ONLINE: Armistice Day 2021

Created following World War I, Armistice Day marks the ceasefire in that war and celebrates the cause of world peace. In the U.S., it was transformed into Veterans Day in the 1950s by President Eisenhower. Madison Veterans for Peace and The Progressive magazine host a virtual event considering whether peace is in the country's future, with speakers on topics including the rise of China, the U.S. drone program, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Musical interludes will be provided by Si Kahn and John McCutcheon. Find the livestream at facebook.com/theprogressivemagazine or youtube.com/theprogressive.

media release: Madison Veterans for Peace-Chapter 25 and The Progressive magazine are hosting an online event for Armistice Day 2021 at 7:00pm CST on Thursday November 11, 2021.

This event is free and open to the public. It will be live-streamed and archived at:

https://www.facebook.com/theprogressivemagazine and https://www.youtube.com/theprogressive.

In this virtual event, there will be musical selections, a reflection on the recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and views on the current global situation and the prospects for peace.

Speakers will include:

• UW Professor Al McCoy, author of In the Shadow of the American Century: The Rise and Decline of U.S. Global Power, who will examine and put into context, the increasing signs of a challenge to U.S. economic and military might by the rising global power China and what that could mean for us and for the possibility of peace -- or war.

• Nobel Peace Prize nominee Kathy Kelly, co-founder of Voices for Creative Nonviolence will speak in a recorded segment on the "over the horizon" use of drones that rather than making the world safer, actually produces more enemies of America.

• Madison veteran of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Fran Wiedenhoeft will reflect on her experiences.

• And musical selections from Vietnam-era veteran Si Kahn, and from Wisconsin-born John McCutcheon, whose “Christmas in the Trenches” is the world's most famous song about the battlefield truce of 1914, when warriors put down their guns and showed their humanity.

Armistice Day was created following the brutal First World War as nations mourned their dead and collectively called for an end to all wars. Armistice Day, when bells tolled at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, was designated as "a day to be dedicated to the cause of world peace and to be thereafter celebrated". But during the 1950's Cold War, a militarist United States government changed it to a day honoring the warriors, and called it Veterans Day. Rather than honoring the military and glorifying war, Veterans for Peace and The Progressive are returning November 11 to its original intention, as a day for peace.