The $700 Billion approved by both ruling parties in the US to give the current Trump administration Carte Blanche for all of the threats, escalations, bombings, deployments being carried forward is directly stolen from the funds needed to fix Puerto Rico, the US Virgin Islands, Texas and Florida, the funds for full sevices needed, to end hunger and malnutrition in the US, to provide free universal health care, to fully meet the educational needs of America's youth, to rebuild the decadent roads and infrastructure, to maintain public control of the internet, to provide full employment, etc.
The violence the US has wrought upon nations throughout the world and the threats of violence, has come home to the US streets in the form of impunity for brutality and killing by police, Furthermore police departments particularly in cities are increasingly receiving military training and millions in military and equipment are transferred from the Pentagon to local police forces. Through racialized and classist policing and meting out of sentencing, millions are incarcerated in inhumane conditions and forced into enslavement labor by the criminal justice system.
The military also has a significant presence in public schools, particularly in low income communities targeting youth for military recruitment as cannon fodder and to carry out the violent missions on behalf of US foreign policy. Between mass incarceration and military recruitment and the toll that takes on the families with one or both parents removed, much of the adult population in impoverished communities is demobilized and unable to make a practical contribution toward resisting onslaught from the many forms of systemic oppression.
It is imperative for those who are working to oppose US wars abroad to recognize the connection to the conditions that are tantamount to a US war at home against its own domestic inhabitants. Every effort must be made to show support for the organizations that are targeting the many domestic onslaughts including those of groups like Peoples Organization for Progress, Decarcerate the Garden State, efforts to support livable wages, free health care for all, full funding for education, safe and healthy communities and environment, support for labor organizing, etc. Opportunities to organize educational events even in the street where the connections between these issues need to be pursued and organized must be sought.
We will make no progress in the struggle to oppose endless US wars of imperialism abroad without also taking head on the US wars at home against "our own people." .
