“Because contractors were paid on cost-plus arrangements, they had a powerful incentive to spend to the hilt. The undisputed master of milking the system is KBR, the former Halliburton subsidiary so ubiquitous in Iraq that soldiers even encounter its customer-survey sheets in outhouses. The company has been exposed by whistle-blowers in numerous Senate hearings for everything from double-charging taxpayers for $617,000 worth of sodas to overcharging the government 600 percent for fuel shipments. When things went wrong, KBR simply scrapped expensive gear: The company dumped 50,000 pounds of nails in the desert because they were too short, and left the Army no choice but to set fire to a supply truck that had a flat tire. "They did not have the proper wrench to change the tire," an Iraq vet named Richard Murphy told investigators, "so the decision was made to torch the truck."
“In perhaps the ultimate example of military capitalism, KBR reportedly ran convoys of empty trucks back and forth across the insurgent-laden desert, pointlessly risking the lives of soldiers and drivers so the company could charge the taxpayer for its phantom deliveries. Truckers for KBR, knowing full well that the trips were bullshit, derisively referred to their cargo as "sailboat fuel."
Matt Taibbi’s column,The Great Iraq Swindle, in the August Rolling Stone magazine makes it clear how evil the Bush Administration really is. Even the more cynical can’t comprehend the deliberate use of American troops to further the greediness of Bush and his friends.
It’s become increasingly clear Bush has no empathy or compassion for the young men and women he has carelessly sent off to war. It’s clear the use of “patriotism” is really only a ruse to dupe young troops to believe their cause is just and for the ideal of democracy. The truth is wars started by George Bush and his cronies are about greed and capitalism at its very worst
Of course war profiteering is nothing new because ultimately war is not about national security or honor. Modern war has always been about economics. Smedley Butler categorized the profits of major corporations before and after WWI in his blistering treatise “War is a Racket”. Friends of the President such as Du Pont (the earlier form of KBR and Halliburton) had huge profits once war was started.
Dwight Eisenhower warned the “military-industrial complex” would exert a dangerous influence on the politics of this nation. While he seemed genuinely concerned of this danger, he still yielded to the British greed in deposing the elected Iranian government with the Shah of Iran when the legal government demanded equal compensation for the oil being stolen by British oil companies. The recent documentary “Why We Fight” does a great job in describing the takeover of the American government by special interests such as Halliburton and KBR.
What we don’t see on mainstream television or in the mainstream media is the total disregard our chicken-hawk President and cabinet have for the troops and the honest over-seers of government contracts and policy. Bush can tell the residents of New Orleans, "We're still paying attention. We understand.” two years after Katrina but his administration’s inaction and neglect along with the profiteering of companies tells the displaced and decimated the real truth about Mr. Bush.
The same companies plundering the treasury in Iraq have descended on the Gulf region to pick at the bodies and bones of the citizens devastated by Katrina. They unabashedly do nothing but reap profits while more than half the city of New Orleans lies in ruin and a large majority of the displaced have yet to return to their city. It’s no mistake or accident most of the displaced who haven’t returned are poor and people of color.
The very idea Bush and his cronies care about troops is refuted time and again by the actions of those given contracts in Iraq and places such as New Orleans. Another example of the patriotic caring of KBR is detailed by Taibbi in his article when he reports their efforts to provide a recreation center for troops in the Fallujah area.
“…for all the money KBR charged taxpayers for the rec center, it didn't provide much in the way of services to the soldiers engaged in the heaviest fighting of the war. When Warren ordered a karaoke machine, the company gave her a cardboard box stuffed with jumbled-up electronic components. "We had to borrow laptops from the troops to set up a music night," says Warren, who had a son serving in Fallujah at the time. "These boys needed R&R more than anything, but the company wouldn't spend a dime."
It’s become clear the only patriotism to be found in our Presidency is rewarding the incompetent and corrupt friends given sweetheart deals in a time young men and women were being asked to sacrifice their lives for reasons of noble purpose. The only nobility to be found has been young troops coming back to expose the lies and betrayal of the Bush empire.
Taibbi’s article (The Great Iraq Swindle) expose the Bushes for their betrayal and the traitors they are. How else can we explain a government that so callously allows war to happen as a means to profit? How can we avoid the word traitor when we understand the manipulations of a President and his cabinet to start a war, continue a war and profit so hugely from the war? This is pure evil by men and women claiming to be moral and religious but acting with such total disregard for life.
Taibbi’s words should cause outrage but the only media printing his story is a magazine focused on music of our time. Only the rock and roll crowd is brave enough to tell the truth.
“Operation Iraqi Freedom, it turns out, was never a war against Saddam ¬Hussein's Iraq. It was an invasion of the federal budget, and no occupying force in history has ever been this efficient. George W. Bush's war in the Mesopotamian desert was an experiment of sorts, a crude first take at his vision of a fully privatized American government. In Iraq the lines between essential government services and for-profit enterprises have been blurred to the point of absurdity -- to the point where wounded soldiers have to pay retail prices for fresh underwear, where modern-day chattel are imported from the Third World at slave wages to peel the potatoes we once assigned to grunts in KP, where private companies are guaranteed huge profits no matter how badly they fuck things up.”
“According to the most reliable ¬estimates, we have doled out more than $500 billion for the war, as well as $44 billion for the Iraqi reconstruction effort. And what did America's contractors give us for that money? They built big steaming shit piles, set brand-new trucks on fire, drove back and forth across the desert for no reason at all and dumped bags of nails in ditches. For the most part, nobody at home cared, because war on some level is always a waste. But what happened in Iraq went beyond inefficiency, beyond fraud even. This was about the business of government being corrupted by the profit motive to such an extraordinary degree that now we all have to wonder how we will ever be able to depend on the state to do its job in the future. If catastrophic failure is worth billions, where's the incentive to deliver success? There's no profit in patriotism, no cost-plus angle on common decency. Sixty years after America liberated Europe, those are just words, and words don't pay the bills.”
Read the Rolling Stone article by Matt Taibbi in Edition 1034 (Aug 22, 07).
Friday, August 31
Monday, August 27
Why The American Peace Movement is Bound to Fail
First they came for the Communists, and I didn’t speak up,
because I wasn’t a Communist.
Then they came for the sick, the so-called incurables, and I didn't speak up,
because I wasn't mentally ill.
Then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak up,
because I wasn’t a Jew.
Then they came for me, and by that time there was no one left
to speak up for me
Pastor Martin Niemöller (1892–1984)
The Disposables and Left Behind
The words of Pastor Niemoller alluded to the German intellectuals who failed to speak out against the tyranny of Adolf Hitler even when it was abundantly clear what was happening.
While there is some dispute about the actual wording of his poem, Niemoller’s meaning was clear. I happened to have chosen the version that mentions the mentally ill because I work with men and women diagnosed with major mental illnesses and always see the neglect and disregard our society has for them.
Instead of coming for groups like the mentally ill and the poor of our nation, the tyranny of George W. Bush has left them behind. Like the poor blacks of New Orleans left behind after Hurricane Katrina, Bush has continued to leave the marginalized behind in all areas of this nation.
Children trying to learn with empty stomachs aren’t included in Bush’s No Child Left Behind program because his regime can’t afford to feed them and carry out a war.
Even the children of the former “middle class” of America are beginning to find getting educated is more difficult and often still equate to lower paying employment. The gap between the rich and the rest of the people in the U.S. grows ever wider each year of the Bush empire.
A childhood insurance program for some of the country’s poorest or most in need families has recently been gutted by the Administration in an obvious cave-in to the insurance industry.
Housing promised to the poorest of families can’t be given by the regime of Bush, Cheney and Rove because corporate profit(eering) hasn’t reached a high enough record level yet. (And let’s not be fooled by Rove leaving the White House Staff; he remains very much the dark shadow he’s always been)
Poor immigrants have become the all too convenient whipping boys and girls of the group of ultra conservative, self righteous, Bible-thumping, so-called Christians that has seized freedom and rights from the American people.
The ever growing list of “left behinds” or “disposables” continues and the great majority of American people sit in a stupor watching the corporate controlled media mesmerized by “reality” programs.
Their kids play simulated games indoors in front of the other big screens of the homes now resembling castles instead of actually going outside to play real games that include exercise and movement.
The Myth of Democracy and Electoral Change
The tyranny grows larger and more menacing every day as the American intellectuals, progressives and liberals still try to promote the delusional idea the United States is a democracy. They claim it only takes electing the “right” people to make the needed changes to regain our nation.
The same groups have been claiming electoral processes will make things right dating back to the days of the first American government. The ugly little truth they fail to acknowledge is there never has been democracy in this nation.
But today, in this year, 2007, the regime of Bush, Cheney, Rove and others is closing in on taking away all pretenses of democracy, freedom and equal rights for the citizens of this country.
Today, 70-80% of the intelligence gathered around the world for this government is done by non-governmental private corporations such as Raytheon. Add that fact to the recent extension and increase of Presidential powers to spy on American citizens passed by an allegedly confused Congress and the implications are staggering.
Include the ghost armies such as Black Water now numbering as many or more than the number of American troops in Iraq and there is something obviously dark and ghoulish in the future of this nation’s “armed forces”.
Ghost armies inside the borders of our nation also grow as does the camps they now build in strategic areas of the country.
Failure of mass media to inform the citizens and corporate ownership that fosters stealth for wealth grows. The Comcasts and Qwests of the world now control a majority of the communication services used by Americans from television and internet to phone service.
Rupert Murdoch controls huge numbers of outlets to provide information to the masses around the world. If we think his agenda and the agenda of the rich and powerful won’t be insidiously and overtly passed on in the media we fool ourselves and allow the propaganda to continue to influence the actions of our nation.
The barbarians are past the gates and taking over the lives of a sleeping, narcotized populous. Fear is a commodity that freezes the average citizen as the tyrants come for more and more of them to do their cheap labor, fight their senseless wars and consume without social conscience.
“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”- Joseph Goebbels
The peace and justice groups of America claim to want change but were duped in 2006 by an election that changed only party names but did little to change the power structure of the “inner circle” of the tyrants.
Almost a year later the liberals and progressives, the so-called radicals and the moderates still wait for Congress to listen to their mandate of the 2006 election. They still believe visiting congressional offices to demand change or plead for morality is an effective tactic of change.
The peace and justice movements still believe we must remain kind and sensitive without upsetting people. Too many still believe upsetting the powerful will backfire with negative results.
I keep wondering if I’m on the same planet as some who think being arrested at a Congressional office while reading the names of the dead of the war will bring change. A wonderful peace activist friend will spend a month in jail for such an action because she was arrested for the fifth or sixth time.
The staff of the Congressman chided the activist for inconveniencing their work. Apparently their work didn’t include carrying out the promises of ending the war thought to be gained in Election 2006.
And very few besides the activist community even know or care this peaceful woman will do time in jail for doing something moral. Perhaps there would have been more attention paid if the Congressman had done something moral but that’s clearly an unlikely thing to happen.
The peace-mom, Cindy Sheehan, has retired from her previous retirement saying she’s contemplating a run for Congress. She was very unhappy with the movement’s lack of action during her almost two month retirement. Even less happy with the Congress she thought would be moved by her and other parents of men and women killed or serving in the two wars.
I can’t help but think one person out of a group of 435 in the House of Representatives is like a grain of sand on the beach. I know there’s a saying by Margaret Mead addressing what groups of people can accomplish but I doubt she was thinking of Congress when she said those words. (“Never believe that a few caring people can't change the world. For, indeed, that's all who ever have.” Margaret Mead)
I know some will despise me for what I’m about to say but I believe Cindy Sheehan and other individual celebrities leading a peace and justice movement are ultimately bound to fail. Too often personal attacks on the individuals can cause irreparable harm. Too often individual ambition distracts from the more urgent needs a movement must address.
Electing Cindy will take time and money as well as the energy of many activists. With the tyrants consolidating more power every day, I wonder if we have much time or if our energy truly needs to be focused on growing an ever larger movement with diversity.
Margaret Mead was profoundly wise in her statements of what a few caring people can achieve. I think, however, she was a pragmatic woman who knew the energy of those people had to be focused on the more urgent needs of the world around them.
Does it sound apocalyptic to think this way? Perhaps, but the electoral process Democrats, progressives, Republicans, liberals, social activists and others want us to trust has shown nothing but contempt for the will of the people.
The erosion of freedom in the United States didn’t begin with the election of 2000. Big money, big corporations and elitist families have constantly had more sway than the people in the electoral process. Elections have been the bone thrown to the teeming masses while the special interest groups have continued to control the three branches of government.
Having grass roots candidates run, and even elected, has failed to change the tide of the oligarchy. Until the electoral process is free of huge sums of money to influence elections, control media and buy out men and women who ran with good intentions elections will continue to be a sham.
The great abolitionist, Frederick Douglass, famously remarked, "Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never has. Never will."
"Those who profess to favor freedom and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the roar of its many waters."
Until the politicians are more afraid of the masses than the wealthy power brokers the electoral process will remain tainted and illegitimate. And the numbers of citizens going to the polls will continue to run at fifty percent or less.
There’s a group of thinkers who will tell us the real power of the people begins with local elections. This thinking assumes city council members, mayors and state legislators haven’t been influenced by the wealthy powers of the local scene.
Building the New Movement – Time for Different Lyrics
So what’s my answer if I have so much disdain for the electoral process critics ask? I consistently answer a mass movement that will send a chill down the spines of the powerful is the movement that brings the greatest diversity ever witnessed in the history of this nation.
Building a diverse movement is something all the white dominated peace and justice groups profess to want but fail to get. They fail to get diverse groups because they fail to understand or care about the issues of the marginalized enough to actually enter those communities in a proactive attempt to help, not direct, in solving problems these communities face.
Instead, since 2003 the peace and justice movements have held rally after rally, march after march and convention after convention to state the obvious about the immorality and illegality of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
The same speakers, same organizers and same themes have emerged time after time. Tokenism toward communities of color and the marginalized has reigned as the “movement” has refused to step up for the likes of Mumia Abu Jamal, the Palestinians and the gulags of American justice systems putting 15% of black males between ages 20-29 in prisons.
Forgotten is the 30-50 age group tarred by felonies and prison records unable to get work providing a living wage and benefits.
Unpopular issues such as prison reform, decriminalization of drug possession, release of drug offenders from prison to be able to find treatment as needed, true reform of public education or true reform of healthcare systems have failed to get a hearing on the stages of the marches, rallies and conventions.
I attended a large rally in D.C. in 2005 that allowed some speakers to address some of these issues and later heard complaints the focus didn’t remain on the war in Iraq.
By extension the war in Iraq results in the increased poverty, increased crime and increased drug offenses because the huge sums of money sent to kill are stripped from programs of prevention, empowerment (not entitlement as some racists would insinuate) and education.
By extension the war in Iraq strips money from safety net programs that help the weakest population in day to day survival, housing, food and clothing. And the impact is greatest in communities of color and communities of marginalized citizens.
Hip-Hop Nation is Real and Powerful
I’m still waiting to hear the voices of the Hip-Hop Nation vilified by racist media who seem willing to tolerate the misogyny of shock jocks like Imus and Howard Stern, who is hailed as a defender of free speech.
It seems when Stern is asking women to show their “tits” on his show it’s an acceptable, if unsavory, allowance to protect free speech. But let some young black males start rapping something of social discord or outright revolution and suddenly we’re supposed to have standards and ratings.
When Imus calls a successful coach and her finalist team a bunch of “nappy-haired hoes” because they’re athletic he gets fired only after much protest and a challenge from the coach. Once fired Imus becomes a martyred icon of free speech rather than the outright racist misogynist he should be thought of being.
Gangsta rap has become the way to define hip-hop but that characterization is like calling all fusion the defining music of jazz. Tupac Shakur, Mos Def, Chuck D, Ice Tea, early Michael Franti, NWA, Last Poets, KRS-One, Queen Latifah, god-father Gil Scott-Heron and the other pioneers of hip hop/ rap rhymed about more than tits, ass and fucking.
Hip Hop Nation has become a national forum for young people around the world. Hip genres run the gamut from abstract to urban. There are conscious and gangsta genres. Nations all over the globe have their own forms of hip hop.
It would seem such an important form of communication might have more than Russell Simmons’ cable program as a stage to get their message of social importance out. Though born in the United States by African Americans, the reach of hip hop is global. Youth culture and opinion is meted out in both Israeli hip hop and Palestinian hip hop, while France, Germany, the U.K., Africa and the Caribbean have long-established hip hop followings. According to the U.S. Department of State, hip hop is "now the center of a mega music and fashion industry around the world," that crosses social barriers and cuts across racial lines.[6] National Geographic recognizes hip hop as "the world's favorite youth culture" in which "just about every country on the planet seems to have developed its own local rap scene."[7]
The ironic fact about gangsta is the labels are white owned and directed. White corporate leaders often dictate the type of rap and rhymes that are marketed. The biggest market happens to be young white males. Very few rappers have full control of their art.
Just as the blues and jazz were often controlled by white corporations, hip-hop is also heavily influenced by white financiers.
The very music that the righteously outraged Christian cracker decries is white owned and white bought. But it’s the kids of color who will draw the heat for providing what the white owners want (see interview with activist Kevin Powell).
What’s Marriage Got to Do With War and Genocide?
I’m still waiting to hear from the GLBT (gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered) communities about the continued discrimination of a nation against a group of people because of sexuality. Homosexual marriage is held up as a vile and evil threat to the family and the institution of marriage. Adultery, refusal to honor vows and Las Vegas marriages and divorces is hardly mentioned.
I’m still scratching my head trying to figure out how two men or two women married to their same sex partner affect my marriage or family. What are we running out of heterosexual men and women and need the homo’s to convert so we have the continuation of hetero marriage and family?
I’m still wondering if the outcries against gay rights have more to do with creating divisions than it does about gays having equal footing with straights.
The most ruthless and vilifying homophobia comes from the churches; especially the Catholic Church. The same Catholic Church that had covered up priests molesting little boys and sometimes girls for years has the audacity to screech about gays having equal rights under the law and in domestic issues.
The same church that fails to adequately compensate the victims of molesting priests years after the cover up is discovered wants to dictate moral values to men and women who were usually born with their sexual identity preordained by their DNA.
Why should the peace and justice movement include the GLBT communities in their movement?
It could be the movement needs to remember when the “negro” was supposed to sit at the back of buses, drink at “colored” fountains and accept the scraps and leftovers of the former slave holders.
It could be the movement needs to remember the GLBT communities as the victims of Nazis because they didn’t meet the definition of the current accepted “morality”.
Gay bashing was sport not so long ago at the high school I attended here in Denver. I don’t mean verbal abuse either. I mean homophobic high school males would cruise in groups at Cheesman Park and Cap Hill to pick up a gay man they could brutally attack as a group.
Denver police often turned a blind eye if victims of assault were gay. The thugs from high school would return to school the following school day to revel in their deeds of gay bashing. And we turned a blind eye because we’d been told “those people” were evil the same as we’d been told “those blacks” are uppity trouble makers deserving the fire hoses and beatings from the likes of Bull Connor.
Justice is for all people and the movement needs to honor that ideal and at the same time recruit yet another marginalized group to its numbers.
But, if we had gays in the forefront of a movement for peace and justice it could upset the people who have power in D.C. and the movement could be called to task for wanting justice for a bunch “that kind”.
How does adding gays help end the war in Iraq? Ending the war is about ending the occupation of a nation and its people. It’s about the struggle of justice for Iraqis. The GLBT communities continue to be part of a broader struggle for human justice. There is a connection in that quest of justice for all people.
The Young Shall Lead
Michael Franti sings “I don’t need a passport to walk on this earth anywhere I go cause I was made of this earth. I breathe of this earth and even with the pain I believe in this earth…..cause every bit of land is a holy land and every drop of water is a holy water and every single child is son or a daughter of the One Earth Mama and the One Earth Papa…so don’t tell a man that he can’t come here cause he got brown eyes and a wavy kind of hair. Don’t tell a woman that she can’t go there because she prays a little different to a God up above. You say you’re a Christian because God made you and you say you’re a Muslim cause God made you. You say you’re a Hindu and the next man a Jew. Then we all kill each other cause God told us to! Nah!”The young brother, singer of hip hop and folk, sees the world a lot more clearly than men and women elected to lead this nation. He sees it a lot more loving than the religious leaders telling us they believe in justice but willing to allow acceptable wars.
I keep wondering why men and women like Franti aren’t mainstream parts of the movement. They are the new poets of the age who connect with young and old world wide.
Maybe Joan Baez and Bob Dylan render up some good memories of the movement back in the sixties and seventies but it’s time for them to give it up to the new voices of protest.
As a combat veteran of Vietnam I believe it’s also time for the elders of the veteran community to change the front ranks of the veteran movement.
Iraq Veterans Against the War need support and need the microphone. The Courage to Resist movement needs support and needs to be heard. Leaders know when to give over the reins to the next generation in a smooth transition.
Unfortunately I see older veterans unwilling to give up their spotlight however dim it may be. They want to sit in the meetings of the younger vets. They want to forget how they were when they returned huddling together with other Vietnam vets because only those brothers and sisters understood.
The Cindy Sheehan movement was amazing but now is the time it steps aside to let the young men and women who were at war take the front of the stage to appeal to their peers “not to do what I’ve done”.
Following the young veterans should be the families who have had their sons and daughters ripped from their lives. Too many Casey Sheehans have perished for an illegal and immoral occupation that is really about greed and power.
And like good parents, these parents should give their children the voices to change the world they will have to take responsibility for; a world they will have to pay for.
We can’t grow a movement with the old folks harboring the idea they know best and should have the controls. They need to share the controls with the eloquence of Kelly Daugherty, Garret Reppenhagen, Charlie Anderson and so many more returned veterans who need to tell their stories.
The voices of young radicals calling themselves anarchists and Marxists are needed because they are the future of our nation, also, whether we believe in their ideals or not. Sitting down to listen to them is often a revelation of concerned individuals with brilliant minds wanting a voice in changing this world from the militaristic and violent world to one more mindful of others and the planet itself.
Food Not Bombs has been a constant in the movement to help feed the homeless and impoverished. They also provide food for many of the movement's rallies and events. And still the ideal of FNB is seldom mentioned in the politics of the movement. Too radical. Too anarchist.
Too often these voices are discounted even if they do come to a meeting to show solidarity. Too often the solidarity is a one way street from them to the hierarchal group they disdain. And too often the older groups with control gripe and grumble the young people “don’t show up”.
The young people who see the discounting and see the lack of diversity have a clear reason not to show up. They have heard enough “we shall overcome” and “imagine”. When the music and words of the new poets and singers are embraced by the movement the young will have proof they are valued.
I Am Jaquin and Outsourced Jobs
I still wait for the young Latino and Latina to bring the words of Corky Gonzales and Cesar Chavez to the stage. And then to bring their more recent struggles to the ears of those who have oppressed them.
I wait for the acceptance of the Spanish speaking man and woman into the movement as equals in the human struggle not as tokens to add to our numbers.
The fastest growing segment of the American population is still made to hide and become criminalized for coming to a nation that allows them a living wage.
They are the janitors and service industry people so easy to overlook. They build the million dollar castles of the rich and powerful. They see the excesses of this nation’s pampered and entitled.
Family and security is as meaningful to this part of America as others but all some hateful racists see is too many cars and lawns not meticulously groomed. They speak in their native language and that means they disrespect American values say the racists.
I wish these brothers and sisters were in the peace movement. I have no question why they don’t feel comfortable “showing up” for the movement’s events. They’ve become targets of racist policies meant to exclude them from having what all people should have; security of a job that supports a family, health benefits and most of all, hope.
Zionism Ain’t Judaism and Islam Ain’t Terrorism
I still wait for Arab-Americans, Muslims and other brothers and sisters with roots in the Middle East to be part of the movement’s concern for justice. Many in the movement shy away from these communities fearing the retaliation of hate and fear mongers who claim support for the communities is support for terrorism.
Too many Americans fail to challenge Zionism fearing it will cause a taint of anti-Semitism to be cast upon them. They fail to point out Zionism isn’t the Jewish religion and Semites include Arabic peoples.
AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee)has exerted extreme pressure on a large majority of Congress. It's been political suicide to challenge or go against the wishes of this lobby.
Too often fear of doing what may be right because it may be perceived adversely by our opponents cause the movement to become passive. Too often fearing we might upset others causes us to fail to act at all.
Unionism Sold Out By Government and Labor Leaders
I wonder where the unions are in this movement. Unionism has been dying on the vine for decades now because of a calculated attack on them by rich owners of multi-national corporations. Their leadership has sold out in many cases and spends much of their time distanced from the rank and file in their own corporate style offices.
Now, more than ever, Americans need to organize against the deliberate attempt to enslave them with dependency on poor paying jobs and ever increasing debt. Mothers have to choose to stay on the job or go home to a sick child sent home by a school nurse. If they logically choose to attend to their child they lose a job.
Health benefits have become obsolete on some jobs and too expensive for workers on other jobs. Corporate owners know full well the benefits they offer are often out of the reach of workers. Approximately 40 per cent of Americans are now medically indigent. They are forced to use emergency rooms as a doctor’s visit.
Unsafe working conditions are overlooked by the corporations and employees complaining are terminated. American workers are given less leave than any other developed nation. There is no federal law stating an employee should even receive paid leave. The employer determines leave at their discretion.
Loss of adequately paying jobs to third world nations has gutted many areas of employment in the U.S.. We’re led by some to target the slave laborers of the third world nations rather than place the proper blame on the doorsteps of corporate slave masters. A world wide union movement is something American workers should endorse. Instead the leaders of the corporations and the government keep the American worker in the blame game against fellow brothers and sister merely trying to feed their families.
I keep waiting for the movement to start working with the viable unions to endorse their efforts and support their causes. I walked a picket line recently and had asked members of the movement to join me in the cause of the workers. A union organizer and I were the only activists from the local peace movement to join the workers.
Major national corporations have gone offshore and pay a disproportinately small amount of taxes based on the huge profits they gain by selling their products to the U.S. consumer. Americans consume at a greater rate than all of the third world nations combined.
World wide cartels of multinationals have created sweat-shops in the third world nations and China to produce products using slave labor. Free trade pacts such as NAFTA are in fact pacts to continue cheap labor and diminish the American labor movement.
Where’s the Religions??
I keep waiting for the religious brothers and sisters to be part of the movement. Surely there must be a counter point to the Zionists and the evangelicals so hateful they endorse wars and often are key leaders in starting and perpetuating them.
I wonder where the followers of Christ are in this movement. Where are the Martin Luther King type leaders opposed to the killing and insanity of war? Where are the mindful Buddhists who call for peace and are willing to go to the streets to demand it? Where are the William Sloane Coffins of this generation?
The religious community has been shamefully missing and the peace movement has failed to seek them out to remind them of their true values.
Too often there are activists wanting to blame people of religion for the wars and violence rather than accept there are always men and women who misuse and misinterpret the true meanings of their spiritual leaders such as Christ.
I repeat the lyrics of Michael Franti and Spearhead: “You say you’re a Christian because God made you and you say you’re a Muslim cause God made you. You say you’re a Hindu and the next man a Jew. Then we all kill each other cause God told us to!”
Franti calls people of religions out for their hypocrisy. Too often the movement fails to approach them or to chide them to do what is righteously their duty to be doing. No religion of note has a doctrine of starting wars illegally or for immoral purposes. None fail to mention peace as the ideal.
Environmental Peace and Justice Includes All of Us
I wonder why the protectors of the Earth’s natural resources and environment have not become headline speakers of the movement. And I mean besides a self-serving politician like Al Gore.
The wars of the 20th and 21st centuries have created huge environmental dangers that could well kill the human race before the actual wars manage to do it.
Agent Orange and Depleted Uranium are two examples of the leftovers of war that will continue to kill and harm humans. The atmosphere of Earth may very well carry DU around the world in the jet-streams causing radiation poisoning in epidemic numbers.
Environmentalists have a stake in ending the pollutants of war, the wastes of even the peace activists and the dangers we people pose to the planet that supports our lives.
And still the movement gets glassy-eyed and quits listening because the scientific concepts need to be listened to carefully. It seems to ask too much for helpless and hopeless humans to push for environmental revolution as well as political revolution.
What’s the Educational Value of War?
I keep waiting for educators of the children to speak out against the forces that kill the children once they get past high school. I wonder how the teachers of public schools can bear the neglect of the governments toward the children they teach. I wonder how they can bear to have their students made to take endless test after test that has little educational value and is Euro-centrically biased.
Educators surely see the ever growing gap of student able to go to college and those unable because of finances and poor educational environments in the inner city schools and the rural schools.
I know many educators who are activists but I seldom hear about educational groups speaking out against the travesty of American education and tying it into the drain of needed funds to wars.
The recruitment and nurturing of educators and other groups I mention should be the responsibility of the movement that claims to want diversity and have power to effect change.
War is A Disease – Healers Needed
I look to the medical professions and wonder why my colleagues fail to condemn the slaughters that continue to occur. Saving lives takes a large role in the American culture but it always seems to be in the context of saving lives in crisis.
I fail to understand why professionals dedicating their lives to the health of humans fail to denounce one of the largest health care crises we have in the world today: war.
I have to wonder why we in healthcare haven’t joined the movement in demanding an end to war and a right to healthcare for all humans. We must demand preventive healthcare for all humans that includes the prevention of wars that drain the funding for health clinics and healthcare programs.
Gino Strada and his NGO group, EMERGENCY, is one of the few groups that has kept politics separate from the simple acts of humanity needed by so many harmed in wars of imperialism and genocide.
Do You Want This For Your Daughters?
I wait for the feminists I remember from the 70’s to reappear in the form of young women who care just as much. While Code Pink has stayed the course in promoting feminist issues there are others who we’ve failed to attract to the movement.
Too often there is the same male hierarchy in control of the movement as in the board rooms. Women still make approximately 78 cents to a male’s dollar in wages. Misogyny still seems acceptable in all areas of the American society.
And yet, I see heroic and strong women standing up against the madness. Kathy Kelly, Ardeth Platte, Carol Gilbert, Jackie Hudson, Cindy Sheehan, Dahlia Wasfi, Kelly Dougherty, Ann Wright, Medea Benjamin and so many others have demonstrated the power and courage of feminism in this nation. But too often I see women’s issues take a back seat.
The women of Iraq and Afghanistan have seen their lives go from bad to very much worse since the occupation of the two countries. I have to believe strong American feminists in solidarity with their sisters in the Middle East are an absolute necessity.
Sexual assaults, date rapes, sexual harassment, unequal pay, body mutilation, continued questions of who controls a woman’s body in pregnancy and birth control, objectification of women by porn and mainstream press and the continued lack of women representatives in Congress and state legislatures are serious issues needing to be part of the search for justice.
Returning female veterans are all too familiar with sexual assault and harassment by male troops in their own units. While veterans have become a stronger voice in the antiwar movement, too often the stories of the female veterans being abused by their own unit members go untold.
Let’s Revisit The Black Panthers
I’ve gone on at great length to demonstrate why the American peace movement will fail. There is an endless list of affinity groups, communities and professional groups that haven’t been brought into to the movement. They haven’t been recruited.
Instead, we have professional peace activists who seem unwilling to share the power with marginalized people and professionals who may be more mainstream but still work for peaceful solutions. These groups can infuse new ideas, new thought and new tactics into a dormant and redundant movement.
I’ve always harkened back to the Black Panthers as an organization with an ideal and a plan to change the face of America. Others wince about the reputation of violence the Panthers are charged with having. Still others dismiss the Panthers as too radical.
I believe the Panthers were thoughtful and insightful about what it took to change the lives of Americans. They were no doubt flawed in some things. Their treatment of women wasn’t exactly stellar but the plan they offered extended to all in need.
Radical ideals are needed to change America. Radical action must be taken if we’re to survive as a nation and more importantly as a world.
The time to end the tyranny has already passed us by and now we must take whatever action we can to catch up. We must challenge and confront the tyranny.
We must demand the rights and freedoms stolen or never implemented are restored and implemented.
To catch up and to truly bring about the needed changes takes a true diverse and strong movement of concerned citizens. We don’t have to be in agreement with all the beliefs of others but we do need to recognize the urgency to save our nation and save the world from our country’s tyranny.
"Naturally the common people don't want war: Neither in Russia, nor in England, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, IT IS THE LEADERS of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is TELL THEM THEY ARE BEING ATTACKED, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. IT WORKS THE SAME IN ANY COUNTRY."
Herman Goering
dem come for de rasta and you say nothing
dem come from the Muslims you say nothing
dem come for the anti-globalist you say nothing
dem even come for the liberals and you say nothing
dem come for you and who will speak for you? who will speak for you, who ? Asian Dub Foundation - Round Up" on the album "Tank" (2005)
William Terry Leichner, RN
because I wasn’t a Communist.
Then they came for the sick, the so-called incurables, and I didn't speak up,
because I wasn't mentally ill.
Then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak up,
because I wasn’t a Jew.
Then they came for me, and by that time there was no one left
to speak up for me
Pastor Martin Niemöller (1892–1984)
The Disposables and Left Behind
The words of Pastor Niemoller alluded to the German intellectuals who failed to speak out against the tyranny of Adolf Hitler even when it was abundantly clear what was happening.
While there is some dispute about the actual wording of his poem, Niemoller’s meaning was clear. I happened to have chosen the version that mentions the mentally ill because I work with men and women diagnosed with major mental illnesses and always see the neglect and disregard our society has for them.
Instead of coming for groups like the mentally ill and the poor of our nation, the tyranny of George W. Bush has left them behind. Like the poor blacks of New Orleans left behind after Hurricane Katrina, Bush has continued to leave the marginalized behind in all areas of this nation.
Children trying to learn with empty stomachs aren’t included in Bush’s No Child Left Behind program because his regime can’t afford to feed them and carry out a war.
Even the children of the former “middle class” of America are beginning to find getting educated is more difficult and often still equate to lower paying employment. The gap between the rich and the rest of the people in the U.S. grows ever wider each year of the Bush empire.
A childhood insurance program for some of the country’s poorest or most in need families has recently been gutted by the Administration in an obvious cave-in to the insurance industry.
Housing promised to the poorest of families can’t be given by the regime of Bush, Cheney and Rove because corporate profit(eering) hasn’t reached a high enough record level yet. (And let’s not be fooled by Rove leaving the White House Staff; he remains very much the dark shadow he’s always been)
Poor immigrants have become the all too convenient whipping boys and girls of the group of ultra conservative, self righteous, Bible-thumping, so-called Christians that has seized freedom and rights from the American people.
The ever growing list of “left behinds” or “disposables” continues and the great majority of American people sit in a stupor watching the corporate controlled media mesmerized by “reality” programs.
Their kids play simulated games indoors in front of the other big screens of the homes now resembling castles instead of actually going outside to play real games that include exercise and movement.
The Myth of Democracy and Electoral Change
The tyranny grows larger and more menacing every day as the American intellectuals, progressives and liberals still try to promote the delusional idea the United States is a democracy. They claim it only takes electing the “right” people to make the needed changes to regain our nation.
The same groups have been claiming electoral processes will make things right dating back to the days of the first American government. The ugly little truth they fail to acknowledge is there never has been democracy in this nation.
But today, in this year, 2007, the regime of Bush, Cheney, Rove and others is closing in on taking away all pretenses of democracy, freedom and equal rights for the citizens of this country.
Today, 70-80% of the intelligence gathered around the world for this government is done by non-governmental private corporations such as Raytheon. Add that fact to the recent extension and increase of Presidential powers to spy on American citizens passed by an allegedly confused Congress and the implications are staggering.
Include the ghost armies such as Black Water now numbering as many or more than the number of American troops in Iraq and there is something obviously dark and ghoulish in the future of this nation’s “armed forces”.
Ghost armies inside the borders of our nation also grow as does the camps they now build in strategic areas of the country.
Failure of mass media to inform the citizens and corporate ownership that fosters stealth for wealth grows. The Comcasts and Qwests of the world now control a majority of the communication services used by Americans from television and internet to phone service.
Rupert Murdoch controls huge numbers of outlets to provide information to the masses around the world. If we think his agenda and the agenda of the rich and powerful won’t be insidiously and overtly passed on in the media we fool ourselves and allow the propaganda to continue to influence the actions of our nation.
The barbarians are past the gates and taking over the lives of a sleeping, narcotized populous. Fear is a commodity that freezes the average citizen as the tyrants come for more and more of them to do their cheap labor, fight their senseless wars and consume without social conscience.
“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”- Joseph Goebbels
The peace and justice groups of America claim to want change but were duped in 2006 by an election that changed only party names but did little to change the power structure of the “inner circle” of the tyrants.
Almost a year later the liberals and progressives, the so-called radicals and the moderates still wait for Congress to listen to their mandate of the 2006 election. They still believe visiting congressional offices to demand change or plead for morality is an effective tactic of change.
The peace and justice movements still believe we must remain kind and sensitive without upsetting people. Too many still believe upsetting the powerful will backfire with negative results.
I keep wondering if I’m on the same planet as some who think being arrested at a Congressional office while reading the names of the dead of the war will bring change. A wonderful peace activist friend will spend a month in jail for such an action because she was arrested for the fifth or sixth time.
The staff of the Congressman chided the activist for inconveniencing their work. Apparently their work didn’t include carrying out the promises of ending the war thought to be gained in Election 2006.
And very few besides the activist community even know or care this peaceful woman will do time in jail for doing something moral. Perhaps there would have been more attention paid if the Congressman had done something moral but that’s clearly an unlikely thing to happen.
The peace-mom, Cindy Sheehan, has retired from her previous retirement saying she’s contemplating a run for Congress. She was very unhappy with the movement’s lack of action during her almost two month retirement. Even less happy with the Congress she thought would be moved by her and other parents of men and women killed or serving in the two wars.
I can’t help but think one person out of a group of 435 in the House of Representatives is like a grain of sand on the beach. I know there’s a saying by Margaret Mead addressing what groups of people can accomplish but I doubt she was thinking of Congress when she said those words. (“Never believe that a few caring people can't change the world. For, indeed, that's all who ever have.” Margaret Mead)
I know some will despise me for what I’m about to say but I believe Cindy Sheehan and other individual celebrities leading a peace and justice movement are ultimately bound to fail. Too often personal attacks on the individuals can cause irreparable harm. Too often individual ambition distracts from the more urgent needs a movement must address.
Electing Cindy will take time and money as well as the energy of many activists. With the tyrants consolidating more power every day, I wonder if we have much time or if our energy truly needs to be focused on growing an ever larger movement with diversity.
Margaret Mead was profoundly wise in her statements of what a few caring people can achieve. I think, however, she was a pragmatic woman who knew the energy of those people had to be focused on the more urgent needs of the world around them.
Does it sound apocalyptic to think this way? Perhaps, but the electoral process Democrats, progressives, Republicans, liberals, social activists and others want us to trust has shown nothing but contempt for the will of the people.
The erosion of freedom in the United States didn’t begin with the election of 2000. Big money, big corporations and elitist families have constantly had more sway than the people in the electoral process. Elections have been the bone thrown to the teeming masses while the special interest groups have continued to control the three branches of government.
Having grass roots candidates run, and even elected, has failed to change the tide of the oligarchy. Until the electoral process is free of huge sums of money to influence elections, control media and buy out men and women who ran with good intentions elections will continue to be a sham.
The great abolitionist, Frederick Douglass, famously remarked, "Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never has. Never will."
"Those who profess to favor freedom and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the roar of its many waters."
Until the politicians are more afraid of the masses than the wealthy power brokers the electoral process will remain tainted and illegitimate. And the numbers of citizens going to the polls will continue to run at fifty percent or less.
There’s a group of thinkers who will tell us the real power of the people begins with local elections. This thinking assumes city council members, mayors and state legislators haven’t been influenced by the wealthy powers of the local scene.
Building the New Movement – Time for Different Lyrics
So what’s my answer if I have so much disdain for the electoral process critics ask? I consistently answer a mass movement that will send a chill down the spines of the powerful is the movement that brings the greatest diversity ever witnessed in the history of this nation.
Building a diverse movement is something all the white dominated peace and justice groups profess to want but fail to get. They fail to get diverse groups because they fail to understand or care about the issues of the marginalized enough to actually enter those communities in a proactive attempt to help, not direct, in solving problems these communities face.
Instead, since 2003 the peace and justice movements have held rally after rally, march after march and convention after convention to state the obvious about the immorality and illegality of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
The same speakers, same organizers and same themes have emerged time after time. Tokenism toward communities of color and the marginalized has reigned as the “movement” has refused to step up for the likes of Mumia Abu Jamal, the Palestinians and the gulags of American justice systems putting 15% of black males between ages 20-29 in prisons.
Forgotten is the 30-50 age group tarred by felonies and prison records unable to get work providing a living wage and benefits.
Unpopular issues such as prison reform, decriminalization of drug possession, release of drug offenders from prison to be able to find treatment as needed, true reform of public education or true reform of healthcare systems have failed to get a hearing on the stages of the marches, rallies and conventions.
I attended a large rally in D.C. in 2005 that allowed some speakers to address some of these issues and later heard complaints the focus didn’t remain on the war in Iraq.
By extension the war in Iraq results in the increased poverty, increased crime and increased drug offenses because the huge sums of money sent to kill are stripped from programs of prevention, empowerment (not entitlement as some racists would insinuate) and education.
By extension the war in Iraq strips money from safety net programs that help the weakest population in day to day survival, housing, food and clothing. And the impact is greatest in communities of color and communities of marginalized citizens.
Hip-Hop Nation is Real and Powerful
I’m still waiting to hear the voices of the Hip-Hop Nation vilified by racist media who seem willing to tolerate the misogyny of shock jocks like Imus and Howard Stern, who is hailed as a defender of free speech.
It seems when Stern is asking women to show their “tits” on his show it’s an acceptable, if unsavory, allowance to protect free speech. But let some young black males start rapping something of social discord or outright revolution and suddenly we’re supposed to have standards and ratings.
When Imus calls a successful coach and her finalist team a bunch of “nappy-haired hoes” because they’re athletic he gets fired only after much protest and a challenge from the coach. Once fired Imus becomes a martyred icon of free speech rather than the outright racist misogynist he should be thought of being.
Gangsta rap has become the way to define hip-hop but that characterization is like calling all fusion the defining music of jazz. Tupac Shakur, Mos Def, Chuck D, Ice Tea, early Michael Franti, NWA, Last Poets, KRS-One, Queen Latifah, god-father Gil Scott-Heron and the other pioneers of hip hop/ rap rhymed about more than tits, ass and fucking.
Hip Hop Nation has become a national forum for young people around the world. Hip genres run the gamut from abstract to urban. There are conscious and gangsta genres. Nations all over the globe have their own forms of hip hop.
It would seem such an important form of communication might have more than Russell Simmons’ cable program as a stage to get their message of social importance out. Though born in the United States by African Americans, the reach of hip hop is global. Youth culture and opinion is meted out in both Israeli hip hop and Palestinian hip hop, while France, Germany, the U.K., Africa and the Caribbean have long-established hip hop followings. According to the U.S. Department of State, hip hop is "now the center of a mega music and fashion industry around the world," that crosses social barriers and cuts across racial lines.[6] National Geographic recognizes hip hop as "the world's favorite youth culture" in which "just about every country on the planet seems to have developed its own local rap scene."[7]
The ironic fact about gangsta is the labels are white owned and directed. White corporate leaders often dictate the type of rap and rhymes that are marketed. The biggest market happens to be young white males. Very few rappers have full control of their art.
Just as the blues and jazz were often controlled by white corporations, hip-hop is also heavily influenced by white financiers.
The very music that the righteously outraged Christian cracker decries is white owned and white bought. But it’s the kids of color who will draw the heat for providing what the white owners want (see interview with activist Kevin Powell).
What’s Marriage Got to Do With War and Genocide?
I’m still waiting to hear from the GLBT (gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered) communities about the continued discrimination of a nation against a group of people because of sexuality. Homosexual marriage is held up as a vile and evil threat to the family and the institution of marriage. Adultery, refusal to honor vows and Las Vegas marriages and divorces is hardly mentioned.
I’m still scratching my head trying to figure out how two men or two women married to their same sex partner affect my marriage or family. What are we running out of heterosexual men and women and need the homo’s to convert so we have the continuation of hetero marriage and family?
I’m still wondering if the outcries against gay rights have more to do with creating divisions than it does about gays having equal footing with straights.
The most ruthless and vilifying homophobia comes from the churches; especially the Catholic Church. The same Catholic Church that had covered up priests molesting little boys and sometimes girls for years has the audacity to screech about gays having equal rights under the law and in domestic issues.
The same church that fails to adequately compensate the victims of molesting priests years after the cover up is discovered wants to dictate moral values to men and women who were usually born with their sexual identity preordained by their DNA.
Why should the peace and justice movement include the GLBT communities in their movement?
It could be the movement needs to remember when the “negro” was supposed to sit at the back of buses, drink at “colored” fountains and accept the scraps and leftovers of the former slave holders.
It could be the movement needs to remember the GLBT communities as the victims of Nazis because they didn’t meet the definition of the current accepted “morality”.
Gay bashing was sport not so long ago at the high school I attended here in Denver. I don’t mean verbal abuse either. I mean homophobic high school males would cruise in groups at Cheesman Park and Cap Hill to pick up a gay man they could brutally attack as a group.
Denver police often turned a blind eye if victims of assault were gay. The thugs from high school would return to school the following school day to revel in their deeds of gay bashing. And we turned a blind eye because we’d been told “those people” were evil the same as we’d been told “those blacks” are uppity trouble makers deserving the fire hoses and beatings from the likes of Bull Connor.
Justice is for all people and the movement needs to honor that ideal and at the same time recruit yet another marginalized group to its numbers.
But, if we had gays in the forefront of a movement for peace and justice it could upset the people who have power in D.C. and the movement could be called to task for wanting justice for a bunch “that kind”.
How does adding gays help end the war in Iraq? Ending the war is about ending the occupation of a nation and its people. It’s about the struggle of justice for Iraqis. The GLBT communities continue to be part of a broader struggle for human justice. There is a connection in that quest of justice for all people.
The Young Shall Lead
Michael Franti sings “I don’t need a passport to walk on this earth anywhere I go cause I was made of this earth. I breathe of this earth and even with the pain I believe in this earth…..cause every bit of land is a holy land and every drop of water is a holy water and every single child is son or a daughter of the One Earth Mama and the One Earth Papa…so don’t tell a man that he can’t come here cause he got brown eyes and a wavy kind of hair. Don’t tell a woman that she can’t go there because she prays a little different to a God up above. You say you’re a Christian because God made you and you say you’re a Muslim cause God made you. You say you’re a Hindu and the next man a Jew. Then we all kill each other cause God told us to! Nah!”The young brother, singer of hip hop and folk, sees the world a lot more clearly than men and women elected to lead this nation. He sees it a lot more loving than the religious leaders telling us they believe in justice but willing to allow acceptable wars.
I keep wondering why men and women like Franti aren’t mainstream parts of the movement. They are the new poets of the age who connect with young and old world wide.
Maybe Joan Baez and Bob Dylan render up some good memories of the movement back in the sixties and seventies but it’s time for them to give it up to the new voices of protest.
As a combat veteran of Vietnam I believe it’s also time for the elders of the veteran community to change the front ranks of the veteran movement.
Iraq Veterans Against the War need support and need the microphone. The Courage to Resist movement needs support and needs to be heard. Leaders know when to give over the reins to the next generation in a smooth transition.
Unfortunately I see older veterans unwilling to give up their spotlight however dim it may be. They want to sit in the meetings of the younger vets. They want to forget how they were when they returned huddling together with other Vietnam vets because only those brothers and sisters understood.
The Cindy Sheehan movement was amazing but now is the time it steps aside to let the young men and women who were at war take the front of the stage to appeal to their peers “not to do what I’ve done”.
Following the young veterans should be the families who have had their sons and daughters ripped from their lives. Too many Casey Sheehans have perished for an illegal and immoral occupation that is really about greed and power.
And like good parents, these parents should give their children the voices to change the world they will have to take responsibility for; a world they will have to pay for.
We can’t grow a movement with the old folks harboring the idea they know best and should have the controls. They need to share the controls with the eloquence of Kelly Daugherty, Garret Reppenhagen, Charlie Anderson and so many more returned veterans who need to tell their stories.
The voices of young radicals calling themselves anarchists and Marxists are needed because they are the future of our nation, also, whether we believe in their ideals or not. Sitting down to listen to them is often a revelation of concerned individuals with brilliant minds wanting a voice in changing this world from the militaristic and violent world to one more mindful of others and the planet itself.
Food Not Bombs has been a constant in the movement to help feed the homeless and impoverished. They also provide food for many of the movement's rallies and events. And still the ideal of FNB is seldom mentioned in the politics of the movement. Too radical. Too anarchist.
Too often these voices are discounted even if they do come to a meeting to show solidarity. Too often the solidarity is a one way street from them to the hierarchal group they disdain. And too often the older groups with control gripe and grumble the young people “don’t show up”.
The young people who see the discounting and see the lack of diversity have a clear reason not to show up. They have heard enough “we shall overcome” and “imagine”. When the music and words of the new poets and singers are embraced by the movement the young will have proof they are valued.
I Am Jaquin and Outsourced Jobs
I still wait for the young Latino and Latina to bring the words of Corky Gonzales and Cesar Chavez to the stage. And then to bring their more recent struggles to the ears of those who have oppressed them.
I wait for the acceptance of the Spanish speaking man and woman into the movement as equals in the human struggle not as tokens to add to our numbers.
The fastest growing segment of the American population is still made to hide and become criminalized for coming to a nation that allows them a living wage.
They are the janitors and service industry people so easy to overlook. They build the million dollar castles of the rich and powerful. They see the excesses of this nation’s pampered and entitled.
Family and security is as meaningful to this part of America as others but all some hateful racists see is too many cars and lawns not meticulously groomed. They speak in their native language and that means they disrespect American values say the racists.
I wish these brothers and sisters were in the peace movement. I have no question why they don’t feel comfortable “showing up” for the movement’s events. They’ve become targets of racist policies meant to exclude them from having what all people should have; security of a job that supports a family, health benefits and most of all, hope.
Zionism Ain’t Judaism and Islam Ain’t Terrorism
I still wait for Arab-Americans, Muslims and other brothers and sisters with roots in the Middle East to be part of the movement’s concern for justice. Many in the movement shy away from these communities fearing the retaliation of hate and fear mongers who claim support for the communities is support for terrorism.
Too many Americans fail to challenge Zionism fearing it will cause a taint of anti-Semitism to be cast upon them. They fail to point out Zionism isn’t the Jewish religion and Semites include Arabic peoples.
AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee)has exerted extreme pressure on a large majority of Congress. It's been political suicide to challenge or go against the wishes of this lobby.
Too often fear of doing what may be right because it may be perceived adversely by our opponents cause the movement to become passive. Too often fearing we might upset others causes us to fail to act at all.
Unionism Sold Out By Government and Labor Leaders
I wonder where the unions are in this movement. Unionism has been dying on the vine for decades now because of a calculated attack on them by rich owners of multi-national corporations. Their leadership has sold out in many cases and spends much of their time distanced from the rank and file in their own corporate style offices.
Now, more than ever, Americans need to organize against the deliberate attempt to enslave them with dependency on poor paying jobs and ever increasing debt. Mothers have to choose to stay on the job or go home to a sick child sent home by a school nurse. If they logically choose to attend to their child they lose a job.
Health benefits have become obsolete on some jobs and too expensive for workers on other jobs. Corporate owners know full well the benefits they offer are often out of the reach of workers. Approximately 40 per cent of Americans are now medically indigent. They are forced to use emergency rooms as a doctor’s visit.
Unsafe working conditions are overlooked by the corporations and employees complaining are terminated. American workers are given less leave than any other developed nation. There is no federal law stating an employee should even receive paid leave. The employer determines leave at their discretion.
Loss of adequately paying jobs to third world nations has gutted many areas of employment in the U.S.. We’re led by some to target the slave laborers of the third world nations rather than place the proper blame on the doorsteps of corporate slave masters. A world wide union movement is something American workers should endorse. Instead the leaders of the corporations and the government keep the American worker in the blame game against fellow brothers and sister merely trying to feed their families.
I keep waiting for the movement to start working with the viable unions to endorse their efforts and support their causes. I walked a picket line recently and had asked members of the movement to join me in the cause of the workers. A union organizer and I were the only activists from the local peace movement to join the workers.
Major national corporations have gone offshore and pay a disproportinately small amount of taxes based on the huge profits they gain by selling their products to the U.S. consumer. Americans consume at a greater rate than all of the third world nations combined.
World wide cartels of multinationals have created sweat-shops in the third world nations and China to produce products using slave labor. Free trade pacts such as NAFTA are in fact pacts to continue cheap labor and diminish the American labor movement.
Where’s the Religions??
I keep waiting for the religious brothers and sisters to be part of the movement. Surely there must be a counter point to the Zionists and the evangelicals so hateful they endorse wars and often are key leaders in starting and perpetuating them.
I wonder where the followers of Christ are in this movement. Where are the Martin Luther King type leaders opposed to the killing and insanity of war? Where are the mindful Buddhists who call for peace and are willing to go to the streets to demand it? Where are the William Sloane Coffins of this generation?
The religious community has been shamefully missing and the peace movement has failed to seek them out to remind them of their true values.
Too often there are activists wanting to blame people of religion for the wars and violence rather than accept there are always men and women who misuse and misinterpret the true meanings of their spiritual leaders such as Christ.
I repeat the lyrics of Michael Franti and Spearhead: “You say you’re a Christian because God made you and you say you’re a Muslim cause God made you. You say you’re a Hindu and the next man a Jew. Then we all kill each other cause God told us to!”
Franti calls people of religions out for their hypocrisy. Too often the movement fails to approach them or to chide them to do what is righteously their duty to be doing. No religion of note has a doctrine of starting wars illegally or for immoral purposes. None fail to mention peace as the ideal.
Environmental Peace and Justice Includes All of Us
I wonder why the protectors of the Earth’s natural resources and environment have not become headline speakers of the movement. And I mean besides a self-serving politician like Al Gore.
The wars of the 20th and 21st centuries have created huge environmental dangers that could well kill the human race before the actual wars manage to do it.
Agent Orange and Depleted Uranium are two examples of the leftovers of war that will continue to kill and harm humans. The atmosphere of Earth may very well carry DU around the world in the jet-streams causing radiation poisoning in epidemic numbers.
Environmentalists have a stake in ending the pollutants of war, the wastes of even the peace activists and the dangers we people pose to the planet that supports our lives.
And still the movement gets glassy-eyed and quits listening because the scientific concepts need to be listened to carefully. It seems to ask too much for helpless and hopeless humans to push for environmental revolution as well as political revolution.
What’s the Educational Value of War?
I keep waiting for educators of the children to speak out against the forces that kill the children once they get past high school. I wonder how the teachers of public schools can bear the neglect of the governments toward the children they teach. I wonder how they can bear to have their students made to take endless test after test that has little educational value and is Euro-centrically biased.
Educators surely see the ever growing gap of student able to go to college and those unable because of finances and poor educational environments in the inner city schools and the rural schools.
I know many educators who are activists but I seldom hear about educational groups speaking out against the travesty of American education and tying it into the drain of needed funds to wars.
The recruitment and nurturing of educators and other groups I mention should be the responsibility of the movement that claims to want diversity and have power to effect change.
War is A Disease – Healers Needed
I look to the medical professions and wonder why my colleagues fail to condemn the slaughters that continue to occur. Saving lives takes a large role in the American culture but it always seems to be in the context of saving lives in crisis.
I fail to understand why professionals dedicating their lives to the health of humans fail to denounce one of the largest health care crises we have in the world today: war.
I have to wonder why we in healthcare haven’t joined the movement in demanding an end to war and a right to healthcare for all humans. We must demand preventive healthcare for all humans that includes the prevention of wars that drain the funding for health clinics and healthcare programs.
Gino Strada and his NGO group, EMERGENCY, is one of the few groups that has kept politics separate from the simple acts of humanity needed by so many harmed in wars of imperialism and genocide.
Do You Want This For Your Daughters?
I wait for the feminists I remember from the 70’s to reappear in the form of young women who care just as much. While Code Pink has stayed the course in promoting feminist issues there are others who we’ve failed to attract to the movement.
Too often there is the same male hierarchy in control of the movement as in the board rooms. Women still make approximately 78 cents to a male’s dollar in wages. Misogyny still seems acceptable in all areas of the American society.
And yet, I see heroic and strong women standing up against the madness. Kathy Kelly, Ardeth Platte, Carol Gilbert, Jackie Hudson, Cindy Sheehan, Dahlia Wasfi, Kelly Dougherty, Ann Wright, Medea Benjamin and so many others have demonstrated the power and courage of feminism in this nation. But too often I see women’s issues take a back seat.
The women of Iraq and Afghanistan have seen their lives go from bad to very much worse since the occupation of the two countries. I have to believe strong American feminists in solidarity with their sisters in the Middle East are an absolute necessity.
Sexual assaults, date rapes, sexual harassment, unequal pay, body mutilation, continued questions of who controls a woman’s body in pregnancy and birth control, objectification of women by porn and mainstream press and the continued lack of women representatives in Congress and state legislatures are serious issues needing to be part of the search for justice.
Returning female veterans are all too familiar with sexual assault and harassment by male troops in their own units. While veterans have become a stronger voice in the antiwar movement, too often the stories of the female veterans being abused by their own unit members go untold.
Let’s Revisit The Black Panthers
I’ve gone on at great length to demonstrate why the American peace movement will fail. There is an endless list of affinity groups, communities and professional groups that haven’t been brought into to the movement. They haven’t been recruited.
Instead, we have professional peace activists who seem unwilling to share the power with marginalized people and professionals who may be more mainstream but still work for peaceful solutions. These groups can infuse new ideas, new thought and new tactics into a dormant and redundant movement.
I’ve always harkened back to the Black Panthers as an organization with an ideal and a plan to change the face of America. Others wince about the reputation of violence the Panthers are charged with having. Still others dismiss the Panthers as too radical.
I believe the Panthers were thoughtful and insightful about what it took to change the lives of Americans. They were no doubt flawed in some things. Their treatment of women wasn’t exactly stellar but the plan they offered extended to all in need.
Radical ideals are needed to change America. Radical action must be taken if we’re to survive as a nation and more importantly as a world.
The time to end the tyranny has already passed us by and now we must take whatever action we can to catch up. We must challenge and confront the tyranny.
We must demand the rights and freedoms stolen or never implemented are restored and implemented.
To catch up and to truly bring about the needed changes takes a true diverse and strong movement of concerned citizens. We don’t have to be in agreement with all the beliefs of others but we do need to recognize the urgency to save our nation and save the world from our country’s tyranny.
"Naturally the common people don't want war: Neither in Russia, nor in England, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, IT IS THE LEADERS of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is TELL THEM THEY ARE BEING ATTACKED, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. IT WORKS THE SAME IN ANY COUNTRY."
Herman Goering
dem come for de rasta and you say nothing
dem come from the Muslims you say nothing
dem come for the anti-globalist you say nothing
dem even come for the liberals and you say nothing
dem come for you and who will speak for you? who will speak for you, who ? Asian Dub Foundation - Round Up" on the album "Tank" (2005)
William Terry Leichner, RN
Thursday, August 23
VFW, Pimps for the Gangsters
So, finally George W. wants to draw a comparison with Iraq and Vietnam and has the audacity to do so before a group of Vietnam veterans. Of course the veterans are the lock step, revisionist, mindless assholes of the VFW who would have us believe Vietnam was some damn honorable action of a nation only wanting to come to the aid of the poor underdog.
Instead of calling out the Chicken-hawk-in Chief, the VFW crew applauds the sorry SOB when he calls for more men and women to sacrifice their lives for an endless and fruitless war. And they think they’re supporting the troops.
Sorry, assholes, but you’re living in the past thinking you can win this counter-insurgency conflict using your sons, daughters and grandchildren as sacrificial lambs.
I suggest the VFW crew quit sitting around the bar and telling war stories about their past glories and take the place of the young folks in the military who detest what they’re being asked to do in Iraq. For once in this nation’s history, let’s send the old war mongering hawks out to be killed and kill.
Paraphrasing Dick Lamm’s remarks about old people many years ago…”we have a duty to die”. Lamm was talking about elderly folks trying to live forever and overburdening the healthcare system but why not send the old bastards who sit around saying we should have stuck it out in Vietnam or if only we’d had more of this or that, we could have won?
Dubya’s stunt is less reprehensible than veterans who applaud him as he says “more, more, more...” like the “fortunate son” he’s always been. It just boggles this old grunt’s mind to think anybody who bled in and endured the fiasco and slaughter of Vietnam could applaud a bastard that did everything he could to avoid going and got away with it.
It demonstrates how the rich and powerful not only use privilege to avoid sacrificing as much as the poor or middle class for this nation but also dupe the dumb bastards into believing another war is needed. Just don’t ask the rich and powerful to sacrifice in this one either because “it is a volunteer army”. And the troops chose to be part of the slaughter.
The rich “fortunate sons” are needed to run the “democracy” at home and take advantage of college education given them on a platter because mom and dad are alumni and donors. The rich can’t be bothered with the dying when they are needed to plan the bloodshed.
Bob Dylan called them the “masters of war” and said “even Jesus can’t forgive what you did”. Michael Franti says “those that start wars never fight them, those that fight wars never like them”.
The sickening realization I’ve come to is too many that fight wars forget them when it comes time to make another sacrifice to a senseless and immoral war machine that eats generation after generation. I see the VFW and American Legion as the feeder system to the meat-grinder killing American kids and kids in the nations we occupy and destroy.
I shouldn’t be surprised Vietnam veterans would divide up on this war just as they have on the legacy of Vietnam. Revisionists like the Swift Boaters and the flag flyers joining the groups like VFW and the Legion want the bloodshed to have meant something other than a failed foreign policy and imperialistic designs of the rich. They can’t accept the truth. They can’t believe their nation’s leaders would send them to war without a true threat to the national good.
What surprises me is the same flag flyers would join ranks with the lying lowlife who did everything he could to avoid going to Vietnam. He and his entire cabinet have thumbed their noses at the lowly grunt and the veterans. And yet these groups of veterans that include many Vietnam veterans applaud the bastard chicken-hawk.
Bush has long turned my stomach with his total disregard toward the poor, the middle class and the working person. He’s consistently shown his administration will only do the right thing for veterans when the veterans and family demand it and not before.
At the start of the war the body armor and armored vehicles were missing but they sent the troops anyway. Bush has yet to go to one single funeral of a dead troop killed in the two wars. Walter Reed and most of the other hospitals meant to treat the returning veterans for physical and emotional problems have been substandard. Several attempts have been made to thwart treatment of PTSD and TBI by this group of cowardly men and women.
The list goes on and on as documented by several reports and several watchdog groups.
Apparently the VFW on August 22, 2007 overlooked the lies and disregard of Bush and trust his management of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Apparently they don’t give one damn bit about the welfare of the troops on the ground or returned from several tours of duty.
Apparently all that matters to them is some concept of winning a war that can never be won.
Apparently the VFW has seen too many John Wayne movies and think war is like some damn video game where there has to be a winner. Apparently they forget there are no winners in war.
I would expect such an attitude from George W. but I can’t believe these guys would fall for the same bullshit all over again.
Some will say veterans are brothers in arms but I will categorically say veterans who refuse to accept the truth and will voluntarily put another generation at risk for the benefit of the rich could never be my brothers.
Veterans living in the past and failing to learn are fools. It doesn’t matter how many medals or how many battles they’ve fought if they didn’t learn from the violence.
Veterans subjecting another generation of young people to war without absolute need for war are as culpable as the “masters of war” perpetrating the wars. They rally the cannon fodder for the bidding of the gangsters Smedley Butler so eloquently talked about in his article “War is A Racket”.
No matter how many alleged services organizations like VFW and American Legion claim they perform, the deaths they take part in promoting can never be forgiven…even by Jesus.
William T. Leichner
USMC combat veteran
Vietnam December 31, 1968 – February 12, 1969
Instead of calling out the Chicken-hawk-in Chief, the VFW crew applauds the sorry SOB when he calls for more men and women to sacrifice their lives for an endless and fruitless war. And they think they’re supporting the troops.
Sorry, assholes, but you’re living in the past thinking you can win this counter-insurgency conflict using your sons, daughters and grandchildren as sacrificial lambs.
I suggest the VFW crew quit sitting around the bar and telling war stories about their past glories and take the place of the young folks in the military who detest what they’re being asked to do in Iraq. For once in this nation’s history, let’s send the old war mongering hawks out to be killed and kill.
Paraphrasing Dick Lamm’s remarks about old people many years ago…”we have a duty to die”. Lamm was talking about elderly folks trying to live forever and overburdening the healthcare system but why not send the old bastards who sit around saying we should have stuck it out in Vietnam or if only we’d had more of this or that, we could have won?
Dubya’s stunt is less reprehensible than veterans who applaud him as he says “more, more, more...” like the “fortunate son” he’s always been. It just boggles this old grunt’s mind to think anybody who bled in and endured the fiasco and slaughter of Vietnam could applaud a bastard that did everything he could to avoid going and got away with it.
It demonstrates how the rich and powerful not only use privilege to avoid sacrificing as much as the poor or middle class for this nation but also dupe the dumb bastards into believing another war is needed. Just don’t ask the rich and powerful to sacrifice in this one either because “it is a volunteer army”. And the troops chose to be part of the slaughter.
The rich “fortunate sons” are needed to run the “democracy” at home and take advantage of college education given them on a platter because mom and dad are alumni and donors. The rich can’t be bothered with the dying when they are needed to plan the bloodshed.
Bob Dylan called them the “masters of war” and said “even Jesus can’t forgive what you did”. Michael Franti says “those that start wars never fight them, those that fight wars never like them”.
The sickening realization I’ve come to is too many that fight wars forget them when it comes time to make another sacrifice to a senseless and immoral war machine that eats generation after generation. I see the VFW and American Legion as the feeder system to the meat-grinder killing American kids and kids in the nations we occupy and destroy.
I shouldn’t be surprised Vietnam veterans would divide up on this war just as they have on the legacy of Vietnam. Revisionists like the Swift Boaters and the flag flyers joining the groups like VFW and the Legion want the bloodshed to have meant something other than a failed foreign policy and imperialistic designs of the rich. They can’t accept the truth. They can’t believe their nation’s leaders would send them to war without a true threat to the national good.
What surprises me is the same flag flyers would join ranks with the lying lowlife who did everything he could to avoid going to Vietnam. He and his entire cabinet have thumbed their noses at the lowly grunt and the veterans. And yet these groups of veterans that include many Vietnam veterans applaud the bastard chicken-hawk.
Bush has long turned my stomach with his total disregard toward the poor, the middle class and the working person. He’s consistently shown his administration will only do the right thing for veterans when the veterans and family demand it and not before.
At the start of the war the body armor and armored vehicles were missing but they sent the troops anyway. Bush has yet to go to one single funeral of a dead troop killed in the two wars. Walter Reed and most of the other hospitals meant to treat the returning veterans for physical and emotional problems have been substandard. Several attempts have been made to thwart treatment of PTSD and TBI by this group of cowardly men and women.
The list goes on and on as documented by several reports and several watchdog groups.
Apparently the VFW on August 22, 2007 overlooked the lies and disregard of Bush and trust his management of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Apparently they don’t give one damn bit about the welfare of the troops on the ground or returned from several tours of duty.
Apparently all that matters to them is some concept of winning a war that can never be won.
Apparently the VFW has seen too many John Wayne movies and think war is like some damn video game where there has to be a winner. Apparently they forget there are no winners in war.
I would expect such an attitude from George W. but I can’t believe these guys would fall for the same bullshit all over again.
Some will say veterans are brothers in arms but I will categorically say veterans who refuse to accept the truth and will voluntarily put another generation at risk for the benefit of the rich could never be my brothers.
Veterans living in the past and failing to learn are fools. It doesn’t matter how many medals or how many battles they’ve fought if they didn’t learn from the violence.
Veterans subjecting another generation of young people to war without absolute need for war are as culpable as the “masters of war” perpetrating the wars. They rally the cannon fodder for the bidding of the gangsters Smedley Butler so eloquently talked about in his article “War is A Racket”.
No matter how many alleged services organizations like VFW and American Legion claim they perform, the deaths they take part in promoting can never be forgiven…even by Jesus.
William T. Leichner
USMC combat veteran
Vietnam December 31, 1968 – February 12, 1969
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