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"Conservative" enough for you??

FROM THE WARRIOR:

MU’s “dishonoring” of veterans, b-ball game enthusiasm and student input

Written by Daniel Suhr

Wednesday, 30 November 2005

Gotta love those draft dodgers and hippie protestors.

Liberals are more than happy to eviscerate President Bush for his service in the Texas Air National Guard during the Vietnam War, for instance “never served a day in uniform in his life” movie maker Michael Moore calling the President a “deserter.”

But these same liberals also love nothing more than praising those who “stood up” to “the Man” by burning their draft cards.

Take, for instance, our very own Marquette Department of Performing Arts.

During this week’s Art, Faith & Social Justice conference, MU is putting on a performance of The Trial of the Cantonsville Nine.

The title prompts an obvious question: Who were the Cantonsville Nine and what law did they break to deserve arrest and prosecution?

According to the description of the play on Marquette’s Web site, “On May 17, 1968, Father Daniel Berrigan [S.J.], along with eight other protesters in Baltimore, entered a draft board office, removed the draft files of young men about to be sent to Vietnam, and burned them using homemade napalm, a weapon commonly used on civilians in Vietnam by U.S. forces.”

Well, isn’t that special.

Go into the local office of the U.S. Military, crack open a filing cabinet and haul out your explosives. That’s really protesting in the Catholic spirit of civil disobedience.

The Web site description further details that, “The Trial of the Cantonsville Nine explores the motives behind the protestors’ actions as they state their case for individual responsibility and taking personal action.”

Originally, Fr. Berrigan failed to take any responsibility for his act. He was arrested, tried, convicted, and sentenced to three years in jail for his stunt at the Customs House.

Yet in his own words, “I have refused to submit to arrest and imprisonment after conviction for draft file destruction...” Instead, he went underground for ten months before the FBI found him and made him serve his sentence. That’s really “taking responsibility” for your individual actions...

I got tossed out of BC during the wave of rage caused by the invasion of Cambodia. Me and a couple of fellow Viet Vets, mistakingly admitted to this school under an out reach program, took exception to the antiwar rhetoric and supposedly assaulted several of our fellow students.

The tribunal, peoples court, that destroyed my mothers hopes, was stacked with priestly gutlessness, the State education I received afterwords served me well.

Just think I could have been a typical Mass Pol.