Feature Archives

At sunrise on October 19, youth climate activists associated with the group Occupy Beale gave a speech decrying the imperialist military-industrial complex, responsible for countless ecological atrocities, energy consumption, and carbon emissions. Four activists, banners in hand, then marched across the demarcation line at the Schneider gate of Beale Air Force Base. Military police detained three of them for over an hour.

Over 1.7 million Palestinians have been displaced and face serious malnutrition and dehydration. Nearly 15,000 have been killed, a third of whom are children. Around 50% of all residential housing in the strip has been destroyed. Israel has killed over 200 medical and aid workers, and 65 journalists. It has bombed and raided hospitals, schools, UN facilities, and more, allowing in barely enough supplies to keep the population from starving to death.

Daniel Ellsberg, the military analyst-turned-peace activist who revealed that the U.S. government had been lying about its war on Vietnam, died on June 16. He was best known for leaking the Pentagon Papers to news outlets in 1971. He became a vocal anti-war campaigner. In a 2019 interview, Ellsberg said, "an act of truth-telling, of exposing the realities about which the public had been misled, can indeed help end an unnecessary, deadly conflict."

An international day of action was held on May 5 against a US nuclear submarine base in the Australian Port Kembla. Rallies took place at Port Kembla and in San Francisco against the base and the Australian, UK, and US military alliance (AUKUS). Several speakers representing Veterans for Peace, union activists, and others spoke of their opposition to the build-up of a war with China, along with using Australia as a pawn in that effort.

On March 18, Answer Coalition and numerous other anti-war organizations rallied and marched in San Francisco. Banners and signs demanded peace in Ukraine, abolishing NATO, the diversion of taxpayers' money to meet human needs, and the end of US aggression toward other nations. Counter demonstrators said Russians are committing genocide and Ukrainians need more weapons. March 19 was the twentieth anniversary the US invasion of Iraq.

CodePink hosted a demonstration and press conference at U.C. Berkeley Law School on January 11, the 21st anniversary of Guantanamo Prison. The demand was for the Biden administration to close Guantanamo, free the 20 men cleared for release yet still detained, and prosecute U.C. law professor John Yoo for complicity in torture. It was John Yoo who provided the legalistic rationale for torture at US prisons throughout the world.

It has been 60 years since the the Cuban Missile Crisis, and now may be the closest the world has been to a nuclear war since then. In October, anti-war activists in the San Francisco Bay Area and the Central Valley joined others across the nation to demand that elected leaders work to reduce the risk of nuclear war. On November 10, Youth vs Apocalypse, CodePink, Veterans for Peace and others rallied at Lockheed Martin's San Francisco office.