St. Croix Boat Parade

Gathering for Boat Parade

Tomorrow is a big day in Washington DC.  Veterans for Peace will be leading a silent march after listening to important speakers like Daniel Ellsberg(Pentagon Papers), Ray McGovern(retired-CIA) and Mike Prysner (Iraq vet and cofounder of March Forward!) among others; to make a stand for peace.  Basically they are asking Americans all across the nation to ask themselves an important question.

 That question is "how the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan and the expanding war in Pakistan has affected the economy at home."

Their focus is to connect the dots between our faltering economy and the ongoing wars that are draining the treasury. 

The march is to be non-violent and led by Veterans.  It is being billed as the largest U.S. veteran-led civil resistance to war.

Santa arriving for Boat Parade

"During the Vietnam War, Martin Luther King called our government “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today.” Why is it so few Americans ever consider the kind of damage we inflict daily?

"There are children being orphaned, maimed or killed every day, in our name, with our tax dollars; there are soldiers and civilians dying or being maimed for life, in order to generate profits for the most odious imperialistic corporate war machine ever, again in our name. How long are we going to let this go on? Until it is too late, until this destructive machine destroys all of us and the planet to boot?" Welcome to Stop These Wars.

Hotel on the Cay looked so pretty while waiting for the parade

Margaret Flowers a pediatrician has a piece up today(http://www.stopthesewars.org/?p=363) that asks everyone at the end of her piece to take a stand and speak out. 

"However, in these times, it is more important than ever that we do speak out. To be silent is to be complicit. We must not be complicit. We must stand together strongly on the side of justice so that one day justice will prevail."

Boat Parade

Another writer asks why the wars are not being debated as part of the deficit reduction conversations. Dan Kovalik claims there is a deafening silence about the wars in the media and elsewhere when it comes to the deficit.  Reducing Medicare and looking into Social Security which affects all our seniors is given higher billing than the on-going wars.  Why is this he asks?

Fireworks after Parade

So today I'm speaking out.  It is time we talked more as a nation about our goals and aspirations.  How do you spread freedom?  How do you spread peace?  So far, after 9 years of war, neither Iraq nor Afghanistan exhibit either freedom or peace.  Maybe it is time to reconsider what we are doing in the world.  Maybe it is time to discuss the wars we are financing with our tax dollars?