UJP community groups and others are taking action to fund our communities by reducing the military budget. This is a place to post action reports and ideas - and to see what others are doing.   It is a forum for sharing accomplishments and drawing strength from each other. To see other UJP campaigns or to list your events, please go to http://justicewithpeace.org.

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Carol Coakley

Thu, 11 Mar 2010 21:11:27

Cong. Ed Markey will have office hours on Sunday March 14. Perhaps a Brown Bag Lunch Vigil (See Progressive Dems website) would be appropriate. If anyone received his invitation, perhaps you'd like to get together with others before you talk to him. Let me know and I'll post your contact info here...
Thanks.

 

Carol Coakley

Wed, 17 Mar 2010 07:56:56

Conversation with Markey notes Sunday, March 14, 2010 in his Framingham office. Sarah Fuhro and Carol Coakley
Sarah started by talking about the economic crisis in America – schools closing, infrastructure failing, libraries closing, social services being cut. We can’t afford these wars. 45,000 people dying from lack of health insurance is a greater fear to people than terrorism.
Carol said the wars are not making me feel safer and I worry about our reputation around the world. We are creating more enemies. Many agree that there is no military solution, though they are doing some good work, we know that democracy cannot be created from the barrel of a gun. The State department needs $ and we should let the NGO’s continue their work there.

Carol thanked him for voting for Kucinich resolution. Will you be voting against the supplemental? “I can’t say, I’ll have to see what the debate is that day”

Do you support Frank’s call for a 25% cut? “Well I’ll have to see what the debate(?) is” I say, “well the 25% number was pulled out of the air, but you would agree we need to cut it?” Markey replies, “I’ve sat next to Barney for 38 years, I know he pulled the number out of the air”.

Would you agree that our military budget is overblown and unnecessary, that is 14 times larger than the next 14 countries?

“Yes”. Pulls out pen with NPP or WRL or WAND’s military budget charts inside it and talks a few minutes – He is the only one on Capitol Hill that carries that pen around with him all the time.
,000 to 5000 and Obama is continuing talks with Russian to disarm more.What do you think of Obama’s plan to increase spending on nuclear reliability – computer tests that verify nuclear warheads are working. Speaks a bit about his legislation that stopped underground testing. As an alternative to actual tests this is a good option. Reducing nuclear weapons has been very successful. We are down from 25,000 to 5000 and Obama will be talking to Russia about further disarmament.

 

Carol Coakley

Wed, 17 Mar 2010 07:59:47

Report on Lynch meeting
Notes on Meeting with Stephen Lynch
March 5, 2010 12:00 noon at 88 Black Falcon Terminal, Boston

Attending: Coakley, Carol- Millis; Kerbartas, Joe – S. Boston; Harrison, Cole – Roslindale; Hickey, Linda & Wilkerson, Steve – Stoughton; Klein, Jeff- Dorchester, Piatt, Kris- Milton; Bob Fowkes – Lynch’s Boston Office Chief

Cole set the agenda for our meeting with 3 topics: Afghanistan, a resolution to decrease military spending by 25%, and Israeli-Palestinian relations.

Afghanistan: Cole lead off with request for support of withdrawal from Afghanistan, saying that Obama has no specific timeline for complete withdrawal only a promise to begin withdraw by June of 2011. Lynch says that he believes Obama’s intent is for complete withdrawal. Lynch insisted that Obama does have a timeline for withdrawal from Afghanistan. He says President Obama does not want to be in Afghanistan, that he is looking to solve some of the problems there, but not all of them.

Lynch maintains the need for an army to fight Taliban who oppress and terrorize the population, especially women and girls. Kris said more harm is done to women from war than from Taliban and that the US administration has replaced one fundamentalist regime with another (Taliban with Northern Alliance warlords currently in the Karzai government). Lynch said he understands this but thinks the military is necessary to protect them from Taliban. Lynch recounted driving through a Taliban-held town and seeing approx. 5000 people, but only 15 women. The Taliban requires women to stay indoors unless accompanied by husband or close male relative. He spoke to women in Afghanstan’s Parliament who want the army to stay and continue drone attacks in Paskistan.

25% decrease in military spending: Cole opened up discussion on a 25% decrease in military spending and Lynch responded that there is a lot of waste abuse and fraud. Cole said it is deeper than that – that the military budget is too big. The number of US military bases worldwide was discussed, with Lynch maintaining that bases in Europe were being closed. The discussion ended early to leave time to discuss Israel & Palestine.

Israel/Palestine issues: Lynch was recently in Israel/Palestine and recounted several stories while in Gaza: Israel would publish Lynch’s scheduled arrival time, normally not done for security reasons; Israel invited Lynch to meet with Netanyahu at the same time that he would have been allowed into Gaza, causing an untenable scheduling conflict. Israel detained him for 2 hours at border to check his paper work – 2 hours in 110 degree heat. Lynch admitted that Israel plays games and said that the people of Gaza are prisoners in their own land. He was lowered into a tunnel at Rafah Gate; goods which come through the tunnels have a high mark-up (500%) which enables helps finance the war. Lynch thought that there were many tunnels, counted at least 150.



Lynch believes Israel should end “the blockade of Gaza”. Before the 2nd intifada, 60,000 Palestinians were working in Israel and there were multiple points of contact between Israeli’s and Palestinians. Now that contact has been blocked the new generations have demonized each other, making this is a very volatile time. Rocket attacks have stopped; there have been no rocket attacks for 8 weeks but Israel has not responded with significant changes in their blockade of Gaza. Lynch feels that Israeli officials should be rewarding Hamas for the cease fire. Materials for repairs to the damage Israel inflicted on Gaza in December, 2009 are allowed in now only in a trickle. Lynch thinks we should rebuild American University as a counterbalance to radical Islam – Israeli bombs destroyed it, claiming that small arms fire was coming from it. Lynch said "Gaza is a prison.... Israel is generating so much anger and hostility". Lynch also expressed personal sympathy for the plight of Palestinians saying that if he was denied the right to accompany his daughter for medical treatment, “I would want to kill somebody too.”

Lynch met on Israel/Palestine issues with Steve Lincoln, a representative of V.P. Joe Biden, James Jones, also Reps. Keith Ellison (D-MN), Brian Baird (D-WA), and Donna Edwards (D-MD). The substance was not clear but some kind of new push on I/P policy.

Tierney and Lynch committee (which one?) threatened hearings to get UN SUV’s (?) released – they were. He was critical of Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtin (R-FL) resolution condemning UNWRA workers in Gaza, which already has 100 signatures.
Lynch admitted that the State Department could be doing more. We discussed that Israel gets $3 billion a year from the US and that the US taxpayers are underwriting Israel’s apartheid policies.

When asked about Kucinich's Concurrent Resolution, he rolled his eyes and app

 

Carol Coakley

Mon, 05 Apr 2010 15:20:46

Thursday April 29th
Keeping Track of Your Budget
National Peace Priorities'
Greg Hillman
will speak on the Federal Budget
Morse Institute - Natick Library
7:00 PM
Sponsored by Pax Christi Metrowest and Metrowest Peace Action

How large is our military budget? How does it compare to other countries? How does it compare to the the health, education, environment and international relations portions of the budget? What would you spend on the Pentagon v. education?

Come listen to this informative talk - knowledge is power.

 



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