2009 began with a national gathering of the Bring the Guard Home movement in Washington D.C. on January 21st, the day after President Obama’s first inauguration. In addition to a press conference at the National Press Club, activists held a strategy meeting at which they developed plans for mutual support of their state legislative campaign and also a national conference to be held later that year. That conference eventually took place in October of 2009 at Georgetown University’s School of Law, bringing together a wide range of academics, activists, lawyers and former administration officials from left and right to address the question raised in the conference title, Who Decides About War? 

In November, Liberty Tree formed a partnership with Mayors for Peace and the Lawyers Committee on Nuclear Policy in organizing a national conference in Madison, Wisconsin called Future Cities 2009: Local Democracy in Action for a post-Carbon, Post-Nuclear, Greener World. The Future Cities conference brought together mayors, city officials, and local activists from around the country, as well as Hiroshima, to strengthen the role of municipalities in transforming the global economy and politics.