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The People WILL Take Back the Economy and End U.S. Wars
October will mark ten years of U.S. war in Afghanistan - ten years of your taxes paying for war. Congress and the President, the same people who keep us at war, bailed out the banks and Wall Street now want to cut services and programs our communities need. They want to give tax cuts to the rich and balance federal and local budgets on the backs of the poor. We say no! UFPJ needs your support.
WASHINGTON
October will mark ten years of U.S. war in Afghanistan - ten years of your taxes paying for war. Congress and the President, the same people who keep us at war, bailed out the banks and Wall Street now want to cut services and programs our communities need. They want to give tax cuts to the rich and balance federal and local budgets on the backs of the poor. We say no! UFPJ needs your support.
From Wisconsin to Wall Street people are mobilizing for economic justice. On May 12, thousands of people, from all walks of life, will make their demands loud and clear in New York City at Wall Street the heart of the financial world . Help UFPJ make this teach-in and protest a huge success.
May 4th: Organizing Meeting With City Wide Allies, Location: SEIU Local 32BJ 101 6th Avenue @ 6:30 pm. Please attend to get the latest information.
May 12: Meet Up, Teach In, Take Back Our City
4:00 pm Orientation at Assembly site: Peace groups will assemble at the Vietnam Memorial, 55 Water Street
* March to Wall Street * Teach Ins Begin * Closing Assembly
Volunteer to help. We need TEACHERS and ORGANIZERS! Follow this link to learn more!
UFPJ Says No to War! No to Greed!
With your help we WILL redirect spending from war to human needs. We WILL make the banks and the millionaires pay their fair share.
For more information call 212 868-5545.
Meet up, Teach-in and Fight Back!
Initiating groups: Alliance for Quality Education, ACT UP/NY, Alliance for Quality Education, Center for Children Initiatives, Center for Working Families, Citizen Action NY, Coalition for Educational,call Justice, Coalition for the Homeless, Code Pink NYC, Common Cause/NY, Communications Workers of America District 1, Communications Workers of America Local 1104, Communications, Workers of America Local 1180, Community Voices Heard, CUNY Mobilization Network, Emergency Coalition to Save Child Care, Good Old Lower East Side, Granny Peace Brigade, Grassroots Education Movement, Greater NYC for Change, Housing Works, Human Services Council, Hunger Action Network of NYS, Judson Memorial Church, Make the Road NY, National People's Action, Neighborhood Economic Development Advocacy Project, Neighborhood Family Services Coalition, Neighbors Helping Neighbors, Neighbors Together, New Deal for NY, New York Charter Parents, Association , New York City Parents Union, New York Communities for Change, NW Bronx Community Clergy Coalition, NY Jobs with Justice, NYers Against Budget Cuts, Organization for a Free Society, Peace Action NYS, Picture the Homeless, Professional Staff Congress, Queerocracy, Right to the City Alliance, SEIU Local 32BJ, SEIU 1199 United Healthcare Workers East, Strong, Economy for All Coalition, Teachers Unite, The New York City Coalition Against Hunger, Transport Workers Union Local 100, United Federation of Teachers, United For Peace and Justice, United, Students Against Sweatshops, Urban Youth Collaborative, VOCAL-NY, War Resisters League, Who Cares? I Do. Campaign, Working Families Party, YaYa Network
United for Peace and Justice was founded, in 2003, to build a coalition of local and national peace and justice organizations to prevent the War on Iraq. The conflicts raging around the world today make it clear that the need to work for peace remains more important than ever. That is why UFPJ reorganized, in 2008, as a network and now operates with an all-volunteer Coordinating Committee, supported by one part-time staff member who assists with UFPJ action alerts, campaigns, and organizing. They meet weekly to manage the ongoing communication and administrative requirements of the network.
LATEST NEWS
‘A Fresh Start’: Mamdani Revokes Slate of Adams Executive Orders
Among them were orders that attacked critics of Israel, enabled ICE deportations, and promoted cryptocurrency.
Jan 02, 2026
In one of his first acts as New York City mayor, Zohran Mamdani has revoked several highly controversial executive orders signed by his predecessor, Eric Adams. Among them were a pair of orders that attacked critics of Israel and others that enabled ICE deportations and promoted cryptocurrencies.
They were part of a slate of nine orders Mamdani revoked on Thursday, all of which were issued by the former mayor after he was hit with corruption charges by the Department of Justice under former President Joe Biden on September 26, 2024—charges that the Trump administration later dropped as part of an apparent deal for Adams to cooperate with its mass deportation efforts.
Mamdani told the New York Daily News that the orders Adams signed after this date went "against the interests of working-class people and what they need from their mayor."
Two of Adams' revoked orders required the city to adopt a stance of unwavering support for Israel as it faced mounting criticism over its genocidal war in Gaza.
One order, signed in June 2025, officially recognized the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism, which has been widely criticized, including by Jewish scholars, for conflating many criticisms of Israel with bigotry against Jewish people.
As the New York Times notes, the IHRA "includes 11 examples intended to illustrate antisemitism, seven of which include or relate in some way to criticism of Israel."
Hadas Binyamini, a spokesperson for the New York-based group Jews for Racial and Economic Justice, which supported Mamdani, said at the time that the order was "deeply dangerous" and would "inflict punitive measures against New Yorkers speaking out and organizing against Israeli state violence."
The other order, which Adams signed last month after Mamdani was elected, barred city agencies from boycotting or divesting from Israel.
Mamdani has expressed support for the use of economic leverage against what he, and many human rights groups, have said is an "apartheid" system in Israel that subjects Palestinians and other non-Jewish ethnic groups to discriminatory policies and human rights violations.
The revocation of these two orders expectedly drew the ire of conservative Jewish leaders, and even Israel's foreign ministry, who have decried Mamdani, New York's first Muslim mayor, as an antisemite.
However, Mamdani has repeatedly emphasized his commitment to protecting the more than 1 million Jewish New Yorkers.
In a separate executive order, he said the Mayor's Office to Combat Antisemitism, which Adams also established earlier this year, would remain open and that it "shall identify and develop efforts to eliminate antisemitism and anti-Jewish hate crime using the existing resources of the City of New York."
During a news conference Thursday, Mamdani said combating antisemitism "is an issue that we take very seriously, and as part of the commitment that we've made to Jewish New Yorkers, to not only protect them, but to celebrate and cherish them."
Donna Lieberman, the executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, described both orders as "last-ditch attempts to suppress viewpoints that the mayor and his benefactors disagreed with." She said it is "no surprise and it is good news that our new mayor has revoked them.”
Mamdani also said he would seek to modify an executive order directing the New York Police Department to restrict protests outside houses of worship, which Adams signed in November after pro-Palestine groups staged a demonstration outside a synagogue that hosted an event that recruited Jewish Americans to settle in the illegally occupied West Bank.
A spokesperson for Mamdani, then the mayor-elect, said he "believes every New Yorker should be free to enter a house of worship without intimidation, and that these sacred spaces should not be used to promote activities in violation of international law.” He has not yet specified what changes he seeks to make to Adams' order.
Mamdani also revoked an order that allowed Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents to operate at New York's notorious Rikers Island prison, which he criticized as part of Adams' efforts to kowtow to Trump in exchange for a legal reprieve.
Murad Awawdeh, the president and CEO of the New York Immigration Coalition, said the order, which was blocked by the New York state Supreme Court in September, put "thousands of New Yorkers" at risk of "detention and deportation because they were sent to Rikers after being simply accused—not convicted—of a crime."
Mamdani also revoked an October order by Adams, who described himself as the "Bitcoin Mayor," that established a new cryptocurrency office to bring in industry leaders to advise city officials to help turn New York into "the crypto capital of the world.”
Adams had previously promoted the idea of using crypto to back New York's municipal bonds, which a top Mamdani ally, then-Comptroller Brad Lander, said was "not sufficiently stable to finance our city’s infrastructure, affordable housing, or schools."
Mamdani also halted Adams' plans to ban the city's horse carriage industry pending discussion with the carriage drivers' union, though the new mayor says he also wants to ban the practice.
Mamdani's office said the orders were meant to be a "fresh start for the incoming administration" and that the new mayor means to "reissue executive orders that the administration feels are central to delivering continued service, excellence, and value-driven leadership."
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'New Year's Eve Massacre': Trump Administration Makes Deep Cuts at FEMA as Climate Crisis Accelerates
A former FEMA official said that the agency "can't do disaster response and recovery without" the employees being terminated by the Trump administration.
Jan 02, 2026
The Trump administration this week made abrupt cuts to the top federal disaster response agency, even as US communities face increased threats from natural disasters caused by the global climate crisis.
Independent journalist Marisa Kabas reported on Wednesday that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) "has begun issuing termination notices" to staff at the agency's Cadre of On-Call Response and Recovery (CORE) that are effective as of January 2.
A FEMA staffer who spoke with Kabas described the terminations as "The New Year's Eve Massacre," and explained that "the driving force behind all CORE employees is supporting and enacting the mission of preparing for, responding to, and recovering from disasters."
A Thursday report from CNN added some additional details to Kabas' reporting, including that the decision to issue the layoffs was made by Acting Administrator Karen Evans, who was appointed to the role after former Acting Administrator David Richardson resigned in November.
One former FEMA official bluntly told CNN that the agency "can't do disaster response and recovery without CORE employees" that are being laid off by the administration.
The former FEMA official added that regional agency offices throughout the US "are almost entirely CORE staff, so the first FEMA people who are usually onsite won’t be there," which will mean that "states are on their own" when it comes to disaster response.
CNN also reported that there is anxiety among remaining FEMA staffers that these cuts could just be the start "of a larger effort" by Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem "to shrink FEMA, potentially axing thousands of workers in the coming months who deploy during hurricanes, wildfires and other national emergencies."
President Donald Trump has been targeting FEMA for potential termination for nearly a year now, and he said shortly after being inaugurated last January that a goal in his second term would be "fundamentally reforming and overhauling FEMA or maybe getting rid of FEMA," while emphasizing that individual states should bear the cost of responding to natural disasters.
“I think, frankly, FEMA’s not good,” the president said. “I think when you have a problem like this, I think you want to go, and whether it’s a Democrat or Republican governor, you want to use your state to fix it and not waste time calling FEMA.”
The Trump administration's deep cuts to FEMA come as the intensity of natural disasters is only projected to increase thanks to climate change.
According to a report published on Tuesday by the Yale School of the Environment, 2025 was the second hottest on record and was only surpassed by the previous year.
"The last three years have been, by a wide margin, the hottest ever recorded," stressed the report. "Each of the last three years has measured more than 1.5°C warmer than preindustrial times, putting the world at least temporarily in breach of an international goal to limit warming below that level."
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Trump Says US ‘Locked and Loaded’ in Latest Threat of War With Iran
"Trump should know that American interference in this issue is equivalent to chaos in the entire region and will destroy America’s interests," responded one top Iranian official.
Jan 02, 2026
US President Donald Trump on Friday issued his latest threat to attack Iran militarily, warning in a social media post that the United States is "ready to go" if Tehran intensifies its crackdown on ongoing street protests.
"If Iran shots [sic] and violently kills peaceful protesters, which is their custom, the United States of America will come to their rescue," Trump wrote on Truth Social. "We are locked and loaded."
Ali Larijani, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, quickly hit back, writing on X that "Trump should know that American interference in this issue is equivalent to chaos in the entire region and will destroy America’s interests."
Trump's post came days after the president suggested, following a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, that he would support another round of military strikes against Iran after greenlighting the bombing of Iranian nuclear facilities last year.
Jamal Abdi, president of the National Iranian American Council (NIAC), said in response to Trump's meeting with Netanyahu that the Israeli prime minister "came to the US with the goal of moving the goalposts for military action on Iran."
"Trump’s comments are a dangerous signal the president may have taken the bait," Abdi warned. "The US should not be involved in joining, supporting, or enabling another war on Iran for Israel. The president should instead be pursuing a diplomatic resolution to take war with Iran off the table for Americans, not continuing to follow Netanyahu into a quagmire."
"President Trump likely views his own reckless comments as diplomatic posturing to pressure Iran to the table," Abdi added. "But such rhetoric risks seriously backfiring and is more likely to remove diplomatic off-ramps, which also serves Netanyahu’s agenda — not America’s."
"A familiar playbook is unfolding: Israeli government officials and their allies are cynically co-opting the legitimate grievances of ordinary Iranians to advance their own agenda of militarism and outside-led regime change."
The protests in Iran began last weekend in response to deteriorating economic conditions, specifically the collapse of the nation's currency. Analyst Sina Toossi noted on his Substack Dissident Foreign Policy that the demonstrations, which now include students, were "sparked by a group of mobile phone and technology merchants in Tehran going on strike."
"From there, the protests spilled into surrounding streets of the capital and, over subsequent days, into other cities across the country," Toossi wrote. "As they spread, economic grievances increasingly mixed with overt anti-government slogans, as seen in past protest movements."
Reports indicate that several protesters have been killed by Iranian security forces.
NIAC's Etan Mabourakh and Ehsan Zahedani wrote Wednesday that "as protests erupt across Iran in response to economic collapse and broken promises of reform, a familiar playbook is unfolding: Israeli government officials and their allies are cynically co-opting the legitimate grievances of ordinary Iranians to advance their own agenda of militarism and outside-led regime change."
"The Iranian people’s struggle for dignity, economic justice, and freedom is their own," they added. "It deserves self-aware solidarity from the diaspora that asserts their self-determination—not Western 'salvation' in the form of more bombs on Tehran."
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