Yay! I participated! I just got back from the MoveOn.org local Cincinnati (CincinnatiMoveOn.org) press release gathering concerning the local cost of the Iraq War. I even got some pictures.
We gathered near the Brent Spence Bridge - Covington, KY exit - for infrastructure relevancy and quality visibility.
The group wasn't huge: about a dozen or so in attendance. The media never showed.
A particularly clever sign had a quick-flip answer to the occasional middle finger.
This was the point...
...that our MoveOn.org organizer (Dick Manoukian) read about, sans cameras.
How about some of that Iraq War information? By the numbers, of course:
- $456 billion - monies appropriated for the war so far (that's $4,100 for every household in the U.S.)
- $15.99 billion - cost to Ohio taxpayers
- $806 million - cost to Ohio's 1st District (over $2.5 billion adding Ohio's 2nd district and Kentucky's 4th, encompassing the local metro area)
- Health care coverage for 270,399 people - or 458,768 kids, or
- Head Start for 124,560 additional kids, or
- 13,708 new elementary school teachers, or
- 99,814 scholarships to make college more affordable, or
- Renewable electricity for 903,450 homes, or
- 7,524 affordable housing units, or
- 19,351 public safety officers to keep the streets safe
What is the tipping point for the American people? What will get 100 or 200 or a thousand local people so pissed off about how our country is being mismanaged that they, too, will appear in a park by a highway exit to gain more visibility and more visibility until we cannot be ignored? Is it $1 trillion spent? Is it 5,000 or 10,000 Americans dead?
Is it seeing Dick Cheney say that invading Baghdad and deposing Saddam would be a horrible idea...back in 1994?
One thing is for certain: we will change nothing by sitting on our asses and whining about it. Get active. Get involved.
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