Jewish War Veterans of the United States of America

Yes, We Can !!!!!

January 2009

The fascinating thing about the rhetorical words of the chant, "Yes, We can," is the addictive illusion that there exists the actual intention to perform or accomplish a result or a hope. There should be no question that the intention can become a reality assuming [erroneously] that no one adds the words "if" or "but" and thus creates conditions which allow you to avoid the result.

Throughout the last political campaign many promises were made to the veterans' community in order to get them to cast their votes for either of the candidates. And, vote they did, trusting in the integrity of their candidate to perform.

Based on the results from past elections, many of the veterans should have recognized the invalidity of the promises based on past performances. The promises were there, but after the election, the promises remained, as usual, merely promises awaiting the next election when they once again will be dragged out and repeated.

The old saying goes that if you are willing to talk the talk - you must be willing to walk the walk - or, B.S. is find to get elected, but don't depend on it to stay in office.

This time, however, we didn't have to wait 24 hours to recognize the emptiness of the promises. It has always been a custom for the newly installed President to make his first visit to the Veterans Inaugural Ball, which honors the recipients of the Medal of Honor.

Don't hold your breath; he never showed up - he did make ten other different Inaugural Balls. So he must have either sent the Vice-President, or the Vice-President happened to be in the neighborhood and dropped in for a drink - of course, that was later in the evening after many of the MOH recipients had left for the evening.

Then we were presented with an economic "stimulus" bill for $800 or $900 billion [that is with a "B"] in which the veterans were not ignored, but, apparently just recognized for about one billion of the stimulus - not even half of an earmark.

Hey, veterans were willing to put their lives on the line in defense of their nations, so why should anyone even bother with meeting promises to them or their hopes when you had to make sure there was a minimum of $20 billion for bonuses for those who suckered us into our depression [both financial and mental].

Rather than leave you with bated breath, let me once again make a recommendation that we don't wait until AFTER an election to demand the promises are kept and implemented.

Do it NOW when they have no excuse for stiffing the veteran. We don't need to become a statistical increase in the figure of 200,000 homeless veterans and their families.

WITHHOLD OUR VOTES - YES, WE CAN!!!

Now, which issue am I writing about -of course, it's mandatory funding of health care, not merely for the Armed Forces, but for the Reserves and the National Guard personnel who served for one tour and found out that they mandatorily [they can use the word when they have to impose obligations on others] were required to serve two or three additional tours after coming home to find out they had no jobs to come back to.

We did allow a new term to be used - "advanced funding" - so that the politicians could find it more tolerable to ignore - to me "advanced" really had the meaning and feeling of "terminal" - an immutable ending. Let's say it as we mean it - "mandatory" - for those who wait to be served - for the men and women coming back with severe injuries, such as PTSD, TBI, and many other injuries from service.

LET'S DO IT NOW - YES WE CAN!!!

Recall when we quietly accepted a five-year moratorium without indexing to help balance the budget and do our part for the country. Then, after the five years, they added to the VA budget, and veterans deluded themselves into believing that politicians were increasing the budget in what was actually the grant of a minimum portion of the accounts that had been withheld during the moratorium period.

If veterans allow this to happen again, they deserve what they get, and be assured that we will get it with a sugar-coated spoon for our obligation from the Nation without the corresponding bailout obligation to those who served. Somehow or other, rhetoric, no matter how well said, does not compensate for an empty stomach or a roof over your head. The rhetoric looks good in history books and the classroom or in campaign snow-jobs.

The stimulus bill also calls for necessary infrastructure work and provides for funds for those in the poverty level of our society - everything is done with a patchwork approach to the needs of our society - of course, with the exception of feeding substantial monies into the hands of those who put us into the morass we are in. The poor and the middle class [really a different subclass of poor] are the rationale for the so-called stimulus without a real plan to bring about any sort of real accomplishment.

With the recruitment for the Armed Forces meeting its quotas due to our failing economy, a real National Service Plan can be created to encompass all manner of services which require people - from different classes from top to bottom - to develop our society's viability and growth.

A program which applied band-aids and finds its voice in fear rather than in a national business plan only delays the ultimate development or collapse of our society and feeds the ambitions of politicians and greedy blood-suckers referred to as economic realists. We have been tutored to become so global, we forget growth at home - by the way, whatever happened to Katrina?

LET'S DO IT NOW - MANDATORY FUNDING - YES WE CAN!!!

If we recognize that our politicians also understand our call for results, they may respond to the obligations they owe us. Let us use plain talk and seek out the doers in our communities who will bring about our desires - even if we have to take them out of our own groupings and supporters.

While the need increases, the number of veterans in our law-making bodies continues to decrease. In fact, we can create our own issue party - using Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, or other social networking web sites used by the politicians, their parties, supporters or whatever, to force them to positively react.

TRY IT - YES WE CAN!!!

TRY IT - YES WE CAN SUCCEED!!!

By the way, some old movies are back. I enjoyed watching Jimmy Stewart in "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" and Laurence Harvey in "The Manchurian Candidate."