Veterans For Peace to Hold 28th National Convention

Veterans For Peace, a leading antiwar organization with chapters in every U.S. state and several other countries, will hold its 28th national convention in Madison, Wisconsin, August 7-11, 2013, at the Concourse Hotel at 1 Dayton Street.

The convention, open to veterans and non-veterans, will feature speakers, entertainers, and workshops on a wide variety of topics related to the advancement of peace and the abolition of war.

Free public events include:

Lanterns for Peace, commemorating Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Aug. 6, 7-9:30 p.m. Tenney Park Shelter
Poetry Night, Aug. 7, 8-10:30 p.m. Room of One's Own Bookstore, 315 W Gorham Street
Activist Night with national and local speakers, open mic, music, Aug. 8, 7-10 p.m., Concourse Hotel Ballroom
Rally and Peace Parade, families invited, bring peace banners, Aug. 10, 4 p.m., State Street and Capitol Square
Tribute to Lincoln Grahlfs, Aug. 11, 9-11 a.m., Capitol Lakes Retirement Center, 333 West Main Street
Iraq Veterans Against the War Art Exhibit, Aug 7-11, Rainbow Bookstore, 426 W. Gilman Street

Speakers at the convention (and available for interviews) include:

Nick Turse, journalist, historian, and author.
Diane Wilson, Vietnam veteran, author, activist, fisherwoman, hungerstriker for Gitmo.
James Yee, former U.S. Army chaplain, falsely accused of "aiding the enemy."
Kathy Kelly, co-coordinator of Voices for Creative Nonviolence.
John Peck, executive director of Family Farm Defenders.
Paul Chappell, Iraq War veteran, author, peace leadership director at Nuclear Age Peace Fdtn.
Ben Griffin, UK war resister.
S. Brian Willson, Vietnam veteran, author, activist, hungerstriker for Gitmo.
John Kinsman, president of Family Farm Defenders.
Paul Soglin, mayor of Madison.
Mike Wiggins Jr., tribal chairman of the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Ojibwe.
Carlos Arredondo, Costa Rican-American peace activist and American Red Cross volunteer.
David Newby, founder of U.S. Labor Against the War and former President of WI AFL-CIO.
Matthew Rothschild, editor of The Progressive magazine.
Scott Olsen, Iraq War veteran, shot in the head at Occupy Oakland.

Entertainers at the convention:

Lem Genovese, Ryan Harvey, Solidarity singalong, Forward Marching Band, Madison Raging Grannies, Watermelon Slim, Honor Among Thieves, Jim Walktendonk.

Workshops:

Some of the topics will be: Veterans farming, Creating a culture of peace, Educating the community, Agent Orange, Nonviolent bioregional revolutionary strategies, Debt and death: making clear the costs of war, Labor's role, Environmental disaster, the United Nations, Helping homeless veterans, Palestine, Veteran suicide, Military sexual trauma and suicides, Voices of Iraq: resolution, reconciliation, reparation, The written word for peace and reconciliation, Bradley Manning and G.I. resisters, The perversion of just war reasoning, U.S. policy in the Middle East, The long war for central Asia, Building peace in Vietnam, and Abolishing war as an instrument of national policy.

The full program is available at http://VFPNationalConvention.org

Veterans For Peace is a national organization, founded in 1985 with approximately 5,000 members in 150 chapters located in every U.S. state and several countries.  It is a 501(c)3 non-profit educational organization recognized as a Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) by the United Nations, and is the only national veterans' organization calling for the abolishment of war.

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