No On War in the Name of The Poor!

No On War in the Name of The Poor!

Address to ‘No On War in Iraq’ Protest, Saturday, October 26, 2002, at Civic Center Plaza

Paul Boden, Director, Coalition on Homelessness

Sandwiched between a recorded address by Mumia Abu-Jamal announcing, “War is not inevitable. No to ‘Blood For Oil’,” and ‘Pentagon Papers’ Daniel Ellsberg, urging “If the bombing starts, the marching should not stop,” Homeless Coalition Director, Paul Boden delivered this vigorous address to a an estimated 75,000* strong, enthusiastic, and colorful crowd this sunny Saturday San Francisco afternoon on the green lawns of Civic Center Plaza stretching out behind City Hall.

“I want to welcome you all to my home. Fifteen years ago I was part of the group of people who have been sleeping out here on our streets across this country. We are the people that are funding this war that we are all here today to denounce.

Over the past 20 years, $14 billion dollars a year has been cut from the development of affordable housing for poor people in this country. It has been transferred over to a hundred billion dollars last year in mortgage interest tax credit deductions for households making $135,000 dollars a year, on average, that is being subsidized by our tax dollars.

That $355 billion dollar a year military budget you were all so disgusted about yesterday --- that is money that is coming directly from the fact that poor and homeless people are dying in our streets, that poor and homeless people are being cut off of welfare, denied education, denied treatment, denied mental health / substance abuse treatment, disability treatment. That is being cut.

Seven hundred families in San Francisco alone in December are going to lose either a portion or all of their welfare benefits because the United States Government wants to put that shit into military spending to kill people in other countries.

Every time we allow the San Francisco Police Department to shoot and kill mentally ill young men in our movie theaters in this town, * we are promoting George Bush’s agenda to shoot and kill poor people in South American, and Iraq, and throughout the world.

We have to build a connection!

How do you fund a military industrial complex? You fuck over poor people, and you take money from poor people to put it into military spending run by corporations that are run by filthy rich white dogs.

If we can’t make the connection between Prop N and George Bush, we are living in a delusional world. The only reason that the City and Country of San Francisco thinks that taking away money from poor people is good for poor people in an initiative being run by a millionaire is because they have seen the Federal Government get away with it; they have seen the State Government get away with it. They have watched us not have 80,000 and 100,000 people like we need to have every time they screw any of us.

We should all be here for each other. We should all be here, and we should be strong, and we should tell them, “An Injury to One Is An Injury to All!” We are going to stop this shit. We are going to fight back, and we are going to win! “

*Crowd estimates vary from SFIndymedia's 100,000 to CNN 75,000.

**Reference to Idress Stelly, 23, fatally shot 27 times by SFPD during a psychiatric crisis at the Metreon Theater complex.