All posts by Paul Berland

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