Dear John,

Amidst the barbecues and family outings of Memorial Day weekend, I hope you can spare a moment to consider today’s significance. It’s a day to not only recall the sacrifices of fallen veterans, but also to consider our shared social responsibilities to servicemembers, their families, and international human rights.

Can you join us this holiday weekend to honor veterans by working to stop the next war before it starts?

Both of my older brothers served in the Reserve Officers Training Corps. One was eventually discharged for medical reasons, while the other served in the U.S. Army Medical Corps for several years, deployed in various locations from South Carolina to South Korea.

I’m glad he made it home at the end of his deployments. He was one of the lucky ones.

Too many other veterans come home with shattered bodies, or minds torn by memories of what they’ve seen, or families challenged by burdens like remote parenthood or living in constant fear of a loved one’s safety.

We’re working on Memorial Day weekend to challenge an oligarch with a long history of complicity in military industrial corruption. Can you join us today to put the lives of veterans before the profits of weapons manufacturers?

Veterans sign up to defend the United States. But time after time, a bipartisan consensus in Washington emerges to place them at grave risk not to defend our country, but instead to extend Wall Street’s interests. That has proven to be the case in every conflict since the Second World War.

Veterans are not expendable salespeople for weapons contracts. Yet, that’s how Washington treats them, whichever party is in the White House.

They deserve civilian leadership that reflects the enormity of their sacrifice, and treats them with the respect they deserve—not just in words, but in action.

Can you support our campaign to secure that leadership, by sending to Congress a voice that has challenged militarism, championed transparency, and called out warmongers in both of the major political parties?

I hope to walk in the footsteps of the late U.S. Sen. Maurice “Mike” Gravel (D-AK). He endorsed our campaign to replace Nancy Pelosi in 2020 before he passed away, long after helping bring down the Nixon administration, ending the war on Vietnam, and running for the White House in 2008.

Sen. Gravel understood something that many of his colleagues never learn. Congress holds a constitutional responsibility not only to legislate policy, but also—crucially—to oversee, check, and balance the executive branch.

Military spending alone demands more aggressive oversight. Congressional failure to conduct that oversight is precisely what enabled the escalating corruption that pervades the contracting process, as well as the continuing history of unaccountable human rights violations by U.S. intelligence agencies.

That’s ultimately why I’m running for Congress, rather than a local position in government: I can’t fight the CIA, or stop the next war, or support the next Pentagon whistleblower, from City Hall.

And that’s ultimately what drove me into electoral politics.

Our primary election looms in just one week, on June 7. Can you join us today to hold accountable a powerful oligarch who mouths support for veterans and their families after having helped repeatedly place them at risk for Wall Street?

With just one week remaining before the jungle primary ends, we’re working hard to reach every voter we can to offer an alternative. Your support helps us work around our obstacles, including a press establishment that cares more about tabloid clickbait—like a story you might have seen this weekend about a member of Pelosi’s family overlooking her substantial corruption—than adversarial journalism.

Thank you for standing with us! I hope you & your family enjoy a pleasant holiday weekend—and that together, we can honor fallen veterans and their families by stopping the next war before it starts to keep more people alive.

Your voice,
Shahid

PS -- Want to help, but can't contribute financially? Your time can make a big difference from wherever you live! Sign up here to volunteer with our campaign to end the era of bipartisan corruption in Washington, and share this email with friends who share our concerns about militarism.