On Saturday, April 25, the Iraq Moratorium: Cornwall Edition hit a public event on the economic crisis featuring Connecticut Senator Chris Dodd and Representative Chris Murphy. We gave 150 of our fellow NW corner locals a flier challenging Dodd and Murphy to vote against the $84.3 billion "special supplemental" the White House just sent to Congress to cover the cost of keeping the wars going.
Many thanked us for raising the issue, and all had a chance to read the leaflet (and to reflect on the shocking budget figures on a card from notmypriorities.org that we also distributed) because the program started half an hour late. In an ironic touch, the leaflet pointed out that "politicians don't like to talk about the war," and in presentations
totalling over 40 minutes, neither Murphy nor Dodd said a mumbling word about Iraq and Afghanistan.Questions had to be submitted on cards, and somehow none of our queries about the cost of the war was read out. Afterwards, though, we braced both men. To his credit, Representative Murphy said that he had voted against every supplemental that has come up since his election and he planned to do so again. Dodd seemed shocked at the $83.4 billion figure, exclaiming "That's way too much!" He would not, however, commit to voting no.
All in all, we feel we did a good job of reminding our fellow citizens about the cost of the war and its impact on the economy and urging them to take part in the Iraq Moratorium in months to come.
Here's our leaflet:
The economy continues to spiral downwards. The government has pledged trillions to “rescue plans” that are sputtering already, trillions that will drive the national budget deep into deficit for years to come.
A reminder—before the house of cards the banks built started to crumble, the Pentagon budget and “special supplemental” appropriations for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan totaled well over $800 billion dollars a year. That figure is more than half of the total discretionary part of the federal budget. What the U.S. spends in a single year on its military is equal to the combined annual spending of Russia, China, Britain--plus every single other country in the world!
The permanent war economy has served this country poorly. Now the administration is sending 21,000 more young men and women into harm’s way in Afghanistan (on top of the 30,000 already there) before a single troop has been withdrawn from Iraq. On top of this, the Pentagon proposes to add 70,000 more soldiers and marines to the armed forces by 2012 at an estimated cost of another $90.7 billion.
Senator, Congressman, will you join Representative Lynn Woolsey and other members of the House Progressive Caucus in voting against the $83.4 billion off-budget “special supplemental” the White House just sent Congress to continue the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan?
If you listen to your constituents, or poll us, you will learn that we are sick of these deadly, pointless wars, and we know that the money wasted on them already has contributed to the current economic crisis. Stop throwing good money after bad!
On the Third Friday and/or Third Weekend of every month, thousands of people across America take action, by themselves or with others, to end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. This initiative, the Iraq Moratorium, has been going on for 20 months now. It is a no-budget, locally-based, grassroots-up effort. The politicians don’t like to talk about the war and the media have lost interest.
It’s got to end and it’s up to us to end it. Join us.
