- Leftist activist and Democratic Party fundraiser
- Co-founded Code Pink for Peace
- Board member of the Rainforest Action Network
Jodie Evans is a radical activist and Democratic fundraiser best known as the co-founder -- along with Diane Wilson, Global Exchange's Medea Benjamin, and a Wiccan calling herself Starhawk -- of Code Pink for Peace. Evans also works closely with Leslie Cagan, the pro-Castro leader of United For Peace and Justice.
From 1973 to 1982, Evans worked in administrative capacities in the political campaigns of Jerry Brown, who during those years served as California's Secretary of State and then Governor. She also held a cabinet post as Governor Brown's Director of Administration.
From 1985 and 1990, Evans headed the Hereditary Disease Foundation and founded the Grief Recovery Center after the death of her daughter. During this period, she held various positions with the Women's Campaign Fund, the Women's Political Committee, and the Hollywood Women's Political Committee. She also worked as a fundraiser for out-of-state female candidates for federal offices, and for the pro-abortion organizations CARAL (the California subsidiary of NARAL Pro-Choice America) and Voters for Choice. Evans also co-founded Environmental Media Association.
In 1990 Evans partnered with Tom Hayden and Cathryn Tiddens to open an environmental department store, Terra Verde, in Santa Monica, California.
In 1991 Evans ran Jerry Brown's presidential campaign. She also produced the radio program We the People with Jerry Brown, a daily leftwing talk show. From 1994 to 1998, she produced the documentary film Stripped and Teased: Tales of Las Vegas Women.
Evans rose to public prominence via her leadership role with Code Pink for Peace, a self-described "grassroots peace and social justice movement" formed in 2002 to organize public protests against America's impending war in Iraq. Evans and Code Pink also condemn the racism, sexism, poverty, corporate corruption, and environmental degradation they claim are rampant in the U.S.
For four months from late 2002 through early 2003 (shortly prior to the looming U.S. invasion of Iraq), Evans led Code Pink members in staging all-day antiwar vigils outside the White House. She initiated a campaign that involved presenting pink slips (women's lingerie) to President Bush and other pro-war officials -- a metaphor for pink slips of the paper variety which are traditionally given to employees whose jobs are being terminated. These unique tactics brought Evans and her group considerable national news coverage and many talk-show invitations.
After the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, Evans led a delegation of fifteen Code Pink women to Baghdad, where they met with Iraqi women for the purpose of "creat[ing] the understanding that the people of Iraq are no different than you and me." "We who cherish children will not consent to their murder," said Evans. "Nor do we consent to the murder of their mothers, grandmothers, fathers, grandfathers, or to the deaths of our own sons and daughters in a war for oil." While in Baghdad, Evans repeatedly and publicly painted America as an unprovoked aggressor, and Iraqis as noble defenders of their invaded homeland. "Iraqis continue to resist the occupation in their own way," said Evans and Code Pink.
Contending that the U.S. taxpayer dollars funding the war in Iraq would be better spent on social welfare programs, Evans and Code Pink lamented in 2006 that "in the United States of America, many of our elders … now must choose whether to buy their prescription drugs, or food. Our children's education is eroded. The air they breathe and the water they drink are polluted. Vast numbers of women and children live in poverty."
The threat of distant terrorists, claim Evans and Code Pink, is insignificant when compared to the "real threats" we face every day: "the illness or ordinary accident that could plunge us into poverty, the violence on our own streets, the corporate corruption that can result in the loss of our jobs, our pensions, our security."
In addition to her Code Pink duties, Jodie Evans also sits on the Advisory Board of Iraq Occupation Watch (IOW). Her fellow IOW officials include Leslie Cagan; Medea Benjamin; Rania Masri of the Iraq Action Coalition, Peace Action, United for Peace and Justice, and the American Civil Liberties Union; Maria Luisa Mendonca of the World Social Forum; Phyllis Bennis of the Institute for Policy Studies and the U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation; Milan Rai of Voices in the Wilderness; Pratap Chatterjee of Berkeley's Pacifica radio station KPFA; and Stanford University professor Joel Beinin.
Evans was a key fundraiser for her longtime friend and political ally, former California Governor Gray Davis. Evans' ex-husband, financier Max Palevsky, actually appointed Davis to his first political job as a fundraiser for Tom Bradley's 1973 Los Angeles mayoral campaign. Shortly thereafter, Evans and Davis worked closely together during the latter's stint as chief of staff to then-Governor Jerry Brown.
In the weeks preceding California's 2003 gubernatorial recall election, Evans was instrumental in convincing several women to come forward and tell the Los Angeles Times their sexual-harassment allegations about Arnold Schwarzenegger. Evans also helped organize picketing sessions in front of Schwarzenegger's campaign headquarters.
In January 2006, Evans traveled to Venezuela with Cindy Sheehan and Medea Benjamin for a friendly meeting with President Hugo Chavez.
In August 2006, Evans was one of a dozen activists (among whom were also Medea Benjamin, Cindy Sheehan, and Tom Hayden) who participated in a Code Pink-sponsored trip to meet Iraqi "political leaders" in Baghdad. Team member Geoffrey Millard referred to this trip as a "diplomatic communication." As such, it may have violated the legal prohibition against private U.S. citizens conducting their own foreign policy. Among the Iraqi parliamentarians with whom Evans and her cadre met were:
Shortly after that 2006 trip, Evans spoke highly of the conditions that had existed in Iraq under Saddam Hussein: "Let's go back to the Iraq before we invaded, there was a good education and health care system, food for everyone. That system didn't belong to Saddam it belonged to the Iraqi, it belonged to years of creating what a civilization needed. If your parents didn't send you to school they could be put in jail."
Over the years, Evans has supported such activist groups as Citizen Action, Neighbor to Neighbor, the Earth Island Institute, the Interfaith Task Force on Central America, the International Overseas Education Fund, and the Los Angeles Women's Foundation.
Evans is currently a Board of Directors member for the Rainforest Action Network.
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