Liberals With Brass Ones....

[DemocratSinceBirth]

Another poster posted a picture of JFK from his Navy days.... He was a bonafide American hero..... A liberal with brass ones.... Perhaps the bravest and greatest liberal of all time..... He spent his whole life battling illnesses that would have fell a lesser man...He was given his Last Rites three times.... His brother Bobby said if a mosquito bit his brother the mosquito would have probably died....


My list of liberals with brass ones....

John Glenn- flew dozens of successful missions during WW2 and was the first man to sub orbit the Earth

George McGovern- flew dozens of successful missions during WW2

Bob Kerrey - Won the Medal of Honor and lost a limb in Nam

John Kerry- Three Silver Stars and a Purple Heart

Max Cleland- lost three limbs in Nam

This list is by no means inclusive....

[Zynx]

1. There are many more.

Can anyone find statistics as to how many current politicians of each party are veterans? That would be interesting. I have a hunch that we have more than the Repugs.

Dan Inouye(however you spell it) is another one and so is Charlie Rengal.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

2. Forgot

Daniel Inouye lost his arm....

His service is more exemplary cuz he was one of the Nisee(sp) Japanese... Son of a Japanese immigrant....

[DemocratSinceBirth]

3. Charlie Rangel Won The Bronze Star....

NT

[JNelson6563]

4. Does it have to be war related?

I doubt I'll see anything more heroic in my lifetime than Senator Byrd on the Senate floor about a year ago on several occassions, IWR and HS.

He had more guts than most of the Senate put together. I will never forget.......one of the horribly few bright spots in otherwise dark-as-night days, filled with disappointment after disappointment (I won't mention any of those disappointments by name).

Julie

[DemocratSinceBirth]

5. Not Really,

Bobby Byrd is not afraid to speak his mind....

I was going to add Dr. King to the list.... He knew he was putting his life on the line which he ultimately did....

He even had a premonintion of his death when he told his followers that "longetivity had it's place" and they would "get to the mountaintop" but perhaps without him...

[Speed8098]

7. Agree on Byrd

http://www.newsday.com/news/opinion/columnists/ny-nybres273561309nov27,0,7992113.column?coll=ny-opinion-columnists

See what he has to say about our "Emporer who has no clothes.

[BJ]

6. How about a guy who's never been in the military?

How about a guy who,on the strength of his convictions, has stood up to both big business and the BushRove bullies?

How about Dennis Kucinich?

[DemocratSinceBirth]

8. I Agree With You On DK....

I very much admire his convictions....


I just think there is something to be said about physical courage when exhibited in a just cause....

[BJ]

9. Vietnam was not a just cause......

and both Kerry and Cleland denounced it. They both exhibited courage both on the field of battle and in the U.S. Senate which is something that cannot be said of many of their Republican counter-parts.

But if you want another example of a national Democrat with combat experience how about Representative Leonard Boswell, Iowa.
During his long and distinguished military career (earning him two Distinguished Flying Crosses, two Bronze Stars, the Soldier's Medal, and numerous other awards and decorations) Boswell saw the world. Leonard served two one-year tours of duty as an assault helicopter pilot in Vietnam.
Link to biography.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

12. Don't Know How Max Cleland Got Injured.... Grieviously

but John Kerrey and Bob Kerry showed bravery in bringing their crews back in one piece....


That was the just cause... Fighting for your fellow man and willing to die to protect him....

They get props for that....

[CWebster]

31. Bob Kerry

Wasn't he accused of war crimes? As if every act of war wasn't a crime.

[JohnKleeb]

23. Perfect choice

He's been there for us. He had two brothers in Vietnam and a WWII vet father if anyone wants to know and a heart condition disqualified him from service.

[UTUSN]

10. My Dem Heroes in the Current, Civilian War on Wingnuts

In no particular order, Charlie RANGEL, WEXLER, WAXMAN, Tom HARKIN, Barney FRANK, SCHUMER--------for the way they SMASH wingnuts with intelligence, decency, and deadliness.

[maddezmom]

15. don't forget Hillary n/t

[Padraig18]

11. Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois!

He's got a set! :thumbsup:

[maddezmom]

16. Go Dick!

He did a great job on the floor during the filibuster on judicial nominees and on medicare.

[Padraig18]

19. If the Democrats have ANY brains in 2004....

... they will make him our new leader in the Senate. He's not afraid of no 'pubs! :P

[murielm99]

28. Durbin is great....

I live in Illinois, and I call his office quite a bit. He has spoken up about the energy bill also, and on that bizzaro thing where someone was stealing confidential memos from Rockefeller et. al.

[lastliberalintexas]

13. While I am grateful

to the men and women who serve in our military, they are by no means the people who immediately jump to my mind when speaking of "brass ones."

How about Goodman, Cheney and Schwerner? How about Medgar Evers? MLK, Jr? Morris Dees? How about the thousands of normal, average, everyday men and women who literally put their lives on the line to stand up for the rights of minorities in this country? I'd even add LBJ to this list- he knew what he was doing in signing the CRA of 1964 was political suicide for Dems in the South, yet he went ahead and did it- something Kennedy DIDN'T do.

What about Ceaser Chavez and the thousands of migrant farm workers? What about Norma Rae? What about Mother Jones? What about those nameless souls who stand up for what is right and just, without ever getting the recognition they so richly deserve? The union organizers, the the immigrant advocates, and the Native Americans trying to rebuild their nations?

I'm really not trying to take anything away from our brave service men and women- famous or otherwise. But there are so many others who are just as deserving- if not more so- of recognition for their efforts. And they do it without being forced to kill anyone else.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

14. Agree 100%

also, see post #3,errrrr5



on edit, Cheney, Schwerner, and Goodman were martyrs....


Dr. King too.....

[lastliberalintexas]

20. So was Medgar Evers

I'm not quite sure what distinction you are trying to draw there?

I just wanted to point out that there are people who stand up for what is right, much to their own detriment, without using violence to achieve their ends. Most of them are never really known to the general public, yet they do more to advance our society than I think any of us realizes.


Another I'd add who is not so famous (though not a nameless face either) is Judge William Wayne Justice, formerly of the Eastern District of Texas. He held Texas schools to desegregation orders, despite the toll it took on him and his family. He received countless death threats, his children were harassed, and his wife couldn't even get her hair done locally because no one in town would serve her. Definitely brass ones- without lifting a finger in violence.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

21. I Would Include Medgar Evers.....

I just think there are different dimensions of courage....

I respect Bobby Byrd, HRC* and others for being outspoken but to literally put your life on the line or give it up as folks like Cheney, Schwerner, Goodman, and Viola Liuzzo did during the Civil Rights struggle is truly impressive....


I feel strongly about alot of things but having the courage to die for them takes ones beliefs to another dimension...


Like Socrates drinking the hemlock...


*Hillary did vote for the Iraq War Resolution....

[VOX]

29. Great post, llit!

Thanks for making it inclusive...

:toast:

[Tinoire]

17. Brass what? - S. Brian Willson

C'mon, just say it. I assure you that my friend NSMA is nowhere in sight ;)




I like your list (MLK added of course) but wanted to mention these modern day heroes:

http://www.veteransforpeace.org/

especially S. Brian Willson

S. Brian Willson became a legendary figure in America's peace movement in 1987, when he attempted to block a train carrying military supplies ((to Nicaragua)) and lost both his legs when the train sped up and ran over him. But his speech in San Diego on February 23 went far beyond a simple call for opposition to the threatened U.S. aggression against Iraq. Willson's speech included a slashing attack on the entire history of human 'civilization' and a call for a simpler form of existence. Describing himself as a 'nonviolent anarchist bioregionalist Buddhist', Willson called the George W. Bush presidency a 'cosmic gift' whose function is to educate the population of the U.S. and the world in the unsustainability of the 'civilized' lifestyle.

You can read his essays here: http://www.brianwillson.com/

I met him in real life and the man is inspirational.
---

For most people, what S. Brian Willson went through in 1987 when a train carrying military supplies in Concord, California ran over him and cut off his legs as he lay across the track trying to stop it with his body would be the defining moment of their life. For Willson, however, the defining moment of his life had occurred 18 years earlier, when as a U.S. Air Force officer serving in Viet Nam, he visited a village after an American bombing raid and came face to face for the first time with the real-life effect of America’s war on the Viet Namese people.

"I went to Viet Nam right after Tet ‘69 and one day the base commander asked me to check out a bombing mission because he'd heard South Viet Namese pilots were intentionally missing their targets which were villages," Willson recalled in a speech at the World Beat Center in Balboa Park February 23. "He sent me with a lieutenant who spoke both English and Viet Namese. We went to our first village in April 1969 and I saw, amidst the smoke from the destroyed houses, a water buffalo with a three-foot gash emitting a shriek of pain."

"As I shifted my head to the left," Willson continued, "I saw 120 corpses. I was so shocked I nearly stepped on a woman who had tried to protect her three children from the bombing by shielding them with her body. The napalm from the bombs had literally melted the skin off her face, and as I saw what was left of her eyelids at first I started gagging and then I started crying. The Viet Namese lieutenant asked me what my problem was he was grinning at the sight and I just said something, I didn’t know where it was coming from, but I said, "I’m looking at my family." He just laughed and said, "Well, they were Communists, and we’re happy these pilots didn’t miss their targets."

For Willson whose only previous political involvement had been in the 1964 Presidential campaign of Barry Goldwater, and who had grown up with the same Right-wing ideas as his parents "I knew something had happened to my psyche" when he saw those 120 victims of the U.S. military involvement in Viet Nam. "I really looked at these people as part of my family and I remember thinking, I’m in their village. They aren’t in mine. It seemed like everything I’d been taught was a lie. There seemed to be something so fraudulent about the way I was taught, about the way I could come to Viet Nam and kill people with no idea of what their struggle was about."

<snip>

http://sandiego.indymedia.org/en/2003/02/4395.shtml
==
Also interesting is his book "On Third World Legs":
http://library.nothingness.org/articles/SA/en/display/369

====

Waging Unconditional Peace with S. Brian Willson

By Frank Dorrel

I first heard about Brian Willson back in 1986 when he was fasting with 3 others veterans on the steps of the U.S. Capitol Building. Charlie Liteky, George Mizo, Duncan Murphy and Brian were protesting U.S. military involvement in Central America. We were supporting deaths squads in El Salvador, the Contra terrorists in Nicaragua and a murderous military government in Guatemala, just to name a few of the countries our government was brutally interfering with. These men had fought for their country but now they were fighting for something bigger! They called their action the Veterans Fast for Life!

Then, in 1987, Brian and other veterans took part in a demonstration at Concord, California. They were peaceably blocking the tracts where naval trains were traveling, carrying lethal weapons that were going to Central America to kill innocent people! Unbeknownst to the veterans, the FBI had identified them as suspected terrorists, somehow related to their earlier fast in Washington DC. The engineer sped the train to three times its legal speed limit and ran over Brian, cutting off his legs and fracturing his skull. The other veteran narrowly missed being hit. Brian was lucky to have lived through this terrible assault. Nevertheless, he continued on with his activism! Only now, he was much more famous in the Peace Movement, as well as to the people of Central America, who considered him a hero!

<snip>

In 1986, he went to Nicaragua to see for himself. He found that the U.S. backed Contras were terrorizing the people of Nicaragua. The Sandinista government was labeled as being Communist by the Reagan administration, which justified the U.S. attacking innocent Nicaragua civilians. Brian asked, "Why are we once more, killing mothers and fathers and children! How could we let this happen again?"

Now, Brian began to understand that this was the American way. Killing and oppressing peoples of the third world was nothing new. As he read the real history it became very clear that our civilization has a long history of committing war crimes and crimes against humanity. From the genocide committed against the Native Americans, to the holocaust exacted against millions of Africans to facilitate slavery, to our global "Manifest Destiny" doctrine, a pattern of racism and ethnocentrism produced a grisly path. And then he realized that the U.S. demands access to cheap natural resources, expanded markets and wage slaves, thus controlling the destiny of millions of our fellow brothers and sisters on the planet, in order to preserve our disproportionately privileged way of life.

<snip>

http://www.change-links.org/SWillson.htm

Here's a photo of him with Ron Kovic


Ron Kovic (author 'Born on the Fourth of July')
and S. Brian Willson (also born on the Fourth of July)

[tinanator]

32. hear hear!

now youre talkin.

[kentuck]

18. deleted - error

peace

[SEAburb]

22. Bob Beckel for his actions during '00 presidential election

Having the brass ones to contact repug electoral college delegates, asking them switch to Gore on constitutional grounds.

[guitar man]

24. My local Dem Hero

I don't know how "liberal" he is since he is an Oklahoma Democrat,lol but I nominate Oklahoma Attorney General Drew Edmondson.

Served in the Navy including a tour in 'Nam

****************AND**********************

Filed state charges against former Worldcom CEO Bernard Ebbers and 5 of his henchmen,15 counts of securities fraud each. He saw that the Feds weren't going to do anything under Bu$hco so he filed the charges in spite of criticism and ordered the six to come to Oklahoma to face the charges or be extradited.


Salute!

[fujiyama]

25. I heard that Lieberman

was a freedom rider during the Civil Rights movement. If that's true and he happened to ride in those busses, he deserves credit...Even otherwise I know he was involved in civil rights.

So I gues you could say he HAD brass ones, before he became the pathetic corporate whore (well for the most part) he is today.

[SilasSoule]

26. Henry B. Gonzalez

My former congressman and the only congressman with the balls to file articles of impeachment on Reagan. quick story about Henry B:

He was eating at a local eatery one day about 12-15 years ago when a Vicsious repug spotted him and heckled him aloud in the restaurant so that everyone could hear, "That Henry B. Gonzalez is a communist of the worst kind". He kept repeating it getting louder and more obnoxious. Henry B. Got up walked to his table and Decked him one in the jaw.

on edit: check out this little snippet I ran into while looking for a good biography reference on Henry B. Gonzalez:

http://www.anb.org/articles/07/07-00770-article.html

During the 1990s González used his chairmanship to investigate allegations that the administration of George H. W. Bush had provided assistance to Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, including access to military technology. González later called for Bush's impeachment, charging that the president had gone to war in Iraq without congressional approval. He also worked to assist impoverished Americans, helping secure the passage of the Affordable Housing Act in 1990. For his efforts on behalf of the poor and disadvantaged, González received numerous awards, including the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage. Citing poor health, he declined to run for reelection in 1998. He died in San Antonio.

[BuckeFushe]

27. Inouye update

Back in Italy, the 442nd was assaulting a heavily defended hill in the closing months of the war when Lieutenant Inouye was hit in his abdomen by a bullet which came out his back, barely missing his spine. He continued to lead the platoon and advanced alone against a machine gun nest which had his men pinned down. He tossed two hand grenades with devastating effect before his right arm was shattered by a German rifle grenade at close range. Inouye threw his last grenade with his left hand, attacked with a submachine gun and was finally knocked down the hill by a bullet in the leg.


Dan Inouye spent 20 months in Army hospitals after losing his right arm. On May 27, 1947, he was honorably discharged and returned home as a Captain with a Distinguished Service Cross (the second highest award for military valor), Bronze Star, Purple Heart with cluster and 12 other medals and citations.

His Distinguished Service Cross was recently upgraded to a Medal of Honor, the nation's highest award for military valor. He received that medal from the President of the United States on June 21, 2000

[CWebster]

30. Was Tweety the author of this?

Since when does bombing, killing, maiming and destroying cause Democratic hearts to go all aflutter? This silly boyish fantasy from those who have never killed another for Country, as if it was a brave and noble act, is repulsive. There seems to be this hugh disconnect between the reality of what soldiers do, and their ongoing image as heros, to pass off this latest quagmire as a heroic mission.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

33. Can We Least Admit We Were The Good Guys In World War 2

and that John Glenn, George McGovern,Max Taylor, Gore Vidal and Daniel Inouye and countless others were bonafide heroes?

btw, my dad fought in the North African theatre, contacted malaria, lost the sight of his right eye when he was hit by shrapnel and spent six months recuperating at Walter Reed Hospital.... They did four surgeries on my dad's eye and were able to save his eye but not the sight...

I think he was a hero too....

And here's a little bit about how the former senator on my avatar felt about courage:

"(Robert) Kennedy made a cult of courage. He collected brave men. General Maxwell Taylor who had commanded a division of paratroopers on D-Day was a frequent tennis partner and visitor to the Kennedy house, Hickory Hill. Mountain climber Whittaker and astronaut John Glenn often came, along with various professional atheletes and Olympians. Kennedy would quiz them about their experiences. The questions were precise and practical, but aimed at eliciting deeper truths about the nature of valor."

......

" Robert Kennedy missed combat in World War 2. In 1946 he served as a seaman, second class....He felt diminished that he had never been tested in battle. At a Georgetown party in about 1960, when guests played a parlor game , if you could do it all over what would you be? Kennedy answered a paratrooper. He was thrilled when the president's military adviser, General Taylor told him he would have made it in his old unit, the 101st Airborne."

-Robert Kennedy- His Life by Evan Thomas pg. 18-19