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VFW Slanders VVAW

By VVAW

In late July a mysterious, still unsolved disease swept the American Legion convention held in Philadelphia. To date 180 people have come down with the Legionnaire's disease resulting in 29 deaths. The disease caused great concern in the city as people feared that the swine flu had hit with no cure for it. The sagging tourist trade in the "Bicentennial City" fell even lower as families stayed away for fear for contracting it. The Bellevue-Stratford Hotel, site of the convention, and one of the most prestigious hotels in the city, was like a ghost town. Everyone in the city talked about the tragic deaths and wanted to know what caused them.

But two leaders of the Veteran of Foreign Wars, John Kapitolo and Joseph Buckley, members of the Philadelphia Executive Board, used this tragedy to launch an outrageous attack on VVAW, the Rich Off Our Backs--July 4th Coalition, and the July 4th Coalition. They raved about how these groups were responsible for the deaths. Buckley said that these groups had infiltrated the city and, "for them to go out on a sneak attack against the finest kind of Americans there are. . . is terrible." His cohort, Kapitolo, after naming the groups, said "It's their ideologies against ours, and they play for keeps."

With their 100% blind Americanism, the VFW clearly couldn't care less about this tragedy. They're interested only in turning it to their own perverted aims, and making a little political hay to serve their own purposes. The VFW, like the legion, serves the rule of the rich--not the interests of working people or veterans. Just where the hell do they get off with making charges like this?

The VFW supported the war in Vietnam--they didn't care about thousands of deaths, both American and Vietnamese. The VFW has been silent about the cuts in GI Bill. They call for increased defense budgets and parade around the country trying to drum for support for the US ruling class and their wars of imperialism. They treated the deaths of the Legionnaires in the same way they treat everything. With no concern for what they caused the deaths, these VFW leaders used the tragedy to put forward their own reactionary politics.

VVAW was a part of the Rich Off Our Backs--July 4th Coalition with demonstrated in Philadelphia on July 4th under the slogan "We've Carried the Rich for 200 Years, Let's Get Them Off Our Backs." We're proud of the role we played, marching with workers from all over the country in opposition to all the abuses we face everyday and to put our to the ruling class that we don't buy their Bicentennial message of "national unity."

We don't accept slanders from the VFW either. We see no future in the rotten system we live under, the system that the VFW so staunchly supports. We see no future for a system that can't solve the tragic "Legionnaire's" disease or spawns organization like the VFW which uses everything it can find against the interests of working people in order to keep themselves alive and in the hip pocket of the rich who rule.