Call to the USLAW 2016 National Assembly

https://portside.org/2016-02-14/call-uslaw-2016-national-assembly
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USLAW

“Reimagining National Security

for a Safer Planet”

ALL AFFILIATES AND ASSOCIATE MEMBERS ARE URGED TO ATTEND THE 2016 USLAW NATIONAL ASSEMBLY

Join trade unionists, labor antiwar activists, Iraq and Afghan War veterans, scholars and policy experts to chart USLAW’s course and build the movement in 2016 and beyond!

We’re now not just a country but a world at war. The recent events in Paris were horrible, but by now should not be shocking. Similar attacks are daily events in Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Afghanistan, with very little coverage by the popular press. Our country’s militarized foreign policy has exposed us to multiple intersecting threats. Racism is just as present as classism, sexism and homophobia… and at the center of these, feeding them all, is disaster capitalism standing ready to profit from every life taken.

Unsatisfied with profits from endless war abroad, weapons makers have set their sights on militarizing the police, turning our communities into battlefields. In 2013 alone they gave nearly half a billion dollars worth of military equipment to local law enforcement agencies – while our social safety net has been shredded. Young people of color – disproportionately young black men – have been murdered in cold blood. The war has come home, and we are its casualties.

USLAW has had a powerful impact on the labor movement since its formation in 2003, helping to alter how organized labor views foreign policy. But a changing world requires new approaches.Our challenge is to refocus and re-energize our movement, to more clearly make the connection between the economic crisis, a national economy that operates in service to the military-industrial complex and a militarized foreign policy that puts our country at odds with most of the people in the world.

This is the context in which USLAW will convene its National Assembly in Washington DC, April 15-17 2016.

The Assembly is open to delegates from USLAW affiliates as well as individual associate members. It is the highest decision-making body of USLAW where we debate and adopt resolutions on a range of issues that establish USLAW policy and strategic direction for the next three years. The Assembly will also elect the leadership that will guide the organization, and has the authority to make changes in the By-Laws that govern USLAW.

Attend the Assembly to help put workers at the forefront in linking the struggle for a just society to the struggle for a just foreign policy.

  • Pave the way for a new generation of activists to bring their energy and ideas to the leadership of labor’s antiwar movement!
  • Move beyond resolutions to involve labor’s rank and file!
  • Target the military-industrial complex and better define what we mean by “just transition”!
  • Develop effective responses to Islamophobia, racism, xenophobia and other barriers to solidarity and united action!
  • Build bridges between labor, peace, environmental, racial and economic justice movements to achieve our common objectives!

The National Assembly is being held at the Tommy Douglas Conference Center in Silver Spring, MD, just outside of Washington, DC.

Basic details are provided in the Call to the Assembly. Please consider attending and share this message with others. You will find the Call posted HERE.

If your organization is an affiliate of USLAW, encourage its leadership to send official delegates. To send delegates, organizations must be in good standing (affiliation fee paid) through the end of 2015.  

If your organization is not affiliated, information about how to affiliate is posted HERE.  

To attend as an individual (not sent by your organization), you must be an associate member in good standing by making an annual $30 or greater contribution

For assistance, contact us at info@uslaboragainstwar.org with "National Assembly" included in the subject line.


Source URL: https://portside.org/2016-02-14/call-uslaw-2016-national-assembly