Winter Peacestock Peace Panel 2021
Thank you Brittany, Danny, Coleen and Sara for making the inaugural Winter Peacestock Peace Panel a Success! Below you can enjoy their thought provoking answers to: "Where Do We Go From Here?"
Brittany DeBarros
Peacestock Peace Panelist: Brittany DeBarros
Brittany came to About Face: Veterans Against the War with a diverse mix of business, military and non-profit leadership experiences that cemented her deep passion and commitment to intersectional movement building work. She deployed to Afghanistan for a year in 2012 and has worked on economic and racial liberation issues in various capacities since she returned. She is particularly passionate about leveraging her experience as a Psychological Operations Officer to center narrative and behavior change in campaign strategy. She is based in NYC.
Danny Sjursen
Peacestock Peace Panelist: Danny Sjursen
Danny Sjursen
Daniel Albert (Danny) Sjursen grew up in the sort of Staten Island neighborhood where streets are named for firemen and cops killed on 9/11 and is best known for its blue-collar chic. He found his way to West Point in July 2001.
Recently selected as the 2019 Lannan Foundation cultural freedom fellow, Danny is the author two books, a memoir and critical analysis of the Iraq War, Ghostriders of Baghdad: Soldiers, Civilians, and the Myth of the Surge, and a book on the history of the United Statesr, Patriotic Dissent,. Danny is a member of Veterans for Peace and About Face: Veterans against the War. Follow him on Twitter at@SkepticalVet.
Danny’s says he is a hopeless romantic and idealist, genuine in his antiwar and progressive positions. He adores Bobby Kennedy (in spite of his flaws) and owns a shirt stamped with Bobby’s plagiarized George Bernard Shaw quote, “There are those that look at things the way they are, and ask why? I dream of things that never were, and ask why not?” (He knows how naive this sounds…he doesn't care!) For now Danny is all right…doing his best to change the world.
Peacestock Peace Panelist: Sara Flounders
Sara Flounders
Sara Flounders has been active in progressive and anti-war organizing since the 1960s. She is the editor and a co-author of just released anthology: Capitalism on a Ventilator – The Impact of COVID-19 in China and in the U.S.
Flounders is a co-author and editor of 10 previous books and writes for the Marxist newspaper: Workers World and several online sites. She helps coordinate the International Action Center and United National Antiwar Coalition. She is active in the Workers Assembly Against Racism and in the many demonstrations against racist police violence and in defense of political prisoners. She has helped expose U.S. interventions, regime change efforts and sanctions against many developing countries.
She is presently coordinating the Sanctions Kill Campaign - SanctionsKill.org - and has organized past solidarity delegations to countries devastated by U.S. wars and sanctions including: Iran, Iraq, Syria, Sudan, Palestine, Yugoslavia, Cuba and Venezuela.
“My goal is to build confidence in the potential of powerful grassroots movements for change within the U.S.”
Peacestock Peace Panelist: Coleen Rowley
Coleen Rowley, a retired FBI Special Agent and former division legal counsel, testified to the 9-11 Joint Intelligence Committee Inquiry, the Senate Judiciary Committee and the Department of Justice Inspector General about the FBI’s pre 9-11 failures. Time Magazine later chose Rowley and two other whistleblowers as their 2002 Time Persons of the Year. She’s now a senior fellow at the Eisenhower Media Network (EMN), an organization of critical veteran military and national security professionals.