Why We’re Still Standing Out Here in 2019: Sunday Vigil for Peace Mission Statement – Join With Us Noon-1 p.m.

This vigil for peace and justice has been observed every Sunday from 12 until 1 p.m. since May of 1999. Twenty years and four U.S. presidential administrations later, we are still here.

Often people ask us what we mean when we say, “RESIST THIS ENDLESS WAR.” What we mean is that the serial wars fought by the U.S. and its allies are one war being waged on many fronts. Men, women and children are being slaughtered, maimed, traumatized, driven from their homes all over the world so that immense wealth and power can be concentrated in the hands of a very few people.

The weapons of this war are many. Here are just some examples: drone attacks against human beings many thousands of miles away (targets whose bodies the bombardiers, operating their weapons by remote control, will never have to see); the mass deportations of immigrants and refugees (condemning them, in many cases, to a future of torture or death); the systematic dismantling of infrastructure and social programs such as Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security that most of us not only depend upon but have funded with our hard-earned tax dollars all our lives; the destruction of our environment; the undermining of workers’ rights and the refusal to pass a national minimum wage that is a living wage.

In 2016, we had a presidential election in which the issues of war, peace and economic justice were never seriously addressed. The state of endless war was accepted as the norm. Now we are dealing with an administration that, during its more than two years in power, has exponentially escalated on all fronts this war that we have been describing and resisting for years. And the 2018 “mid-term” elections largely ignored these issues.

With its blatantly racist and xenophobic rhetoric and policies, its utter disregard for the U.S. Constitution and international law, its attempt to roll back even the modest attempts at addressing climate change that are embraced in the Paris Agreement, its utter disregard for human rights at the borders, and its unapologetic war against poor, working-class and non-white people on behalf of the billionaire class it represents, the Trump administration has made transparent the existential threat posed by the 1% to all our lives and to the future of our planet.

RESIST THIS ENDLESS WAR. Join the conversation any Sunday here at Broadway, Park and Elm Streets, New Haven, 12-1 p.m. newhavensundayvigil.wordpress.com