Portside

On Veterans Day November 11, peace groups across the country, reclaim the original intent of Armistice Day: peace among nations through seeking peaceful, effective alternatives to war.

We are ANGRY that there is a holiday that glorifies nationalism and patriotism and ignores the trauma that U.S. militarism enacts all over the globe.

The war machine conditions vets to embrace white supremacy. In order for soldiers to kill, racist indoctrination needs to be part of the training.

The imperial power that we veterans fought for abroad is the same one some of us are now struggling against at home and the two couldn’t be more intimately linked. Our struggle is, at least in part, over who gets to define patriotism.

We are appalled to see military weapons, vehicles and equipment once again deployed in U.S. cities to control community members who are reacting to a long history of state-sanctioned violence.

I mourn mostly for those we have killed — and I mourn for those we haven't killed yet, but will in the days ahead.

Movements are defined by their ability to challenge the status quo and, right now, that’s what might be beginning to happen when it comes to America’s wars.

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