Protesters Greet Former Defense Secretary - Boston News Story - WCVB Boston

Protesters Greet Former Defense Secretary - Boston News Story - WCVB Boston


Edited on Tue Sep-27-11 04:38 PM by Hissyspit
Source: Raw Story / WCVB-TV

Check out the video at the link above for some interviews of VFP members. Apparently this meeting house is known for its long history of citizen protest.

BOSTON -- Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld got a rude welcome in Boston Monday night as he promoted his new book.

Several protesters tried to disrupt a forum with Rumsfeld at the Old South Meeting House, shouting and holding up signs as most of the audience shouted and booed them down.

"I went down in front and looked Donald Rumsfeld in the eye and said, 'I'm making a citizen's arrest,' said protester Nate Goldschlag, a member of the group Veterans for Peace, who had to buy Rumsfeld's book to get into the event.

"He lied us into Iraq. He lied about weapons of mass destruction. He lied about Saddam Hussein being involved in 9/11," Goldschlag said.

Ike’s Grandson Reissues Famous Military-Industrial Complex Warning

Ike’s Grandson Reissues Famous Military-Industrial Complex | Veterans Today

David Eisenhower, grandson of the president who warned Americans of a “military-industrial complex(MIC) 50 years ago, says in an essay this month that that coalition today “retains significant influence…” Yes, indeedy! In fact, when the Pentagon gets more than half of all taxes collected from the American people and spends more for war than all our 50 governors spend to run their states, his phrase “significant influence” may be a wee bit understated.

Is cutting military spending on the block along with other parts of the discretionary budget? Some deficit hawks are fearful of appearing soft on their proclaimed war on terror. But Eisenhower had no qualms about military spending.

Eisenhower writes that his grandfather meant every word of his famous warning. Proof: the popular (“I like”) Ike slashed military spending 27% during his eight years in office.

Twenty seven percent of the present day military budget would slash over a quarter of a trillion per year from the deficit or 2.5 plus trillion in a decade. But don't hold your breath and if they do cut get ready to fight like hell for veterans benefits. You wouldn't expect it to come out of contractors pockets!

War Economy Picket - Vets for Peace Chapter 14 Gainesville Chapter

Vets for Peace and Allies
Every Tuesday through October
Second and Fourth Tuesdays
Corner of University avenue and 441
First and Third Tuesdays
Corner of Archer Road and 34th street
Join Us Between 4:30 and 6:30
Giant Banner on the military Budget and Cost of War Signs
Bring your own sign or choose from one of ours

Noam Chomsky on How the Military Is Bankrupting Us and Why Corporate Interests Want to Destroy Public Programs

Noam Chomsky on How the Military Is Bankrupting Us and Why Corporate Interests Want to Destroy Public Programs | World | AlterNet:

Chomsky describes the problems affecting the US economy, including Military spending.

The healthcare system...the huge military spending, the very low taxes for the rich [and corporations]...those are fundamental problems that have to be dealt with if there’s going to be anything like successful economic and social development in the United States."

He comments on Ron Paul's statements about Al Qaeda and 911 and its successes in "bankrupting the US at home".

...he (Bin Laden) was pretty explicit about that. He wanted to draw the United States into what intelligence agencies called a trap, which would inflame and incite hostility in the Muslim world, he hoped, help mobilize people for his cause—I don’t think that happened—but also bankrupt the U.S. at home. I mean, current estimates—there was a recent estimate, a study at Brown University, estimated the cost just of the two wars at about $4 trillion. If you count in the costs of, you know, homeland security and so on, probably doubles that. That’s pretty serious. Between the wars, the housing bubble and Bush’s tax cuts for the rich, that—it creates the economic crisis that we’re now.

And finally why cut Social programs instead of Military spending. This is a dark view of the elites who now run our company through purchase of its democratic institutions:

Social Security is based on a principle. It’s based on the principle that you care about other people. You care whether the widow across town, a disabled widow, is going to be able to have food to eat. And that’s a notion you have to drive out of people’s heads. The idea of solidarity, sympathy, mutual support, that’s doctrinally dangerous. The preferred doctrines are just care about yourself, don’t care about anyone else. That’s a very good way to trap and control people. And the very idea that we’re in it together, that we care about each other, that we have responsibility for one another, that’s sort of frightening to those who want a society which is dominated by power, authority, wealth, in which people are passive and obedient.

But I think we all can recognize people exactly like this. They applauded someones death at the recent debates and their rhetoric is consistently "non-caring".

Vets for Peace is countering this rhetoric with the facts in our War Economy pickets on tuesdays from 4:30 to 6:30. Join us!