Anti-War Rally: 17 Years of War!
Sponsored by the Chester County Peace Movement
April 21, 2018
12:00 noon – 1:00 p.m.
Chester County Court House steps (High Street) West Chester, PA
2018 marks 17 years of the Afghanistan/Iraq wars. It also marks the 50th anniversary of the “Poor People’s Campaign – Solidarity Day Rally for Jobs, Peace, and Freedom” led by the late Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Dr. King’s vision was to challenge systemic racism, poverty, incarceration, the war economy, the widening gap between the rich and the poor, ecological destruction, and national morality.
Trillions of dollars have been spent on supporting the anti-terrorism wars and what do we have to show for it? By 2016, the Global War on Terror military spending was almost 4 times the investment in people’s lives at home — $630 billion for the military vs. $183 billion for education, jobs, housing and other basic human needs. Bombs and drones haven’t made us safer. War has created more hatred towards the U.S. while displacing already vulnerable women and children into inhumane refugee camps.
Real security comes from having a job, access to healthcare, and a good education for our children. American wars have always been fought by the underprivileged because of limited choices in rural, small towns, and big cities. More than 95 million Americans (30% of the total population) are either in poverty or deep poverty (2x the poverty line). While we no longer have a legal draft for today’s wars, our children are subject to a draft prescribed by poverty due to lack of opportunities for jobs training and college. In 2016, $3.65 went to the military for every $1.00 spent fighting poverty.
And while the poor, women, children, and minorities are hit the hardest, our entire country is affected. The living standard of middle class families has stagnated or dropped in many areas. The U.S. federal price tag for the post-9/11 wars is about 4.8 trillion dollars. Trillions spent on war instead of fighting homelessness, health care for all, food insecurity, drug addiction, incarceration, poverty, depression, suicide, education, the environment and infrastructure here in the USA.
The Pentagon budget for 2017 was $635 billion. This is what that money could have paid for:
- 71 million kids in head start for 1 year
- 178 million low-income adults get health care for 1 year
- 8 million elementary school teachers for 1 year
- 4 million infrastructure jobs created for 1 year
Join CCPM on Saturday, April 21 with your signs and say, “War – No More!”
“We must see now that the evils of racism, economic exploitation, and militarism are all tied together…you can’t really get rid of one without getting rid of the others…the whole structure of American life must be changed.”
–The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., May 1967
Chester County Peace Movement / PO Box 803 / West Chester, PA 19381 www.ccpeace.com
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