On this Veteran’s Day, as we prepare to embark on yet another war, it’s
becoming increasingly clear that the aging right-wingers of yore are
determined to leave a legacy of “Dominance” to their descendants and the
world. It behooves us, we aging left-wingers, to answer their “Clarion Call”
with a call to leave a legacy of our own.
We must steel our selves and strengthen our backbones for, what may be, the
longest and most difficult struggle of our entire lives. This may in fact be
how we finish up.
I for one don’t want to go down quietly. I don’t want my sweetheart’s
teenage sons to go to war with Islam. I don’t want my grandson to go to war,
which he might, if this thing should become a raging and uncontrollable fire
that goes on for years.
I’ve had enough of the killing. I want us to find another way. I don’t want
my country to dominate the world. I don’t want it to exploit the world. I
don’t want it to be at odds with the world. I want my country to work with
the world to make it a better place for everyone. I want my country to set
positive examples for the world, including the example that it is willing to
follow the positive examples set by others.
I believe it is a crime for so few to have so much while so many have so
little.
I believe it is a crime for ANY country to create, build, or maintain
weapons of mass destruction.
I believe it is a crime to despoil or desecrate our natural environment and
all that lives within it.
I believe it is a crime to allow children, the elderly, the sick, the
hungry, and the disabled to be abused or to go without care.
I believe it is a crime for ANY country, for the purpose of financial gain
or to foment discord, to indulge in or to promote the spread of small arms,
including land mines.
I believe it is a crime for one person to do well at the expense of another.
I believe it is a crime for our mothers, sisters and daughters to suffer at
the hands of their fathers, brothers, and sons.
I believe that we have been given a great opportunity and responsibility by
the Creator, whatever we conceive he, she or it to be, to manifest in the
world the best that we are in the spirit.
This is the legacy that I think we should be striving to leave to the world
and to our descendants on this Veteran’s Day, Nov. 11.2002.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Jim Bush is a veteran who has fought for this country. You may contact him at:
Jim Bush
709 SW.,16th.Apt.406
Portland, Or.,97205
