Keep Blocking the War Funding

FCNL has a toll-free number to call your representative: 1-888-493-5443.

On July 1st the House passed the funding for an escalation of war in Afghanistan with only a procedural rule vote that "deemed" the legislation itself passed without actually voting on it.  But the Senate may will not accept the House version, and the House may have has to vote (or avoid voting) again. 

This time people will be on the alert to treat the vote as deadly serious, whether it's a "procedural vote" or not.  This time there may not be good anti-war amendments included allowing representatives to claim they voted for the war funding in order to vote for amendments expressing their disapproval.

The House is expected to leave Washington after July 30 and hold no more votes until mid-September.  So, if this happens, it will likely happen in the next week.  Our demand is simple:

Vote no on funding this escalation of war, regardless of whether it's a procedural vote, and regardless of any good amendments.

This won't happen if the Senate doesn't send the bill back to the House.  And our chances of defeating the bill in the House will depend significantly on whether all of the Republicans vote No (most of them would have to do so for reasons unrelated to the war funding; even the Senate version puts some funding into programs that don't kill anyone).

If we go into our August activities having blocked the funding, through a majority No vote or through the leadership's inability to bring it up for a vote expecting passage, we will have a huge opportunity to shift the nation further against the war.

If we go into August with a straight-forward vote having made clear which congress members are pro- and anti-war, we will be much better off than we are now.

If the pro-war members are mostly Republicans (plus the Democratic "leadership") that situation, in which the same party the president belongs to votes against the war, will help tremendously.

If we even make the House appear such an inhospitable place for war funding bills that the Senate passes the House version and the President backs down on his veto threat over a measure funding teachers at the expense of a school privatization slush fund, we will have advanced dramatically from where we were a year ago.  The House only avoided a vote on July 1 because it could no longer pass war funding without Republican support.

CALL CONGRESS FOR THE NEXT EIGHT DAYS: (202) 224-3121

Get resources from http://defundwar.org

This weekend, many of you will be at the peace conference in Albany or the PDA conference in Cleveland, if you're not at the Netroots conference in Vegas.  They can all be watched online for those not attending: 
National Peace Conference
PDA Conference
Netroots Nation

On August 28th the peace movement will join with the movements for jobs, economic justice, and civil rights to march in Detroit, Mich., and Washington, D.C., to launch campaigns for Jobs, Justice, and Peace that will build to a massive March on Washington on October 2nd.

Mark your calendars and get ready!