If you ever had second doubts
about whether or not the American
Legion is really firing on all
4 pistons or not when it comes
to legitimately and aggressively
representing the interests
of today's Veterans community,
then you have to look no further
than a March 1, 2006 Associated
Press article titled "Cheney
Tries To Calm Vets On Healthcare"
printed in the Sierra Times.

Apparently Vice President Dick
Cheney went before a Legion
audience to front out propaganda
about the President's new 2007
budget proposal for the VA which,
on the one hand is a $3 billion
increase, and on the other hand,
arrives at that by doubling
co-payments, adding an enrollment
fee, and dropping over 1 million
Veterans out of the system.

Incredibly, American Legion gave
Cheney full audience and then
applauded the VP on and off the
stage with smiley faces in tow.

In an after-event interview,
it was only then that Director
Peter Gaytan finally had the
stones to say to a reporter what
SHOULD have been said
in Cheney's presence:
"We thank Vice President
Cheney for speaking to the American
Legion and we remind him that the
Legion fully supports an adequate
Veterans Administration budget to
allow all eligible Veterans to
receive the care they have earned
and deserve."

News Flash American Legion: There
is little or no effect by making
this statement after Elvis has already
left the building !!


Thus another golden opportunity
to stage an effective and well-timed
countermessage to a White House
maniac using smoke and mirrors on
our budgets and benefits was lost
forever, as has been thousands of
other lost golden opportunities in the
past by American Legion since
the day it was chartered.

Ya see, American Legion is and
always has been a huge part of the
Vet-problem.

Members are often not at these
Ole Boy events as Veterans themselves,
but as political party operatives
to support the idea of aimless
and useless grandstanding.
That's right, Vet-Republicans
and Vet-Democrats. Some of you
didn't know, now did ya ??
Well, now you do.

They are your future political
party "appointees" to
the VA who are lined up in waiting
for future VA administrations.
This is how Steve Buyer types,
and Anthony Principi types and
Tim McLain types all find their
way into the dump-on-Veterans-for-hire
arena that the VA agency operates.
The VSO's, ya see, are nothing
more than training schools for
the up and coming, and they go
to these charade podium events
as party supporters. Who else
but American Legion would have
the gall to put Dick Cheney in
front of 2,000 pissed off Veterans
who just got word about the budget?

Show me one single time that
the American Legion has filled a
convention hall for the purpose
of a White House budget-slashing
speaker coming to talk to them,
and then have the entire Legion
audience either get up and walk
out when that speaker took the
podium, or otherwise hold that
speaker at bay for a full 10 minutes
with an organized shoutdown and
cat-call from the Veterans in
the seats!! NOT ONE TIME !!

The Legion has never known what
to do with "member power", and
therein lies the big problem
for those who are unknowing enough
to hand over their membership dues
to this Monkey Squad from La-La-Land.
Talk about your dummies who just don't
get it......WHEW !!

The rest of the problem here
is that VSO's generally are
disconnected and aloof at every
turn when it comes to putting
out organized opposition to
threatening, unfounded, and
often ridiculous threats by
administrations who relentlessly
terrorize us with beancounter
axes, and the stream of worrisome
rumors that we all have to live
with.

It doesn't seem to occur to
American Legion that for as long
as we sit quietly, applaud on cue,
smile in the wolves faces,
and provide them with a ready
and willing polite audience each
time the urge to grandstand on our
dead and impoverished backs comes
upon them, that the white collar
terrorists will continue to
be the threat that they are
to us. There is no reason to
change their ways, because
like fools, robots, and retards,
we will just keep on paying
American Legion memberships
and showing up at convention
halls to hear the line of
bull stand there and blow smoke
in our faces. It's time that
we take opposition into our
own hands.

At the American Legion it's
all about them, and at the
VA it's all about them, so there
is no mystery why the individual
Veteran sitting in a rocking chair,
year in and year out, waiting
for his or her check to come
in the mail, feels forgotten,
betrayed, and the victim of
a grand conspiracy. You are not
alone and there are a LOT of
us with that feeling at times.

But it's a new day, and we simply
MUST unite ourselves and STOP
supporting the places who take
our money and then get nothing
done on our behalf. We MUST.
We simply MUST shed
ourselves of old ideas and
beliefs that the VSO's actually
do anything on our behalf.
They don't, and this Legion
incident proves it.

We have all been hoodwinked into
the lure and nice appearances
of being associated with clubs
which have a nice message, and
appealing uniforms, and seem
to have the kind of military
connection that so many of us
are akin to. But just like the
Tooth Fairy and Santa Clause,
it's not real y'all, and it's
time to leave those illusions
behind.

We have to become smarter in
the future and learn how to
SEIZE crucial
moments and opportunities
to make our voice known; to
display our anguish, despair,
frustration and protest of
what is done to us time and
time again; and to stand up to
a VA agency who doesn't care about
the havoc that it raises on our lives
and families.

We have to find our voice,
find our nerve to use it when
the opportunity presents itself,
and to find our inspiration to
say something important when
we do use our voice.

But American Legion has now
drifted so far out into the
disconnect ocean, we should
all stop looking to them as
something valid to hook up
with as a way of making significant
social and justice change
in our behalf. It's time to
break away and find our own
methods, wherever that leads us,
and to let the Parrot-Heads
drown in their own self-absorbed
political party muck.