Why Marches and Rallies May Not Work

I just read an article by Catherine Fenton of Long Island’s CodePink chapter why she will go to the September 15th rally in Washington, D.C.. She has many legitimate reasons for attending but there are some of us who won’t go for legitimate reasons. Ms. Fenton says:
You know who not only won't stop the war that week, but who won't scare,
or change the vote of, one Congressperson? You who stay home, because
it's "hopeless." Because it's "just another protest." Because many
protesters will "go back to business as usual on Monday

I think this statement assumes too much about those who don’t attend the rallies and marches. I have no plans to go to this rally or any other rally in the near future as long as the peace coalition is predominately white and fails the communities of color and those marginalized.

I’m not taking a hopeless position but a realistic position of believing my time and energy are best served working at a grass roots level to help bring new people into the movement against the injustice and the imperialistic wars of our nation.
I’ve been to rallies and marches, dating back to the 70’s, and in all honesty feel they have no effect on the politics and policies of this nation. The money and time spent organizing and getting people to these national marches and rallies seems incongruent with the effects.

The mainstream media, which is the true indicator of whether the message gets out to all Americans and not just the “choir” of activists that predictably show up at the rallies and marches, seldom mentions the actions.
Getting arrested for the cause is an expensive proposition in emotional and monetary ways but, again, few people other than the activist community know or care about these arrests and the following court cases.

I don’t make this argument to discourage others from doing what their heart tells them to do. I do want to point out; however, the endless marches and rallies have done little to discourage the tyrants from doing exactly what they planned on doing. It seems new tactics and new measures are called for.

It seems new faces in a true “rainbow coalition” of American citizens must be gathered to confront these tyrants.

Where are the young and the black faces of this coalition?

Where are the Hispanic, Latino/Latina, Mexican and Chicano faces of the movement standing on the speaker’s podium?

Where are the clergy from all faiths?

Where are the labor unions besides those who are speaking from a Marxist mindset (and I do respect the Marxist philosophy)?

Where are the healers such as doctors and nurses declaring, as groups of professionals, the sickness of what occurs?

Where are the educators who must endure erosion of truly effective ways to educate for the sake of teaching young people false information and imperialistic motivation?

Where are our feminist sisters who may not desire to wear pink but have endured the misogyny and inequality of their nation since birth?

Where are the GLBT communities standing proud and equal next to all the other brothers and sisters of the activist community?

Where are Hip-Hop Nation and the youth movement they represent?

And the ultimate question must be why so many of the brothers and sisters mentioned haven’t joined in the marches and actions as groups of outraged citizens that have endured the neglect and outright oppression our government imposes?

This may be the failure of the activist community that seems stuck in reruns of the 60’s and 70’s but only has a portion of the coalition that existed at that time to go against the Orwellian tactics of a regime that has taken control of all branches of government, the media and the means to making a living.

Some in the movement talk about electoral process as if it’s a magic cure for the loss of all semblances of democracy in our country.

The Constitution and Bill of Rights are on life support and their existence is expected to end at any time.

I don’t say this as a hopeless citizen of the U.S. but as an outraged citizen who doesn’t feel marching and rallying is enough. And continuing with the charade of elections that can never bring change doesn’t meet the criteria of urgency needed.

Even should we stop the war tomorrow, what then? Does the oppression and injustice go away or just hide out until the masses go back to the “American dream” of watching the tube and hoping to stay employed in order to make a house payment?

It seems unless we become creative enough to bring the true face of the American people to the doors of Congress and the steps of the White House there is no fear by the tyrants oppressing the many.

Not only does it seem emergent to end the wars but we must begin to end the tyrannical grip of Democrats and Republicans on the governing of this nation.

When the true “rainbow coalition” of all Americans rallies in numbers far exceeding anything seen so far in this generation of wars, the tyrants will take notice and become fearful of losing power.

Right now the numbers of activists marching and taking part in rallies only brings smirks and laughter from the bastards who have co-opted the world’s justice and peace.

They see the divisions they’ve created among the large number of different groups making up the population of this nation.

They see their successes in fomenting racism, sexism, homophobia, sectarian hatred, social castes and militarism in the wedges driven between the many they’ve oppressed.

They don’t fear a large number of people in the streets because so many are the same people isolated from the rest of the oppressed of the nation.

Professional and dedicated activists are isolated from the men and women who can’t afford to take days off to march and rally for fear they’ll lose jobs and fail to feed children.

These activists don’t necessarily speak for the poor, the black or others unable to march and rally.

The movement presumes to know what the marginalized need and want but fail to lure enough of the actual people who are marginalized to the streets to demonstrate their outrage.

It saddens me to think of the money spent to do the repetitive actions the movement sticks with. It seems this money could do so much more in building a greatly diverse coalition of people demanding peace and justice.

It seems we need only look at the 9th Ward of New Orleans to see the possibilities of demonstrating our desire to bring those without voices into the movement.

It seems visiting churches and synagogues to question the spiritual leaders of this nation about their inaction in the face of such evil would be far more useful than a visit to a member of Congress bought and paid for by corporate interests.

It seems embracing Hip-Hop Nation as the powerful voice of the young it has become would be better than endless petitions that are ignored by the “selected” members of the Congressional tyranny.

I won’t go to the rallies and marches until we change ourselves into a movement to represent all people who are oppressed.

I won’t be arrested for symbolic reasons that won’t effect changes.

This is not a helpless position but one that recognizes the work to be done isn’t in marching but in networking and growing the movement into a healthy and diverse coalition that will strike fear in the hearts of the beasts.

The urgency to stop the wars is clear and palpable but we fail our future if we don’t stop the reasons we are continuously at war.

The military-industrial complex must be transformed into the peaceful-cooperative complex.

The wealth and power of this nation must be equally and justly distributed to all who contribute to it.

The social classes that have become caste systems and fiefdoms must end and a true democratic nation that truly practices “all men and women are created equal” must evolve.

Living wages, health benefits and adequate education must become the right of all citizens to have rather than a luxury given by the rich to the oppressed.

Marches and rallies, arrests and petitions have become weak tools to do this until we are truly representative of all the people of our nation.

So, I’m staying home to talk with people about the need we have for them to join us in a movement they can count on having a voice in.

I’m staying home trying to tell people about the horrible effects the wars have had on our young people and our entire nation.

God bless the peacemakers, however they choose to express the cause of peace and justice.
It doesn’t have to be in a march or rally, however. And the impact can be just as important.

Peace and solidarity,

William Terry Leichner, RN
VVAW member –Denver
USMC combat veteran

Evil Residing in the Bushes

“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).

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

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

Independence Day Post Mortem

2007 Independence Day (4th of July for those lacking such knowledge as the meaning of the date) has now passed in a cloud of gun powder, alcohol, littering, cookouts and lack of awareness. I listened to the rockets red glare until about 2 a.m. this morning as the neighborhood erupted in the usual thousands of dollars spent on fireworks each year just on my block. Each explosion and each mortar like sound caused my mind to wander back to that greatest of all fireworks show, War.
Yeah, War. War is what the day is all about and yet most Americans out waving their flags and blowing up their neighborhoods gave little or no thought American, Iraqi and Afghan kids were getting killed and maimed in the continuation of War that has touched almost every American generation.
Then there were the typical memorials to War done by the local members of the Armed Services either active duty or reservists. Or by the veterans of previous years of War. The usual protocol for the ceremony was the glorification of the “sacrifice” to protect American life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Here in Denver a special ceremony took place to honor a Navy Seals combat veteran of War in Afghanistan. The Seal was killed in action during his tour and awarded The Navy Cross, the second highest award for valor in the Navy.
A statue of the man in full battle gear, holding his weapon and hand grenades clipped to his body armor was unveiled in a local park near his childhood home. It also resides along the path of school children of two different schools in the area. Grade school and middle school kids will see the statute of the “warrior” each day on their way to school.
One group of parents took exception to the statue. They felt it glorified violence and War. A statue of a young man in full combat gear holding a weapon seemed to connote a message of approval for war the group reasoned.
The “peaceniks” were met with a howl of anger and abuse by the "forever veterans" groups and the family and friends of the Navy Seal. How dare someone question a monument to a fallen “hero” of the war against terrorism seemed to be their theme of angst and angry remarks.
Danny Dietz, the Navy Seal, didn’t deserve to die in a foreign land at such a young age. He didn’t deserve to be manipulated and duped as his government has done to so many young Americans. He didn’t deserve to enter into the violence of War which was based on lies and distortions of the truth.
This young man was the victim of a culture that seems only capable of solving problems between nations with violence. He and so many of his generation are victims of a military industrial complex that has made War a major industry in this nation.
Five hundred billion dollars and counting has gone to the War in Afghanistan and Iraq. Over 700,000 dead Iraqis have been victims of an illegal and immoral War. In case someone has missed it; 90% of the dead of War since the period call World War II have been innocent civilians. 30% of that number is children.
Smart bombs, artillery, aerial bombs, cluster bombs, deviated forms of napalm and white phosphorous bombs and all the extensive and expensive arsenal of the Great American War Machine are in truth instruments of terror and horror used against a mostly innocent population of men, women and children.
Smedley Butler, the much decorated War hero of the Marines, lamented his “service” to the military industrial complex. At the end of his career, Butler knew he’d been used to only further the interests of rich and powerful factions of the American society. Butler realized the sacrifice of the men he led in War and the pain and grief he endured was done only to further the elite oligarchy posing as democracy.
I listen to the continued assault in my neighborhood from fireworks representing the implements of War and blanch and startle often. I grit my teeth in anger because young children are being allowed to be groomed for War by parents unwilling to educate themselves on the reality.
Parents of the American soldier and Marine have often bought in to the bull shit of the cartoon action figures or the video game heroes. They watch the tube controlled by huge corporations who benefit greatly from War and believe their way of life is in danger from radical extremists.
The true radical extreme terrorists reside within the borders of American soil based in Washington D.C. Proponents of death and destruction are allowed to run amuck in form of politicians, lobbyists for huge business conglomerates and Zionists and zealots claiming to have the ear of God.
Holidays like Memorial Day and Independence Day are nothing but an exercise in flaunting American materialistic superiority. Perfect examples of the culture are “hot dog eating sports” and huge consumption of alcohol. Any mention of young men and women dying in a foreign land is looked upon as an intrusion of the party that takes place.
On the other extreme are the fat old men and women dressed in the colors of the American flag, the noise polluting Harley honor guards and the America, Love it Or Leave it faction who see it as their duty to glorify and deify War.
Of course there are liberals and progressives who swear they can right the sinking American oil tanker by legislative process. They show up dutifully at the offices of congress people to ask them to take a moral stand. But they don’t usually phrase it like that. They nicely point out the bills before Congress that almost represent their views they’d like the Congressmen and women to support.
The key attitude of liberals and progressives is tolerance. They ask the oppressed to continue tolerance toward the oppressor. They ask the troops and their families to tolerate continued stop losses and extended tours in combat while they attempt to persuade the lawmakers to bring them all home.
The last national election in 2006 seemed a clear mandate to bring an end to the war in Iraq and to bring the troops home. Besides some lame non-binding resolutions and votes that will clearly be vetoed without power to overturn the veto, there has been no true movement to bring troops home.
There have been extended times of tours, a “surge” that increased the number of troops in harm’s way, decreased availability to mental health treatment, inadequate treatment of traumatic brain injuries and overt attempts to take away benefits from returned vets by labeling them with psychiatric diagnoses termed pre-existing (e.g. personality disorders).
Meanwhile there are ever increasing declines in social programs. Poor families seeking rent aid will wait well past the time of eviction, mental health programs will continue to fall short of the needed funding to actually treat clients within minimal standards, jails have become the new mental health treatment centers and prisons continue to incarcerate more and more marginalized citizens for non-violent offenses. Self medicating in impoverished and helpless neighborhoods continues to be common and the system continues to criminalize the victims of the system meant to keep the elite and rich in power and the have-nots helpless.
Liberals and progressives want us to believe the oligarchy is really a democracy even after they watch Michael Moore demonstrate through this nation’s healthcare system just what oligarchy means. Moore, to his credit, shows healthcare’s despicable history in the United States in his movie “Sicko” and also, using comparisons with Canada, Great Britain and France, shows nations that have at least limited democracy while the U.S. continues to discourage and strangle the citizens who attempt to make changes.
I keep asking if the Patriot Act has been repealed, the constant spying on citizens stopped and the criminal actions of the Executive Branch stopped. It seems we’re no closer today than at the beginning of the Bush Administration’s first inauguration. In truth, we continue to plummet into the abyss of totalitarian rule.
Reports of secret, but not really secret, ghost armies like Blackwater Security are they now outnumber the number of troops in Iraq. At home the ghost armies are building bases for themselves in key areas of the nation. Conspiracy theorists posit the bases are really camps that will be used when martial law is declared following a manufactured crisis like that of September 11, 2001.
Whatever the outcome, the ghost armies will remain for the next regime elected in 2008. They will consist of the most highly trained and indoctrinated troops that have retired to six figure jobs. Their loyalty belongs to the true American flag; the green paper of the American monetary system.
Friends and acquaintances tell me I need to be more positive and try to take a less angry stance in my writings and actions. Others have tried to turn me on to new age philosophy of meditation that is supposed to help bring peace to our world. Thich Nhat Hanh would have me become “mindful” in my actions.
I wish I could let go of the dead bodies of soldiers, Marines, sailors and airmen that die in these illegal and immoral wars. I wish I could put the thought of bombs dropping onto children into the recesses of my mind that aren’t constantly being used. I wish I could not feel rage toward those who stand in the way of ending the war and bringing the troops home.
The problem with all that I wish is facing Iraq vets with the thousand yard stares or mothers unable to reconcile the death of their babies. The problem is every day the insanity of war continues a son or daughter is going to die. It may be an American, an Iraqi or an Afghan child but children will die each day.
Continued rallies of the same people, continued meetings without different tactics and continued preening and pimping toward the mainstream press obviously hasn’t worked. Good people with good hearts aren’t enough to end this war and this tyranny consuming this nation. Real action must be taken.
So, in the words of one of my favorite people, William Sloane Coffin, I will remain outraged. If folks aren’t outraged then I’m going to consider there’s something wrong with them. If I insult them with my rage, I guess that’s what Independence Day really means for the individual in America….it’s allowed.

Wm. Terry Leichner,RN
Denver VVAW member
combat veteran of Vietnam

Memorial Day 2007

It’s now a few days after the fifth Memorial Day that the Iraq War has been waged by American troops. Five years and we have only a situation that becomes worse each day.
The American people are said to have sent a mandate to Congress in the 2006 elections but that mandate has been ignored by politicians more intent on pleasing corporate masters than carrying out the will of the people.
The truth is the American people have little stake in the deaths of American men and women of an all “volunteer” military. Far too often the troops are pawns in the nastiness of public debate.

Republicans, Democrats, progressives, conservatives, liberals, evangelicals and every other group with any political intent claim to support the troops better than anyone else. The ugly little truth is most often the safety and security of the troops becomes mere lip service. Really, only family members seem above hidden agendas in support of the troops.
Bush and Cheney claim a new reason every other week for keeping troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. The mythical and nebulous “war on terror” always comes up in conjunction with September 11, 2001 as the final resort of a reason when all others are refuted and shown to be lies.
Democrats and Republicans claim to have differing strategies but both have some form of maintaining American presence. The reason for keeping American troops in Iraq to maintain stability in the country is about as valid as trying to put out a fire with gasoline.
Americans claimed to support the troops as they went out in public wearing American flag shirts, eating off American flag paper plates and using American flag napkins.
They’ll further desecrate the flag by putting small American flags on their SUV’s to shred in the wind within a months’ time.
These are usually the same people who support a Constitutional amendment making it a crime to burn the American flag(see flag etiquette). One person’s patriotism is another person’s desecration.
If Americans really wanted to commemorate Memorial Day they’d start by demanding a stop to the endless warfare that continues to kill American men and women.
They need to demand an end of killing over 650,000 Iraqis with the true WMD’s; American bombs and armament.
If Americans want to commemorate Memorial Day in a proper way, let us remember the Constitution and Bill of Rights that continues to be eroded by the current administration. Torture and imprisonment without trial is not something troops lying in Arlington and other national cemeteries intended to give their lives for.
Instead the American people let a small percentage of the population bear the violent burden of war while the rest of the population either cheer the violence without direct involvement or decry it from air conditioned homes with SUV’s in the garage. Or they look upon the troops as villains who commit genocidal acts without conscience.
The young ages of the troops, the economics and education seldom come up in these discussions. If no one’s right and everybody’s wrong how can we decide?
I detest Memorial Day as a day that insults the dead and the living veterans of war. But then I am one of the living dead of war. If you ask most of the dead and those of us who are still alive with horrific memories of war, Memorial Day has become a dishonorable day of excess and disconnect from those who have been at war.
If there is to be honor for the dead from the many wars there must be a true desire for peace. The death dealing military industrial complex blocks any such desire on the part of the government. The masters of war continue to collect profits on the corpses of our sons and daughters.
The American public has become serfs of these evil interests. They allow their children to fight World War I and WWII, Korea, Vietnam and any other war on video games. They tolerate the sanitized commercials of the Marines or the Army during every break of action in NBA and NHL playoff games.
The ads show “the few, the proud, the Marines” who are called “Devil Dogs” or “Leathernecks” wearing spotless uniforms or in film or video footage totally devoid of missing limbs, dead bodies or dead civilians that are the true reality of war.
If the American public cared enough about peace and the children they allow to fight wars, they should want the recruitment ads saturating the airways to be truthful.
They should want the ads to show the traumatic amputations, the battered skulls and the dead babies their sons and daughters will encounter if they enlist.
They certainly can’t complain the ads would be too violent since there is an endless supply of movies that depict extreme gore and violence their children are allowed to watch. So why not show the reality of being a Devil Dog and Leatherneck?
Allowing our children to witness thousands upon thousands of “entertainment” deaths each year through video games, movies and television shows creates the perfect storm for recruiters to sign them up for the “real thing”.
I also wonder if war is so damn honorable for so many Americans why every family doesn’t have a son or daughter at risk of being deployed. Instead they allow the troops to come from small towns and inner cities offering limited opportunity. Americans have finally found the perfect military force; an all volunteer force they don’t have to pay attention to or worry about late at night as parents.
I recently read about an Iraq veteran who has started a group called Modern Military Veterans. His premise is the modern military is so much more intense and hectic than any previous armed force this nation has ever had. It seems “his war” is just so much tougher than “our wars”.
I think the men who landed on the beaches of Normandy might argue the Iraq war veteran hasn’t a clue what heavy combat is truly about. I think Vietnam veterans might say there has yet to be an equivalent of the 1968 Tet Offensive in the Iraq War.
I think most of the combat veterans I know would tell this foolish man no war is worse or better than another. War is a universal act of insanity. The question shouldn’t be which war is worse. The question should be why we can’t accomplish a lasting peace.
Memorial Day should be a day of reflection about our inability to bring peace to the world. We should look at those gravestones of all the war dead and vow to end the insanity that led to the deaths of so many young men and women.
Memorial Day should be a day of recognition. We should recognize the dead are not only American troops. The dead include infants hit by shrapnel of a bomb. The dead are a mother and father who fail to stop at a checkpoint out of fear or confusion. Their children witness their deaths and are splattered by their blood. The dead are a young woman’s family following her rape and killing by American troops. The dead are a surgeon, a teacher, a pharmacist and students.
We can allow ourselves to vilify people as sub-humans because they practice a different religion. We can overlook dead bodies being eaten by dogs in Fallujah. We can accept torture by water board or worse. We can deny all of it but it remains a fact that it happens in the name of freedom and democracy.
I have friends who are veterans and friends with family who live in Iraq and are in harm’s way every day.
I have friends who are parents of troops in Iraq or Afghanistan. They are sleep deprived and constantly on edge from their fears. They fear the harm to their family members just as my other friend fears harm to the family in Iraq.
I went to church this past Sunday morning and kept wondering where the moral leadership of the Church was in opposing these wars. It was Pentecost. There wasn’t a mention of peace in the prayers but there was a prayer for the men and women “protecting” us in service to their country.
I just have a difficult time thinking Jesus would endorse such service as loving our brothers and sisters as we would love ourselves.
I have more difficulty accepting anything the Church says as a moral guideline when it fails so miserably to take a stance on an illegal and immoral war.
I have to challenge the leadership of all religions to act as God would want them to in bringing peace to this world. I don’t hold out much faith for this to happen, however.
Many years ago Mark Twain wrote “The War Prayer”. His words are as true now as they were when he wrote them:
"O Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth to battle -- be Thou near them! With them -- in spirit -- we also go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved firesides to smite the foe. O Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with little children to wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames of summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it -- for our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimage, make heavy their steps, water their way with their tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet! We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is the ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen.
(*After a pause.*) "Ye have prayed it; if ye still desire it, speak! The messenger of the Most High waits!"
It was believed afterward that the man was a lunatic, because there was no sense in what he said
Mark Twain

Wm. Terry Leichner, RN
Combat veteran

No Diganosis For the Rich

The Diagnostic Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders (DSM-IV is the current version) outlines symptoms and characteristics of mental disorders in a somewhat reasoned manner. For each diagnosis there must be a set number of symptoms, a length of duration and other pertinent criteria.
Recently in Virginia a young man who most likely had a mental disorder killed 32 students at Virginia Tech University. Like many other mass killings in the U.S. this has been the continual story of most news agencies of the mainstream press.
Every major anchor person from each of the networks descended upon the college campus to interview any that would talk and repeatedly report the same story or stories. Memorials of flowers, teddy bears and other staple items of tragedies in the U.S. once again became evident.
Death of the innocent by an evil force of madness has become routine in our nation. We have a long trail of bodies that date much further back than the Columbine H.S. shootings. The public can’t resist injecting themselves into the tragedy by coming to the scene and erecting these “spontaneous” memorials of flowers, stuffed animals and other items to display our grief for the victims.
Newspapers run full biographies of the victims and the killers beyond anything a family would normally do for a deceased in death that isn’t a headline.
Finger pointing invariably follows the tragedy. Why didn’t someone know the killers were insane, evil and unbalanced? Why didn’t someone do something?
There is seldom any sympathy or empathy for the family of the killers. The evil killers are vilified and portrayed as having been the “bad seed” for most of their life.
Mental health “experts” will often be consulted to make “sense” of such events. Talking heads do quack psychiatry by conjecturing their diagnosis, often quoting the DSM. Such madness must surely be a diagnosis.
As the latest tragic killing on American soil took place and the entire American media diverted its attention to the 32 dead Americans a war continued to rage in Iraq and Afghanistan. Thirty some dead is about one-half or less of the daily death toll of Iraqis and Afghanis. Not counting dead soldiers from the U.S. and its “world wide coalition against terrorism”.
I continue to have this thought of imbalance and distortion when something like Virginia Tech or Columbine happens. I wonder why we can be so outraged and grief stricken when these things occur but fail to do the same with the daily carnage of wars we begin.
I wonder why the 650,000 plus dead Iraqis since 2003 hasn’t compelled us to erect memorials or vilify those who are responsible. I wonder why the 3300 dead American men and women go hardly noticed anymore. I wonder why the criminals responsible aren’t subjected to the same scrutiny of mental health experts.
We have to ask ourselves which is the greater evil. Is the evil of a mentally ill person who has fallen through the gaps of the under funded mental health system greater than a calculated and deliberate mass murder perpetrated by rich and privileged politicians and corporate leaders?
Why do we create such an enormous outcry at the comparably small number of dead at a school shooting when we fail to do so at an entire school of children killed by a bomb dropped from one of our planes or fired from our artillery? Where are the biographies of small kids with Arabic names? Where are the memorials of teddy bears?
Evil committed by a deranged individual is clearly caused by a mental disorder found in the DSM. Evil committed by the rich and powerful by proxy of young men and women they control is clearly established as fighting for freedom, patriotism, fighting them there so we won’t have to fight them here and other such ruses. Mass murder by megalomaniacs who spout platitudes about democracy and the American way of life is acceptable and there is not a diagnosis to be found in the DSM for what they do.
Keep in mind what is seen as patriotism here in this country is seen as sheer insanity by most of the rest of the world. But most of the world doesn’t use the DSM as the guideline for diagnosing insanity. The international diagnostic criterion does include compulsive lies and continued criminal actions as aberrant behaviors of antisocial minds.

Wm. Terry Leichner, RN
USMC combat vet
Psychiatric RN - 24 yrs.

This Veteran Wants No Honor or Glory

It’s been suggested the March 17th rally and march here in Denver is about the veterans and the profiteering on the backs of the veteran by corporations such as Halliburton. I disagree even though I’m a combat veteran and I have met many incredible veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

While I’ve not been in on many of the meetings to plan the upcoming rally I speak about, I’d like to add a comment on its purpose besides the profiteering on the backs of the military men and women betrayed by Bush and regime.

The focus of this rally and march was also meant to make the connection of the costs of war to the costs to marginalized communities. Last year and this year VFP has had a slogan that “every bomb dropped on Iraq explodes along the Gulf Coast”. This was meant to express solidarity with the survivors of Katrina ignored by Bush’s regime immediately after the hurricane and still to this day, nearly two years later.

The intent of the march and rally was also to remember there remains a war against people of color, the poor and the oppressed in this nation and around the world.

The billions spent on war are billions not spent on improving the lives of the hungry, the homeless, the mentally ill, the addicted, the incarcerated and the children. It’s billions not spent on education, jobs, living wages, fair trade and the environment. It’s billions not spent on the welfare of black, Latino, Hispanic, Chicano, Asian and marginalized communities who continue to bear the yoke of police brutality, inadequate nutrition and housing and racist employers.

Despite my obvious bias toward veterans and military men and women victimized by the military-industrial complex, I think we can no longer perpetuate the idea this is only about the American troops. They are indeed victims but they aren’t even the primary victims if we look at the bigger picture. The idea of over 650, 000 Iraqi dead and the hundreds of years of oppression and imperialism by the Eurocentric governments of the U.S. and its allies can’t be ignored to only remember our troops. We only need look back at 3 million Vietnamese killed to recall an inglorious history of imperialism. We must recall the genocide of indigenous peoples we the people of this nation have taken part in.

I’m very much in support of remembering our dead and wounded troops of all wars but think it time to come out of the military mindset we’ve become slaves to and think of the damage and horror inflicted by the military in the name of “freedom and democracy”. As veterans and participants in illegal and immoral wars we bear responsibility to not only our “own” but to the innocent victims caught in the middle of senseless war and the warriors of these wars.

I think we should remember Smedley Butler’s wise and prophetic words in his piece “War is a Racket”. We can no longer say we have credibility as veterans of illegal wars. We can no longer wear our uniforms and medals as symbols of pride and honor. Instead it seems we must repudiate our wars and all the symbols of the carnage we took part in carrying out.

It seems the role of the veteran must be to take away the façade of the uniform, the medals and the valor and expose the brutality, the atrocity and inhumanity we were part of.

This may not sit well with those who want to continue waving flags of imperialism and militarism but I suggest the American veteran’s most patriotic act is the act of resistance against the madness we took part in carrying out. I think our patriotism is best shown in becoming role models for future generations in opposition to the cult of the warrior and the promises of glory in battles not worth fighting.

I’ve often expressed veterans deserve no special badge of credibility for being the thugs of the establishment. How can we expect to be honored for wars we know were immoral and illegal? Why should we want to be honored for such actions?

If I’m to be honored as a veteran I want to be honored as a veteran that came back and realized the insanity and inhumanity of my actions in war. I want to be known as a veteran that recognizes I was not the victim but the oppressor. I want to be known as a veteran that realizes I left the shores of my country to fight for the rights and freedoms many in my own country still wait to see. And now I want to be known as a man who wants to work to lift the cloud of racism, hatred and oppression that exists so overtly in my own nation.

I realize it may not be popular that the fourth year commemoration of this immoral war in Iraq should not be about the troops as much as it should be about the innocent victims. But I’m weary of trying to have it both ways. Expecting honor when there is no honor is a false pretense and only furthers the myth war is somehow glorious.

This year when I attend the commemoration of the war’s anniversary, I want to honor the dead child in a bunker in Vietnam. I want to honor the mother and child killed by a bomb dropped from an unseen bomber over Baghdad. I want to honor the survivors of Katrina who still wait for America to treat them as Americans. I want to honor the brothers and sisters too long oppressed by poverty and racism. I want to honor the many who could have had a better life if only those billions spent on war had been spent to better their lives.

I don't want honor or glory for the person I was carrying an M16 at age 18 in Vietnam. I don't want honor or glory for being a thug of the military industrial establisment to kill and maim innocent peoples either caught in harm's way or defending their own country.

Wm. Terry Leichner, RN

Combat vet/ human

Denver VVAW member