CHICKENHAWKS ROOST IN THE BUSH

Now is a time of great shame for the American people. Never in the history of America have the men who fought our wars been so badly treated as currently. From Gore through triple amputee, Vietnam vet, Max Cleland to John Kerry, the men who fought are being trashed by the men who ducked and covered—Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz. The list of Republican cutan’runners is endless, and even John McCain, a Republican, is largely without honor in his own party.

These chickhawk Republicans are without honor and without compassion. That’s why it’s so easy for the chickenhawks to send our sons and daughters off to die—they lack compassion. Compassion is the capacity to feel another’s pain, to be able to walk in another’s shoes, and we all remember how much fun conservative’s make of that saying, don’t we?

I was fortunate to have served in the Navy from 1955 through 1958, a time of peace, and so I could later oppose the war in Vietnam without tarnish to my reputation, and I opposed the Vietnam war because I had compassion. And so when I tell you that the Bushites don’t have compassion, you can believe me. Their lack of compassion is why America is beginning to sink into a permanent depression for so many who live in poverty without the safety net which sustained Americans since the days of Roosevelt.

The Bushites are not the men of the Greatest Generation who fought, died and built America to its greatest times. Those people, my fathers and uncles, aunts and mothers, had courage and compassion. The Bushites have neither courage nor compassion. That America honors chickenhawks with high office is a tremendous disgrace to America’s name.


Subject: In Memorium
Date: April 21, 2003 3:49 PM
From: george thomas
To: INLANDER (a local weekly of great esteem)

Dear Editor,

You can argue or pray. You can espouse Christianity, Islam or Judaism and hate/love your neighbor for his beliefs. You can exult or be depressed, you can be pro or anti Shrub, Saddam or Sharon. You can support the war vigorously, wave flags, decorate your cars with them, give your neighbors the finger, honk horns at one another, pray, meditate get together your packets for the troopers—you can do all of that you want, but to the ones who are dead, what you do or say now—it don’t mean a thing. They no longer take sides.

The dead are passed into silence. They no longer hear and they no longer care about us or what we believe. They don’t care if America’s the most feared nation in the world or whether, like the “elated” Shrub after a Texas football game, you hook your pathetic ego to America’s victory to give meaning to your meaningless existence. The dead won’t hold a child again or make love to a mate or dance or sing, breathe the air again or lift their faces to the sunshine on a beach or mountainside or toil over a lathe, drive a gashog, own guns, or sit behind a banker’s or a president’s stupid little desk. They don’t care!

Quibble on, O, mankind! Death enjoys your contests. Your fear of death gives life to death. It awaits the next contest and says, “Bring it on, baby! I thrive on your victories.”

Sincerely,

Geo


"Keep breathing." —Sophie Tucker (1884?-1966)