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GORDON DUFF: DIVIDED AND CONQUERED: AMERICA’S MILITARY AND VETERANS
CAN WE TURN AMERICA’S “STEP CHILDREN” INTO A UNIFIED FORCE?
RESTORING RESPECT FOR MILITARY AND VETERAN VOTERS
By Gordon Duff STAFF WRITER
Every special interest group from the doctor’s union (American Medical Association) to the US Chamber of Commerce and National Association of Manufacturers (the “starvation wage”/no insurance lobby), not to mention “big tobacco” or “big oil,” owns a big chunk of our government, bought and paid for with the kind of money no veteran’s group will ever be able to match.
The Hatch Act, a law ignored when the illegal lobbying is done to help the boys in the last paragraph, is supposed to outlaw political activity in the military and federal agencies. Veterans groups push here, push there and spin their wheels with “big show/no go” controversies like “flag burning” but too often back political candidates that are neither veterans nor supporters of military and veterans issues, real “quality of life” issues.
With many members of congress getting military and veteran votes but taking the wrong side on our issues and too many of that support our legislation but fail to assist the veterans in their own districts, we have become “America’s stepchildren.” Let’s leave fighting the “boogeyman” to those best armed for that war, the TV and radio “talking heads,” and begin standing, united for once and for all.
OUR HISTORY OF “BLINDLY” GIVING VOTES AWAY
The military and veteran vote has always been considered as going to Republican candidates. The officer corps, especially graduates of the service academies, as Dave Hackworth called them, “the perfumed princes of the Pentagon,” range from “conservative” to well into the “totalitarian” and even “feudal nobility” range.
Following them politically is like voting yourself back into 10th century serfdom.
Our primary veterans groups, the VFW and American Legion used to be opposites, with the VFW being Roosevelt Dem’s and the Legion being very right wing. Now they are both rubber stamps for any flag waving politician who is both “blustery” and very right wing, no matter how they vote on veterans issues.
VETERANS ORGANIZATIONS AND THE “CHEATER’S SCORECARD”
With members of the military and veterans groups breaking with their leaders and voting Democrat in the last election, we may have elected a party more willing to “fund” our needs but also one that has never heard our voice.
We don’t have a voice.
Some groups, like the American Legion, give high ratings to politicians who continually vote against veterans funding. Others, like the DAV, are more selective and supportive of military families and veterans. How can organizations that say they support veterans and the military be so much at odds and have nobody know it?
When John McCain pointed out he had received awards from nearly every veterans group but had one of the worst voting records in Congress, not only on issues for military families and veterans but, insanely, on POW issues, some of us began taking notice.
“THE LULL IN LYING:” WITH ELECTION YEAR POSTURING OVER, A CHANCE FOR US TO RALLY AND ATTACK
The election is over. We won but we also lost. The VA is still the VA. Secretary Gates, though appointed by President Bush, is reforming many practices in the military but as with the VA, we suspect too many things will be “painted and saluted” but quickly return to “business as usual.”
Until we are ready to end exploitation of members of the military and veterans community by political special interest groups that control some of the most influential veterans organizations, and get real information and real accountability into play, we will always be abandoned and forgotten like the POWs of Vietnam.
VETERAN’S GROUPS ARE “THE TAIL”…..WE ARE “THE DOG”….AND WE CAN BITE
Organizations that support candidates who vote for new expensive and useless weapons but could care less if a veteran and his family lose their homes or a returning reservist is pushed out of his job can no longer be allowed to pretend to speak for anyone but their puppeteer masters.
The only answer is the truth, shining the light of day onto the problem and the problem is our own government, Congress, the VA and the Pentagon. Every decision needs to be HONESTLY evaluated as to how it effects the lives and welfare of veterans and the military.
If they take care of us, as they had promised, we will take care of America. We have been doing it for well over 200 years.
VERIFICATION: SEEKING OUT WMD’S IN THE DC “SEWER SYSTEM”
Every bill, every budget item needs to be evaluated with common sense, reading thru the subterfuge and “weasel words” that make black into white and up look like down.
Every representative needs to account for the veterans they have helped in their district. How many were really helped and how many were ignored in favor of helping country club buddies with fat checkbooks?
Military and veterans need honest information, not propaganda or phony flag waving. With the truth in our hands, we can weigh our own interests in an honest manner for the first time and vote as we will, informed, not “disinformed.”
Gordon Duff is a Marine combat veteran and regular contributor on political and social issues.
Related Posts:
Short URL: http://www.veteranstoday.com/?p=6845
Posted by Gordon Duff on May 18 2009, With 0 Reads, Filed under Veteran Service Organizations. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
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Amen!
I half believe that somebody somewhere needs to fund an Unalligned Veterans of America group to pick and choose our way throgh the various candidates for election in all fifty states for local, state and local elections. We tack up that candidate’s voting record on a website and then let the veterans choose. We must stop using the major veterans’ groups as a sounding board as to who is veteran friendly and who is not. They are not reliable and do not represent our interests. They have proven that over and over.
CWO3 Tom Barnes, USCG (Ret.)
Sorry…I am a bit off today…that should read "..for local, state and national elections".
Tom,
This is where I hope I am pointing. Can we do this and still go to the VFW pancake breakfasts at the same time?
g
Here’s your web site…..
http://www.votesmart.org/issue_rating_detail.php?r_id=3483 ..
My “reprehensible” for Fresno Ca. votes a straight republican ticket 66% but some are worse
Okay, Daffy Duff is back, blaming the Republicans for everything. YOu really need to get help because you keep forgetting who put you into Vietnam and then lost the war for you here at home: Democrats. And who tried to cut the money for the troopss in Iraq? Democrats. So please get off that dead horse and get back to your point: Nobody respects the military or gives a damn for Veterans because Nixon killed the Draft. You want politicians who care? Bring back the Draft with no deferrments or non-service, no substitute service (like the peace corps). Anyone excused can only be excused by a unanimous vote of a board of Veterans (EM) with combat experience and at least one Purple Heart.
It will take time, but at some point, men and women politicians will have paid the price and finally the Military and Veterans will be respected again. Just one proiblem: A Congress that will not bring gack the Draft.
So that’s the other “single” issue for Veterans. Vote only foir Candidates who promise to BRING BACK THE DRAFT!
Antiquis temporibus, nati tibi similes in rupibus ventosissimis exponebantur ad necem.
IAVA has done a great job of supporting real funding for veterans benefits and pragmatically ranking politicians who claim to support the military but don’t back it up with substance. There are also new nonpartisan organizations out there like Blue Star Families, http://bluestarfam.org, dedicated to breaking down the divide between our national leaders and military families. They’re trying. They just need people to listen.
A Double AMEN Gordon, Amen!!
And for this ‘the blue max’, you’d better catch up there son!! Regurgitating the ‘rushlican’ talking points don’t fly with those of us not led around by the nose ring like you!
Take a good look at All that has come out and is still rising to the surface of the care and support of the soldiers, and their families, in these last 7plus years as invasions and occupations raged on and were Cheered On by those willing to send Others!
Take a Good Look at the Hearings and Investigations within the government, and in the media the investigative reporting, these last 2years, Finally, and all that is being brought forth that was Not Done Nor Mentioned Nor even given a Crap About, by the party of ‘Strong National Defense’!!
Now lets go back to your Memory Lane visit to our conflict and occupation, ‘Nam, and who kept us there for years longer than we should have, think little nixon, and since we get clowns like you still doing the ‘nixonian verbal spitting’ on us ‘Nam Vets!!
Get your senses back, if you ever had your own, and join reality!!
By the way, Ill just Bet you still get a kick out of the ‘purple heart bandages’, I know some of your ilk still do, had a nice tear down of those little ‘chickenhawks’ recently!!
‘Navy ’67-’71 All Shore GMG3 ’70-’71 ‘Nam In- Country!
And a lifetime Indie!!
Good Morning Max,
I see the goat turds are still around. I must give you credit for a perfectly warped and demented view of reality. Although all Veterans benefits since the Continental Congress’s day have been and still creatures of the political system it is rather inconsistent that one party or the others has Veterans interest in mind.
I will defend Nixon on the issue of Veterans benefits. During his administration several new Medical Centers were authorized and built and VA healthcare was their for ALL Veterans at no cost. During the Vietnam War initial VA claims were routinely adjudicated with in three months and this was long before computerized records. Ford wasn’t in long enough to have much of an effect on Veterans issues, but Carter sure fu**ed things up.
It was under Carter’s head of the then Veterans Administration Max Cleland that things really went in the toilet, and we haven’t recovered from Carter/Cleland yet. To be civil about Sec. Cleland he shamelessly walked over Veterans backs to advance his own political goals, and although he would lose his Senate seat to a Draft Dodger, I don’t remember any Veterans shedding tears, Max. Max Cleland’s lasting memorial with in the VA is establishing co-pays for services and prescriptions.
The Reagan Administration ripped the heart out of the VA mainly the handy work of David Stockman head of OMB. Funding cuts and low balling of the number of Veterans who applied for VA benefits tore the institution apart. The most lasting memory of the Reagan Administration is the elimination of benefits and TREATMENT for substance abuse. This misguided cost cutting by Mr. Stockman took the lives (suicides) of many Veterans and in the end cost society far more the meager amount of VA funding that was cut. Bush (41) was just more of Reaganomics, even after Gulf War I, Bush (41) was still cutting VA budgets, and people wonder why Bush a genuine WWII hero was defeated by a Vietnam Draft Dodger.
Clinton though that the cutting VA funding was part of the “Peace Dividend” that came with the ending of the Cold War. Both Healthcare and Disability payments were reduced under Clinton, the feeling that many Veterans have today for the Clintons regardless of their other political feelings is fully justified. Toward the end of his administration Clinton did increase budgets a little but it was way to little to late.
Bush (43) used the Veterans Administration as a piggy bank, his first Sec. of the VA Anthony Principi was in it for his own personal gain and greed, he was the principal stock holder in a company, and now CEO of a firm that contracts for doing exams for VA disability claims, they are paid on incentives that don’t include being fair to Veterans.
His next Sec. of veterans Affairs was James Nicholson a Republican political hack who will be long remembered as taking a $ billion here or a billion there from the VA Healthcare Budget for other Government uses. The total robbed from Veterans during the Bush (43) years is in excess of $10 billion of Congressional authorized funding. It is noted that during the constant wars of the Bush Administration there are five fewer VAMC then when he too office, and two Central Florida and Las vegas that were authorized under Clinton were never built.
Obama, well it’s still a work in progress. Everyone who knows or knows of general Eric Shenseki says he is the right guy to set things right in the VA, but so far all that I have seen is some promises. I know that this is a work that yet to started because Sec. Shenseki doesn’t have his own budget yet, and word from the field is that badly needed money is being released into the system that Bush had with held in his last budget, but it’s still to early to pass judgments.
ALLONS,
Byron Skinner
Thank you for the very interesting and informative article with which I agree completely.
I am a Vietnam War combat veteran.
The “social contract” is the relationship between the individual, other citizens, and the state which consists of a reciprocal respect for and defense of individual, group, and national interests and liberties.
Of course, the prime and most important requisite for a national “social contract” is national defense and military service.
The military veteran, therefore, fulfills the most part of a nation’s “social contract.”
If a nation and a nation’s citizens do not reciprocate their duty to protect the military veteran’s rights and liberties, the result will most likely be that there will be an annihilation of the primary social contract, that of military service and national defense.
As the article surmised, our leading military service organizations, inclusive of the VFW and the American Legion, have failed in this regard.
Our nation’s politicians and the American people have, also, abrogated their duties to veterans with regard to the same.
Those who have the most to lose with regard to their individual rights and liberties, through the concept of a “social contract”, seem to be the most flagrant and aggressive with regard to abusing this “social contract” with regard to veterans.
The American people, our veterans service organizations, veterans,
and the American government must assertively address the aforementioned annihilation of the “social contract” with regard to military veterans or face the slavery, national destruction, and despotism that will eventually result.
As a 1964 U.S. Army length of service ;military retiree i FIND THIS PROPAGANDA BY Duff to be self serving.
I’m having a hell of a time to get this posted because they tell me I DON’T know my identification.
wdgray@shawneellink.net
I’ve been BETRAYED along with 432,000 cohorts on retired pay and loss of my earned life-time haltth care.