About 230,000 people will die as a result of the war in Yemen if conditions don’t change by the end of 2019... Congress has another chance to end the war this summer during the consideration of annual military spending bills.
(Read this by Hassan El-Tayyab!)
LINK
Thanks for retweeting my OpEd Mark Ruffalo! You have been a tireless advocate in the movement to end US support for the Saudi-UAE led war in Yemen.
The House votes on the defense budget Tuesday or Wednesday of next week. In this vote, House members have a chance to block Trump's emergency $8.1 billion weapons sale to Saudi and the UAE. Call your Rep and tell them it's important they follow through on this!
This war has killed 85,000 children. It’s an immoral and useless war. America should wash its hands of being Saudi Arabia’s partner in these war crimes.
I've been thinking a lot about budget stuff lately as Congress decides how it will allocate nearly $750 billion to the Pentagon in the coming weeks. There is some serious waste fraud and abuse behind much of that figure. So much of that amount actually funds things that are making us less safe. It has got me thinking about my own experiences living on the poverty line trying to figure out my own budget.... Saving and investing money was hard for me when I was a full time musician living gig to gig or lesson to lesson. I took odd jobs welding, doing construction, painting, and gardening... scraping it all together. I loved being a musician full time but it's nice not to be in poverty wondering how to pay bills anymore. Thanks Just Foreign Policy for paying me a living wage. I also have healthcare now. Yay!
There are too many stories to name, but this one kinda sums up a really bad (but not atypical) day being poor... I remember waiting in line in the middle of the winter in Chicago trying to get Medicaid before 6am one morning after several attempts going into the DHS office. If you went in at 7am when their office opened, you'd never get an appointment. They only saw the first 100 or so people. But they wouldn't let you in the building either despite them being open for other stuff. They made us wait out in the cold outside with wind chills of -20 degrees coming off the lake. There were pregnant women with me out there, shivering just trying to get insurance to see a doctor.
Now that I'm working in politics in DC, I see up close how some folks talk about how we were supposedly "mooching the system." They tell me this with a straight face when they have never lived a day in poverty their whole life... And they are working for congressional offices, think tanks, and NGOs that are pushing to keep our government on track to blow trillions on endless wars. We literally just spent almost $6 trillion dollars since 9/11 fighting senseless wars in the Middle East. Next time someone tells me we can't afford a Green New Deal or Medicare for All, I'm going to ask them how much endless war costs us.
It's baffling and extremely frustrating for me having been through what I've been through working in the gig economy and teaching music, not sure on a regular basis how I'd pay rent. It's even more frustrating to know that most of the folks I stood in line with probably had it way worse than I did and might still be uninsured or underinsured. We must invest in our people not war folks! I encourage everyone to call their Reps this week as Congress prepares to mark up and vote on the 2020 National Defense Authorization Act and ask that we make some changes in our priorities.
If you're up for saving America a few bucks, do this:
1) Call the Congressional Switchboard at 202-224-3121
2) Ask for your Representative, and when connected say:
3) My name is ___________ and I am a constituent living at (your address). I’m calling to urge Representative ________ to support amendments in consideration of our defense budget that would cut $200 billion from the pentagon, end our nation’s endless wars, Stop US support for the Saudi-UAE war in Yemen, and prevent war with Iran and Venezuela. I look forward to hearing why the representative does or does not support these steps I feel are important.
2) Ask for your Representative, and when connected say:
3) My name is ___________ and I am a constituent living at (your address). I’m calling to urge Representative ________ to support amendments in consideration of our defense budget that would cut $200 billion from the pentagon, end our nation’s endless wars, Stop US support for the Saudi-UAE war in Yemen, and prevent war with Iran and Venezuela. I look forward to hearing why the representative does or does not support these steps I feel are important.
Thanks for making the call! Current and future generations will thank you too.
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