GREEN PARTY U.S. SENATE CANDIDATE CALLS FOR ENDING OVERSEAS WARS TO PAY FOR TUITION-FREE HIGHER EDUCATION FOR ALL

Immediate Release

October 7, 2010

Contact: info@voteforduane.org

ANAHEIM, Calif – Duane Roberts, Green Party candidate for U.S. Senate, calls for "immediately withdrawing" all U.S. military forces from Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan and using the cost savings to guarantee "every high school graduate" is eligible to receive a "tuition-free education at a public college, university, or technical trade school":

"If elected to the U.S. Senate, I will introduce legislation to establish a nationwide program to fully guarantee that every high school graduate living within the United States--regardless of immigration status--is eligible to receive a tuition-free education at a public college, university, or technical trade school of their choosing.

"We can pay for this program by immediately withdrawing all U.S. troops, private mercenaries, and independent contractors from Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. About 0 billion in taxpayer funds is wasted yearly on these bloody colonial wars and I believe this money would be better spent on providing tuition-free higher education for all.

"The billionaires on Wall Street reap enormous profits from these overseas wars as both Democratic and Republican Party politicians continue pouring money into the Military-Industrial Complex to build even more jets, drones, missiles, and bombs that will be used to kill thousands of innocent men, women, and children throughout the Middle East.

"Meanwhile a college degree has become an unaffordable reality for millions of young people as politicians from these same political parties use the current fiscal crisis as an excuse to dismantle systems of public higher education across the land: they slash university budgets, fire professors, cut classes, and raise tuition fees to astronomical levels.

"There is something deeply rotten with the political leadership of this country when they believe spending 0 billion a year to keep thousands of U.S. troops in Iraq and dropping bombs on peasant villages in Afghanistan is a much greater priority than ensuring every high school graduate here at home is given an opportunity to go to college.

"The truth is, we can put an end to these overseas wars and use the money squandered on them to pay for tuition-free higher education for all. But people have to stand up and fight for it. As Frederick Douglass, the great African-American abolitionist, once pointed out: 'Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.'

"U.S. out of Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan now!"

www.voteforduane.org

###