More photos from 1/25/22 Vets for Peace vigil in Asheville

 

Asheville says NO to war. Photos by Rachael Bliss.

LTE by member of Chapter 099

 Madison Cawthorn’s False Promise to Veterans

In Cawthorn’s recent update, he stated, “Our veterans are the reason we live in a free country today; they deserve the best treatment our country has to offer.” Apparently, this is just so much talk. 

On January 20, the House passed the Ensuring Veterans’ Smooth Transition Act (EVEST). It requires the VA to automatically enroll veterans in the VA Health Care System when they are separated from the military. Cawthorn’s comments during a roundtable on the bill clearly gave the impression he supported EVEST.

On January 20, however, Cawthorn joined 44 Republicans in casting a nay vote on EVEST. Nearly 700,000 veterans reside in NC. Proportionate to population, NC ranks ninth in enlistments and second in military deaths. Fewer than one percent of Americans serve in the military. They deserve “the best treatment our country has to offer,” according to Cawthorn. Why, then, did he vote against EVEST?

The typical Republican rationale is cost. If the U.S. can afford to spend $2.4 trillion on war in Afghanistan and Iraq, three-quarters of a trillion dollars annually on the defense budget, and 1.7 trillion on the F-35 that is still not fully operational, it can afford the EVEST Act, which the Congressional Budget Office estimates will cost $3.1 billion over the 2022-2026 period. (One F-35 costs $78 million.) Veterans earned and deserve the care EVEST will afford them.

If you support veterans, tell Cawthorn that empty talk is not acceptable. Action counts, not glib comments.

Bruce Carruthers
Asheville, NC

WNC Vets for Peace Vigil on 2/25/22

PHOTO:  Rachael Roberts Bliss
No war in Ukraine. Asheville cares.

Protest against nuclear weapons in Asheville

Photos below came from WLOS. 

JAN. 22, 2022 - The group Reject Raytheon AVL gathered at Pack Square Saturday afternoon to hold a demonstration, calling on the U.S. to join the United Nations Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. (Photo credit: WLOS staff)

Story from WLOS is here.

Close Guantanamo protest at weekly Vets for Peace vigil

 20 years of the Guantanamo prison, still 39 Muslim men there, 15 of whom have been cleared for release, 12 of whom have not been charged and are called "forever prisoners," 12 of whom have been charged but not tried. None of them have been found guilty of anything, but have been subjected to years and years of indefinite detention, torture, and other cruelties. We call out: CLOSE GUANTANAMO NOW.

 

 Photos by Ken Jones.

 

Letter to the Editor from Vets for Peace member

 We are facing a global climate emergency

In a recent letter to the editor (Green New Deal for Asheville, Jan. 4), Raymond Dyer makes fun of a group of people who were holding a banner on the Montford bridge. The banner read “Climate Emergency! Green New Deal Now. RejectRaytheonAVL.com.”

I was one of those people with the banner. And I’d like to give a serious response to his easy dismissal of our efforts as “misguided.” His argument is that Asheville would be foolish to enact a green new deal alone. It’s the same argument that says we may as well welcome war profiteer Pratt & Whitney into Asheville because we locals can have no effect on the larger world.

Our call is for change at all levels, not just local. Nothing less will do. We are facing a global climate emergency propelled by multinational fossil fuel companies and war corporations.

We all are part of an interconnected web of life on this planet. We can see this and act to protect this gift of life or we can ignore it at our own peril. We stand on bridges with banners because we are calling people to awaken and insist on a sustainable future for our children and grandchildren.

What’s misguided is to ignore the obvious death spiral we are in and to go about one’s merry way down the road to extinction.
 
Ken Jones, Swannanoa