Writing Shotgun

NO ROOM IN THE PARADE

Steve LowerySun. November 11
 

Pat Alviso of Military Families Speak Out called to tell us how it went for her at Saturday’s Long Beach Veteran’s Day Parade. Alviso’s group was one of three excluded from participating in the parade by organizers who said they were concerned that the groups just wanted to stir up trouble by protesting the war in Iraq. Organizers were supported completely backed fully by councilman Val Lerch whose 9th District played host to the parade.

Alviso found the idea she would disrespect an event honoring veterans, ludicrous. Afterall, her son is a Marine sergeant who has already served two tours of duty in Iraq.

“That’s ridiculous,” she said, “I’d be protesting my own son.”

When it became clear that Alviso’s group, as well as Iraq Veterans Against the War and Veteran’s For Peace, would not be allowed in the parade as groups, members decided to request that they be allowed to march individually as vets and family of vets.

“So, in the morning, we decided to go up to the organizers and say ‘My son is a veteran or I’m a veteran, can I march in your parade,” she said.

Problem was the person making the decision as to whether allow them to march individually was, hellooo, councilman Val Lerch.

“He told us we couldn’t march because the parade was full,” Alviso said.

Um, I was there, it wasn’t.

Eventually, Alviso and her colleagues decided to simply stand aside and do what they had always planned on doing: honor the veterans.

“We cheered like everyone else,” she said. “Probably louder. In fact, a lot of groups would look over at us because we were so loud. A couple even flashed us the peace sign.”

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  • Raoul
    Hey Swaim, read Kerry's Senate testimony. He smeared all the Vietnam Vets on film and in the Congressional record.

    And Kerry is a liar. He claimed Nixon sent him to Cambodia on Xmas Day, yet he was never in Vietnam while Nixon was President. Kerry lied. He wasn't smeared.

    And Kerry never reported the murder plot. Yeah, I want to vote for a guy who keeps his mouth shut as people plan mass murder. That's something to be proud of Kerry. Again, that's all based on what Kerry said and he lied about Cambodia, so why would he tell the truth about his ties to a murder plot, one he didn't take to the police. That's something an innocent man would do.
  • Michael Pugliese
    Kerry left VVAW after the meeting in wich Scott Camil's crazy plot to kill 6 US Senators was debated.
    http://daily.nysun.com/Repository/getFiles.asp?...
    :New York Sun; :Mar 12, 2004; :Front page; :1


    HOW KERRY QUIT VETERANS GROUP AMID DARK PLOT

    When Talk Turned To Assassination He Exited, Vet Says
  • wswaim
    Raoul: I'm intrigued. The only '60s vet I recall being smeared was John Kerry. But he was dismantled by conservatives in the pay of men who neatly avoided serving in Vietnam.
  • jesus
    Jesus doesn't like assholes like Raoul. Jesus served in the Navy. Tagging people as anti-american is offensive to Jesus. There are many soldiers, sailors, marines, airmen and coastguardsmen who think the Iraq war is a slaughter of American young men and women. Jesus has some big news for you Raul - dissent is American! None of these people are supporting Osama. They want to support the troops but bring them home from a war with no mission, no strategic objective. Our forces are designed to win conflicts and leave. This is low intensity conflict where no one knows what the objective is. Jesus thinks that supporting such a war is unjust and immoral. Therfore Raoul becuase of your double talk and tyranical views I am sentencing you to spend eternity with Abby Hoffman. Only my agent here on earth Will Swaim can release you from your punishment.

    Jesus out.
  • howardx
    when did you serve raoul? or are you just another 28 percent chickenhawk pro war freeper? smells like it.
  • Raoul Deming
    A question for Pat Alviso of Military Families Speak Out. When Tim Goodrich of IVAW went to Istanbul and testified at the World Tribunal on Iraq about the US miliatry committing widespread war crimes, how is it that your son is not a war criminal too?
  • Raoul Deming
  • Raoul Deming
    I almost forgot the most important point. Military Families Speak Out, Veterans for Peace and Iraq Veterans Against the War are all involved in the attempt to smear this generation of military serving, the way their Vietnam Veterans Against the War smeared the 60s veterans.

    Like "Winter Soldier", there is a "documentary" in the works called "Collateral Damage". Military Families Speak Out, Veterans for Peace and Iraq Veterans Against the War are the bulk of the 50 interviews in "Collateral Damage".

    And the fact that the daughter of a convicted terrorist supporter Sami al-Arian is involved, well that's just a bonus.

    Bottom line, these people ARE anti-American. They are Vietnam protest re-enactors on a grand scale. And like the Vietnam era protesters who helped form and now guide them, it's not enough for them that the war is wrong, it's not enough for them that America is wrong, the troops have to be wrong too.
  • Raoul Deming
    IVAW's Chairman, Camilo Mejia, was on DemocracyNow.org on August 27th and during the interview revealed that he was born in Nicaragua, that his parents were big shots in the Sandinista revolution and that he's a Marxist Sandinista too. Don't believe me on that, hit the library and read Chapter One of his book. And oh yeah, Mejia skipped out on his service and did time in jail for that. This guy is who IVAW elected as their leader.

    Number Two at IVAW is a guy who got thrown out of the USMC and told, "Don't Come Back". Adam Kokesh bought a Saturday Night Special from an Iraqi policeman. That he was in Civil Affairs and there to teach and establish the rule of law, well....

    You're told what you can and can not bring back from deployment and weapons are a BIG career ending no-no.

    So he brings it back and takes it on campus and it's stolen from his vehicle. Campus Police investigate and he's facing three felonies, which get plea bargained to disturbing the peace.

    Sorry that I don't have a very reliable source on that. I'm just reporting what Adam Kokesh told the website RadarOnLine in an interview.

    Again, Google a little folks and raise your consciouness.
  • Raoul Deming
    And don't take my word for any of the above. Google is a wonderful tools to educate yourself as to who these groups really are.

    Also, David Cline (VVAW) is the person who brought together these fake patriotic sounding groups, IVAW, VFP and MFSO. When you look at the incestuous leadership of these groups, you'll see it's a Potamkin Village.

    Again, I recommend that you Google these "peace groups" and do some homework. They're forming new front groups all the time, but it's the usual suspects.

    However, if you're looking for a good deal on a Che shirt, go to the biggest peace group, internationalanswer.org. ANSWER is the front group for the Party for Socialism and Liberation, pslweb.org.

    IVAW, VFP and MFSO gladly allow themselves to be used. All have been the lead group in ANSWER marches.

    And ANSWER has handed out a flyer that asks the "Anti-war movement" to give the "resistance" in Iraq "unconditional support". Unconditional is just that "unconditional". They don't ask the other side to stop. And when they kill American troops, they you're supposed to support that too. UNCONDITIONAL.

    Google "Counter-revolution & Resistance In Iraq" and read the last paragraph.
  • Raoul Deming
    Iraq Veterans Against the War are mentored by and modeled after the Vietnam Veterans Against the War who smeared their own generation of veterans via a lie called the "Winter Soldier Investigation". That was 109 "interviews" that were compiled to make a book and a movie documenting wide spread war crimes that they claimed every soldier serving participated in or covered up.

    A book called "Stolen Valor" examined the records of those "veterans" and found many were phony soldiers that never served. Others served, but never in Vietnam. Others that served in Vietnam were shown to be liars. What did they have in common, they lied about their fellow Vietnam veterans and they were members of Vietnam Veterans Against the War.

    They are so reviled that they have to hide their association with VVAW and call themselves "Veterans For Peace". Elliot Adams, David Cline, etc leading VFP are VVAW leaders. Do the math, VFP=VVAW with a few wannabes who missed the 60's thrown in.

    MFSO? What a joke. Their name was cynically and deliberately chosen to steal the goodwill, respect and gratitude the public feels for our troops and use it for their purposes. MFSO's leaders, Charlie Richardson and Nancy Lessin both told a conference of "anti-war" (really anti-America) leaders that the left had no credibility, so they needed to have military families and better yet military members front their cause.

    There’s a lot of ways I can prove that MFSO is NOT the kind of military family you think of when someone says, “military” families. But the best example is 100 members of MFSO at Walter Reed Army hospital PROTESTING!

    Not only were they protesting at Walter Reed, don’t let them BS you about how they care. Those people put FUNERAL WREATHS in front of the Walter Reed sign and out of the 100 MFSO members, not one carried an America flag or had a American flag pin on.

    MFSO continues to sponsor a two hour protest every Friday night at Walter Reed Army Hospital. Let me tell you what I heard from three wounded Soldiers about what they thought of MFSO and their “Enlist Here and Die For Halliburton” and “Maimed For A Lie” signs as those wounded laid on a stretcher and looked out of the ambulance bus at MFSO. All three, who do not know each other, said the EXACT same thing, “I don’t need this S**T.”

    Thank God Long Beach stood up for our veterans and keep these hate groups out of the parade.

    And don't take my word for any of the above. Google is a wonderful tools to educate yourself as to who these groups really are.
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