Dear Supporter,

Thank you for signing Peace Action’s petition to cut the Pentagon's budget, not Social Security and Medicare. Hundreds of new supporters joined Peace Action’s action alert email list. We are building our network. Now, it is time for the next step.

The media is covering Wall Street being rocked by the Standard & Poor’s downgrade of US credit rating in the wake of the nearly trillion dollars in cuts to the Federal budget set by the debt ceiling agreement. 

Soon, the Congressional committee of 12 will begin deliberations on the next round of budget cuts - cuts that the 25 million unemployed and under employed and our communities cannot afford.

Every newspaper in the country is carrying the narrative that cuts need to be made.

We have to get into the fight and flood the letters to the editor section with: if cuts are being made to discretionary Federal spending then start with the 58% of the spending that goes to the Pentagon.

Write a letter to the editor of your local newspaper today. We need jobs in our communities! Make the cuts in the 58% of the discretionary budget that goes to the Pentagon, not in the 4% that goes to education, the 5% for health care, or the 2% for transportation. Make the wealthy and corporations pay their fair share and end the wars.

On August 9, Congressman Barney Frank interviewed by National Public Radio said:

There is another area that I would hope we would get some agreement on. It's something I've been working on. And that's telling the rest of the world that they can no longer count on America to be their military budget, their policemen. I would begin by withdrawing from Iraq and Afghanistan at a cost of $125 billion a year.

In addition to saving the 125 billion... it's time for us to tell NATO that they no longer need American protection. That began in the '40s to protect poor nations devastated by World War II from a communist threat. Everything has changed except the tens of billions of American money that goes there.”

Those who believe we must cut Pentagon spending are not getting a fair shake in the media. Even hard driving  Congressman Frank still had difficulty getting all the facts out. Listen for yourself.

Write a letter to the editor of your local paper and say: We need jobs in our communities! Make the cuts in the 58% of the discretionary budget that goes to the Pentagon, not in the 4% that goes to education, the 5% for health care, or the 2% for transportation. Make the wealthy and corporations pay their fair share and end the wars. 

In Struggle,

Judith Le Blanc
Field Director
Peace Action

P.S. Take a moment to read my article, Ready to Rumble for Jobs Not War and More Weapons, which was posted on Common Dreams on 8/5/11. Let me know what you think.