Veterans for Peace

Veterans for Peace

I recently joined along with my oldest son the Veterans for Peace newly formed Long Island Chapter. They are having a protest in Great Neck today (June 19, 2006) where the President is going to visit. I am not going because for one thing my son is working and two I know from working in Great Neck for the Phone Company that traffic is bad on Lakeville Road on a normal day much less when the President is visiting. So that is in part why I am writing this today although I would have written it one day anyway.
The Military which is made up mostly with the working class people have been used to put down their fellow working people though out history and especially in the last hundred years to fight wars for corporate profit. I realize we have to find a way to keep the economy going in peace time so there will not be any more need for war. My Father used to say that the reason we got into World War two late was because there is more profit in a long war than a short one. When he said it I thought he was being too cynical who could let so many die just to make more money. But as I read about the slaughter of working men in World War one mostly British, French, German and Russians then Americans with the “Generals” asking for more working men to throw into the fight. Then there was the use of troops to put down strikes for better working conditions in the textile mills of New England, the Railroads and steel mills of Pennsylvania or the massacre of innocent Miners and their families in Ludlow Colorado (read Howard Zinn’s books A People’s History of the United States 1492 – Present and Three Strikes by Howard Zinn along with Dana Frank and Robin D.G. Kelly)
If those reasons are not enough can the United State afford to be the Policemen of the world forever or will we run out of blood or money first. We will talk about that in a later posting.