"How Is The War Economy Working For You?" Banner Drop: Veterans For Peace

Members of Veterans For Peace (VFP), attending the U.S. Social Forum, a gathering of over 8,000 activists from across the U.S., created and erected the 10 x 15-foot sign that reads, "HOW IS THE WAR ECONOMY WORKING FOR YOU?" Detroit has an unemployment rate of 15 percent and 10,000 abandoned homes on the mayor's demolition list.

Taxpayers in Detroit have sent a total of nearly two billion dollars to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The city's 2011 general fund budget of 1.3 billion dollars contains an estimated deficit of 300 million dollars, even after years of cutbacks in services once assumed to be part of urban life. The budget for Detroit schools has a deficit in the same range.

"Detroit, like so many of our cities, is in crisis," said Mike Ferner, National President of VFP. "This crisis is no different than a five-alarm fire and we should respond the same way. Instead, we watch America's cities literally crumble while we pour thousands of lives and trillions of dollars into wars abroad."

John Amidon, President of VFP Chapter 10, added, "It's absolutely criminal that the people who built the U.S. auto industry have to watch their city collapse around them while they send $2,000,000,000 to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. This is indeed the purest form of madness and it's coming to a city near you."

Category:

Nonprofits & Activism

Tags:

• Detroit
• veterans
• peace
• war
• economy
• budget
• military
• US
• social forum

[peacsign]

Thanks for your comment my friend. Hold up your head and be strong. Resistance against injustice no matter the odds is never a waste of time.

[ordinarymystic]

One simple way to end it all -- mothers, wives, fathers, husbands, children -- call your children/parents home. When people decide that they are no longer going to supply fodder for the cannons so the ultra-elite who profilerate weapons for profit can continue to get rich at our expense, then it will end. As long as the sheep send their children to war, the elite will continue to use them for profit with no regard to what happens to them.

[wiselionman]

WAR = TAXES

PEACE IS FREE

The war cost lives, money, resources and more

A world at peace...priceless.

[grifrin]

Well Done! Bravo! Just watched Hijacking Catastrophe: 9/11, Fear & the Selling of American Empire. I respect our troops, but a burning question remains, WHY are we putting them there in the first place? Why do we put them in danger everyday - today? Cant we wait for a realistic threat to the nation? I applaud the efforts of VFP. I support you in the resistance to injustice!

[SamFeldman1]

@burnindownthehouse So? The fight continues. There will always be voices of conscience advocating the ethical and moral things.

[SamFeldman1]

It is at times like this that I become very proud and beaming that I am a member of Veterans For Peace.

[burnindownthehouse]

I agree with this woman but Veterans of Peace is fighting a losing battle. The War Pigs just keep on waging wars and they keep profiting from their wars. The only way all of this nonsense will end is if millions of Americans demand that it ends. And there just aren't enough voices out there demanding an end to the destructive ways of the War Pigs.