The Cartoonist With No Name Stands Up For the Homeless Heroes With No Name, Either
By Brent Budowsky
The Fourth of July has ended, the fireworks are over, the bands have gone home, the politicians have finished their campaign rounds, the tragedy of homeless American veterans remains unconscionably with us today.
The early Clint Eastwood westerns were about the "man with no name". I was moved to write this note after seeing the brilliant and important cartoon reprinted here. The cartoonist with no name, like many progressives who do brilliant work, receives virtually no support from high level progressives of means. The homeless vets with no name deserve infinitely greater love and support than they get from our society that waves flags while we listen to our iPods, drive our SUVs, count our money market funds, and send our young men and women to desert sands to fight our wars.
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Whether we support or oppose the policy in Iraq, can we agree on this? It is morally and patriotically wrong to have homeless and hungry American veterans in the hundreds of thousands, whom we walk past so casually on the street.
It is morally and patriotically wrong to have so many American vets severely and even 100% disabled who receive paltry support from our government without a rousing call to action from our people. It is wrong that so many troops are sent to battle without armor protection and even sometimes enough bandages, wrong that previous generations of veterans are having relapses of post traumatic stress syndrome contracted in previous wars. Yet we are still not roused to action and conscience worthy of the crisis so many of our heroes face.
I propose we coin a term, and repeat it often: homeless heroes.
The cartoon here sums it up perfectly, a truly wonderful blend of journalism and art; the brief and simple message of his picture tells the story better than all my words. Had the cartoonist been a conservative he would have received calls from the Richard Mellon Scaifes, syndication deals with conservative publications, and the support and promotion that conservatives give conservatives, but progressives of means, shamefully and inexplicably, rarely give to progressives who do the work that often matters the most.
So while the politicians wave the flag on the 4th, the partisans and ideologues dish out the trash talk of treason, a nation waiting to be roused by the call of conscience and community suffers fools who speak falseness to power, while we walk by the nameless and voiceless heroes on our streets, passing along cartoons penned by hands with no name, with the message of goodness, truth and patriotism of the real America.
So let us look at his picture and be moved, and at this moment of crisis for our country, and crisis for these heroes, let us act.
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Posted by Carolyn Kay
MakeThemAccountable.com