Veterans For Peace has endorsed the following two April 5 mobilizations, and we encourage VFP members, friends and allies to participate in one or both.
1. The March On Washington demands an end to U.S. complicity with Israel’s genocide in Gaza, and calls for an end to repression of pro-Palestine activists.
2. Nationally coordinated Hands Off! rallies will protest the Trump Administration’s attacks on free speech and immigrants, among many others, and will denounce the defunding of education and healthcare – including veterans’ healthcare. Thousands are expected to turn out.
These two demonstrations illustrate the huge organizing challenge that anti-war/peace activists face in an environment where people are under attack and feeling uncertainty and fear. While people are appalled by the blatant ethnic cleansing and genocide in Gaza, many are also panicked by what they see happening here at home, including mass deportation, mass firings, severe cutbacks in basic services, and repression of free speech.
Veterans For Peace national leadership strongly encourages our members to organize a presence at both rallies, so that concerned people will see our VFP flags and know we stand in solidarity with them. We must join in building a broad movement of resistance to the billionaires’ violent and dehumanizing attacks on poor and working people at home and abroad.
VFP members who can make it to Washington, D.C. are encouraged to do so. Those who cannot make it to DC are encouraged to attend the local rallies. Be sure to go to the Hands Off event map to find a rally near you and sign up for more information.
As we continue to organize, we must develop messaging that reveals the connection between escalating attacks on basic freedoms and necessities in our country, and constant U.S. wars and intervention in many nations around the globe. That is how we will move forward together for Peace at Home, Peace Abroad.