Violence in America is Endemic. It has Nothing to do with Muslims.

Richard Mellor
Afscme Local 444, retired

Here I am again.There was one other thing I wanted to add to this short commentary and that is the number of suicides among veterans. Last time I checked it was about 22 a day. I think I am right in saying that there are more soldiers that have died through suicide than in the so-called and misnamed wars.

Meanwhile, the war profiteers want to add another $50 billion or so to the, again misnamed "defense budget".  This will be paid for by cuts in anything social. The limited Environmental Protection Agency is being savaged (EPA). The Predator in Chief put a guy in charge of that in order to dismantle it. Perhaps the most honest of this gangster bunch in the White House is Steve Bannon. He explained perfectly why the people Trump has chosen are there; to "dismantle the administrative state".

This will be paid for, as will this ridiculous wall, by cuts in social services. That includes the National Endowment for the Arts. (NEA). But if one could enter the houses of the 1%, the more than one or two or three homes of the perpetrators of these attacks on workers and the middle class, and you will see lots of art, they love art. They love to look at art, enjoy its beauty, but mostly they love it as an investment.

The public love to look at it. But it's not for us. War, work, unemployment, violence, homelessness, that's for us.

The Wall to keep out Mexicans, that is a diversion, a waste of taxpayer money. The war against Muslims, the same thing.  Mexicans and Muslims have contributed more to the welfare of the North American people than Trump, the billionaires that support him and the entire membership of the US Congress.

Twenty two Americans, mostly young workers, many of them physically and mentally damaged through this project the media describes as "service to the country" take their own lives. Far more die through suicide than Muslims have ever killed or terrorists have ever killed.

That's not plastered all over the mass media is it! No, some immigrant from Mexico or Central America that committed a crime is, and they are a small minority despite living a life of hard work and hardship. Some Muslim from a Middle East country whose culture and life has been destroyed, not to mention his or her family annihilated by US WMD's, gets the media limelight.

At the sports stadium the flags flap in the wind, the planes fly over, the uniformed worker stands proudly before the next suicide as the mindless entertainer sings the national anthem.  And heavens forbid a woman's breast should be exposed for a nano second.

Next time you are at the stadium if you are one of the few that can afford it. Think of those suicides and recognize this nationalistic farce, this war propaganda for what it is. Workers don't need to be bribed and cajoled to defend what is ours.  But it's time we recognized we're being conned and who the real enemy is. They're right here at home.