Back home. Home meant mail from a week. In the stack of usual sale ads and internet provider specials, I found a mailing from our local peace and justice group. These dedicated folks have been promoting peaceful resolution to conflicts from local to national and international. Often their monthly gatherings host someone who has returned from a trip abroad, many from war-torn countries where U.S. presence has added a dangerous level of complexity and incredible loss to the lives of The People. The newsletter noted that Kathy Kelly would be speaking at the next meeting this month. Kathy is a co-coordinator for Voices for Creative Nonviolence which is a campaign to end U.S. military and economic warfare. She has recently been in Afghanistan and is planning on sharing her first-hand information on the conditions faced by ordinary people in Afghanistan. The Common People. The newsletter noted that Wisconsin has paid $18.5 billion for war since 2001. You can check this out at costofwar.com. What about the money we are spending to fund oil/resource wars abroad? What if that money were spent at home in Wisconsin to do any number of things?
Early on, as the struggle began in Wisconsin, a friend sent me an email sharing with me that her husband had been in conversation with a GM union man. This gentleman told her husband that the local GM plant had accepted $3 billion for plant renovations which then never happened. The plant closed and the community lost a major employer and thousands of jobs. Where is that money? Why can't that be paid back to the state and used to balance the so-called "budget crisis"?
A good friend used to tell me that the questions are always more important than the answers. Once again, we must ask some cogent and important questions of the people who are in a position to do damage to support structures. Don't accept the premise that Wisconsin is "broke". Ask questions that dig deeper into where our money goes. What do we want to spend our money on, where do we want it to go? Are resource wars too costly? Is this what we see as a priority in our state, in our country? Are we willing to cut back on education to fund this chronic violence to which we send our youth? Are we willing to forgo critically needed infrastructure repairs? Can we live with the knowledge that more and more of our neighbors and friends will fall in to poverty or live without medical care all so we can continue to bleed for oil? Are we comfortable living with those specters?
Wisconsin is not the only state gathering in the streets. Have you seen The People in Michigan? In Ohio, New Hampshire, Indiana? What questions are needed when this apparent concerted effort rises before us? Remember, as you frame your questions, that the Citizens United decision has blessed corporations with person hood. A corporation has now been granted the full measure of freedoms before only afforded to actual human beings. What does that mean? It may well mean, as we are seeing, that corporations are formulating plans and writing policies at all levels of government that will determine where the money goes - in to their coffers - and who will carry their banners - very conservative people like Scott Walker.
I don't know about you but I am clear that I want my money to go to helping The People, to educating our children, to repairing and maintaining our roads, parks, communal spaces, to greening our environment, to encouraging alternative energies, to fostering peace and economic justice in our country and the world. I am clear that I do not want it to go to fighting, killing and dying. I am clear that I wish for my friend who teaches kids to have a good work environment, to make a good living and to get the things she needs to do the best job she can for the children. I am clear that I wish for fire fighters and police to make a good living and be able to bargain for the things they need to do their jobs. I am clear that I want a governor in Madison who is willing to hear the needs of The People, to sit down and negotiate, to listen, to offer solutions and not build walls. I am clear where I want my money to go.
Power To All The People!
p.s. Vote tomorrow!
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