Once again, no room for pacifists in the St. Patrick’s Day Parade

[unhappycamper]

http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2016/03/17/once-again-room-for-pacifists-patrick-day-parade/KXsLg7wiE9xs7hjiO4mgRK/story.html



Flags for Veterans for Peace surrounded a statue of Samuel Adams.

Once again, no room for pacifists in the St. Patrick’s Day Parade
By Adrian Walker Globe Columnist March 18, 2016

When the members of the Veterans For Peace returned home from combat — which, in most cases, was decades ago — they didn’t know that what may be their longest-running battle was in front of them.

They are a pacifist group of soldiers, sailors, and Marines (they strongly object to the term “former”) who have struggled for years to win approval to march in the St. Patrick’s Day Parade in South Boston, with no success.

The multiple indignities they have suffered have been well-documented. After being rejected year after year, they held their own counter-parade, on the same Sunday as the official parade. It traveled along the same route, but began after the other parade had ended, and after the crowds had begun to disperse. They got the drunks, they said, without the attention.

This year, they thought they would finally be allowed in. Police Commissioner William Evans, a member of a revered Southie family full of distinguished military veterans, personally went before the Allied War Veterans Council, which organizes the parade, to argue their case. Evans thought he had persuaded the room, but no.

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1. We live in a country where pacifists are denied access to higher education.

This is disgusting, but even in 2016, it doesn't surprise me.

Even here on DU, pacifists are often seen as simply undeserving of an education.