Where: American Friends Service Committee, 65 9th Street, San Francisco, CA (close to Civic Center BART).  Click here for a map.

What: United For Peace and Justice – Bay Area Meeting

Agenda:

• Tax Day activities, specifically handing out an informational flyer from New Priorities about the military budget at BART stations on the 17th.
• A report back from the national meeting.

See you there.

National Level.

• Through many small donations the national was able to hire Michael Mc Pearson (National Co-chair) for two-thirds time.  He’s working out of his home in Newark NJ.  The coordination committee is developing a work plan for 2011 by emailing member groups for feedback. There will be some kind of national coordination on the war in Afghanistan in October.
• 3 existing working groups: Legislative, International which gives info and advice for international matters if requested, Nuclear disarmament, redefining security.
• New group: Beyond war will take on New Priorities focus.
• New WEB site
• Monthly e-mail letters
• Up-dating list serve of UFPJ activists.
• Dues: local with no staff – $50, paid staff – $100, national – $100.

New Priorities

• More than 50 organizations have signed on
• Over 1600 signatures
• Barbara Lee’s office is drafting a letter of support we can use
• We added a new point about fair taxes
• National is working on getting budgets compared: Republican, Obama, and Peoples’ budgets
• Small group foci
  • Berkeley and CCC will work on signature campaigns
  • Oakland has 2 city council members signed on and will ask them who their key supporters are.  They are discussing a possibility of a town meeting with Barbara Lee.

• Sandra called a meeting of religious leaders and a number of them agreed to take the petition to their congregations.
• SEIU has targeted 17-18 cities to discuss the budget with the Progressive Party.  They will work in areas where there isn’t a New Priorities campaign.
• The People’s budget didn’t get enough support to be considered so portions of the budget will have to be considered piece meal.
• Betty is exploring possibilities of supporting New Priorities with 5 groups and will try to convene the religious community in Contra Costa.
• Grey Panthers feel the work is going too slow.
• There were questions about Peace Action’s support locally; Peace Action is on board nationally so we don’t anticipate they’re not coming on board.
• War portion of the budget is 128% of above where it was in Regan’s budget (adjusted for inflation).
• Next New Priority meeting is June 25^th.

Nuclear Updates.

• 4 years ago Nuclear Free Future month had a separate website, this year it will be better integrated with the UFPJ website starting around August 6^th.
• June 25^th is Nuclear Abolition Day.
• July 16^th Anniversary of the Trinity Test
• Livermore’s August 6^th Rally will be an evening event with live feed from Japan. On August 9^th, they’ll be an action at Livermore.  Committee is in the planning process.
• Parts of the Abolition Alliance are reconnecting;
  • PUC demo in SF
  • Protests for the relicensing of Diablo Canyon.

• Jackie has article in UFPJ Newsletter: discussing the cost of nuclear weapons, how weapons are supported in Ryan’s bill, and Obama’s policy.
• East Bay Veterans for Peace working on nuclear issues.

Carolyn asks for suggestions for getting publicity on KPFA.   It was suggested that instead of going through community announcements that she directly contact specific programs.

NATO summit in the fall seen as an opportunity for demonstration for education about the expansion of NATO and about nuclear weapons. Russia sees this expansion as a great threat and is upping nuclear weapons.

Suggestions for activating member organizations:

• Make calls
• Plan a teach-in in February.  Promote in August.

Announcements

• Pace Bene event on Peace 5/19
• Oakland Living Graveyards for June 20 and July 18 only have been cancelled. They will be resuming the usual schedule of weekly vigils and monthly Living Graveyards the next of which will be August 15, 2011, the third Monday of August.

Where: AFSC, 65 9th Street, San Francisco, CA (close to Civic Center BART).  Click here for a map.

What: General meeting of Bay Area United For Peace & Justice.  Hope you can make it.

Where: AFSC, 65 9th Street, San Francisco, CA (close to Civic Center BART).  Click here for a map.

What: The next general meeting of Bay Area UFPJ. There’s certainly lots to discuss!  Hope you can make it.

UFPJ-Bay Area monthly meeting.

Where: AFSC, 65 9th Street, San Francisco, CA (close to Civic Center BART).  Click here for a map.

Please join us to plan for Veteran’s Day.

Send agenda items to ufpjbayarea@mac.com or bring them to the meeting.