AARP: ON THE WRONG SIDE – AGAIN

Why is it that every time I come back to AARP, something else happens to make me regret my decision?
I recently received your Jan/Feb issue, with a cover so vile that I could not bring myself to have it in my house-I had to drop it in the garbage room of my building.
Why would you feature a proud warmonger and acknowledged war criminal, George Bush, in your magazine?

It is telling and disappointing that AARP has never seen fit to give space to the thousands of elderly activists who have devoted their lives to preventing criminals like your cover boy from murdering millions more and more innocent people in the Middle East and around the world.

Photo: Eva-Lee Baird

There are many many groups, such as  the Granny Peace Brigade grannypeacebrigade.org, whose members continue to be arrested and jailed in the quest for peace, despite their physical difficulties and advanced age.

Photos: Eva-Lee Baird

Several of the women in my group are over 90:  amazing brave and fearless women like Marie Runyon, who lay on the floor of Congress with Dr. Benjamin Spock during the Viet Nam “War”; Molly Klopot, who was an active labor organizer and is still a leader of WILPF (Womens Int’l League for Peace and Freedom) despite back pain and blindness (she climbs hundreds of steps a day to and from the subway between Manhattan and her home in Coney Island); Lillian Lifflander, a former WAC in World War II and community organizer on the Lower East Side of New York City; Lillian Pollak, who published a book (The Sweetest Dream: Love, Lies and Assassination) at 93-she is now 95 and going strong in all weather, marching, demonstrating, fighting.

Photo: Masahiro Hosoda

All these women, along with other equally impressive “younger” activists in their 70s and 80s, are still out on the street, risking arrest and abuse, to keep up the struggle for human rights and an end to the seemingly endless invasions, sanctions and threats perpetrated by the United States on other countries.

Photo: Bud Korotzer

But no, you choose to put this hideous caricature of a human being on your cover, with a story inside that I assume attempts to portray him as a family man and good guy instead of the unconscionable heartless and mindless murderer that he is.

Shame on you.
Disgusted,
Ann Shirazi
New York City
for the Granny Peace Brigade