Our military may provide a façade of peace and security here in the U.S., as Marc Thiessen maintained in his June 8 article “Shame on Google…”

However, the U.S. administration is waging ongoing war and instigating oppression here in the U.S. War and oppression do not equal peace and security, may I remind Thiessen and his followers.

One only needs to spend five minutes on Preble Street in Portland to witness the oppression, and one needs to travel to a war zone to understand what our tax dollars and monumental debt are doing to innocent families caught in the crossfire. Thus far, 20 million civilians are dead from U.S. wars since WWII and the U.S. continues to be in 172 countries.

Since 2001, taxpayers’ bill from the military is $4.6 trillion with an additional $32 million every hour that they and generations going forward will never be in a position to pay off unless we vote in elected officials who will shift U.S. policy from one of violence to one of engagement. Such a shift can only occur with democratic electoral reforms (getting big money out of politics, undoing gerrymandered districts, open primaries, an Electoral College that follows the popular vote, automatic voter registration, etc.).

Thank you, Google employees, for taking a stand on no longer building warfare technology. May employees of all other companies take the same stand and push for economic conversion from a military-based economy to a sustainable, community-based one.