War is also a woman's issue
By Dorothea Peacock
Last year on Sept. 22 the Women's Fightback Network (WFN) in
Boston took to the streets to say "NO" to war against
Afghanistan, Palestine, Iraq, Colombia, the Philippines, Korea,
Vieques, Cuba or Zimbabwe.
Martin Luther King Jr. stated in 1967 that, "The U.S. bombs
falling in the villages of Vietnam are exploding in the inner
cities of the U.S."
Links were made between the wars abroad and the war at
home--be it budget cuts impacting on poor women and children,
the unemployed, elders, students and youth along with racist
killer cops and repression against immigrant workers and youth
of color.
Billions of dollars are spent each year on the Pentagon to
bomb and murder people around the world. Now the bankers,
bosses and big oil companies want upwards of $200 billion on
top of the $400 billion Pentagon budget to carry out an
invasion of Iraq.
We say, overturn the Pentagon war budget and fund human
needs--including health care, housing, public education, day
care, mental health and drug treatment services, HIV/AIDS
funding, Women, Infants and Children (WIC) and welfare.
Grandmas on fixed incomes are babysitters raising
grandchildren because there is no money to pay for childcare or
private sitters.
This week in Massachusetts thousands of workers have been
laid off from welfare offices and the Department of Mental
Health. Access to free mental health care has been abolished
for those battling depression and for those released from
prison as well as undocumented immigrants.
Racist prison wardens are demanding rent money from
prisoners in Massachusetts to balance the war budget on the
backs of the poorest--but not without a fight! Our brothers and
sisters behind the walls are resisting this dictate even if it
means stiff punishment.
Some 11,000 seniors are being thrown off the Tufts HMO plan,
which no longer accepts Medicare. Another 1 million people in
Massachusetts can no longer fill prescriptions at CVS and
Walgreens due to the outright extortion by the drug and
insurance companies.
Governor Swift's $2-billion budget cuts in October do not
include cutting the police, who have a shoot-to-kill policy
against people of color. Recently, a 25-year-old mother,
Eveline Barros-Cepeda, was shot in the head by a cop in
Dorchester. The WFN attended a vigil for her.
From attacks on affirmative action, desegregation and
bilingual education to racist Massachusetts Comprehensive
Assessment System testing, public education is being carved up
to pay for bombs, tanks and the collapse of Enron and
WorldCom.
There is an epidemic of domestic violence and murder of
women in Fort Bragg, N.C., by their soldier husbands who
returned from Afghanistan. Young mothers serving in the U.S.
military are boarding warships headed for the Persian Gulf and
leaving their babies. The mothers of Iraq and Palestine have
children dying from sanctions, bombs and helicopter gunships
made in the USA.
Women in the U.S. have a responsibility to speak out and
organize. The WFN will be organizing a contingent of women to
march on Oct. 26 to stop imperialist war and fight for human
needs and socialism.
Reprinted from the Oct. 3, 2002, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyrighted
under a Creative
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