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Campaign for Peace and Democracy

July 20, 2017

Dear Friend of the Campaign for Peace and Democracy,

       These are indeed critical times. Domestically, Donald Trump is attempting to roll back the gains, inadequate as they are, that we’ve won over the past decades on the environment, labor and reproductive rights, racial justice, gay and transgender rights, health care, internet equality, and more. He has taken steps to weaken public education, cracked down on immigrants, promoted Islamophobia, tried to intimidate the media and the left, and fostered a climate of violence against Muslims, Blacks, and Latino/as.

       Internationally, Trump’s actions have made the Campaign’s support of democratic and social justice movements and call for a democratic, peaceful United States foreign policy more crucial than ever. Trump has made ominous war threats to the North Korean regime, worked to relegitimize torture and increase an already obscenely huge military budget, tried to slam the door shut on immigrants and refugees from many Muslim-majority countries, moved ahead on his plan to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, supported bloody assaults on thousands of civilians in Yemen, Mosul, and Raqqa, escalated warnings to China, increased sanctions on Iran, authorized troop increases in the losing Afghan war, continued the long-time U.S. policy of issuing Israel a blank check to continue oppression of the Palestinians, and in an ugly symbolic move has withdrawn from the Paris Climate Accord (which itself was a toothless agreement dependent on voluntary compliance).

       Meanwhile the president has embraced dictators and brutal authoritarians from Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud and Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte to Russian President Vladimir Putin, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, Chinese President Xi Jinping, and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Trump dancing with Saudi prices
Photocredit Daily Mail
Donald Trump joins in Saudi sword dance before signing $110 billion arms deal with Saudi King Salman in May 2017.

 

Obama and King Abdullah
President Obama with Saudi King Abdullah in 2010. Photocredit Daily Mail

       In many respects, Trump has been simply continuing the bipartisan U.S. policy of realpolitik, but in his own special, more vulgar fashion – one that essentially abandons even rhetorical doubletalk about defending democracy and human rights in favor of explicit support for extreme authoritarians. And lest anyone be under the illusion that Trump’s celebration of the leaders of traditional U.S. adversary nations like China and Russia means some sort of détente from above, we need to keep in mind that the president is a notoriously impulsive, reckless and vengeful man with an outsized fear of being humiliated, leading a country whose imperial dominance is in decline, and who is capable of turning on a dime to become aggressive against the same countries whose leaders he has flattered and defended moments before.

       We need your help to sustain CPD’s efforts on behalf of a fundamentally new U.S. foreign policy – a policy that undermines dictators by renouncing military intervention and consistently showing solidarity with democratic social change movements from below, wherever they arise. And we need to reject the idea that preserving NATO and strengthening traditional U.S. “leadership” over an inequitable global economic, political and social order is the alternative to Trump’s economic nationalism.

       Thanks to your generosity, we’ve been able to support the campaigns llisted below in the first months of 2017. Now we’re asking for your further supportto continue our work in the challenging months ahead.

anti-Trump demonstrators

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Médecins Sans Frontières at work in Yemen. Photo by Guillaume Binet/MYOP

demonstrators

Syriza Wave demonstrators

 "The Syriza Wave: Surging and Crashing with the Greek Left" with Helena Sheehan, Despina Lalaki, and Aaron Amaral

 "What Next for the European Left: Confronting the Challenge of Right Wing 'Populism'" with Helena Sheehan, Catarina Principe, and Jonah Birch

"Fighting Back on Both Sides of the Mexico-U.S. Border" with Cinthia Santos, Juan Carlos Ruiz, Edur Velasco Arregui, Andres Barreda Marin, and Richard Roman

CPD depends on your contributions, so please give as generously as you can.

       To donate on line, visit our website. You can mail your check made out to Campaign for Peace and Democracy. For credit card gifts, mail the amount, card number, expiration date and your name, noting if it’s a one-time or a monthly donation. Foreign donations must be made by U.S. money orders or checks payable in U.S. currency drawn on U.S. banks. Our address is Campaign for Peace and Democracy, 2808 Broadway, #12, NY, NY 10025.

       Donations are tax-deductible. Thank you very much in advance for your support -- we could not survive without your help.

In peace and solidarity,
Joanne                Tom
Joanne Landy and Thomas Harrison

Co-Directors, Campaign for Peace and Democracy