The Map Referred to Below
Mood:  chillin'
Topic: Save Democracy

Stages of Grief
Mood:  energetic
Topic: Save Democracy
Views > November 22, 2004
Stages of Grief
By Susan J. Douglas

Democrats and progressives need to focus on state legislatures, congressional races, and get some Secretaries of State on our side next time around.

It is on refrigerators throughout the land: the map of California and the West Coast, the upper Midwest and the Northeast annexed to and named ?The United States of Canada,? the red states below labeled ?Jesusland.?

The red-and-blue, them-versus-us iconography so beloved by the press?imposed on us four years ago?makes our divisions seem dramatic indeed. Of course, it visually overstates the strength of evangelicals in our country. Nonetheless, when coupled with Cheney?s immediate claim of a ?mandate? (not to mention Bush?s idiotic ?political capital? boast), the sea of red sent many of us into a deep depression.

But, as the Shirelles reminded us, the darkest hour is just before dawn. So it?s time to review the stages of post-Kerry-defeat grief so we can heal ourselves and, indeed, move on.

Stage 1: Shock Many of us were barely functional on Wednesday, wondering how could it be that a guy so obviously and patently incompetent and deceptive, as documented by so many sources?and a faith-based zealot to boot?got reelected?

Stage 2: Shock and Awe We were sickened, but awestruck, that Cheney had the chutzpah to claim a mandate with only 286 electoral votes and a 130,000-vote margin of victory in Ohio, which various reporters and investigators already find very suspect. We were awed that Bush insisted that what you do with political capital is spend it right away?although we shouldn?t have been, given what this thinking has done for the deficit.

Stage 3: Alienation So maybe we accepted that the nation is not dominated by a bunch of Bible-banging Neanderthals. But depression returned when we kept thinking it was dominated by ignorant dunces. Bob Herbert and Bob McChesney, both citing a University of Maryland poll, reported that nearly 70 percent of Bush supporters believed there was ?clear evidence? that Saddam Hussein was working closely with al Qaeda; a third were convinced WMDs had been found in Iraq. What part of the 9/11 hearings, the bestseller list for the last six months and extensive news coverage did these people miss?

Of course, most of them were probably watching Fox News, whose viewers have been demonstrated to be more ignorant about current affairs than viewers of other news sources.

Stage 4: Wait a Minute By Friday, even Republicans were in on this one. Lyn Nofziger, Former Reagan adviser, David Brooks, Garry Wills and of course, Paul Krugman, Bob Herbert, Mark Crispin Miller, and many others were challenging the ?mandate? claim and debunking the notion that ?moral values??e.g., homophobia, opposition to abortion and belief in the virgin birth and creationism (not to mention ?the rapture,? which, fortunately, always makes me think of the hit song by Blondie)?prompted the majority of Republicans to vote for Bush.

As Gary Langer, director of polling for ABC News noted, ?moral values? can mean a lot of things; 15 percent of non-churchgoers and 12 percent of liberals chose it as the most important issue to them. Exit polls documented that 55 percent of voters said abortions should be legal and a whopping 60 percent supported either gay marriage (25 percent) or civil unions (another 35 percent).

Stage 5: Defiance and Assertion This phase is really building steam, and it is where we need to be, ASAP. Both NPR and ABC news, the day after the election, featured stories about ?moral values,? which included counterpoints from religious leaders and everyday people who asserted that the discussion should focus, centrally, on the dubious morality of war and bombing innocent people, on issues of economic justice, on the environment, on the lack of health insurance for 45 million, and on the staggering rate of child poverty in the United States. These are moral values, and the Democrats must claim them. Now.

Defiance and assertion also mean redefining ?the mandate.? The Republicans are determined to cast the electorate as primarily a group of faith-based anti-government conservatives. The Democrats must produce another representation. This is not to dismiss the disturbing rise of people who are determined to bring fundamentalism into government policy. But it is to assert the truth: Bible bangers are not the new majority.

Stage 6: Mobilize The Democrats and progressives need to do what the Republicans started doing back in the late 1970s: Focus on the state legislatures, congressional races and, hey, let?s get some Secretaries of State on our side next time around. Young women, and women of all ages, are going to need to fight like never before in the face of a guaranteed assault on Roe v. Wade. And the previous four years and this election emphasize how important media reform is, particularly the reinstatement of the Fairness Doctrine, which the Reagan Administration abolished in 1987. We see the results of too much Rush and O?Reilly without any balance: voters who don?t have the facts.

This is our country; it is not a revival tent. We must continue to fight to save it.

Arctic Nations Agree to Fight Glacial Melting (Kind of...)
Mood:  incredulous
Topic: Environmental Politics
Deferring to US, Group Stops Short of Backing Steps

By Juliet Eilperin, Washington Post | November 25, 2004


WASHINGTON -- Eight nations with Arctic territory agreed yesterday to fight glacial melting and other effects of climate change in the region, though they declined to endorse any new steps to counter global warming out of deference to the Bush administration.

The Arctic Council, which includes the United States, Russia, Canada, and several Nordic countries, issued a seven-page policy report asking countries to adopt ''effective measures" to combat climate change without elaborating on what that would entail.

The group's cautious statement, which did not call for mandatory curbs on greenhouse gas emissions linked to warming but noted ''with concern" that the Arctic is facing historic temperature increases and glacial melting, reflected the difficulties in forging an international consensus on climate change.

Representatives from eight countries and several indigenous tribes worked behind the scenes over the past week at a conference in Reykjavik, Iceland, to draft a response to the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment released two weeks ago.

In that document, more than 300 scientists concluded after four years of study that melting sea ice, abrupt weather changes, and rising temperatures in northern latitudes have far outpaced climate change in other regions over the past few decades. Several nations pushed for a more aggressive policy statement backing limits on carbon dioxide emissions, said participants in the talks who asked not to be identified for fear of angering the United States, but Bush administration officials resisted that effort.

One negotiator said the final product ''while not good, could have been much worse," adding that the administration recognizes ''there's a global concern about climate change."

US negotiators agreed to wording stating that climate changes in the Arctic have global implications and that countries should take the assessment's findings into account when drafting climate policy. Both provisions had been sought by European nations.

Paula Dobriansky, the undersecretary of state for global affairs who led the American delegation, said the United States is investing in renewable energy as well as technologies to store carbon dioxide underground to address climate change.

''We base our policies on science and we will take the findings [of the report] into account," she said.

Environmentalists said they were disappointed with the council's policy recommendations.

''Climate change is a fact in the Arctic, it has implications for the globe and it deserves a strong response," said Samantha Smith, who directs the World Wildlife Program's Arctic program and served as a council observer. ''What we got instead was basically no response on cutting emissions."

Some Europeans said they still hoped to use the report and the scientific assessment to push for stricter climate policies in other international negotiations.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Arctic nations had no choice but to act soon. ''We all need to intensify efforts against pollution in the Arctic," he said.

Kevin Knobloch, president of the Union of Concerned Scientists, said it is ''irresponsible in the extreme for the United States not to commit to an aggressive campaign to reduce greenhouse gas emissions" in light of the recent scientific findings and the prospect that American companies could reap profits by selling energy-efficient products in overseas markets.

New Freedom Initiative/Mandatory Mental Health Screening of American Children Passes
Mood:  incredulous
Topic: Protect Your Children
Infowars.com | November 23, 2004

On Monday morning, Alex talked to Jeff Diest from Congressman Ron Paul's office.
Diest confirmed that Ron Paul's amendment requiring parental consent prior to government psychological testing/mental screening of all school children was not added to the bill.
The New Freedom Initiative passed sans amendment, as it stood.
Congress Funds Mandatory Psychological Tests for Kids

Newsmax | November 23 2004

One of the nation's leading medical groups, the Association of American Physicians & Surgeons (AAPS), decried a move by the U.S. Senate to join with the House in funding a federal program AAPS says will lead to mandatory psychological testing of every child in America ? without the consent of parents.

When the Senate considered an omnibus appropriations bill last week that included funding for grants to implement universal mental health screening for almost 60 million children, pregnant women and adults through schools and pre-schools, it approved $20 million of the $44 million sought, Kathryn Serkes, public affairs counsel for AAPS, told NewsMax.

This $20 million matches a like amount already approved by the House, Serkes advised.

While the funding cut of some $24 million was a little good news, suggested Serkes, whose organization has zealously opposed the the measure, she said the organization was most worried about the failure of Congress to include ?parental consent? language sought by the AAPS.

Last September, AAPS lifetime member Rep. Ron Paul, M.D., R-Texas, tried to stop the plan in its tracks by offering an amendment to the Labor, HHS, and Education Appropriations Act for FY 2005. The amendment received 95 ?yes? votes, but it failed to pass.

According to Serkes, Paul is now mulling offering stand-alone legislation in the next session to once again try and get a provision for parental consent.

The federal bill on its face does not require mandatory mental health testing to be imposed upon states or local schools, explained Serkes.

However, the HHS appropriations bill contains block grant money that will likely be used ? as is often the case with block funding ? by the various states to implement mandatory psychological testing programs for all students in the school system.


The spending bill has its roots in the recommendations of the New Freedom Commission on Mental Health, created by President Bush in 2002 to propose ways of eliminating waste and improve efficiency and effectiveness of the mental health care delivery system.

Although the report does not specifically recommend screening all students, it does suggest that ?schools are in a key position to identify the mental health problems early and to provide a link to appropriate services.?

The bottom line, explained Serkes, is that a state receiving money under this appropriation will likely make its mental testing of kids mandatory ? and not be out of synch with the federal enactment.

The other telling point, said Serkes, is that although the relatively minimal funding at this point is certainly not enough to fund mandatory mental testing for kids countrywide, it's an ominous start:

?Once it's established and has funding, a program exhibits the nettlesome property of being self-sustaining ? it gets a life of its own. More funding follows.?

Officials of the AAPS decry in the measure what they see as ?a dangerous scheme that will heap even more coercive pressure on parents to medicate children with potentially dangerous side effects.?

One of the most ?dangerous side effects? from antidepressants commonly prescribed to children is suicide, regarding which AAPS added, ?Further, even the government's own task force has concluded that mental health screening does little to prevent suicide.?

Meanwhile, Rep. Paul says the mental testing scheme is a looming feature of "Big Brother" that if unchecked will push parental rights out of the picture:

?At issue is the fundamental right of parents to decide what medical treatment is appropriate for their children. The notion of federal bureaucrats ordering potentially millions of youngsters to take psychotropic drugs like Ritalin strikes an emotional chord with American parents, who are sick of relinquishing more and more parental control to government.

?Once created, federal programs are nearly impossible to eliminate. Anyone who understands bureaucracies knows they assume more and more power incrementally. A few scattered state programs over time will be replaced by a federal program implemented in a few select cities. Once the limited federal program is accepted, it will be expanded nationwide. Once in place throughout the country, the screening program will become mandatory.

?Soviet communists attempted to paint all opposition to the state as mental illness. It now seems our own federal government wants to create a therapeutic nanny state, beginning with schoolchildren. It's not hard to imagine a time 20 or 30 years from now when government psychiatrists stigmatize children whose religious, social, or political values do not comport with those of the politically correct, secular state.

?American parents must do everything they can to remain responsible for their children's well-being. If we allow government to become intimately involved with our children's minds and bodies, we will have lost the final vestiges of parental authority. Strong families are the last line of defense against an overreaching bureaucratic state.?

Bush to Screen Population for Mental Illness
Mood:  incredulous
Topic: Protect Your Children
WorldNetDaily.com | June 21, 2004

President Bush plans to unveil next month a sweeping mental health initiative that recommends screening for every citizen and promotes the use of expensive antidepressants and antipsychotic drugs favored by supporters of the administration.

The New Freedom Initiative, according to a
progress report, seeks to integrate mentally ill patients fully into the community by providing "services in the community, rather than institutions," the British Medical Journal reported.

Critics say the plan protects the profits of drug companies at the expense of the public.

The initiative began with Bush's launch in April 2002 of the New Freedom Commission on Mental Health, which conducted a "comprehensive study of the United States mental health service delivery system."

The panel found that "despite their prevalence, mental disorders often go undiagnosed" and recommended comprehensive mental health screening for "consumers of all ages," including preschool children.

The commission said, "Each year, young children are expelled from preschools and childcare facilities for severely disruptive behaviors and emotional disorders."

Schools, the panel concluded, are in a "key position" to screen the 52 million students and 6 million adults who work at the schools.

The commission recommended that the screening be linked with "treatment and supports," including "state-of-the-art treatments" using "specific medications for specific conditions."

The Texas Medication Algorithm Project, or TMAP, was held up by the panel as a "model" medication treatment plan that "illustrates an evidence-based practice that results in better consumer outcomes."

The TMAP -- started in 1995 as an alliance of individuals from the pharmaceutical industry, the University of Texas and the mental health and corrections systems of Texas -- also was praised by the American Psychiatric Association, which called for increased funding to implement the overall plan.

But the Texas project sparked controversy when a Pennsylvania government employee revealed state officials with influence over the plan had received money and perks from drug companies who stand to gain from it.

Allen Jones, an employee of the Pennsylvania Office of the Inspector General says in his
whistleblower reportthe "political/pharmaceutical alliance" that developed the Texas project, which promotes the use of newer, more expensive antidepressants and antipsychotic drugs, was behind the recommendations of the New Freedom Commission, which were "poised to consolidate the TMAP effort into a comprehensive national policy to treat mental illness with expensive, patented medications of questionable benefit and deadly side effects, and to force private insurers to pick up more of the tab."

Jones points out, according to the British Medical Journal, companies that helped start the Texas project are major contributors to Bush's election funds. Also, some members of the New Freedom Commission have served on advisory boards for these same companies, while others have direct ties to TMAP.

Eli Lilly, manufacturer of olanzapine, one of the drugs recommended in the plan, has multiple ties to the Bush administration, BMJ says. The elder President Bush was a member of Lilly's board of directors and President Bush appointed Lilly's chief executive officer, Sidney Taurel, to the Homeland Security Council.

Of Lilly's $1.6 million in political contributions in 2000, 82 percent went to Bush and the Republican Party.

Another critic, Robert Whitaker, journalist and author of "Mad in America," told the British Medical Journal that while increased screening "may seem defensible," it could also be seen as "fishing for customers."

Exorbitant spending on new drugs "robs from other forms of care such as job training and shelter program," he said.

However, a developer of the Texas project, Dr. Graham Emslie, defends screening.

"There are good data showing that if you identify kids at an earlier age who are aggressive, you can intervene ... and change their trajectory."

Zogby Vs. Mitofsky (Keith Olbermann)
Mood:  loud
Topic: Voting
NEW YORK - It was a spectacular irony - a Republican senator using the word ?fraud? about the presidential election. More spectacular still, he was visiting his condemnation of apparent election manipulation on the incumbent party. And beyond all that, he and others based their conclusions largely on the incredible disparity between the last exit polls and the vote count itself. Of course, Indiana?s Richard Lugar was talking about the presidential election in the Ukraine. But in so doing, he underscored that once again, the exit polls appear to have fulfilled the time-honored international tradition of the canary in the mine shaft. If only we could have used them in that way here.

?I don't think that exit polls can be used as a barometer for the accuracy of an election itself,? noted pollster John Zogby explained to me on last night?s Countdown, in what we think was his first full-scale television interview since the election. ?At least until we find out if there's something broken with this round of election polls? I think that the gentlemen who are responsible for the exit polls should be fully transparent, release their data, discuss their methodology. Let us see what exactly it is that happened, and why it happened.?

It turns out one of those gentlemen doesn?t think anything happened.

In an unsolicited e-mail to Countdown, Warren Mitofsky wrote that he was ?struck by the misinformation? in our program. He heads Mitofsky International, which along with Edison Media Research, conducted the election night exit polling for the television networks and the Associated Press. I referred to the variance among the early and late exit polls, and the voting. Insisting ?there were no early exit polls? released by his company or Edison, Mr. Mitofsky wrote ?the early release came from unauthorized leaks to bloggers who posted misinformation.?

Mitofsky compared those leaks to ?the score at half time at a football game? and said the ?leakers were reading complex displays intended for trained statisticians. The leakers did not understand what they were reading and the bloggers did not know they were getting misinformation.?

His defense of his work grew more strident. ?The presidential exit polls released at poll closing time when they were completed had an average error of 1.9 percentage points. There were no mistaken projections by Edison/Mitofsky or any of the NEP members.? One more thrust: ?All the professionals correctly interpreted the numbers.?

While Zogby spoke of a ?blue ribbon panel? to investigate both the voting irregularities and the exit polling, Mitofsky asked rhetorically, ?Did anyone really think that 51% in an exit poll two hours before voting was finished in the western states gave Kerry a lock on the presidency??

John Zogby, meanwhile, was more concerned about the short end of another poll this week -- one that indicated that about four in five Americans thought President Bush had been legitimately elected three weeks ago. ?But, Keith, 20 percent don?t think the president is legitimate. And worse yet, if you take the other half, those that didn?t vote for him, about half of the other side doesn?t think the president is legitimate. That just hasn?t existed for a long, long time in our system. We need to restore, I think, some semblance of legitimacy and honor to the system.?

Warren Mitofsky seemed to disagree. ?The exit polls have been better in the past. They were far from perfect, but nowhere near as bad as your broadcast made them sound.? He never mentioned Zogby in his e-mail, but he did blast others. ?Only the unauthorized leakers and bloggers were misled - a fate they richly deserved.?

Mitofsky?s pride in his efforts is understandable. But the so-called ?early waves? of exit polling information were disseminated in generalized form to all the networks as darkness fell in the east on November 2nd. They were intended as background, as material that could be used to anticipate patterns and results. Those who characterized them loaded them heavily with caveats and disclaimers, and kept numbers virtually out of their characterizations. But the effect was impossible to misinterpret. Merely in their intended spheres, they helped shape coverage and tone, on-air and off.

And they, along with the voting irregularities so thoroughly chronicled on the net (and still just seeping into the mainstream media), created an atmosphere that Zogby thinks requires broad remedy: ?I think it's in the interests of the nation that we study what happened in this election and widen that, let's study what happened with the exit polls, and let's come out with a definitive conclusions by a blue ribbon panel to restore the legitimacy of this election.?

Zogby thinks he knows the steps to take to do that. The first is for those who are raising questions, to keep doing so. ?I can reassure them they?re not crazy for asking. It?s not just those who are far out, it is indeed many respectable, responsible people.? The pollster says he?s heard from thousands of them, asking him to get involved in their various causes and investigations, so many he can?t answer them all.

But he used Countdown as his mass e-mail reply. ?I?ll take this opportunity right now to say I think that it?s in the interest of healing this country and restoring some unity to this country for us to have a thorough investigation of what happened both to the election and with the exit polls.? Zogby called for the proverbial blue-ribbon commission into the voting irregularities, and the full release of the exit polling data.

And he encouraged the recounts, even when, as they have in the first three of the nine precincts in New Hampshire, they have varied by just fifteen votes from the original count. The second tally in Ohio, Zogby says, ?certainly is useful, but I don't think its enough?I called this election for months the Armageddon election, and in that context, one of the things that we discovered throughout our polling was the fact that there were going to be significant numbers, on both sides who were not going to accept the legitimacy of the other guy winning, especially if it was close election.?

Do they have reason? With three weeks? reflection, he?s not convinced there was an altered vote - accidental or otherwise - at least not on ?a grand scale.? But Zogby says the ?system is not geared for a close election like this? and if ?many millions of people? don?t think that their vote was counted accurately,? the results are almost as bad as if an election was rigged, or decided by static charges in a thousand computers.

Zogby says he?s at peace with his own Election Night forecast - made not with the Mitofsky or Edison exit polling, but with his own polls. He saw Florida and Ohio both ?trending? towards Kerry, and producing a triple-digit victory for the Democrat. Within the pollster?s margin of error, he made no mistakes. But he may not be as thoroughly sanguine as he suggests. Off-air, in the preparatory interview standard for all guests, his November 2 forecast was mentioned.

?Thanks,? he said, ?for reminding me.?

Which reminds me that it was mildly encouraging to see some focus given to this entire topic Tuesday night by my old CNN cohort Aaron Brown. A carefully-worded segment included a laundry list of the problems we?ve been reporting on Countdown for the last three weeks, and compared them to ?the kind of dumb mistake that ruined the Hubbell telescope.? Brown referenced the UC Berkeley study on the prospect of 130,000 phantom votes in Florida (though he didn?t mention its conclusion that all of them went to President Bush), and even had about fifteen seconds of Blackbox?s Bev Harris and her slog through the computer printout records in Florida.

Such as they are.

Thoughts? Email me at KOlbermann@msnbc.com

Help Us Get 100,000 People to Take the Pledge by Inauguration Day ? January 20th
Mood:  energetic
Topic: Bill of Rights
Today our most fundamental freedoms are in jeopardy. Only a bold, spirited movement of people like you who refuse to surrender your freedoms can protect our civil liberties.

On January 20th, George Bush will pledge to uphold the Constitution. Our goal is to recruit 100,000 new ACLU supporters by that day to proclaim "I REFUSE TO SURRENDER MY FREEDOM" by taking this simple pledge:

"I pledge to join with over 400,000 ACLU members and supporters to help ensure that the President, his administration, and our leaders in Congress fulfill their duty to preserve, protect, and defend our Constitution.

By reaffirming my commitment to the American values of justice and liberty for all, I am enlisting in a powerful movement to defend our freedoms against assaults on our civil liberties."

Let's make it clear to those who seek to take away our freedoms that they are on the wrong side of the law . . . the wrong side of core American values . . . and the wrong side of history. Take the pledge now and stand strong in support of freedom.

Take the pledge

Thousands of Students Cut from Pell Grant Program in Final Federal Budget
Mood:  not sure
Topic: Financial Woes

WASHINGTON -- November 23 -- Last-minute changes to the federal spending bill approved by Congress this weekend will cause 90,000 low-income students to lose their Pell Grant eligibility this upcoming year. More than 1 million other students face reductions in their Pell Grant awards under this change.

House Republicans, with the support of the Bush administration, struck a provision from the FY05 Senate appropriations bill that postpones changes in the Department of Education's federal financial aid formula that helps determine Pell Grant eligibility. The Pell Grant program is the country's largest source of federal aid for college students.

"Behind closed doors, Congress decided to pay for budget shortfalls out of the pockets of students," said Luke Swarthout, higher education associate for the State Public Interest Research Groups.

The federal spending bill that Congress passed this weekend left out language written by Senator Corzine to maintain current Pell Grant eligibility rules. The Department of Education claims that without such language they will be forced to change the formula used to calculate the expected family contribution (EFC) in financial aid forms. According to the American Council on Education, the new calculation will cut 90,000 college students out of the Pell Grant program, and reduce Pell awards for more than a million students.

Congress included language in last year's final federal spending bill to postpone changes to Pell Grant eligibility rules until the issue and its effect on students' aid packages was further examined. "By making this change, Congress is reneging on its promise to students and families," said Swarthout. The language was included in last year's spending bill with bipartisan support, and was included in this year's Senate appropriations bill until final negotiations between the House and Senate this week resulted in the provision being stripped from the bill.

The change comes as students are already struggling with skyrocketing college costs and declining grant funding. Students are facing tuitions that are 10.5 percent higher at four-year public institutions this year,
according to a recent report by the College Board. The FY05 budget also freezes funding for the maximum Pell Grant at $4,050, and level funds numerous other higher education programs.

Pell Grant article

In Response to the Costs of War - My Thanks
Mood:  blue
Topic: Support Your Troops
{To my friend who sent this bulletin to me}Thank you. This brought tears to my eyes.

Most people really don't understand that it is the military families that are paying the price. Support Our Troops ribbons are now just a twisted fad - bringing on the sickening sight of copies of random causes, such as Breast Cancer awareness magnetic ribbons - while I don't have a problem with them having their ribbons - it's just another sign of companies cashing in on a situation that actually HAS A CAUSE. Wait a while? Have some respect. None of the proceeds from any of those magnets are actually going to the troops. And my brother's ribbon - stolen off of his jeep. How's that for supporting our troops?

My brother is a Reservist with an MP company. They were deployed to Iraq for 17 months. SEVENTEEN MONTHS. His tour of duty was extended twice - the second time, when they were packed up, with their bags on the boat. Another company unloaded their gear and replaced it with their own. At one point in time shortly afterwards, during a phone call to our mother, he said that they had better get them out of there soon, that while he was fine, he said that there were going to be suicides. Because while they could not say it as they could be reprimanded, there were tremendous feelings of complete abandonment.

A couple of Senators and many parents (including my own) of this MP company made the trip to Washington DC - to the Pentagon - there they met up with Generals in charge of the operations over in Iraq. Finally, my brother and his comrades would get the armor on the side of their humvees. Armor that if provided twelve months prior, would have prevented a situation like one mentioned below: shrapnel from an IED lodging itself behind one of the kid's eyes. This kid was much more lucky - he retained most of his sight. Had the humvee been armored then...it would not have even reached him.

Bush can stand there and be proud of our military men and women. Pray for the families to his God in the Oval office. And pray for them as he watches the cash roll in. Going in to Afghanistan? Sure - I agree. Iraq? Who does he think that he is? He ignored (and fired) his advisors who said that the numbers of troops needed were grossly underestimated. Ignored (and fired) advisors that said the the financial costs upon our country were grossly underestimated. Do we see a trend here? He didn't ask his father for advice - why? Because what his father would have said is that we had no viable exit strategy - just as he wrote in his book.

He had nowhere near the resources necessary to man this war, or even fund it. While I write this, there is a new Reserve Center being built - literally a mile up the road from my house. Rumors of the draft coming back around are well-founded. I personally believed that both Bush and Kerry lied through their teeth. I think that there will be a draft - and it will come along with an apology - saying that the military resources required to "rebuild" Iraq were "underestimated". They weren't underestimated - the people who spoke the truth without regard for the hidden agenda were ignored and eliminated. Why else would it have been necessary to keep my brother overseas and extended twice? Because it wasn't the cakewalk Bush thought that it would be. He doesn't listen to people tell him that he is wrong. Just as one of the mothers below realized with despair. He doesn't care about anything but his agenda.

If we need a draft. So be it. Without additional troops, more will die. A draft will save the lives of already over-extended troops. I can accept that. It scares the crap out of me. It scares the people who will potentially be drafted (although not enough to get them to vote - so they probably already know that either way, that is not going to change.) It scares the crap out of the parents of all who are eligible to be drafted.

So many troops are overseas without the armament and equipment required to do their job effectively. Bush is blatantly disrespecting these soldiers and their families by not providing the necessary armor and other equipment to ensure that they come home safely.

And while he is putting all of our loved ones in harm's way... He is cutting their Veteran's Benefits. How's that for supporting your troops? Makes me want to jump up and volunteer.

Bush had an agenda. He used 9/11 as an excuse. Why else would Kerry have overwhelmingly won NYC? They have been most effected by the situation out of all of us - lost the most loved ones. They're not buying the bullshit. Why is everyone else?

When 9/11 happened. Sure, Bush did a stand up job handling the crisis. Who in their right mind would have done anything differently? What was he going to do - commit political suicide and say, eh well, fuck the victims, fuck the families... shit happens. ???????? OF COURSE NOT! People say that he is a great leader and they are loyal to him because of that. It makes me sick. It frustrates me. It fills me with hatred and rage - I understand completely the woman who wrote that she cannot even look at his face without being physically ill. For I see nothing but lies and deception dripping off of every smug patronizing word that he utters.

Now all of the Bush supporters can sit there and say that my brother's situation was a mistake, and that not all of the troops feel like this. That (what was it - 70% of the overseas ballots?) were for Bush - that the troops voted for Bush? Because they are BRAINWASHED.

My brother came back and was all for Bush - it took a lot of long talks and REAL EVIDENCE put in to his hands for him to realize what types of lies and deceptions were going on. Long talks from my mother, father and myself. His away message now says: if there is anyone i hate as much as Bush - he just changed my opinion of him http://www.guerrillanews.com/content/eminem_mosh.html

When my brother enlisted, (before 9/11) my mother pointed at him, and said "Bush is in office, we're going to war." And he shrugged and said, no...

Bush doesn't care about our boys overseas. He doesn't care about my brother. He doesn't care about our domestic issues. He doesn't care about you, he doesn't care about me. He cares about money and the facade of religion. Because that veil of religion buys him the votes necessary to complete the agenda at hand for himself and his buddies. World domination and oil.

1996
"...sort of behavior is left to the psychotic, dogmatic, fundamentalist believers you see on your T.V. everyday letting off bombs and killing people in the name of God. Beliefs are dangerous. Beliefs allow the mind to stop functioning. A non-functioning mind is clinically dead. Believe in nothing..."

The Costs of War - Letters From the Home Front
Mood:  blue
Topic: Support Your Troops
The Costs of War
Letters From the Home Front
By Various Contributors
The Nation

22 November 2004 Issue

Almost a year ago, Tom Engelhardt, the editor of tomdispatch.com, began a correspondence with Teri Wills Allison, a mother from Texas whose son is in the military in Iraq. Out of that grew an invitation to Allison to write about how the situation personally affected her as a parent. The resulting essay, published in mid-October at tomdispatch.com, brought a flood of e-mail, selections from which Engelhardt also published at the site. "One thing struck me," Engelhardt said in introducing the letters. "Amid all the pundits opining and journalists reporting on the state of the nation, we almost never hear the voices of Americans who, like Teri Allison, have to deal with the fallout from the mess this Administration has created." Engelhardt said he was also struck by the offers of help directed to Allison and some of the people she wrote about. In their generosity of spirit, he wrote, the responses "offer a kind of hope and renewal all their own." With the permission of all those involved, and with thanks to tomdispatch.com, a project of The Nation Institute, we offer Allison's letter and a sampling of the responses. - The Editors
Teri Wills Allison
Teri Wills Allison, a massage therapist and a member of Military Families Speak Out, lives near Austin, Texas.

I am not a pacifist. I am a mother. By nature, the two are incompatible, for even a cottontail rabbit will fight to protect her young. Violent action may well be necessary in defense of one's family or home (and that definition of home can easily be extended to community and beyond); but violence, no matter how warranted, always takes a heavy toll. And violence taken to the extreme - war - exacts the most extreme costs. A just war there may be, but there is no such thing as a good war. And the burdens of an unjust war are insufferable.

I know something about the costs of an unjust war, for my son, Nick - an infantryman in the US Army - is fighting one in Iraq. I dont speak for my son. I couldn't even if I wanted to, for all I hear through the Mom Filter is: "I'm fine, Mom, don't worry, I'm fine, everything is fine, fine, fine, we're fine, just fine." But I can tell you what some of the costs are as I live and breathe them.

First, the minor stuff: my constant feelings of dread and despair; the sweeping rage that alternates with petrifying fear; the torrents of tears that accompany a maddening sense of helplessness and vulnerability. My son is involved in a deadly situation that should never have been. I feel like a mother lion in a cage, my grown cub in danger, and all I can do is throw myself furiously against the bars...impotent to protect him. My tolerance for bullshit is zero, and I've snapped off more heads in the last several months than in all my forty-eight years combined.

For the first time in my life, and with great amazement and sorrow, I feel what can only be described as hatred. It took me a long time to admit it, but there it is. I loathe the hubris, the callousness and the lies of those in the Bush Administration who led us into this war. Truth be told, I even loathe the fallible and very human purveyors of those lies. I feel no satisfaction in this admission, only sadness and recognition. And hope that - given time - I can do better. I never wanted to hate anyone.

Xanax helps a bit. At least it holds the debilitating panic attacks somewhat at bay, so I can fake it through one more day. A friend in the same situation relies on a six-pack of beer every night; another has drifted into a la-la land of denial. Nice.

Then there is the wedge that's been driven between part of my extended family and me. They don't see this war as one based on lies. They've become evangelical believers in a false faith, swallowing Bush's fear-mongering, his chickenhawk posturing and strutting, and cheering his "bring 'em on" attitude as a sign of strength and resoluteness. Perhaps life is just easier that way. These are the same people who have known my son since he was a baby, who have held him and loved him and played with him, who have bought him birthday presents and taken him fishing. I don't know them anymore.

But enough of my whining. My son is alive and in one piece, unlike the 1,102 dead and 7,782 severely wounded American soldiers; which equals 8,884 blood-soaked uniforms, and doesn't even count the estimated 20,000 troops - not publicly reported by the Defense Department - medevacked out of Iraq for "non-combat related injuries." Every death, every injury, burns like a knife in my gut, for these are all America's sons and daughters. And I know I'm not immune to that knock on my door either.

And what of the Iraqi people? How many casualties have they suffered? How many tens of thousands of dead and wounded? How many Iraqi mothers have wept, weep now, for their lost children? I fear we will never know, for though the Pentagon has begun - almost gleefully - counting Iraqi insurgent deaths, there is little chance of getting an accurate verification of civilian casualties. You know, "collateral damage."

Yes, my son is alive and, as far as I know, well. I wish I could say the same for some of his friends.

One young man who was involved in heavy fighting during the invasion is now so debilitated by post-traumatic stress disorder that he routinely has flashbacks in which he smells burning flesh; he can't close his eyes without seeing people's heads squashed like frogs in the middle of the road, or dead and dying women and children, burned, bleeding and dismembered. Sometimes he hears the sounds of battle raging around him, and he has been hospitalized twice for suicidal tendencies. When he was home on leave, this 27-year-old man would crawl into his mother's room at night and sob in her lap for hours. Instead of getting treatment for PTSD, he has just received a "less than honorable" discharge from the Army. The rest of his unit redeploys to Iraq in February.

Another friend of Nick's was horrifically wounded when his Humvee stopped on an IED [improvised explosive device]. He didn't even have time to instinctively raise his arm and protect his face. Shrapnel ripped through his right eye, obliterating it to gooey shreds, and penetrated his brain. He has been in a coma since March. His mother spends every day with him in the hospital; his wife is devastated and their 112-year-old daughter doesn't know her daddy. But my son's friend is a fighter and so is making steady, incremental progress toward consciousness. He has a long hard struggle ahead of him, one that he need never have faced - and his family has had to fight every step of the way to get him the treatment he needs. So much for supporting the troops.

I go visit him every week, and it breaks my heart to see the burned faces, the missing limbs, the limps, the vacant stares one encounters in an acute-care military hospital. In front of the hospital there is a cannon, and every afternoon they blast that sucker off. You should see all the poor guys hit the pavement. Though many requests have been made to discontinue the practice for the sake of the returning wounded, the general in charge refuses. Boom.

Then there is Nick's 24-year-old Kurdish friend, the college-educated son of teachers, multilingual and highly intelligent. He works as a translator for the US Army for $600 a month and lives on base, where he is relatively safe. (Translators for private contractors, also living on base, make $7,200 a month.) He wants to travel to the States to continue his education, but no visas are now being issued from Iraq. Once the Army is through with him, will they just send him back into the streets, a virtual dead man for having worked with the Americans? My son places a high premium on loyalty to family and friends, and he has been raised to walk his talk. This must be a harsh and embittering lesson on just how unprincipled the rest of the world can be. My heart aches for his Iraqi friend as well as for him.

A year ago in January, when Nick left for Iraq, I granted myself permission to be stark-raving mad for the length of his deployment. By god, I've done a good job of it, without apology or excuse. And I dare say there are at least 139,999 other moms who have done the same - though taking troop rotations into consideration to maintain that magical number of 140,000 in the sand could put the number of crazed military moms as high as 300,000, maybe more. Right now, you might want to be careful about cutting in line in front of a middle-aged woman.

I know there are military moms who view the war in Iraq through different ideological lenses than mine. Sometimes I envy them. God, how much easier it must be to believe one's son or daughter is fighting for a just and noble cause! But no matter how hard I scrutinize the invasion and occupation of Iraq, all I see are lies, corruption and greed fueled by a powerful addiction to oil. Real soldiers get blown to tatters in their "Hummers," so that well-heeled American suburbanites can play in theirs.

For my family and me, the costs of this war are real and not abstract. By day, I fight my demons of dreaded possibility, beat them back into the shadows, into the dark recesses of my mind. Every night, they hiss and whisper a vile prognosis of gloom and desolation. I order the voices into silence, but too often they laugh at and mock my commands.

I wonder if George Bush ever hears these voices.

And I wonder, too...just how much are we willing to pay for a gallon of gas?

Priscilla Ammerman
Priscilla Ammerman, a long-term Mississippi resident, is a state purchasing agent.

I am the mother of identical 22-year-old twins, both members of the Mississippi Army National Guard. Both have been activated in the same unit for training here in Mississippi and for deployment to Iraq in January.

As luck would have it, my sons' unit also has another set of identical twins; they are only 19. This is one of the real consequences of the mobilization of National Guard units from small towns; we have brothers, sons and fathers, mothers and daughters, and all other combinations of relatives going to combat zones together.

I read Ms. Allison's comments and, finally, was able to identify with someone in this alternate universe I suddenly find myself residing in. I also feel her frustration, her fear, her all-encompassing anxiety and most of all her overriding anger.

Like Ms. Allison, I can no longer seem to communicate at all with my family's members, all of whom are also right-wing, religious, knee-jerk supporters of Bush. When they vaguely ask me how my sons are doing, I just as vaguely reply fine. I really have no one other than my husband to express my feelings to. Living in Mississippi precludes most thoughtful discussion of the war, the President or any other topic relating to this Administration.

My anger at this President has become so intense that I can no longer watch him on television or listen to him on NPR; I literally become physically ill. I recently e-mailed the White House to ask the President to do a little soul-searching late at night away from distraction by advisers, campaign staff, etc. I asked him to then ask himself if he thought this war was worth the sacrifice of his twins, because I sincerely felt that it was not worth the sacrifice of mine.

Needless to say, I got no reply. And since then, as I have read more and more about his personality, I have realized what a futile effort that query was, because it appears this man is seemingly incapable of introspection or self-doubt. He apparently has no comprehension of the suffering of others, either.

As the mother of twins going into combat together, I think I am facing a situation even more untenable than most. Because my sons have always been so close, I have to fear not only the loss of a child but the consequences of that loss on the other twin. Both sons have confided to me that their greatest fear is not dying - but coming back without their brother. I, of course, have absolutely no way to reassure either that his greatest fears will not come to fruition.

My husband and I can only pray daily that something can occur before January to keep them here. They are 22-year-old college students who should be studying for finals and going to keggers, not patrolling in a country where the enemy straps on explosives and uses his body as a guided weapon.

Maryellen Walter
Maryellen Walter is an out-of-work telecommunications worker from the Midwest.

Teri Allison's letter put into words many of my own feelings. We are a blue-collar union family whose only two sons are now in Iraq, using the Army to pay for their educations. One son is an armor officer who earned an ROTC scholarship; the other is an enlisted medic who wants to finish his education on the GI Bill. They knew the risks and joined voluntarily. And were they serving in Afghanistan, it would be so much easier for me to bear, because that battle in the WOT [War on Terror] needed to be fought. Iraq is a huge wrong turn that seems to inflame the risk of terror, not diminish it.

We also have a contradiction about Iraq within our family. Our officer son's wife is a huge Bush supporter who views Iraq as the main stage of World War IV, and W. is her White Knight defending our civilization. I envy her the peace of mind that helps her cope with the separation and anxiety. But whistling past the graveyard gives me no such peace. If this is indeed an apocalyptic clash of civilizations, where is the national sense of urgency, why are so relatively few bearing the burden and why are we paying for it on credit?

Mike Roemhildt
Mike Roemhildt, a music teacher, lives in Cloquet, Minnesota.

I just wanted to write to thank you for posting the letter, "The Costs of War." It expressed the feelings of my wife and me in a way that was so close to ours it was scary. Our son, age 19, is a tanker in the Army and has been to Iraq once already and will go back sometime this coming winter. Needless to say, we dread it very much. His first tour found him in an ambush, witnessing many horrible sights, IED explosions and mortar attacks, and finding himself in a position in which he had to kill. He seems to be handling things OK, though he drank for nearly three weeks upon his initial return. There was virtually no psych screening to speak of to identify those soldiers who might have problems. In fact, they were not even held more than a few hours on base before being released into the world!!!

I could certainly go on about my thoughts and feelings but my main purpose for writing was to thank you and to request that you forward this letter on to the author. It meant a lot to my wife and me to read another person's experiences and to discover that we are not alone.