Veterans and the Occupy movements

Posted on engagingpeace.com November 10, 2011 by kathiemm

Tomorrow, Friday November 11, 2011, is Veterans Day in the United States, and for many it will be a holiday. Unfortunately, as has often been true historically, veterans in America are not doing well. Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) rates and suicides among veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars are skyrocketing. (See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ycDZFKNAHEM .)

Although these wars have generated huge profits for corporations like Lockheed Martin, veterans can have a very difficult time obtaining the benefits that were promised when they enlisted.

In these financially troubling times, perhaps it should not be surprising that many people in power are arguing that veterans are not entitled to all of their entitlements.

It should not be surprising, then, that many veterans groups, like much of organized labor, are very attracted to the movements to Occupy…Wall Street, Boston, Tampa, Albuquerque, Atlanta, Baltimore, Burlington….the list goes on and on, in the US and beyond.

Most veterans are probably well down near the bottom of the 99% of our society who are suffering from current political policies and economic inequality.

It is not benefits to veterans, all of whom have probably been wounded in one way or another, that have caused the economic problems in this country. It is the bankers and war profiteers, the speculators, the fraction of the 1% at the top for whom profits are king and other lives are dispensable.

Probably the greatest barrier to peace is that many of the people in power have not figured out how to profit from it.

A recent Pew Research Center poll (see report at http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/i/MSNBC/Sections/NEWS/Pew-Military-Report... ) finds that 1 in 3 post 9-11 veterans view the Afghanistan and Iraq wars as a waste. What is your view? Where and how can you express it?

Kathie Malley-Morrison, Professor of Psychology