At noon today PDA’s second in a series of Brown Bag Lunch Vigils will take place around the country, at congressional offices of members who both support escalation in Afghanistan and members who oppose it. We started looking at this new movement a couple weeks ago and I tried to put it into context as an integral part of the American peace movement last weekend. Since then, the number of people participating has skyrocketed and the number of congressional offices being covered shot up to 60 as of yesterday.
The purpose of the vigils is to peacefully oppose war funding. The first batch took place January 20th, at the district offices of 22 members of Congress. “Brownbaggers” are asking members of the House to publicly commit to voting No on any bills that fund the occupation of Afghanistan and the escalation of the war there, and to publicly urge their colleagues and the House leadership to make the same commitment and to cosponsor HR 2454, calling for an exit strategy from Afghanistan, and HR 3699, prohibiting any increase in the number of U.S. Armed Forces in Afghanistan. Congress members’ commitments are tracked at defundwar.org. While brownbaggers hold vigil at congressional district offices today, allies Inside the Beltway will visit the Capitol Hill offices of the same congress members. “Brownbaggers” will assemble, peacefully, at 10 a.m. at the Independence Avenue entrance to the Rayburn House Office Building.
PDA has also found that its members are demanding that Congress pass straightforward “Medicare for All” legislation and trash the tainted, corporate-friendly bill the two political parties have worked out with the Medical Industrial Complex. Donna Smith, Co-Chair of PDA’s Healthcare Not Warfare campaign, said “We plan to speak with the offices of every congressmember whose constituents are holding vigil that day. We will confront them not only with the direct financial and human costs of war, but also with the tradeoffs. We have 45,000 preventable deaths due to lack of healthcare access every year in this country. That’s a choice our representatives make. Right now they are choosing war.”
Here’s the most current list of vigils. Details are here (and there are a few that are starting as early as 11AM so do check). The members that I’ve highlighted are the Democrats who voted last June to deny funding already. These 32 were the only ones with the guts and the sense to stand up to Rahm Emanuel’s bullying. (Particularly dangerous warmongers are in italics.)
AZ-05 Rep. Harry Mitchell
CA-05 Rep. Doris Matsui
CA-06 Rep. Lynn Woolsey
CA-09 Rep. Barbara Lee
CA-10 Rep. John Garamendi
CA-18 Rep. Dennis Cardoza
CA-22 Rep. Kevin McCarthy
CA-23 Rep. Lois Capps
CA-24 Rep. Darrell Issa
CA-31 Rep. Xavier Becerra
CA-33 Rep. Diane Watson
CA-34 Rep. Lucille Roybal-Allard
CA-37 Rep. Laura Richardson
CA-40 Rep. Ed Royce
CA-42 Rep. Gary Miller
CA-45 Rep. Mary Bono-Mack
CA-46 Rep. Dana Rohrabacher
CA-48 Rep. John Campbell
CA-50 Rep. Brian Bilbray
CA-53 Rep. Susan Davis
CO-04 Rep. Betsy Markey
FL-07 Rep. John Mica
FL-09 Rep. Gus Bilirakis
FL-10 Rep. Bill Young
FL-17 Rep. Kendrick Meek
ID-01 Rep. Walt Minnick
IN-09 Rep. Baron Hill
KY-01 Sen. Mitch McConnell
MA-01 Rep. John Olver
MA-02 Rep. Richard Neal
MA-03 Rep. Jim McGovern
MA-08 & 09 Sen. John Kerry
MA-10 Rep. Bill Delahunt
MD-04 Rep. Donna Edwards
ME-01 Rep. Chellie Pingree
ME-02 Rep. Mike Michaud
MI-09 Rep. Gary Peters
MS-01 Rep. Travis Childers
MS-04 Rep. Gene Taylor
NJ-04 Rep. Chris Smith
NJ-06 Rep. Frank Pallone
NY-18 Rep. Nita Lowey
NY-28 & 29 Rep. Louise M. Slaughter/Eric Massa
OH-13 Rep. Betty Sutton
OH-17 Rep. Tim Ryan
OR-04 Rep. Peter DeFazio
OR-05 Rep. Kurt Schrader
PA-02 Rep. Chaka Fattah
PA-07 Rep. Joe Sestak
PA-15 Rep. Charlie Dent
UT-03 Rep. Jason Chaffetz
WA-02 Rep. Rick Larsen
WA-03 Rep. Brian Baird
WA-06 Rep. Norman Dicks
WI-03 Rep. Ron Kind
WI-07 Rep. David Obey
