From a Refuse Fascism protester:

Why I Resist

November 4, 2019 | revcom.us

 

My name is Lawrence (Larry) Christie. I am a Vietnam combat veteran. I have seen firsthand what the horrible, dangerous and illegal policies of a fascist/capitalist regime can do to an entire population of otherwise peaceful people. They were agrarian people concerned with feeding their families while trying desperately to keep the war away from them, without any success. I have heard mothers screaming. I have heard children crying out in pain. When I returned home, I felt like a Nazi waging war on people who could have been my people. Mothers, fathers, cousins, grandparents. They worked the land to eke out a living. I came from rural poor. A family still trying to eke out a living from soil that had long ago died.

I was radicalized by my experiences there and I soon realized I wasn’t the only one. I joined a group of Brothers and Sisters, the Vietnam Veterans Against the War. I am still a member, but like most of the left-wing groups, they were not doing enough.

I decided one way to balance my sorely out of balance karma was to become a teacher, and work with the kids that need the help the most and get it the least. I took my revolution into the classroom. While I taught History, I also taught the kids to think for themselves and to question authority and not to succumb to the sirens of capitalism. I taught them to be aware and to pay attention to everything around them. I taught them to speak up against injustice. I taught them that Education, not the military, was the way up. I have heard from these kids many, many times thanking me for the teacher I was.

In 2011, Agent Orange finally caught up with me. My cancer cost me my voice box. My lungs are riddled with lung disease, Pulmonary Fibrosis. But I was determined to keep fighting. I have been in at least a dozen demonstrations. I have been gassed several times. I have been shot with rubber bullets and pepper pellets. I have been pushed back by lines of cop horses. I have now been Bear Repellented. But I will not stop. This is why.

In the spring of 2018, I went to the Organ Pipe National Monument located in the southern Arizona desert on the border with Mexico; I went into a desolate area where more than 3,000 souls have perished trying to find a better life for them and their family in land that was stolen from them by fascists, expansionist forces. I could feel their presence. I could hear them on the wind crying out for justice. When water and food was left for them in the desert, members of the “Arizona Posse” would come in and slash the water jugs and destroy the nutrition bars. This is tantamount to murder! This has to stop. I left there more determined to fight. Then I met the Out Now people of Refuse Fascism and I knew I had finally found a home. I would not have to freelance anymore, even though I relished the moniker of “outside agitator.”

I am not doing this for myself. I am doing it for my kids, my grandkids, my posterity. I do this for all kids, grandkids and posterity. I do not want them growing up and being abused by this vicious fascist regime. But most of all, I am doing it for those lost souls crying out in the southern Arizona desert. People should not have to die or be murdered because of a desire to improve their lives.

Received from Refuse Fascism (refusefascism.org).