And the Beat Goes On

100-0! That’s right…that’s the Senate vote on giving Bush another 70 billion dollars for the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. That will bring the total up to 510 billion dollars spent on the killing fields.
“Senate gives Bush his law on detainees” is the headline on page 35A of the Rocky Mountain News. So the previous torture and illegal actions of our government toward detainees is now exempt from prosecution and people like George W. Bush are allowed to exercise “flexibility” in his interpretation of the Geneva Convention standards. This will allow him to use torture that would be classified as a crime in any international court.
Andrew Sullivan of the London Times says it all: “Torture does not become less evil when it is renamed ‘coercive interrogation’……These are precisely the kind of Orwellian word games that repressive regimes throughout history have used to excuse their brutality”.
Award winning cartoonist Ed Stein also captures the state of the union with his cartoon today, September 29, 2006. The cartoon shows a man and woman at the gravesite of the Constitution. The woman carries a bouquet of flowers. The headstone simply says “Constitution of the United States 1788-2006” The male figure is shown saying “It died during torture”.
Earlier this week the intelligence (?) community’s analysis was finally released by the tyrant, Bush. It stated the obvious that most grade schoolers could have determined; the war in Iraq and Afghanistan has not decreased terrorism or the threat of it….it has “fueled” terrorism.
History has shown preemptive wars of aggression and illegal goals create a backlash. Ward Churchill quoting Malcolm X would say the “chickens have come home to roost”.
Did it really take the release of NIE’s report to come to this conclusion? Why haven’t the cowards known as Democrats been shouting this from the roof of the Capitol? Why have they waited until now to slap their foreheads in sudden epiphany of the truth?
If we could encapsulate the last month of politics surrounding the war, torture and the effects of the war on terrorism we’d see the cowards in D.C. at their cowardly best.
The Republicans had an alleged “rebellion” against their leader, Bush, when they argued against the approval of the legislation they just finished approving. Huh? They had a rebellion but gave the dictator everything he wanted? If this were some junta in a third world country we’d be whining about repression. Come to think of it; this is a nation taken over by a junta in the year 2000 and reaffirmed in 2004.
Of course the “rebellious” conservatives were those facing difficult questions from their constituents about the war and its costs to them. So a one day symbolic gesture of having courage was needed. They showed the folks back home just how courageous they can be.
After the 100-0 vote for the funding of the war, Mr. Democrat, Ted Kennedy, spouted on about “America is in deep trouble in Iraq. The continuing death and violence are ominous”. Genius! This is a perfect example of having it both ways by saying the obvious and doing the devious.
It seems Kennedy and the Democrats might have reached the conclusion long ago this nation is in deep trouble. Waiting until public opinion caught up with the ugly reality in Iraq demonstrates the disgraceful leadership of these elitist cowards. And still as another election approaches, they refuse to stand on principal and morality. Instead they give the Machiavellian regime of Bush a unanimous approval to fund more death and destruction fearing attacks of the sinister dirty tricks experts trained by Karl Rove.
While the elite finish up their business until after the election, mothers and fathers across this land fear for the safety of their sons and daughters trapped in the cycle of deployment to and from the illegal war. Others worry about getting treatment for traumatic injuries to body and mind suffered in the carnage. They’re now finding out the truth of the military at war. The lowly combat infantryman and enlisted troops are considered “throwaways” by people like Rumsfeld and Cheney.
The elite provide gratuitous and patronizing words of support for the troops but their actions and inaction show the liars and cowards they really are. Bob Dylan wrote a masterpiece about these “Masters of War”. “Even Jesus won’t forgive what you do…” sings Dylan. His words ring as true today as in the 60’s when he first sang the song. The sellout of the American government to the military industrial complex only becomes more obvious every day.
This all leads me to wonder about a peace movement that thinks the Democrats need to win to “change” things when it has become so blatantly clear the elected of both parties are corrupted and long ago sold out the Constitution, the Bill of Rights and We, the People. Front groups like UFPJ have heavily influenced peace groups all over the country to call and visit the cowards of the Beltway in efforts to have them advocate for changes in the government.
I have to ask those who have followed the tactics of petition, letters, emails and personal visits if they think they’ve caused any changes to occur? I see good people taking the time to follow the strategies of the front groups with little success. It seems we’ve convinced ourselves we can play by the rules dictated by the ruling class and effect social changes that will dramatically alter the fabric of this nation.
The rules of the ruling class are stacked against significant social change. Putting our hopes in having fair elections is meaningless if those elected are just more of the same corrupted elite who will protect their status at all costs.
Continuing with organizational structures that perpetuate status quo membership in a movement lacking racial and ethnic balance is a failed tactic. Continuing to shut out the young people who will carry the burden of the billions and trillions of dollars deficit this nation has is only prolonging lack of progress. A sexist, homophobic, racist and ageist coalition of people wanting peace and justice doesn’t worry those in power.
Hip hop culture, Iraq veterans, high school students, black activists, immigrants that are economic refugees from impoverished nations, Native Americans, Hispanic, Chicano, Latino, Latina, GLBT and marginalized communities are missing from the American peace movement. The talent, the beauty and possibilities of these brothers and sisters are needed to create the “revolution” that will transform this nation.
The environmental movement continues to take limited roles in peace and justice movements while the planet is on the verge of extinction from human caused pollution, neglect and greed. Some speculate it will be environmental damage that leads to the end of humans well before we manage to do it with our wars. Indigenous peoples have prophesized the year 2012 will have a cataclysmic event changing the world as we know it. While there is no certainty of this being true there is a certainty the climate changes will continue at an ever increasing rate as ozone and polar caps change dramatically.
Clearly the time for becoming citizens of the world before allegiance to imperialistic and nationalistic governments has arrived. Loving our country means we recognize the needs of the entire world. Sharing, negotiation and non-violent conflict resolution will be necessary for human survival.
The potential and possibility of this happening is the young brothers and sisters. Their stake in the future is far greater than my generation’s stake. Their voices need to be heard. We can no longer dictate tactics to them or all the other groups missing from the movement.
The philosophy of not upsetting the oppressor is delusional. Tactics of disruption and confrontation will be needed. Worrying about semantics, images portrayed by mainstream press and fitting in with the establishment to gain their cooperation is nonsense. Outrage, anger and resistance toward continued oppression and injustice is absolutely necessary and long overdue.
Words and their meanings vary from community to community and person to person. A free society doesn’t attempt censoring words or ways of expressing thoughts because they don’t fit for all people. The idea of a chant first yelled during the Vietnam War now being unacceptable is ridiculous.
I’ve been part of two different scenes of attempted censorship over the past year within the peace community. On both occasions the way the dissent was expressed didn’t meet with the standards of the dominant group. At one event those who failed to meet the expectations of an “insider” group of people were publicly chastised over a megaphone. The leader told others they had been at the site longest as if that gave them status above others.
The other occasion also included a megaphone. The old Vietnam War chant was done with a megaphone borrowed from a group who objected. The megaphone was returned without argument but the person responsible for it felt a need to lecture those who had initiated the chant. Almost a year later this incident seems to be a topic of concern for some in the leadership group of a state coalition.
Both of these incidents are examples of hierarchy attempting to dictate rules and standards for all. And then the hierarchy does the typical comment of “you’re free to say or do what you want” to deflect their attempts to be in charge and in control.
And the beat goes on and on and on. Soldiers, Marines, sailors and airmen die and die and die. Iraqi children, Lebanon’s children, Israeli children, Palestinian children and Afghan children die and die and die. And the “masters of war” continue unpunished for their crimes and still in power while any opposition remains splintered and co-opted.


Wm. Terry Leichner, RN

http://visopeace.blogspot.com

Unspeakable??

Once again tragedy has occurred in an American school and once again the American public scratches its collective head and wonders why this happened.

Yesterday in Bailey, Colorado a lone gunman entered Platte Canyon H.S... He apparently lingered in the hall for a time before entering a classroom. He took six adolescent girls hostage after sorting them out from the class that included boys. He forced the remaining members of the class to leave. The perpetrator obviously wanted female hostages to victimize even more than the overall class.

He later released four of the girls and kept the other two as human shields/hostages. At an evening deadline he gave police to “back off” the class was stormed by a SWAT team. The man shot at police, shot one girl in the head and then shot himself. The young 16 year old girl died very shortly afterwards in route to a hospital.

Later in the night there were reports the hostages may have been sexually assaulted by the sociopath gunman. At this time the motives of the perpetrator aren’t known. His identity hasn’t been revealed.

The Rocky Mountain News, as it typically does, had a headline in 40 plus fonts decrying the incident as UNSPEAKABLE. The Denver Post owned by the same corporate interests had a large font headline of HOSTAGE HORROR.

Of course, the television media has been reporting non-stop on the incident since noon yesterday when it was first reported. If Columbine sold as well as it did surely the same type of incident in a small commuter mountain town in the same state would be a surefire grabber as well. Every station in the Denver market has sent at least one of its anchor people to the scene. Most have sent multiple reporters to gather all the information possible.

Last evening and this morning the television audience were shown frantic parents waiting for their kids to be bused to a staging area. Then there were the invasive shots of parents and children reuniting. And by the Early Morning show’s airing on CBS this morning a family with a son in the class had been recruited to do an interview with Harry Smith, former Colorado newsman.

The scenes were played over repetitively as is the custom in American journalism. Friends of the young lady killed were interviewed, friends of the family were interviewed and anybody with any link to the victims was interviewed.

And is it just me or is it rather obscene the way the news people and cameras intrude on grief and tragedy like this?

It just seems victims of such things aren’t allowed the opportunity to grieve and attempt to understand the violence and death that’s occurred. Instead they’re lined up to get themselves on the air. The temptation for young people to grab at such an opportunity is understandable but I wonder if the parents have ever considered telling the news people to leave them alone at such a time?

I truly don’t want to be callous about this tragic death of a young person who had so much potential and possibilities. I have great sadness in my heart about the violence that has stolen her from her family and community. We have to ask if we lost an artist of great talent. Or a doctor who could have found the cure for a form of cancer. Or a loving mother.

I also have to take time to speak out about the propensity of Americans to take one such incident and make it seem as if the only tragedy in the world that matters is an American tragedy. We do it over and over from the deaths of American troops to the victims of 9-11 to the Columbine shootings.

I don’t dismiss these tragic losses but when I see headlines like the ones the Denver press put on their front pages I feel a sense of anger. I feel anger about the total lack of perspective shown about world-wide human tragedy. I want to scream there are tragedies of children dying in unspeakable ways every day in Iraq, Afghanistan, Darfur and Palestine. Where are their headlines?

I see parents rushing to such scenes in panic and besides sadness I feel desensitized to these scenes.

I want to ask why we parents wait until such tragic events to show such concern when every day our children are exposed to insidious forms of violence via media or real life experiences.

I want to know why we allow programs for our kids who become addicted or have emotional difficulty to languish for lack of tax monies.

I want to know why we allow children to go without prenatal care, post natal care and healthcare in general.

I want to know why we allow the schools of our cities and towns to become so institutionalized our kids lose creativity and the ability to think their own thoughts.

I want to know why we’ve forsaken the urban schools, the children of Katrina and the impoverished neighborhoods.

I want to scream that we, the adults, have done little or nothing to address the culture of violence we’ve allowed to grow in our nation.

We have young babies playing with toy guns.

We have grade school kids allowed to kill and mutilate video game foes in graphic detailed ways shown on screens they glue their eyes to after school and on the weekend.

And then I return to the daily loss of babies, young children and young men and women as a result of the most violent act of all, our wars. We need daily headlines in the largest fonts possible to decry the BARBARIC, UNSPEAKABLE HORROR of adults killing one another and any innocent family or child that happens to be in the way of the techno weapons we waste our minds and tax dollars creating.

I can’t help but think how parents in Iraq and Afghanistan would view the headlines in this morning’s Denver newspapers. I suspect they would be saddened by the tragic loss. I also suspect they might wonder why the losses of their children to 500 lb. bombs, errant rifle fire, cruise missiles or bunker busters elicit so little outrage and sadness.

I can’t help but wonder if we here in the United States even know about the thousands of dying children each day because of preventable reasons like poor drinking water, hunger and lack of healthcare.

I don’t dismiss the loss of a beautiful sixteen year old high school girl. I just wish her death would cause us to see the bigger picture of all the beautiful children killed for senseless reasons. I wish we could understand we’re not alone in the grief of losing children in this world.

Unfortunately our failure to promote an end to violence, war and neglect plays a large role in seeing more of the large and uncaring headlines from superficial and insensitive newspaper corporations.

It all just makes me want to holler.

Wm. Terry Leichner, RN
http://visopeace.blogspot.com/

CORRECTION: Superdome Repairs $184 million

I made a grave error in reporting the Superdome costs for refurbishing were $75 million dollars.
An AP story by Mary Foster reports the costs of refurbishing the Superdome are:
$115 Million paid by Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)
$13 Million paid by the state of Louisiana
$41 Million secured from bonds used by other area sports facilities
$15 Million contributed by the NFL
-----------------------------------------------
$184 Million Dollars Total Cost

Its good to know FEMA has finally arrived on the scene and given Tom Benson, owner of the NFL's Saints, the relief he wanted in refurbishing the football stadium.
It was only a short time ago Benson was threatening to take the team to another city because the Superdome didn't have the revenue producing "luxury boxes" other newer stadiums have.
Luckily for Benson, Mother Nature came to his rescue and the Federal Government made the stadium a priority. The loss of football has been averted, thank God.
This is truly an example of our tax dollars at work. When there's an emergency, the Bush administration does comes through.
I'm quite sure the residents of the 9th Ward and other neighborhoods near the levees are elated to know the Superdome has become the "symbol of recovery". And when they get their FEMA relief money, I'm sure they'll be watching the Saints from the living rooms of their rebuilt homes.
I'm sure the survivors of Katrina and the experience in the Superdome will find comfort knowing the stadium is now ready for football. They'll probably want to return right away to see all the great changes that have been made.
And for all the skeptics about the concentration focused on rebuilding the Superdome, keep in mind the stadium will bring the tourists back to the "Big Easy". Increased tourism means increased revenue for the merchants of NOLA.
Surely all citizens of the city stand to gain from all this.
As our President said back in September 2005; "good job Brownie".
Go Saints!!

Wm. Terry Leichner, RN
Denver Bronco supporter and Raider hater

Are You Ready For Some Football??

Halleujah! The Superdome in New Orleans is rebuilt at 75 million and Monday Night Football is coming to open it up again. This time there won’t be dead bodies out in the parking lot left to be picked up by a coroner that won’t come. There will be plenty of food and water available.

The rich and elite will pay good money to be seen. Local politicians will be out in force to lay claim to the political spoils of “reconstruction” from the damage of Katrina.

And the 9th Ward will still lie in ruins. FEMA trailers will still outnumber livable housing. Insurance companies will still continue to find more reasons not to pay the claims of the Katrina survivors than reasons to pay what they are responsible for paying.

The high mass of the religion NFL will be shown over millions of big screen, plasma screen, HDTV screens and just plain color screens and everybody will feel better about the folks of New Orleans. The horror scenes of black Americans being abandoned on highways, on rooftops and inside the “dome of doom” will be forgotten.

Its doubtful John Madden will remind Americans over 200,000 citizens of New Orleans remain displaced because the agencies responsible for helping them rebuild have been too busy trying to steal their properties for gentrification.

Monday Night Football doesn’t have to tell the nation about the elderly people who have given up hope and died. They don’t have to tell about the lack of mental health treatment for the trauma experienced by the survivors.

Are you ready for some football!!!

What a sick little scene will be played out on the floor of the stadium that a year ago held desperate people who weren’t important enough to save from the catastrophe everybody knew was coming.

But it’s the same story all over the world. The people of Iraq are forgotten. The people of Burma are hidden from sight. The genocide of Darfur is terrible but what can we do?

The other day in a restaurant I overheard a young guy saying we can’t pay everybody in the world like we do at Wal-Mart because it would be harmful to the economies of the poorer nations. This was his take on free trade agreements.

Imagine that!!!! Wal-Mart being thought of as a beacon of hope for the working person in the world is like saying soldiers with weapons meant to kill others are “peacekeepers”.

How absurd to think we should pay every person the same for doing the same work. Surely we can’t allow poorer economies to get stronger because it could upset the balance of power in which one percent of the population holds 80% of the wealth in the world. Surely we can’t allow the wealthy to take some responsibility for the 30,000 children dying each day from the effects of poverty.

The problem with caring is there are just so many to care about.

It’s just easier to see if Drew Brees can make a difference with the Saints, drink a Bud, a Coors and a Miller, eat twice as much as needed and buy a Reggie Bush jersey than to worry about starving kids, bombed kids, drowned kids or oppressed people.

Let’s play some football!!

9-11 Have We Learned Anything?

The somber ceremony to honor the dead of September 11, 2001 dominates this day five years later. It’s tragic to hear family members talk about their loved ones.

It’s inspiring to know there are men and women willing to risk their lives for other humans. Christ speaks of sacrificing our lives for our brothers and sisters. Saints and spiritual people honor those who do.

I’m a person who writes with a good deal of anger fueling me. I hesitate to bring that anger to paper when discussing the events of five years ago. I can’t, however, let the day go by without comment.

I have to wonder if there is any true discussion by Americans about the reasons for the violent and horrific actions of those who perpetrated September 11, 2001. I know there is anger and even hate toward those who are responsible.

I don’t think of the dead Americans as being responsible for what happened to them. I don’t blame American people as responsible.

I do have to question our government’s involvement in the Middle East for well over a century, though. As I look at the policies of the U.S. in so many countries throughout the world, I come to understand why there is hatred for this nation.

The recent history is only one example of the mixed message of American democracy. A conservative estimate is fifty thousand innocent Iraqi citizens have perished as a result of the unilateral and preemptive war George W. Bush initiated.

It’s simple and easy to hear or see numbers of the dead in Iraq if we have no perspective of the people who died. Just as fanatics viewed all Americans as evil and the enemy, we depersonalize the Iraqi and Arabic people.

We fail to see the infant asleep in a crib crushed by the walls of the home of her parents following the detonation of a cruise missile fired from many miles away.

We fail to understand the sorrow of the parents who may have survived the anonymous death caused by the sophisticated weapon of mass destruction our nation’s people pay for with their taxes.

I can remember the face of a young girl covered with the blood of her parents shot at a check point by American troops. She was less than five years old. She had no understanding why strangers in her country would kill her parents. She couldn’t understand the policy of the time to shoot to kill any who failed to stop at checkpoints.

I’d ask the American people to think of New York’s World Trade Center destruction happening over and over again in Detroit, Cleveland, DesMoines, Denver, Omaha, Salt Lake, San Diego, Los Angeles and San Francisco.

If we could imagine such a thing we would have an idea of how innocent civilians in Iraq, Afghanistan and Lebanon feel. We’d have an idea of innocent Israeli citizens killed by rockets of people they never met or knew.

The attack in New York City was such a rarity for the American people to try to understand that five years later the nation is still absorbed in the grief and tragedy of that day. For Iraqis a form of September 11, 2001 happens on some scale almost daily.

Imagine hospitals and schools hit by explosive devices dropped from jets miles above in Mobile or Austin. Or snipers shooting from schools at anybody or anything moving in Phoenix.

The reality is this region of the world has known such terror and havoc for many decades. The people have seen the oppression of the Shah of Iran’s secret police torturing their own citizens.

The people of the region have seen British invasions of the most religious sites of their world. They have seen children starved as a result of sanctions meant to punish a dictator who gained his power by cooperation with the American government. That dictator went unscathed by sanctions.

We have heard of Abu Ghraib and Fallujah. Few of us know the truth of these places or the deep resentment and hatred American policy caused there. We think of the destruction and torture as the cost of freedom because freedom isn’t free.

The innocent civilians of Abu Ghraib and Fallujah are left with the overriding impression of American brutality causing unnecessary death and pain. They’re left with the images of bombs made in America killing children and the elderly and destroying homes that families lived in for many generations.

If Americans living in homes on land their families settled in the 1700’s or 1800’s saw it destroyed they could have an understanding of what humans in the Middle East have endured.

It is right the American people honor the dead of the attacks of September 11, 2001. We should never forget that day as we’ve not forgotten December 7, 1941 and the attack on Pearl Harbor.

A question that stays in my mind is did we learn anything other than hate from the attack? Do we understand the pain and suffering we felt in seeing the towers tumble to the streets and the loss of so many lives is repeated daily in some smaller scale in the Middle East?

The losses have become a constant of living in Iraq. Can Americans understand we are not the only nation to endure such tragedy? In fact we have been blessed with far less tragedy than most countries.

Can America do a search of its soul and see hatred has been bred and fueled because of needless and arrogant actions of our government’s policies toward Arab and Muslim people?

It doesn’t dishonor the victims of 9-11 to ask the hard questions of why such a horrible event was perpetrated against innocent people. I’d say it actually honors the memory of our dead to do so.

I just wonder if we can.


Wm. Terry Leichner, RN
VVAW – Denver
USMC combat veteran

Some Things Remain the Same

The most telling part of an article about formation of a "new" Students for a Democratic Society (http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=72&ItemID=10908) was failure of awareness the group working on structure had concerning lack of female participation and omission of the People of Color Caucus in the first hour and half of the meeting. Add that omission to the locked doors of the room scheduled for the People of Color Caucus meeting and it's pretty clear the new SDS reflects the same attitude as the peace and justice movements currently in place across the country.

The reflection is a continued oversight of marginalized communities by "progressive/liberal" groups predominately white and most often led by males.

Oversight is actually a kind way of speaking about the continued sexist and racist attitudes that prevail even in the progressive/liberal groups of this country.

I persist in the belief peace and justice movements in America need to understand the reasons people of color, many feminist groups and most groups of young men and women want nothing to do with the movements as they're currently structured.

Saying we're invested in bringing these communities into the movement and actually demonstrating it seems pretty far apart. Saying we're invested in having all voices heard but continuing with a hierarchy that stifles participation by quieter brothers and sisters is a contradiction.

I continue to believe the white dominated peace and justice movements are so prevalent because of resources available to them versus limited resources of communities poor and marginalized.

The progressive/liberal groups often lay claim to speaking for these communities but seldom even enter the communities to understand exactly what the residents actually want and need to have the peace and justice so often mentioned.

Groups like SDS are seldom representative of neighborhoods mired in poverty with a failed educational system.The public school system has been decimated by lack of funding, classes far too large for learning and an agenda by politicians intent on teaching children how to take tests instead of how to think critically.

Perhaps the progressive/liberal movement needs to listen more before it proclaims it knows the best path for peace and justice.

Maybe feeding the hungry, improving educational opportunities, improving housing, improving healthcare and improving opportunities for employment with a living wage and benefits should take precedence over some of the current priorities peace and justice movements have.

Maybe a truly diverse movement only comes about when the basic needs of all communities are incorporated in the agenda of peace and justice groups.

Perhaps greater awareness young men and women of this nation absolutely need a true representative voice in any peace and justice movement is needed.

Perhaps true awareness that justice is quite different for people of color needs to be reinforced.

Perhaps the lofty goals of peace and justice begins in the individual communities far too often neglected by liberals, progressives, conservatives and neocons.

I firmly believe the constant cycle of violence and war will never end if we fail to address the injustices so often prevalent in ignored and neglected neighborhoods found in every city and town. Any social change for peace and justice must include neighborhoods like the 9th Ward of New Orleans.

Peace and justice must include all brothers and sisters like those who endured and survived storms like Katrina. Peace and justice movements should never leave brothers and sisters in the water to fend for themselves.

Wm. Terry Leichner, RN
VVAW - Denver

Young Marine Faces Difficult Choices

I don't know Lance Hering but I do understand his actions. We ask our young people to go to war and fail to understand the agony they face. When this young man was first reported missing I had a "gut feeling" he was in turmoil about returning to the Marines after his tour in Iraq.
Hopefully we'll look past the deception he created with his disappearance and understand the desperation that led him to do this.
As a former Marine who was in combat, I totally understand what Lance has done. At some point we have to follow what our conscience tells us to do. I think this is what has happened to Lance.
There's a line in Michael Franti's song Time to Go Home that says "those who start wars don't fight them, those that fight wars don't like them."
Amen, Michael....God bless, Lance....you'll be in my thoughts and prayers.
Terry Leichner, RN
VVAW - Denver
USMC combat vet


Marine's friend jailed
Boulder authorities believe Iraq veteran's disappearance staged
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By David Montero And Felix Doligosa Jr., Rocky Mountain News September 8, 2006
BOULDER - A man arrested for filing a false police report about a missing Marine pleaded guilty in 2004 to felony burglary - a crime in which the Marine also took part.
Police, who spent five days searching for Lance Cpl. Lance Hering, said Thursday they believe his disappearance was staged so the 21-year-old Marine, who served in Iraq, could avoid returning to duty.
Some Boulder County sheriff's deputies were skeptical and felt things "didn't add up" when Steve Powers reported Hering missing in Eldorado Canyon State Park on Aug. 30, said department spokesman Phil West
It came to light Thursday that Powers and Hering, both of Boulder, pleaded guilty in 2004 to felony burglary and were given two years' probation.
Powers, 20, was arrested late Wednesday for investigation of a misdemeanor charge of false reporting, and faces a maximum $750 fine and six months in jail.
Authorities were still looking for Hering, who returned from Iraq in July and was due back at Camp Pendleton, Calif., this month. West said the new development had been reported to the Marine Corps and to Hering's parents.
West said everything Powers has told authorities "is suspect" and is being checked out.
Powers' initial story had authorities believing Hering fell and hit his head while on an evening hike. Police found blood, which Powers claimed to be Hering's.
West said the blood is being tested by the Colorado Bureau of Investigation to determine its origin.
"It's human, we know that," West said.
Powers has since admitted to investigators that he made up the story because his friend did not want to return to the Marines, according to the sheriff's officials.
Boulder County Sheriff Joe Pelle said it was impossible to calculate the cost of the search, but the helicopter alone could run upward of $10,000. Pelle also said both Powers and Hering would be liable for repaying the department if the disappearance turns out to be a scam.
U.S. Marine Lt. Esteban Vickers, a spokesman at Camp Pendleton, said that until Hering's reporting date passes next week, he will not be in trouble. "Right now, we just want to be sure he's OK," Vickers said.
Vickers said he was not aware of Hering's felony burglary plea, but said, if true, he shouldn't have been in the Marines in the first place. He said recruiters are supposed to check things like that out.
Hering joined the Marines in 2005 and Vickers said he was only aware that Hering had one tour of duty in Iraq. The unit, he said, came back from a seven-month deployment in August. Vickers said Hering's unit wasn't scheduled to go back to Iraq "anytime soon."
West said the department was making good progress on the Her-ing case, despite being given false information from Powers over the past week. Among other lies Powers allegedly told was that Hering was broke, but investigators learned Hering has about $2,000 and had talked about disappearing in the past.
Lloyd Hering, Lance's father, was near tears outside his Boulder home Thursday morning.
"I have nothing to say," he said. "I don't know what to say."
Before the arrest, family and friends dismissed any suggestions that Hering would go AWOL.
monterod@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-5236

Workers of the World Unite!!

Post Labor Day Rant

The day Americans are supposed to honor the worker has once again passed without much notice of the plight of workers around the world. Instead picnics, barbeques and camping have become the major focus of the day. In an ironic twist as labor unions and the condition of workers seems to be near their end, the day called Labor Day has really become a day representing the end of summer.
As CEO’s and other business executives reap huge salaries and bonuses, the average wage of all American workers has stagnated or lost ground with the costs of living. Business executives earn up to 2000 times more than the highest paid hourly worker.
Business executives reaping obscene wealth have reduced the high paying jobs for workers by “off shoring” their jobs to third world country workers for a pittance. They exploit international workers at the expense of workers in their own nation.
The obscene wealth earned by these executives who are primarily white males is earned for the destruction of unions and diminishing or devaluing of all workers in America. It’s earned by exploitation of workers in situations of near slavery and abject poverty willing to accept the lower wages because it’s more than they’ve ever earned in their lifetime.
The American worker is being lied to by the employers of their nation. They’re told unions are bad and outdated. They’re given misinformation about unionism that portrays unions as leeches that only want to take their money in form of dues but don’t really help the worker.
If the slander against unions were true it’s interesting how vigorously businesses like Wal-Mart pull out all stops to squash labor organizing at their work sites. If unions were so awful and bad for workers it would seem the workers would not want to organize in the first place.
Labor Day in America is a farce of giving a bone to workers while the prime meat remains on the plate of highly paid business executives. Labor Day in America is a big “atta-boy” failing to give the workers true recognition by sharing more of the wealth for their hard work. Labor Day is American business’ master patting the heads of their serfs and slaves without giving them the living wages and benefits they need.
Sadly the workers of the world are convinced or frightened into believing unionism is a danger to their continued employment. And as long as workers continue to be exploited around the world all workers remain weakened and at the mercy of the “Massa” of the business plantation.
I grew up watching my father work himself to exhaustion as a hard rock miner and pipe fitter. He was a proud man because he knew he gave a full day’s work for a full day’s income each and every day.
My dad was a union steward for the United Mine Workers in several mines around the state of Colorado. He led men out on strike after failing to get management to agree to better wages and benefits.
He became the target of management for his union activism. They found ways to make things harder for him but they seldom fired him because he was one of their most productive workers.
He became a member of the AFL-CIO Pipefitter’s Union and as he’d always done he gave his all in his work. He took joy in doing the best job possible. He expected to be treated fairly for his efforts. When management failed to be fair, my dad had no qualms about walking a picket line to maintain unionism.
In the end, my dad’s work killed him and American business ignored him and all those like him.
The pits of uranium mines poisoned his lungs with radiation. The dust of the molybdenum mines caused his lungs to get “rocked up”. The fine particles of asbestos found on old boilers and the fine dust of the metal trades further damaged his respiratory system.
My father died from the complications of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) at the age of 67. At the end of his life, the once robust and energetic man I’d known when I was younger was unable to walk across a room without suffocating shortness of breath. He couldn’t sleep without sitting up because his respirations were so labored. He literally smothered to death because of the damage to his lungs.
Workers exposed to toxic materials and substances are forgotten by the businesses they help make huge profits. Rather than recognize the worker’s sacrifice, the plantation owners spend huge sums on attorney fees to prevent compensation for the workers’ damaged health.
The list of dangerous exposures to workers seems endless. The denial of responsibility or fairness to the worker by business seems just as endless.
Each year the number of American workers without medical benefits increases. Each year the cost of living out paces the rate of the average worker’s income. The $5.15 minimum wage is an incredible joke and slap in the face to the workforce. A living wage is estimated to be over twelve dollars an hour plus health benefits for any small family.
A union organizer for SEIU Justice for Janitors told a small rally of his personal struggle with employers refusing to provide health benefits as part of the payment for hard work. A family member needed hospital care that cost thousands of dollars the organizer didn’t have.
The hospital, which has a mission to provide care to indigent patients, sent the unpaid bill to a collection agency. The collection agency harassed and hounded the worker to get payment.
The credit rating of the worker who is sent to collection by hospitals receiving federal funding for treating the poor is destroyed. Any attempts later to finance a home or automobile will cost this worker much more than a worker with health benefits or the wealthy business owner. It’s nothing less than a tax upon the poor for simply being poor.
Hospitals representing themselves as religiously affiliated will charge the indigent patient up to ten times the amount it charges a patient with health benefits for the exact same procedure. Then the same hospitals will send the unpaid inflated bills to collection agencies. It will destroy the credit of the indigent patients for years to come. Again the poor are taxed for the poverty they live in.
Janitors cleaning large corporations’ facilities struggle to live on the poor wages they receive for the back breaking work they do. They struggle to receive health care.
The only advocate for these janitors has been unions. They struggle to get wage increases and health benefits that most can’t afford because the matching deductions and co-pays are too much.
The workers have to choose between paying gas and electric, buying food and paying for children’s clothing or reducing what they take home to pay the employee share for health benefits.
One major hospitalization will financially ruin these workers but they often have to risk that ruin. Unions for janitors advocate large businesses step up for people who work hard to maintain the workplaces of others.
Unions advocate for nurses and mental health workers carrying out treatment to the most severely mentally ill patients. Most of these patients are indigent or on disability. The only care they receive comes from professional people with advanced degrees in a field notorious for underpaying the care-givers.
Unions advocate for workers to receive benefits that are considered a human right in most advanced countries. The right to adequate healthcare.
Unions advocate for workers to receive wages that provide the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It’s called a living wage.
Labor Day is a farce as long as workers continue to receive less than fair compensation for hard work. The general code of unionism is a day’s work for a day’s pay.
Workers in America and around the world deserve a fair day’s pay for a day’s work. They don’t deserve to have their noses rubbed in the obscene income of incompetent and greedy executives of corporations that have bankrupted their companies.
They don’t deserve to have pensions and benefits stolen from them while the captains of industry make one thousand times more income than the highest paid worker.
Workers around the world should take note of the record profits of the major employers around the world. They should question the fairness of what they earn compared with the profit they help these employers make.
Workers should question why employers continue to have great fear of an organized workforce that establishes ways to fairly mediate complaints by both worker and management.
Workers in America complain about workers in other countries taking jobs from them at much lesser wages. They should see the real truth.
The world wide economy with multi-national corporations calls for world wide unionism to prevent jobs lost to other workers at less than fair compensation. Workers around the world will have to understand big business plans to keep them divided and working without fair wages for the work they produce.
May 1st each year is a day to celebrate workers around the world. The day has become ostracized by business and government as associated with socialist, Marxist and communist May Day celebrations. These philosophies continue to be tagged with the same connotation as terrorism.
The fear of a world wide organized labor movement spurs business and government to keep blocking any symbolic or direct attempts for workers around the world to unite for fair compensation, health benefits and a share of the profit pie.
Governments and industries may war against each other but they remain united in their efforts to keep common working people from actually getting a fair wage. As long as they succeed in dividing labor they succeed in working people being treated as dispensable cogs in the military industrial complex.
Workers of the world must unite!!

Wm. Terry Leichner, RN
VVAW – Denver, CO
USMC combat veteran
Ex-union pipefitter
Ex-union RN

Blessed Are the Peacemakers

Seeing Kathy Kelly is a painful experience. It’s also a spiritual inspiration.
God knows this burned out and disillusioned peace activist and veteran needs inspiration. So once again I took a road trip to Grand Junction, Colorado, two hundred fifty miles away, to spend an evening with Kathy and the wonderful people of the Grand Junction peace and justice movement.
I drove to Grand Junction last year and found inspiration from the same petite woman who has an aura that I’ve seen in very few people during my lifetime.
Kathy looked tired and almost sad before she began her talk last night. And suddenly she was introduced and took command of our attention and our hearts. She started by telling of her experiences with parents in Lebanon grieving the loss of children to a bomb dropped by an Israeli plane.
She told us of seeing the destruction of buildings where innocent civilians had lived and perished.
She told of dangerous encounters with Israeli troops wielding rifles and seeming ready to shoot anybody they felt a threat. She told them to “put those guns down” as they approached her….using her skills as a former teacher. They put their guns down.
I could tell of all the many things Kathy told us last night and never do the stories justice.
She immediately involved me in the telling of her time in Lebanon and Iraq. She immediately gave me a mental picture of the suffering she encountered and her sense of frustration and sadness.
Kathy put a face on the people of Lebanon and Iraq beyond the images of suicide bombers and Saddam Hussein. She talked about the children and brought tears to my eyes.
If I came away with nothing else her description of the universal joy of children at play will stay with me for a long time. The disruption of the joy by adults killing each other and terrorizing the children will haunt me and should haunt us all.
In the spiritual realm, Kathy incorporated the Beatitudes of Jesus at the Sermon on the Mount to what is necessary for activists to strive for in their work. She reminded us the people of Lebanon and Iraq cry out “we are people, just like you” from the rubble of American bombs and missiles.
Usually going to Kathy Kelly’s presentations is a love fest of her preaching to the choir. And the choir does need the inspiration she offers. Last night turned out to be a little different in the question and answer part of her talk.
A woman in her forties or fifties challenged Kathy about one of her remarks likening Christian martyrs to Shia martyrs. The woman may have been Zionist and humanizing the people of Lebanon was difficult for her. I’m not sure. I’m sure she had a great deal of anger toward Muslims as she seemed to want to paint all as fundamental Islamic terrorists.
She insisted the Koran had several passages that called for violence, that people believing in Islam were coerced to believe and that we must defend ourselves against the Islamic terrorists who believed they would be greeted in heaven by virgins if only they became martyrs as suicide bombers.
Kathy listened to the woman’s view with empathy and concern but asked her to consider how people in places like Iraq and Lebanon are driven to become suicide bombers. She asked the woman to consider the violence of Christians and Jews toward Muslims in the carrying out of governmental policies. She asked her to look at the people she seemed to easily categorize as fanatics and terrorists as humans with the same needs and desires as all of us.
The interaction could have easily become contentious and uncomfortable but the peaceful spirit of Kathy Kelly shined brightly. She gave a clear demonstration of how activists can have dialogue with people who have beliefs very opposed to our own. She demonstrated why we must have such a dialogue.
I’m sure the woman left unconvinced Muslims desire peace and justice like all people. I’m also sure she left thinking about the ideas Kathy presented and maybe…just maybe….a seed of doubt and enlightenment was planted. Kathy showed us we must try to sow the harvest of peaceful living one person at a time if necessary.
I’m big on redefining who heroes really are in this world. I’ve grown so weary of men in the military being held up as heroes for our young people. I say this as a combat veteran who has often encountered folks wanting to give me special status for taking part in the killing of other humans.
In the times I’ve had opportunity to either speak publicly or present at groups or classes, I’ve tried to always introduce a new definition of hero. Kathy Kelly, along with Sisters Ardeth, Jackie and Carol, always seems to come to mind first.
I have few heroes in my world but when I do think of heroism I think of a woman who might weigh 100 pounds at best going into combat zones time after time to comfort and care for children and parents. I think of the petite Irish lass with toughness this ex-Marine has seldom seen. Her toughness is spiritual. She sees injustice and violence and acts with her heart. Most of us may agree about the horrible things that occur in this world but not many would act in the way Kathy Kelly does.
I can only think Kathy really does ask herself what Jesus would do. Then she does what her heart tells her must be done. She epitomizes courage and heroism to me.
I hold out hope more people will come to think peacemakers like Kathy Kelly are the true heroines of our world.
I once again give thanks to God for the inspiration of Kathy. And thanks to Kathy for a life of dedicated service to peace and justice.


Wm. Terry Leichner, RN
Denver VVAW member
USMC combat veteran – Vietnam
http://visopeace.blogspot.com