More on Veterans Running as Democrats

Jeff Latas who is running in Arizona’s 8th Congressional District has not as yet been featured on Air America Radio’s Fighting Dems — and he should be there! Jeff announced his decision to run for congress when it was still a race against Kolbe. Kolbe has now announced his retirement and other candidates have begun to crawl out of the woodwork. As far as I know, only Jeff and Francine Shacter declared before his announcement.

I’m more concerned with peace than war and peace than fighting, and – personally – I think we need to focus on peace and not get lost in the “anti”of anti-war. Reacting against something often only feeds energy into the system reacted against. That said, most combat vets are not pro-war. They understand the costs of war.

Last weekend in Phoenix when I was in the CODEPINK Hospitality Suite I was talking to Dennis from Phoenix Veterans for Peace and he told me that if you go to a Vets for Peace meeting you will be in the midst of a bunch of combat vets, and if you show up to a VFW or American Legion hall, you will find primarily non-combat vets. I don’t know if this is true or not (but it would be very interesting to find out) but the perception itself is very significant; if you have seen combat and fought and killed face to face, you can never glorify war.

There was a cleansing of the highest ranks of the military as the Bush government geared up for the Iraq war according to retired Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski’s three part article in The American Conservative.

And of course there is Murtha. Did you know you can send Congressman Murtha a flower? You can for a donation and anything over $3 goes to Vets for Peace.

Anyway, Air America Radio’s Fighting Dems series has covered these folks thus far:

Eric Massa
New York’s 29th Congressional District
Date: December 6, 2005
Audio: Play
Website: www.massaforcongress.com

David Harris
Texas’ 6th Congressional District
Date: November 29, 2005
Audio: Play
Website: www.followmetodc.com

Andrew Duck
Maryland’s 6th Congressional District
Date: November 22, 2005
Audio: Play
Website: www.duckforcongress.org

Patrick Murphy
Pennsylvania’s 8th Congressional District
Date: November 1, 2005
Audio: Play
Website: www.murphy06.com

Paul Hackett
U.S. Senate – Ohio
Date: October 25, 2005
Audio: Play
Website: www.hackettforohio.com

Bryan Lentz
Pennslyvania’s 7th Congressional District
Date: October 18, 2005
Audio: Play