There's Still Reason To March Against the War
This month marks the sixth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, and the beginning of our seventh year of occupation there. Although President Obama has announced a timeline for reducing U.S. troops in Iraq, he is proposing sending more troops to Afghanistan. Rather than see our troops come home, we may simply see them move from one front to another. For people who want to see an end to these foreign wars, dozens of groups are working together to organize Oregon's largest anti-war events of the year in Salem this Sunday and Monday.
Oregonians from traditional peace groups as well as grassroots groups working on local issues will demand that Oregon legislators bring the Oregon National Guard home and keep resources focused on addressing Oregon's financial crisis. Groups are collaborating on a level not seen since the early years of the Iraq war. Back then, we knew we had a president who was bound and determined to ignore us, but we marched anyway. Our current political reality calls for action for different reasons.
"President Obama has invoked a moment similar to one in the presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt," explains Amy Dudley of Oregon's Rural Organizing Project. "FDR once told a group of reformers, 'I agree with you, I want to do it, now make me do it.' At this point, with a sympathetic administration, it's still up to us to take these messages to our elected officials -- it's up to us to make things happen."
Rural Organizing Project rescheduled their annual rural caucus to give their members a chance to converge on the Capitol as part of this mass mobilization. They'll be joining with dozens of groups including Oregon Action, PDX Peace, Community Alliance of Lane County (CALC), PCUN and the Center for Intercultural Organizing to demand that elected officials focus on the crisis at home and stop squandering resources on wars abroad.
Sunday, March 15, 1 PM, Salem "Bring the Oregon Guard Home Rally"
"We're supporting specific bills to bring the Oregon National Guard units back to Oregon," explains Amy. "In the past there have been resolutions or memorial-type bills, but there's now a House Bill that recognizes the Governor's authority to take this step and recall the Guard to Oregon."
House Bill 2556, just had a hearing this week as legislators discussed the reality of pressing for a return of our National Guard units. Representative Chip Shields, who has worked on some of these past bills calling to bring the troops home, is a cosponsor of this latest, more aggressive bill modeled after legislation that has raised debates in other state capitols as well.
Monday, March 16, Salem: Democracy Bailout Day
While ROP has rural activists in Salem, they will take to the halls of the Capitol on Monday for their annual lobby day. They will meet with most of the Oregon legislature in support of the ROP legislative platform. In a new twist, their legislative meetings will include rural and urban Oregonians speaking together about what's important to them and concerns they share about Oregon's future.
"We're broadening our analysis of the war to address not just the wars in the Middle East, but the wars at home that are closely linked to them," explains ROP organizer Amy Dudley. "Attacks on immigrants, targeting rural communities and young people for military recruitment, cutting services in order to balance the state budget on the backs of seniors and poor people... we want to support priorities at home instead of wars overseas."
This Democracy Bailout Day comes at a crucial moment: as we reach the sixth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, we are also scrambling to lift ourselves out of an economic crisis. Groups are collaborating in new ways for Monday's Democracy Bailout Day because so much is at stake: many Oregon communities have been affected by the trade-offs that state and federal governments have made over the last few years as military spending has dug a deeper and deeper hole. It will be up to us to keep asking our state lawmakers the hard questions about what our states' priorities are in these tough times and how long we can neglect local needs.
To join in the March 15th and 16th events: http://www.rop.org/democracy-bailout
