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Thursday, August 31, 2017

Don't Let This Story Die



One of the best anti-war documentaries of all time!

I had a call today from a newspaper reporter in San Diego, California where Veterans For Peace is now organizing a protest against an upcoming airshow.  The reporter wanted to find out why and when we began organizing air show protests here in Maine.

MB and I moved to Brunswick, Maine in 2003 and we began organizing protests at the Navy air station in the town soon after arriving.  A couple of times we held a Friday-Sunday 48-hour vigil and fast at the front gate of the former Navy base when the Blue Angels were coming to do an air show.  We asked folks to join us at any time during the weekend and many did - even in the middle of the night Tom Sturtevant and Tom Whitney came to sit with us in the dark at the gate.

During the George W. Bush presidential years more people turned out for local protests - sometimes hundreds.  Then when Obama became president the numbers dried up overnight (as Democrats foolishly thought that Obama would stop our wars) and if lucky we got 50 folks to an airshow protest.

While on the phone with the San Diego reporter I asked her if she knew about the Vietnam war sailors revolt in her city that is reported on in the film above. She said no.  So I emailed her the link and told her she needs to watch it.

Sailors organized a campaign to say they didn't want their aircraft carrier stationed in San Diego to go back and bomb Vietnam again.  They set up make shift polling stations all over the community and held an election asking the public if they wanted the ship to sail or stay home.  It's a great story and should never be forgotten.

Please do watch, and share, this great documentary.

Bruce 
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1 comment:

  1. Brother Jonah9/1/17, 10:21 AM

    As I'm listening to this video, the zoomies are doing fly-overs. About 3 minutes apart. Make that 2. Helicopters day and night. When we complain to the commanders at the Air Academy and Peterson AFB, we're threatened with arrest.If we write to the two major papers, the Independent which is given away free and the Gazette, very military and so-called patriot groups oriented, $1,25 a pop, used to be under the umbrella of a media group called Freedom Corp. Which went bankrupt and still published for 3 years after bankruptcy was filed. The Indy makes money giving the news for free. Capital at it's very best. When we say anything about the nerve gas depot in Pueblo, or the DU in our water, the noise, we're told that's the sound of Freedom. Air Farts actually has people whose only job is to troll the editorials and LTTE. they say rote slogans like 'that's the sound of freedom you ungrateful hippy freak! Get a Job!

    It's like the base hospital at Carswell AFB (defunct) was at one end of a runway. They landed and took off a B52 every 5 minutes. When one passes over a couple of miles up it's as noisy as if they were dropping ordnance.At the hospital the planes were about a half mile up.

    Now Carswell which used to have the largest single stockpile of nukes, has been turned over the Bureau of Prisons as a hospital unit for people who are so f###ed up to ever be a threat to society anymore but with double life sentences. Cleanest analogy I can find for the mindset which condones bombing civilians. Troops too but ground troops have no more protection against airstrikes. Like spraying bugs. It's that far away from morality or humane thought.

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