Turn Veterans Day into 'Veterans Mourn Those They Killed Day!' This should be the correct attitude of peace activists on Veterans Day.
It has been more than six decades since America fought a defensive war. Peace organizations going along with honoring veterans of previous wars in poor countries after WW II appear NOT to be against war in principle, rather only against the current wars we are losing. Calling for peace while permitting our now permanent war military establishment to turn all national holidays into celebrations hailing all U.S. wars, past and present, is contradictory.
What does it take? Peace activist are weary of quoting Albert Einstein, Helen Keller, Eugene Debs, General Smedley Butler, Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., Howard Zinn, and the voices of today's dissenters who are wise to the homicide for lies and money that has be going down for the last sixty-five years.
Tired of calling attention to Mohammed Ali having led the country in an inspiring way by refusing to eventually become a veteran of mass murder.
Tired of gritting our teeth watching militarized Network News promoting war to our children and gullible citizens.
Tired of the hypocrisy of religious leaders backing present wars. Evangelists on TV carefully avoiding the theme of Jesus' nonviolence teachings because they conflict with the mainstream "patriotic' mindset of permanent self-righteous counter-terror on terror. In the United States there is a separation of Jesus and state; of Moses' Fifth Commandment and state; separation of Buddhist meditation and war; separation of the teachings in the Qur'an and what is going on in America.
How can any knowledgeable veteran march in parades that in reality are like an 'Honor Warriors of Immoral and Illegal Wars Day', 'Honor the Pentagon Day', 'Honor the CIA Led Assassins day', 'Honor Lying Presidents Day,' 'Honor War Mongering Media Day' 'Honor Clergy Who Blessed War Day?'
How can antiwar groups allow themselves be intimidated by traditions that are now long used to support foreign policies of war on the Third World?
Cannot every citizen of antiwar persuasion have the courage to honor Americans who fled to Canada, rather than those who dishonored themselves and became veterans of crimes against humanity?
How can a veteran like the author of this article be a traitor to our deceived dead buddies, disgracing them by honoring on Veterans Day their having been suckered into dying while killing innocent foreign brothers and sisters in their very own homes?
Enough! Away with our hypocrisy and shaming ourselves in embarrassment, unable to confront ignorance, fear and manipulation by media for the amoral and homicidal bankers who own the government.
Citizens against war! Don't show indiscriminate respect for all veterans. We veterans know that many of us even followed criminal orders on top of participating in unjust wars in places like Vietnam.
Veteran! Denounce your veteranship if you know you 'served' killing innocent people in a dishonorable, illegal, undeclared war. Be determined to know, to learn, how you were duped, tricked, hyped into "service' in dishonorable wars costing the lives of millions of innocent human beings.
And if you think there was anything moral in the particular war you fought in after World War Two, study encyclopedia Britannica articles and read CIA files released under the Freedom of Information Act. Read Pentagon published material. Read only what is documented to order to unlearn what the TV networks, radio and tabloid newspapers sold you on.
On Veterans Day, remember the informed and strong willed who cried "Hell no, I won't go!" Be conscious of our own 'Damn, I shouldn't have gone!' regret.
Speaking out against the glorifying of war intention of Pentagon-fed corporate media programing on Veterans Day should come easy for veterans who have had the courage to brave death in the confusion of unjustified imperialist wars.
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