“Nothing is true. Everything is permitted.”
- Saying attributed to the Old Man of the Mountain, leader of the assassins, the Hashishin

The events in Manchester Ct. at Hartford Distributors on August 3rd and what happened on September 11th in New York are bound together by a history of violence. The history in question is the past history of this nation, my nation, America. Born out of Revolutionary War and having waged the longest guerrilla war against the native indigenous people, 300+ years, we were born out of violence. As a young male during the 50’s and 60’s, Viet Nam was where I was going. I was raised inside the war machine as a military dependent (Army brat) for 14 years and on my 18th birthday in 1969 enlisted and volunteered for Viet Nam. I was born and bred for war, fed a daily diet of war programs disguised as high school sports. Filled with pride in our always victorious results we were suckled at the teats of wolves on the milk of violence.

This early psychological conditioning has been augmented by the use of even more intrusive and ubiquitous technology, the Internet, cell phones, i-pods and Black Berry’s. War games and interactive video have taught the bravery of being out of range and fed the vicarious hunger of voyeur killers. Americans have been conditioned to respond to any threat, real or perceived with violence.

There is a correlation between the rise in violent actions within society and the return to society of millions of veterans bringing their wars home with them. Civil society is pressured when our leaders respond with military actions by stoking fear and paranoia. Fear and suspicion is visible in every workplace, security officers are now the fastest growing career and the Office of Homeland Security by its very title reflects that paranoia. Do not think that our children do not see how we respond. They watch us and emulate us.

The Teeth of the Dragon is a reference to mythology. The Greek Jason of Argonaut and Golden Fleece fame, was tested by the King of Colchis. He was given the ensorcelled teeth of a dragon to plant on a field of battle. From the bloody soil sprang full grown warriors that he must then destroy. The test required violent response to violence conceived. This is the never-ending forever war that leaders of our nation nurture. It is replicated in society at large. One of my brothers-in –arms from Viet Nam says it succinctly, “What you do, you become.”

Dave Ionno
Veteran for Peace and Against the Wars

This article by Ryan Harvey of the Civilian Soldier Alliance raises some insightful points about what we are really celebrating on Independence Day. Thanks to Dave Ionno for the tip.

Five to one, Baby
One in five
They got the guns
We got the numbers
Doors Jim Morrison

The muted rumblings in Greece, site of the Athenian Acropolis and birthplace of democracy, precedes the perfect political storm.  Olga Stefan, a 20 year old Greek university student thinks her government is in ..“someway afraid of us.  There are too many of us.”   This simple equation will soon reach critical mass across the industrialized developed world.  The concentration of wealth in the United States has become an obscenity.  The top 4% own outright 55% of the wealth.  This was not accumulated by hard work and savings over time.  This wealth was taken by stealth and force and generated by insider Wall Street stock market access and high speed computer trading in bogus derivatives (Whiskey Tango Foxtrot).  What The Fuck are they?  A tsunami of rage is coming.

The Doors song, “5 to 1” is prophetic.  Jim Morrison was the son of a career Naval officer, a military brat like myself.  The Doors music along with Jimi Hendrix, an Airborne veteran, was the sound track of the GI’s in Viet Nam.  We killed and died as the blood and wealth of the nation was soaked up on foreign ground in Viet Nam.  Martin Luther King Jr., an American hero, said it clearly, “ The Great Society has been shot down on the battlefields of  Viet Nam.”  Today, now as we breathe, our future and our children’s future is being shot down on the battlefields of iraq and Afghanistan.

The American middle class, built out of the GI Bill after WW II and inherited by the sons and daughters of the “Greatest Generation” has been eviscerated by the Wall Street and Pentagon ghouls  in their multinational corporate star chambers.  We are like a snail crawling along the edge of a straight razor, unable to see it and unwilling to drop off.

The so-called wealth generators in their gated communities are beginning to tremble in fear. The wars and the warriors are coming home.  Those of us in the public sector unions, those of us in the working class jobs, those of us who are small business owners, we fought your wars for you and we kept that knowledge.  If we send men off to war, don’t be surprised when they come home talking dirty.  Be careful how you vote.

Dave Ionno
Viet Nam Veteran for Peace against the Wars

Written for the Oakland, California community.

We mourn because a little girl is dead for no reason. We mourn because a little girl is dead for terrible reasons. We mourn for Aiyana Jones, because she is yet another victim of police violence, and because as a community, we want to stand in solidarity with her community and her family – and all those who suffer at the hands of the prison-industrial complex in America.

Aiyana was murdered by the police on May 16, 2010, in Detroit, MI during a no-knock raid on her family’s home. Police threw a flash grenade into the first-floor window, where the little girl lay asleep. After police barged into the home, an alleged confrontation took place between Officer Joseph Weekley and Aiyana’s grandmother, during which it is claimed that Weekley’s gun “accidentally” went off, killing the girl. There is video documentation of what transpired, but there are many conflicting accounts at this time – and more information will undoubtedly be revealed in the near future. The lawyer for Aiyana’s family states that the video taken contradicts the police account of what happened. He states, “What I’m most concerned about is that this videotape demonstrates that police are involved in a cover-up of a child’s killing.” (CBS News) Charles Jones, Aiyana’s father, told reporters that upon rushing into the room where Aiyana was shot, the police forced him to get down on the ground – and he had to put his face in his daughter’s blood.

We do not mourn Aiyana’s death because she was so young and so innocent, though this terrible reality weighs heavy on our hearts. We mourn Aiyana as we mourned Oscar Grant, as we mourned countless individuals whose lives have been ended or forever changed by systemic police violence and the profit-driven prison-industrial complex. So while we do mourn this little girl’s murder, we also acknowledge its connection to the larger whole, which encompasses a racist system of perverted “justice” and social control.

In a sick way, Aiyana’s death represents the intersection of police violence and media spectacle – the raid on her family’s home was filmed as part of a reality television show called “The First 48.” The raid that night was being filmed for media consumption, for entertainment purposes. How disturbing and poignant that the video this film crew recorded of the incident reveals the true brutality of police violence, when its original intent was surely to “document” a dramatized story about police heroics, a story constructed for the American audience to bolster societal beliefs about the role of the police.

Though it is clear that in the coming days and weeks, more terrible facts will most likely be coming to light regarding the circumstances surrounding Aiyana’s murder, what is clear at this point is that the police are not giving an honest account of the incident. This should not be surprising. Acts of police violence are often covered up or depicted as tragic, yet solitary, incidents. By no means should we participate in perpetuating this lie. What happened that night to Aiyana and her family was business as usual when it comes to policing. It happened in Detroit, Michigan, last week – but in 2009 it happened in Oakland, California, and it happens in cities around the country – and the world – all the time.

Officer Weekley is on paid administrative leave at this time, as was Officer Tony Pirone of the BART Police following the murder of Oscar Grant.

Members of the Oakland community will gather at 11 am this Sunday, May 23rd, at Frank Ogawa Plaza in Oakland in a silent vigil to mourn a young life lost, a family shattered, and another victim of systemic police violence.

I am here as always to exercise my constitutional right to speak as an American citizen, a Hartford resident and home owner and as a combat veteran of Viet Nam. I will first of all read the names of the KIA in Iraq and Afghanistan for the month of April. I do this because no one else will. It is fitting to do this as this month is the 35th anniversary of the Fall of Saigon. The Wars are invisible as are the veterans and the dead. All of you on Council and every citizen in this audience are complicit by your Silence. Silence has become the weapon by which you rid yourselves of your guilt. I will now read the names of the dead.

As a contrast to the deconstruction and dismantling of the public schools and libraries of the city of Hartford we are financing the building of a new school in Senjaray Afghanistan near Kandahar. So we take from our own children, who have no Music, Art or sports and crowded classes, to build in a country, whose people we kill and who don’t want to be like us. The returning veterans and GI’s are telling you what is happening and you refuse to listen. One Iraq veteran has related to me this story. Truck convoys, driven by contractors, have to swipe a card at the gate as they enter. Every swipe pays $40,000 to the company, KBR, Triple Canopy, Dyne Corp, Blackwater(XE). On inspection by the GI’s it was found that half the trucks were empty.   This is only the tip of the iceberg of corruption and waste by the military and defense contractors.

How much of my tax dollar is diverted to this instead of to the city budget? Can any of you find out the answer? It is your fiduciary responsibility to find out. I will assist you with the handouts I have and provide you with the website of Nationalpriorities.org.

Understand one thing. The Wars are coming home everyday. As you sow you shall reap.

Dave Ionno
Veteran for Peace and Viet Nam Veteran against the Wars

April 5, 2010

Chief Betsy J.S. Hard

Bloomfield Police Department

785 Park Avenue

Bloomfield, CT 06002

Dear Chief Hard,

I believe that I was racially profiled by one of your officers on March 31st. I am challenging you to engage in a public dialogue about racial profiling in particular and police misconduct in general. I was given a flimsy justification for the traffic stop, and when I received my ticket the stated reason for pulling me over was not listed. While I’m not expecting a response, I want you and your department to know that the public is now aware of this incident. As a black male I am all too familiar with the practice of racial profiling by law enforcement. However, I refuse to accept this form of discrimination.

Department of Justice statistics show that the police are three to four times as likely to use force against people of color and search them during traffic stops. Of course, there is also an extensive history of unarmed black males who have been shot and killed by law enforcement officers. Individuals who are familiar with the complaint process have told me that there is next to zero chance of your officer being held accountable, so I have chosen to address this case in the court of public opinion. People of color should not have to feel threatened by an entity which purports to “serve and protect”.

Sincerely,

David Samuels

I believe that I was racially profiled by the Bloomfield Police today. Breaking news, I know. My encounter with the cops was minor compared to the fate suffered by Jashon Bryant, Sean Bell, Oscar Grant and countless other brothers whose names we’ll never know, Continue Reading

Dan Haar, the Business Editor for the Courant, sat in front of an audience at a Hartford forum on job creation last month and said with a straight face that targeted employment initiatives for Connecticut communities with the highest unemployment rates would hurt residents of those communities in the long run. There’s always somebody who has an excuse for why poor people should stay poor. If Haar was one of the 33.5% (highest in the nation) of Hartford residents currently living in poverty, his perspective on a Marshall Plan for the state’s most distressed communities would be much different. Continue Reading

The year I was in Viet Nam saw the undoing of my character.  I was disassembled by the war and have spent the past 39 years putting myself back together.   The year I was in Viet Nam was July 70-July 71. One year at the age of 19 that would forever change me. I watched and participated in a growing GI resistance to the war. One day in my company three combat medics quit the war. We refused to go out on any more missions and announced our intentions to the First Sgt and Lieutenant. High on binoctal and alcohol we came to blows in the CQ. For striking a superior and mutiny we were arrested and thrown in the stockade. We were all decorated combat veterans but we had had enough of their war. Scotty and Nick refused to return to duty and served time in LBJ (Long Binh Jail) and received BCD (Bad Conduct Discharges) which stripped them of all veterans benefits and constitutional rights. I returned to duty but continued passive resistance. I kept men who were short (about to DEROS home) on sick leave so they were not sent out to the field. I falsified medical reports to keep men out of combat. In the end I too was discharged. I made a choice to retain my human shape and not descend into the Dark.

Back in the World (the US) there was a growing body of politically radicalized veterans. Viet Nam Veterans against the War had over 50,000 members and the GI coffee house movement was widespread. The Winter Soldier hearings put a face on the atrocities and massacres and showcased the pain and rage that was twisting the spirit of the armed forces. We in the armed forces at the time regarded ourselves as citizen soldiers. I was an enlistee, RA all the Way, regular Army and volunteered for Viet Nam. I enlisted out of a sense of duty as a calling. It was not nor ever should be regarded as a JOB. The current professional volunteer armed forces has become a contracted killing machine, a constitutional abomination. I have begun to question who it is loyal too. I swore an oath, …”to protect and defend the US constitution against all enemies both foreign and domestic.” I have never released myself from that oath.

Here is what has become of us. Blackwater(Xe), DyneCorp, Triple Canopy and Hallibuton KBR have become the mercenary assistants of the US Armed Forces. Iraq Veterans against the War in concert with Veterans for Peace and VVAW have exposed the corrupt relationship between the Pentagon and the military industrial complex. Former veterans of the US armed forces have contracted out as body guards and hired killers to the CIA and State Dept expecting to be cared for and protected by the Uniform Code of Military Justice. They do not deserve nor have earned it. They and their corporate employers are subject to the Geneva conventions and International Law under the Nuremberg rulings.

Here is what we can do. We can support and advocate GI resistance. We can constantly put the cost of the war to our economy in the public eye at every and all city council or legislative hearings. Go to icasualties.org and read the names of the American dead in public. We in the Underground can bring the truth above ground.

Dave Ionno
Veteran for Peace

by Steve Thornton

Victor Gerena is Hartford’s anti-hero.
In September, 1983, he allegedly robbed Wells Fargo of $7.2 million. It was a daring, non-violent daylight theft that brought down the full weight of the United States government on him, his family, his friends, and the entire movement for Puerto Rican independence both here and on the Island. Continue Reading