The WIL at the Anti-War Demonstration in Pittsburgh

“This very minute, billions upon billions of dollars are being spent on a war of domination while millions upon millions of people in this country are struggling to find jobs and afford food, shelter, and health care.  While we are constantly forced to believe that we, as Americans, are the most fortunate people in the world, we work long hours for low wages only to be confronted with a battle to afford the most basic necessities.  So today, we demand that the sacrifice ends.  We refuse to further sacrifice our labor, our liberties, and our lives for the profit of corporate investors and their government. 

“The children of U.S. workers are hit especially hard by the effects of this war.  As tuition rates rise, fewer and fewer working class students are able to obtain a post-secondary education.  Never ashamed to exploit a situation that they created, the corporations and the government that supports them are eager to offer this generation of working class youth a paid education and a future career if only they sign over their lives to be used as cannon fodder for imperialism.  We see the military recruiters in our high school cafeterias and on our college campuses weekly, as they use their deceptive tactics to enlist poor and desperate youth for the monetary gain of the rich.  We, as the young workers and students, cannot stand for this exploitation of our classmates and this direct attack on working class youth in our schools.

“There is a clear conflict of interest between those who push for the war and those who pay the price.  The young people in the military and those who suffer the economic hardships at home have nothing to gain in a war and everything to lose.  The innocent Iraqi people, too, are struggling with life in an increasingly chaotic and violent country due to a war that was advertised as being for their benefit.  Now, after four years, we must again ask, who benefits from the war?  Neither the American nor the Iraqi people benefit from a more peaceful and higher quality of life.  On the contrary, things have only gotten worse. It is only the oil companies and other investors in Iraq who have been successful.  The Iraqi people are not our enemies.  Our enemies are the corporations and the big business government in our own country who have a monetary interest in controlling the resources of the Middle East. 

“The media tries to make the public believe that the Democratic and Republican politicians have our interests in mind.  How can these people defend our interests when they have experienced exponential profit from the war, while the rest of us have suffered devastating loss?  Their interests lie in the pockets of the corporations who funded their campaigns and support their parties.  It’s time to break with these politicians and their lies, and raise our voices in a truly democratic spirit of opposition.  It’s time that we make ourselves heard as the majority of America and that we organize and mobilize the power that is ours in order to end the war once and for all.  It’s time that we make our demands with one voice, in support of the interests of the working people and the youth in this country and around the world.”