From a peace-loving vision laid out by U.S. President John F. Kennedy in the early 1960s, the United States — tragically — has morphed into a nation that increasingly encourages international arsonists to ignite the flames of oppression and war abroad — and, as fate would have it, that fire is beginning to be burn here, too.

At least that was the viewpoint expressed by former Rep. Cynthia McKinney, who gave the keynote address at the 29th Annual Convention of the National Veterans for Peace on July 26 at the event center at Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church in Asheville’s Montford community.

Toward the end of her 25-minute speech, McKinney, the Green Party’s 2008 nominee for president, asserted, “What I want to leave you with is this: If these arsonists would light a fire in Africa, Europe, Asia... Why wouldn’t they light a fire right here at home? I hope I’ve demonstrated” — through her address — “that that is what is happening.”

McKinney, who was the first African-American elected to represent Georgia in the Senate, slammed President Barack Obama, who also is black, for many of his policies. “We now know that blindly voting for a Barack Obama was not going to give us the policies of a Martin Luther King Jr.”

The night’s other featured speaker, Matthew Hoh, gave an address titled “Thank You, For Taking the Red Pill,” in a reference to the film “Matrix,” where the premise is that mankind is in a comatose state, while apparently being harvested for food. However, one character, Neo, wakes up and realizes that “what’s in his head is not for real,” Hoh recounted.

Referring further to the film, he added, “The blue pill will put you back into that comatose state... The red pill will put you into reality... The red pill is pain, frustration, horror — plus, it’s true... I’d like to thank everyone in here for choosing the red pill.” The crowd erupted into cheers.

“To go against the grain, to go against what everyone thinks is right, to go against the conventional wisdom — particularly on war... I want to thank you for doing that,” said Hoh, a senior fellow at the Center for International Policy and the former director of the Afghanistan Study Group.

Later, he noted his disappointment with Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for encouraging progressive legislators to back Obama because “this is our president” — in his recently thwarted plans to lead the U.S. into war with Syria. He praised those progressives, notably the VPW, for standing up to Pelosi and Obama — and keeping the nation out of what he termed yet another useless war. 

Hoh also lamented that if former Sen. Hillary Clinton, also a Democrat, is elected president in 2016, she would — under the same circumstances as Obama — probably try to lead the U.S. into some foreign war, with many progressives like Pelosi backing her, right or wrong, simply because she is a fellow “progressive.”

The convention, based at nearby UNC Asheville and hosted by VFP Chapter 099 of Western North Carolina, was held July 23-27. About 250 to 300 people attended the banquet, where the wine ran out early, but the beer — in a city that touts itself as “Beer City USA”  supply — held up.

During the July 26 event, the St. Louis-based National VFP recognized what it termed the stellar efforts of event coordinator John Spitzer, who, in turn, singled out — for praise — members of the WNC chapter, of which he is a member. One of the convention’s slogans was: “Your silence won’t save you.” The convention’s theme was: “Peace at Home, Peace Abroad.”

Among the performers was a quartet of singers, Fruit of Labor, who, in preceding remarks before songs, spoke in favor of “self-determination of the Palestinian nation” and the need “to stand firm with our Palestinian brothers and sisters.” No one at the convention — who spoke or sang on the night of July 26 — voiced any favorable comment toward Israel or the Israelis.

The VFP bills itself as “a global organization of military veterans and allies whose collective efforts are to build a culture of peace by using our experiences and lifting our voices. We inform the public of the true causes of war and the enormous costs of wars, with an obligation to heal the wounds of wars. Our network is comprised of over 140 chapters worldwide whose work includes educating the public, advocating for a dismantling of the war economy, providing services that assist veterans and victims of war, and most significantly working to end all wars.”

Further, the VPW notes, “To achieve these goals, the members pledge to use nonviolent means and to maintain an organization that is both democratic and open with the understanding that all members are trusted to act in the best interests of the group for the larger purpose of world peace.”

McKinney, who spoke last, began by noting that “I lament when our movements for justice are weak at home” because “people suffer at home as well as abroad. I’m sick and tired of war and oppression, when there need not be any...

“Either we are actively engaged in the struggle for peace... or we take the side of the perpetrators.... Now, because of policies from the (Bill) Clinton administration to the Obama administration, “we all know that the perpetrators can be do-gooders” among the progressives, she said.

“Blindly voting for a Barrack Obama,” she said, did “not going to give us the change that all of us want and need. There is no substitute for doing personal research on the candidates... to make sure they actually align with our values.

“There is no voting for the lesser of two evils, because you end up with a more effective evil,” McKinney said.

“Arsonists are at work all over our world... We’ve been called on when the world is on fire... They (the arsonists) want every corner of the world to be aglow... with hatred.”

Further, she asserted, “Institutions have trained everyone since the beginning of this country to especially be afraid of black males... Now, it’s become time to move on to the next group to hate — the Latinos,” who, she said,”leave their homes and countries because their governments... made life unbearable for them there.

“Today, the United States supposedly is negotiating with Honduras... But just imagine if the U.S. had not interfered with two Honduran elections... Without that foreign policy of the United States, President Obama’s first coup after he came to office, Hondurans would be building their nation, instead of fleeing it. (Her assertion was greeted with loud and sustained cheering and applause.)

“If truth is the first casualty of war, it also could be said hatred is the first spoil of war,” McKinney said. “In the last decade or so, we’ve been told Muslims are worthy of our hatred. ... So we’d better kill them before they kill us. ... While we are taught to kill Muslims, from what I’ve seen, they’re doing a pretty good job of killing each other.” (Her quip prompted some laughter from the crowd.)

After reciting a long list of countries that, McKinney said, are “on fire,” she noted that Ukraine — “for the moment” — tops the list. 

While she praised Asheville as “a beautiful hamlet in the heart of the Cherokee Nation,” she nonetheless noted that “what is wraught abroad comes home — and what is made at home is exported abroad.”

She then turned to what she termed “media demonization,” noting that while she was in Georgia, “the pro-Israel lobby struck me for the first time. I’ve been quoted as saying.... I became engaged in hand-to-hand combat” with Israel. “As with other victims, I was made to look like a deserved what I got.

As for the lighting of fires around the world, “It works that way whether the arsonists are lighting the way for a foreign leader, or a domestic one,” she said. After all she has experienced, “I now understand the mechanisms of oppression and repression.”

What we struggle against are the tactics and orchestrations of the U.S. government, using as one example what McKinney said she has learned about in two African nations, where “we now know the United State will have targeted assassinations — and lie to get away with it.” She said the actions reinforced to Americans the misperception “that Africans just like killing one another.”

She also claimed that declassified documents from Operation Condor “showed the existence of Kill Teams, aimed at people — like us — who just want peace and justice. ... This was brought home and used against U.S. citizens....

Speaking of what she termed “illegal employment by the CIA,” she said that “the Church Committee found that anti-war activists were subject to a broad range of activities to smear them in the press, so whatever happened to them it would appear they deserved what they got.... They even targeted assassinations, like Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr....

McKinney said she has extensively studied the killing of “Dr. King,” noting that nearly one-third of respondents to a poll after civil rights leader’s murder “felt strongest that Dr. King had brought his assassination upon himself.”

“We’ve changed United States policy from peace and justice (in the early 1960s), when ‘we the people’ who struggle for peace were on the verge” of success, including Kennedy using the word “peace” 30-some times in a speech at American University — just weeks before he was killed.

“So instead of the torch being passed to a new generation... Everyone in this room knows what we have instead.... This conference has covered what it means to be a conscientious objectors. My son is a conscientious objector.” (The crowd applauded.)

McKinney added, “I’ve been underneath U.S. bombs in Libya. I’ve been in prison in Israel... I’ve long said, ‘Let’s end U.S. wars and avoid future generations of veterans who will be neglected by their government. (The crowd applauded her words.)

“In conclusion, I say: Make my funk and peace... fun.” (Her speech drew a sustained standing ovation.)

Speaking earlier in the evening, Hoh began by saying, “Those folks in this room who have been part of the Freedom Flotilla, in Gaza, who have traveled over there, please stand up.” (The crowd applauded.)

In his speech “Thank You for Choosing the Red Pill,” Hoh said, “The current state of affairs are nothing to rejoice or be happy about... The Pentagon wants to get bigger all the time — just like any other organization.... But particularly, the romance of war — that somehow there’s honor in it... You hear about wartime presidents, as if that’s something we should strive for.

“We’re a nation that waging literally countless wars overseas. I say ‘countless,’ because we have no idea where our drones are taking us.... The reason you might want to take that blue pill is because there is such a clamor to go back to war.”

Hoh was greeted with groans from the crowd when he asked if anyone had “seen what next week’s Time magazine cover is going to be — “Cold War II: How the West is Losing to Russia.” As several negative comments were muttered, someone spoke up, saying, “That sounds like (Sen.) John McCain.”

He added, “We need to be committed to principles. Not the party, not the ideology, not the politics... We need to use... most of all, our experiences. Everyone in here is an expert on war — not Congress, not people like me at a think tank. You all are the experts on war.”

He told of top congressional leaders — on key military committees — not knowing how many troops the U.S. had stationed in Afghanistan. Also, Hoh lamented, “they spoke of how many people we’d kill in Afghanistan, like a ballgame.”

As one top leader told him recently, “We know there’s a discrepancy between what the military and intelligence says on what’s going on in Afghanistan, but it’s not our place to get in the middle of that.  (People in the crowd groaned.)

“So you can do something... What these guys need is knowledge — they need facts. Seven out of 10 briefings we get come from think tanks” — and they’re mostly funded by military suppliers.

What really pushed me over the edge.... Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.) was a big supporter of me — and he brought in all of the Democratic members of the caucus... I spoke and they all got riled up — this was in November of 2009 — before President Obama decided to escalate the war in Afghanistan.

“Then House Speaker Pelosi spoke up and said, “This is our president. We have to support him.” To that, Hoh asked the VFP crowd, “How many people have died in Afghanistan?”

“If Hillary Clinton had been elected, who thinks the outcome would have been different?” Hoh asked, rhetorically.

“How many peace caucuses are there in Congress?” Hoh asked.

“Zero,” the crowd said. He then named the many caucuses that exist in Congress.

“This is not a negative ... What I’m trying to do is not be negative.... We stopped him (Obama) on Syria... People who are like people in this room. That’s why we’re not at war in Syria today.

“We need to be a big tent... You’ve seen the waste and lies of war... or the blood and lies of war... These trillions could be better” spent on more sustainable priorities, Hoh said.

“Whether you’re from the left or right, or if you’re like me, and you don’t believe in left or right... You know that war is ineffective. War is wrong. War is madness... And ... it’s a crime.”

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