Resources: Statements and Commentaries

Thoughts on Elections - Matt Meyer

For those of us working for radical and lasting change, as opposed to just a change in Washington, the significance of the Barak Obama campaign has already occurred. Whatever the outcome on November 4 (and there are many of us doing more than simply hoping that a Black man will soon occupy the White House), the real change is one of attitude and expectations. All over the US, amongst disenfranchised people in historically oppressed communities, there is a new sense of hope, a sense of the possible.

Thoughts on Elections - Clare Moen

Any time there is an election, I am reminded that voting is a privilege and not a right. The very folks whose votes many believe would be for the greatest change are the ones who are disenfranchised through incarceration, intimidation, unfair legislation (e.g., requiring citizenship documentation), and more. Some risk losing badly needed jobs if they take time off to vote; older folks might not have anyone to accompany them to the polling place, etc.

Thoughts on Elections - Liz Roberts

I think between the elections and the crumbling of the major institutions of capitalism, I can't remember a period when I was as perpetually starved for news all day every day for weeks on end, as I am now. It feels like things are so intense and there are drastic and surprising developments each day. It's obvious that neither major party candidate is going to challenge the entire structure of capitalism and imperialism, the dominant systems and ideologies that necessitate and generate war. I am still surprised to see Obama ascend  to the presidency, in this white supremacist country.

War, Peace, Justice, and the Elections: A WRL Statement

October 16 2008

Like many—perhaps most—advocates for peace and justice, we at the War Resisters League are of more than one mind about the upcoming elections. We come from diverse political perspectives, including varying shades of socialism, anarchism, and reform-oriented liberalism, and have concomitantly diverse opinions within the organization and our membership about whether and how to engage elections.

On Gandhi's Birthday, 2003

To Declare Independence:
A Letter to People Working for Justice and Peace

“When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love has always won. There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time they may seem invincible, but in the end they always fall. Think of it — always.”

— Mohandas Gandhi

WRL Statement On the Capture of Saddam Hussein

The media emphasis on the capture of Saddam Hussein repeats one of the fundamental mistakes made by successive U.S. administrations: that Hussein is Iraq. Iraq — as the peace movement has been saying, and as the U.S. occupiers and media are only beginning to discover — is a vast and complex country, and Hussein's capture does not retroactively justify the invasion and occupation. Neither does it mean that Ba'athist underpinnings of the resistance to the occupation have been dismantled or that Iraq will come to love the U.S. occupiers — or that the resistance will end.

WRL's statement on 9/11

Click below to read the statement issued by the staff and board of WRL ten years ago, on September 11, 2001. Tragically, it is still appropriate today, and we issue it again in memory of the lives lost on that day and the lives lost since across the world.

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