Drones: Spring Days of Action In April And May

An international call for Spring Days of Action – 2014, a coordinated campaign in April and May to:

End Drone Killing, Drone Surveillance and Global Militarization

LIST YOUR ACTION HERE. | ADD YOUR NAME HERE.

The campaign will focus on drone bases, drone research facilities and test sites and drone manufacturers.

The campaign will provide information on:

1. The suffering of tens of thousands of people in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia and Gaza who are under drone attack, documenting the killing, the wounding and the devastating impact of constant drone surveillance on community life.

2. How attack and surveillance drones have become a key element in a massive wave of surveillance, clandestine military attacks and militarization generated by the United States to protect a global system of manufacture and oil and mineral exploitation that is creating unemployment and poverty, accelerating the waste of nonrenewable resources and contributing to environmental destruction and global warming.

In addition to cases in the Middle East, Africa and Central Asia, we will examine President Obama’s “pivot” into the Asia-Pacific, where the United States has already sold and deployed drones in the vanguard of a shift of 60% of its total military assets to try to control China and to enforce the planned Trans-Pacific Partnership.  We will show, among other things, how this surge of “pivot” forces, greatly enabled by drones, and supported by the US military-industrial complex, will hit every American community with even deeper cuts in the already fragile social programs on which people rely for survival.  In short, we will connect drones and militarization with “austerity” in America.

3. How drone attacks have effectively destroyed international and domestic legal protection of the rights to life, privacy, freedom of assembly and free speech and have opened the way for new levels of surveillance and repression around the world, and how, in the United States, increasing drone surveillance, added to surveillance by the National Security Agency and police, provides a new weapon to repress black, Hispanic, immigrant and low-income communities and to intimidate Americans who are increasingly unsettled by lack of jobs, economic inequality, corporate control of politics and the prospect of endless war.

We will discuss how the United States government and corporations conspire secretly to monitor US citizens and particularly how the Administration is accelerating drone surveillance operations and surveillance inside the United States with the same disregard for transparency and law that it applies to other countries, all with the cooperation of the Congress.

The campaign will encourage activists around the world to win passage of local laws that prohibit weaponized drones and drone surveillance from being used in their communities as well as seeking national laws to bar the use of weaponized drones and drone surveillance.

The campaign will draw attention to the call for a ban on weaponized drones by RootsAction.org that has generated a petition with over 80,000 signers, you can read and sign the petition here, and to efforts by the Granny Peace Brigade (New York City), KnowDrones.org and others to achieve an international ban on both weaponized drones and drone surveillance.

The campaign will also urge participation in the World Beyond War movement.

The following individuals and organizations endorse this Call:

Lyn Adamson – Co-chair, Canadian Voice of Women for Peace
Alaska Peace Center
Albuquerque Center for Peace & Justice
All African People’s Revolutionary Party (GC)
American Friends Service Committee of Western Massachusetts
Dennis Apel – Guadalupe Catholic Worker, California
Norman Aulabaugh – Orfordville, WI
Jeffrey Bachman – Co-director Ethics, Peace and Global Affairs Program, American
University, Washington, DC
Timothy Baer – Bloomington (IN) Peace Action Coalition
Clifton Bain – Peaceful Skies Coalition
Rob Baker – Principles NOT Parties, Ambler, PA
Judy Bello – Upstate NY Coalition to Ground the Drones & End the Wars
Medea Benjamin – Code Pink
Barry Binks – Veterans for Peace, Sacramento, CA
Bonnie Block – Wisconsin Coalition to Ground the Drones
Toby Blome – Occupy Beale AFB, San Francisco; Code Pink
Bloomington (IN) Peace Action Coalition
Leah Bolger – Former National President, Veterans for Peace
Marguerite Borchers – Retired, Santa Barbara, CA
Russell T. Brown – Veterans for Peace, Resist Militarism!, No Drones Niagara
Lee Burkholder – Madison, WI
Robert J. Burrowes – Cofounder “The People’s Charter to Create a Nonviolent World
Campaign for Peace and Democracy
Canadian Voice of Women for Peace
Catholic Worker Farm – Calaveras County, CA
Sushila Cherian – Code Pink, Southwest FL
Sung-Hee Choi – Gangjeong Village International Team, Jeju, Korea
Dennis DuVall – Veterans for Peace, Prescott, AZ
David Eberhardt – Maryland Center on Non-Violence
MaGregor Eddy – Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom
Joan Ecklein – Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom
Joyce Ellwanger – Milwaukee, WI
Rita Erickson  – Friends of Sabeel, Albuquerque, NM
Susan Estrella – Los Angeles, CA
Helen Evelev – Granny Peace Brigade, Philadelphia, PA
Chelsea C. Faria – Graduate student, Yale Divinity School; Promoting Enduring Peace
Drone Alert – Hudson Valley, NY
Sandy Fessler – Rochester (NY) Against War
Joy First – National Campaign for Nonviolent Resistance; Wisconsin Coalition to
Ground the Drones and End the Wars
Margaret Flowers – PopularResistance.org
Freedom Not Fear, Germany
Wade Fulmer – Veterans for Peace, SC
Bruce K. Gagnon – Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space
Jeanne Gallo – North Shore Coalition for Peace and Justice (NY)
Ursula Gelis – Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, Norway
H. Lee Gershuny
Jack Gilroy – Friends of Franz
Holly Gwinn Graham – Singer/songwriter, Olympia, WA.
Regina Hagen – Darmstaedter Friedensforum, Germany
Willie Hager – Board Member, Veterans for Peace
Rainer Hammerschmidt – Freedom Not Fear, Germany
Marcia Halligan – Kickapoo Peace Circle, Viroqua, WI
Susan Harman – Code Pink, Oakland, CA
Dirk-M. Harmsen – Forum Peace Ethics in the Protestant Church, Baden, Germany
Keith Harris – Editor, www.thetruth.ie and www.newsmedianews.com, Ireland
Leslie Harris – Code Pink Dallas, Veterans for Peace, Chapter 106
Carl Herman – Washington’s Blog contributor
Virginia Hollins-Davidson – Berkeley, CA
Martha Hubert – San Francisco, CA
Linda Daniels Jackson – Detroit, MI
Linda Jansen – Seattle, WA
Judy James – Dodgeville, WI
Ellen Judd – New York City and Winnipeg, Canada
Kathy Kelly – Voices for Creative Nonviolence
Malachy Kilbride
Dave Lambert – Indiana Peace & Justice
Joanne Landy –Co-Director, Campaign for Peace and Democracy
Josie Lenwell – Code Pink, Taos, NM
Marilyn Levin and Joe Lombardo – Co-Coordinators, United National Antiwar Coalition
Jay J. Levy – Returned Peace Corps volunteer, Takoma Park, MD
JoAnne Lingle – Indianapolis, IN
Lynne Lokken – Grandmothers for Peace – Twin Cities
Tamara Lorincz – Halifax Peace Coalition, Canada
Zpeter Lumsdaine – ARROWS (Alliance to Resist Robotic Warfare & Society
Mickie Lynn – Women Against War
Madison-Rafah Sister City Project, Madison, WI
Sue Ann Martinson – Editor, Rise Up Times, Women Against Military Madness Ground Military Drones Committee
Natasha Mayers – Union of Maine Visual Artists, Whitefield, ME
Sarah McKee – Amherst, MA
Minnesota Anti-War Committee
Dorinda Moreno – Santa Maria, CA
Joshua Morrill – Life coach, Youth Mentor, Gaian Astrologer/Philosopher, Berkeley, CA
Hans Peter Mortier – Information Bureau for Peace Work, Germany
Nick Mottern – KnowDrones.org
Rob Mulford – Alaska Peace Center
National Coalition for Nonviolent Resistance
Nevada Desert Experience.org
Lynn and Steve Newsom – Directors, Quaker House, Fayetteville, NC
Joan Nicholson
Agneta Norberg – Swedish Peace Council
Richard J. Ochs – Editor, www.freefromterror.net
Jon Olsen – Green Party and former member of Students for a Democratic Society
Pacem in Terris, Delaware
Marcus Page-Collonge – Nevada Desert Experience
Pakistan USA Freedom Forum
Palo Alto, Pennisula Branch, Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom
Cynthia Papermaster – Code Pink Golden Gate, CA
Janet Parker – Farley Center for Peace, Justice and Sustainability, WI
Dave Patterson – Veterans for Peace, Chapter 91, San Diego, CA
Peace Resource Center of San Diego
Peaceful Skies Coalition
Pepperwolf – Director, Women Against Military Madness
Lindis Percy, Coordinator, Campaign for the Accountability of American Bases CAAB UK
Philadelphia Regional Anti-War Network (PA)
Janet M. Powers – Professor Emerita, Gettysburg College, National Coordinating Committee, Peace Brigades International
Mathias Quackenbush – KnowDrones.org, San Francisco, CA
Radical Art For These Times – Nevada County, CA
Daniel L. Raphael – University Place, WA
John C. Reiger – President, Chapter 87, Veterans for Peace
Rosalie Riegle – Oral historian, “Crossing Lines and Doing Time”
Daniel Riehl – Lititz, PA
Jes Richardson – Bridge of Hearts
Chris Robinson – City Committee, Green Party of Philadelphia (PA)
Laura H. Roskos – President, Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, U.S. Section
Jan A. Ruhman – San Diego Veterans for Peace, Viet Nam Veterans Against the War/OSS
Robin Ryan – Code Pink (Bay Area), Buddhist Peace and Justice League
Sacramento Area Peace Action
San Diego Coalition for Peace and Justice
San Francisco Women in Black (CA)
Lisa Savage – Code Pink, State of Maine
Joe Scarry – No Drones Network
Beverly Ann Settle – State of Maine
Janice Sevre-Duszynska
Wolfgang Schlupp-Hauck- Friedenswerkstatt Mutlangen, Germany
Tristen Schmidt – Mother on planet Earth; Alameda, CA
Cindy Sheehan
Andre Sheldon – Global Strategy of Nonviolence
Alice Slater – Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, NY
Robert M. Smith – Staff Coordinator, Brandywine Peace Community (PA)
Lucia Wilkes Smith – Convener, Women Against Military Madness (WAMM) – Ground Military Drones Committee
Phoebe Sorgen – Berkeley Fellowship of the Unitarian Universalist Social Justice Committee
David Soumis – Veterans for Peace; No Drones Wisconsin
Stop the War Machine, Albuquerque, NM
Debra Sweet – World Can’t Wait
David Swanson – WarisACrime.org
Syracuse Peace Council
Ellen Thomas – Prop. 1 Campaign for Nuclear Weapons Abolition and Economic and Energy Conversion for a Safe, Sane and Prosperous Future, Tryon, NC
Roberta Thurstin – Casa Maria Catholic Worker House, Milwaukee, WI
Don Timmerman – Casa Maria Catholic Worker House, Milwaukee, WI
Sundiata Xian Tellem – Co-Chairman: Green Party of the United States Black Caucus; Former Chairman: Green Party of Dallas County
Brian Terrell – Voices for Creative Nonviolence
Sally-Alice Thompson – Veterans for Peace, Albuquerque, NM
Bernhard Trautvetter – Member of the Essener Friedensforum, Germany
Regis Tremblay – Maine Veterans for Peace, “The Ghosts of Jeju” Documentary
Florindo Troncelliti – Co-Chair, Peace Action Manhattan (NY)
United National Antiwar Coalition
Upstate (NY) Coalition to Ground the Drones and End the Wars
Ursulines of Tildonk for Justice and Peace
Marge Van Cleef – Death Walk Against Drones, Philadelphia, PA
Veterans for Peace
Rose Viviano – Syracuse, NY
War vs. Human Needs, Southeast Florida
Dave Webb – Chair, Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (UK)
Curt Wechsler – Fire John Yoo! (a project of World Can’t Wait) – San Francisco, CA
WESPAC Foundation, Westchester County, NY
Western Massachusetts Anti-drone Committee, Northampton, MA
Wade Fulmer – Veterans for Peace, SC
Paki Wieland, Northampton (MA) Committee to Stop War(s)
Loring Wirbel – Citizens for Peace in Space (Colorado Springs, CO)
Wisconsin Coalition to Ground the Drones and End the Wars
Michael Wisniewski – Los Angeles Catholic Worker
Women Against Military Madness
Women Against War – NY Capital District
Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, U.S. Section
Ann Wright – Retired US Army colonel and former diplomat
Dan Yaseen – Peace Fresno, CA
Leila Zand – Fellowship of Reconciliation
Angie Zelter – Trident Ploughshares, UK
Kevin Zeese – PopularResistance.org