IVAW DNC Update re LA Times: Once more into the breach!

Together Then...

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VVAW Silent March on Nixon, Demanding our country and our flag back, in Miami, at 1972 RNC

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Together Again...

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Obama camp meets with Iraq war veterans protesting at Democratic convention
By Nicholas Riccardi and DeeDee Correll, Los Angeles Times Staff Writers August 28, 2008

DENVER -- About 50 Iraq war veterans led a boisterous crowd of about 4,000 protesters to the gates of the Democratic National Convention on Wednesday evening, demanding to speak at the podium inside.The four-mile march began at the site of a concert by leftist rock group Rage Against the Machine. It ended five hours later, after the Obama campaign resolved a tense standoff outside the Pepsi Center by agreeing to meet with

representatives of the group, Iraq Veterans Against the War. Click here for complete article.

Another Deja Vus Flash
By
Willie Hager

Winter Soldiers, then and now; speaking Truth to power. Hopefully, this time, the "Change" will actually take. Unlike the last time. And when the champion wins the day, that they honor their words with actions that benefit us all, not just a few voter demographics, like they did after we threw Nixon out and gave the government back to The People.

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I was in Miami in 1972, with the California contingent of the Last Patrol, and was on the Silent March. We were faced off with the Florida Highway patrol, and elements of the 82d Airborne and Florida National Guard. There was fear in their eyes as we shuffled silently by, on our way to the Fontainbleau, where Nixon was holed up. Our silence unnerved them, just as it was intended to do. I am sure that many of them thought that we were going to keep marching right up to the Fontainbleau penthouse (Nixon Bunker) and drag him out into the streets, for all to see and publically revile. They were visibly relieved when we pulled up and rallied around the front of the hotel and began making speeches supporting our Demands, and accusing Nixon and his cronies of being war criminals. You coulda' cut the tension in the air with a knife. What a rush!

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I was in front of the tube, down here in Cracker Swamp, as the New Winter Soldiers of IVAW made their March to the doors of the Pepsi - I'm a Coke man, myself - Center, with their Demands. I pretty much watched full coverage of all the days; never a blip...media blackout, much as with the Winter Soldier I&A in Silver Springs, MD, this past March. I didn't know that The March had happened until I received an e-mail from Jan Ruhman, a back to back VVAW Brother, from The Day. He is also a major SoCal IVAW Supporter, and the Southern California Organizing Contact, for VVAW, with the LA Times IVAW DNC piece attached.

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When I opened it, and saw the picture of the IVAW marchers, striding silently, with such purpose; I really did have a deja vus flashback! What a rush! I knew then that Hope was alive. That the imagery of those few proud Americans facing off with the powers that be, and having their demands met in such a public way and in face of such overwhelming odds, would once again, demonstrate to the American People, as it did in our day; that the power of True Change lies in the principles and in the hands of those willing to sacrifice to bring it about; it is then the Constitutional Duty of the American People to see that it is placed, and retained in the hands of those who share the same principles and sense of Truth; and who won't sell us out, again for personal, political, or capital gain.

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Semper Fi...

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www.VetSpeak.org

Who is the true Elitest?

MCCAIN’S HOUSES – 4? 7? 8?

By

Bonnie Cabrerax

Ed Note: Bonnie Cabrera is the wife of Calixto Cabrera, who is a fellow USMC Vietnam Veteran, and who has been a close and personal friend since back in the day. He is a VetSpeak original, and has been posting with us on various topics for a number of years; including from New Orleans, when he was a shelter manager with the Red Cross there and in Mississippi, following Katrina.WH

McCain says “Obama is affluent and elite.” Those living in multiple glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.

McCain doesn’t even know how many houses he has and the number keeps growing? Obama doesn’t zip between multiple houses in a private jet, and Michelle doesn’t spend $750,000 on credit cards in 1 month.

So between them who is really affluent? Let’s compare financial biographies.

McCain grew up in a privileged military family and for 30 years has enjoyed super wealth with multiple homes, a private jet, and a wife who can spend $750,000 on credit cards in 1 month. They have never struggled financially a day in their lives.

Obama was raised by a single mother on food stamps. His father abandoned them when he was 2. Michelle’s family of 4 lived in a 1 bedroom apartment. Barack and Michelle put themselves through school on scholarships and student loans. After college he worked as a community organizer on $10,000 a year with an old car. He and Michelle have 1 home, and in the last 4 years they have become wealthy.

McCain cannot relate to 95% of Americans. We don’t have 8 houses.

Many of us are trying to keep the one we have from foreclosure, or still dreaming about owning 1 home. McCain is out of touch with everyone except the wealthy.

So which affluent candidate will put “Country First?” Not McCain. Even though his family is extremely wealthy, he wants to give himself an even greater tax cut than Bush did, while the working and middle class get no new tax breaks.

Under Obama all the working and middle class receive tax cuts, while ONLY the very wealthy, including Obama, will pay higher taxes.

Obama is a diverse leader who can relate to all of us, not just the very wealthy. The Obamas have done it all - poor, middle class and wealthy, always maintaining solid family values. Michelle still buys toilet paper at Target.

McCain is so “affluent” he doesn’t even know how many houses he has.

He should stop throwing stones!

www.VetSpeak.org

Healing (and Working) As family

8/29/08
Cynthia Orange
(from the Vets for Peace National Conference)

"How do Americans impacted by the war heal while most of America is in a state of denial?" asked Joan Najbar, a psychologist and mother of an Iraq vet in the workshop she led called "Grieving and Healing from the Wounds of War." One way, she said, is to honor ourselves, our losses, and our struggles by:

• Talking about the impact this war has had on us and our families.
  (This doesn't only mean Iraq and Afghanistan vets. Michael and I know of so many Vietnam vets, peace activists, etc. who were re-traumatized when the U.S. invaded Iraq. We need to acknowledge and honor those old wounds, old scars too that surfaced again as we continue [with no awe but with plenty of ongoing shock] to witness another debacle)
• Taking care of ourselves, our loved ones, and our communities.
• Doing what we need to do to heal from the wounds of war, one day at a time. Joan said this could be by being in nature, doing yoga, opening our eyes and hearts to the beauty around us, doing some art [writing, photography, drawing, poetry. . .) by loving. . .
• Believing we don't have to suffer in silence.
• Coming together to take care of our veterans and their families.
• Finding strength when we come together in action, celebration, and self care.

She demonstrated these last points by having those in attendance stand inside a big circle of spandex material we held behind us (sort of like holding a big, contiguous beach towel around you that extends from shoulders to knees). What became immediately apparent was that each of us leaning against the stretchy fabric allowed the others to also lean against it. We provided strength and resilience to each other, but if our "support" was withdrawn suddenly, the entire group was affected.

This reminded me of a story my dear friend Christina Baldwin (author of "Story Catcher") told me about a village in Africa that endured tribal wars where the guerrilla armies of the hill people stole the young boy children of the valley people and forced them to fight against their own tribe. UNICEF heard of this atrocity and decided to buy back the children and reintroduce them to their villages.

The UNICEF workers would drive into these remote villages with several boys who had been gone for two, three, four years; boys whose childhoods had been stolen, whose souls were wracked with the guilt of what they had done. They went to the tribal elders and asked them ‘We have brought them home to you, but they are not the same. What will you do?’
‘We will light a fire in the center of the village every night for a year,’ the elders replied. ‘The boys will be required to come and tell their stories and listen to the reactions of the villagers. We will weep together for what this war has done. We will talk until the war is talked out of them, until the sorrow is healed, until the fire is burned up.’

Christina reminds people that the word "heart" has "ear" in the middle of it, and she urges us to listen with the "ears of our hearts."

For me, this is a large part of what this conference is all about: gathering in tribe as people have done since ancient times; sitting around our metaphorical fire as one family--warriors from many wars, peacemakers from different eras, and fathers and mothers who worry and wait for their soldiers to come home and grieve those who won't return to them.

I walk down the halls of the Ramada and hear so much laughter, witness so many embraces, watch as new friendships are forged, new intense conversations unfold. Attendees go from workshop to workshop (and there are so many diverse workshops), from experience to experience, and emerge revitalized; clearer in their peacemaking tasks, buoyed by just being together in family, as tribe.

As anthropologist Margaret Mead once said, "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it is the only thing that ever has."

www.VetSpeak.org

Heroes: Then, Now, and Still...

Cynthia Orange
8/29/08

Yesterday at lunch, my husband Michael asked Twin Cities peace icon and Vets for Peace member Marv Davidov who his heroes are today. Without hesitation, he nodded at one of the many Iraq Veterans Against the War who are here holding their own conference in conjunction with the Vets for Peace annual conference. “These young vets are my heroes,” said Davidov. “And my surgeon…”, he added.

Marv, some 70 years young, is still waiting for a kidney transplant. When he first met the doctor who will do the surgery, Marv asked him right off what he thought about the Iraq war. After stating his strong opposition to it, the doctor shared that he had been kicked out of the Air Force during Vietnam for refusing to drop cluster bombs on villages there. “I got kicked out of the Army!” Marv told him. The fact that Marv was the founder of the Honeywell Project—the corporation so infamous for making those horrific cluster bombs—only intensified the bond with his doctor.

Marv showed us a gorgeous book that has just been published about the 1960s freedom riders who rode buses to Mississippi to register southern blacks to vote. Of course Marv (who spent 45 days in a Mississippi jail for his civil rights activities) was one of the featured activists.

That was just one of his over 50 arrests for nonviolent civil disobedience, and he was lamenting the fact that he should probably no longer risk getting arrested because of his health. He has dialysis three times a week but was able to change dialysis days next week—so rest assured he’ll be marching on Sunday with Vets for Peace and on Monday during the RNC.

Through the years and various peace actions, we’ve had the privilege of listening to Marv tell his tales that are dotted with other paragons of peace: The Chicago Eight, Noam Chomsky, the Berrigan brothers, etc. etc. etc. etc.

This place is filled with heroes like Marv—the brave vets and their sisters and brothers in the peace movement, including the Gold Star families, who are also here, grieving together over the loved ones lost to the insanity of this war. They are threads in the colorful tapestry of peace we continue to weave. And in their tireless efforts, a bright hope emerges. . .

www.VetSpeak.org

Hearts and Voices United

8/28/08
Cynthia Orange

“Drums are a heartbeat,” explained Deborah Guerrero, before she helped launch the Veterans for Peace national conference today in the Twin Cities with her open-throated, open-hearted indigenous songs. And you could feel it...the heartbeats of veterans and those who support them, pounding in unison as the energy of being in community, in family, grew and enveloped us. She sang and drummed an “honor song,” paying tribute and giving back to those who have given so much. “Bless this path we all walk together,” she sang, and I envisioned the hundreds gathered together at the Ramada hotel—just across the way from that icon of excess: the Mall of America—garnering collective courage, walking together toward the common goal of peace.

And then Clyde Bellecourt, one of the founders of the American Indian Movement (AIM), whose spirit name is “Thunder Before the Storm,” talked about his warrior father, a veteran of World War I, who taught him it was the responsibility of those in the tribe to feed those who didn’t have a father or big brother to feed them. “We didn’t wait for the last Thursday of November,” he said. “For us, every day of the month and every month of the year was Thanksgiving.” Bellecourt said his brother who fought in World War II, carried the war with him until he died of alcoholism—an escape too many veterans seek.

And then he invited seven representatives to come forward and smoke the sacred peace pipe with him as world champion Native American drummers echoed more heartbeats.

It was the perfect start to what promises to be a memorable experience.

It is fitting that this conference began on this, the 45th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King Junior’s “I Have a Dream” speech and the 80th anniversary of the day the government recognized that women had the right to vote. Michael McPhearson, Executive Director of Veterans for Peace, said it is no coincidence that these anniversaries come at a time when we had a Black man and a woman running for president and a Black man (McPhearson) standing before us as executive director of a predominantly white organization introducing a woman (Kelly Dougherty) who serves as executive director of Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW)—a predominantly male organization. It is a reminder, said McPhearson, that our rights belong to us—they are not the government’s to give.

Kelly Dougherty had just come back from the Democratic National Convention in Denver. She described the amazing victory IVAW had there when they teamed up with the popular band “Rage Against the Machine” at the Denver Coliseum to deliver their message of peace to an audience of 9,000. “We announced from the stage that we were leading a march (unpermitted) to the DNC at the Pepsi Center. It started out with about 3,500 and grew to 8,000-10,000.” Dougherty said it was their intention to deliver a letter to Barack Obama stating the goals of IVAW and asking him—the purported anti-war candidate—to endorse their stances on veterans’ rights and issues. She described being blown away by the cooperation of the police, who escorted them to the Pepsi Center and their ability to deliver their letter to Obama staff. Her victory was shared by the audience who rose as one to give her—and IVAW—the standing ovation they so deserve.

Father Roy Bourgeois, a cofounder of the School of America watch, described his first time in jail as a “sacred” experience. “When we are compelled to follow our conscience, we are free,” he said, reminding us of Bishop Romero’s words: “Let those who have a voice speak for those whose voices have been taken away. Let those who have a voice work for justice.” Those who gather together at this conference as veterans and peacemakers have a voice, he said. It is up to us to speak clearly and boldly in the difficult days ahead.

Folksinger and peace activist Larry Long concluded the opening ceremony with stories of his own journey as a conscientious objector during the Vietnam War and peace activist with a song he wrote for his friend, John, who died from complications of Agent Orange exposure last year. “I thought the war was over, but the war has just begun for my wife and children; for the ones I love. They said there was no danger; this I did believe. I was bound to serve my country. My country ‘tis of thee.”

For the hundreds of Vets for Peace and those who support them--witnesses of too much war and too much pain—the war and the world is too much with them. But their voices—those brave and strong voices who dare speak truth to power—are coming together here at this conference, singing their songs of peace and hope. And their hearts—their warrior hearts that ache with the heavy burdens they bear—beat together in a unified drumbeat they hope the world will hear.

www.VetSpeak.org