4-03-09, 9:26 am

New York, NY – Saturday, April 4, will mark the tragic anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s death in Memphis, TN. It is also the anniversary of his 'Beyond Vietnam' speech at Riverside Church, NYC one year earlier. In the historic speech, Dr. King decried the 'triple evils' that plagued the nation – 'racism, extreme materialism, and militarism.'

We humbly suspect that Dr. King would be with us on Saturday, April 4, marching with United For Peace and Justice to Wall Street and pressing for our campaign, 'Beyond War, A New Economy Is Possible.'

United For Peace and Justice calls for an end to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and for a new and better approach to resolving the economic crisis, one that combines much-needed investments in our communities with environmental restoration and moves towards a green economy. Just as Dr. King said in his Riverside speech, we need to 'rapidly begin the shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society.'

Many people, in this country and beyond, have pinned their hopes on President Obama and the change he promised. His domestic agenda, outlined in his budget, takes steps in the right direction. However, his escalation of the war in Afghanistan, as well as the ongoing occupation of Iraq, threaten to obliterate the most progressive aspects of Obama's domestic agenda, just as the war in Vietnam ruined the presidency of President Lyndon Johnson.

'We have had enough of war! We need to devote all of our energy and attention to addressing the global economic and climate crises, to improving education, housing and health care in this country, not squandering $12 billion per month on the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan,' said Leslie Cagan, National Coordinator of United for Peace and Justice.

More war is not the answer, and until fundamental changes are made in US foreign policy – an end to blank-check support for Israel, an end to US occupation and military bases in Arab lands, an end to threats to Iran, an end to the chimera of the Global War on Terror, an end to hypocrisy on nuclear proliferation, and concrete steps to address legitimate grievances in the Arab and Muslim world – whatever we do in Afghanistan or Pakistan or Iraq, short of a massive occupation which would be immoral and we can't afford, is doomed to failure.

President Obama's domestic economic agenda – investing in resolving pressing problems on jobs, health care, education, housing and climate change – is put at grave risk by our exorbitant (possibly over $3 trillion) and seemingly endless wars. We can't afford to forego the crucial investments we need to make our communities stronger. We simply can't afford more war.

Dr. King observed in his 'Beyond Vietnam' speech that the country's commitment to a serious program of investment in human needs in the mid-1960s was '…broken and eviscerated as if it were some idle political plaything of a society gone mad on war.'

King's words still ring, chillingly, across four decades, 'A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.'

United For Peace and Justice urges people throughout the nation to join our call for peace with justice, rather than an escalation of war. Let us recognize and act on Dr. King's 'fierce urgency of now' as we 'rededicate ourselves to the long and bitter, but beautiful, struggle for a new world.'

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