connections and relationships are what make change happen. At the end of the day, it’s who we are and how we educate, treat, help, and inspire each other that will put an end to war.
Q: Speaking of education, would you say that educating the public about militarism and the scourge of nuclear weapons is one of the most critical things we can do ?
A: We certainly need to do a better job educating people about this massive military machine that doesn’t sleep and is churning out weapons constantly, whether the nation is in active conflict or not. When you have all these weapons, you will find opportunities to use them. When Bush went to war in Afghanistan in October of 2001, everything was basically in place, including a huge standing army. The United States spends more than $1 billion a day just on maintaining this military complex, excluding the “extra costs” of military ventures in Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere.
We could cut at least $100 billion from the military budget without jeopardizing our security. For example, there are three new fighter-plane programs that are redundancies of the existing fighter-plane programs—the F-16s and F-18s—that will cost U.S. taxpayers about $200 billion. We need to demand that funds earmarked for unnecessary weapons programs go to vital human services instead.
As a movement, we should also do a better job working with members of Congress when the military budget comes up every year and some congresspeople start questioning particular weapons systems. And, of course, we need to get better at talking to Middle America about the bread-and-butter issues, about how all this wasted money is coming out of their pockets—and is not making them more secure. We have people in this country working two or three jobs to make $25,000 or $30,000 a year to support their families. We have to show them that one of the reasons they’re struggling is that so much of the wealth of this country is going into this cult of militarism.
Q: Do you have any concrete examples of campaigns that have done a good job making these connections ?
A: We have this tendency to think only about national campaigns or programs. I think we need to take our lead from local initiatives. There is a group in Brooklyn called Families United for Racial and Economic Equality, furee. They are mostly women on public assistance who have organized poor people in Brooklyn to get access to the types of assistance that are available. They lobby state officials like Hillary Clinton. In 2003, they took a bus to Bush’s ranch in Crawford on this poor people’s march. The idea was to bring Bush a manifesto about what he should be doing for poor people in this country instead of making wars overseas. Of course, they got stopped miles from Bush’s ranch, but they came back making these connections between their daily lives and U.S. foreign policy.
Antiwar activists need to be involved in those sorts of local initiatives. We don’t need to lead those efforts, but we need to be participants. It keeps you going between crises, because you’re connected to real communities. These people live near each other; they know each other’s families; they are involved with each other as friends and neighbors. Being part of that for me, as a single person, has been incredibly important.
Q: When you are out speaking on campuses, what’s the most important message you try to convey to students ?
A: I tell them that there is no reason for Americans to be poor. There is no reason for students to incur tens of thousands of dollars in debt to go to college. There is no reason that a whole class of Americans should be homeless. We have the resources, and we have the obligation to share them with each other and the rest of the world. But we can’t do that if we continue to spend over $400 billion a year on the military.
I also encourage them to become activists. I let them know that although our efforts may not bring instant success, there
Q: Speaking of education, would you say that educating the public about militarism and the scourge of nuclear weapons is one of the most critical things we can do ?
A: We certainly need to do a better job educating people about this massive military machine that doesn’t sleep and is churning out weapons constantly, whether the nation is in active conflict or not. When you have all these weapons, you will find opportunities to use them. When Bush went to war in Afghanistan in October of 2001, everything was basically in place, including a huge standing army. The United States spends more than $1 billion a day just on maintaining this military complex, excluding the “extra costs” of military ventures in Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere.
We could cut at least $100 billion from the military budget without jeopardizing our security. For example, there are three new fighter-plane programs that are redundancies of the existing fighter-plane programs—the F-16s and F-18s—that will cost U.S. taxpayers about $200 billion. We need to demand that funds earmarked for unnecessary weapons programs go to vital human services instead.
As a movement, we should also do a better job working with members of Congress when the military budget comes up every year and some congresspeople start questioning particular weapons systems. And, of course, we need to get better at talking to Middle America about the bread-and-butter issues, about how all this wasted money is coming out of their pockets—and is not making them more secure. We have people in this country working two or three jobs to make $25,000 or $30,000 a year to support their families. We have to show them that one of the reasons they’re struggling is that so much of the wealth of this country is going into this cult of militarism.
Q: Do you have any concrete examples of campaigns that have done a good job making these connections ?
A: We have this tendency to think only about national campaigns or programs. I think we need to take our lead from local initiatives. There is a group in Brooklyn called Families United for Racial and Economic Equality, furee. They are mostly women on public assistance who have organized poor people in Brooklyn to get access to the types of assistance that are available. They lobby state officials like Hillary Clinton. In 2003, they took a bus to Bush’s ranch in Crawford on this poor people’s march. The idea was to bring Bush a manifesto about what he should be doing for poor people in this country instead of making wars overseas. Of course, they got stopped miles from Bush’s ranch, but they came back making these connections between their daily lives and U.S. foreign policy.
Antiwar activists need to be involved in those sorts of local initiatives. We don’t need to lead those efforts, but we need to be participants. It keeps you going between crises, because you’re connected to real communities. These people live near each other; they know each other’s families; they are involved with each other as friends and neighbors. Being part of that for me, as a single person, has been incredibly important.
Q: When you are out speaking on campuses, what’s the most important message you try to convey to students ?
A: I tell them that there is no reason for Americans to be poor. There is no reason for students to incur tens of thousands of dollars in debt to go to college. There is no reason that a whole class of Americans should be homeless. We have the resources, and we have the obligation to share them with each other and the rest of the world. But we can’t do that if we continue to spend over $400 billion a year on the military.
I also encourage them to become activists. I let them know that although our efforts may not bring instant success, there