Ukraine War Demand PEACE
03/10/2023
Ukraine War Demand PEACE
Letter to the Editor
by MD Taylor, State Chairperson – MI/Welfare Rights Org
Listening to the League – As the one-year ‘anniversary’ of the Ukraine War is being highlighted, one can’t help but see the daily encouragements offered by different international & national news services to pick one side or the other. Remember the old slogan, “In war, the first casualty is the truth?” Alternative press sources have cautioned the world to look into what they say is really happening so only bits and pieces of attempts to offer a different set of facts are able to seep through. The world either supports Ukraine or Russia as if these are the only positions that can be embraced. The LEAGUE and many other voices have the answer to this terrible event. We should all demand PEACE as the alternative to war. Millions/billions of dollars are being directed to this horror as the death tolls rise along with the costs. Where are the voices demanding PEACE? Where are the countries that are demanding PEACE? Where are the religious institutions, the medical institutions, the anti-hunger, the anti-war, & anti-poverty institutions, the pro-labor institutions…where are those voices? This is the alternative path that the League supports. We must raise the call that the bloodshed has to stop and stop NOW. Priorities must be re-arranged that put the basic needs of all people FIRST – the right to access food, to have a roof, to have access to healthcare, etc. The National Welfare Rights Union supports this option as the direct response to the out-of-control carnage that is unfolding before our eyes. Can the nations of the world stand up as one voice that says NO MORE?!? This is not a moment of idealism, or being naïve or unrealistic. It is the call from the class of people who are most impacted by war – working class people, our sons, and daughters sent to fight against other sons and daughters while the military budgets in all involved countries are becoming fat and happy. What kind of people are we where we stand by and don’t speak up when we see the death tolls rising? Reports of rape, scenes of residential destruction, evidence of rising homelessness, civilian limbs lost, aggression everywhere, and the threat of nuclear involvement as part and parcel of what is possible makes this important to us all. Are we so far removed from envisioning a world where it is routine for its citizens to die of old age in their beds at age 105 years? Can we not see a future where the rights of humanity are paramount – where we find ways during international disasters to help nation-states when needed? Is it impossible to believe that we all have the capacity to demand PEACE no matter who we are? A slave lived on a plantation and came to the decision that escape to freedom was the only way out, so he ran and reached the next plantation where he Listen to the League… MDTaylor, State Chairperson – MI/Welfare Rights Orgwas captured. Others saw what happened, and decided freedom was what they needed, so they ran off and reached the next county before they were captured. The next group traveled and got as far as the next state then finally a group got all the way to the North and then to Canada where they finally found freedom. These slaves didn’t drive cars, they had no flashlights, they walked, they had few friends along the way, but they had a goal, a vision, and a destination. We have cars, we have flashlights, we have social media to connect to, we have friends all along the way, we have the spirit and we should understand by now, that the economic system that rules today should not long endure. Can we muster enough courage to be as brave as a slave? Listen to the League… MDTaylor, State Chairperson – MI/Welfare Rights Org