IF NOT THE VETS, WHO? IF NOT NOW, WHEN?
Posted in Michael O'McCarthy's Blog, Main Blog (All Posts) on January 2nd, 2008 5:49 pm by Michael O'Mccarthy
Michael O’McCarthy
Activist Tells Congress About Suicide Epidemic Among Vets
By Penny Coleman, AlterNet - January 2, 2008
This is one of today’s Alternet headlines. The one that grabbed me. Another recent headline was about the failure of the VA to accurately diagnose and treat the growing victims of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD,) among the returning Iraq - Afghanastan vets. Another chronicled the extraordinary percentage of vets who compose the nation’s homeless. Again and again these headlines are Vietnam Deja Vu All Over Again. And again, the Congress and the Bush-Cheney war maching do nothing. As if!
Here’s the truth: NOTHING - NOTHING will be done as long as the vets themselves don’t rise up, rally the American people and force this war mongering goverment to change policy.
We set the precedent, albeit very late, in 1981 when Vietnam vets, era and combat veterans began a sit-in strike at the Brentwood VA hospital after the death of Jim Hopkins, a suicide by all reliable accounts. Failing an honorable response by the Reagan administration that called them “rabble,” Vietnam combat veterans began a hunger strike that finally reached the halls of congress: the vets marched everyday into the offices of the all too silent Congresspeople; finally striking a nerve with then Congresspeople like Daschle and Bonoir who were vets themselves.
Threatening to die in front of the White House raised the ante. The American people were not prepared to accept their guilt at letting their government continue Washington’s malfeasance and negligence. The vets won, keeping the threatened Vet Centers open and forcing the further studies into Agent Orange (the poisonous, dioxin-based herbicide sprayed over “enemy” and friendly alike in the “bush” of Southeast Asia,) and into the reality and effects of PTSD.
As for any victimized populace, rarely do the “do gooders” come to the rescue. Complaining, lobbying, getting Alternet headlines will not work: The people, drugged with the messianic BS of Bush, reality run way model and dysfunctional nut case family TV shows, terrified of confronting the Homeland Security apparatus that can dub them suspect at any moment without rhyme nor reason, will not respond until forced to. Forced to by either having the veil of denial ripped from their eyes by direct action, or confronted by their own vulnerability as their brothers, sisters, fathers and mothers, kin and neighbors continue to be victimized.
But somebody must lead. If not the Vets themselves, who? - If not now, when?
Michael O’McCarthy
