We will deliver this petition to Bernie's office in DC and Burlington on October 4! Please only sign if you are a Vermont constituent!
Dear Senator Sanders:
As residents of Vermont and constituents who have supported you for years, we urge you to take the lead in the Senate in calling for a ceasefire and peace talks in Ukraine, not more weapons to escalate the war.
We thank you for your recent Guardian OpEd (8/21/23) entitled, “The US and China must unite to fight the climate crisis, not each other” and we applaud your efforts to avert a disastrous war with China.
We appreciate your stand before the Russian invasion, when you said on the Senate floor on February 4, 2022: “We must do everything possible to achieve a realistic and mutually agreeable resolution, one that is acceptable to Ukraine, Russia, the United States, and our European allies. That approach is not weakness; it is not appeasement. Bringing people together to resolve conflicts without war is strength, and it is the right thing to do.”
We therefore wonder why, once the war started, you have refused to take the same position of calling for negotiations. We wonder why you, the most ardent defender of poor and working class people in this country, agree to spend over $114 billion of our tax dollars to fund this war–and refuse to oppose Biden’s new request for $24 billion more. We wonder why you, someone who truly understands the depth of this climate crisis, support a war that could lead to a nuclear winter that would destroy life on this planet.
In keeping with your previous beliefs, we urge you to publicly support a mutual ceasefire and peace negotiations without preconditions to end the Russia-Ukraine-NATO war. Additionally, we urge you to vote against more weapons that will only worsen the suffering and risk a wider war between nuclear powers.
The answer is not more cluster bombs, shells with depleted uranium or nuclear-capable F-16 fighter jets but diplomacy that addresses the security needs of all stakeholders. In your Guardian OpEd on the eve of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, you wisely wrote, “... we must never forget the horrors that a war in the region would cause and must work hard to achieve a realistic and mutually agreeable resolution.”
Bernie, we are your anti-war base, those inspired by your commitment to a more peaceful and just world. Now more than ever, we need you to take to the floor of the Senate to build a bi-partisan consensus for a mutual ceasefire and urgent diplomacy and to denounce further military spending to fuel this unwinnable war.
In peace,