18 Veterans Arrested in Antiwar Protest
More than a dozen members of an antiwar veterans group were arrested yesterday as they protested the exclusion of their message from Boston’s Veterans Day parade.
Members of Veterans for Peace lined up in front of a podium at City Hall Plaza holding antiwar placards, as color guards from Massachusetts military units and JROTC bands from across the state filed into Government Center for a ceremony, sponsored by the American Legion, to honor veterans after the parade. Some protesters wore gags, which they later said symbolized the fact that, while they were permitted to march in the parade, they were prevented from carrying signs opposing the war in Iraq.
“We were exercising our First Amendment rights,” said Winston Warfield of Dorchester, a member of the group. “The First Amendment protects free speech, even when you don’t agree with what’s being said.”
When Boston police asked the demonstrators to move from the front of the podium so that the Veterans Day services could continue, they refused. As the Boston Firemen’s Band played The Marine Hymn, several protesters were placed in plastic handcuffs and led away.
“Our free speech and civil rights are being abridged here,” said Nate Goldschlag, a Vietnam-era veteran who was among those standing in front of the podium. “We are veterans, too, and we should be allowed to express our opposition to this war.”
© 2007 Boston Globe
“We are veterans, too, and we should be allowed to express our opposition to this war.”
In a democarcy, you would be.
Godspeed, to these courageous souls.
Americans need to start listening to their veterans. Veterans are the most patriotic group of Americans. They believe in this country they put their lives on the line. To ignore, or worse - to ban - will insure that our society never learns the real lessons of war.
Hoa binh
What a disgusting display of total disregard for the Bill of Rights. This area is PUBLIC Property. These Vets had every right to be there. What’s even more perverse, is that they ’served’ their Country, to ensure that right. Trully, we no longer live in a Constitutional Democracy. Welcome to the Facist States of Amerika.
Unfortunately our society does not honor its committment to Veterans, now or ever! MacArthur, Eisenhower and Patton were involved in the denial of free speech of Veterans who were demonstrating for a $ bonus they were promised post WWI.
We seem bound to continue our mistakes, but of course not being governed by men and women who have served our country puts military men and women at risk. Veterans are used for photo ops (see bush at Walter Reed recently) and political pawns. Our government uses veterans.
I am a veteran of 22= years in the Navy, with two combat tours, and have seen how we (Veterans) are used. But what should we expect from a president who deserted his easy National Guard service whil I was killing men for lies (Vietnam).
I totally support them of course, and whoever doesn’t is out of the minds. However, just a question: When the journalist wrote “When Boston police asked the demonstrators to move from the front of the podium so that the Veterans Day services could continue, they refused,” did he mean that were actually blocking speakers from using the podium? Or, were they just standing out in front of it in the audience. If it was the later, they might as well sue to make a point. Otherwise it was a classic case of civil dissobedience and the police were well within their rights to arrest. It is actually only a violation of free speech laws if they stop you from speaking when you are lawfully assembled. I’d like to know more about this case. Either way, these men are huge patriots and we should all have the fortitude they have.
If my own father was not so physically challenged now as a result of Vietnam, he would have been out there too. However, thanks to the lovely chemicals they used in Vietnam, my father is a 63 year old man in a 90-year old body.
VETS
He looked for enemies on the streets of Baghdad, searching into every nook and cranny hoping to last a time .
Now he searches for friends in every nook and cranny as he walks the streets and alleys of city, USA .
In a jungle, a rice paddy and mountainous terrain he left a buddy, a mind, a part physical and hoped for understanding and only what was deserved . Is that a crime ?
It was a budgetary consideration said politics as you are only 11% of the population and not enough of you vote to get what you should and at the least try to make you ok .
These are the faces of today, still, from a time of 40 plus or minus years ago to a desert campaign of months and an occupation of 5 years to today where depleted uranium will rule the day for years to come .
Of course all Vets count but this is for all the ones left without a home, a family, a Doctor or even the barest amenities not even a crumb .
A heart hurts that any soul should be among these yet even Jesus averred that some of these would always be with us.
Yet those who go to war for a people, whether warrior or citizen soldier should have all that a representative government can do for them, all without a fuss .
All of this is for the ladies and the guys .
With love to all, A Vet, Tony 11/11/07
A long way from the Boston Tea Party.
We do not live in a democracy. I thank these vets for taking a stand.
With Congress’ help, our constitution has been destroyed. There goes our rights. This is a police state. We need to unite.
Do not think the 08 election will solve anything. Google “Silent Weapons for Quiet Wars” by the Bilderberg group. We are in a domestic war. Fitting that vets would come to our aid.
What do you expect from this administration and it’s neo-con backers who are nothing but a bunch of chicken-ass sissy-hawks who never met a war they didn’t like, as long as they don’t have to fight in it.
this should scare everybody to death!!!
Look long and hard at that picture folks. Police, arresting Veterans, for exercising their constitutional rights, which they fought and defended in a time of war.
This is America now.
For shame.
The peaceful war protesters in Olympia, Washington were subjected to police brutality last week. When are the fascist, hypocrite leaders of the U.S. going to stop blabbering about “bringing democracy” to countries they want to colonialize, kill the inhabitants, and steal resources from? It’s ironic that we no longer have democracy and freedom of speech here
leobixby wrote: “I totally support them of course, and whoever doesn’t is out of the minds. However, just a question: When the journalist wrote “When Boston police asked the demonstrators to move from the front of the podium so that the Veterans Day services could continue, they refused,” did he mean that were actually blocking speakers from using the podium? Or, were they just standing out in front of it in the audience. If it was the later, they might as well sue to make a point. Otherwise it was a classic case of civil dissobedience and the police were well within their rights to arrest. It is actually only a violation of free speech laws if they stop you from speaking when you are lawfully assembled.”
I understood the vet to mean that they wished to have been included in the program, and that they were excluded, and so they stood by wanting to speak to make their opposition heard.
God, who are these policemen. we need to get them to refuse to arrest.
Would they shoot unarmed protesters if they were told to?
Activists need to hold these cops personally accountable for what they do.
Getting a badge number and reporting them to their superiors only gets them rewarded.
Send them letters to their homes, personalize everything, ask them to do what they know in their hearts is right….or at least some type of carefully crafted appeal to the human being buried alive under the armor.
A long time ago I stopped loving this fu**ing country. With examples like the one above in the article, I like this fu**ing country less and less.
Soldiers, like anyone else who is not an oil executive, are just cogs in the government’s machinations. These truly brave veterans think for themselves and are willing to pay the price. We have Bush and Cheney, neither soldiers nor brave, but both oil executives, ridiing roughshod over America’s wishes and dreams. Halliburton has its profits. Bush is now “worth” 20 million. Rumsfeld increased his fortunes with Gillead Drugs (and that little sweetheart deal with Roche Pharmaceuticals. What ever happened to the Avian flu anyway?) I want to thank the brave veterans who still believe and have faith enough to stand up in protest. The whole country owes them a debt of gratitude. Truth will out. Inevitably. Courage!
The American Legion…cheerleaders for war…an organization of old bloodthirsty bastards who want nothing more than for their sons and grandsons to follow in their glorious bootsteps. Bush, Cheney, The PNAC, the so-called Christian Right, and the corporate media are all WAR CRIMINALS for planning and cheerleading the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. All the members of congress who voted to authorize and continue to fund these wars are WAR CRIMINALS. The ceos and presidents of war-based and oil industry corporations, and all those who work for or hold stock in those companies are WAR PROFITEERS. And the young military people who joined in good faith and thought they were going to be America’s heroes deserve NOT our praise or prayers or adoration….They deserve a sincere apology from their government for being sent into harm’s way for corporate profit and for being sent to fight a winless war based entirely on the most heinous lies. God damn America’s corporate government. God damn Bush, Cheney, Rumf*#k, and all their greedy-bastard buddies. And may Milton Friedman rot in his grave…finally where he belongs
…food for worms.
Not expressing the state-sanctioned view? To the GULag with you! Vet or not!
We must hasten to read Naomi Wolf: “The End of America–Letters of Warning to a Young Patriot,” then act accordingly.
The first Veteran we need to listen to is Maj.Gen. Smedley Darlington Butler. He wrote the short treatise; “War is a Racket” in 1935. Read it for yourself
http://www.ratical.org/ratville/CAH/warisaracket.html#c4
The Fascist States of Amerika: This isn’t new, though, as similar things happened during the Vietnam War Era. At least no college students have been shot yet, but there’s no draft, and college students are more than likely to be protesting the removal of old redwoods or oaks from campus, not that that isn’t important, because cutting trees down like that is all part of the same problem in this country: the corporate piggies can’t have enough greenbacks in their Swiss bank accounts. So cut down old, ancient trees, have and wear out a volunteer army, or just hire private ones at the taxpayers expense. All worthy of protesting, and while these vets protest in Boston, making a statement, do you really think CBS News or Fox are going to carry this on the TV tonight? I know what would wake up the pigs (and I do mean pigs in the Animal Farm sense of the word): a national no work, no buy anything day. Did you watch Masterpiece Theatre last night? Something like that, when no one drove a car in the UK for a day. No one buys, goes to work, drives (public transport or biking okay), just everyone stay home, on a Wednesday: no one goes to school or work. No one calls in either. The 25% of the idiot believers can go to work, school, or shopping, and wonder well the hell everyone is. That might wake up The Deciders, after revenues fall through the basement for a day!
Europeans have industrial action days, and guess what? labor wins, and management loses almost all the time! The French, now regretting voting for Fascist Sarkozy, as what would you expect from someone who ran away from a Communist country, are about to go out on strike over the former Hungarian’s (and remember whose side they were on the WW2!) plans to gut pensions plans for workers, making college students start to pay up (Reagan instituting tuition at Cal and state college campuses in 1967), and to “allow” workers to work over a thrity-five hour week. Europeans don’t take that kind of shit from any leader, as they had a thousand years plus of Devine Rights and dictators!
This country doesn’t learn its lessons, though. all Reagan had to do was say that Vietnam was a noble cause, and The Decider repeats that bullshit yesterday, feigning crocodile tears meeting with veterans’ families who’ve lost family members in Iraq.
My dad, a WW 2 Navy vet, who volunteered instead of waiting to be drafted, hates Bush, is a member of the VFW, but he never goes to meetings. He doesn’t want to get into arguments with any other members who continue to believe the bullshit the corporate media spread as ministries of propoganda.
Westcoastprogressive
There’s no draft YET, but if the Bush-Cheney Crime Syndicate get their way and bomb Iran, there WILL be a draft.
I thought a Veterans’ Day parade was for all veterans: blondes, brunettes, male, female, Republicans, Democrats, non-party people, Christians, Jews, Muslims, deists, Spanish, Indian, black, white, yellow, red…well you get the idea. Would somebody please tell me what a Veterans’ Day parade is supposed to be comprised of?
America needs to see a day that stops making vets out of men & women and the romanticizing of military , if we could only use our tax power for education & health care like Europe we wouldn’t be such a country full of deranged gun toting looneys ready to take human life away and teach those values to future generations here, can you imagine the breeding going on with these soldier’s wives can’t wait to see the darling littler murderers enlisting in 18 years but isn’t that what american family values means.
Hey! MacArthur marched on the Bonus Army! Remember? Does anyone remember Smedley Butler? Scared to death? I believe our military, not the political hacks with stars on their shoulders, but the ones who still believe in America, really do hold the key. If we cannot listen to them, why are we listening to a couple of chicken hawk draft-dodgers who have engineered this war for their own personl, private interests. Cheney has moved his company to Qattar so he can use Blackwater to rule. WAKE UP!!
“The First Amendment protects free speech, even when you don’t agree with what’s being said.”
That’s what the First Amendment use to protect before King George and his cohorts usurped our rights and turned the U.S. Constitution of our Founders into a “goddamned piece of paper”. What’s even more difficult to accept is that our representatives on Capitol Hill have allowed this usurpation to take place; both Republicans and Democrats!
“We are veterans, too, and we should be allowed to express our opposition to this war.”
Yes, you should, if your constitutional rights are being upheld by the very same representatives who have sworn to uphold them. Unfortunately, they’ve all sold out to the dictator in the White House.
The bigger question is: Why have they sold out and who can you trust anymore?
If this BS of arresting people for freedom of speech is taking place in Boston under the leadership of Mayor Mannino or Governor Patrick (both democrats), we know this country is in deep s#!t.
Paul Revere must be rolling over in his grave right now!
freedumbfighter,
that’s also what gets to me when I read about a situation like this. what’s going through the mind of a police officer as he arrests an elder veteran for protesting against another bogus war? shows what we’re up against. I often wonder what would happen if the US armed services were called in to quell some sort of uprising within the united states…
Citizen Z,
Last week, I emailed War is Racket to about 25 people I know, including my conservative/republican grandfather.
Still waiting for a reply from him….
As a Marine Corps veteran of Viet Nam, 66-67, I’ve been treated like a second-class citizen since shortly after my return to the Land of the Free. The VA has denied me service-connection for my emotional illness despite the diagnosis of three of their own shrinks that this is the case. Why? Because I don’t make major campaign contributions and they can.
I’ve been in an out of VA medical centers and miscellaneous Rubber Ramadas for 30+ years now, suffering substandard-to-zip care from my government all the way.
Now that my body is going the way of my mind, at 62, their malpractice focuses on the physical problems I have which they undertreat, mistreat and refuse to treat, with abandon, amidst all the signs about their first-class care and the way their whole reason for being is VETERAN CARE.
Six months ago, I wrote an extended letter of complaint about the whole thing (like their refusal to adequately treat the chronic pain I suffer from fibromyalgia) and hand-carried it to the office of my Congressman.
I was told the letter was too long to read (40 pp.)! The staffer told me to summarize it and resubmit. It took me a month or daily ordeals to write it and it got REJECTED! For being too detailed! But I also submitted it to one of Seattle’s senators, Patty Murray, and that was the last I heard of it.
We veterans served our purpose for the Establishment. Now we are just overhead that needs to be reduced.
While the Pentagon preens over the new Joint Strike Fighters capable of helping America dominate the planet (or solar system?) for decades, my teeth are rotting out of my head because Medicaid is a jokey Catch-22 in which welfare won’t consider paying for a bill before it’s incurred and even ‘public’ dental clinics won’t do the work until payment is guaranteed. I had to fight for a year to get the upper dentures I’ve got … while sick every damn day. I had to luckout, finding a state legislator who would huff & puff their way on my behalf, before it suddenly occurred to them that they really COULD do the job, come to think of it.
America has become The Good Life (FINE PRINT: If you can afford it.)
The average American, let alone the average American war veteran, no longer counts in his own country. I hope the fools who kept the plutocrats in power long enough to bring this disaster about are remembering who voted those thieves into power.
And this happened in Boston–yet more proof life under Bush is stanger than fiction.
–From One Who Once Wore the Uniform Proudly.
These horrible things would not be happening in our country without quisling traitors like Diane Feinstein and Sandra O’Connor enabling the illegal presidency of George Warmonger Bush. I’m also looking forward to the day that Ralph Nader croaks from a natural cause at which time I will throw a party appropriate to the occasion.
more people like these vets are going to have to step up to stop this war. The vets led the campaign against Vietnam, and they are leading us now, if we will only follow.
Thank you my brave brothers for standing up on Veterans Day in Boston and for being a part of “the moment” which brought us this image. This is a powerful image that will stay with me for a long time. The children running naked down the road, burned and bleeding from bombs falling on their village in Vietnam is another image that haunts me. So does the image of President George W. Bush giving the finger to the camera.
Thank you for your bravery in speaking speak truth to power and for your valor.
A planetary sister.
Hey CnC,
Take a good look at what you’re doing. A person who doesn’t buy into the corporate two party system like you and me decides to run at the greatest of odds against a corporate democracy for president of this country. That’s his right. It is beyond me how you can fall into line with the corporate MSM and demonize him for doing so. No, this country will continue down its well worn path of buying into a least worst party every election year unless people like you quit doing the bidding of the MSM for them.
There was a debate between Scheer and Nader a few days ago. I’ve tried to find it on Truthdig, but I can’t. Anyway, does anyone have the log-on site for CnC to watch the debate? Nader slam dunks scheer for the same charges that I’m sure you’re levying against him. Watch the WHOLE debate if you get the chance. It’s about an hour long.
actually, there’s nothing “sick” about nader croaking. it would, however, be sick if it were from a “natural cause”.
what everyone seems to forget, and we’ll exclude those who were drafted, for they had no choice, is that there are still people buying the hype of the military budget. join us, get your bonus, we’ll take care of you after and forever more. anyone seen the star spangled hummers driving thru the poorer neighborhoods of most major metropolitan areas? now that is fucking “sick”. target the minorities, the poor, the less educated. give them a “choice”. until everyone wakes up and then stands up to the weapons manufacturing giants (yeah, bush, that includes your very dumb ass), we’ll always be in wars, and we’ll always have veterans being shit upon. it’s that gun/macho marriage.
go to college. get an education. knowledge is power. not guns.
Word power: Veterans are people the govt. tries to dispose of quietly. So we must try to counteract that.
Troops are people stuck in a quagmire that we must bring home to save. But soldiers are the ones who are killing and maiming and terrifying Iraqis and Afghanis. Soldiers are the ones who signed up with a govt. whose fascistic tendencies are far more familiar to those in other countries where the U.S. military may not get its way but certainly wreaks destruction. If they didn’t learn about Vietnam in school, at least their parents could have told them about the recent history of U.S. military adventurism, specifically of our continued bombing of Iraq from 1991 until the present. There are a lot of guilty parents in this country who could have tried to discourage their children from joining a thug operation–and the U.S. military has been one since at least the 1960s. I don’t fault Bush for staying out of Vietnam. That’s the only thing he seems to ever have done right.
I congratulate the Boston Police for being the trained dogs that they are. They disgust me. They are soul mates of Hitler’s SS.
go to college . get an education. knowledge is power. not guns.
hmm…..
I wish it were that simple. The Criminals running this show seem to have all the above including guns (incase they get the urge to shoot someone in the face)
Someone tell me that shit I’ve seen on youtube about Amerikan FEMACamps is BS
My father has been getting his mail at the local smalltown ( (pop.350 )US Post Office for50 plus years. Last week he received a notice that he and all that get mail in his PO Box must register at the post office with multiple IDs physical address blah blah blah…..
After seeing these FEMA (super concentration camps )in Indiana and Texas I gotta wonder What the fuck is up?
My father is a Vet and so am I ,”tell me what we’re fighting for I don’t remember anymore”
Brothers and Sisters we have one hell of a task at hand.These men in the article are on the right path. We’d best all stand up very soon. Else we find ourselves on a one way train ride.
It’s pitiful the way the American Legion and VFW hijack Veteran’s Day, Memorial Day, Independence Day, etc. and form up their little platoons of jingoistic sockpuppets for the military-industrial complex.
They bite down hard on this “defending liberty” bullcrap, but (a)it’s not our liberty, but corporate liberty they fought for, and (b)they are still, no doubt, working out feelings of guilt for having killed “enemy”, or not even facing “enemy”, or surviving a war their buddies didn’t.
Instead of driving anti-war vets away from their parade charade, they need to stop pretending war is great and come to embrace their brothers-in-arms.
FreeDumbFighter, of course they would fire on us, kids at Kent State.
We set up, I thought it was 1300, it was 1800 headstones we set up in memory of the dead in our tri-state area and more. Only one MSM paper had a partial photo of exactly what this ‘Graveyard’ looked like.
They referred to the vets as Veteran’s for Freedom, not Veteran’s for Peace. I am a vet of the USAF, during the wind down of Vietnam, so during those days many of us women were lucky enough to remain stateside.
In Iraq, in our area alone, we had 97 murdered female military. Yet, if you are a vet against war, it’s FU traitor’s.
Being a Pink, also, we had our Peace Ribbon displyed, we all help each other out with causes around here. It was incredibly serene at sunset, as we were removing the panels from the ribbon, strangers stopped and gave us hand and thanked US, not U.S., US. Then the removal of 1800 tombstones, weeping for the murdered human whose name was on each, you grow weary.
I know it’s Independence Hall with tourist traffic, but WTF, a shortcut through a graveyard? Absolutely no respect for these young people.
Whomever said ‘go to school, get an education…’, I just responded to a student at a decent college, in Philly we have many, actually saying ‘Freedom isn’t free, the 4000 lives we’ve lost is nothing in contrast(my word) to previous wars.’ Brilliant student, very adept at monosyllabic cliche’s. I pounded into my daughter’s heads, Education, Education, Education. This young man defied all sense and rational thought. I should think he would have learned a bit by now. and the wrap up to his insane ideology ‘Keep our troops in your prayer’s’, maybe we should try and bring them home alive, now.
brevity, I’ve no idea where you live, you try to tell a kid, they start at 17 now to enlist them, in N. Philly or K & A, that are usually Latino, African-American, or simply poor, usually one parent is absent and don’t have a pot to piss in, these recruiter’s are offering $20,000 ‘incentive’s’, and oh my, we will teach you a trade and help w/college. You know what 20 large means to these kids, please.
In so far as what people tend to say ‘there is no draft’, i most certainly consider someone in the Guard taht is called to active duty for 16 - 18 months, comes home for 3 months and has to go back, once again the same damn thing as a draft. When these recruiter’s ( guns for hire )started with the email recruitment shit for my daughter a bit back, I told them and my daughter, I would drug her, hog tie her then I would toss her ass in my trunk and go where these schmarmy pig’s could not get their hands on her.
its almost over….
BRAVO for the Vets! Now lets the rest of us get behind them, IMPEACH Cheney & Bush and get around to living without dropping bombs on children and their moms.
I often hear the excuse that “we are in Iraq so that we can have the freedom to sit here and discuss this in public. So that you (me) can go and protest”
Of course I try to explain that Iraq was in no way shape or form, a threat to any such freedoms.
But now all I’ll have to do is hold this article up and ask the person I’m speaking to, “which freedoms are those, again?”
great, now they are arresting my grandpa!? Can we PLEASE get out of this mess???
This message from one of those arrested, arrived in my mailbox this morning. I share it to spread the sense of outrage and solidarity:
Hi folks,
Congratulations to the Boston Veterans Day 18 for a great action today. We stood peacefully with gags over our mouths and signs saying “American Legion SILENCES messages of peace from veterans”. since they refused our request to have Iraq veteran Liam Madden speak. 18 of us were arrested by the Boston Police and charged with disturbing a public assembly, which we were definitely not doing. We were completely silent and peaceful. 15 of the 18 are veterans and 3 of them are women.
Getting arrested along with 92 year old Paul Brailsford (who managed to get the plastic cuffs off in the police wagon!!), 80 something year old Sev Bruyn, 76 year old Tony Flaherty was a privilege that I have trouble expressing. Seeing these guys in cuffs was just such an inspiration.
Amazingly enough we get the best media coverage from the local Fox affiliate. Go figure. Thanks to Paul Rifkin for the pictures below.
In the next day or so we will be figuring out how to fight this thing in court. Stay tuned.
Nate
Smedley D. Butler Brigade Chapter 9 of Veterans For Peace
i just sent an email to the vfw organization of massachusetts (www.vfwma.org) asking how they planned to support their brothers who were arrested for speaking up for peace. additionally, i asked why they were not allowed to march with their placards….
i will let you know when i hear back……
it would behoove us to share our feelings with the vfw, the mayor, the govenor and senators…
bobpomeroy
I don’t remember the BONUS ARMY ..but what happened is probably something of a model for the people behind Bush and leading the US now
PLEASE READ THIS AND UNDERSTAND AMERICA
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonus_Army
Next is a quote from the wiki link… and this happened in Washington DC to veterans in 1932…America is a nation with intense struggles…
“The marchers were cleared and their camps were destroyed by the 12th Infantry Regiment from Fort Howard, Maryland, and the 3rd Cavalry Regiment under the command of MAJ. George S. Patton from Fort Myer, Virginia, under the overall command of General Douglas MacArthur. The Posse Comitatus Act, prohibiting the U.S. military from being used for general law enforcement purposes in most instances, did not apply to Washington, DC, because it is one of several pieces of federal property under the direct governance of the U.S. Congress (United States Constitution, Article I. Section 8). Dwight D. Eisenhower, as a member of MacArthur’s staff, had strong reservations about the operation. Troops carrying rifles with unsheathed bayonets and tear gas were sent into the Bonus Army’s camps. President Hoover did not want the army to march across the Anacostia River into the protesters’ largest encampment, but Douglas MacArthur felt this was a communist attempt to overthrow the government and thus exceeded his authority. Hundreds of veterans were injured, several were killed, including William Hushka and Eric Carlson; a wife of a veteran miscarried, and other casualties were inflicted. The visual image of U.S. armed soldiers confronting poor veterans of the recent Great War set the stage for Veteran relief and eventually the Veterans Administration.
By the end of the rout:
* Two veterans were shot and killed.
* An 11 week old baby was in critical condition resulting from shock from tear gas exposure.
* Two infants died from tear gas asphyxiation.
* An 11 year old boy was partially blinded by tear gas.
* One bystander was shot in the shoulder.
* One veteran’s ear was severed by a Cavalry saber.
* One veteran was stabbed in the hip with a bayonet.
* At least twelve police were injured by the veterans.
* Over 1,000 men, women, and children were exposed to the tear gas, including police, reporters, residents of Washington D.C., and ambulance drivers.
I think that it is time some people learned the facts about the American Legion, and its bloodthirsty attitude about war. The truth is that many American Legion vets have never been exposed to combat.
I don’t think many people know this, but only about 20% of the troops are actually in combat. The rest are behind the lines in support roles. Many have desk jobs. Just because you were “in the army” does NOT mean that you actually had to fight!
I live in a small community in rural Nebraska. Every community event the local Legion chapter would parade down the street. My Dad (who passed away last year at 88) often remarked that he knew those guys carrying the flag and talking tough about Iraq, and that in WWII NONE of them even went overseas!
Unlike my Dad’s brother, who was drafted and fought in the worst of the European war, in the battle of the Bulge and the invasion of Germany. He was bayoneted and got the Purple Heart. All of us nephews and neices never knew any of this, for he never talked about his war experiences. He never marched in any of the Legion parades. A quiet man, he died an alcoholic in 1973.
What’s the big surprise? This kind of thing was standard operating procedure when we were opposing the war in Vietnam. So far these guys have had it easy. We were beaten in the head with lead-core night sticks and held in jail under inhumane conditions (I once spent 3 days in an 8X5 cell with 14 other resisters). We found out then that you’ve got freedom of speech in Amerika only as long as you choose not to use it. Nothing has changed, nothing is new…ask the bonus marchers of 1932…ask Eugene Debbs…ask Dr. King. The fascists never take a break, they never let up. When they appear to be beaten they simply fall back and re-group. This battle has to be fought again and again with every new generation because people DO forget and “never again!” are nice sounding, comforting words without much real meaning.
Good Idea…shout to cyber space
Someone should do a FILM on the BONUS ARMY
It has drama and could be done from the view of some of the ordinary people, caught up in the Depression who had fought in WWI.
The type of people who opposed FDR and supported Hoover are back trying to take power again with the Bush administration and subsequent administrations. Those policies don’t work for a nation and will lead to misery.
Even sadder to see this event played out that liberal bastion of democracy, Boston, Massoftwoshits!
What?? The cops didn’t taser them???
They hung Saddam for what exactly? Are we going to have to build our own gallows for these guys one day? Seems like high crimes and misdemeanors have been committed but no, that solution is still off the table. I might buy some stock in the pitchfork and torches store.
dear workreno…are you in Nevada? (reno) cause the post office (federal) put a notice in my friends po box last month in las vegas also on this very intrusive and invasion of privacy act on their part as long as americans go along as sheep the usa will continue to breech the constitution all in the name of freedom as the twin towers falling are symbolic to americans rights being forcefully taken away daily and the terrorists are those who set up the implosion are doing the same to the citizens, this force that is bestowed upon us must not be taken lightly, compile every horror movie icon and roll it up into one and we must be like a batter at a baseball game hitting it back feverously and as we commune we can do it better in numbers .. The People will Unite!
Bravo to farmerne nice to hear a good story from a rural man!
I know it sounds strange but we need pro-peace people in the military and on the police forces.
Just think if enough pro-peace people were employed in those fields. if the cop refused to arrest the old veteran, or refused to press the button that drops bombs on innocents.
Refusal at the point where it happens…. we are basically saying “don’t tell our troops to shoot” not “troops stop shooting.”
Why do we beg for the overlords to tell us to stop fighting instead of just not doing it?
WOW!
plantman13—–heaven help us all but I am afraid you are so right. The fascists are as relentless as a circling school of sharks. A monstrous manifestation of what in human nature still needs to be made whole, to be (en)lightened. It is discouraging to have to keep fighting the same battles over and over…. But to succumb is to surrender to the darkness. We should all send love and gratitude to these brave vets who stood in for us all!
denny I’m in central PA I got a notification in my mailbox too. They claimed we have 7 days to comply or they’ll cut off the mail. I live in the same small town.
I used to pick the mail up for him on my way home from school when I was a boy.
If I want my son to do that for me I have to register him with the state ….to pick up the mail?
This is going to be the fight for future genorations to look back on . They will be our critics.
Will we be Heros or Villians?
“If we don’t stand together will surly all hang seperatly.”
Thank you iammyself, both for your participation in the event and your input here. It’s also upsetting that the reporters didn’t mention the charges. Unfortunately, news these days serves mainly an entertainment purpose and in this way contributes to the public’s passivity against such abuses of power, since people have an “enjoy it and move on,” approach to entertainment.
I was unsure if “disturbing a public assembly” was even a real crime. The police have a way of arresting first, making up charges later. Kind of the way Bush had an attack first, justify later approach to Iraq.
These veterans can see it coming; we are going to bomb Iran and further inflame the Muslim world against us. Regardless of the thousands of Iranians who are opposed to their government, we are going to squander the good will of these people and bomb them in our idiotic, irrational thrust at nation building (We build nations over there and watch our nation fall apart).
Leading the charge, but safely ensconced in his high-rise radio studio will be the screeching, 21st century version of Josef Goebbels, Sean Hannity. He’s the guy who gives free passes for a steak dinner at Ruth’s Chris Steak Houses to soldiers who lose limbs, at his urging, in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Braveheart Hannity finally went to Iraq with the vice president, when he could be protected by the VPs hundred-man security staff.
Right around the corner from the arrest site is the veteran’s homeless shelter filled with con men who were in the service once, those guys have lifelong mental problems, for one everytime there was a peaceful march on behalf of bush or a war or walking for the palestinians the vets would just start beefing and provoking fights with the marchers maybe they do it to comply with how an example of a ex soldier should be, crazy and filled with patriotism,not saying that about the good men from vets for peace who I have had the pleasure to walk with during anti war marches but I am sure the “homeless vets” nearby were provoking hostility as they get a free ride.