We are excited to announce that we will begin airing our Sixth television ad in New Hampshire — “Chances I Had.” The thirty-second ad discusses Sen. Obama’s plan to ensure every child gets the same educational opportunities that allowed him to succeed, and he stresses parents’ responsibility to do their part in helping kids learn.
We’ll be hosting ten roundtable discussions on education around the state today and tomorrow, November 15 and 16. The discussions — many of which will be hosted by members of New Hampshire Educators for Obama — will bring Granite Staters together to learn more about Obama’s commitment to excellence for every child and support for every teacher.
Tim Foley Proud to be a NH staff member for Barack Obama’s movement for change
The following piece was produced by the Huffington Post's Off the Bus.
Rolling Stone's Matt Taibbi: Screw the Bus
He's often referred to as the next Hunter Thompson but the truth of the matter is, Matt Taibbi is unique. Taibbi is a contributing editor for Rolling Stone magazine and covers national politics in columns called “Road Rage” and “The Low Post” for the magazine's online version. Taibbi has written for Rolling Stone since the 2004 election and is known for some of his outrageous antics, such as covering the John Kerry campaign in a gorilla costume, interviewing a former drug czar while tripping on acid, and working undercover as a Bush-Cheney campaign volunteer. Prior to that, Taibbi worked for ten years as a journalist in Russia, founded a satirical magazine called The eXile, played baseball for the Red Army, and professional basketball in Mongolia. Upon returning to the States, Taibbi started a Buffalo, NY alternative weekly called The Beast, and covered stories for The New York Daily News, The Nation, and others. But what Taibbi is really know for is his astute no-holds-barred writing style.
In his first book, Spanking the Donkey (The New Press), Taibbi covers the 2004 election and cuts through the dog-and-pony shows that clutter an election year: the perfect backdrops, the puffed-up speeches, and campaign journalists that constantly cover the meaningless and the absurd. Is Howard Dean too prickly to become president? Is John Kerry a good snowboarder or does his ability to speak French hurt his chances to win? Taibbi documents these offenders in a chapter called “Wimblehack,” where journalists compete in a Final Four-like tournament for the worst campaign journalism of the 2004 election.
Taibbi's new book, Smells Like Dead Elephants: Dispatches from a Rotting Empire (Black Cat/Grove-Atlantic Inc.) has just been released and is a compilation of Rolling Stone articles covering corruption in Washington, DC, traveling through the streets of New Orleans in a dinghy with actor Sean Penn, spending three nights in Abu Ghraib prison, and much more. In his latest Rolling Stone article, available on the web and newsstands now, Taibbi covers GOP candidate Mike Huckabee. OffTheBus caught up with Matt Taibbi and discussed a range of issues from the new book and problems surrounding campaign trail journalism.
Below the fold is a portion of the interview regarding Bernie Sanders. The rest of it you have to go to Off the Bus.
Continue.
Off the Bus: In your Rolling Stone articles, you paint a shocking portrait of the United States Government. Among the revelations you made in some of your articles — Congressman Bernie Sanders (of Vermont) getting railroaded on his amendments, the 109th Congress being the laziest in American history, and political corruption involving Jack Abramoff, Tom Delay, and others. What would you say were some of the more shocking things you encountered that made you realize something is drastically wrong? Was there anything worse than what you didn't write in “Dead Elephants?”
Matt Taibbi: Well, meeting Bernie Sanders gave me the opportunity to follow him around and get that glass bottom boat look at Congress. It was really educational for me. There aren't that many feature reporters out there that get a chance to spend 7,000 or 8,000 words writing about how arcane and unsexy Congress is or how these committees work and that sort of thing. So it was really a luxury to be able to do that. I think the stuff that Sanders showed me about how bills can be completely rewritten in committee in the middle of the night, how they are sent to the floor and nobody ever reads them, how they can be rewritten in conference, and how amendments can be shot down by House leaders, I think 99% of Americans don't really understand how this stuff works and it was really eye-opening for me. It was amazing how easy it is how two, three, four people strategically placed in Congress can completely dominate the whole process. I think Americans don't understand the extent of influence that a couple of people have. If you just wanted to run Congress for your financial backers, it's really easy to do. The people I talked to, especially Sanders, were very helpful in showing me exactly how that happens. It's unfortunate that I didn't get a chance to spend more time with him. It would have been really interesting to spend a year following that whole process.
Off the Bus: He's actually getting a lot of grief from Vermont constituents for not taking a tough stand on investigations into impeachment. There are 36 towns in Vermont that passed impeachment resolutions and they expect Bernie to light a match and get the ball rolling, but now it seems like Congressman Dennis Kucinich is taking care of that.
Matt Taibbi: Well, I understand where they're coming from. There's certainly an argument for impeachment. There's no question Bush committed high crimes and misdemeanors and there's certainly a legal argument to be made. But people need to remember that Bernie Sanders is a freshman Senator and politics is all about accruing political capital and using it to the your best advantage and I think that's what he cares more about than watching an unsuccessful impeachment bid. I think Sanders is the kind of guy who wants to spend his first term trying to do stuff like getting more money for the heating oil program, veterans' health care and other things. I think that's where his head is at and I also think that's smart of him to do that. I mean, look, he's the new kid on the block and even if he were all for impeachment, he wouldn't get it. It's like the old joke about the two bulls who stand up on the hill and the young one says to the old, “Let's run down and fuck all those cows,” and the other one says, “No. Let's walk down and fuck them all.” I think Sanders is thinking in terms of “walking down and fucking them all” (laughter).
“I believe in a sacred contract between our country and America’s veterans and military families. We must stand by those who stand by us. When our service men and women sacrifice so much to defend our freedom and secure peace around the world, we have a moral obligation to take care of them and their families.”– John Edwards
Our Veterans are in serious trouble. Their suicide rates are way up. Paul Rieckhoff has been posting about this, and CBS is finally giving it some necessary attention:
In the meantime, there’s a lot, as laypeople, we can do to help veterans, even when they’re dealing with serious mental illness.
This is a metaphor I commonly use when talking about mental illness:
Think of the human psyche as something which needs to be supported in order to avoid falling into an abyss. Most of us have support of some sort, both internal and external. We have a great deal which we need to balance, so picture someone on a platform above this abyss which needs balance and structure to keep us from falling off when small things (minor gusts of wind) and major things (hurricanes and tornadoes) threaten our sense of balance and self.
Most of us have strong mechanisms. We not only have the platform, but we have guy wires holding it in place, and keep it well maintained and patched (internal mechanisms). We also have external support (nets and ladders) which can catch us when we do fall, (as any one of us is bound to do from time to time, no matter how well designed our platform).
People with mental illness have that platform, but it’s not well-maintained. The effort of maintaining it is too complicated for them, so they can fall through the holes more easily. The platform itself is patchy, and they can fall off it from time to time, but from day to day, many of them manage fine. If, however, a small wind blows by, it’s more of a threat than it is to the rest of us. If a large gust comes by, it could mean major trouble.
There’s always a ladder, and when trouble comes, there are ways to climb out, but not everyone has the skills to find that latter or to know how to get back out of that abyss again. Some are so scared of everything that the ladder itself is seen as a threat. A rare few are so scared of the stability that they leave the platform willingly and never intend to come back to it.
Mental illness happens for a variety of reasons, and it manifests itself in multiple ways. But at its core, it’s almost always about finding ways to cope with the complexities of the world around us, and not everyone knows how to do that.
This connects with the concept of Psychological Adequacy: the ability to handle and withstand various stresses that come at us from time to time. Not everyone can handle the same kind of stress in the same way, but with good support and the right kind of assistance, anyone’s ability to withstand external pressures can be improved.
As a society, we find physical injuries disquieting at times, but we are used to seeing them. Once, when giving a presentation to a group of medical students, one of the other presenters was a veteran who’d lost both his arms in an electrical accident some decades earlier. He showed up, went to introduce himself to me and held out one of his metal appendages to shake my hand. This was a new experience for me but I shook his “hand” and didn’t think much of it after the fact.
Later, when talking to the group, he mentioned how he does that as a matter of routine. People meet him and think “do I talk about the hook? Do I look at the hook? Do I avoid the hook?” They don’t know what to do or say about it, so he just puts it right up to them so they can actually touch it for a moment and just get the whole “what do I do/say/think about the hook” thing out of the way and over with. He was right — it worked perfectly well. I was completely at ease around him from the moment I actually touched the prosthetic.
Physical injuries are complicating to social interaction, but once you get past them, they’re not very complicated at all.
Mental issues are infinitely more complex, and they tend to touch a certain fear and lack of confidence inside of us and make it much harder to progress. But really, they’re just injuries: damage from experience, chemistry, genetics, etc.
The problem is that they’re injuries which are easy to hide, which most of us prefer not to think about, and which can take time to manifest, sometimes surprising the victim as well as everyone else, and sometimes our first instincts as humans do little to solve the problems.
Treating everything as though it’s normal, for example, might not actually help. When people dealing with extreme trauma are thrust suddenly into an environment of extreme normalcy, it’s sometimes difficult for them to find their place. If the normalcy is so enforced (with the intent of making someone feel at home or comfortable), it can actually make things worse, playing off of the internal sense that if you don’t feel at home or comfortable that there’s something wrong with you.
In the meantime, as IAVA reports, the professional component of this is far from adequate:
90% of military psychiatrists, psychologists and social workers reported no formal training or supervision in the recommended PTSD therapies, and there is a general shortage of trained mental health professionals in the military. The Pentagon screens returning troops for mental health problems via an ineffective system of paperwork. Studies have shown that many troops are not filling out their mental health forms, that there are serious disincentives for troops to fill the form out accurately, and that those whose forms indicate they need care do not consistently get referrals.
Let’s talk again about that platform– even if you come out of combat completely intact from a physical level and never suffer a direct attack, you know you’re in danger while there. This weakens your platform. If you kill someone, even if you’re in no direct danger yourself, your psyche probably suffers some wounds. If your friend or a member of your unit is killed or injured, this does damage as well. If you’re injured and alone for a period of time, not knowing how it’s going to turn out, that’s got to cause problems.
But here’s the thing: all of these wounds are invisible and to people suffering from them, they can take on the form of unexplained fears, terrors and nightmares.
Think about what this means to someone who’s a trained soldier: you’ve got the experience to stare death in the face, but you can’t sit in a restaurant without having your back to the wall because your hands shake when you can’t see the whole room you’re in. You’ve survived 110 degree heat, sniper attacks, land mines, IEDs, but you get home and you almost go off the road when you hear a car backfire.
And you don’t want to talk about this with the people you love and care about because they’ve done so much to make you feel at home and you’re terrified and you don’t want them to be terrified, too, because you’re the strong one and you’ve always been the strong one.
But there’s nowhere for you to go because the VA doesn’t have the resources to provide you with adequate care and even if they could get you in right away, they’re not training their staff to recognize the symptoms.
And you don’t know enough about other soldiers who are surviving with the same thing you’re holding onto, holding in and your platform isn’t just weak now; it’s getting ready to collapse. But you don’t see it because you don’t want to see it and no one around you sees it because they want you to be well and happy and are so invested in you being well and happy that they just don’t have the ability to separate themselves out and be objective about it.
And it’s not just that you’re scared, but terrified of it.
So what do you do?
What’s happening in Iraq and Afghanistan isn’t just about the damage to the thousands of soldiers who have died, or even those who suffer physical debilitating physical injury. It’s also about the tens of thousands who, whenever they eventually come home, will be facing their own demons. The more we avoid dealing with what’s to come, the worse it will be for our veterans, their families, their communities and their friends.
None of this happens in a vacuum. The damage on the soldiers is bad enough, but when you factor in the damage to families and communities, it’s incalculable.
I don’t have wisdom about this. I don’t have a magic solution. I don’t have a quick fix. I just know that unless we take it seriously, we’re in really big trouble.
I started this with a quote from John Edwards. He’s my favorite in this race, but I’m sure other Democrats have great positions on this, too, and I’m glad to see you all posting links to your own favorite candidates’ point of view in the comments, but I’m going to close with one more quote, from Edwards’ policy position on the treatment of PTSD:
Once our service members become veterans, we have to make sure the system doesn’t fail them. As president, Edwards will create a new national chain of care to ensure that no veteran again falls through the cracks. Because many veterans receive treatment outside the VA system, this chain will coordinate treatment and benefits in outreach centers and clinics in every county where a veteran resides, both within and outside the VA network. Edwards will also improve training for health personnel to recognize and treat PTSD; establish uniform standards for mental health care to address the wide range of quality of care; increase counseling resources within TRICARE and VA networks and permit access outside of the networks; and ensure that outreach is extended to family members who can help recognize symptoms. Caring for the newest generation of veterans must be accomplished without neglecting the continuing needs of veterans from previous generations.
Gag me with a … well you know what I mean. I'm still hearing/reading this “poor Peter Welch” line. Welch is part of the problem at this time. No matter what he tells us he is solidly behind a pro-war, helpful to Bush Democratic leadership in D.C.
Want to solve a problem? Okay, start with what the problem is. When it comes to our federal government the federal government is the problem. We have a congress led by a Democratic “leadership” that refuses to take a serious stand on anything.
Sure when the Republicans hand the Dems a win on a silver platter, such as the water bill, the D.C. Democrats can shine, but what have they done each and every time the Democrats have run in resistance? They've collapsed, claimed they tried and moved on.
The failing in D.C. is a group failure. Sure there are some individuals who have said and voted in ways that make sense and look to actually make a difference, but the only meaningful action will be to change direction of the group. Washington politics is not about this person or that person. Washington politics is about coalitions and caucuses and whatnot. So when an agenda doesn't move forward in Congress it's because group politics has failed somewhere.
So what can Welch do as an individual to change the group direction? Well he can stubbornly vote against war funding, constantly vote to reduce the rest of the bloated military budget and push, push, push for impeachment because that is really the only way to end the disaster we know as the Bush administration.
Perhaps most importantly he can withdraw any and all support for Pelosi as Speaker and start working with others to do so too.
If one wants things to change, one changes the way one does things.
For my individual part I know I have three things to offer any politician: my time, money and vote. I can promise Welch and any other Democratic, Republican, Independent or whatever politician they will not receive any of those items from me unless they move to impeach Cheney/Bush.
And I mean as a group … not individual. As long as Welch insists on undying loyalty to a failed Democratic “leadership” he is as guilty as anyone else for the decisions made therein.
No, it's not poor Peter Welch … it's poor United States of America.
This one aint easy, which likely means it's gonna be a complete empty vessel into which kneejerk Welch defenders will project the positive, and kneejerk Welch bashers project the negative. For the rest of us, welll…
First the positives. Number one is the fact that Welch voted against the motion to recommit, which could have set up a clean appropriation for the war, like last time. Technically, this is a bill with a timeline, requiring Bush to start pulling troops in thirty days, and to have it done by December of 2008, so Welch is making good on his word. It's also important to note that they gave Bush way less money than he wanted. This bill squeaked by, 218-203. With the exception of Kucinich, the bill had the support of the anti-war leaders in the House:
“This bill is not perfect,” said Rep. Lynn Woolsey, a Democrat from California. “It is the boldest step yet, however, and we must support it.”
The return of the 3rd Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division — currently operating in the Diyala province — is the beginning of the force adjustments that are part of the troop drawdown that President Bush announced in September
So technically, Bush is already there. Sounds an awful lot like status quo.
The reality: Bush is gonna veto it. It doesn't matter that it's a fluff piece that only challenges him in the most technical of senses, rather than meaningfully. It becomes almost a low-grade punt that keeps us all at the same place, with the issue still in play. The big test will now be how the House responds to the veto – whether or not crossing the decider (and what will likely be a positive public reaction) boosts them up to send something back with more teeth (and perhaps pick up a few more votes), or whether they simply throw up their hands and say “we tried” once again.
We'll see. In the meantime, this bill will have the unique quality of both giving the Welch-haters ammunition to continue attacking him, and his defenders ammunition to stick up for him.
For the rest of us, the holding pattern continues, as nothing has changed…yet.
