Twin Cities activists hold vigil to demand end to endless U.S. wars
Saint Paul, MN – On Wednesday, November 23, more than 40 peace activists from around the Twin Cities gathered on the Lake Street Marshall Bridge to demand an end to all U.S. interventions around the globe. The event was initiated by the Minnesota Peace Action Coalition (MPAC) in partnership with Women Against Military Madness (WAMM). WAMM has been holding weekly protests on the Lake Street/Marshall Avenue Bridge for 23 years, consistently calling for an end to U.S. wars ever since NATO began bombing Yugoslavia in 1999.
The call for action put forward a range of slogans, including “Say no to World War III,” “Stop the endless wars: Syria, Iraq, Somalia, aid to the occupation of Palestine, everywhere,” and “No new wars and interventions: China, Korea, Iran, Haiti, anywhere.” Peace protesters waved signs, chanted “Money for human needs, not for war!” and marched up and down the bridge as passing drivers honked and waved in support. Despite the efforts of the U.S. ruling class to drum up support for its proxy war against Russia, public reaction to the protesters’ call for an end to the war in Ukraine was overwhelmingly positive.
Adam Biel of the Anti-War Committee delivered a speech near the end of the event, drawing attention to the economic motivations behind the U.S. and NATO’s prolongation of the war in Ukraine. He quoted the economist Timothy Ash, a member of the London-based Chatham House imperialist thinktank, as saying that U.S. spending in Ukraine is “peanuts” compared to the economic benefits that the war will produce for Western businesses. Biel summarized the situation: “This is about investing in misery now in order to grow profit later. Pure and simple. It’s about holding back any economic threat to the West in order to maintain supremacy around the world.”
Biel gave a class-oriented perspective on the war in Ukraine, stating, “It’s the poor and working class who have their neighborhoods bombed, their families conscripted and killed, their futures stolen right out from under them. In the aftermath of this, it’ll be the U.S. and its ruling class who have the most say in determining the country's future — this ‘aid’ is never free. It’s also the poor and working class here at home that suffer. This is $91 billion that our public schools miss out on, our infrastructure misses out on, our social welfare programs miss out on; all of these opportunities to invest in the wellbeing of our own people squandered to fund a proxy war where the only winners are the ultra wealthy.”
The protest was endorsed by Anti-War Committee, Freedom Road Socialist Organization, Mayday Books, Minnesota Peace Action Coalition, Minnesota War Tax Resistance, Movement 4 People's Democracy, Party of Communists USA, Socialist Action, Twin Cities Assange Defense, Twin Cities Communist Party USA, Welfare Rights Committee, and Veterans for Peace Chapter 27.