I spoke to the Community Church of Boston yesterday as to the purpose of Memorial Day. Along with my remarks on that topic, I answered questions on Ukraine, the flag, Junior ROTC, the lasting effects of war, and whether the Roman Eagle was present at the Sermon on the Mount (spoiler: it wasn’t).
I referenced a section of Walt Whitman’s When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d in my talk to the Community Church of Boston:
I saw battle-corpses, myriads of them,
And the white skeletons of young men, I saw them,
I saw the debris and debris of all the slain soldiers of the war,
But I saw they were not as was thought,
They themselves were fully at rest, they suffer’d not,
The living remain’d and suffer’d, the mother suffer’d,
And the wife and the child and the musing comrade suffer’d,
A simple summation of my thoughts for Memorial Day: At home only the dead have seen the end of war, as has long been said and understood, while overseas the wars, and their attendant suffering, continue. For what purpose, other than greed and megalomania, I cannot say.
Today, I am excited to announce my campaign seeking the nomination of the North Carolina Green Party for the US Senate.
Below you will find the announcement message from the North Carolina Green Party, which summarizes my reasons for running and a bit of my political philosophy. You can find additional details, including my platform, on my campaign website and watch my campaign announcement on YouTube.
I will keep this message brief, but I hope you will join me in this campaign. I need to gather 14,000 signatures from registered North Carolina voters by May 15 to be on the ballot. Please let me know if you can help by signing up to volunteer here.
You can also directly reply to me and let me know if you can assist with the campaign in any other way. Of course, one of the best ways you can help is by sharing news of my campaign with your family, friends, contacts and followers. You can follow and share my campaign through the campaign website, Twitter and Facebook.
I want to thank all of you for your friendship and support in the past. Again, I am excited about this campaign, and I hope you can also be a part of it. I would not be running if this were not necessary and if I did not think it possible to retake, reimagine, and rebuild our political system.
Peace,
Matt
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The North Carolina Green Party is proud to announce our first-ever candidate for nomination for the US Senate, Matthew Hoh. A Wake Forest, NC resident, Matthew is a dues-paying member of the NCGP and has been enthusiastically endorsed by the party membership by consensus.
Matthew shares his reasons for running on his campaign site:
For much of my life, North Carolina has been my home. It is a place that has welcomed and supported me, where my family lives, and a place where I was able to rebuild my life after the wars.
I spent ten years in the Marine Corps and went to war three timesbefore realizing the courage to stand against those unjust, immoral, and counterproductive wars. Since 2009, I have fought not only against the war machine but also against the systemic political and financial rot that underlies and connects our problems in North Carolina, the United States, and beyond. It’s not just the overseas wars that have stolen futures from our country and others – it’s also the wars against the working class, the continued racial injustices, the War on Drugs, the criminal for-profit healthcare system, our unsustainable housing crisis, and so many other inequalities, injustices, and inequities that not only stifle individuals and families, but diminish and hold back entire neighborhoods, communities, municipalities, and our entire country.
In 2009, Matthew resigned in protest from his post in Afghanistan with the State Department over the American escalation of the war. In 2010, Matthew was named the Ridenhour Prize Recipient for Truth Telling. Matthew’s writings have appeared in online and print periodicals such as the Atlanta Journal Constitution, CounterPunch, Defense News, the Guardian, the Huffington Post, Mother Jones, the Raleigh News & Observer, Charlotte Observer, USA Today, the Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post. He has been a guest on hundreds of news programs on radio and television networks including the BBC, CBS, CNN, C-SPAN, Fox, NBC, MSNBC, NPR, and Pacifica. The Council on Foreign Relations has cited Matthew’s resignation letter from his post in Afghanistan as an Essential Document.
For strong potential candidates like Matthew to get on the ballot in North Carolina in 2022 and beyond, the North Carolina Green Party must collect at least 14,000 approved signatures on a petition by early May. Matthew Hoh’s campaign will be strongly committed to getting on the ballot. However, Matthew cannot accomplish this goal without your help. Please visit the NCGP petition site to sign up to volunteer and find other resources. Let us know if you need us to send you a petition form!
Here’s a small sample from many excellent interviews, events, and articles featuring Matthew:
You can find more media links such as interviews with Democracy Now! as well as with Krystal Ball and Kyle Kulinski on Matthew’s Senatecampaign website, where you can also sign up for more information, donate, and join his campaign team:
Please join me in this campaign to break our political system away from the corrupt two-party system beholden to the wealthy, the banks, and the corporations. I would not be running if this were not necessary and if I did not think it possible to retake, reimagine, and rebuild our political system.
Matthew Hoh 