Thousands are expected to gather in Washington DC on Presidents' Day on Monday in an effort to demonstrate to the American public that Ron Paul is the clear choice of the troops.
Adam Kokesh, a veteran of the Iraq war, an outspoken activist, and host of Adam vs. The Man, co-founded Veterans for Ron Paul 2012 with Nathan Cox, and together they have worked to organize an event to bring attention to a fact that the mainstream media has largely ignored: Ron Paul receives more campaign contributions from active duty military than all of the other presidential candidates combined, including Barack Obama. Ron Paul's top three donors are Army, Navy, and Air Force. Paul supporters often contrast that with Mitt Romney's top three donors: Goldman Sachs, Credit Suisse Group, and Morgan Stanley.
Kokesh, Cox, and other Paul supporters have been frustrated by the lack of mainstream media attention highlighting the troops' support for Ron Paul and his non-interventionist foreign policy. Nathan Cox, 30, believes the media wants to keep Americans in the dark.
Cox, who served in the Army Infantry from 2006 to 2009, says that he first heard about Paul when he was deployed in Iraq. He described himself as "politically apathetic" when it came to politics, but in 2007 when a friend sent him YouTube links to Republican debates and interviews with presidential candidate Ron Paul, his apathy began to dissipate. He said that everything Paul said made complete sense to him. He wasn't only drawn to Paul's positions on the nation's interventionist foreign policy, but also his views on the government's interventionist economic and domestic policies.
From there, Cox bought and read several books: Revolution: A Manifesto by Ron Paul, Blowback by Chalmers Johnson, and a few on Austrian economics.
"And that's how I woke up," Cox told Examiner. "People say that Dr. Paul cured their apathy. He absolutely cured mine." Cox says he realized that the war he had been fighting in was unconstitutional because it had not been declared. He said,
I realized that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. I realized the reasons we went into Iraq were very likely a lie to begin with. And if Iraq did have nuclear weapons, why couldn't we have done what we've done in the past and try to resolve things diplomatically and peacefully?
Cox hopes that this effort to bring veterans for Ron Paul to Washington on Monday will wake up others as well.
This march is different than other marches that take place in Washington. All Paul supporters are invited to attend, but only veterans and active duty members will be allowed to participate in the planned military formation march from the Washington Monument to the White House.
The march will begin towards the White House, then turn left on Pennsylvania Ave, and come to a halt at 1600. They will then do an about face and present a hand salute to a folded American flag for as many seconds as troops have died since President Obama took office, then march silently back to the Washington monument and fall out of formation.
It is an absurd proposition to say that members of the military supporting candidates in uniform would be construed to represent official positions of the government and rules regarding free speech for members of the military have only been used to silence dissent and keep the true will of the troops from being relevant in the American political discourse. Well, NOT ANY MORE!
I don't think [Morris] understands the definition of a patriot. In my opinion, a patriot is someone who stands up against the government when they know their government is wrong. That's what Ron Paul has been doing for decades now. He has been calling out the tyrannical statist government ever since he got in office.
To rally the troops of the Revolutionary Army in the winter of 1776, Thomas Paine said, “These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot, will in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered.”
As Iraq Veterans Against the War, we are resisting an occupation that we once risked our lives for. We swore to support and defend the Constitution of the United States of America, but we found out the hard way that the greatest enemies of the Constitution are not to be found in the sands of some far off land, but rather right here at home! ...Yellow ribbons and lapel pins will not save this country. When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty. The utmost manifestation of love and devotion to America is today, as it always has been, resistance of tyranny.
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