Support Our Troops

[youtube FsTmBVav-r0 20,000 homeless vets in the USA]

This post is dedicated all the assholes who think “supporting” the troops means unquestioning obedience to the Government that would throw away their lives in an illegal and immoral war and not, i dunno, doing something that would actually HELP them.

Thousands of folks – American and otherwise – have been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, but that just scratches the surface. For every casualty that the news reports there are many more with permanent physical injuries that will cripple them for the rest of their lives, and that’s before even touching the psychological damage that warfare inflicts on soldiers and civilians alike. Post Traumatic Stress is a serious issue and it fucks people up for life. It changes people, deep down, to the point where studies have shown that children of Vets with serious PTSD often display symptoms as well. That shouldn’t surprise anyone, children learn how to survive in the world by watching their parents, if those parents are dealing with serious psychological trauma it’s going to bleed through into the next generation.

The reality is that the 20,000 vets who are slowly freezing to death on our streets are the victims of a system that sees human life as a resource to be exploited and used up – fuel for a machine. Their poverty and misery puts the lie to all of the rhetoric from liberals and conservatives alike who claim to care about the troops. For the people in power, the rest of us are cattle being fattened for the slaughter, nothing more or less. we live as long as that is useful and when they don’t need us any more we are left to starve and die. And don’t you forget it. That’s true for Vets just like it’s true for all of the workers whose pensions “disappeared” (read: were embezzled by Execs) at Enron and a dozen other corporations in the last few years, and it’s equally true for the 2/3 of homeless adults who have full-time jobs but cannot afford basic food and rent on their minimum-wage slave salaries.

We need an economy that values and respects working-class people and recognizes that we have rights and deserve to be treated with dignity. Life is not a commodity, no matter what the capitalists say.

Posted: September 5th, 2007 under politrix, video.
Comments: none