Protestors outside UNM Bookstore on Saturday chanted “Tax the rich, end the war” in honor of the tenth anniversary of U.S. involvement in the Afghanistan war.
Activist groups Stop the War Machine and the Answer Coalition organized the protest. They called it a “die-in” and acted out the sounds and sights of bombs and death brought on by war, student Jordan Whelchel said.
“Having a concrete spectacle like the die-in really puts flesh on the bones of a possibility about the reality of what it could be like in Afghanistan,” he said. “Street theatre is a way of embodying that.”
English professor Sharon Warner attended the protest and said she is increasingly concerned with the economic situation in the United States and the shrinking middle class.
“I have two sons who are in their 20s and I worry about what’s in store for them and their children,” she said. “It’s harder and harder for people to make the American dream work these days because more and more of the money is being concentrated in the work of fewer and fewer people.”
Warner said she supported the protesters because they are voicing their concerns.
“People as a nation can be very complacent about some issues, and so people should get out there and bring their concerns to the larger populace,” she said.
“I hope the protest can become something that will begin to educate the larger populace because I think there are a lot of people who don’t understand what’s happening in this country in the concentration of wealth and continuing wars that don’t seem to have any point to them.”
