Events
Exposing the true costs of war and militarism
Hiroshima-Nagasaki Commemoration
Veterans Driving Action
Navy veteran makes a difference
Resolution for Divestment from the War Machine
Chapter help for others
Events
Exposing the True Costs of War and Militarism
On Tax Day, April 16, at the Howland Plaza in Corvallis’ Riverfront Park. The focus was how spending on the military could be refocused to other activities. Most noted were health care and housing. These were followed by education, food security, child care, student debt, righting injustices, helping the needy, paying reparations to indigenous and peoples of color, supporting refugees and world peace, environmental concerns about renewable energy, stopping the use of fossil fuels, and developing better infrastructure for electricity and transportation. Clearly, what is spent on militarism has not reached down to the basic needs of society.
Hiroshima-Nagasaki Commemoration
The Commemoration, a Corvallis event since the early 1980s, was held at dusk on August 4, at the Howland Plaza in Corvallis’ Riverfront Park. The Commemoration, designed to remind us of the horrors of war, was particularly timely this year. Many attendees provided personal experiences of how war has and continues to affect their families. The costs of war go well beyond the battlefield in continuing to ring up social, emotional, personal, and environmental costs that continue for years after “peace” is declared.
Veterans Driving Action
Navy Veteran Makes a Difference
A Navy veteran who was deployed to the Persian Gulf twice as part of Operation Enduring Freedom, Joel Inman has shown how much difference one member can make. Even though he is a full-time elementary school teacher, husband, and father of a teenager, he took an important assignment to help with our work. He volunteered to take the role of recording secretary and also took over the maintenance of our website (http://vfpcorvallis.org/) and social media accounts. He helped produce a slide show on the climate crisis and the effects of militarism for Corvallis’ annual Climate Action week. For our Linus Pauling Chapter Tax Day event, he was the keynote speaker and moderator who introduced speakers from various local social justice organizations. He delivered powerful testimony to the City Council in favor of a resolution banning investment in companies involved in the production of military weapons.
Currently, he is doing research for a talk on Smedley Butler, the Major General who wrote the anti-war classic, War is a Racket . Butler testified before Congress regarding the “Business Plot,” in which he was recruited to lead a mercenary Army to overthrow the Roosevelt government in 1933. The theme of Joel’s review of Butler’s work and the recent biography of his life, Gangsters of Capitalism by Johnathan M. Katz, is that we can respect our heroes while recognizing the hypocrisy of what they do in the name of “defending our freedom.” You can learn more about Butler’s life and Joel’s presentation at one of the VFP: Linus Pauling events in 2023.
Resolution for Divestment from the War Machine
VFP:LP members assisted in the divestment of public funds from the “War Machine.” Over a three-year period, several chapter members worked on the resolution, “Prohibition of Direct Investments in Weapons Manufacturers and Military Contractors.” (https://www.divestfromwarmachine.org/corvallis). The Corvallis City Council unanimously passed this resolution at its November 7, 2022 meeting that affirms that “… the City shall not directly invest its non-pool public funds in companies involved in the production of weapons of war.”
VFP:LP Allies
The VFP:LP helped support the resurgence of KORC radio in Corvallis with financial support and programming contributions.
The anti-war classic, War is a Racket was distributed to local schools and libraries.
VFP:LP donated to the Empire Files to assist them in completing Earth’s Greatest Enemy, a film about how militarism acts as a significant driver of the climate crisis. Learn more and contribute here.Visit our website to learn more about the Linus Pauling Chapter activities.
Veterans For Peace, Linus Pauling Chapter 