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Armistice Day

November 11 Is Armistice Day: Veterans Demand Ceasefire in Gaza

World War I was an international conflict, 1914-18, that embroiled most of the nations of Europe, along with Russia, the United States, the Middle East, and other regions.  The war pitted the “Central Powers” – mainly Germany Austria-Hungary and Turkey – against the “Allies” – mainly France, Great Britain, Russia, Italy and (from 1917) the United States. The war was unprecedented in the slaughter, carnage, and destruction it caused. Over 15 million people were killed – both soldiers and civilians, and over 25 million were wounded. The First World War ended in November 1918 when an armistice was declared at the “eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month,” marking a moment of hope and the promise of peace.

White Poppy Campaign Recognizes All Victims Of War

As November 11 approaches, it can be disheartening to see the rise of militarism, war and genocide across the world. The annual White Poppy Campaign aims to recognize all of the victims of war, not just those who fought in uniform, but civilians and innocent bystanders as well. Since 2009, Vancouver Peace Poppies have actively worked to promote the message of the white poppy in their community. Teresa Gagné is a co-founder of Vancouver Peace Poppies. In an interview with rabble.ca, she explained that rather than being a symbol of remembrance, the white poppy symbolizes the need for peace.

Armistice Day And The Empire

In 1954, the US Congress renamed Armistice Day to Veterans Day. The stated reason was to remember all generations of US veterans, not just veterans from the First World War. Congress advanced this rationale on the disingenuous notion that Armistice Day’s purpose was a celebration of veterans. It was not. Armistice Day’s purpose was to serve as a reminder of the horrors of the First World War and carry forward the declaration of those veterans of Never Again. For a US government implementing a militarized Cold War foreign policy in 1954, a reconciliation-based holiday was inconvenient and problematic.

Lessons For Armistice Day 2022

For many years, countries around the world marked Nov. 11 as Armistice Day, commemorating the date in 1918 on which the horrors and destruction of World War I were finally brought to an end. In many countries, that remembrance bore a strong anti-war message. Today, as the killing and destruction multiply in Ukraine, we should look at some of the key lessons that can be gleaned from the record of that war. Crucially, a recent book by historian Philip Zelikow unearths the previously almost unknown history of a mediation effort that U.S. President Woodrow Wilson undertook, at the request of the leaders of both sides, between August 1916 and January 1917. Wilson and his British, French and German interlocutors were all serious about that effort.

At 11:00 On 11/11 Remember That WWIII Is No More Needed Than The First Two

At the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis it was generally permissible in the United States to say you supported negotiations for peace and disarmament — I mean without declaring your hatred for China or liberals or black people. Had it not been so, we might not be here to talk about it. But it was not so at the time of World War I. At that time, you could get locked in prison for peace talk. Had there been nuclear weapons at the time, we might not be here to talk about it. It’s useful, after over a century of continuing to use war as the preferred means of ending war, to remember momentarily what The Great War was — that it was a whole new level of imbecilic horror, that it was a huge leap forward in the ability to kill, employed not only against — among others — “white” people, but also employed mostly from the ground — not yet from such a distance that those doing it could avoid seeing it.

Veterans Celebrate Armistice Day 2021

Over one hundred years ago the world celebrated peace as a universal principle. The first World War had just ended and nations mourning their dead collectively called for an end to all wars.  Armistice Day was born and was designated as “a day to be dedicated to the cause of world peace and to be thereafter celebrated." After World War II, the U.S. Congress decided to rebrand November 11 as Veterans Day. Honoring the warrior quickly morphed into honoring the military and glorifying war. Armistice Day was flipped from a day for peace into a day for displays of militarism. Veterans For Peace has taken the lead in lifting up the original intention of November 11th – as a day for peace. As veterans we know that a day that celebrates peace, not war, is the best way to honor the sacrifices of veterans.

Celebrate Armistice Day – Wage Peace With Renewed Energy!

November 11 is Armistice Day, marking the 1918 armistice that ended the First World War, on the “eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month.” Horrified by the industrial slaughter of millions of soldiers and civilians, the people of the U.S. and the world initiated campaigns to outlaw war once and for all.  In 1928 the U.S. Secretary of State and the French Foreign Minister were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for co-sponsoring the Kellogg-Briand Pact, which declared war-making illegal and called upon nations to settle their differences by peaceful means.

On Armistice Day, Work For And Celebrate Peace

Today is Armistice Day - the day that World War I, a brutal and devastating war, ended. After World War I, people hoped nothing like that would ever happen again and a large peace movement developed in the United States. Sadly, just over two decades later, World War II began. The US arose in the aftermath of this second terrible war as the global power. In 1954, Armistice Day was changed to Veterans Day to celebrate all veterans. Now, veterans are pushing to change it back to Armistice Day and to celebrate those who work for peace and justice, not war. Veteran Rory Fanning writes: "Those who care about equality and justice have no use for Veterans Day, as it is currently defined.

As A Veteran, I Refuse To Celebrate War

As a veteran who is also an antiwar activist, I find Veterans Day to be a toxic holiday. On Veterans Day, we are asked to ignore all the horrors of U.S. militarism for the “sake” of the veteran — all this despite the fact that trillions of dollars have been diverted from education, health care, infrastructure and even veteran support in order to pay for the U.S. military. That military overthrows governments, surveils the planet, covers up sexual assault, slaughters millions, and pollutes more than any other organization. Veterans Day is a not-so-subtle attempt to justify the mission of the U.S. empire by setting aside a day that demands a certain degree of reverence for those who have carried out that mission. Veterans Day is also a tool to recruit more soldiers.

Treaty Of Versailles Gave Us War Without End

Historians debate to what extent the Treaty of Versailles was responsible for Hitler’s march to World War II, but there can be little doubt that the treaty ending the “War to End All Wars” continues to be a major factor in our ongoing “War Without End.”  On November, 11, 1918, Europe laid exhausted and nearly bled dry. Just months before the war ended on that date, fresh, motivated U.S. troops entered the fight and assured an Allied victory.  As a result, President Woodrow Wilson played an oversized role in the fateful redrawing of borders across half the globe.

At The State Capitol, Bells Toll For Peace

By Roger Ehrlich for The News & Observer - Ninety-nine years ago, at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, bells tolled around the world, and people poured into public squares to celebrate the end of what was called The War to End All Wars. For many years, Armistice Day was observed as a day to remember the dead of WWI and rededicate ourselves to never letting war happen again. This week, aided by a grant from the N.C. Humanities Council, a bell has been tolling from the 24-foot-tall Swords to Plowshares Memorial Belltower, a touring memorial that has been erected, for the fourth consecutive year, on the lawn of our State Capitol in Raleigh. The public has been adding inscriptions to the monument to bear witness to how war has affected their lives. These silver plaques, fashioned from recycled cans and glistening in the wind, bear heart-rending inscriptions in many different languages. The Belltower was dedicated on Memorial Day 2014 by the Eisenhower Chapter of Veterans for Peace with former N.C. State University alumni director and Air Force veteran Bob Kennel presiding. Its inspiration was the bronze door on the NCSU Belltower, which bears the inscription “And They Shall Beat Their Swords into Plowshares.” This Old Testament passage, sacred to Jews, Christians, Muslims and others, is a reminder of the original spirit of Armistice Day.

On Armistice Day, Let’s Celebrate Peace

By Kathy Kelly for Voices for Creative Nonviolence. Wilfred Owen, an English poet who was killed in action exactly one week before the Armistice that finally ended World War I was signed, wrote about the horrors of living in trenches and enduring gas warfare. In “The Parable of the Old Man and the Young,” he revises the Biblical narrative about Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his son, Isaac. Believing God willed the slaughter, Abraham prepared to bind Isaac and slay him. Owen transforms Abraham into the European powers who were willing to slaughter youthful generations in the trenches of World War I. Only in this telling, Abraham refuses to heed the angel who urges that the son be spared. The old man “slew the son, and half the seed of Europe, one by one.” Thirty million soldiers were killed or wounded and another seven million taken captive during World War I. Some 50 to 100 million perished from a flu epidemic created by the war.

Armistice Day

By Staff of Veterans for Peace - Veterans For Peace calls on all members and all peace-loving people to take a stand for peace this Armistice (aka Veterans Day), Saturday November 11. We call for nationally coordinated local actions to demand diplomacy not war with North Korea, and the abolition of nuclear weapons and war. Veterans For Peace joins with the wider peace movement for actions before and after November 11th. In 2017, ninety-nine years after the end of World War I, “the war to end war”, the world finds itself on the brink of a nuclear war, again. The threat of a horrific nuclear exchange is possibly higher than it has ever been. The President of the United States Donald Trump has repeatedly threatened to attack North Korea (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea - DPRK), going so far as to say, while speaking to the U.N., that the U.S. will “totally destroy” the country. North Korea has also caused great alarm with its own threats, while testing long-range missiles and nuclear bombs. Twitter confrontations and saber rattling have only served to escalate tensions. The road to war is a slippery slope on which one misstep can lead to the beginning of catastrophic war. Even the use of conventional weapons would lead to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people. Millions will die if there is a nuclear exchange.

Armistice Day 99 Years On And The Need For Peace

By David Swanson for World Beyond Wars - Believe it or not, November 11th was not made a holiday in order to celebrate war, support troops, cheer the 17th year of occupying Afghanistan, thank anybody for a supposed “service,” or make America great again. This day was made a holiday in order to celebrate an armistice that ended what was up until that point, in 1918, one of the worst things our species had thus far done to itself, namely World War I. World War I, then known simply as the world war or the great war, had been marketed as a war to end war. Celebrating its end was also understood as celebrating the end of all wars. A ten-year campaign was launched in 1918 that in 1928 created the Kellogg-Briand Pact, legally banning all wars. That treaty is still on the books, which is why war making is a criminal act and how Nazis came to be prosecuted for it. “[O]n November 11, 1918, there ended the most unnecessary, the most financially exhausting, and the most terribly fatal of all the wars that the world has ever known. Twenty millions of men and women, in that war, were killed outright, or died later from wounds. The Spanish influenza, admittedly caused by the War and nothing else, killed, in various lands, one hundred million persons more.” — Thomas Hall Shastid, 1927. According to U.S. Socialist Victor Berger, all the United States had gained from participation in World War I was the flu and prohibition.

Peace Advocate Climbs U.S. Navy Satellite Dish In Sicily

By David Swanson for It's Time for Democracy - On the morning of Armistice Day, November 11, 2015, longtime peace activist Turi Vaccaro climbed to where you see him in the photo above. He brought a hammer and made this a Plowshares action by hammering on the enormous satellite dish, an instrument of U.S. warfare communications. There's a popular movement in Sicily called No MUOS. MUOS means Mobile User Objective System. It's a satellite communications system created by the U.S. Navy. It has equipment in Australia, Hawaii, Chesapeake Virginia, and Sicily. The primary contractor and profiteer building the satellite equipment at the U.S. Navy base in the desert in Sicily is Lockheed Martin Space Systems.

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