Call for Visits with Members of Congress
During these two weeks, Congress will be on recess, which means our elected officials will be in their home districts — the perfect opportunity to set up meetings with them. The UFPJ Legislative Working Group, with input from the other UFPJ working groups, has developed a package of materials which should be helpful. Click here to learn more about this effort.
Make an appointment now! Click here for a list of Bay Area members of Congress and their contact links.
The occupation of Iraq is not ending; war in Afghanistan is escalating; and Congress is considering increasing the military budget. Now is the moment to call and make appointments to meet with your representative and senators while they are in their districts and states during these two weeks.
Now is the time to oppose an expanded war in Afghanistan and to demand a real withdrawal from Iraq, not based on reclassifying troops as ‘non-combat’. We cannot afford to continue enlarging the war and military budgets or bailing out bankers. We need an approach to the world and our economy based on diplomacy and investment in human needs.
We have an opportunity to turn our country away from militarism and empire, recover civil liberties, restore the rule of law, and make wars more difficult to initiate, expand, or continue by building the institutions of peace.
President Obama has embraced a war strategy for Afghanistan/Pakistan; the withdrawal of troops from Iraq has been delayed; there is a request for another $75.6 billion for FY2009 and $130 billion for 2010; overall Department of Defense spending is projected at $664 billion. With all of this in mind — and given the strategic priority of UFPJ to focus on the wars and occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as our commitment to work for deep cuts in military spending — we urge your group to concentrate on these issues during any meetings you can set up with your members of Congress in the coming weeks.
Click here for information on making appointments, finding allies to work with, and talking points on Afghanistan, Iraq, and the overall military budget. We also have compiled a comprehensive overview of other key legislative items, many of which UFPJ is supporting. Some of your groups may already be working on several of these issues and so raising them in your meetings with members of Congress might make sense. Ideally, we urge you to help those who represent you in Congress understand how we see the connections between these issues.
