Wars Show Failure
Of Nation’s Ideals

I’ve been trying to write a Memorial Day letter for several days and have found it more difficult than ever. I suspect the Fourth of July letter will never get written.

How can you make Americans, people who came from every country on the planet to establish a home and country which would work for everyone, understand that they have never had the power to shape their lives or their country. For me that has been the American dream; a vision we were all working for—a governing of the people, for the people, by the people. I went to public schools and was exposed to all the distortions and lies about our country that are part of that "educating." Fortunately I had a family that taught me the hard work it takes to achieve a democracy.

Memorial Day is the day we honor those who have given their lives for their country. My family were pacifists, but my father told his children he had to be part of the first World War because it would end war. We would have a League of Nations and humans would unite to protect, restore, and preserve earth. He was a doctor, but an earth spirit who understood his role on the planet and helped us understand ours. My husband enlisted in the Navy in World War II because he would have been drafted if he hadn’t.

I think a madman like Hitler could have been stopped when he first started in 1931 if the tools many of us had been working for since 1918 had been put in place.

All the wars since 1945 have been fought to maintain our present military, corporate, industrial, complex regime. It is heartbreaking for me to get rid of the work of all the enlightened individuals and groups which were in my files. Because they were working for the America we said we had, the choices they tried to make in the past 60 years were very different from those made.

I’ve been working to impeach the present governing officials, because that is the only move that would prove we had some understanding that we no longer have many of the liberties we once had. We could bring the troops home, spend the billions now enriching those who have more money than they need, get universal health care, help earth and human, and begin achieving the vision we all have for our country.

Marion Leonard

Rochester

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