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Bullet Points

Authored by: John Lindsay-Poland
On the “open wound” of border between Nogales, Arizona, U.S.A., and Nogales, Sonora, Mexico (actually one city, divided), a steel-tube fence stretches thirty feet high and miles to the east and west – beyond our seeing. Dozens of people entered a restricted zone beside that wall and enacted a die-in last November, to remember 123 migrants who died in the nearby desert during the previous twelve months, as a result of U.S. “preventive deterrence” border policies. The die-in also honored the lives of people killed or disappeared by U.S.-trained, U.S.-equipped, military and police forces in Latin America.
On Weapons (January 2019)

My Life on the Nuclear Brink – Review

Authored by: Trudy Myrrh Reagan
Pacifists may argue that it is a bad choice to do weapons work at all. William Perry, Secretary of Defense under President Clinton, would probably argue that by leaving this job to others, the results could be far worse. Would we suspect that someone who spent his entire career in the defense industry, first as a private contractor and then as a government official, would be nuclear weapons’ biggest critic? Yet, in a 2008 article in the Wall Street Journal, Perry’s name appeared along with former Secretaries of State George Schultz and Henry Kissinger, and Senate arms expert Sam Nunn, calling for the total abolition of nuclear weapons.
On Flesh (November 2016)

Quakers and Gun Violence

Authored by: James Summers
In the United States, gun violence is not a mere veneer on the surface of an otherwise peaceful society, but something deep and dark, with roots in the colonization of the continent and the founding of the nation, in ethnic cleansing, enslavement and the seizure of land from Mexico. White settlers, armed to the teeth, faced the constant prospect of insurrection by Native peoples and enslaved populations, as well as violence on contested borders.
On Weapons (January 2019)

U.S. Combat Drones – Immoral and Illegal

Authored by: Leah Bolger
Leah Bolger is a former National Board President of Veterans For Peace and continues to serve on the VFP board.  She is currently touring the U.S. to promote the work of VFP’s “Drones, Robots, and Future Weapons Working Group.”  Leah has worked with Quakers on many common causes over the years, and she spoke with Western Friend by phone on January 25, 2013.
On War (January 2013)

Empire of Guns (review)

Authored by: Emily Garrison , Rocky Garrison
How free is your life from war, violence, and oppression? How free is your financial life from these forces? Satia Priya poses these questions as she traces the conflict between the Birmingham Monthly Meeting (BMM) in central England in the 1790s and the Galton family, who were members of the meeting and who made their livelihoods selling guns as England became the leading weapons manufacturer in the world. In fact, Quakers owned or managed over half of the ironworks in operation in England in the last half of the 18th Century, and weapons were a major product of the iron industry, sold to the Ordnance Office of the British Government and on the open market – throughout several decades of war and colonial expansion dominated by the British.
On Weapons (January 2019)