Today is Veterans Day in the US.
Here are some things you can do for the veterans of our wars:
Veterans for Peace™ is a coalition of military veterans and their allies whose mission is threefold: exposing the true costs of war (economic, environmental, human casualties, PTSD & suicide, social); building a culture of peace; and healing the wounds of war, at home and abroad. VFP is at the forefront of our most pressing issues – see e.g. this open letter from veterans to recently activated National Guard troops – and on the right side of many others with which it stands in solidarity. Current National Projects include:
It offers many ways to donate and participate meaningfully in making a better world, not just for veterans but for everyone.
__________
Because America’s Owners believe themselves entitled to the sacrifices made by these men and women and their families, VA programs are chronically underfunded and veterans benefits are perpetually on the chopping block. Until we can fix that problem, Wounded Warrior steps in with counseling, job resources and material support for veterans and their families. Even if you cannot donate funds, there are all kinds of opportunities to donate time. You can also stay on top of WWP’s news by signing up for their emails. If you’d like to keep on top of precisely how and where the U.S. government is failing veterans, just sign up for their weekly e-newsletter here.
__________
Contact Your Representatives and Senators.
Call them up and tell them exactly what you think of cutting veterans benefits so that the planet-polluting corporations who benefit from the sacrifices of our soldiers and their loved ones can pay low-to-no taxes! Email your congresscritters a little note telling them to cut the defense budget in half and fund universal single-payer health care with mental health parity! Demand legislation requiring that all companies benefiting financially in any way from our wars be run as non-profits! I am sure you can think of numerous hilarious and fun things to say!
Put those congresscritters’ numbers on speed dial and bookmark their sites. The least we can do to honor our veterans is get ourselves on a whole bunch of anti-lefty government watch lists – today.
__________
[excerpted, heavily edited and updated from a pre-FtB blog post.]
Want to help Vets? Easy stop have illegal wars to support rich people and their foreign property….Vietnam is a good example! Give them a wage that makes risking your life worth while! Support the VA so they get good medical/mental care.
Stop spending so much on a war machine that can at this point destroy the earth surface twice over!!
L.Long:
Okay! I’ll get right on that. However when I cross it off my to-do list by noon (EST), the lives of actual vets will not be improved.
Veterans for Peace is working toward exactly that end, and simultaneously supporting vets in concrete ways. Your compassion and enthusiasm comes through loud and clear in your comments here; you’d be an asset to any organization, and I urge you to check them out and get yourself involved with their work!
How much could that possibly be?
Medicare for all with mental health parity would be better. Then we wouldn’t be having these absurd funding battles over who deserves healthcare more: veterans? 9/11 first responders? poor childen? the elderly? HOW ABOUT EVERYONE LIKE SMART AND SANE COUNTRIES.
I agree with you, but the rePUKEians would NEVER allow health care for all.
And no income is worth the risk of death, which is why the rich don’t become solders to protect their foreign ASSetS.
I beg to differ. It is in fact the Dems who have historically done everything in their considerable power to block single payer healthcare. Recall that when Dems held both houses of congress and the presidency, they enacted a program further entrenching our for-profit system, without any path to even a modest Medicare buy-in (“public option”). Right from the start, the ACA was based on a Massachusetts model law straight out of the Heritage Foundation (a conservative think tank). That is not an accident.
Under the impression that the president actually wanted a public option included in the bill – after all, he had repeatedly said so and had since done (almost*) nothing to dissuade anyone of this notion – Nancy Pelosi’s House handed up an ACA+public option bill** on a silver platter. It was DOA in the Senate.
NOTE: This is not to say that aspects of Obamacare were not incremental improvements that make a real difference in peoples’ lives, e.g. the ban on pre-existing condition exclusions. However, since its passage the ACA has done nothing to lower costs. This is perhaps most clearly evidenced by, among other things, the fact that there has been no meaningful reduction in medical bankruptcies in the decade since.
Right-wing capitalist healthcare is evil by any measure (including financially, if you prioritize that sort of thing). Yet it is difficult if not impossible to find a Dem in a leadership position or one whose election or reelection is supported by the party who is not a right-wing capitalist, down to their very bones.
Further, given the demographics of their constituency, I think a significant number of Republicans could very well be pressured into lowering the Medicare eligibility age. (That is, if Dems actually want this, as opposed to disingenuously pretending they do – see footnote.) Meanwhile, every single state that put a Medicaid expansion on its ballot this cycle saw it win without exception, including states that went for Trump. The momentum of these two political realities (and others) actually bodes well I think for a bridge to single payer in the not-too-distant future.
__________
*Although virtually every liberal pundit and traditional Democrat will deny it, Obama & Co. killed the public option in secret negotiations with “stakeholders” during the summer of 2009, after which they pretended they did no such thing.
**The House bill included other provisions that “everybody” wanted too, including allowing the federal government to negotiate drug prices – the no-brainiest no-brainer that ever no-brained. Alas there were indeed brains involved, and these brains saw to it that nothing like that would relieve either sick people or U.S. taxpayers from the crushing and disproportionate burden of paying high pharmaceutical costs.
Yes the Demoncrates are not much better than the rePUKEians BUT!!! who had control of everything for the past 4years and not only could they not handle a pandemic but the only health plan they supported was …Get sick & die or go bankrupt!!!
I’m a Bernie democrat (or independent).
The Republicans did not have control of everything: the Dems have had control of the House. But more to my point, given what I said in my previous comment:
Please explain to me how the ACA is different in any meaningful way from the plan of “Get sick & die or go bankrupt!!!”