Like the line in “Southie is my Hometown”, many South Bostonians (myself included) are “hot under the collar” about the ignoble decision to exclude The Veterans for Peace from marching in The Saint Patrick’s Day/Evacuation Day parade. Ultimately, this day is about celebrating our veterans who sacrificed so much so that we may live in peace! It is disgraceful and dishonorable that these veterans–because of their advocation of peace–are banned from the parade. It makes one wonder why The Veterans for Peace are reproached by the parade’s architects?
These folks did not fight to propagate a militaristic culture in our country–a country that is always on war-footing or heavily involved in conflicts that are injurious to our national interest. Last decade’s foreign policy (The Bush Doctrine) has led to a decline in our power and influence in international affairs (I will not delve into the costly Iraq debacle and how it empowered our greatest enemies–maybe next time).
Why do we fight wars? It is so that we may live in a world where there is peace with justice. Sometimes there is peace, but justice is absent, and that may be cause for war. So we fight for both peace and justice. The motivating factor of our veterans and our current men and woman in uniform is to bring about peace and justice for the American People.
They do not wish to be on permanent war-footing. And the bane of this country since World War II has been the creation of the military-industrial complex that thrives in our nationalistic culture (unfortunately, our Saint Patrick’s Day Parade has become an example of that militaristic culture). Their must always be an enemy–a bogey-man. First it was the Soviet Union and communism; now it is al Qaeda and Islamic Fundamentalism.
We do have real enemies in the world. However, the military-industrial complex creates an irrational fear in the American People so that the arms manufacturers continue to get most of our tax dollars. In 2013, 57% of the president’s proposed discretionary spending went to defense. The United States is responsible for almost half of the world’s military spending at 48%.
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We are on a permanent war footing, so that the CEO’s of companies like Boeing can continue to take most of our tax dollars in order to remain uber-rich. How is that not the redistribution of wealth that hawkish-conservatives hypocritically accuse Progressives of?
The Veterans for Peace bring a much-needed argument to the table, and they do so by innocuously calling for peace. But the powers that be that are victims of military-industrial propaganda–or perhaps, even more dangerously, they are sincerely nationalistic–unjustly ban The Veterans for Peace from our parade.
As aforementioned, 57% of proposed discretionary spending goes to the military whilst our education system continues to suffer, whilst our infrastructure falls apart, whilst the middle-class continues to disappear.
The biggest threat to our nation–to our superpower status–is the continuous neglect of our educational system and the middle-class–not al Qaeda, not Islamic fundamentalism.
We reached superpower status by investing in America’s infrastructure, by making college affordable through the promulgation of legislation like the GI Bill, which led to the formation of a strong middle-class protected by strong unions.
“Those who do not know history’s mistakes are doomed to repeat them.” Our national policies are a mirror reflection of the policies of the Romans in the last years of this great empire’s existence. In their death throws, most tax dollars were allocated to military defense spending, which led to an ever-widening gap between the rich and the poor. Rich Roman families fled and created their own independent fiefdoms to avoid taxation (call it an early form of tax sheltering).
America and our leaders do not seem to be students of history. If we were, we would already know what the result of our policies will be the collapse of our great American superpower status–a mirror image of the collapse of Rome.
We have a lot to learn from these Veterans for Peace. They are true patriots warning us of our eminent demise if we continue to financially ignore our domestic problems in order to redistribute the wealth to the wealthiest 1%.
Leaving them out of the parade is shameful. It is an attempt to propagate the military-industrial complex that the powers that be in South Boston subscribe to.
The New American Progressive
I grew up in the Old Harbor Housing Development in the Irish American neighborhood of South Boston. Currently, Southie has gained fame for being the home of gangsters, powerful politicians, and as the toughest inner city neighborhood in America. It is the home of Speaker of the House McCormick; but it’s the home of three housing projects as well. It’s the home of Senate President Bulger; but it’s also the home of Jimmy “Whitey” Bulger—the most infamous gangster of our generation.
I survived the streets of South Boston by learning to defend myself in a boxing gym with national champions and professional boxers. I still box to this day. I also am very blessed to come from a family that values education and demands top academic performance. Out of my Irish grandmother, who has her high school diploma, she had a daughter that put herself through nursing school as a single mom (my mother); out of four grandchildren, I went to Boston College High School founded in 1864 by the Jesuits as Boston College, and the girls went to Fontbonne Academy. Both are college preparatory schools run by the Jesuits and the Sisters of Saint Joseph, respectively. These Catholic orders inculcate their students with the belief that we are meant to be of service to others. Three of the four have Bachelors Degrees. One has a graduate degree, and I am a graduate degree candidate at Suffolk University in marketing. My BA is in political science.
I ran a multiplicity of Boston campaigns. I managed campaigns and was field coordinator. However, as field coordinator, my role was that of a campaign manager. I developed the theme, message, and strategy. The candidate and I start off with a SWOT analysis, and go from their. It requires tremendous trust for a public official to put her reputation in your hands, to trust you with their deepest, darkest secrets, and to develop a working relationship, so that the candidate does not need to be a campaign manager. Not all candidates are political scientists who grew up in politics and knew that campaigning was one of their callings.
I remember taking on a campaign managing role in one of my campaigns en medias res, and it was a campaign manager’s worst nightmare: I had an articulate, courageous, progressive candidate from a great Latino family, including a father who was a Boston Public School teacher. However, he knew not how to campaign. I proudly took over that campaign. That candidate went on to serve as the Boston Coordinator for Kennedy’s U.S. Senate bid.
I ran a presidential campaign for a labor union, and I needed to utilize my Southie street smarts to come out with the win.
I worked for the Obama ‘08 Campaign as a co-founder of South Boston for Obama. I then worked for him for a year in NH, where I got to meet and speak with him.
I served in two branches of government. I worked for the Committee for Public Counsel Services (public defenders), and, as an Adams, who going all the way back to John Adams, believed that the keystone to free society was fair and proper representation under the law for all people, no matter the court of public opinion.
I also worked in the legislative branch for a statesman named Senator Hart. I did constituent service work, which was so rewarding. I got to give back to a community that gave me the opportunity to achieve my dreams and goals.
As an undergraduate at Suffolk University where I served as the President of the Pre-Law Association and graduated with a 3.4 GPA, I was honored to be given a scholarship to study the effects of fascism and communism on Central Europe after writing a paper about my own family’s tragic experiences in Poland during Nazi occupation. I completed an independent study with a brilliant political scientist, Kenneth Cosgrove, PhD., author of Branded Conservatives, opened my eyes up to the ways in which conservatives successfully utilize modern marketing techniques to win elections. They shifted the country to the right with their use of marketing strategies.
I am currently an MSM (Masters in Science in Marketing) candidate at Suffolk University. I am proficient with Wordpress and Squarespace; Google Analytics; social media advertising campaigns; and other forms of marketing like STP (Segmentation, Targeting, and Positioning).
This site will be the home of my new blog that will discuss politics and marketing.
I hope my life experience and my education in these fields creates a healthy dialogue that can lead to higher truths.
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