404 Glen Iris Drive, the home of Eloise Pitman, recently deceased. Eloise's family, still in mourning, could be evicted any time

On Tuesday, December 6, 2011, Occupy Atlanta set up encampments on the lawns of two metro Atlanta homes.  Both families have complex differences in their hardships, but they also share a common problem, a problem that is sadly facing millions of Americans.

Eloise Pittman and Brigitte Walker are both being foreclosed on and face eviction this winter. The irresponsible practices of the big banks have put millions of homes at risk and are holding America’s economy hostage.

Eloise Pittman bought her home at 404 Glen Iris Dr in 1953. After working in the education system for years, she finally settled in to a life of retirement. At 62 years old, Eloise heard her church needed help. Being a woman of faith, she went to the bank to see if she could take out a loan and was approved for a $312,000 loan. This loan would have cost her a million dollars to repay. As a senior living on a fixed income she never should have been offered this loan in the first place. The bank gave her this predatory loan knowing she wouldn’t be able to pay it back.

Eloise Pittman passed away last week.  Her family is now left with a mountain of debt, and is trying to save a home that’s been in their family for over 50 years. Chase bank has been unwilling to find a solution that keeps them in their home.

Brigitte Walker is a decorated Iraq War veteran. She entered the army right out of high school and served for 21 years. In 2007 she was medically discharged. As a result she is now living on a fixed income and struggling to find work.  Now she is facing eviction.  After putting her life on the line for her country, it’s time that someone step up to defend her from this injustice.

Both mortgages are owned by Chase bank. Today, we appeal to you for help. Can you take the time to email, call, and fax the CEO of Chase Bank with one simple demand; Make the mortgages for wounded Iraq veteran Brigitte Walker(2706 South Hills, Riverdale Ga) and recently deceased Elosie Pittman(404 Glen Iris Dr., Atlanta Ga) work. Keep both families in their homes!

Contact Chase Bank Chairman and CEO Jamie Dimon:
Fax- 212-270-1121
Email- Jamie.dimon@jpmchase.com
Phone- 212-270-1111

All this action takes is the commitment to send a few messages, the commitment of a few minutes of your time. That commitment could help keep two families in their homes for the winter and send a message to the big banks that we will not let them make Americans pay the price for their irresponsible practices. We are the 99%, and we out number bank executives.

Check out this 30-second spotl, aired during the Republican debates. The American Security Project is a nonpartisan, non-profit think tank that is supported by a bipartisan Board of Directors as well as retired national security officials.

Learn more about us at www.AmericanSecurityProject.org.

Please consider writing a letter to the editor on the importance of cutting the nuclear weapons budget and stop the United States from pouring over $700 billion tax dollars on nuclear weapons over the next ten years. Use the talking points below as a guide, or create your own! Click here for directions on how to send a letter to the Atlanta Journal Constitution. Check out National WAND Public Policy Director, Kathy Crandall Robinson's recent Op/Ed in The Hill on the nuclear weapons budget or Daryl Kimbal of the Arms Control Association's piece "Disarmament and the Defecit" for great examples.

• Over 60 percent of the U.S. Energy Department’s budget goes to nuclear weapons related spending.
•  Two decades after the end of the Cold War, the United States is projected to spend an extraordinarily large amount of money maintaining the most sophisticated arsenal in the world consisting of approximately 5,000 largely redundant nuclear weapons.
• Estimates are that over the next decade nuclear weapons spending will add up to about $700 billion.
• Given the nation’s fiscal circumstances, it is time for the bloated nuclear weapons budget to receive serious scrutiny.
• A $700 billion investment is not enhancing America’s national security for the 21st century
• Nuclear submarines, for instance, don’t do much to help thwart terrorism or resolve where we go next with Afghanistan.
• Nuclear weapons have been of declining strategic relevance since President Ronald Reagan’s second term.
• Money spent on nuclear weapons siphons funds away from other, more significant national security investments.
• Maintaining this mega-sized U.S. nuclear arsenal actually undermines efforts to control the inherent risks of nuclear weapons. (i.e.Nuclear weapons and materials are at risk of theft or accident.)
• U.S. nuclear weapons production generates hazards and waste impacting workers, communities and the environment.
• It’s harder to garner world support to isolate and control countries like Pakistan, Iran and North Korea, when we are spending to advance a production capacity to keep forever an overkill nuclear arsenal.

As an organization founded on redirecting excessive military spending toward unmet human and environmental needs, who fights the nuclear corporate greed that forces taxpayers and ratepayers to finance nuclear energy they're lied to about how nuclear power as ‘clean, green and safe’ in order to further corporate financial interests, Georgia WAND supports the Occupy Wall-Street movement, especially Occupy Atlanta, and stands with those fighting for economic justice

Occupy Atlanta needs community support! Here’s what you can do to help:

Show Up

Mayor Kasim Reed has threatened eviction on Monday, October 17. Please support the fight for economic equality by taking a "Stand of Solidarity" Monday, October 17 at 4pm to support the occupiers. The Atlanta North Georgia Labor Council and many other groups from across the city will be their showing support, please join them!

If you can’t ‘occupy’ all the time, show up anytime! Stop by when you can, for as long as you can, to show your support.

General Assembly meetings are held each night at 7pm

March

Join the occupiers and others in the March to Defend the Peachtree-Pine Homeless Shelter. Come show your support and deliver a message to Emory University and other greedy corporate interests that would like to see this property be used to fatten their bellies and wallets, while others starve and die in the cold: We will NOT allow our city to be controlled by a few powerful institutions, we WILL NOT stand for the callus prioritization of wealth over people, WE WILL NOT allow Peachtree and Pine to be shut down. Our community needs a place they can count on and we have a chance to defend that.

Friday, October 14 · 5:00pm - 8:00pm, Rally at 5pm, March starts at 5:30, Troy Davis Park (formerly Woodruff Park) 91 Peachtree Street NE,

Donate

All donations should be delivered to 60 Walton Street NW, Atlanta, GA 30303. They can be dropped off 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Items needed include:
Food
Ponchos
Tarps
Blankets or sleeping bags
Tents
Tables
White boards
Folding chairs
Walkie talkies with 5 miles range

For more information, email contact@occupyatlanta.org

 Advocate

The occupiers are constantly being threatened with eviction by Mayor Kasim Reed and his Chief of Police. Reed has announced that residents of the park have until Monday to leave peacefully. They need our help to flood the Mayor's office with phone calls asking him to let them stay indefinitely like what Mayor Bloomberg has done for Occupy Wall Street. Occupy DC has been given several months as well.

Most importantly, please show up on MONDAY, October 17 and stand with the occupiers, which you can do legally on the sidewalk, as they will likely be faced with police forces attempting to evict them.

The Mayor and his contacts are:

Kasim Reed
Mayor
City of Atlanta
55 Trinity Avenue
Atlanta, Georgia 30303
Tel:  404.330.6100
Fax: 404.658.6893
mayorreed@atlantaga.gov
Office of Chief of Staff, 404.330.6100
Office of Communications, 404.330.6100

City of Atlanta
Office of Communications
55 Trinity Avenue, Suite 2500
Atlanta, Georgia 30303
Tel:  404.330.6004
Fax: 404.658.6893
communications@atlantaga.gov

Sonji Jacobs Dade
Director of Communications
404.330.6558 - Office
404.276.6866 - Cell
sjdade@atlantaga.gov

Reese McCranie
Deputy Director of Communications
404.330.6006 - Office
404.886.2334 - Cell
rmccranie@atlantaga.gov

Jennifer Ogunsola
Media Relations Officer
404.330.6763 - Office
404.886.2963 - Cell
jogunsola@atlantaga.gov

Michael Carswell
Station Manager
404.330.6086 - office
mcarswell@atlantaga.gov

Tkeban Jahannes
E-Communications Manager
404.330.6868
tjahannes@atlantaga.gov

Georgia has weighed in on this. We're glad to report Congressman John Lewis and Congressman Hank Johnson have already signed on! Please call and thank them or call any of the 12 members of the Super Committee and ask them to freeze the nukes and fund the future.

Georgia WAND, National WAND and the Alliance for Nuclear Accountability, among other organizations have also signed on.

Markey, Military Leaders, Health and Nonproliferation Advocates Call for Cuts to U.S. Nuclear Budget

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Currently, America is the financial caretaker for 5,000 nuclear warheads. The U.S. will spend an estimated $700 billion on nuclear weapons and related programs over the next ten years. These funds are a drain on our budget and a disservice to the next generation of Americans.

On Tuesday, October 11 Lt. General Robert G. Gard, one of the nation’s leading experts on nuclear nonproliferation and national security issues, along with leading health, seniors and nuclear nonproliferation advocates will join Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), to call on the congressional Super Committee to cut hundreds of billions from the U.S. nuclear weapons budget before targeting programs for seniors, families and the sick.

“We can save hundreds of billions of dollars by restructuring the U.S. nuclear program for the 21st century,” said Rep. Markey. “We can no longer afford to rob the future to pay for unneeded weapons of the past. Now is the time to reset our priorities and invest in the people and programs to get America back on track.”

WHAT: Press conference calling on Super Committee to make cuts from the U.S. nuclear weapons budget over the next decade

WHO: Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), Ranking Member of the Natural Resources Committee and senior member of the Energy and Commerce Committee

·        Lt. General Robert G. Gard Jr. (USA, ret.), Chairman of the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation

·        Joe Cirincione, President, Ploughshares Fund

·        Ron Pollack, Executive Director, Families USA

WHEN: Tuesday, October 11, 2011, noon

WHERE: House Triangle, U.S. Capitol, Washington, DC

Friday, October 7, 10 am

At 10 a.m., Georgia WAND, along with other anti-war activists and groups, will host a press conference and rally on the corner of Auburn Ave. & Peachtree St. Speakers will discuss the human, environmental, and financial cost of war in general, focusing specifically on the impact of the Afghanistan War. For anyone who is planning to attend our weekly Stand For Peace vigil, we encourage you to come out a little early and support this special event in Woodruff Park. Let’s generate some press coverage with our numbers and our continued dedication to end this war!

Stick around all day for a peace camp in the park marking the 10^th year of War with Afghanistan. The event lasts from 8am-8pm and the park will be set up with tents, tables, chairs and banners. Activities to include drum circles, street theater performances, speakers, community banner painting, and more! This is the final event in a series of programming entitled “10 Years Too Long,” calling for an end to U.S.-led occupation of Afghanistan.

Georgia WAND will lead a workshop on federal budget priorities, focusing on the military budget at 1pm and Georgia WAND member Bob Farquhar will present a workshop on nuclear weapons at 1:30 pm. A rally from 4-6 pm will end the festivities.

Georgia WAND is pleased to report the renewal of New START has facilitated positive outcomes, not the least of which is a growing respect between the United States and the Russian Federation as they resume a formal sharing of information on nuclear weapons activities.  According to current administration officials, over 1,300 reports have been filed by both the United States and the Russian Federation concerning ANY and ALL activity in regards to nuclear weapons.  In addition, the Russians have conducted eight on-site inspections of U.S. nuclear weapons facilities and the United States has conducted nine such sessions in Russia.  This sharing of information is what New START promised, was what Johnny Isakson stressed was critically important, and, so far, is what has regularly and easily taken place.

In mid-September fifteen Georgia WAND activists and six Georgia state legislators will go to Washington for the National WAND Conference.  While there, they will take to Capitol Hill to meet with their Senators and Representatives who sit on powerful energy and water committees, appropriations committees, and, perhaps, the Super Committee of 12.

As a part of our PEACE in ACTION work, the Georgia WAND team will continue to advocate for an end to war in Iraq and Afghanistan and a world free of nuclear weapons.  Georgia WAND will also begin a two-track approach of calling for the defunding of unnecessary weapons systems and begin early discussions with our Senators about the eventual ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty that the United States signed 15 years ago on September 24, 1996 but has not yet ratified with the necessary two-thirds vote of the United States Senate.

We hope to have a full Report Back from the Hill with interested members and friends on the week of September 25.

-Bobbie

Following the peace demonstration at noon, Courtney Hanson began a series of speeches and testimonies against the war by reflecting on some of the human costs war. She was followed by Bobbie Paul, Executive Director of Georgia WAND, Alice Lovelace, American Friends Service Committee, Glory Kilanko, Women Watch Afrika, Anne Mauney, Georgia Peace and Justice Coalition, and Betsey Miklethun, Atlanta Grandmothers for Peace. Georgia WAND would like to thank everyone who helped make the ninth anniversary of Stand for Peace an impactful and successful event.

The group of Afghan women leaders have been chosen for an intensive, 5-week program, sponsored by the Department of State and centered around women's empowerment and leadership. After three weeks at the  University of Arkansas, where they attended presentations and went on site visits to local women’s organizations and women in government, the group will do a study tour of the South, culminating with four days in Washington D.C.

The young women are interested in learning more about women’s leadership organizations and hearing about teh important work that Georgia WAND. They’ll also present their own plans as agents of change for Afghanistan. They have each created a poster with their new vision for Afghanistan to share with us!

Please take advantage of this wonderful opportunity and attend tonight 6pm at the Georgia WAND office, 250 Georgia Avenue, Suite 202. Call the office 404.524.5999 or email courtney@wand.org for more information.

An underwater nuclear explosion

On Thursday, August  18^th at 1:00 p.m., Georgia WAND’s Executive Director Bobbie Paul will lead a conference call to inform and organize the public around The Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), a global ban on all nuclear weapons explosions on the earth’s surface, underwater and underground. Banning these test explosions drastically reduces any chances of developing new nuclear weapons technologies and programs.

The conference call, coordinated by Campaign for a Nuclear Weapons Free World, is entitled “Training: Grasstops Organizing for the CTBT.” The focus of the conversation will be training the public on the strategy behind Campaign for a Nuclear Weapons Free World’s statewide letter effort, as well as tips for building an impressive list of signers. Bobbie Paul, whose community organizing played an essential role in bringing Sen. Isakson on board with the New START Treaty, will share tips and best practices.

To get call info, RSVP to kheald@nuclearweaponsfree.org

Though the United States was the first country to sign the CTBT in 1996, it has since failed to ratify the treaty. The CTBT has now been signed by 182 nations and ratified by 153 including Russia and U.S. allies. The CTBT will not go into effect, however, until it is ratified by nine additional specific countries including the United States, China, India and Indonesia. U.S. ratification would spur these key counties to ratify and would reinforce the global taboo against nuclear testing (quoted from WAND.org).

To learn more about CTBT, click here to read about ongoing CTBT initiatives.