With a name like “Veterans For Peace,” it’s a fair
question
to ask if we should make statements supporting union members battling
government offensives in Wisconsin
and elsewhere.
The VFP national leadership and, we believe, the
overwhelming majority of our members think the answer is yes. We
know too well that militarism and empire
are central causes of the economic tragedies that have robbed millions
of
Americans of their livelihoods, health and homes. Those
tragedies are now being played out at statehouses
across the country.
Domestic pain is linked inextricably with far
greater
suffering wreaked by war. Empire has
snuffed out over a million Iraqi and Afghan lives along with more than 6,000
of our young men and
women. The people of this nation have poured
over a trillion dollars into those wars and those who profit from them
are
prepared to spend much more, unless we stop them in their tracks.
“Unless we stop them in their tracks…” A
year ago, that sentiment would have been only
a rhetorical cry in the wilderness, but the courageous people across
northern Africa are showing us what can be done. Like
them, however, the first thing we must
do is decide when we’ve had enough.
Is it enough to know that since the invasions of
Afghanistan and Iraq,
Wisconsin taxpayers alone have paid for those
two wars, over
18 billion dollars, compared to an estimated state budget deficit
this year of about
two billion dollars?
Is it enough to know that what we’ve spent on these
two wars
would provide $8,000 annual scholarships
for four years for every college-age person in Wisconsin?
Is it enough to know that wars for Empire have
forever taken
more
than 100 young men
and women from Wisconsin
and left more than 750 wounded?
Forty-four years ago next month, Dr. Martin Luther
King
spoke in New York’s Riverside Church, giving what many believe was his
greatest
speech, “Beyond Vietnam.” In it, he called the United
States
“the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today.” We
are learning now that Iraq and Afghanistan are not the only places
blighted by empire’s violence.nbsp; Every
working-class neighborhood in our country sinks further into economic
serfdom
and the violence that is poverty.
In that same speech, Dr. King observed that, “This war is but a symptom
of a
far deeper malady within the American spirit, and if we ignore this
reality we
will find ourselves organizing clergy-and-laymen-concerned committees
for the
next generation…We will be marching…and attending rallies without end
unless
there is a significant and profound change in American life.”
Members of Veterans For Peace are heartsick that we
continue
organizing antiwar committees and “attending rallies without end.”
We don’t just want our troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan, we
want a better life
for the many. We want security — the
kind of security that can only come when we don’t have to worry about
being
thrown out of our jobs and our homes. We
want the security that comes with health care for everyone. We
want education for all. And we want the rest of that
better life that
we can win only when we can control the appetites of the few.
Veterans For Peace knows we cannot do this by
ourselves. The peace movement, even in
its mightiest manifestation, cannot by itself end the wars in Iraq and
Afghanistan,
much less get America
out of the business of empire.
To do that requires that we take the reins of
government out
of the hands of the few and place them in the hands of the many.
To do that we need each other! We
need to be true to our chants in the
streets: “NO JUSTICE, NO PEACE!” And
we need to organize campaigns like VFP’s “How's the War
Economy Working for
You?” to find
the allies we need and who need us.
In 1988, who would have thought that within two
years, statues
of Lenin would start toppling across Russia? Last
summer, who
would have known that within a year, dictators would topple across northern
Africa?
We must learn from those historic
moments and join together, so that a year from now people will point to
Wisconsin and say, “This
is where we decided we had enough!”