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The Regional Party of Communists (Russia)

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"Hey, I fought for the rights and freedoms you enjoy!"

Those of us who, may I say, dare to protest against military action, or in other words, sanctioned mass murder abroad have heard these word spewing from the orifices of former veterans or, more often it seems, would-be veterans or once ROTCies. In fact, I often find myself standing in solidarity with true veterans when such a statement is uttered.

It is time for us to reclaim this statement as our own, for the truth of the matter is that it has been the peoples of these United States of America, who have fought for those rights, liberties and what little equality we enjoy.

When free speech was a privilege of the few, it was workers, in fact, Wobblies who fought the tireless battles on the public podium for the right of free speech. The armed forces were not there....

When freedom was a privilege based on the color of one's skin, it was the abolitionists and the underground railroad who took up the fight. And despite an internecine war, that freedom was only won many a decade later when freedom road fighters, the Southern Church and others fought on the ground and won black liberation. The armed forces were not there....

When suffrage was a right based on a person's worth and sex, it was a long battle by the people to win those rights for each and every citizen. The armed forces....(well, you know).

While native American Indians were being systematically slaughtered, corralled into reservations, forced into abject poverty, many stood up alongside their brothers and sisters. To this day the situation on many reservations is one that our nation should be so ashamed of. Nonetheless, it has been the people, black, red, white and brown who have been the one doing the fighting for these rights, not the armed forces.

The 8-hour day, work standards, minimum wage, social security, the right to strike, all these and many other rights and liberties enjoyed by people today have been the fruit of a continual and tireless struggle on the part of the working people against the capitalists, the bosses, the owners. The latter have used the armed forces or hired thugs to prevent us from gaining these rights. These are the owners of the media and purveyors over educational institutions that are designed to instill in us a belief that it has been through their benevolence that these privileges have been granted to us and that the United States armed forces have done the fighting for us. The truth, however, is that it has always been the people who have been the soldiers and the casualties. It is the people who have proven themselves the bravest, the proudest.

So, the next time someone soliloquizes to you and tells you were you can go, I would advise one of three approaches: The sarcastic retort: "What? You were in the Union Army?" The educated reply: see above. Or just smile and know that you stand in a tradition of those who have truly bettered humankind.

  Curtis Vaughan

 



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