Anti-War Rally Set For Sat. March 20

The Madison Area Peace Coalition (MAPC) will hold a rally and march marking the 7th anniversary of the Iraq invasion, Saturday, March 20. On February 15 delegates to the South Central Federation of Labor unanimously endorsed this march and urged the participation of local union delegations.

The demonstration will call for bringing the troops home from Iraq and Afghanistan now. Other anti-war actions are planned for March 20th across the nation, including national anti-war marches occurring in Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, and San Francisco that are endorsed by U.S. Labor Against the War. What follows is a message from MAPC:

Americans working to end these wars should not lose heart. Acting together, we can influence our government to change. We call for an end to the wars now, for moral as well as practical reasons. The U.S. wars and foreign occupations are costing many lives and causing great suffering, particularly for civilians. We demand that our government focus now on the priorities of job creation, education, health care, and cleaning up our environment. Stopping the wars will free up financial resources to meet these urgent human needs. 

For every dollar in federal income tax paid in 2008, over 37 cents went toward military spending. War spending has become an obstacle to achieving the most basic needs of Americans. Working people’s needs are unmet while Congress finds the money to give bailouts to banks, wage wars, and maintain military installations in over one hundred countries. Working people in the U.S. are unemployed in record numbers, our children suffer from school funding cuts, demand at food pantries is soaring, and the health care crisis grows by the day.

According to the National Priorities Project, taxpayers in  Madison, Wisconsin will pay $417.3 million for Total Defense Spending in FY2010. For the same amount of money, over 269,000 people could have been provided with health care for one year. We must change the focus of national spending from militarism to providing for people and building a strong economy.

A growing number of Americans realize that nine years of war in Afghanistan have not made us safer, and most Americans have supported bringing the troops home from Iraq for years.

The voices of peace-loving Americans are needed now more than ever. The Administration’s new multi-trillion dollar budget plans to reduce the national debt by freezing and cutting domestic programs while requesting a record $708 billion in defense funding for FY2011. We need to pull the plug on military spending; increase domestic expenditures and cut funding for corporate bailouts; initiate a jobs program in order to stop 'The New Great Depression'; pass a single-payer health care bill; increase and enforce regulations on corporations; and Bring Our Troops Home Now!

Participants will gather at 12 Noon, March 20, on the UW Library Mall (800 block of State St., intersection of State and Lake) and will march up State Street to the Capitol. Please bring union signs and banners.

For more information contact Barbara Smith (AFT-W Local 4848) at (608) 242-9232 or by e-mail: barbara@merr.com