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Yesterday at noon, union veterans gathered at Memorial Hall in downtown Dayton. This event was one of a number around the country that marked the kickoff of the AFL-CIO's new Veterans' Council.
In addition to mobilizing leaders at the top to develop a national strategy to make sure veterans' voices are heard this year, and mobilizing grassroots union veterans to get involved to protect veterans' interests, the Council marks its kickoff with the debut of a tv ad featuring IBEW member and Vietnam Navy combat veteran Jim Wasser.
John Sweeney, President of the AFL-CIO, spoke at the veterans' event in Dayton today, as did Mark Ayers, President of the Building and Construction Trades Department of the AFL-CIO, Vietnam veteran, and chair of the Veterans Council. Other speakers included Joe Rugola, President of the Ohio AFL-CIO, and Wes Wells, Executive Secretary of the Dayton-Miami Valley Labor Council, whose son is currently serving in Iraq.
Why isn't the Veterans' Council supporting John McCain, who served in Vietnam, instead of Obama, who was never in the military? Material from the Veterans' Council says:
We support the candidate who has the strongest record in standing up for working people’s and veterans issues. Obama supports seriously reforming our nation’s broken health care system. McCain does not. Obama supports ending tax breaks for companies who send jobs overseas. McCain does not. Obama supports full funding for the GI bill and increased funding for veterans health care. McCain does not.
We've got a great one-minute video of John Sweeney speaking at the event, as well as two union vets talking about John McCain available from the Ohio Labor 2008 YouTube site.
During 2004, and starting here in Ohio, meetings with state labor leaders and progressive Veterans organizers noted that a potential pool of Veterans nation-wide who were not members of the traditional Veterans groups that usually support right-wing candidates was there for the having if they were only asked to organize.
Veterans who are members of Unions. Frankly, I did not have the exact figures back in 2004 when I attended that meeting, but it is safe to say that Ohio alone has just as many if not more Veterans who are members of the Labor movement as the American Legion and VFW (who support Bush's war and our troops, but refuse to separate the two) has members who are really Veterans.
Hopefully, I would like to see this effort embrace and work in younger established Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans groups who at least question the Iraq War even if they do not publicly oppose it.
Another area I would like to see this effort move into, especially here in Ohio is to put pressure on Democratic politicians to get gonads and take back our Ohio National Guard. Make the status, readiness, and morale of the Ohio National Guard a political/military/veterans issue, and one that Governor Strickland cannot and will not back down from in political FEAR of President Bush. Now is the time to question the President's authority over our state national guard, not when Bush has left office.
Note my next post from Veterans for America (VFA), they present a report on the cost of the War on Terror on the National Guard units of quite a few states.
WE have to ask, why Ohio is not among the state having problems with our State militia? Note that among those states scheduled to deploy Guard units during post-2008, Ohio is not among them.
Though my next article may not apply to the National Guard troops of Ohio, it is a national problem that eventually will impact our state militia as governors of other states (mostly solidly blue states and those with legitimate natural disaster concerns) refuse to deploy their state guard, especially if a Democrat is elected President. GET THE PICTURE.
The voters of Ohio regardless where we stand on the national issue or war must have THE TRUTH about the status of our state militia not political posturing from the right or left-wing.
In closing, Governor Strickland must issue orders to his Chain of Command that comments to the media of a political nature either in support or opposition to the Iraq War will not be tolerated by state employees.
It is the reponsiblity of our State Legislature, Governor Strickland, and his Adjutant General to decide if our state militia is prepared to handle both a natural disaster (tornados or floods), and never ending deployments to Iraq, Afghanistan or Iran. More to the point, can our state budget continue to handle out of state deployments of Ohio National Guard units during an economic downturn?
The maintenance of our National Guard Units, state employees, is a cost and function of each state and the tax payers of that state until they are FEDERALIZED.
Folks to naively believe that state money is not paying for the federal use and abuse of our National Guard, evidently do not realize that once federalized WE the tax payer are still paying for their use regardless if it comes from state or federal income tax.
If you do not pay state or federal income tax, then I can understand why YOU do not care how the money is spent or our state troops used to be the Iraq or Afghanistan National Guard.
Bobby Hanafin
The Mustang Major