We discuss the upcoming Speak Out! for reproductive rights with Alyssa Derosa from Socialist Action, one of the organizers of the event.

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Yahoo! News recently began a series of articles under the label of “FACT CHECK,” which presents itself as watchdog over politicians and their tricks.   Often, these articles seem much more like opinion pieces in disguise.  Take for example this article: “FACT CHECK: Health Insurer Profits Not So Fat.”  Writer Calvin Woodward is essentially a cheerleader for big insurance, while he unknowingly makes a case for universal single payer health care.  Continue Reading

I am having sleepless nights and growing rage at the conscious ignorance and uncaring attitude of the general public and school administration about the underlying cause of the violence and incivility endemic in our schools and society.   The absence of reporting on the dead and wounded in our two current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan allows the public to ignore veterans. 

The turning away of the media and the assault on working class veterans in the workplace by removing November 11th as a holiday is clear disrespect and simply a business strategy to steal paid time off from the men and women who gave their lives and sacred honor for you.  Simpering sycophants of the Hartford Courant have ensconced themselves within the school system and have sold the idea of Veterans Day as a teachable moment.

I have comprised a list of 27 in school days that are key moments in American history.  These are dates on which American fighting men and women died for us that can be used as teachable moments without violating sacred times for families to honor their dead.  Just a few to mention: April 19th 1775 Lexington/Concord,” the shot heard round the world.” April 9th 1865 Lee surrenders at Appomattox, December 7th, 1941 Pearl Harbor “day of infamy,” February 19th Iwo Jima and April 29th Fall of Saigon.  I have appended the list to this writing.

What feeds the violence and causes gang affiliation in the schools?  In my belief it is the absence of curriculum that shows you care about the students.  They see that there is no Art for their talent, no Music or Band for their encouragement, no Drama or Library time for literary expertise and no support for their ideas.  They see themselves offered as a sacrifice to the commercial businesses and especially to military recruiters. 

I have told the story of the Navy recruiter whom I passed in the hallway and asked if he was telling the kids the truth about the mission of the military, which is to kill people, and he replied, “What difference does it make, they live in Hartford and will probably get shot anyway.”   You have allowed the largest gang in history to recruit your children. 

I am continuing to visit the public schools at the invitation of teachers to share my war experience with them. I have visited Hall, Conard, Weaver, Bulkley, HPHS, Bloomfield High and Windsor during Memorial Day.  Is that day also on the hit list of the economic hit men from the business world?  Will the Wall Street vampires continue to steal the hard earned holidays from the wealth creators?  It has been said, “It is easier to destroy than to create, easier to pull the trigger, than to play the guitar”. What will we do?

Dave Ionno
Father and Veteran for Peace

List of teachable days about  Veterans day Revolution

4/19/1775-  Lexington/Concord “shot heard round the world”
5/10/1775-Ticonderoga
12/26/1776- Trenton
9/23/1779- John Paul Jones Bonhomme Richard Vs Serapis
10/19/1781- Yorktown surrender of Cornwallis “world turned upside down”
War of 1812(2nd War of Independence
9/10/1813- Lake Erie
1/8/1815- New Orleans
Civil War
9/17/1862- Antietam(Bloody Sharpsburg) 26,000 Americans killed in one day
4/9/1865- Appomattox Lee surrenders
World War I
5/30/1918 Chateau Thierry-Belleau Wood
World War II
12/7/1941- Pearl Harbour “Day of Infamy”
2/14-22/1943- Kasserine Pass N. Africa
2/16/1944- Anzio
1/17/1944- Monte Cassino
6/6/1944-D-Day Normandy
5/6/1942- Fall of Corregidor-Bataan death march
10/23-25/1942- Guadalcanal
5/7-8/1942- Coral Sea
2/19/1945- Iwo Jima
4/1-4/1945- Okinawa
Korean war
9/15/1950- Inchon amphibious landing
12/9/1950- “Frozen Chosin reservoir, “retreat hell advance to the rear”
Viet Nam
1/31/1968- Tet
2/29/1968- Fall of Hue city/Khe Sanh
May 1970- Invasion of Cambodia
February 1971- Invasion of Laos
April 29-30th 1975 Fall of Saigon
Memorial day next?

On a creased blackened piece of aluminum foil a soft white mound of powder is laid, than a match is set under the foil while a man bends over the white smoke created and sucks in the undulating smoky snake, losing his pain and his memory.  This man is chasing the dragon, smoking Double O Globe Number 4 heroin courtesy of a Cholon Chinese chemist, protected and dispersed by ARVN (South Vietnamese Army) officers in concert with CIA operatives and USAID employees. 

All of this is extensively documented in Alfred W. McCoy’s book The Politics of Heroin: CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Trade.  The man smoking the heroin is one of over 100,000 American GI’s who became addicted to 99% pure heroin sold to us by our allies and brothers in the War in Viet Nam.  It was an $88,000,000 a year industry.  The absolute corrupting effect of the money made is happening again in Afghanistan.

CIA director Casey in the 1980’s under direction from Reagan administration officers along with Zbignew Brezinski of the Carter administration supported heroin distribution by the Mujahideen to addict Soviet soldiers during the Russian invasion of Afghanistan.  The strategy was to have them return home addicted and spread the addiction to undermine the Soviet war effort.  This is what we have become, drug pushing killers.  Gus Hall, a Viet Nam veteran says it best.  “What you do, you become.”

Today in our war in Afghanistan the same history is about to start.  The corrupting influence of opium and heroin is pandemic throughout Southwest Asia.  Pakistan’s military and its ISI transport and traffic heroin and weapons.  The Mujahideen and the Taliban will use heroin as a weapon against the US.  We taught them well. 

Corruption has its own native terminology, in Turkey it is called “baksheesh,” in Mexico “el Mordida,” the bite.  It is the grease on the wheels, it makes things happen, but it also destroys human nature and undermines justice.  During the Viet Nam war heroin was smuggled into the US in the coffins of KIA GI’s.  It was also hidden in the body cavities of the dead and unloaded in the funeral parlors. Those of us in Graves Registration saw this happen. 

My fear is that this will happen to our GI’s in Afghanistan.  A new generation of American soldiers will be used and discarded.  Wall Street will profit and grow fat as it devours the souls of our people.  Time to unleash the dragon of our righteous rage against the war profiteers on Wall Street and in the corporate board rooms.

Dave Ionno
Veteran for Peace

Long time Hartford activist, Steve Thornton, discusses the largest single protest in Hartford and Connecticut history – the Vietnam Moratorium – and what we can learn from it today.

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George Orwell must be spinning in his grave….

The conviction of the SHAC 7–animal rights activists hit with “terrorism” charges for publishing a website and vocally, unapologetically supporting direct action–has been upheld by a U.S. appellate court. It is a landmark free speech ruling that lowers the threshold of what types of conduct are protected by the First Amendment, and upholds a law that is so broad that it targets civil disobedience as “terrorism.”  (full story)