COUNCILMAN STEWART WINS RESPECT WITH HIS STATEMENT AGAINST THE WAR

ouncilman Kendall Stewart won the respect of many people at the City Council Meeting of October 9^th when he spoke out against President Bush's attempts to pressure the Congress into passing a Resolution to go to war with Iraq - a war that will cost the taxpayers somewhere between 100 and 200 billion dollars.

"If we can declare a war that costs $200 billion, why can't we declare war on poverty?" asked Stewart. "Why can't we declare war on diabetes in this country, or AIDS? Why can't we declare war on unemployment or even juvenile delinquency? Why can't we declare war on infant mortality?

"Ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters," he continued, "I feel our priorities are not straight in this case. If we have problems right here in this country and we can't declare war on them, why are we going overseas to pick a fight? We should declare war on some of these issues, and then we will have a stronger and better country."

In an interview following the meeting, Councilman Stewart spelled out even more clearly why he doesn't think anybody should support this war, which he sees as a total misappropriation of money that should be spent on the very real and urgent needs of the people in this nation. And even beyond that, he is against it because it is the youth from people of color communities who will end up being sent off to fight and die in this war. "Somewhere along the line they are going to start calling people for the draft, reinstating the draft," said Stewart. "Who is going to have to go and fight? The same ones they send off to every war. Not the children and grandchildren of Bush and members of Congress, but those from our communities."

It was good to hear Councilman Kendall Stewart impassioned on such an important issue that has so many lives, both here and abroad, at stake.

Donna Lamb can be reached at dlamb@gis.net.