MY only comment over Memorial Day weekend to a VETERAN was to THANK him, when I saw him at a local store, for his service to our Country, to wish him & his family the BEST of Luck! He said he didn’t think he would be serving another Tour of Duty in Iraq anytime soon.

I help collect PAPERBACK BOOKS to send in the CARE Packages the father of a MARINE serving in IRAQ, has been sending for TWO YEARS!

I FOLLOW “religiously” on C-Span & other sources of UNFILTERED coverage of the Iraq War, ever since the Iraq War started, emailing my Congressmen about the desperate need for BETTER ARMORED VEHICLES, BODY ARMOR, etc.; & watch the Investigative HEARINGS, such as the ones which have uncovered truly MASSIVE & obscene levels of WAR PROFITEERING & BILLIONS missing which nobody seems to be able to ACCOUNT for, where the MONEY WENT, that was meant to IRAQ!

I was against the VIETNAM WAR, as MOST were back then, only around 1968 on, when NIXON was elected promising to END the WAR & bring the Vietnam Soldiers HOME — which we ALL knew our Gov’t. would sooner or later do, anyway!

NIXON & War Criminals like KISSINGER kept the Vietnam Quagmire going until at least 20,000 MORE American soldiers were cut down, while knowing full well they planned to PULL the PLUG, just once they had TIME from playing GOLF, like Pres. Bush, to “get around to it”!

20,000 MORE Mothers & Fathers, Pregnant WIVES, Children, Babies, Friends, Fellow Warriors, saw their LOVED ONES sacrificed unnecessarily just so NIXON & his cronies could try to “Save Face”, so the “Military Industrial Complex” which Gen. EISENHOWER warned about, could SQUEEZE a few BILLIONS more WAR PROFITS out of the Vietnam “adventure”!

Well, George Dubya BUSH is following that old VIETNAM “playbook”, & by God, it will all be WORTH it, ALL the Sacrifices by Soldiers, Marines, Navy Men & Women serving, suffering, being wounded & many dying in yet another “BIG LIE” War in another hellish foreign land.

Because HALLIBURTON is rollin’ in the dough again, & DICK Cheney’s old buddies have MOVED Halliburton’s Corporate HEADQUARTERS to an OFFSHORE Tax Haven, of all places, now based in DUBAI, United Arab Emerit– if THAT ain’t a BETRAYAL & TREASON, tell me what IS!

To me, you ain’t an AMERICAN Company even, anymore– if your corporate offices are in the MIDDLE EAST, in an ARAB country!

Bush’s Corporate buddies might as well MOVE ALL their Headquarters to COMMUNIST RED CHINA, because after all, Bush & his Regime, & all the supposedly “PATRIOTIC” Republican-owned Companies, have been busily APPEASING the CHINESE COMMUNISTS, ever since Bush was elected President!

Tell me again exactly WHY half a million young American LIVES had to be left in the Muddy Rice Paddies of COMMUNIST VIETNAM?

Wasn’t it to FIGHT & stop the “spread of Communism”?

Well, VIETNAM is still COMMUNIST, so is RED CHINA, & all you BUSH loyalists must believe it is OKEY DOKEY to “DO BUSINESS” with them, NOW! What exactly CHANGED? They are STILL COMMUNIST Nations, & Pres. Bush is actually going to attend the BEIJING OLYMPICS opening ceremonies & HONOR China’s “Police State” Leaders?

Truth is, both BUSH & John McCain will continue his policy of total APPEASEMENT to please the Communist Chinese government & people, if McCain were to be elected President, & CHINA will continue to Modernize & build up its MILITARY using AMERICAN dollars, American high tech, & one day, my Grandchildren will be faced with YET ANOTHER UNNECESSARY WAR, this time with CHINA, because REPUBLICANS talk a good game about PATRIOTISM, but will Always, always put their SHORT-TERM Business Profits, AHEAD of PATRIOTISM!

And, progressives & independents & YES, even “lefties”, will follow behind you, to sweep up the MESSES you leave behind, to repair the wreckage & damage wrought by “COWBOY” so-called Foreign Policies!

The only Americans those of us I knew in the Anti-WAR movement during Vietnam & now, that we find contemptible & despicable are all the CHICKEN HAWKS who sit in their comfy RECLINERS & agitate to send OTHER PEOPLE’s CHILDREN off to fight!

I would BET too, that anybody on the D.C. trains spitting on or calling Military men or women in Uniform names, are the EXACT SAME THUGGISH GOONS, that the BUSH campaign sent down to FLORIDA in 2000 to harrass & intimidate the citizens doing the RECOUNT! Sent on the ENRON Corporate Jet, like good little Jackbooted Young Republican Gang Members!

COLIN POWELL even expressed concern & disgust over this “Private Army” of THUGS which Bush had!

So, you can try to RE-WRITE HISTORY, but we all remember what really happened, & we will NEVER FORGET!

Maybe we can prevent the NEXT “unnessary War”, if we can LEARN from this one.

Agitprop stood for “agitation” and “propaganda.” The idea is to continually stoke fear and hatred in your target populace.

You whip up the right-wing base with stories of hippies abusing troops, etc., and then identify the hippies with the Democrats in an oblique or direct way.

Pretty simple and obvious.

The closest thing to verbal assault would be the inane announcements, such as “Please move to the center of the car.” (The center of the car is the most crowded.) “Eating and drinking is not permitted anywhere on the Metro.” (False – Metro and the local jurisdictions have no such authority in Virginia; this only applies in DC and “anywhere on the Metro” is not DC. http://www.scn.org/~bk269/metro.html )

And of course the familiar pushing and shoving on the escalators. Definitely physical, but not an assault on the military.

I’ve seen the Code Pinkos and their ilk at work, and I can say that I have no doubt that there are jerks who would verbally assault members of the military if they thought they could get away with it. Remember what was done to returning military personnel who had served in Viet Nam, they were spat on by hippies. That mind-set still exists in certain segments of the U.S. population.

I also agree with Bugs that Washington, DC, oddly enough, is not a highly politically charged town in everyday dealings. I found the corporate environment in Dallas to be far more stridently politically correct than working in the government environment in DC. Perhaps part of that has to do with government workers tending to be older and more mature than the corporate work force, which tends to be younger and immature. Corporations like to hire young and cheap and lay them off when they get old and expensive. The government hangs on to its employees until they retire or drop dead. Washington is a town full of middle aged couch potatoes, not given to wild enthusiasms.

Bugs is quite right that most of the wild-eyed radicals come from outside DC. When the anti-war movement was alive and kicking, the big demonstrations would pull in communist cells from New York and New Jersey proudly flying banners labelling themselves as such.

That said, the abuse of military people in uniform is such a charged subject since Vietnam that we just won’t stand for it. And it does still happen. I’ve seen anti-war protestors curse wounded vets with my own eyes right here on the streets of DC right next to the Capitol. You can’t imagine the feral hate in these people until you’ve seen them shouting in a rage at the White House, flecks of spit flying out of red faces, like some medieval religious exorcism.