April 9 & 10 antiwar rallies to express solidarity with Wisconsin workers
2011Christine Marie 2011-03Read it in the scan (PDF at ETOL), page 1 →
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“Stop the War on the Unions! Money for Jobs and Education, Not for War and Occupation!” So began a leaflet distributed by United National Antiwar Committee supporters at the Feb. 26 rally of 100,000 workers at the Wisconsin State Capitol building in Madison.
UNAC team members traveled from Minneapolis, Virginia, and Vermont to display a 12-foot banner at the rally and distribute thousands of flyers for the April 9 national antiwar march in New York City. (A West Coast antiwar mobilization will take place in San Francisco on April 10.) While the demand to use the trillions spent on war to stop the cuts by state governments has not really been part of the dialogue in Wisconsin or other states, UNAC activists found that marchers were very open to the antiwar message.
UNAC activists set up shop at a local union-friendly coffee house and got out a statement that argued: “A $3.9 billion budget deficit in Wisconsin was cited as the reason for attacking the public worker unions. That claim is phony. What Walker did not say was that Wisconsin taxpayers have been forced to pay billions to fund U.S.-led wars and occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan, send drones to Pakistan, support dictators and maintain more than 800 military bases worldwide costofwar.com. In addition, more billions have been given to the wealthy and powerful in massive bailouts and tax breaks.”
Truly, the demand, “Money for Jobs, not for War!” has never been more appropriate or timely. According to UNAC team leader Phil Wilayto, everyone they met was very open to this message. “I don’t know of anyone who got a negative comment,” he said.
That working people are ever more open to the links between cuts in social services, attacks on living standards, (continued on page 3, in “Scapegoating of Muslims on the rise”)
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INSIDE SOCIALIST ACTION: Rallies against FBI attacks — 2 Scapegoating of Muslims — 3
Egypt, Tunisia revolts — 5 Socialist Action convention — 6 Iraq protests / Jamaica schools — 8