Bring the Billion$ Home

Bring Our Billion$ Home - Olympia's Update August 1, 2011 (Word doc) (pdf doc)

The Olympia Fellowship of Reconciliation and our campaign to Bring our Billion$ Home invite you to enjoy peace, justice, music and fun

Military spending keeps going up – at the expense of cutbacks in social and environmental needs, aid for state and local governments, etc. Congress won’t take leadership to change federal budget priorities. Only a grassroots movement can do that. The “Bring Our Billion$ Home” campaign wants to stop the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere, cut military spending overall, and use the savings to fund the many things that we really need.

· Bring big cardboard boxes to build a symbolic wall with images and messages about our wars and military budget on one side and peaceful alternatives (better ways to spend the money) on the other. Prepare them at home in advance or use the art supplies we’ll have available to illustrate our boxes. We’ll build this wall – and then Turn the Budget Around! Fun for all ages!

· Enjoy music by the Artesian Rumble Arkestra’s lively street band at 1:00 and “Today We Are,” surprisingly rousing music featuring Molly on the cello and Sean on the accordion, starting at 2:00. Also, “a motley samba group” will lead us in dancing around our wall and knocking it down and building something new.

· Participate in various activities, including a “penny poll.” We’ll provide ten pennies representing the federal budget and invite you to allocate in several jars to show how you would spend our tax dollars.

· Enjoy other “Bring Our Billion$ Home” activities – fun for the whole family!

While military spending keeps escalating, individual Americans are losing their jobs and homes, and state and local governments are cutting needed services. “Taxpayers from Washington state have spent $23.8 billion for the wars, but 40,000 Washingtonians have lost basic health coverage, college tuition has risen, library hours have been cut, and funds to reduce school class size have been slashed 70%,” said Glen Anderson, a long-time local peace organizer who is helping to organize the campaign.

He continued, “Military spending at the federal level has led to cutbacks in funding state and local priorities. The federal government spends about $1 million to keep each soldier in Afghanistan for a year. We must cut wasteful military spending such as the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, and transfer the savings to fund human and environmental needs. The public knows what we really need.”

The local gathering supports a multi-dimensional grassroots campaign to “Bring Our Billion$ Home.” The campaign will inform and activate the public and pressure the Congress to reduce military spending and apply the savings to fund urgent human and environmental needs in the US.

This event is sponsored by the Olympia Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR) as part of the “Bring Our Billion$ Home” campaign of the Western Washington Fellowship of Reconciliation (WWFOR). The Olympia FOR has worked in many nonviolent ways for peace and social justice since 1976. WWFOR has worked even longer at the regional level. Both are part of a national and international pacifist organization that has been active since 1914 in Europe and 1915 in the U.S.

The Olympia Fellowship of Reconciliation’s local gathering is part of the Western Washington Fellowship of Reconciliation’s multi-dimensional grassroots campaign to “Bring Our Billion$ Home.” The campaign is informing and activating the public and pressure the Congress to reduce military spending and apply the savings to fund urgent human and environmental needs in the US.

The Olympia and Western Washington FOR groups have worked for decades in many nonviolent ways for peace and social justice. Both are part of a national and international pacifist organization that has been active since 1914 in Europe and 1915 in the U.S.