Woodstock Peace Economy: A Day In The Life

Howard Zinn

"I'm gratified that citizens of Woodstock and its environs are organizing to transform the production of components now used for frightful weapons to peaceful and sustainable purposes. The bucolic setting of Woodstock is such a contrast with the ugliness of arms production. It is especially horrifying that this is taking place in a town whose heritage is peace and harmony. I support your work and hope other people will rally to your campaign to remove this blight from your areas, and perhaps other places in the country where war materials are produced will take up the struggle for a weapons-free, peaceful world. Thank you for what you and your friends are doing."

David Swanson

"Woodstock Peace Economy is providing the necessary answer to the claims of senators and congress members that they cannot shift funding from weapons to human needs because weapons mean jobs. While we know theoretically that non-military investment creates more and better-paying jobs while avoiding all the damage done by unnecessary weaponry, until local communities demand conversion from swords to ploughshares, and local workers demand conversion from swordmakers to ploughmakers, mere facts are not going to get in the way of legislators' loyalties. If other communities follow Woodstock in pursuing a peace economy, we just might all live to tell about it."

Monday, October 3, 2016

A Day In The Life

    On September 27, Woodstock’s largest employer signed a new $7,365 weapons contract with Israel’s Defense Ministry, for delivery to its Avionic Armaments division. This happened to be the day before the death of Shimon Peres, the father of Israel’s nuclear bomb program, but otherwise it was a typical day in the life of the territories illegally occupied by Israel, so we thought it might be interesting to look at some other news items from that ordinary day.

    On that day Israeli authorities demolished 33 residential, school and livelihood-related buildings in nine Palestinian communities, making dozens of people homeless including children, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. These incidents brought the total number of houses destroyed or confiscated by the Israeli forces in the West Bank so far this year to 878, a 60% increase over the figure for the whole of 2015.

    The OCHA adds: “Due to discriminatory and unlawful planning processes, it is almost impossible for Palestinians to obtain building permits in the vast majority of Area C and East Jerusalem. The systematic destruction of property in this context, along with other factors, contributes to the generation of a coercive environment pressuring residents to leave.”

    On that same day, in another piece of this campaign, Israeli forces destroyed four water wells in a village near Hebron, three of which had been built with funds from the YMCA.

    On that same day, the Israeli human rights group Adalah criticized Israel’s plan to expand the settlement of Gilo onto wide swaths of land belonging to the Palestinian town of Beit Jala, calling it “an infringement on the rights of the land owners in addition to being a breach of international law.”

    On the following day, Amnesty International reported that “Israeli forces continue to display an appalling disregard for human life by using reckless and unlawful lethal force against Palestinians,” adding that the Israeli military justice system “repeatedly fails to deliver justice for Palestinian victims of unlawful killings and their families.”