Feb. 8, 2008 Hilo Peace Vigil leaflet (BIP)

Bush's Mammoth Military Budget!

     As the poor and middle-class continue to bear the brunt of these hard economic times, struggling to pay for housing, food, gasoline and health care, Bush announced his request of $518.3 billion for his 2009 military budget.

     The military spending doesn't even include war funding for Iraq and Afghanistan, nuclear weapons programs, taking care of returning veterans, or covering the interest on the hugh national debt created by out of control military spending. The Bush Administration has already increased "baseline military spending" by 30 percent since taking office.

     Meanwhile, the Bush Budget fails to address -- and even exacerbates -- real threats to security that Americans are experiencing every day. More people are going hungry, and the President proposes eliminating food stamps for more than 300,000 people in low-income working families with children. More people can't pay their bills, and he would cut 22 percent from the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program. The Community Services Block Grant, "a $654 million program that provides housing, nutrition, education and job services to low-income people, would be eliminated...

     Also proposed are $170 billion in cuts to Medicare and $14 billion to Medicaid. Of course, tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans who are eating, sleeping, and generally living just fine, thanks, are preserved. As Frances Fox Piven, author of The War at Home: The Domestic Costs of Bush's Militarism, said today, "American wealth is being redirected toward the military and the rich. Meanwhile, the growing needs of Americans, especially the poor and the old, are being ignored. The instabilities in the US economy now becoming evident are more and more worrisome."

     Joseph Cirincione, senior fellow at the Center for American Progress said: "The president's plan shows that the military-industrial complex has firm control of a budget now out of control. Given the growing financial crisis gripping this country, no one believes that these numbers are sustainable...

     For Americans whose lives are threatened daily by how hard it is to make ends meet, the Bush defense budget is indeed just another Bridge to Nowhere.

Katrina vanden Heuvel is editor of The Nation. http://www.alternet.org/workplace/76161/

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QUIZ: 1. What percentage of homeless men in America have served in the military? 10% 25% 33%? 2.According to the International Red Cross, what percentage of Iraqis incarcerated by the US military were arrested by mistake? Between 0 and 10% Between 20-30% Between 70-90% 3. What percent of soldiers deployed to Iraq have been ambushed or attacked? 5% 45% 89% 4. What percentage of U.S. veterans who started college in 1995 earned a bachelor's degree by 2001? 3% 40% 82% Answers 1. 33% 2. Between 70-90%. 3. 89%. 4. 3%.<http://www.warcomeshome.org/node/47/quiz/start>

DON'T BUY IT! RESIST!

1. Mourn all victims of violence. 2. Reject war as a solution. 3. Defend civil liberties. 4. Oppose all discrimination: anti-Islamic, anti-Semitic, etc. 5. Seek peace through justice in Hawai`i and around the world.

Contact: Malu `AinaCenter for Non-violent Education & Action P.O. Box AB Ola`a (Kurtistown), Hawai`i 96760.

Phone (808) 966-7622 Email ja@interpac.net http://www.malu-aina.org

Hilo Peace Vigil leaflet (February 8, 2008 - 334th week) - Friday 3:30-5PM downtown Post Office