Peace Activists Extend an Olive Branch to the Tea Party to Talk about War
Submitted by davidswanson on Tue, 2010-04-13 22:19.
* Afghanistan
* Iraq
* Military Industrial Complex
By Medea Benjamin
On Tax Day, Tea Party members from around the country will descend on the
nation's capitol to "protest big government and support lower taxes, less
government and more freedom." CODEPINK, a women-led peace group advocating an
end to war and militarism, will be sending some representatives to begin a
dialogue. While we come from the opposite end of the political spectrum and
don't support the goals and tactics of the Tea Party, there is an area where we
are seeking common ground, i.e. endless wars and militarism.
As Tea Partiers express their anger at out-of-control government spending and
soaring deficits, we will ask them to take a hard look at what is, by far, the
biggest sinkhole of our tax dollars: Pentagon spending. With the Obama
administration proposing the largest military budget ever, topping $700 billion
not including war supplementals, the U.S. government is now spending almost as
much on the military as the rest of the world combined.
Perhaps the Tea Party and peace folksunlikely alliescan agree that one way to
shrink big government is to rein in military spending. Here are some questions
to get the conversation going:
· At the Southern Republican Leadership Conference on April 10, Cong. Ron
Paulwho has a great following within the Tea Party--chided both conservatives
and liberals for their profligate spending on foreign military bases,
occupations and maintaining an empire. "We're running out of money," he warned.
"All empires end for financial reasons, and that is what the markets are
telling us today
.We can do better with peace than with war." Do you agree with
Congressman Paul on this?
· Every taxpayer has already spent, on average, a staggering $7,367 for the
wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Obama is now sending another 30,000 troops to
Afghanistan, with a price tag of one million dollars per soldier per year.
Opposition to these wars ranges from liberal Cong. Dennis Kucinich and
conservative Tea Party leader Sheriff Richard Mack. During a Congressional vote
to end the war in Afghanistan that was defeated but got bipartisan support,
Rep. Dennis Kucinich said, "Nearly 1000 U.S. soldiers have died. And for what?
Hundreds of billions spent. And for what? To make Afghanistan safe for crooks,
drug dealers and crony capitalism?" Do you think Congress should turn off the
war spigot and bring out troops home?
· The Cold War has been over for 20 years, yet the U.S. government maintains
800-plus bases around the world with troops stationed in 148 countries and 11
territories. Conservative commentator Pat Buchanan asks, "How we can justify
borrowing hundreds of billions yearly from Europe, Japan and the Gulf states --
to defend Europe, Japan and the Arab Gulf states? Is it not absurd to borrow
hundreds of billions annually from China -- to defend Asia from China?" Should
we begin to dismantle this global web of bases?
· Far and away the largest recipient of US foreign aid is Israel, a wealthy
country (the 11th wealthiest in the world) that gets $3 billion a year from
Uncle Sam with no strings attached and no accountability. We also give the
repressive Egyptian government over a billion dollars a year to buy their
support for a Middle East peace plan that is going nowhere. Are you in favor of
continuing this taxpayer largesse to Israel and Egypt?
· An area where Pentagon spending has mushroomed is the payment of private
security contractors. While many soldiers who risk their lives for their
country struggle to support their families, private security company employees
can pocket as much as $1,000 a day. High pay for contract workers in war zones
burdens taxpayers and saps military morale. Moreover, military officers in the
field have said contractors often operate like "cowboys," using unnecessary and
excessive force that has undermined our reputation overseas. Cong. Jan
Schakowsky introduced the Stop Outsourcing Security Act that would phase out
private security contractors in war zones. Do you support that?
· Experts on the left and the right say we could cut our military budget by
25%, including closing foreign bases, winding down the wars, and ending
obsolete weapons systems, without jeopardizing our security. Do you agree? If
we could make significant cuts to the military budget, how should those funds
be reallocated? To pay down the debt? Increase security at home? Rebuild our
infrastructure? Stimulate the economy through tax breaks?
We are not naïve enough to think that it would be easy for the Tea Party and
the peace movement to work together. Our core values are different. We have had
our battles in the past. We would certainly part ways in terms of how to
redirect Pentagon funds, with progressives wanting more government investment
in healthcare, jobs, clean energy and educationwhich is exactly what the Tea
Party opposes.
But building peace means reaching out to the other side and trying to find
common ground even with those people whose beliefs contradict so many of our
own. If the Tea Party is really against runaway government spending, then
certainly we can work together to cut a slice out of the military pork that is
bankrupting our nation. In extending the olive branch to talk about war, the
conversation can hopefully be enlightening on other issues as well, such as
banks run amok and undue corporate control of our government.
Who knows what kind of potent brew could emerge when folks on the left and the
rightboth alienated by a two-party system that doesn't meet our needssit down
for tea?
Medea Benjamin ([email protected]) is cofounder of CODEPINK
(http://www.codepink.org ) and Global Exchange (www.globalexchange.org). Please
contact her if you want to be part of a serious left-right dialogue on war.
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Pink Code better reconsider....strategically a dangerous moment
Submitted by perfect1 on Tue, 2010-04-13 23:23.
With so many bad strategies out there, we are entering a world of expected
disasters. Just saw on Common Dreams, there is a guy who is infiltrating the
Tea baggers, to make them look bad. The Tea baggers would correctly consider
that a provocation, where even police provocateurs could set up a violent
incident between Code Pink or just outright racists who do not care about logic
and sweetness.
In times of conflict, rising tensions, we need social strategies, social
ideologies, and not screwed up middle class strategies, that could backfire and
make things worse.
Tea baggers are proto fascists, know nothings, racists and if some Libertarians
want to take on our criminal policies they should leave these racists behind
and join our social movement against Empire and fascist corporations. We agree
with the Libertarians that the Free markets and Free world paradigm of the two
class parties are class dogmas, class myths and lies, and that social, Free
markets, not class markets are the way to go.
But that means reclaiming Adam Smith and classical social theorists,
revolutionary liberals, ideologically linked to social movements and social
demands, closer to Ricardo, Marx and all social economists, and not the
deformed deregualtion that leads to corporate fascism.
Socialism for the rich, is not the same as Socialism for the masses, as our
social wealth is channeled upwards to the class elites and oligarchy, i.e.
corporate fascism.
Supporting corporations as the tea baggers have done makes them the shock
troops of Fascism, as they were in Nazi Germany. A better approach would be an
open debate between all apologists of corporate, imperial policies, liberals,
conservatives and right wing libertarians, fascists with those of us who
actually hold the social center, moral center, and expose the massive
ideological flaws in their arguments.
Agree we can oppose paying taxes for a fascist, military Empire, but we must
hear from these teabaggers where they were when Fascism was creeping in, with
their support.
While I agree with Ron Paul's anti imperial and anti Federal Reserve
policies......his anti corporate strategy is to move towards de regulation that
brought us this class tyranny. He is opposed to Keynsian economics, a strong
indictator that he opposes social markets, and embracing the fascist class
tyranny of corporations, who too preach de regulation. Ron Paul needs to
explain this contradiction.
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