In the spring and summer of 1932 over 10,000 American veterans, who had been promised “Adjusted compensation” and corrupted into “War Bonus” by spinners of the day by 1945, wanted Congress to accelerate the payment of the adjustment because many veterans were out of work, had families and more immediate needs. They wanted to get their promised “bonus” and decided to march on Washington to get the bonuses paid. See the videos below for some background on the issues.
It took the veterans 10 years to achieve their goal of receiving promised adjusted compensation for lost wages as they defended America and democracy around the world in 1917 and 1918. They kept coming back until their legitimate demands were met, which is similar to all other movements for societal equity in American history. Women’s Suffarage, Civil Rights, Voting Rights, School desegregation, Women’s Rights (still in progress), LGBT Rights (still in progress), and nearly every other movement for improved social status and equity in our society.
I feel that it is a given that the administration of Donald Trump will, from day one start to work to turn back every right and improvement in societal equity that have been fought for over the last 100 years. Workplace safety (OSHA), clean air and water, climate change, health care, both Medicare, Medicaid and PPACA, Social Security, Civil Rights, Voting Rights, and so many others that our military members, myself included, have been sworn to defend for nearly 250 years. The First Amendment and the rest of the Constitution are also under direct attack by Mr. Trump and his henchmen. Our First Amendment right to freedom of speech, right to peaceably assemble and right to a free press are already under attack by this depraved and unprincipled group.
There are nearly 22 million living US veterans, over 2 million currently serving Americans (Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force, Coast Guard and reserve units, which have paid a high price with deployments since 2001. Nearly every American is related to a veteran or currently serving miltary personnel. This constitutes a massive force of moral courage that can defeat any political movement if we organize it correctly and demonstrate the moral courage necessary to stop this assault on our constitution, our values and our very nation.
I believe that in the first 100 days of the Trump administration will prove beyond any doubt that the depredations I have alluded to above will be legislated and implementation for these un-American actions will begin to take place in America. Without concerted resistance by the millions of veterans who have seen tyranny (I personally witnessed the imposition of Martial Law by Ferdinand Marcos in the Phillipines) who have seen the devastation visited on nations by authoritarian regimes of both the left and right, I believe it can, and is likely to happen here.
To counter this, I propose that as this tyranny is attempted to be implemented by this unscrupulous and unprincipled group of anti-constitutionalists with a propaganda ministry every bit as powerful as any in history can be stopped by the moral authority of 24 million current and former service men and women; and their families. Trump was charged by the voters with the authority to change things, but not to destroy our freedoms, and if we lose our constitutionally guaranteed freedoms, we also lose America itself.
I propose:
1. A PEACEFUL movement to, using the First Amendment right to peaceably assemble and petition our government for redress of grievances, to marshal the moral authority of 24 million veterans who either fought for, or by other means if they served in peacetime, protected our constitution and our freedoms.
2. Have two million or more veterans and their families descend on Washington and let Congress and the new president that we will not stand for the loss of our freedoms, and that we will not allow Congress or this president to take them away. I am aware that not all veterans can travel to Washington to join this protest, but they may be able to travel to their state capitol buildings, or city halls in every city, town, county and village to stage their own protests.
3. Since it has been demonstrated again and again that movements intended to blunt the advance of tyranny and change the momentum of bad policy and change the behavior of those who will oppress us, that this cannot be a weekend event, but a long term, continuous movement that extends for months, or if necessary, years.
4. We own the moral high ground. As Martin Luther King, and before him Mahatma Gandhi, proved, non-violent struggle is the high ground, and if violence is visited on this movement, it will not come from us. It will come from those who seek to oppress us, and they will not prevail.
5. The legitimate news media needs to be freed from the shackles of corporate ownership who may be willing to suppress accurate reporting of the depredations of the Trump administration and the cowed and compliant congress and possibly courts due to their own economic and political interests. We will take control of the electronic social media to form the background of communications among our members who will have the capability to instantly adapt to efforts by this administration to cut us off or silence us. We will not be silenced.
I’m an old sailor from the Vietnam War. I believe that I, and the cohorts before us (WWII and Korea) and those after us, Afghanistan, Desert Storm, Gulf War II and the current military have one more good fight left in us. We will not allow our country, its freedoms and its constitution to be destroyed by this unprincipled group of Chaos Theory advocates whose intend to use this event to America for their own personal gain, and damn everyone else, no matter what.
And I recall from my military training nearly 50 years ago, that no soldier in America is compelled to obey an illegal order. I think it is imperative for those who train service men and women, Article 92 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ). An explanatory definition of what constitutes an illegal order is below:
(c) A general order or regulation is lawful unless it is contrary to the Constitution, the laws of the United States, or lawful superior orders or for some other reason is beyond the authority of the official issuing it. See the discussion of lawfulness in paragraph 14c(2)(a). Source Link
Do not interpret this as me advocating the violation of ANY LAWFUL order, only an unlawful one, such as being told to fire on unarmed, peacefully assembling and protesting civilians. It is my strong belief that at some time during the reign of error that will be the Trump administration, our military men and women may be called upon do follow orders that are illegal, unconstitutional or immoral. I want our military to know their rights, and I want the military leadership to inform EVERY military man and woman what those rights are. In my experience, there is a pretty easy test about whether an order is unlawful, and that is, if you told your mother that you followed such an order, would she be proud that you did it? If you can’t answer yes to that question, then the soldier needs to really think it through before choosing to execute the order. It really gets down to moral choices, and this is as individual as there are individuals in the military. In the “would mom be proud” consideration, I did not say the individual should choose in every case not to follow the order, I said that this becomes a “let’s think about this for a minute” event. And in some situations, the soldier in question may only have the blink of an eye to make that choice. I always hope an American solder will make the right choice.
As I said, the living veteran cohort has sufficient numbers, and the moral authority to move Congress to place limits on the misbehavior we expect from a President Trump. I think it is inevitable that this will happen, and to deny that inevitability is both dangerous an naive. Our first target will be moving the Senate to choose not to ratify the choices of unprincipled, unqualified and anti-constitutional appointments to cabinet and judicial posts.
Let’s get started.