{"id":11011,"date":"2011-08-15T12:06:23","date_gmt":"2011-08-15T20:06:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/?p=11011"},"modified":"2011-08-15T12:06:23","modified_gmt":"2011-08-15T20:06:23","slug":"come-home-america-message-was-clear-winner-at-iowa-straw-poll","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/2011\/08\/15\/come-home-america-message-was-clear-winner-at-iowa-straw-poll\/","title":{"rendered":"“Come Home America” Message Was Clear Winner at Iowa Straw Poll"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Come<\/a>

W.A.R: Wasted American Resources<\/p><\/div>\n

The Des Moines news reporter who noted our anti-war message at the entrance of yesterday\u2019s Republican Straw Poll in Ames, Iowa, was not present with us long enough to see the real story. Our banners actually got an amazingly good reception! Our group of sign holders were all surprised how many of the thousands of straw poll attendees, even Pawlenty and Santorum t-shirted fans, were responding positively to the \u201cCome Home America\u201d message and banners warning that \u201cEndless War = Endless Debt\u201d and \u201cWar IS Taxing\u201d: The anti-war enthusiasm also manifested itself as people from all political (conservative, libertarian, and socially progressive) backgrounds stopped to talk, with many even giving up an hour or two to help us hold the banners.<\/p>\n

\"Endless<\/a>

Endless War: Endless Death<\/p><\/div>\n

Attendees seemed genuinely interested when we encouraged them to sign our recent \u201cDear Obama\u201d letter and told them we were part of a non-partisan effort to focus on the most important ISSUES of the day, instead of the promises, slogans, cute winks and other crazy antics of any particular political candidate.<\/p>\n

\"Remember<\/a>

Remember the Constitution<\/p><\/div>\n

The truth is that progressives who support social safety nets, funding of public education, and who are opposed to the widening disparity between the wealthiest and the poor in the United States cannot possibly see their goals realized without the US government making a clean break from the last decade of destructive and costly wars. <\/p>\n

\"Yemen,<\/a><\/p>\n

Libertarians will not see a return to adherence to the Constitution, civil liberties and away from national security policing and \u201cWar Presidency\u201d empowerment. \u201cGreens\u201d will not see more funding and research diverted to sustainable and environmentally clean energy technologies. And fiscal conservatives cannot possibly get the small, decentralized government they long for while the United States seeks costly world empire and military superpower status. <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

All the people\u2019s worthwhile goals are connected by money and are antithetical to the US\u2019 spending on runaway militarism. If the American government continues to be controlled by the military-industrial-congressional-media complex, in defiance of this popular consensus, throwing trillions of hard-earned and increasingly scarce taxpayer dollars on bombs, drone technology, armoring tanks, and outright corporate contractor fraud, none of these other popular group objectives are possible. <\/p>\n

\"Come<\/a><\/p>\n

While the hundreds of national media in Iowa covered the actual, close straw poll finish (near tie) of Michele Bachmann only beating Ron Paul by 152 votes, they did not seem to care or cover the enormous outpouring we witnessed from people of different political backgrounds and loyalties—confirmed by numerous national polls–showing consensus for ending the wars and runaway militarism. Perhaps the \u201cCome Home America\u201d kick-off bannering at the early Iowa Straw Poll event revealed the unique moment we\u2019re in, watching a perfect storm of various rationales coming together. <\/p>\n

\"Stop<\/a><\/p>\n

In any event, look for our Come Home America initiative to represent this convergence and strengthening consensus outside many of Obama\u2019s upcoming speeches as well as other major political events throughout the nation. We hope to mount banners as in the photos of yesterday\u2019s event in Iowa. While politicos and horse race bettors constantly talk of making their selections using the \u201clesser of two evils\u201d, one thing is clear: It is the issues more than the political personalities that matter and WAR is not the lesser of two evils! It is THE EVIL that poisons and contaminates everything else. <\/p>\n

\"Endless<\/a>

Endless War and Endless Debt<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Des Moines news reporter who noted our anti-war message at the entrance of yesterday\u2019s Republican Straw Poll in Ames, Iowa, was not present with us long enough to see the real story. Our banners actually got an amazingly good reception! Our group of sign holders were all surprised how many of the thousands of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":89,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,6,82,38,374,3,131,36,63],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-11011","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-antiwar-movement","category-civil-liberties","category-economics","category-media","category-michele-bachmann","category-news","category-obama","category-ron-paul","category-war-at-home"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"meta_box":{"disable_donate_message":"","custom_donate_message":"","subtitle":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11011","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/89"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11011"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11011\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11025,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11011\/revisions\/11025"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11011"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11011"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11011"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=11011"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}