all of us – no need to have a stash of cash

Discussion Will Include Information About

Personal Banking – find community banks and credit unions that use deposits for local ventures.

Credit Cards – find alternative cards that do not invest in fossil fuel projects.

Home & Auto Insurance – find local, small insurance companies that don’t invest with fossil fuel projects.

Retirement Investments – learn about your current investment fund and how to find alternative greener investments… and how to find an environmentally conscious financial advisor.

About the speaker: Lifelong activist, Michael Richardson, is co-founder of Rivers & Mountains GreenFaith, an inter-faith group of climate activists in the Hudson Valley of New York State in coalition with Stop the Money Pipeline, Third Act, and GreenFaith (international).  He also is on the steering committee of NY Renews, the force behind the landmark NYS Climate Act.

Upper Hudson Peace Action and Peace Action New York State are pleased to invite you to a talk by Sovaida Ma’ani Ewing about a system of global governance for peace.

Sovaida Ma’ani Ewing is a prolific author, speaker, and international lawyer with 20 years of experience in public and private legal practice. She is the founding director of The Center for Peace and Global Governance, a virtual think tank and online forum that pools and proposes principled solutions to pressing global challenges. She has published five books in the area of peace and global governance including “Building a World Federation: The Key to Resolving our Global Crises.” Her latest book, available on Amazon, is “The Alchemy of Peace: 6 Essential Shifts in Mindsets and Habits to Achieve World Peace.” She also hosts a video podcast Re-Imagining Our World” on the CPGG YouTube channel — that is dedicated to creating a vision of the world we want and infusing hope that we can make the choices necessary to attain it.

Non-Violent Solutions to World Conflcit
1. https://www.brandeis.edu/peace-conflict/pdfs/198-methods-non-violent-action.pdf Gene Sharp 198 non-violent methods of non-violent action
a. https://www.nonviolenceinternational.net/nv_tactics_book This monograph updates Gene Sharp’s 1973 seminal work Methods of Nonviolent Action, reworking Sharp’s classifications to include 148 additional tactics. Brief yet comprehensive, this overview of nonviolence explains the mechanisms by which nonviolent actions succeed. added 10/3/22
2. http://nonviolence.rutgers.edu/ Digital Library of non-violent resistance
3. George Lakey
a. https://nvdatabase.swarthmore.edu/browse
4. https://dataverse.harvard.edu/dataverse/navco added 9/30/22
5. https://v-dem.net/ added 9/30/22
a. https://v-dem.net/media/publications/dr_2022.pdf
6. Deep Canvassing https://deepcanvass.org/
7. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJSehRlU34w Erica Chenoweth Ted Talk
a. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14754835.2022.2077085 Chenoweth can non-violent resisters survive covid? NYT 9/30/22
b. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/30/world/middleeast/iran-protests-haiti-russia-china.html?
8. https://www.athensdemocracyforum.com/ Conference 9/27-9/30/22
a. https://www.athensdemocracyforum.com/fileadmin/uploads/adf/Documents/final_agenda_11.pdf
9. https://www.nytimes.com/spotlight/world-review-democracy Athens Democracy Forum September 30, 2022
10. https://protectdemocracy.org/the-authoritarian-playbook/
11. https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/22056042/the-authoritarian-playbook-how-reporters-can-contextualize-and-cover-authoritarian-threats-as-distinct-from-politics-as-usual.pdf
12. https://www.nonviolent-conflict.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Peter-Ackerman-%E2%80%93-The-Checklist-to-End-Tyranny.pdf Ackerman who wrote A force more powerful
13. https://bookriot.com/nonviolence-reading-list/ :
a. This Is an Uprising: How Nonviolent Revolt Is Shaping the Twenty-First Century Paperback – October 3, 2017 by Mark Engler (Author), Paul Engler (Author), Bill McKibben (Foreword)
b. BLUEPRINT FOR REVOLUTION: HOW TO USE RICE PUDDING, LEGO MEN, AND OTHER NONVIOLENT TECHNIQUES TO GALVANIZE COMMUNITIES, OVERTHROW DICTATORS, OR SIMPLY CHANGE THE WORLD BY SRDJA POPOVIC AND MATTHEW MILLER
c. NON-VIOLENCE IN AN AGGRESSIVE WORLD BY A.J. MUSTE
d. AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY: MY EXPERIMENTS WITH TRUTH BY MAHATMA GHANDI
e. VISIONS OF A BETTER TOMORROW: HOWARD THURMAN’S PILGRIMAGE TO INDIA AND THE ORIGINS OF AFRICAN AMERICAN NONVIOLENCE BY QUINTON DIXIE AND PETER EISENSTADT
f. WHY CIVIL RESISTANCE WORKS BY ERICA CHENOWETH AND MARIA J. STEPHAN
g. NONVIOLENCE: THE HISTORY OF A DANGEROUS IDEA BY MARK KURLANSKY

Indivisible Columbia County NY will join March for Our Lives’ Day of national action, in reaction to the latest wave of gun violence. They will be holding a vigil at the gazebo in Chatham on June 11, 2022 at NY 11:00 – Noon.

March for Our Lives (MFOL) was founded in the wake of the Parkland shooting. They call for the reexamination of the dangerous District of Columbia v. Heller interpretation of the Second Amendment in which the US Supreme Court ruled that the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution protects an individual’s right to keep and bear arms, unconnected with service in a militia, for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home. MFOL also calls for the initiation of both FEC and IRS investigations into the NRA, and the full repeal of the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA) which is a United States law that protects firearms manufacturers and dealers from being held liable when crimes have been committed with their products.

MFOL advocates the passing of legislation to raise the national standards for gun ownership. This includes a national licensing and registry system which promotes responsible gun ownership; a ban on assault weapons, high-capacity magazines, and other weapons of war; policies to disarm gun owners who pose a harm risk; and a national gun buy-back program to reduce the estimated 265–393 million firearms in circulation by at least 30%.

This vigil is cosponsored by Upper Hudson Peace Action.

Wednesday June 8, 7:00 PM Eastern Time, via Zoom

Speaking on “How the Peace Movement Can Work More Effectively to End the War in Ukraine”, our speaker, Larry Wittner, is Professor of History Emeritus at SUNY/Albany and an award-winning author of numerous books on peace movements and foreign policy.  His hundreds of articles on international issues have appeared in journals, magazines, and newspapers around the world.​

It is still possible to register and receive the link to tonight’s program by emailing moonjn@gmail.com​

If you have already registered, check for a message from Janine giving you the link for the Zoom

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March 11, 2022  

The Imperialist Roots of Putin’s Policy

Jan 12, 2022 we zoomed with a speaker from South Korea, Hyun Lee, with a masters from Columbia, who described a peaceful path out of the current tensions with North Korea and gave us a good overview of how the United States has made South Korea subservient militarily to it as well touching on our relationship with China. The recording is here: 

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We endorsed  Grannies for Peace & World BEYOND War this Valentine’s Day for their webinar on starvation in Afghanistan at which Kathy Kelly and Phyllis Bennis presented.  If you missed it or want to share it with a friend, here is the link to the recording:

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We helped advertise Friend’s Committee on National Legislation’s February 17, 2022 presentation on starvation in Yemen and the United State’s Complicity therein. If you were not able to join us, you can watch the discussion here, and you can watch the film “Hunger Wards” here.