Friday, November 11, 2005
Ten Years After
The first Veteran's Day I celebrated as an adult was also the first Veteran's Day in a decade that American youth weren't being sacrificed in the jungles of Vietnam. Ten years later, American newspapers were just beginning to unravel the covert military atrocities in Central America, illegally financed out of the White House by selling Tomahawk missiles to the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Ten years hence, I found myself observing a Veteran's Day gathering called for the purpose of organizing a paramilitary militia in order to carry out murders of American Indians, liberal judges, and human rights activists in the wake of recent success by militias in Montana and Oklahoma City.
Today, ten years after helping to gather information that would lead to the arrest and conviction of eight of these violent misfits, I'm preparing my presentation for a conference on racism, borders, and vigilantes, to address the recurring phenomenon of xenophobic armed civilians in US society.
Ten years hence, I found myself observing a Veteran's Day gathering called for the purpose of organizing a paramilitary militia in order to carry out murders of American Indians, liberal judges, and human rights activists in the wake of recent success by militias in Montana and Oklahoma City.
Today, ten years after helping to gather information that would lead to the arrest and conviction of eight of these violent misfits, I'm preparing my presentation for a conference on racism, borders, and vigilantes, to address the recurring phenomenon of xenophobic armed civilians in US society.
