What makes World BEYOND War’s work unique is our systems-level approach that shines a light on the intersectional impacts of militarism and tackles the very institution of war itself
Dear John,
Before I joined World BEYOND War, I didn’t know much about the extent of the military-industrial complex. It’s a funny thing that the biggest institutional consumer of petroleum on the planet & the 3rd biggest polluter of U.S. waterways — the U.S. military — is so little discussed. It’s almost so big that it’s hidden — the metaphoric “elephant in the room.”
I grew up in a small organic food store owned and operated by my parents in Pittsburgh, PA. Growing up, I wasn’t exposed much to activism, but through my parents’ store, I learned about the environmental impacts of our choices and our broken food system. I knew the problems we were facing as a species and as a planet required systems-level thinking and policy change, but I didn’t know about the power of organizing yet.
After college, I took a job with Food & Water Watch as New York Organizer and became immersed in the world of community organizing, legislative advocacy, and coalition building. I was awakened to the efficacy of using our people power — our strength in numbers — to put strategic pressure on key decision-makers to enact the change that we want to see, to put people and the planet before profit.
But war was never talked about — despite its role as a leading contributor to climate chaos.
Meanwhile, I moved out of New York City to live Upstate on a farm. I had realized that as I was protesting a flawed system that values profit over people and the planet, I was trapped in the very things that I opposed. I developed my 2-pronged approach which combines 1) policy advocacy through grassroots organizing, using tactics from petitions to rallying to direct action, with 2) lifestyle changes at the individual and community level, like gardening and reducing fossil fuel consumption, to lower your carbon footprint and reduce dependency on multinational corporations. This second prong is in itself a means of civilian based defense, of withdrawing our cooperation from the system as we become more self-sufficient individually and communally.
We are striving to live out this 2-pronged approach at Unadilla Community Farm, an off-grid organic farm and non-profit permaculture education center in New York State. We create a space for the teaching and practice of sustainable skills, such as organic farming, plant-based cooking, natural building, and off-grid solar energy production, alongside community organizing.
Working at World BEYOND War offers me the chance to work remotely while living off-grid on the farm, to live out the 2-pronged approach. I see my farming and anti-war activism as intimately interconnected to expose the impact of militarism on the environment and teach practical, sustainable skills like organic farming and natural building, to withdraw our cooperation from the military-industrial complex.
Through our distributed organizing model, our chapters and affiliates take the lead by working on strategic issues of importance to their local communities, such as divesting their cities from weapons or shutting down a military base in their community. As a global network across 192 countries, we can use our international reach to amplify local issues and facilitate strategizing among activists around the world, contextualizing local campaigns within the broader call for war abolition.
Should giant war-profiteering corporations decide what emails you don't want to read? We don't think so either. So, please stop our emails from going into "junk" or "spam" by "white listing," marking as "safe," or filtering to "never send to spam."
World BEYOND War | 513 E Main St #1484 | Charlottesville, VA 22902 USA
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