Here are some of the highlights of our creative and committed efforts
over 2007:
The first week of January, CODEPINK cofounders led a 15-person delegation
to Guantanamo to call for the closing of the infamous prison. The delegation
included family members of detainees, former detainees, constitutional
lawyers and US peace activists.
On January 27, CODEPINK mobilized its members for the United for Peace
& Justice March and Lobby Day in Washington DC. We kicked it off
with a Women’s Convergence featuring Jane Fonda, Sean Penn, Eve
Ensler and 3,000 of our closest friends!
CODEPINK rented a house blocks from the Capitol Hill from whence we
launched our DON’T BUY BUSH’S WAR campaign with a daily presence
in the Halls of Congress. We coordinated a series of actions around
the country, including Congressional Phone-a-thons, bi-coastal “Camp
Pelosi”, a national Bird-Dog Hillary campaign, and more.
In April, CODEPINK launched a new “re-vamped and re-amped”
website which recently won “Most Popular Homepage” from the
Progressive Source Awards!
CODEPINK reclaimed Mother’s Day with a beautiful Peace Festival
attended by hundreds of families and kids of all ages in front of the
White House.
We celebrated the resignations of Donald Rumsfeld and Karl Rove, and
held daily vigils outside the Justice Department until (now former)
Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez resigned as well.
CODEPINK offered trainings with a pink flair at the first ever United
States Social Forum in Atlanta, GA.
As the Bush Administration and its allies, such as Senator Joe Lieberman,
threatened war against Iran, CODEPINK launched a multi-pronged DON’T
IRAQ IRAN campaign. CODEPINKers went to Teheran, returning home to share
the very human stories and photos of the Iranians they had met. The
CITIES FOR PEACE WITH IRAN project resulted in a number of cities and
town, among them Oakland & Sebastopol, CA passing resolutions against
war with Iran.
CODEPINK traveled to Vicenza, Italy to support local women in their
struggle to halt construction of a proposed US military base there.
In turn, we invited them to DC to pressure Congress to stop the base.
We also recently traveled to Pakistan to support an ongoing presence
of US human rights observers until the scheduled elections in January.
CODEPINK organized summer activist training camps at our DC house.
Over 200 CODEPINKers have come to DC to be in action in the Halls of
Congress, and our DC house has been the subject of dozens of articles,
news broadcasts and documentaries around the world.
Wherever Hillary appeared, CODEPINK was there, pink signs raised high
demanding she “Lead Us Out of Iraq Now!” Just days after her
announcement to run for President, she changed her position on the war
and voted against further funding. We have moved public opinion, and
the presidential candidates feel the intense anti-war sentiment every
day on the campaign trail.
We expanded our online presence to social networking sites and produced
two videos for YouTube: Toy Soldier and Whipping Congress into Shape.
When CODEPINKers were turned away at the Canadian border because they
had arrest records for nonviolent peace activities, we collected and
delivered 15,000 signatures to Canadian consulates across the country
demanding a reversal of this absurd policy of barring peacemakers.
We brought a powerful pink presence to the No War No Warming and Step
It Up Campaigns, combining our commitments to peace and to the environment.
President Bush denounced CODEPINK at the National Heritage Foundation
in November, confirming our transition from “a focus group”
that he could ignore to a national pain in his royal neck. We were also
accused of “running congress” by Press Secretary Perino. We
wish!
In the coming year, CODEPINK will continue to push Congress to not
just do what is feasible but what is right. We will help tell the stories
of women and mothers from around the world who suffer from violence
and war; we will launch a call for tax resistance as civil disobedience;
we will join Eve Ensler in New Orleans to celebrate V-Day’s 10th
Anniversary; we will support the courageous women who have left the
military to speak out against the war; we will keep building a strong
women-initiated peace movement throughout the U.S. and beyond, and we
will continue to create bold, outrageous and unreasonable actions rooted
in our deep love for humanity and the knowledge that peace is possible.
From Corvallis, OR to Louisville, KY, our voices for peace are powerful!
