INVEST IN CARING NOT KILLING!

Sunday July 07, 2002 11:07

by Wages for Housework Campaign (Ireland)

PROTEST THE SALTHILL AIRSHOW 7th July 2002, 2.30pm Assemble on the promenade at Kitty O'Shea's

Along with many other groups, the Wages for Housework Campaign will be protesting the holding of the Salthill Airshow today in Galway with its display of military killing power and glorification of the 'work' of killing over the work of caring for every life, which we women mostly do. On our TV screens, the whole world has been witness to the slaughter of Palestinian women, children and men and the utter disregard for every precious life that condones the bombing of villages in Afghanistan as 'unfortunate mistakes' and 'collateral damage'. Most of those murdered by the likes of these warplanes are women and children. No one can say they didn't know.
In these places and everywhere when they're not paying with their own lives, women are fighting for the lives of loved ones. Women are keeping entire communities going in the face of military occupation and repression which denies those communities food, water and medical attention and which also directly targets this vital role women play by perpetrating rape and other sexual violence on us. For this and all the other work we do daily, we mostly get no pay at all. Yet $900 billion dollars a year is now spent on global military budgets and Bush has demanded billions more for the 'war without end' when one tenth of this would ensure the essentials of life to everyone in the world. These warplanes kill for profit from oil and the arms trade, but how much food and piped water could the cost of just one of those planes provide? How many of our children would not die from hunger? How many operations or hospital beds could be provided? How many carers' allowances? How much in benefits to single mothers on welfare in the US from one F16? How many non-contributory pensions, how many halting sites built? How much proper provision for asylum seekers in this country who have fled the very destruction these machines cause? How much in disability benefit?
Wages for Housework demanded the cancellation of the deal the Irish government made to buy Sikorsky helicopters, which has happened but where will the money go now? We don't want money spent on military hardware, displays of murderous technology or to have our children trained to kill in any 'European army', we want an end to all wars, military occupation, racism and poverty: Pay women not the military!

Maggie Ronayne, Wages for Housework Campaign (Galway, Ireland) and Global Women's Strike.
Email: womenstrike8m@server101.com Tel (IRL): 087 7838688.
International Wages for Housework Campaign: Tel: 0044 207 4822496
Website: http://womenstrike8m.server101.com