Fox Valley Citizens for Peace and Justice

 

Welcome to the Fox Valley Citizens for Peace and Justice Website/Blog

Mission Statement of

Fox Valley Citizens for Peace and Justice

Fox Valley Citizens for Peace and Justice strives to promote a culture of peace, a stronger democracy, a healthy environment, and social and economic justice through education, dialogue, and action. We believe growing global corporate domination is the main obstacle to achieving these goals

Principles of Fox Valley Citizens for Peace and Justice

  1. We support popular uprisings of people in the US and across the globe who seek to create democracy and a people-first economy.
  2. We work for the United States to step back from its posture of global military dominance, and to relinquish its empire of 800-plus military bases stretched across the globe. We call for a transformation of US policy and culture away from militarism and towards international co-operation and equality among nations.
  3. We work for an end to US overseas wars. We oppose any military attack on Iran. We oppose the use of mercenary forces by the US and drone attacks.
  4. We work for an end to the bloated military/corporate complex which now consumes more than half of the US discretionary budget.
  5. We support equality among nations. We stand with those people around the world who are oppressed by the global corporate elites as organized in the World Trade Organization, IMF, World Bank, and so-called “free trade agreements.”
  6. We call for the restoration of our civil liberties, including freedom of speech and association, privacy, and the right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty. We oppose torture and the death penalty and call for accountability for torturers. We oppose government spying on the civilian
  7. We oppose US military and economic aid to Israel until Israel dismantles its settlements in the West Bank, ends the siege of Gaza, and Israel and Palestine together arrive at a just peace.
  8. We support racial and gender justice and equity.  We call for the eradication of all forms of oppression, including violence, abuse and discrimination based upon color, class, nationality, religion, gender, or sexual orientation.
  9. We embrace the principles of the UN Declaration on Human Rights and the Earth Charter.
  10. We call for the US to take the lead in efforts to stop climate change by sharply cutting our use of fossil fuels, and by entering into new international agreements which mandate such policies. We call for expanded and enforced regulations to protect the quality of our air, water and soil.
  11. We support the rights of working people everywhere to organize and to bargain collectively for living wages and decent working conditions. We reject all exploitation of labor, especially the dehumanization implied by the term: cheap labor. We oppose human trafficking, sweatshop labor, and slavery.
  12. We oppose plutocracy, corporate power, and crony capitalism.  We contend that the “rights” of for-profit corporations must be subordinate to the rights of actual human beings of any country, including the rights of labor, the rights of consumers, and the protection of the natural environment. We support Move to Amend and insist that “Corporations are not People and Money is not Speech.”
  13. We call for an end to the War on Drugs and the Prison-Industrial complex. We call for an end to the incarceration of non-violent offenders and the mentally ill. We call for profound prison reform with efforts toward rehabilitation and the humane treatment of all prisoners.
  14. We call for the restoration of the public sector, and an end to the privatization of our public assets and civic institutions, such as roads, bridges, parks, schools, prisons, water, etc.
  15. We oppose ICE harassment, deportations and imprisonment of immigrants. We hold that no human being is illegal.
  16. We support healthcare as a human right, not as a commodity. We call for a National Single Payer Health Care System i.e. Medicare for All with protections for the individual patient’s choice of health options.

Our Meetings

Fox Valley Citizens for Peace and Justice meets the first Saturday of the month.  We are currently meeting via Zoom calls.  Contact us to become involved! read more

Welcome to our renewed website!

Fox Valley Citizens for Peace and Justice continues to meet on the corner of Kimball and Grove almost every Saturday since October of 2011 and will be at Elgin's Earth Summit Saturday April 20th, ELGbtq+'s second annual Elgin Pride Parade and Festival on Saturday June 1st, Aurora Green Fest Saturday June 08th, and Elgin's Juneteenth Cultural Festival on Saturday June 15th.

Fossil Fuels Are Destroying us!

 

Coal, Oil, and Gas brought us the Industrial Revolution.  They brought us mass production, factories, automobiles, air flight,  warmth in the winter, air conditioning in the summer, and the amazing array of consumer goods that fill our homes and make us comfortable, or at least  keep us occupied.  It has been the foundation of our economy and our way of life.

But we are now paying a terrible price for all that abundance.  The burning of fossil fuels is destroying the biosphere upon which we all depend.  It is causing wildfires, not just on our West Coast, but all across the world, even inside the Arctic Circle.  Paradoxically, it is bringing  us both floods and droughts, both  heat domes and the polar vortex.   read more

FVC4PNJ webinar, May 19th: US Complicity in Palesinian Deaths

Our Two Speakers for this Webinar:

Kathy Kelly   

Kathy Kelly has traveled to war zones and lived alongside ordinary people in Afghanistan, Iraq, Gaza, Lebanon, Bosnia, Haiti and Nicaragua.  She and her companions in various peace team delegations believe the U.S. should end all U.S. military and economic warfare and pay reparations for suffering already caused by U.S. wars. In 2009, she lived with a family in Gaza during the final week of Israel’s “Operation Cast Lead” aerial attacks. In 2013, she arrived in Gaza just after a cease fire was declared following Israel’s “Operation Pillar of Defense.” In 2003, she entered the Jenin refugee camp, in the West Bank, while it was under attack. Kathy wrote eyewitness reports about the suffering and destruction she and her companions witnessed.  read more

Candidates for ECC Board of Trustees reply to our questionnaire

 

Responses to the FVC4PNJ questionnaire for candidates for the ECC Board of Trustees:

We send the questionnaire to all four candidates.  Two responded.  Two did not respond.

Joyce Fountain

1) Is ECC doing a good job of protecting the health of students, faculty, and staff during the covid-19 pandemic?  What would you do differently to strengthen those efforts?

 I have been retired from ECC for approximately 15 months, but it appears that ECC is taking the important steps to protect the health of individuals that come to campus during the pandemic. Routine activities have been modified including most courses being taught virtually, many faculty have modified their styles of teaching to improve student learning and are in contact with students more frequently; all individuals’ temperatures must be taken to access the campus; most employees are working off campus and the campus is cleaned more regularly and effectively. read more

Promoting peace, a stronger democracy, and social and economic justice through education, dialog, and action