Dear Rep: Renuart:
1. Please cease and desist from using video of you walking among graves of our veterans in our St. Augustine National Cemetery in your TV ads for your re-election campaign to the Florida State House of Representatives. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EdaBQZo90LQ "Political activities, including filming of campaign ads, are not permitted on cemetery grounds." http://www.cem.va.gov/cem/docs/factsheets/filming.pdf
2. The South Jersey Chapter of the 82nd Airborne Divn. Assn., Inc. is named the "Corporal Edward A. Slavin Chapter" after my late father: my dad was a machine-gunner paratrooper, a wounded, thrice-decorated veteran of three World War II campaigns (North Africa, Sicily and Normandy). My father is buried in another national cemetery.
3. Our war veterans who are buried at St. Augustine National Cemetery include veterans of every single American war since the 1830s, including the Seminole Wars and the Civil War. Some are former slaves, whose graves are identified on gravestones as "U.S.C.T." (U.S. Colored Troops).
4. Thus, your 30 second TV political ad -- filmed at St. Augustine National Cemetery -- dishonors our deceased American veterans' memories. In the ad, you brag brazenly walking among graves about how you supposedly help veterans -- while oddly bragging about violating your Hippocratic Oath as a licensed medical doctor ("do no harm") by your voting against accepting federal funds to expand Medicaid to many of their family members under what you call "Obamacare." Your TV ad stinks. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EdaBQZo90LQ
5. Political ads filmed in national cemeteries are a stench in the nostrils of our Nation. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EdaBQZo90LQ
6. How much did your campaign spend on filming and airing the St. Augustine National Cemetery ad? Why?
7. How many times will it air? Why? Please provide invoices.
8. Who wrote and produced the ad and why? Please provide documents on script approval.
9. Did St. Augustine National Cemetery management ever give you permission for filming a political ad? Please provide any documentary evidence for any such assertion.
10. Please provide all documents on the St. Augustine National Cemetery ad pursuant to Florida Open Records Law and Article I, Section 24 of our Florida Constitution and be prepared to answer questions later today.
11. You must stop your illegal, immoral political abuse and misuse of our honored war dead -- and images of St. Augustine National Cemetery -- for political purposes. You must cease and desist. Now. "VA regulations prohibit unauthorized distribution of pamphlets or handbills, posting or display of placards, taking photographs for advertising purposes, and demonstrations, orations or partisan activities on VA premises. 38 C.F.R. §§ 1.218(a)(9), (10) and (14) cover VHA facilities and NCA cemeteries, 17.111 also covers VHA facilities)." http://www.wichita.va.gov/WICHITA/features/Politics_and_VA.asp#sthash.113pA8Of.dpuf
12. Both U.S. Senator John McCain and U.S. Congressman Kevin Cramer wisely cancelled their own mendacious, meretricious political ads, filmed in two national cemeteries at Arlington, Virginia and in North Dakota.
http://www.wichita.va.gov/WICHITA/features/Politics_and_VA.asp
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/07/kevin-cramer-congress_n_5946474.htm
13. Thus, your airing TV ads filmed in St. Augustine National Cemetery is intrusive, aggressive and deeply insensitive. It shows an utter unwillingness to learn from the partisan political misconduct of both Senator McCain and Congressman Cramer in filming TV ads at other national cemeteries. As the old song says, "When will they ever learn?"
14. Please cancel your political ads in quo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EdaBQZo90LQ
15. Kindly reimburse your campaign for the ads filmed in St. Augustine National Cemetery
16. Please apologize publicly for your ad filmed in St. Augustine National Cemetery. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EdaBQZo90LQ
17. Your taking these proactive steps today may possibly avoid any need for veterans, their families and other constituents filling formal Inspector General complaints, or for civil criminal and administrative investigations, or for federal court litigation.
18. I look forward to meeting with and discussing with you how we might work together to obtain federal funds for the enhanced protection and historic interpretation for St. Augustine National Cemetery, and other cherished St. Augustine historic sites, through adoption of the proposed St. Augustine National Historical Park and National Seashore Act. www.staugustgreen.com
19. Please call to discuss.
Thank you.
With kindest regards, I am,
Sincerely yours,
Ed Slavin
Clean Up City of St. Augustine, Florida
www.cleanupcityofstaugustine.blogspot.com
Box 3084
St. Augustine, Florida 32085-3084
904-377-4998
This is the ultimate, lowest of low, disingenuous "Thank you for your service." exploitation.
ReplyDeleteIf you want to stop this kind of irreverent "Thank you for your service." exploitation of veterans, both living and dead, bring back the draft, a NO deferment draft.
When the xtrevilist rich pig policy makers who concoct and deploy the troops (and cops on the domestic front) in these contrived and phony wars, on terror, drugs, etc., to enrich the military industrial complex and herd thin and control populations are subjected to the possibility of themselves being killed or maimed in them then they will stop. More importantly, if there are necessary conflicts, then the rationales will be discussed and the objectives will be made more concrete at the outset. We will no longer fight abstractions in endless wars.
This kind of rank exploitation of veterans and promotion of the endless war on abstractions for profit and control by the wealthy self anointed elite and their butt sucking minions has become commonplace in America today.
Excerpt;
"Starbucks Chairman Howard Schultz has said of the upcoming Concert for Valor:
“The post-9/11 years have brought us the longest period of sustained warfare in our nation’s history. The less than one percent of Americans who volunteered to serve during this time have afforded the rest of us remarkable freedoms — but that freedom comes with a responsibility to understand their sacrifice, to honor them, and to appreciate the skills and experience they offer when they return home.”
It was crafty of Schultz to redirect that famed 1% label from the ultra rich, represented by CEOs like him, onto our “heroes.” At the concert, I hope Schultz has a chance to get more specific about those “remarkable freedoms.” Will he mention that the U.S. has the highest per capita prison population on the planet? Does he include among those remarkable freedoms the guarantee that dogs, Tasers, tear gas, and riot police will be sent after you if you stay out past dark protesting the killing of an unarmed Black teenager by a representative of this country’s increasingly militarized police? Will the freedom to be too big to fail and so to have the right to melt down the economy and walk away without going to prison — as Jamie Dimon, the CEO of Chase, did – be mentioned? Do these remarkable freedoms include having every American phone call and email recorded and stored away by the NSA?
– From the incredible letter by Former U.S. Army Ranger Rory Fanning: Stop Thanking Me for My Service"
More here...
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-10-28/stop-thanking-me-my-service-–-former-us-army-ranger-blasts-american-foreign-policy