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NH Peace Action During Corona

The terrible Covid-19 pandemic has certainly affected our work at NH Peace Action, as it has affected everything else in America and the whole world, but it has not slowed us down much.  Our staff has taken the right steps, we believe, to stay safe, and they only come into the office now and then to do what has to be done there.  We cannot have many face-to-face meetings, of course, and we are no longer going into classrooms or churches to give talks; nor will we be organizing rallies at the State House for quite a while yet.

            But it is surprising how much you can do on-line.  We have met with dozens of groups with Zoom or Skype, talked with the staff of all four of our Senators and Representatives, co-sponsored streamed events with large audiences, and continued to hold our board and committee meetings with scarcely a glitch.  We are actively planning events for the rest of the year—“real” events if the virus recedes, virtual events (but really just as real) if it does not.  And we are in the midst of a strategic review with the help of outside experts.

            On May 23 we will hold our Annual Meeting online, on August 7 we will be commemorating the seventy-fifth anniversary of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings, with Nagasaki survivor Masako Wada.  On October 2 we will have our 38th annual event and fall fundraiser, whether in person or remotely.  Please take note of these, and check back onto this site often.  If you have not signed up for our regular email notices, it’s easy to do on this site.

            One thing it is not so easy to do during the crisis is raise the funds we need to keep going at full speed.  Our generous supporters have also been generous in donating to many other groups and services that desperately need help, and many of our supporters have taken pay cuts or seen their investments shrink.  We sympathize entirely with their shift in priorities.  For a little while we can draw on our modest bank account, and we have received something from the federal Paycheck Protection Program to tide us over for a couple of months.  But soon we may face cutbacks in our work.  If you can possibly contribute something to us, we will thank you for your extraordinary help.

            After all, the corona virus has everything to do with war and peace and the military budget.  The US Army and Navy did not protect us from the virus; if anything they provided breeding grounds for it, as the ordeal on the aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt, for example, reminded us.  Had we spent a little less money on pointless and wasteful programs like the F-35 combat aircraft or the Trident D-5 missile, and a little more on respirators, virus tests, and a decent healthcare system, we would have saved a lot of American lives—which is supposed to be the purpose of the armed forces.  Our work is always important, no matter what else demands our attention.

New Hampshire Peace Action