A Tale of Two Assemblies at the Democratic National Convention

*Back to our page on 2004 elections

Boston, July 28, 2004--In the early evening Wednesday on the sidestreets leading to the Democratic Convention, a group of early high school age students approached silently, followed by an equal or greater number of cops on bicycles.


About 10 minutes later, a different group showed up and they could be heard from blocks away. However, cops did not follow these boisterous demonstrators. Only those cops already standing on the corner as the demonstrators passed would intersect with the demonstration. As the demonstrators passed, at the last intersection before the left turn to the thoroughfare leading to the Fleet Center the police just shut their truck door to get out of the way.



About 150 demonstrators this summer day in 2004 were chanting "Ho, Ho, Ho Chi Kerry." It was mostly Vietnam Veterans (late middle-aged white men) and a sprinkling of twinkies. The chant echoes that of anti-war militants from the 1960s who chanted "Ho, Ho, Ho Chi Minh is going to win!" The chant referred to the fact that the leader of the Vietnamese resistance war was going to physically defeat u.$. troops. Just as the demonstrators in the 1960s predicted, that is what happened. Unfortunately, there is still a portion of Vietnam Vets who don't get it. They can be found at the backbone of reactionary organizations advocating things like genocide and nuclear war, which is what they would have gotten had the united $tates "tried" any harder to win that war, since Mao had nuclear weapons and a people willing to fight U.$. aggressors if given the chance. This never stops reactionary Vietnam vets from saying the united $tates didn't "try hard enough" to win in Vietnam.

What these particular vets are trying to do by chanting "Ho, Ho, Ho Chi Kerry" is to name presidential candidate John Kerry a traitor or communist, just because Kerry changed his mind after serving and took an active political role against the Vietnam War. It's classic scumbag red-baiting tactics on behalf of genocide and nuclear war.

We interviewed a handicapped womyn from Oklahoma who is an official Kerry delegate on the veterans against Kerry demonstration. She restricted herself to saying that they have a right to demonstrate. There is an interesting point here, because many of these same troglodytes do not support the First Amendment as evidenced by their calling people traitors with regard to the Vietnam War.

This particular Oklahoma delegate while opposing the draft went on to support a larger military as Kerry has said by calling for a doubling of "special forces." In her discussion of this we can almost hear her saying there is no other way to employ the people of this country without a military to absorb everyone. To MIM, this is an example of how this country has ruined itself--by hiring too many troops, cops and prison guards--and to do what? Fight fascism? End slavery? Quite the contrary, we have slave labor in our prisons. No, there is no great goal in hiring all these repressive personnel that is going to move forward Amerika or the planet. It's simply making up for what is wrong with our economy. If the Democrats and Republicans cannot think of anything productive for people to do other than join the military, build more prisons and follow kids around on the streets, we'd suggest they hand power over to us and we'll get the economy moving on serving global humyn needs and undertaking scientific and technical research.

The problem with a lot of these reactionaries is that they don't know what a real job is anymore. We'll show them how to organize real jobs and they won't have to spend all their time campaigning for candidates to lock up more people in the united $tates while getting overtime gravy at Abu Ghraib.

The whole demonstration by these particular vets and all their bitter involvement in politics is just another great reason never, ever to volunteer for the u.$. military, because if you do serve in the military like Kerry did, the troglodytes will criticize you and dishonor your service within their own reactionary logic if you ever decide some day that perpetual war is not a good idea. In fact, these particular genocidal maniacs are so political that they would rather support Bush and Cheney who did not serve in Vietnam at all, so it goes to prove what the founding fathers of the united $tates said about how a country with too many veterans goes down the drain as exemplified by the European countries of the 1700s which had too many wars. It's not that these vets can possibly say Bush & Cheney did better service than Kerry. What they are saying is purely political--that they did not get enough war.