MUST READ Tom Hayden:Chickenhawks better duck

>>>>>>>
If I were George W. Bush, I would be terrorized by the eyes of those
scruffy-looking veterans, the so-called band of brothers, volunteering
for duty with the Kerry campaign. They look like men with scores to
settle, with a palpable intolerance toward the types who sent them to war
for a lie, then ignored their Agent Orange illness, cut their GI
benefits, treated them like losers and still haven't explained what that war
was about. They know Jane Fonda is a diversion from a larger
battlefield. They are the sort who will keep a cerebral United States senator
grounded, who have finally figured out who their real enemies are and who
are determined that this generation hear their story anew. They are
gearing up for one last battle.

Chickenhawks better duck.

http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20040322&s=hayden

snip>

Erased from public memory is the fact that Fonda's purpose was to use her celebrity to put a spotlight on the possible bombing of Vietnam's system of dikes. Her charges were dismissed at the time by George H.W. Bush, then America's ambassador to the United Nations, who complained of a "carefully planned campaign by the North Vietnamese and their supporters to give worldwide circulation to this falsehood." But Fonda was right and Bush was lying, as revealed by the April-May 1972 White House transcripts of Richard Nixon talking to Henry Kissinger about "this shit-ass little country":

NIXON: We've got to be thinking in terms of an all-out bombing attack.... I'm thinking of the dikes.

KISSINGER: I agree with you.

NIXON: ...Will that drown people?

KISSINGER: About two hundred thousand people.

It was in order to try to avert this catastrophe that Fonda, whose popular "FTA" road show (either "Fun, Travel, Adventure" or "Fuck the Army") was blocked from access to military bases, gave interviews on Hanoi radio describing the human consequences of all-out bombing by B-52 pilots five miles above her. After her visit, the US bombing of the dike areas slowed down, "allowing the Vietnamese at last to repair damage and avert massive flooding," according to Mary Hershberger.

snip>

Thanks to Iowa Biker for this post-caucus post:

"....The other factor is the veteran vote. I'd dismissed it as a secondary or tertiary factor before tonight, but it is very real. It's not something you see in the numbers, but feel in a crowd. And I'm sure a lot of 50-60 somethings felt it. I missed 'nam by a couple of weeks. Tested, pre-enlisted and all but signed up with a low double-digit lottery number. I was ready to go when Nixon cancelled the draft. But I'm old enough to see the hurt and emptyness that so many vets returned home with. At a Kerry rally, that look of loss is gone. This candidate, like no other I've ever seen, gives these guys hope, and for good reason. He as fought for them ever since he got back...."

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=132&topic_id=144884

of the Port Huron Statement. http://porthurontokentstate.tripod.com/PortHuronStatement.htm
Do not forget, Liberals, this manifesto from the Left. Read your roots.
I hope Kerry brings Hayden onboard.

and more from blm's Hayden link:

"If there is any cure for this mouth-foaming mass pathology in a democracy, it may lie at the heart of John Kerry's campaign for the presidency. Rather than distance
ourselves from the past, as the centrist amnesiacs would counsel, perhaps we should finally peel back the scabs and take a closer look at why all the wounds
haven't healed. The most meaningful experience of John Kerry's life was the time he spent fighting and killing in Vietnam and then turning around to protest the
insanity of it all. Instead of wrapping himself in fabrications, he threw his fantasies and delusions, and metaphorically his militarism, over the White House fence.
That's what many more Americans need to do."

peace,
dp

goddamnit, it is so good to hear veterans talking about the real stuff. my mom is a SW at a VA and I know a couple veterans in my family, and they got so robbed and used and still get robbed and used...

I am hopeful that Kerry will deliver some justice in this world, soon.

We are overdue.

great post
:hi: