Wednesday, April 13, 2022
Since 2002, people opposing wars and promoting peace in our area have gathered to express themselves and reach out to others at weekly Saturday 11 am to noon vigils on the Greenfield Town Common. Rain or shine, snow or sunburn.
This coming Saturday, April 16, 2022, two days before the deadline for 2021 tax returns, the vigil focus will be on where most of our taxes go.
Although the US spends more on so-called ‘defense’ than the 11 countries next in line, the National Priorities Project reports that: “President Biden’s FY 2023 budget request once again prioritizes violence, the military and war over peace and human needs. But more spending on militarism can’t address the nation’s or the world’s problems,” they add.
“At $813 billion, the President’s request for the Pentagon exceeds even the $782 billion budget that Congress just passed by $31 billion. The increase alone is twice the amount that Congress refused for ongoing COVID aid for antivirals, vaccines and tests, after nearly one million Americans have died of the virus.”
“…Budgets are moral documents,” Congresswoman Barbara Lee has stated; but “they don’t lend themselves to a moral reading.” She added that increases in military spending are made at the expense of federal investment in affordable housing, homecare, childcare, and education; yet no budget documentation acknowledges this tradeoff.
How can we oppose the largest military budget ever during the war in Ukraine, post-war agony in Afghanistan and a fragile ceasefire in Yemen?
Regarding Ukraine, peace activists world-wide call for a cease-fire, not more weaponry.
As taxes are due from hard-working Americans, it makes sense to examine just how they are being spent.
In an important MY TURN published several years ago, Traprock’s Pat Hynes asks:
“What do our income taxes pay for?
“Our federal income taxes pay for mandatory federal budget programs, including Social Security and Medicare and interest on federal debt. They also pay for discretionary budget programs, among them education, housing, energy, environment, transportation, food and agriculture, and defense.”
Let’s look, then, at where the federal government spent its treasure (our taxes) in fiscal year 2021:
- At a time when there are no challenges to U.S. military supremacy, 47 percent of our country’s discretionary budget went to national defense (Pentagon, Homeland Security, Intelligence and Nuclear Weapons).
- Six percent went to housing and community development; 10 percent to education; 4 percent to transportation; and just 3 percent to energy and environment, when spending to avert climate catastrophe should be a major priority.
Almost 60 years ago, President Eisenhower presciently warned:
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired…[is] a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed…
At the height of the Vietnam War, Martin Luther King deepened Eisenhower’s warning :
A nation that spends more money on military defenses than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.
Franklin County for Peace forms
In this period of ongoing wars and inadequate response to the climate crisis, activists in the Peace Task Force of the FCCPR (Franklin County Continuing the Political Revolution) and the Traprock Center for Peace & Justice have decided to form a new entity. This new Traprock program will be known as Franklin County for Peace.
In a new Mission Statement, the group wrote:
“Franklin County for Peace emerged in the spring of 2022 from the Peace Task Force of Franklin County Continuing the Political Revolution (FCCPR), which formed in 2018… the Peace Task Force has now become a Traprock program with a new name: Franklin County for Peace. FCP will continue to work closely with FCCPR.
What we want, where we stand
War is not an Answer
… Franklin County for Peace encourages education and action to promote peace and prevent all forms of war. This includes countering all pro-war propaganda and organizing the public to support conversion of US military spending to programs that enhance true human security. Today humanity’s very existence is threatened by nuclear war and climate chaos. These threats can only be overcome by international cooperation that decreases the threat of conventional war, abolishes nuclear weapons, and turns our spiritual and material resources to the protection of all humans and our natural environment.
We welcome everyone to join us in this effort.”