2015 marks the 70th anniversary of the United States atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It also marks 45 years since the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) entered into force, obligating all States parties to undertake good faith negotiations for the elimination of nuclear weapons. Instead, the world’s nuclear-armed nations are spending over $100 billion per year to maintain and modernize their nuclear arsenals. The danger of wars among nuclear-armed States is growing, and with it the threat of unimaginable death and suffering. From April 27 – May 22, 2015 representatives of the 189 members of the NPT, including the original nuclear-armed States (the U.S., Russia, the U.K, France, and China) will come together at the United Nations in New York City to review the Treaty’s operation. The recent Vienna Conference on the Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons set up the potential for a direct challenge to the nuclear- armed States: States not possessing nuclear weapons will be demanding a new diplomatic process to achieve nuclear disarmament. It is long past time for the world’s governments to implement the global obligation to achieve a nuclear-weapon-free world. We are at a crucial juncture, a time when the unresolved tensions of a deeply inequitable society, great power ambitions, and the destructive effects of an unsustainable economic system are exploding into overlapping crises. This petition campaign is part of the Peace & Planet Mobilization for a Nuclear-Free, Peaceful, Just and Sustainable World. In a demonstration of their determination to build a fair, democratic, ecologically sustainable, and peaceful future, people will gather in New York City and around the world for international days of action April 24 – 26, 2015.

Whether it's a counterterrorism-unit build up or mobile units for neighborhood “safety” and disorder control, New Yorkers say NO to Department of Homeland Security-funded NYPD militarization! The War Resisters League's campaign, "Demilitarize Health and Security," condemns the unveiling of a DHS-funded 900-officer counterterrorism and special operations overhaul by New York Police Commissioner Bill Bratton. According to Bratton, in amendments to his original statements on January 29th, both the 350-member counterterrorist auxiliary unit - equipped with "long rifles and machine guns" designed for "disorder control and counterterrorism protection capabilities" - and the 500-officer special-operations unit Strategic Response Group (SRG) mandated to monitor protests and “sudden rises in crime” will be rolled out in the Summer of 2015. Bratton’s conflation of “terrorism issues, crime issues and demonstrations issues” will only further criminalize our communities, violate our right to protest, and curtail our ability to survive and thrive. We demand an end to the build up of Bratton’s army because militarization is a threat to our safety! We urge Mayor de Blasio to stand with New Yorkers and call for the defunding of Bratton’s two newly proposed units. Together, we can create real solutions for community safety and wellness without tanks and assault rifles!

Americans, who mostly support these two bills, need assurance from our Congress members that the future is toward care of the Earth, its people and life itself. The 2020 Democratic Party Platform ahead of Nov. 3rd will be greatly enhanced in its power if the House takes action now on these two sweeping policy programs.

We have minimum wage laws that most businesses can't get away with violating. But the government can, and does. They will say "Because benefits aren't wages". But that is dodging the question of WHY we have minimum wage laws: humaneness, simple morality. We have laws protecting animals. Humans need to be protected too! The fact that so many people receive unconscionably low benefits, IF THEY GET THEM AT ALL!- (Another problem!)- - is a significant factor creating poverty, homelessness, illness, and an EPIDEMIC OF SUICIDES. NEITHER PARTY HAS CARED TO ADDRESS THIS FOR DECADES! SHAME ON B O T H PARTIES! They will say "We can't afford it!" But we can always afford bogus wars, and rich people pay ZERO tax for Social Security on income above $128,400, as of 2018! Stop the Wars, and make the rich pay their fair share! It is up to the American people to hold "our representatives" ' feet to the fire, or REPLACE THEM!

This is the dirty secret that nobody in politics wants to talk about that needs to be talked about and debated in the presidential debates, because this is what has caused the decline and fall of the USA as a nation, and if it is not redressed there is no economic solution to the economic collapse of the USA in 2008 that has continued from 2008 to the present as a decline and fall sequence of the USA as a nation.

* WIN/Gallup International’s annual global End of Year survey for 2013, among others, shows that the US is considered to be the greatest threat to peace in the world. We agree, and it's no surprise Gallup did not ask the question in its End of Year survey for 2014. * A 2012 study by Stanford and New York universities' law schools, and numerous reports in the UK's Guardian and Telegraph, The Atlantic, New York Times and others indicate that drone attacks create more terrorists than they kill, due to the high number of civilian casualties. We will never actually know how many civilians are casualties because the US government insists that all male victims of military age are "militants" or "terrorists" unless there is irrefutable posthumous evidence they are not. Even the US captured organization, Human Rights Watch (HRW), and the Council on Foreign Relations question the practice. * HRW says that Saudi-led airstrikes in Yemen appeared to violate international humanitarian law and could constitute war crimes with which the US is complicit. * Numerous reports in the UK's Guardian, New York Times, Der Spiegel and even the Washington Post confirm the CIA has been spending about $1 billion/year since 2012 helping the Saudis and Qatar arm Syrian rebels, with little regard for vetting as confirmed by the latest fiasco with US trained "rebels" turning arms over to al-Nusra immediately on entering Syria, then bragging that they had "fooled" the US. Seymour Hersh reported on the "ratline" of captured Libyan arms from Benghazi through Turkey to Syria. * The US can not afford the programs for the 99% that Bernie proposes as long as it is wasting trillions of dollars on the military and foreign interventions, and Bernie's "political revolution" needs to make this clear to poorly informed US voters. * Last, but most importantly, you don't protect the human rights of women, children and civilian men by killing hundreds of thousands of them and forcing them to flee their countries.