Antiwar Vet Brian Willson on Burning the U.S. Flag:
“When do we become outraged—really outraged—at the systematic US killing of humans?”
December 5, 2016 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
Brian Willson is a Vietnam War vet, lawyer, and author. In 1987, during a blockade of a Navy base in Concord, California, to protest the shipping of U.S. arms to reactionary forces in Central America, Willson was struck by a train and lost both his legs. The following was posted December 2 on Brian’s blog and Facebook page.
In April 1969, I witnessed the immediate aftermath of bombings of several inhabited, undefended Vietnamese villages, where virtually all of its inhabitants were napalmed, most very young children—burned to their death (murdered). A few days later, I read in the military newspaper, “Stars & Stripes,” of a young man in the US who was jailed for burning the US flag in protest of the US war.
I experienced a mind fuck because the pilots who dropped the napalm were commended and promoted, while the person who burned the US flag which represented the symbol of the bombing and burning of human beings, was jailed. What is wrong with this picture?
And the US bombed 13,000 of Viet Nam’s 21,000 villages, many napalmed, and in total when the US war ended, somewhere between 5,000,000 and 6,000,000 Southeast Asians had been murdered by our (US) grotesquely illegal and criminal invasion and occupation of another country that simply wanted to be free to pursue their own sovereignty free of western colonial powers.
Where is the outrage about what the US does every day—every fucking day—as it continues to bomb 7 countries under Obomber? (Sorry, Mr. Barack Obama, but you have earned a new spelling of your name, managing every Tuesday your kill list from the air via drones, the ultimate terrorist machine).
The piece of cloth—the US flag—the symbol—is focused on, while the egregious policies continue unabated. When do we become outraged—really outraged—at the systematic US killing of humans? Burn the fucking flag if you want as a free speech protest, but all the folks who condemn that act just sigh over the fucking murders of countless human beings around the world DIRECTLY attributable to very intentional US policy. NONE of them deserve to be murdered, while our political and military leaders continue committing their Nuremberg-style crimes against humanity and war crimes, with absolute impunity.
The US is one big Fucking lie, since our origins, and the sooner we massively revolt and withhold our continued cooperation and complicity with it, the sooner it will collapse to the benefit of the earth and her many species.
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