CPJC Admin Actions, Campaigns

Occupy Beale Air Force Base

CPJC activists have led anti-militarization demonstrations at the site of Beale Air Force Base for many years, including protests against the Iraq war and military escalation in southwest Asia and around the world. Currently, monthly demonstrations focus upon the U.S. military use of drones to attack overseas and US-born peoples.

Photo: nodronescalifornia.blogspot.com

For more information and upcoming direct actions:

OccupyBealeAirForceBase
Chris Nelson (530-345-7590)
Cathy Webster (530-591-3225)

Drones allow aggressors to destroy targets and kill suspects extrajudicially, including children and innocent people, from a computer thousands of miles away. They can spy intimately on anyone, including citizens in the US, and can commit assassinations in defiance of international and U.S. law. 50 nations now have drones — an expanding insane proliferation.

Occupy Beale AFB demands an end to Drone Warfare, Surveillance, Proliferation by the U.S. Government and the CIA. Specifically:

  1. An immediate ban on the use of all drones for extrajudicial killing.
  2. A halt to all drone surveillance that assaults basic freedoms and inalienable rights and terrorizes domestic life in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen and Somalia.
  3. A prohibition on the sale, and distribution of drones and drone technology to foreign countries in order to prevent the proliferation of this menacing threat to world peace, freedom and security.
  4. An end to lawless US drone warfare that violates many international laws and treaties.
CPJC Admin Actions, Programs

Career Builders: Counter-Recruitment

What if they staged a war and nobody came? Sound far fetched? Not to those who know a veteran with a catastrophic injury or post-traumatic stress disorder, or who had a friend or loved one deploy and not return. Not for those who know a service person for whom the military did not live up to promises made by a recruiter.

But what job opportunities now exist in the U.S. for young people who lack privilege and connections to find gainful employment or need money for higher education? Career Builders works to present alternative work opportunities to local youth.

Career Builders: Counter Recruitment (CBCR) aims to counter the often overwhelming military promotional campaign that local students face on their high school campuses. CBCR provides accurate and under-reported information about the realities of military service and highlights alternatives to military involvement, including scholarship opportunities. CBCR communicates directly with local high school students by tabling near high school campuses over lunch periods and engages students through music, food, flyers, graphic exhibit panels and personal contact.

CBCR is seeking volunteers and interns of all ages, particularly of high school and college age, as well as volunteers with recent military experience, to help enrich the conversation with teenagers currently subject to pressure from recruiters to join the military. Your help with Facebook and blog postings, maintaining and transporting large information panels, publicity, set-up and breakdown of exhibits, and assistance with providing food and drink for students, would be welcomed.

The Career Builders: Counter Recruitment team has planning and information meetings at the Center every month, and volunteers table at least monthly near local high school campuses. Join CBCR, and make a difference in the life of a potential recruit!

Contact careerbuilders@chicopeace.org for more information.

Scholarship Opportunities

CPJC is committed to helping young people find employment alternatives outside of the military to ensure their futures are brighter and more healthy and peaceful. For that reason our counter recruitment group has made this list of scholarships you can apply to online, as well as places you can find more.

CPJC Admin Actions, Programs

Voice of the Veteran Speaker Series

Voice of the Veteran is an ongoing speaker series featuring veterans sharing their experience in the military with no media slant, recruiter advertising, or entertainment industry glorification of violence.  Hear from primary sources about war and learn about what it is actually like to be in the military.

We have had Army veteran Major John Crosby (retired) who served from 1984 until 2004 and participated in Operation Just Cause and Iraqi Freedom presented February 2016.  Marine veteran Corporal Isaac Zenk who also grew up moving around as the son of an Air Force officer and served himself from 2004-2008 and in Iraq twice presented March 2016. And Corporal Ron Toppi presented his story April 2016 of time in the Marine Corps in the 1980’s.  These were the first presentations and we hope to have one a month during the California State University, Chico academic year so check here for the upcoming semester presentations by veterans on their time in the military.

This fall of 2016, we have another 3 Speakers lined up with Navy veteran Bill Mash serving from 1978-1982 sharing his story September 21st at 7:30PM going over his experiences as a submariner.  Phil Elkins shared his saga in the Vietnam War as an Army draftee on October 19th at 7:30PM.  The last presentation in November was Rev. Jessie Olson who was in the Army in the 90’s as a female soldier who also has a lot of experience helping thousands of veterans after her time in the military as a Veteran Service Officer.

CPJC Admin Campaigns

Chico Palestine Action Group

The Chico Palestine Action Group (CPAG) is dedicated to working for human rights and justice for the native peoples of historic Palestine in the face of brutal military occupation and continuing colonization of their lands and resources by the Israeli government. We work toward these ends through public education, information campaigns, and direct nonviolent action including support of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement initiated by the Palestinian people. We ally with many groups world-wide who are working in support of Palestinian rights.

Our actions take the form of organizing peaceful demonstrations at local businesses or government offices, and sponsoring speakers, forums, and films to inform the public about the situation for the Palestinian people under occupation. CPAG is absolutely committed to nonviolence in all its activities and is prepared to commit nonviolent civil disobedience in pursuit of justice for Palestinians.

Tell Your Elected Officials to End U.S. Aid to Israel

The U.S. government sends $3.1 billion of our tax payer dollars to Israel ~ starting in 2018, that increases to $3.8 billion for the next 10 years! As Americans, we are complicit in the oppression of the Palestinian people. Thus we have a responsibility to do what we can to end U.S. financial and political support for Israel’s human rights abuses.

Tell the President, Congress and the State Department that, as a taxpayer and moral human being, you want U.S. aid to Israel halted until Israel ends its occupation of Palestine, the brutal siege and blockade on Gaza, and all violations of human rights and international law.

  • White House – www.whitehouse.gov/contact; 202-456-1111
  • State Dept – www.state.gov/contact; 202-647-4000
  • Senator Kamala Harris – www.senate.gov; (202) 224-3553
  • Senator Dianne Feinstein – www.senate.gov; 202-224-3841
  • Representative Doug LaMalfa – www.house.gov; 202-225-3076, Oroville 530 225-3076
  • All other Congressional reps: 202-224-3121

Support the Boycott, Divestment & Sanctions Movement

In 2005, Palestinian civil society issued a call for a campaign of boycotts, divestment and sanctions against Israel until it complies with international law and Palestinian rights. Many activists for Palestinan rights feel that the BDS Movement is the greatest hope for real change. (For more info log onto www.bdsmovement.netBDS)

Don’t buy Israeli products or invest in companies that profit from Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine: SodaStream, Ahava, Sabra or Tribe Humus, Osem products, Dorot Garlic and Herbs, Israeli Cous Cous, Pastures of Eden Feta, Noat or Beauty Field Shoes, Osem, Glutino, Teva, L’Oreal/ The Body Shop, Estee Lauder, Sara Lee, Victoria’s Secret, Hewlett Packard, Caterpiller, and many more.

Reading

Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish, I Shall Not Hate: A Gaza Doctor’s Journey on the Road to Peace and Human Dignity
Miko Peled, The General’s Son: Journey of an Israeli in Palestine
Max Blumenthal, Goliath: Life and Loathing in Greater Israel
Max Blumenthal, The 51 Day War: Ruin and Resistence in Gaza
Anna Baltzer, A Witness in Palestine
Ilan Pappe, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine
Max Blumenthal, Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions: Global Struggle for Palestinian Rights
Ali Abunimah, One Country: A Bold Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse
Rachel Corrie, My Name is Rachel Corrie

CPJC Admin Actions, Campaigns

Chico Peace Vigil

Saturdays, rain or shine, at 3rd and Main, Chico. 12:30-1:30pm

The Chico Peace Vigil was the start of the Chico Peace & Justice Center.

The Chico Peace Vigil traces its history back to the tense Cold War years of the early 1960s. The U.S. military built Titan missiles and nuclear warheads that were to be stored in already-built underground bunkers in northeast Chico. Chico resident Wilhelmina Taggart, alarmed by this development, made weekly visits to the base to pray. Eventually the missiles were removed, but by then Willa was joined by Florence McLane and Helen Kinnee. Together they started what they called the Chico Peace Endeavor, and began holding a weekly peace vigil in downtown Chico. Fifty years later, the vigil still takes place.

While initially addressing the danger of nuclear proliferation and the arms race, the Peace Vigil has spoken against escalating militarism, has supported war tax resistance, has brought attention to poverty and hunger brought on by armed conflict, and to oppressive U.S. military intervention in other countries.

Sustaining the Peace Vigil is an enduring belief in the importance and power of non-violence, both as a moral value and as a tool to effect positive change.