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Presidents Day, 2012.
Although the Pentagon and individual services strongly discouraged active duty military personnel from participating in Monday’s march on the White House by veterans and service members supporting Ron Paul, hundreds of them joined the thousands in the march and White House demonstration.
The demonstration had this poignant moment:
Standing at the gates of the White House, hundreds of veterans and active duty service members, including Schlegel, turned their backs.
Together, they saluted one second for every service member who has committed suicide during Barack Obama’s presidency.
After eight minutes of saluting, they observed a 21-minute silent prayer – one second for every service member who died abroad during President Obama’s term.
Coverage of this unprecedented event has been light in the mainstream media. So has the fact that Paul has pulled in about twice as much as the president from serving military, and over 20 times as much as his leading GOP rival from this constituency, Mitt Romney.
The group formed up at the Washington Monument, then marched on the White House:
The group then marched in formation back to the Washington Monument. The numbers of civilians walking behind the official veterans and active duty marching to show that “Ron Paul is the Choice of the Troops” was reported to be over 1,000 family members and supporters. The official march of the troops and veterans themselves is believed to have been an additional over 900 people. It is unclear at this time, how many members of the public may have been in the crowds to observe this historic public statement by our veterans in support of Ron Paul for President of the United States.
This was clearly a unique anti-war march by our nation’s veterans and perhaps could be referred to as one of the most unique in recent history. The official march was heard in cadence to: “End the Fed”, “President Paul”, “End the Wars” and “Ron Paul Revolution, Legalize the Constitution”.
There was initially to be active duty also participating in the march. It is unclear after a warning was said to be issued by top military brass in the last couple of days whether the numbers of active duty members that actually marched today was affected by this warning instructing them not to participate.
Here’s video of the gathering at the Washington Monument:
And Here’s video of the march. There do appear to be many active service members there, though one cannot be sure. No doubt the Defense Department and Secret Service are busy going through their photos and videos, trying to determine which people there are indeed active duty. Will they be given the Lt. Dan Choi treatment?
50 Comments
Figures MSM would try to bury this story. Establishment won’t allow the pesky American people nor those who served in the military to upset their chosen candidates.
Nice piece. Recommended and Tweeted.
At my posting of this at my blog, a longtime friend commented:
I commented in reply:
I’m not going to send Ron Paul any $$$. I’m not going to send Obama any $$$ – unlike 3.5 years ago.
The President’s Day demonstration deserves coverage in spite of neolib pressure to stop bringing visibility to the resonance Paul’s stance against war actually has.
And here I thought that most people, including you, and the troops, were drawn to Paul’s anti-Imperial war stance, not necessarily his libertarianism.
All good perpetrators (R) and their enablers (D) (fascist duopoly) agree that the Imperium must be fed (dead human bodies is the fuel).
That must not be questioned, and is not questioned by the “serious” candidates (I know they’re “serious” because the Empire told me they were serious–you know, “thin crust or thick?” must “bomb, bomb, bomb Iran,” pearls like that.
Thank you EdwardTeller for standing up for human beings who don’t want to be murdered, and human beings that don’t want to be their murderers.
Maybe they should fucking VOTE instead of marching or don’t they know how this works?
The only Americans who have seen war tend to oppose it. Thanks for bringing this to light Mr. Teller.
Thank you very much for posting this. Recommended.
Hey ET,
I am unable to contribute usefully to dialogues about electoral politics any longer……so I won’t attempt it here.
I will forward this post to three Veterans for Peace activists here in Tucson whom I know to be so engaged in Occupy and as our Peacekeepers at Occupy Tucson that they would probably miss what little coverage of this that gets out. Well done. Rec’d.
As an aside, and none of my business, but you might want to ease up on the disappointment with long time friends thing. It is time to close ranks, not create additional gaps. Longtime friends are not replaceable.
A few thoughts:
1) Wonder how many veterans of color were allowed to take part? Didn’t see any in the videos, and they make up nearly a third of all members of the military (http://www.rand.org/publications/randreview/issues/fall2006/volunteer.html). Did see a few women marchers, though how many were veterans and how many were spouses of veterans was impossible to tell.
2) The irony is that Ron Paul would cut the VA that pays for veterans’ benefits, along with cutting back the rest of the Pentagon — at which point this Veterans’ Army would turn into the 21st-century Bonus Army and march on President Paul, and likely be shot at just as the first Bonus Army was:
It is easy for R.P. to have an anti-war stance since there is no way he will ever be held accountable for it since he will never be President and he knows it. All of you Paulbots are so freaking gullible. Feel free to believe that he is sincere but it is nothing more than rhetoric he uses to draw attention to himself. He will benefit financially from this attention long after he has left office through speaking tours and books that you will buy and recommend.
I can only wish the troops had a better candidate to support.
No matter how you parse it it still comes down to this: Ron Paul is an asshole who has proven willing to pander to the Powers That Be in order to get votes and on many other issues has as severe a disconnect with reality as any other tool of the <1%.
The most likely result of a Paul presidency would be an Obama-style capitulation to empire and the wingnut-welfare inspired insanity of the worst aspects of libertarianism.
All I know is that Obama and the other Republican candidates are going to get us into a war with Iran. They have been beating the war drum now for the past several months, but they are spurring Iran on to escalate the situation. They are going to get us into a war and make us pay $10 a gallon at the pump as result.
I can see it now, “Who could have foreseen this! Who could have known!?”
Give me a break. It isn’t about Iran or their nuclear program, this is about never ending war.
I wonder how posting videos of an anti-war march by veterans AND serving military on Presidents Day and posing a question at the end qualifies me as one “of you Paulbots [who] are so freaking gullible.”
You mentioned Paul without spewing ANY irrational hate in his direction. You are now a marked man.
The <1% won't let Ron Paul stop the wars either kinetic or economic… at least until they’ve pounded the entire globe into a bloody mass suitable for remolding as they see fit.
And other aspects of his libertarian philosophy were literally custom-crafted for the benefit of the <1%.
Voting for Paul will get you nothing but Obama saying "This election has taught me that I must move to the center (of the nearest billionaire's ass-crack)"
… but then Obama is going to say that after his re-selection no matter what the people may actually want.
Makes sense to me….
For everyone feeling it necessary to tear Paul down, I would predict that most who post/comment equally despise about 50% of Paul’s positions, and consider those positions dangerous to our progressive values.
But those same policies (the 50% we detest) are supported by all the other Republican candidates to a large degree.
Wouldn’t it be great to have the lessor of all GOP evils on the GOP ticket to contest Obama? Wouldn’t it be great to have someone — ANYONE! — during the Presidential Election debates to give NDAA (indefinite detentions w/out trial), illegal wars, war on whistleblowers, and two-tiered justice a voice?
Would you rather have Rick Santorum on stage debating Obama on America’s ‘War on Christmas’ or would you rather have Paul up there forcing Obama to defend NDAA, and forced to defend his “look forward not backward” (i.e. 2-tier justice) approach to governance?
America as a whole benefits from Paul’s voice. There is no benefit having Obama and Santorum debate over complete & utter nonsense.
Of course, this is all fantastical thinking, since the MSM decided Paul wouldn’t be allowed to win the GOP nomination many many months ago.
Hey Margaret….here’s a link to a HBO documentary called, “Hacking Democracy.” I guess you know how voting works, so I thought I’d maybe add some more information to your view on how things work or actually asking questions as to how things work in this computerized world we live in. Also, cussing is bad karma….
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=rVTXbARGXso
“proven willing to pander to the Powers That Be”
Could we get an example?
“I must move to the center (of the nearest billionaire’s ass-crack)”
ROFLMAO! Outstanding!
I’m choosing not to look at this as having anything to do with any candidate.
It is a condemnation of Obama’s warmongering, and I wish it would snowball. He ought to be sharing a jail cell with Bush and Cheney and the rest of their disgusting crew.
E.T. My appologies for making an assumption that you are a Paulbot. My total dislike of Ron Paul is, however, rational and well thought out.
Thanks. And TheCallUp makes a very reasonable point, too. As does Phoenix Woman regarding the lack of people of color among the Paulites.
ET — thanks — we all must push back — doing these small push back acts can open to big acts taking place. POTUS Obama is not what he suggested he was in 2008 and should be seeing big push backs at the WH to what Obama is doing and is not doing. POTUS Obama seems to think he is good at weaseling and should know the political costs. This Obama WH needs to see this push back.
You get/got to the need to make and main point OmAli — and yes — Obama ought to be in jail with Bush and Cheney. Obama let them go and now should be in jail on doing that legal/political act alone.
No Kings.
We could also ask *why* Paul has received most of the ‘military campaign donations’, dunno if we’d ever find out, or how that figure was computed.
But yes; it is cool to see some folks turn their backs on the Prez, and give some silence to the GI War Dead. Wish they could have done the same for the millions of brown people, too, but they would have had to pitch tents….
But for God’s sake, to be glad at Paul’s widening of the ‘acceptable discourse’ (almost acceptable would be more accurate) does not equate to supporting HIM as a candidate.
My beef is that he’s opposed to war, and the War on Drugs on Constitutional principles (which can be over-ridden by Congress declaring war in his mind), not moral ones. A friend at my other blog home asked, “Waht does it matter if the result is the same?”
War on drugs is state by state, so there’s that ineffectual measure of his ‘Presidency’, but I’d want a candidate who espouses those positions out of either meticulously moral or pragmatic (sane economic, legal, sane use of justice, sane look at racist components, and tra la la).
Still. I’m glad you showed us the video, ET. I’m not afraid of ideas delivered by (very) flawed messengers if it widens the discourse, as Occupy has done.
Well said
One thing that people who proclaim Ron Paul to be a “bigot” don’t understand – we are already a fascist nation, in which 99.89 percent of us do not have a prayer of having any liberties.
Ron Paul openly endorsed gay marriage. He as no problems with people of color having property, or jobs. He does have problems with how laws that were supposed to help people of color get an education and get a job have increasingly been used to shut white people out of their educational process, and also out of the job market. Example: Middle class people in Marin County Calif. have to somehow afford the monies to send their kids to private schools, because increasingly, there are teachers who are not fluent in English hired to teach grade school kids.
How is it that a Chinese person can advertise that they are seeking someone who in fluent in Mandarin to handle their customer service for their business in China Town, yet the average American doesn’t have the right to have their school board hire teachers fluent in English? At what point is enough enough?
I don’t agree with every single thing that Ron Paul says, but he would end the overall fascist rule of law, and the economic system that has enabled the Financial Sector to go from making an eight percent profit as the financial sector did in the early eighties, to the 47 percent profit it makes now. (At the expense of every other sector in the USA.)
Thank you, ET.
This is “people news” and it matters.
It tells us that some members of the military, PW’s point, certainly acknowledged, are, like many human beings in this nation, tired of endless wars and desirous of meaningful and substantive change.
Recommended to the attention of everyone at FDL.
DW
Not interested in your junk “science” nor your opinion.
Anybody who thinks that Paul can or will just stop warring is delusional and anybody who thinks that Paul is going to accomplish things that they agree with while Congress prevents him enacting his more whackadoodle agenda is delusional to the point of incompetence.
?
Calm down.
Were you referring to the documentary Hacking Democracy as “junk science?”
If so, why?
I’ve seen Hacking Democracy and while it makes some valid points, it is very thin on the peer review side. Personally, I don’t like electronic voting and I wish it had never come along. It should be outlawed or at the very least, allow a printed paper ballot in addition to the electronic one which would include both the votes cast, (which would be placed into a box), and a stub for the voter to retain. That being said, there is nothing nothing to stop biased ballot tabulators “miscounting” or “losing” paper ballots. It happens every cycle. Plus there isn’t any voters I’ve heard of who do cast paper ballots who would be able to independently verify the ballots cast in a close or disputed election. So the position of some people seems to be that they’ll trust people counting paper ballots but those same people can’t be trusted to count electronic ballots. You do realize that the ballots in Florida in 2000 were paper, do you not?
As for my vehemence, At age 51, I don’t need scolding for being profane when I wish to nor am I going to take any patronizing admonishments to “calm down”.
Okay, sorry that last paragraph was a bit over the top but the sentiment remains. Troops marching for Ron Paul is just like anybody else delusional enough to believe that Paul would stop so much as one war. But I’m really not going to put up with patronizing or scolding. As a former (reluctant) constituent of Ron Paul and an ex service member, I think I’ve earned the right both to have an opinion on this subject and to express it.
I was referring to his stated views on evolution, climate change etc, which are counter to a what would seem to be a truly libertarian “just the facts” view on the issues… if such a view actually existed.
These expressed views are inconsistent with a libertarian viewpoint.
And the highly-slanted pieces in the newsletters that lead to the “bigoted” charges are just too easily interpreted as supporting all the old conservative memes regarding minorities… also inconsistent with libertarianism.
From that viewpoint the beliefs Paul espouses would indeed be severe pandering by a supposed libertarian to the right-wing memes as enforced by the <1%
But upon examination it seems that Paul does not claim to be a Libertarian but is instead a Conservative… with certain libertarian policies.
In which case those views of his could be sincere… fatally flawed and internally inconsistent with Libertarianism… but sincere nonetheless.
Thank you, Mr. Teller. Thank you, Mr. Paul. And thank you, everyone who marched. Twenty-one minutes of SECONDS for every service member who has died abroad during Obama’s reign. (Not to mention all the other deaths.)
Oh my.
Recommended.
x2.
I don’t like Paul at all, but any group willing to Dump Obama for legitimate reasons is alright with me.
I would suggest that this post is, really, not about Ron Paul, but about a sense of something terribly wrong … and that sense, Margaret, is part of what will grow AND bring about the change which more and more people, even those who “believe” they fundamentally disagree, have come to seek.
There is a turning against warfare, against endless “organized mayhem”, in this society, a society which the 1% are trying to strip of civility and the Rule of Law.
The hope is bigger than a political candidate, it is deeper, it is broader.
That is my sense and intuition.
YMMV.
DW
“Wish they could have done the same for the millions of brown people, too, but they would have had to pitch tents….”
And that is the truth, wendydavis…
You are right. But the whole damn charade entitled “the election” might as well be performed on another planet as far as I’m concerned. As far as any of us is concerned. This play has nothing at all to do with any of us.
Occupy, and the actions of those active service men and women, are the only real signs of hope that I can see…
As Americans we need to adhere to Rule Of Law and if we fail to stand on this line with this current POTUS we open ourselves to the abuses and violations a POTUS Rick Santorum or a POTUS Newt Gingrich can and may well present.
This is about American Rule Of Law being upheld to protect all Americans from legal and political abuse. Barack Obama’s intentions are his — those of Rick Santorum or Newt Gingrich or a Richard B. Cheney are theirs. It is a slippery slope.
Rule Of Law for all Americans is in the interest of all Americans.
The problems Americans have seen in WashingtonDC,on Wall St. and on our Main and the streets we live on have to do with failure to uphold Rule Of Law for all. Good men and women may come and go but then so also do not good men and women. Our first defense against both the well meaning and not so well meaning is to defer to American Rule Of Law. When we do all Americans benefit. We as Americans do well to hold our Presidents to uphold Rule Of Law.
Crying about the long salute and the long silence after for all those military who’ve committed suicide and all those who’ve died abroad since Obama’s been president.
I’m glad they’re marching and they’re honoring their dead and glad they’re rightfully putting those deaths at the feet of Obama.
We’ve come to a very bad place in this country. May we forge the paths that take us into the sunlight.
ET, I just can’t say anything good about Ron Paul, I’m decidedly against anything he’s been for or is
He’s a piece of shit, for all issues he professes to be for.
He’s a proven bigot, homophobe, misogynist, n has NOTHING I care about . . .
He will not benefit the environment, or the masses.
He is poison for the masses, end of story.
Why the fuck would you even speak of him?
Sorry my great respected writer and comrade for the masses, this diary loses me and I continue to reject Ron Paul for his bullshit in respect to us masses.
He’s the fucking enemy, totally, as are the GOP and DIMS.
Sorry hoss we disagree on this one.
I hold NO regard for Paul, NONE!!
Yer effng killin me with this bullshit. Lemme know when you have any fucking proof about Paul and this crap. Here;s yer comment, it;s so fulla shit yer eyes must be brown:
“Ron Paul openly endorsed gay marriage. He as no problems with people of color having property, or jobs. He does have problems with how laws that were supposed to help people of color get an education and get a job have increasingly been used to shut white people out of their educational process, and also out of the job market. Example: Middle class people in Marin County Calif. have to somehow afford the monies to send their kids to private schools, because increasingly, there are teachers who are not fluent in English hired to teach grade school kids.”
WTF?
Holy brain fart Batman …
Do you have any idea how many people you would have support your position if you had just wrote paragraph 1 and 4? Me for example.
But paragraph 2 and 4? I mean WTF? I guess that CA pot must be some good shite. I mean come on.
Did you even read what you wrote? Do you know how paragraph 2 and 4 sound? Do you know how paranoid and delusional those paragraphs sounds?
Worst editing ever. Don’t quit your day job.
Outstanding indeed!
But he’s already raised a billion, no? So what other billionaire’s ass-crack is he going to move to next? I know, rhetorical questions. Mr. Hope and Change will find some new billionaire to toss some salad.
Dude, you’re speaking to the choir on this one.
The sad thing is that people don’t know this.
The only reason I would support Paul is so THAT THESE THINGS WOULD BE TALKED ABOUT.
Versus the inane bullshite coming out of Osterity and whatever clown-car occupant is chosen.
So for the R nominee, I say yes.
It won’t matter because the whole system is fixed. But atleast people can hear some new perspective.
Seconded.
I just want Paul to be nominated so at least someone sill talk about these issues.
Lame.
“We could also ask *why*”
Maybe the people who do the bleeding don’t want any more wars?
Sorry, but after years of Paul aficianados touting his “Libertarian” ways I’d assumed he was at least supposed to be one.
I was surprised to learn that his less-touted (i.e quite unsane) views are supposed to come from genuine conservative religious beliefs and not opportunistic pandering to the powers that be.
Why don’t you check on Pual’s campaign contributions from the PTB?