In the post below about Paul Hackett this came in the comments today, and I am posting it in it's entirety. It's from Leonard Clark (read about him here).
I have just returned from Hell and even though Mr. Hackett may not be from my branch of the service : I am mad as hell about what has transpired because he is a fellow soldier. The tactics that have been used against myself ever since I had announced my intentions to run for the U.S. Senate have taught me that our democracy is not always so democratic. My family's benefits and income were threatened as well as my being placed in a federal pen for the rest of my life and then just recently my taxes were audited supposedly randomly while I was over in a combat zone and every penny was then taken straight out of my family's bank account. So, I have learned the hard way about so called American Democracy but I know one thing they never should have attacked my family for now I will fight non-violently the fight to rescue the War on Terror from those who have hijacked it to enrich themselves and their corporate lackeys.
I have just returned from Iraq and the lie being foisted upon you the American people. I have ridden first hand day by day either as gunner or driver in my Humvee for a year long tour of hell in Iraq where everyday you have to play Russian Roulette with your life. Imagine having someone place a 357 magnum pistol next to your head everyday and praying that it won't go off. Then you start to get a feel for what some of us soldiers feel who go out of the wire everyday in Iraq.
Of course you always hear that we volunteered to defend our country and place our lives on the line well that it is true but what we did not volunteer for was to be slaughtered like sheep.
You see anybody who drives down the roads of Iraq through its cities and villages will pass by whole stretches of road where slaughter markets for sheep rebound. The stench from these slaughtered sheep is so strong sometimes that it is all one can do not to vomit when passing them. The passerby will see these poor sheep writhing and twisting in pain as their throats are cut and it is truly a pitiful sight as they slowly die with no way to defend themselves as their blood drain out in the street.
Well, the reason I had to bring up that whole example is to dismiss the criticism that we soldiers should die like sheep. But that's not the way it's going to be told to you the American people. What I have just told you is only the tip of the iceberg if you knew everything you would even redouble your efforts to get my poor fellow soldiers out of this grand lie foisted on us by grand liars.
I am not going to stand by as an American citizen and let this happen I will not be that citizen who says he was just following orders as the Nazi war criminals stated at Nuremburg. I am for fighting the War on Terror and not hijacking it to enrich my personal corporate donor friends and lackeys.
Our country is under attack from terrorist without and tyrants within.
Abraham Lincoln was right in his 1838 speech when he stated that the greatest danger that this country could face wouldn't be from our enemies outside of our country but from domestic tyrants inside it.
I will be officially running for the U.S. Senate as of March 29, 2006 and I will not officially campaign for it until that date. As of now I am not a candidate but will be in 33 days.
my views do not represent the U.S. government nor the Department of Defense
Leonard Clark
Kindergarten teacher
and damned liberal
(always the damned liberal)
Welcome home, and here's another Fighting Dem.
posted by Jo Fish on 02.24.06 at 01:16 PM
Comments:
Can I vote for this man. Or where can I help to get him in there. Sounds as if one of our LIBERALS is going to stand and do the right thing and let the light shine into the dark corners.
posted by: James on 02.24.06 at 10:03 PM [permalink]
Thank You Mr. Clark for your service and please write more so we can help support you for office. I am not surprised by the vitriol of these draft-dodging, flag waving, blasphemous right-wing, corrupt criminal Repugnicans that are in control of our great nation. I am from New Orleans where they ethnically cleansed the city of its hard-working class, mostly Democratic parts of my hometown. That has been a thorn in the side of Roger Villere and the Louisiana Republican Party, a bunch of racist, red-neck, incestuous, morons. Politics and greed are their mantra. They are war-profiteers with blood on their hands.
SEMPER FI!
posted by: HMC_LAVADOGS, USN/FMF (RET.) on 02.24.06 at 10:32 PM [permalink]
Mr. Clark,
You have my support, sir. Keep voicing your concerns and your anger at these inveterate, disgusting liars who poorly mimic leadership. The yellow--never served but I know what I'm talking about--GOP crowd in charge of this country have some come-uppance to face and I hope it comes soon in Nov '06. Keep speaking out!
Jo,
Thanks for this letter!
posted by: hate-the-kool-aid on 02.25.06 at 11:09 AM [permalink]
"Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new guards for their future security" U.S. Declaration of Independence
Time to fish or cut bait.
Ratchet this thing up with about 300,000 more troops, and fully disarm the Iraqi populace. Then pull a Marshall plan, write a constitution and enforce it or recognize who we are dealing with and get the hell out.
You cannot make communists out of Arabs, ask the Russians, they tried.We can't make democrats out of them either, as we should be rapidly learning.
The Iraqis seem to care only about Self, Family, Clan, and the ever present Allah and they are entitled to continue on that path.
Lets take a couple hundred billion dollars and build a sixteen foot chain link and barbed wire fence around the stinking cesspool of violence and put our troops outside, declare the whole goddamn thing a seventh century insane asylum and bring our kids home.
If Halliburton or Big Oil wants to stay and try to milk a profit out of this hell hole let them do it on their own dime.
That is my considered liberal opinion .
I agree, and I am with you - tell me what I can do! We need to get our troops out before it is (already) too late. I had two tours in Viet Nam, (65~66 & 70~71) and the latter's big drive was, "Win the Hearts and Minds," and the "Vietnamize the War" which is the same crap they are saying now. All BS, the Iraq's want to live in the 12th Century - let them - not a drop of American blood for a Gallon of Oil for Haliburton. Enough is enough.....
posted by: Joe Bowker, SMSgt USAF [Ret] on 02.27.06 at 01:27 PM [permalink]
Mr Clark's opponent this year would be Republican John Kyl, two-term Senator from Arizona. Senator Kyl sits on the Finance and Judiciary committees. He has a 0 rating from NARAL and a 100 rating from National Right to Life. He gets rated less than 10 (out of 100) by practically any organization looking at civil rights, but he got a 90 from the John Birch Society in the fall of 2004 and a 100 from the Christian Coalition in 2004. He is rated consistently below 10 by liberal groups.
Good man to get rid of. Mr Clark sounds like a good man to vote for. I pledge $20 to his campaign for the primary and another $20 if he gets the nomination.
Who else will put their money where their mouths are?
posted by: DBK on 02.27.06 at 03:38 PM [permalink]
Thanks to all of you for your support and thanks to my adversaries for giving me a reason to get up every morning and live so that I can fight the good fight.
It is a much better feeling to know that if I have to die that at least I will die on my own beloved American soil and not in Iraq where terrorist tried to kill me and my fellow soldiers for a one year tour of hell.
Of course I am the underdog. There will be those in my own party and of course the Neo-Con-Blood Money Gang (and you'll notice I didn't say Republican party because the Neo-Con-Blood Money Gang are fascist charading as Republicans. The party of Eisenhower would not let these extremist in their party if they really knew them to be what they are.
The Republican party has been hijacked by extremist who wish theoligize our American government and to corrupt it with the blood money of the corporate lackeys and other assorted crooks who support this administration the Bill of Rights is their last obstacle.)
My opponents are counting on their belief that I will never be able to gather enough signatures nor raise enough money and if by some miracle they feel I do get enough signatures they will go to court and abrogate our democratic form of government by having my nomination signatures thrown out in court.
That is where my fellow Arizonans and Americans come in. They will have to show the elites that the grass roots of both parties are not to be trifled with and that the military-industrial-corporate complex still cannot quietly steal our democracy away from us and that we will fight them every step of the way.
My email is : leonardclark385@hotmail.com for anybody who would like to start taking their country back from the Neo-Con-Blood Money Gang.
I have spent a lot of time lately studying how one organizes a political campaign. I'll write to Mr Clark and find out what he has going on in terms of real organizing and I'll try to get some answers from Democratic party leadership about what is going on with the Arizona Senate campaign. Swing State Project is one place to start, but I may be able to get some information out of the party itself. Before we all get too hyped up, it needs some research and not merely a commitment. For one thing, it is very late in the day for such a campaign. Most of the candidates that the party will support are already chosen, and if you aren't one of them, you won't get very far in a primary because there is a large organization behind such things and grassroots campaigns need as much lead time as possible. They also need things like donor lists and voter lists. Endorsements also help. Being a vet is not enough, as Paul Hackett found out.
Anyway, with all my other commitments, this one may be hard to follow up on. If anyone wants to email me and help out in looking into this, I would appreciate it.
But that $20 bucks is still a commitment on my part. I just need an organization to send it to.
posted by: DBK on 02.28.06 at 12:12 PM [permalink]
