The Sweet Potato Project: An effort by “Our Own Hands”

“Cast down your bucket where you are…cast it down in agriculture, mechanics, in commerce, in domestic service, and in the professions." -Booker T. Washington - 1895

Next month, the North Area Community Development Corporation (NACDC), When We Dream Together, Inc (WWDT), and a host of community partners will officially launch a nine-week summer program for North St. Louis “at-risk” youth called “The Sweet Potato Project. Our ambitious but basic mission is to empower youth in disadvantaged communities by paying them a minimum wage salary to grow sweet potatoes, turn the yield into a product (cookies, pies, muffins, etc.) and then teach them how to create the brand, market and distribute the product they’ve created.

At this point, our resources are limited but potential for inner-city transformation is great. Our goal is to foster a do-for-self mentality for a challenged generation of urban youth. We want to empower them with the knowledge that they don’t have to become involved in the deadly illegal drug trade to make money. We want them to understand there are viable opportunities right outside their doors. Today, we start with youth but this seed could easily grow to empower adults and generate economic activity in long-neglected, poor communities throughout our region.

In a way, this effort is rooted in the message Booker T. Washington shared in 1895 when he urged former slaves to become self-sufficient through “productions of our hands.” The fact is, in this still ailing economy, we cannot expect the police alone to stem disproportionate crime and murder rates in our region or wait for the government to create programs aimed at teaching at-risk youth how to become self-sufficient entrepreneurs.

This is a community responsibility and we’re issuing an all-hands-on-deck appeal to pull this endeavor off this summer. NACDC has applied for several grants and the outlook is promising. However, if awarded, nonprofit funding for the pilot program will most likely be granted in the fall or later. The majority of those funds will probably be applied to packaging and production of the student’s products and next year’s expanded programming.  

Therefore, we’re turning to the community to raise enough funds to launch this summer’s pilot program so we can pay 10-to-15 teen participants over the slated nine-week period.

Consider this missive a community call-out. Of course, we need donations but we’re also looking for volunteer teachers, counselors and others willing to teach a related course for a few days. We need adults who can help us plant and harvest sweet potatoes; transport youth to area businesses and out-of-class activities and serve as role models and mentors. We want parishioners of churches and members of civic organizations involved and committed to purchasing bulk orders of the products the kids produce. In brief, we welcome anyone who wants to play a role in this worthwhile endeavor.

We’re also looking for those who head banks and lending institutions, grocery chains, food manufacturing and production companies, culinary institutes and area universities. We need you as sponsors and as partners. We’re hoping representatives will host money management or manufacturing classes, meet with the kids and explain what they do and how they do it.

In his Atlanta Compromise Speech, Booker T. Washington also said “…cast down your bucket where you are.” He advised people to make change with what they had at hand. This is the mantra of the Sweet Potato Project – a grassroots effort by every definition.

We’ve “cast down our buckets” and have a solid foundation of supporters. Program advisors include a horticulture specialist with Lincoln University’s Cooperative Extension program, a renowned professor from the George Warren Brown School of Social Work and a Washington University MA, MBA business professional. Alderman Antonio French of the 21^st ward has offered NACDC a vacant lot in the 4500 block of Athlone Avenue where we’ll soon plant the sweet potatoes. The president of the Educational Equity group is on board to help coordinate classes and programming and we’re talking with the director of the Julia Davis Library about holding classes there. New York Times best-selling author and the Food Network’s celebrity chef, Jeff Henderson-who learned of the project while visiting St. Louis last month-has also offered to serve as keynote speaker at an upcoming fund-raising event.

We are seeking support from everybody but it’s important to us that our kids also be surrounded by volunteers, mentors, educators, professionals and neighbors who look like them and help them develop and distribute a product that brings a sense of pride and ownership back to their neighborhoods.

Margaret Mead, the cultural anthropologist once said “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.”  We have that small group of dedicated citizens but we need more. Please join us. Share this commentary with anyone you think may be interested in playing a role in this community effort. NACDC is a 501 (c3) tax exempt agency. You can go to its website and make a donation online. If possible, do it today, funds are needed and we welcome any amount.   

Each year, we ask at-risk teens to turn from drugs, put down their guns and stay in school without providing the resources, alternatives and loving mentorship that helps make these choices viable. This year, we can offer youth opportunities to earn while they learn valuable life-long lessons. If the pilot program is successful, we can reach many more and even expand the concept so ex-offenders and unemployed adults in disadvantaged communities can be empowered through this community-based economic development model.

The challenge is great, but I wholeheartedly believe we can do this. For now, let us cast down our buckets where we are. Together, a small group of committed citizens can indeed do our part to “change the world.”

Sincerely, Sylvester Brown, Jr.

Project Manager; The Sweet Potato Project   

NACDC's website

To make a tax exempt donation to the Sweet Potato Project CLICK HERE

Celebrity Chef Fires up Youth in Juvenile Detention Center

by Sylvester Brown, Jr.

"Why you mugging me?"

"I ain't mugging you, man," the sullen youth dressed in red sweats mumbled.

For a moment it seemed as if Chef Jeff Henderson was about to deliver a bit of tough love on the insolent teen inside the St. Louis Juvenile Detention Center.

"I don't have to be here," Henderson said, stepping closer to the boy, "I'm here on my own dime and all I'm asking is 30 minutes to talk to you."

Matthew Murphy, courtesy St. Louis City Juvenile Detention Center

While visiting the city of St. Louis for a speaking engagement in late April, Henderson, author of the New York Times best-selling memoir, "Cooked: From the Streets to the Stove, from Cocaine to Foie Gras (William Morrow) offered to conduct a 4-hour cooking presentation with some of the youth at the juvenile center. Henderson, a former drug dealer who spent 10 years in jail for his crimes, makes it a point to visit juvenile detention centers to uplift and inspire youth with his turn-around story.

The encounter with the seemingly angry boy occurred about two hours after the cooking session started. Earlier, six young people-five boys and one girl-were chosen to help prepare the evening meal for all the juvenile detainees. The menu for the evening consisted of Henderson's famous fried chicken, mashed potatoes and corn on the cob. The small group dressed in color-specific sweat suits (red for boys ages 16-17), (green for boys ages 12-15) and (yellow for girls) were asked to circle around the chef.

"OK, who's the boss?" Henderson asked.

Matthew Murphy, courtesy St. Louis City Juvenile Detention Center

Although a couple of hands inched up, as the day progressed, it became clear that Flo (not her real name), a girl with a no-nonsense frown and attitude to match was the alpha dog of the group. Henderson seemed to pick up on this early and focused extra attention on the girl, putting her in charge of the kitchen crew.

"You let them know what you need," he said, placing his hand on the girl's shoulder: "You guys are a team, you need to communicate."

The exercise was a mini demonstration of the mantra Henderson shares with Fortune 500 companies, financial and learning institutions, culinary and technical schools, state and federal corrections and social service agencies around the country. The former convict turned celebrity chef believes that everyone, including people from troubled backgrounds, have the potential to be productive and successful. The skills that allowed him to run a million dollar illegal drug empire in the late 1980s, he says, are the same skills that helped him succeed in the culinary and corporate environments. The key, Henderson preaches, is "changing the product."

Within a half hour, the kids were humming along like a seasoned kitchen crew--cutting, boiling and mashing potatoes, shucking corn and dropping floured drum sticks into bubbling hot grease. As they worked, Henderson shared his story of finding his love for cooking in the federal penitentiary.
 


Courtesy of the St. Louis City Juvenile Detention Center

The chef wasn't hesitant to correct the youth as they performed their tasks:

"Stand up straight." "Quit talking." "You can't slouch and run your mouths on a real job." "Remember, smile. No one wants a frowning worker," Henderson said while adding heavy doses of compliments as well: "That'll work, thank you." "Good job crew," he repeats often.

"Who wants to be the taster?" the chef asked after the first batch of hot chicken was taken out of the fryer. All the kids shouted "me!" Henderson again placed his hand on Flo's shoulder. "My assistant manager here, she'll be the taster."

For the first time that day, I noticed the girl's brilliant smile.

Pugh Jaunell, the young, muscled counselor who oversees the boys, noticed something different about the kids. He hadn't had to check any of their behavior that day, "which is unusual."

"They're actually paying attention, which is again, unusual," Jaunell added.

Nikeisha Fortenbery, assistant program coordinator, was equally impressed with the performance of Henderson's six helpers. She commented on the smiles most of the kids displayed as they hustled around the kitchen:

"This was great for them," Fortenbery told me. "They're smiling because, today, they can see themselves differently. They were allowed to actually use their talents and create something they can share with their friends."

Two hours after the cooking session started, the food was ready and placed in huge metal trays. The six kids lined up behind the chow line to begin serving. The other youth, also dressed in red and green (Flo was the only girl that day), filed in. Each of the boys entered with their hands behind their backs as if handcuffed. Apparently, they've been told to walk this way in groups.

The young detainees were called to the chow line table by table and, along with the staff, consumed the food with obvious gusto.

Henderson stood before the entire group after dinner. He called his six workers to the front of the room and demanded that all in attendance thank them for their hard work. The young workers smile sheepishly among the modest applause.

"I'm so proud of my babies," Ms. Gerry, the center's cook, said. "They're really enjoying this. They're getting the attention they need. This will be a lasting experience for them."

After the acknowledgements, Henderson began to address the group. Earlier, he had noticed a tiny, skinny, 10-year-old boy among the detainees. He had the child sit close to him as he shared his story of crime, redemption and unprecedented success with the group.

The other hardened boys didn't seem particularly impressed with Henderson's story. This was the point where the chef confronted the boy he had accused of "mugging" him.

Instead of berating the teen further, Henderson asked Nathan Graves, the detention center's program coordinator, to play the DVD he'd brought along. It opened with Oprah Winfrey praising Chef Jeff for overcoming obstacles and turning his life around. Images on the DVD showed Henderson as a drug dealer, a convict and, later, as a chef with some the finest restaurants in the country, including the Marriot, Ritz Carlton, Hotel Bel-Air, L'Ermitage, Caesar's Palace and the Bellagio Hotel where he became the first African-American executive chef at the prestigious establishment.

Somehow the video made Henderson's story more real for the youth. All of a sudden, they paid rapt attention to every word. After the DVD ended, the chef segued into raw and real dialogue about prison as the destination for poor choices. He urged the kids to examine their weaknesses and mistakes, build on their unique gifts and abandon "homies" and activities that caused them to wind up in the facility.

"A smart man listens to wise advice. An ignorant fool doesn't," he lectured.

One could only marvel at the transformation of the six kitchen helpers and most of the boys in just four hours.

"These kids are looking for discipline and an adult who'll be straight with them," Henderson told me earlier. "They're just like you and me, they have dreams and ambitions. They want opportunities but, sadly, they come from neighborhoods were dreams are dashed and opportunities are few."

As the presentation ended and the boys were leaving the dining hall, Henderson pulled the smart-alecky teen aside for personal consul. Attitude gone, the boy asked the chef how he could contact him. Henderson gave him his card and promised he'd visit the juvenile center again.

It was obvious that a light bulb of possibilities had clicked on in the minds of the youthful attendees. Unfortunately, Chef Jeff can't stay with kids he motivates around the country. More than likely, that bulb will be quickly dimmed by the overwhelming negative influences in their lives, neighborhoods and environments. I couldn't help but wonder what would happen if, as Ms. Gerry mentioned, the youth constantly received "the attention they need?"

One of the counselors brought Flo to me after the presentation. Henderson had told a few staff members that I was working with a local group and we planned to start a summer program for at-risk youth in North St. Louis.

"This young lady has so much potential," the counselor told me.

Flo jotted down her mother's name and phone number on my yellow pad. This young lady, whom I first considered hard and tough, exhibited a shy smile as she plead for an opportunity:

"Call me. I really need to do something, please."

VIDEO: Renowned chef and author Jeff Henderson uses the kitchen to teach important life lessons at the St. Louis Juvenile Detention Center.

A Call-Out for Community Change: The Sweet Potato Project

by Sylvester Brown, Jr.

What happens to a child who grows up in a neighborhood were selling drugs is considered the only viable option to generate income? Can children see themselves as entrepreneurs when there are very few successful examples in their neighborhoods? Can young people in neighborhoods defined daily as “bad, violent or deadly, take pride in themselves or their communities?

The answers to those questions are reflected in the numbers of minority youth who drop out of high school, live in poverty or are headed for juvenile detention, prisons and perpetual unemployment. We can’t stem the negative numbers without drastic change within the communities where children are reared and influenced.

This summer, the North Area Community Development Corporation (NACDC), a 501(c-3) agency in partnership with the nonprofit, When We Dream Together, Inc. and other engaged individuals will launch the Sweet Potato Project in North St. Louis.

This pilot program is designed to teach a group of high school-aged children that there are indeed opportunities within their reach.  Young people will be paid a minimum wage salary during the summer to plant and harvest sweet potatoes, create a product and learn how to market and distribute what they’ve created. We will nurture the spirit of entrepreneurism in kids who will go out and sell their product and receive commissions after the school year begins. The idea is to show them that there are viable (and legal) means within their communities in which to make money.

A network that includes horticulturists, educational professionals, advisors and business people have volunteered their services to implement the program. Antonio French, the Alderman of the 21^st Ward has offered space in his ward to hold classes and grow the produce. We are excited to partner with Ald. French who has launched several laudable efforts to revitalize an area that has been besieged with crime, poverty and other long-term socio-economic problems. Additionally, we take great pride in working in a neighborhood in desperate need of innovative ideas aimed at fostering community pride and economic independence.

Sweet Potato Project administrators will work to build a core group of consumers derived from churches, secular groups, corporations and people within disadvantaged communities who will commit to purchasing the products. We envision a marketing program, somewhat like Girl Scout Cookies, where consumers instinctively understand that their purchases serve a holistic cause.

With this project, we hope to a plant a seed of possibilities that can grow to serve many more youth and eventually adult populations in disadvantaged areas. Imagine the positive economic and psychological impact of a large scale food distribution system in communities where small business opportunities and hope are rare commodities.

The forecast for disadvantaged youth in our region is dire. In this post-recession era, youth unemployment is still disproportionally high, especially in low income areas. As Washington struggles to reduce the nation’s deficit, safety nets for the poor have been significantly reduced or eliminated. This is the time of year when criminal activity and death rates among young people start to rise. We have little choice but create community-based efforts that stem these negatives in low-income areas.  

Consider this commentary as a community call-out. It’s an invitation extended to caring individuals and companies in our region to bring their passions, skills and resources to a worthwhile community-based endeavor that will employ and empower young people today. An all-hands-on-deck approach is imperative if we are to convince these young people that they’ve not been abandoned and help is at the ready.

There are roles for everyone in this project. We need individuals and professionals in the areas of horticulture, food processing, recipe development, packaging and marketing. We’re looking for people who’ll volunteer a week or more for consulting, etiquette training, youth development, money management classes and transportation. We’d these youth to go on excursions to local established businesses such as Sweetie Pie’s, World Wide Technology, Andy’s Seasoning and other entities so they can see people who look like them operating successful business enterprises.

New York Times best-selling
author, Chef Jeff Henderson

Of course, fund-raising is crucial and we are actively engaged in the process of gaining sponsors and donors. Nationally known TV personality and New York Times best-selling author Chef Jeff Henderson has committed to serve as keynote speaker for a fund-raising event on May 23^rd (more info to come).

In a few days, NACDC will launch its website which will have more information about volunteering, donating and providing in-kind services. For now, please contact me at whenwedreamtogether@gmail.com for more information or to let me know what role you’d like to serve. You will be alerted about upcoming meetings and events.   

Time is of the essence but we are in steady motion on all fronts. I am confident that everything will be in place to start the pilot project this summer. We have no unrealistic expectations. Massive change will not happen overnight. Crime and the socio-economic factors that fuel it will likely increase this summer, this year. However, we can move in a new direction. Today we can start reclaiming a few of our youth and embed an empowering message of hope and change in long-neglected communities.

I invite you to join me, the NACDC and its partners as we launch the Sweet Potato Project in North St. Louis this summer. This is an invitation to empower children and neighborhoods. It’s a community call-out to plant a powerful seed.

Reverse Integration: It's Time to Come Back Home

by Sylvester Brown, Jr
Orignially published in Op/Ed News
April 12, 2012

As the warm weather approaches, certain things are inevitable; there will be lots of flowers, travel, outdoor activities and murder.

In metropolitan areas across the nation, the numbers of young people-particularly black and Latino youth-who will be gunned down, locked up and permanently locked out of any possibility of living long, safe and productive lives will rise. With an economy still suffering from the recession, with minority youth already experiencing disproportionate poverty and unemployment rates, crime will rise. With illegal drugs considered the viable option to get paid, the death of young people in urban areas is sadly predictable.

This nationwide pandemic won't be solved by politicians pursuing a deficit-reduction plan that will eliminate or further shred safety net programs for the poor and disadvantaged. To date, the response to illegal drug activity and youth violence has been incarceration. With almost two million people (the majority of which are Black and Latino)caught up in the criminal justice system, a cash-strapped nation must face the fact that this problem cannot be locked away.

Therefore, it is imperative that every day, compassionate people grapple with the issue of youth-related murder and death and come up with innovative, in-the-community remedies to stem the problem.

Why in-the-community? Ask yourself these questions:

What happens to children who grow up in a neighborhoods where selling drugs is considered the only viable option to generate income?

Can young people ever see themselves as entrepreneurs when there are very few successful examples of entrepreneurism in their neighborhoods?

How can children in communities, defined daily as "bad, violent or deadly," ever take pride in their neighborhoods or in those who look like them?

I was born and raised in St. Louis, a town that has topped the "most dangerous" list of cities because of its homicides for at least the past 10 years. I lived in poor neighborhoods and was educated in public schools. Times were hard back then but at least there was this sense of community. Elders and neighbors could scold kids publicly because they knew their parents. Preachers and teachers lived in the same neighborhoods. The kids hung out at neighborhood rec centers where adults served as coaches and mentors. There were a number of small black-owned businesses where we could at least see how adults made money. Sometimes we made a little summer-time change doing various odd jobs for the business owners. Those things seem to be missing in low-income black neighborhoods today. Kids today are on their own.

Back in 2004, when I worked for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, I wrote a column in response to numerous articles about fighting and violence at Vashon, a black high school in downtown St. Louis.

Curious about community influences, I decided to see what the students saw on their morning trek to school. I parked my car about 10 blocks away and walked to the high school. On the way, I passed package liquor stores, a rent-by-the-hour motel connected to a nightclub, billboards promoting menthol cigarettes like Kool and Newport and signs hawking alcoholic beverages like Colt 45 and a strange cognac-based drink called "HPNOTIQ." Unleashed dogs, some quite mean-looking, eyed me as I passed a block-long junk yard, slum properties and trash-filled, heavily-weeded lots with littered with abandoned buildings where any child could be easily abducted and molested.

My heart beat rapidly after that mere 25 minute walk. I couldn't wait to get to my car and drive to safety. It's a luxury Vashon's students don't have.

Psychologically-scarring images that kids see in their neighborhoods every day were evident during that walk. For me, it spoke to the generational realities that keep minorities unemployed, impoverished, imprisoned and among those disproportionately sent to morgues. What I saw was a mokery of the s ocietal pro gress the civil rights movement was supposed to accelerate.

There was a socioeconomic aftereffect in the era of integration that has had a long-term negative impact on minority neighborhoods. Blacks en masse abandoned their neighborhoods, businesses and schools in search of nicer homes, equal employment and better education promised if they were allowed access to privileges afforded whites.

The sad epilogue of integration is a tale of "white flight" to mostly all-white suburbs; segregated, under-funded public schools and unbalanced minority high school dropout rates and poverty and crime in neighborhoods that resemble Third World war zones.

Integration was and is a laudable goal but the application was flawed and devastating. Gone were teachers who lived in the same area as their students. Mom & pop stores, black owned restaurants, hotels, grocers and other businesses that catered to a demographic denied access to white-owned establishments all but disappeared. Gone, too, were examples of legal, in-the-hood commerce, middle class black families and the sanctity of "community."

Wholesale abandonment of black communities nationwide was too big a price to pay for the long-denied rewards of living and working amongst white people. It seems to me that the only redress is a collective return to these areas. I'm not just talking about bodies moving back into these communities nor am I talking about black folk exclusively. I'm speaking of a return of hearts, minds, passions and collective efforts to reestablish independent schools, businesses and organizations aimed at bringing stability back to deserted urban areas.

This summer, I'm working with a local nonprofit to kick off a summer youth program called the "Sweet Potato Project." To be brief, youth will be paid a minimum wage salary over the summer to plant, harvest, process, package and market a product they've developed that was grown in their own community. Think Girl Scout Cookies with an urban, do-for-self twist. The effort includes a cadre of supporters including professors, counselors and horticulturalists. Churches, secular organizations, individuals and parents will be asked to commit to buying the products the youth have created. We're also reaching out to neighborhood stores and, hopefully, a chain store that will agree to sell the sweet potato pies, cookies or whatever related product the kids come up with.

This is just one small effort but the hope is to plant the seed in the minds of at-risk youth that they do have ways to generate money other than illegal drug sales. We're also hoping to spur community engagement around the idea that vibrant economic activity can once again return to minority communities.

Today, a small group of St. Louis students will create and market their own product. Tomorrow, who knows, food may be grown right out of long-ignored disadvantaged neighborhoods, packaged, canned and distributed regionally and all over the country. Jobs and small businesses, like grocery stores, bakeries and coffee shops can be the spin-off results of these community-based endeavors.

It's a hope, a start. It's an invitation for diverse hearts and minds to come back home. It's a chance to build communities of opportunity where children can engage with caring adults. It can be the dawn of a the day when kids can walk to school with pride in tact and imaginations ignited.
 
Sylvester Brown, Jr. is a St. Louis, MO-based writer and founder of When We Dream Together, a nonprofit dedicated to urban revitalization. 

A Global Day of Reckoning

by Sylvester Brown, Jr.
Originally posted in Op/Ed News
April 3, 2012

On Tuesday, April 17 ^th , the International Peace Bureau and the Institute for Policy Studies will kick off its second annual " Global Day of Action on Military Spending ." The event seeks to bring public, political, and media attention to the rising costs of military spending and the folly of war. It also aims to stress the dire need to realign our priorities to address the crisis's impacting our troubled world.

The annual occasion coincides with the release of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute's (SIPRI) new annual figures on military expenditures. In 2010 alone, global military spending rose to an all-time high of $1.63 trillion. Organizers of the event are calling for a united focus on "human lives and needs" and new direction in tackling the scourges of poverty, hunger, lack of education, poor health care and environmental issues that threaten the planet.

In America, the Global Day of Action should also be a day when politicians are forced to obey the will of the people. On that day vast constituencies of conscientious Americans ought to send a message to war hungry political candidates and a Congress stubbornly intent on slashing America's safety nets for the poor and disadvantaged while refusing to trim a military budget gone drastically awry.

According to researchers at Brown University's Watson Institute for International Studies, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq will eventually cost Americans between $3.2 and $4 trillion. That amount--according to several anti-war organizations --is more than enough to create hundreds of thousands of new jobs, fully fund a national health care plan, provide free college education to all high school graduates and completely fund a nationwide renewable energy program .

Even though the primary factor that led to the nation's current deficit dilemma was war spending, bull-headed politicians astonishingly declare they will initiate yet another deadly military adventure in Iran if necessary.

If all other strategies fail, GOP presidential nominee hopefuls Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich said they'd be willing to go to war to keep Iran from attaining nuclear weapons. Ron Paul, who definitely won't be the GOP nominee, was the only candidate who voiced a common sense retort to war rhetoric:
"I'm afraid what's going on right now is similar to the war propaganda that went on against Iraq," Paul said.

President Barack Obama also challenged candidates who expressed a need for the U.S. to harden its position against Iran : "When I see the casualness with which those folks talk about war, I am reminded of the costs involved in war," Obama said. It's not the candidates "popping off" about war who will make sacrifices, Obama added, "it's these incredible men and women in uniform and their families who pay the price."

Not only are political candidates and mostly right-leaning legislators ignoring Paul and Obama, they continue to disregard the wishes of the American people. According to a Reuters/Ipsospoll released in
March, the majority of Americans prefer cutting defense spending to reduce the federal deficit rather than taking money from public retirement and health programs. The polling data indicates that 51 percent of Americans support reducing defense spending and o nly 28 percent want to cut entitlement programs such as Medicare and Medicaid for the elderly and poor.

Romney, the candidate most likely to challenge Obama in the 2012 elections, hasintroduced a plan that's 60 percent higher than the $525 billion Obama proposed in his FY 2011 defense budget, according to the Cato Institute .

Since the so-called "Super Committee" failed to produce a debt reduction plan, $1.2 trillion in across-the-board defense and non-defense cuts are supposed to kick in automatically. Some Republican lawmakers, like Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) who sat on the super committee, vow to fight military spending cuts. The "off limits" approach is unacceptable, said Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) who insists deficit-reduction efforts include more military cuts: "Under an all-of-the-above approach, the Pentagon should not be treated as off limits," Schumer said. "There is waste in defense just like there is waste in the rest of the discretionary budget."

The military industrial complex is a powerful force supported by war barons and private-sector monopolies dependent on the production of weaponry and exorbitantly-paid privatized security forces to maintain the messes they create. Politicians have turned a deaf ear to the will of the people and are perfectly content with bartering new jobs and the safety of elderly and impoverished Americans in order to protect and increase an already out-of-control military spending budget.

The Global Day of Action on Military Spending is the appropriate time to refute the "propaganda" Paul mentioned and beat back the callous drumbeat of war and more wars. April 17 ^th should be the day we collectively stir the nation's consciousness and direct its attention to issues that really matter. It should be a time of reckoning for morally reckless politicians-a rallying cry for massive reaction. The global day of action is the perfect time to bring international attention to the real costs of war and the desperate need to protect our planet and defend humanity.http://demilitarize.org/