The American Legion

Like Commander Huber, they've been bugging me to join. Not any time soon:

Every six months or so the American Legion sends me a letter asking why I haven't joined yet. Last week, at its annual convention in Salt Lake City, Utah, the Legion answered its own question.

It's bad enough that the Bush administration abuses its authority at every opportunity to use active duty troops as a Leni Riefenstahl style backdrop for its political rallies. The military, constitutionally under young Mister Bush's command, has no other choice but to play along. But for a so-called "veterans' service organization" to volunteer itself as a wall in the neoconservative GOP echo chamber is a particularly offensive piece of Rovewellianism.

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I'm not one for clubs in general. I got a deal with the exclusivity thing (to me, the reason for most 'clubs' existence is to exclude a certain type of person), but that's just me. As for the American Legion, I won't be a member of something that's just another arm of the White House Propaganda Machine, I don't give a fuck what they do for veterans.

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One of the best examples of the Legion's adherence to the Karl Rove propaganda playbook is its Resolution 169 titled "The War on Terrorism: A Guide to Building Public Awareness" that the Legion adopted during its 2005 convention in Hawaii.

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Proposition 169 acknowledges the right of war protestors to speak out, but admonishes them to limit their activities to things like writing letters to their local newspapers, e-mailing their representatives in Congress, and voting against political candidates whose stances on the war they find objectionable. In other words, anyone who disagrees with the administration's policies and war strategies should feel free to voice their opinions as long as they do so in a way that no one can hear them.

And that fed directly into Donald Rumsfeld's speech at the 2006 Legion convention in Salt Lake City, Utah, where he accused Iraq War critics of "moral" and "intellectual" confusion.

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Want to help vets? Help vets and don't take sides. Don't play politics. Use your influence in a bipartisan attempt to get more funding for the VA and vets' services. I won't support an organization that supports war criminals.