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November 9, 2005
– Remember
wonderful moments like this from the Vice Presidential debate held
back on October 5, 2000. Then former-Secretary of Defense Dick
Cheney answered a question about the state of the military at that
time
(C-SPAN:
Presidential Debates 2000):
"...we're over-committed and we're
under-resourced. This has had some other unfortunate effects."
Then Cheney was asked about the Middle
East:
"My guess is that the next
administration is going to be the one that's going to have to come
to grips with the current state of affairs there. I think it's very
important that we have an administration where we have a president
with firm leadership, who has the kind of track record of dealing
straight with people, of keeping his word, so that friends and
allies both respect us and our adversaries fear us."
Uh...
Now, we don't want to get into putting
too many quotes from these debates up there, about oil prices, taxes
not causing deficits, social security, etc., because even without
heckling commentary they sort of are like self-mocking Mystery
Science Theatre 3000 in-a-box.
But there is one other thing that was
often claimed - in fact still is - that, if ever true, no longer is.
Just do a Google of "military is Republican" and you will see claim
after claim that most of the military is Republican, 70%, 90%
Republican.
If that ever was the case, which is
doubtable, the reverse may now be true. And this may be thanks
to another quote from back in 2000. President Bush, in his
October 3, 2000 debate with Al Gore, said:
"I believe the role of the military is
to fight and win war and therefore prevent war from happening in the
first place."
People wrote this off as misspeak I
suppose or a Confucius-sounding moment. But as the nation
later found out, this was actual sound logic in this man's mind
which he was about to apply to world affairs.
At that time, a hapless, spineless,
voiceless Democratic party, handicapped by a leader who had lost a
share of his moral leadership due to the fact he'd gotten some from
a cute young chippy, didn't even have the spine to take on claims
that the military was Republican. This card was played again
and again, directly and indirectly, by Bush and Cheney and paved the
way for their... well, defeat in 2000, but they took office anyway
with the nation believing and accepting, perhaps accurately, that
the majority of the military preferred serving Republicans.
Just six years later, the world is a
different place, and so is America. And now, in 2006, the
Democratic Party is making a legitimate play to assert that they are
the real party of the military in America.
Helping lead the charge is top
grassroots innovator Alfred A. Lay. Once a frustrated
Democratic relegated to the outskirts of the party due to his
pro-militaristic bent, since 2004 he has been intimately involved
with adding backbone to the Democratic movement through a whirlwind
of real world activism.
It was, as is fitting, a General that
brought Lay out of distanced frustration and into Democratic Party
activism. He fought hard for the campaign of General Wesley
Clark, believing the Democrats needed to assert their real military
credentials as the right alternative to the chicken hawk bravado of
the GOP leaders in Washington.
When Clark's campaign failed, Lay stood
with another Democratic veteran, Senator John Kerry, and helped
initiate the "Swing State" bus trips for the Kerry campaign.
"We were told these were the first
volunteer organized "Swing State" bus trips of this kind in
Presidential campaign history," said Lay, who speaks in terms that
have a militaristic feel. "We set up a logistical system of
volunteers to take from one state to another."
Keeping with the military-motif, Lay
described what he hoped to achieve as similar to something out of
Coppla's famed Vietnam War movie "Apocalypse Now."
"I had this vision of the scene in the
movie where "Ride of the Valkyries" was playing, of going in
somewhere where the enemy doesn't expect you, where they don't
expect this ferocity coming from Democrats, a militaristic,
bringing-the-fight-to-them approach."
Lay and his group of volunteers,
operating out of California, chose to help Kerry in the state of
Nevada. Along the way, they also got involved in aiding the
campaign on a then-lesser-known Senator named Harry Reid, who was up
for re-election.
According to Lay, "We thought we'd do a
different, innovative thing. Volunteers were plentiful in
California, so why not go help a sister state," that had less of a
grassroots base.
The choice was made to aid Nevada due to
the presence of a Republican military man in another state that had
been an option: Senator John McCain in Arizona. Seeing
that fort as solidly held, Lay and company made numerous trips to
Nevada to help build up the Democratic presence there.
In the end, Reid won re-election, and
Bush ended up only wining the state by 3 percentage points.
Only partly successful, Lay realized in
addition to helping out Senator Reid's campaign, he had gained a
footing in grassroots activism that could help him continue the
battle to free the nation from the Bush/Limbaughian hold that was
dragging it down.
Almost one year to the day after that
election, Lay and friends are back. And as always, they are
taking the fight to the GOP, and continuing to work toward laying
the claim that the Democratic Party is the real party of America's
troops and veterans.
Lay, along with Angela Brau, Tina
McKinnor, and Mary Scott, have teamed up to create what they are
calling, "a unique and compelling tribute to champion our veterans,
bringing focus to the plight of all homeless veterans post-war, and
benefitting current displaced veterans of the Iraq War."
Now President of a new Los Angeles
International Airport-area Democratic Club, Lay and company have
teamed up with the
U.S. VETS Organization to directly raise money for homeless
veterans. Again, Lay says his event is the first of its kind
for the Democratic Party. And he managed to land as his
headliner none other than the Democratic Party's rock star of the
moment, Iraq War vet and Ohio Senatorial candidate Paul Hackett, who
recently made headline news by coming within
a few percentage points of taking an Ohio congressional seat
from the GOP in what had once been solidly GOP-dominated territory.
The event is called the, "Help Them Home
Canteen Gala." It will take place at the Warner Grand theater
in San Pedro, California, on November 12, 2005. The date was,
fitting with Lay's character, chosen for specific military-related
reasons.
"The Marine Core's birthday is on the
10th, Veteran's Day is the 11th, and so the 12th was the perfect
date to hold the event," said Lay.
As is fitting, the event took shape at
an event on behalf of those fighting the Iraq War, with none other
than Cindy Sheehan involved. Lay and co-team member and Naval
vet Mary Scott attended the Out of Iraq Caucus in Inglewood,
California in mid-July. Put together by Congresswoman Maxine
Waters (D-CA), this was the event Sheehan attended 3-weeks prior to
heading to Crawford Texas for her now-famed summer vigil. The
event was to be a kick-off for her venture to Crawford.
During the event, Congresswoman Waters
called all military veterans present up to the stage so everyone
could pay a proper tribute. On stage, Scott happened to stand
beside a fellow veteran named Dwight Radcliff, who, as it turned
out, was with the
US VETS
Organization. Instantly it became clear what their next
mission should be.
One-third of all homeless people in
America are military veterans, according to the organization.
As you can see on their main page, US VETS regularly fundraises
itself on behalf of homeless veterans. But Lay, Scott, Brau,
and McKinnor thought it was time for the Democratic Party to get
behind this cause, and so put together what they are saying is a
first-of-its-kind event held by a political party on behalf on
homeless Iraq War vets.
In addition to getting Hackett on board,
Air America radio-affiliate
KTLK-AM 1150 Los Angeles has gotten
involved, giving free prime-time on-air advertising for the event
and sending morning show host
Stephanie Miller to be a speaker at
the event. More the 300 US veterans are scheduled to attend
the event as special guests as well, with their service ranging from
World War II to Korea to Vietnam to Iraq.
So far this millennium, the GOP has
shown itself to be the party of the military - the party of lying to
the troops, of cutting veterans benefits, of sending troops to war
without fully armored vehicles.
But more and more the veterans who are
returning from Iraq, such as Paul Hackett, are coming out strongly
and hardcore for the newly invigorated,
not-your-father's-wimpy-little Democratic Party. And with this
event, the Democratic Party is now showing that it is right on
target and putting its concern and efforts precisely where they are
needed: not in covering up lies that have led to thousands of
deaths, but in being there for the thousands of men and women who
will find themselves with nowhere to sleep when they return from
risking their lives on behalf of our nation.
For more information on the event, go to
http://www.acteva.com/booking.cfm?bevaID=97722.
For more information of US VETS organization, go to
www.usvetsinc.org .
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