Memorial Day and friends

  • May 27, 2019

I post this every Memorial Day to remember my friends whose lives were cut short in the Vietnam War. Let’s continue to lift our voices against the insanity of war and insist that peace be given a chance. Too many flowers have gone. SW 

Today, I will again lift a pint of ale in memory of my three friends and their comrades who died in Vietnam.

I honor them without honoring the aggressive and unjust war in which they fought.

I don’t know what their reasons were for joining the military, maybe it was simply that the draft gave them no choice, but it really doesn’t matter. What I do know, f0r sure, is that their lives were unnecessarily cut short.

As a young peace activist in the late 60s, I probably didn’t always make a distinction between the soldiers fighting the war and the war itself. The soldier and the general were equally responsible as I saw it.

But I think differently now. I place the main responsibility for war on its architects in high places and a social system – capitalism – whose logic is to expand, dominate, and make war.

Ricky, Tuna and Cotter — my friends, all of whom were good at merrymaking — were at the bottom of the food chain of war making, nothing but cannon fodder, They were working class kids whose lives didn’t count for much in our government’s war plans. None of them were born with a silver spoon in their mouths, which is why in no small measure they ended up with a gun in their hand so far away from their homes.

I will always wonder what kind of lives they would have lived has they safely returned. With no hero’s welcome, no counseling waiting for them, no easy slide into a well paying job, I can’t help but think if they would have had the internal resources and support to come to terms with their war experience and live productive lives?

I easily (perhaps unfairly) doubt it, because each of them was not that different from me, and I have no confidence at all that I could have made that transition. It was hard enough to grow up in the 1960s without the ghastly and up close bloodletting of Vietnam on my emotional resume.

I wish, though, that they had a chance. I wish that their lives hadn’t been wasted doing things that no one should be forced to do. I wish that they had the opportunity to live long and, to the degree possible, joyfully.

I miss them. I celebrate them. They were “my buddies, my friends.” I wish they could join me at the Bronx Ale House today for a pint in their honor, although knowing them, I suspect, a single pint wouldn’t quite satisfy them, or me for that matter.

I also wish that we would toast to the millions in our generation who opposed the war. Some of them lost their lives, some of them went to jail, and some of them were scarred by the experience. They, too, deserve to be honored. In choosing to oppose the war, it was our generation’s “Finest Hour.”

Finally, I like to think that the four of us would clink glasses to the people of Vietnam who suffered so much during and after the war, and who are now rebuilding their country in conditions of peace.

Maybe that would be too much to expect. Unfortunately, I will never know. They will join me only in memory this afternoon. I wish it were different, but I will treasure their memory anyway, as I wash down my pint of ale.

Beware

  • May 16, 2019

The singular focus on the draconian features of the abortion bill passed by the Alabama legislature is understandable. They are draconian. But such a narrow focus can easily become a problem when it is turned into a pivot by anti-abortion advocates and too many well meaning people to legitimize a more “reasonable and humane” legislative bill to limit a woman’s right to make her own reproductive decisions.

The framing in this contentious fight isn’t pro-life vs pro-choice, but pro-choice vs anti- choice.

Peace sentiment endures

  • May 16, 2019

War threats and the peace movement is barely in sight. Ironically, peace sentiment endures, and broadly so, and acts as a restraint on Trump’s war making. The Iraq debacle still resonates with lots of people across the country. This enduring feeling provides the ground on which to not only challenge the Trump administration’s militarist rhetoric and actions, but also the assumptions that underlie both.

Greenhouse on the courts and abortion rights

  • May 15, 2019

Here is an interview of Linda Greenhouse, who covered the Supreme Court for many years for the NYT and has few peers when it comes to understanding the court and its decisions. Its focus is on Roe vs Wade and the struggle for abortion rights. It took place shortly before yesterday’s draconian action by the Alabama legislature to outlaw abortion. I thought you also might find it illuminating.

Crisis and not just constitutional

  • May 14, 2019
Some say that we aren’t in a constitutional crisis. The proponents of this point of view argue that the courts have yet to register their opinion on Trump’s refusal to cooperate with Congressional oversight. And in the event that they rule against the administration, we don’t know what the White House would do. Would it comply with the ruling? Or would he defy it? And if it did then what?
 
I can’t think of a more narrow, sterile, and formal way to determine whether we are in a constitutional crisis. Any answer to this question has to employ a much wider lens. When we do, we observe that in the wake of the Mueller report, Trump and his coalition of supporters in and outside of government have become more emboldened, not chastened. Their obstruction and lawlessness continue unabated. They openly sport an “enemies” list. The finger of executive privilege meets every request from Congress. Nixon’s transgressions look like small potatoes in some ways. Moreover, the earlier push back, mild as it was, from the National Security State and the Republican Party against the Trump administration has largely disappeared. Worse still, Trump has his guys, or better hacks, at Justice, State, and Defense now, not to mention John Bolton as his National Security advisor and his new appointees on the Supreme Court. 
 
Finally, this right wing, white nationalist authoritarian political bloc, headed by this reckless and narcissistic president, is executing at this very moment a broad scale, offensive at home and internationally to make the world bend, and break if necessary, to its dictates. Such an offensive can only happen by further laying waste to constitutional and democratic norms and institutions as well as people’s lives, economic well being, and rights. The crisis of this moment then is political as well as constitutional, immediate as well as general.
 
While next year’s elections can’t come soon enough, it is imperative that the leaders of the diverse coalition resisting Trump finds ways at this moment to practically engage and unite the majority of the people that oppose this exceedingly dangerous turn in our country’s politics. Later could well be too late!
Share This