Read Stop the Next War Now Online
Authors: Medea Benjamin
Stop the Next War Now (35 page)
Medea is a key figure in the anti-sweatshop movement, having spearheaded campaigns against companies such as Nike and Gap. In 1999, Medea helped expose indentured servitude among garment workers in the U.S. territory of Saipan, which led to a billion-dollar lawsuit against seventeen retailers.
She is the author or coauthor of eight books, including the award-winning
Don’t Be Afraid, Gringo
, and helped produce TV documentaries such as
Sweating for a T-Shirt
.
With master’s degrees in public health and economics, Medea worked for ten years as an economist and nutritionist in Latin America and Africa for various international agencies. She lives in San Francisco with her husband and two daughters.
JODIE EVANS
has worked on behalf of community, social-justice, environmental, and political causes for more than thirty years. Her book,
Twilight of Empire: Responses to Occupation
includes her journal entries from trips to Iraq.
Jodie cocreated the first Dubrovnik Peace Conference in June 2000 and produced Shadow Conventions 2000, held in parallel to the Republican and Democratic national conventions. Every three years she coproduces the World Festival of Sacred Music, and in 1998 she produced the documentary
Stripped and Teased: Tales of Las Vegas Women
.
From 1973 to 1982, Jodie worked on the campaigns of California governor Jerry Brown and served as his director of administration. She also oversaw the Office of Appropriate Technology, ushering in breakthroughs in wind and solar energy. Between 1985 and 1990, she supported women candidates for federal office as a board member of the Women’s Campaign Fund and Women’s Political Committee. She ran Jerry Brown’s campaign for president in 1991.
In the early 1990s Jodie opened the first environmental department store, Terra Verde, along with Tom Hayden and Cathryn Tiddens.
Jodie serves on the boards of Rainforest Action Network, Dads and Daughters, Drug Policy Alliance, Bioneers, the Garden Project, Community Self-Determination Institute, 826 LA, and the Circle of Life Foundation.
A mother of three, Jodie is a harpist, gardener, and potter when not working to end war.
ABOUT CODEPINK:
WOMEN FOR PEACE
We call on women around the world to rise up and oppose war. We call on mothers, grandmothers, sisters, and daughters, on workers, students, teachers, healers, artists, writers, singers, poets, and every ordinary outraged woman willing to be outrageous for peace. Women have been the guardians of life—not because we are better or purer or more innately nurturing than men, but because the men have busied themselves making war. Because of our responsibility to the next generation, because of our own love for our families and communities and this country that we are a part of, we call on all peace loving women—and men—to join us in building an outrageous, unreasonable, unstoppable movement for peace.
CODEPINK: Women for Peace is a dynamic women-led grassroots peace and social-justice movement where political savvy meets creative protest and nonviolent direct action. Medea Benjamin, Jodie Evans, Starhawk, Diane Wilson, and approximately one hundred other women kicked off codepink on November 17, 2002. They marched through the streets of Washington, D.C., and set up a four-month vigil in front of the White House. Every day through March 8, 2003, International Women’s Day, codepink held a day-long peace vigil in front of the White House, inspiring people from all walks of life and from all over the country to stand for peace. Beginning March 8, codepink celebrated women as global peacemakers with a week of activities, concluding with a rally and march with ten thousand people encircling the White House in pink.
CODEPINK can be found at presidential speeches and in the halls of Congress, in the neighborhoods of Baghdad and the streets of Manhattan— vigiling, chanting, protesting, and making peace wherever peace needs making. In addition to conducting these peaceful protest activities, codepink was one of the only international groups getting humanitarian aid to the war-terrorized people of Iraq in 2004 and 2005, and it raised more than $600,000 for victims of the 2004 assault on Fallujah. codepink has also traveled to Iraq and Afghanistan, bringing together families who have lost sons and daughters, husbands and wives, to share their grief. In 2005, CODEPINK will be working on ending the occupation of Iraq and preventing wars in Iran, Syria, or anywhere else.
CODEPINK now has over one hundred local chapters all over the country—and several overseas. We send out weekly action ideas to a list of some fifty thousand supporters.
We call on all outraged women to join us in taking a stand now. And we call upon our brothers to join and support us. Engage in outrageous acts of dissent. Get active and get effective. Throw on your most powerful pink clothes and join us for the most fun you’ll ever have working to make our world a more just, peaceful place. Check our site often at www.codepinkalert.org for updated actions and events to see how you can get active with codepink in the days, weeks, and months ahead. Peace.
CODEPINK
2010 Linden Ave
Venice, CA 90291
310-827-4320
www.codepinkalert.org
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