Have You Thanked a Peace Activist Today?

A bumper sticker on a neighbor's car reads, "Have you thanked a Vet today?"

I don't mean to be ungrateful, but I seriously wondered, What for?

For keeping these shores safe from the phony menace of communism in Korea and Vietnam? For keeping at bay the equally illusory threat to domestic tranquility from Muslim fundamentalism in Iraq and Afghanistan?

Listen, former and present comrades in arms, forget creeping socialism and terrorism. Did your service to your country keep me, or you, safe from the real enemy within: predatory corporate capitalism? Was it al-Qaeda who plundered our savings and pensions, destroyed our industrial and agricultural infrastructure, and despoiled the planet beneath our feet starting here at home on hundreds of beaches and wetlands? Was it the Taliban who caused our present unemployment? Who are the most dangerous foes of American life and liberty? I say it is the militarists, industrialists, corporations and bankers who spend trillions of our tax dollars on war and make vast sums profiteering from mass destruction and expropriation of other peoples' resources--all the while bankrupting their country. I say it is the government that needlessly does their bidding and puts its citizens in harm's way.

So let me ask you: Should I thank our Vets for their failure to save our country from its own worst enemies? Should I thank them for the fact that we are less free and more frightened today than at any time since the rise of McCarthyism from the depths of the Cold War?

Maybe Vets and their supporters should thank me and others like me who protested each new war fought on the behalf of bankers, oil magnates and arms merchants? Maybe Vets should thank me and others like me who took to the streets of their hometowns and traveled to Washington to save them from the possibility of senseless death in Asia? Maybe Vets should thank me and others like me who were gassed, beaten and arrested by their reservist and police brothers sent to protect the status quo of greed, ignorance, indifference and violence?

Okay, Vets, let's strike a truce. I'll support your bravery and sacrifice if you'll support mine. I'll honor your patriotism if you'll honor mine.

In the spirit of reciprocity and brotherhood, here's my suggestion for a bumper sticker to be glued to the rear or front of every American Vet's vehicle:

"Have You Thanked a

Peace Activist

Today?"