Today is the International Day of Peace
Today is the International Day of Peace. It arrives 10 days after September 11, which some have turned into a day of bigotry and willful ignorance.
After a quarter-century of calming down, it's now possible in some corners of this country to talk rationally about how massive, counterproductive U.S. militarism contributed to the horrific crime of 9/11/01 — without excusing or justifying it — and how doubling down on that militarism ever since has fueled greater hostility and violence.
Back then, adjusted for inflation, U.S. military spending was at $588 billion, and a bill in Congress now would explode it to $1.5 trillion.
It's easy to get upset about $38 billion spent on bombing Iran, and about the huge economic impacts of that horrible war across the globe. But nobody ever funded that war. The funding was simply taken by the Pentagon from its vast pile of loot.
If we let the Pentagon have $1,500 billion more, we will be wise to expect more wars, not fewer.
In addition to emailing Congress at the link above, you can phone your representative's and senators' offices at this number (all you have to know is your address and what you want your Congress members to do):