This month we're seeing observances of the fortieth anniversary of the end of the American war in Vietnam. Or, to be more accurate, of the defeat of the United States in its war of aggression against Vietnam.

Conservatives have done everything they can to rehabilitate the war and those who perpetrated it, from the phony POW-MIA flags you see all over the place, to Rambo, The Deer Hunter, and other revisionist movies, to the excessive celebration over more recent military veterans, born in part of a guilty national conscience, retroactively valorizing those who fought in a losing and profoundly evil war.

On this anniversary Seymour Hersh in The New Yorker revisits his reporting on the massacre at My Lai, making clear that, far from an aberration, mass murders of civilians were the policy of the United States. You might think that after almost fifty years later there is nothing more to learn, but you'd be wrong. Of a return visit to Vietnam, Hersh writes:

The message was clear: what happened at My Lai 4 was not singular, not an aberration; it was replicated, in lesser numbers, by Bravo Company. Bravo was attached to the same unit—Task Force Barker—as Charlie Company. The assaults were by far the most important operation carried out that day by any combat unit in the Americal Division, which Task Force Barker was attached to. The division’s senior leadership, including its commander, Major General Samuel Koster, flew in and out of the area throughout the day to check its progress.

You should read the whole article. We must not forget.

Cross posted at Rational Resistance.

Patriotic Betrayal: The Inside Story of the CIA’s Secret Campaign to Enroll American Students in the Crusade Against Communism by Karen M Paget

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

When I was growing up in the 1960’s my parents used to tell me stories about their activities in the National Student Association in the late 40’s and early 50’s. Liberal Democrats, they would tell us about parliamentary tactics deployed by Communist members to try to take control of the organization (late night quorum calls, for instance) and the efforts of anti-Communist liberals to prevent the organization converted to one whose activities would be dictated by the Soviet Union. I haven’t seen his letters (one of my brothers has them) I believe my father was at the organization’s constitutional convention in Madison in 1947.

What I’m sure they didn’t know at the time was that, while the NSA was devoted to spreading democratic values around the world, and especially in nonaligned countries emerging from colonialism, and despite the fact that the NSA followed democratic forms and procedures for the elections of officers, the actual activities of the organization were determined and funded by the CIA, with help from the Catholic Church to promote its own conservative agenda. Each year the elected president would be taken to a mysterious and secret meeting in which they were brought into the fold, told to sign a security oath, and, in the parlance of the organization, made “witting”. It was only then that the president and other top officers of the organization would be taught that the CIA was making the decisions, funneling money for travel and other activities through pliable charities, and truly acquainted with the shadowy older men–former students–who seemed to have hung around the NSA far beyond the time that most people would be interested in working with an organization for college students.

The secret was maintained for twenty years, until a few courageous officers and a major investigative effort by Ramparts magazine revealed the extent of CIA domination of this allegedly democratic organization. During that time the NSA was used to provide scholarships for promising foreign student leaders to study in the United States and to disrupt conventions staged by a rival, Soviet-dominated international student organization for propaganda value.

The husband of the author of Patriotic Betrayal was elected vice-president and made witting, and the author followed within months. Consequently, the author has a wealth of personal information about the inner workings of the NSA, which she supplemented by over 150 interviews of other participants in the events recounted here and research documented in the 100+ pages of end notes.

In the pages of Patriotic Betrayal we meet characters familiar and unfamiliar and, in most cases, whether they were in on the CIA factor. For instance, my parents’ friend and former liberal Congressman Allard Lowenstein (they called him Al) was considered to be an obstacle to CIA domination when he was president in 1950-51, although it is not known whether he was witting. Tom Hayden, working with the SDS, also tried to push the NSA to the left, while Gloria Steinem was working for the CIA when she directed CIA-funded activities in the late 50’s and early 60’s. We also see appearances by people who would later become important nationally or internationally, including Fidel Castro,  future Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme, and notorious right-wingers Howie Phillips and Richard Viguerie.

Patriotic Betrayal goes into exhaustive detail of the inner workings of the NSA from year to year, and often from week to week. While this level of detail establishes the breadth and depth of the author’s knowledge, it could be debated whether she has trimmed enough of the details from what the author has told us was earlier even much longer. The author does successfully give us the final conflict as a real-life spy thriller, with insiders trying to wrest control from the CIA and expose the CIA’s role in the NSA, the CIA and its agents trying to block the effort and to punish the organization for these efforts, and a ragtag band of journalists and activists literally risking assassination to get the story into print.

At fifty years’ remove from most of these events it’s hard to imagine so much effort and money invested in an organization of student governments to make sure the Commies’ student organization didn’t gain the upper hand. It’s almost Spy v. Spy stuff. It’s also ironic, of course, that the CIA’s idea of promoting democracy in even this voluntary group was to install its own men into positions of power, fund them, and tell them what to do. Ultimately this is the most important lesson: the dangers of secret government setting up secret activities to subvert democratic institutions. When Ramparts broke the story the secret government and its allies in Congress cooperated to squelch or neutralize the revelations. Patriotic Betrayal is an important revelation of these Cold War events.

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There's a new report today that St. Elizabeth's Hospital, where John Hinckley, Jr., has lived for more than twenty years, is seeking to release him from inpatient treatment to live with his mother. Naturally, this is leading to the inevitable wails that he should never be released after what he did, and on and on.

The people who want to keep him locked up are wrong. Hinckley, his lawyers, and the hospital that wants to discharge him are right. There are a number of reasons for this.

First off: he was acquitted. Like other people charged with a crime in the United States, the government presented its case before a jury of his peers. To convict him the government needed to prove his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, and it didn't. No matter what you think of the insanity defense, it's not a technicality. If someone makes the incredibly rare accomplishment of prevailing on an insanity defense that person is not criminally liable.

Not guilty. Period. That means that no matter how much you don't like what he did, you don't get to keep punishing him. A defendant found not guilty by reason of insanity is not sent to prison, but is sent to an institution for treatment until he or she can be safely discharged to the community. The Supreme Court has held that it is unconstitutional to continue to hospitalize someone involuntarily unless it is shown that the person is both mentally ill and a danger to himself or others. Once the defendant's innocence has been established, the question is not what the person did in the past, but on what will happen if the person is released. “A finding of “mental illness” alone cannot justify a State's locking a person up against his will and keeping him indefinitely in simple custodial confinement. Assuming that that term can be given a reasonably precise content and that the “mentally ill” can be identified with reasonable accuracy, there is still no constitutional basis for confining such persons involuntarily if they are dangerous to no one and can live safely in freedom.“

Second, Hinckley is a danger to nobody. His track record over the last twenty years, time when he has been confined to the hospital but has had chances to go out on unsupervised visits to family and friends, shows that. He has had no violent incidents, he returns when he's supposed to return, and he cooperates with treatment. There is no reason to believe that keeping him locked up will reduce any danger he poses to himself or others, mainly because it has been decades since he has done anything dangerous.

I have represented clients who have killed people when suffering from untreated mental illness, and I have argued successfully for their release from hospitalization. I know that cases like this are emotionally upsetting to members of the public and to prosecutors. As reported in the Washington Post, “Prosecutors pointed out that unlike other aging patients with disabilities who have supportive families, Hinckley is an attempted assassin who shot the president and three others.” I'm used to hearing this kind of argument because I've heard it myself in cases that I have handled, but the argument misses the point. These cases always involve violent, sometimes deadly acts, but that is not the end of the story. As a matter of law, as a matter of common sense, and as a matter of basic morality, we do not have the right to lock up a person who has been acquitted of a crime and who poses no danger to others if he or she is released.

In the Hinckley case the court will undoubtedly examine the treatment he has received since the last time his restrictions were loosened. It will examine whether he complies with treatment, and whether his behavior, which includes one or two minor slips in the last few years, demonstrates that he is dangerous or safe. When all these factors are examined, the likely outcome is that he will be discharged to live with his mother, with the support of other family members if that becomes necessary.

That will be the right outcome.

This week the forces of reason have a chance to advance the elimination of the philosophical exemption to vaccination in the State House.

The Senate Health and Welfare Committee is considering a bill, H. 98, on reportable disease registries. As you can tell, this is a bill that has passed the House and is now before the Senate.  

What's happening this Wednesday is that Senate Health and Welfare is taking testimony on an amendment to eliminate the philosophical vaccine exemption. They've allotted two hours, one hour for each side, with witnesses to be named later. After that there may be a vote on the amendment and on the bill as a whole.

This is the first time that the philosophical exemption bill, which had been considered dead for the session, is coming up for a vote, so this is a chance to protect our children and our schools from highly contagious diseases.

The first step is the committee. Please contact your senators, especially if they're on the Health and Welfare Committee, and ask them to support this amendment.

Here's the list of the committee members:

• Sen. Claire Ayer, Chair
• Sen. Virginia “Ginny” Lyons, Vice Chair
• Sen. Anthony Pollina
• Sen. Dick McCormack
• Sen. Brian Collamore, Clerk

 And if you want to look up your senators, follow this link.

This is a great opportunity for the voices of reason, so please contact your senators before Wednesday. 

Bill Sorrell has sued Dean Corren and settled a complaint against the Vermont Democratic Party for allegedly violating the private contribution prohibition of our public campaign finance system.

 In case you've missed it, the state is suing Dean Corren personally for coordinating an e-mail blast with the Vermont Dems to the Dems' e-mail list in support of Corren's unsuccessful Lite Gov campaign last year. He's asking the court to fine Corren $72,000.00: $10,000 statutory damages for each of two counts of violating Vermont's campaign finance laws, plus forfeiture of $52,000, the amount Corren had unspent in campaign funds at the time of the alleged violation. Oh yeah, the value of the e-mail was estimated at about $255.00.

 Now comes John Franco on behalf of Dean Corren, suing the Attorney General in federal court to block enforcement of the law and the whopper of a penalty Sorrell wants to exact.

 I heard about this and I did what any lawyer would do: I read the complaint and I read the law. $72,000 sounded like a lot of money, but from the language of the statute it appears that the $52,000 forfeiture, or “refund” is mandatory, so Dean's probably going to have to cough it up.

It turns out it's not that clear. Corren's complaint and preliminary injunction memorandum raise some very good questions, and I'm going to be interested in seeing how Sorrell answers them. 

First, apparently it's not at all clear that this was even a violation. According to Corren, when the Legislature amended the law in 2014 it explicitly excluded this kind of help from being counted as a contribution. The Legislature made findings as part of the law, Act 90, that:

 (10) Exempting certain activities of political parties from the definition of what constitutes a contribution is important so as to not overly burden collective political activity. These activities, such as using the assistance of volunteers, preparing party candidate listings, and hosting certain campaign events, are part of a party’s traditional role in assisting candidates to run for office. Moreover, these exemptions help protect the right to associate in a political party.

And the Legislature also expressly excluded this specific activity:

 As used in this chapter, “contribution” shall not include any of the following:

Usually when a new political party racks up a big win they're eager to tout their success as a sign that they are now an important voice in their community, but somehow that's not happening in Montpelier.

Montpelier's newest political party, Vibrant and Affordable Montpelier (VAM to its members, the Austerity Party or Chai Party to its opponents), racked up a big win last week, holding the mayor's office and two council seats, and defeating the school budget.

Funny thing, though. They have no problem talking about their municipal office wins but they're trying to duck the blame credit for the school budget defeat. When you look into it, though, their disclaimers don't seem legitimate. 

 Speaking at a School Board meeting the night after Town Meeting Day, VAM leader Phil Dodd said:

 “This year, however, with the projected 13 percent increase in the school tax rate on top of 9.4% last year and projections that we will see more big increases in the future, some – but not all – VAM members started to express concern about the school budget. In the end, we never as a group pushed for a no vote on the school budget, though we did express reservations and urged people to attend school board meetings to express their own opinions.”

 If you're paying attention to politics in Montpelier, however, you can see that Dodd is understating VAM's involvement in the school budget debate.

Start with Thierry Guerlain, reelected Council member and one of the founders of VAM. In response to questions in the Montpelier Bridge, here's what he said about the school budget:

 I support excellent schools but can’t support a 13 percent school tax rate increase this year, on top of last year’s 9.4 percent increase, with next year’s increase projected to be as large as this year. That’s a 40 percent increase in just three years!  Montpelier incomes have not gone up 40 percent. How can taxpayers pay for this?

VAM's opposition to the school budget goes beyond that, however. Green Mountain Daily has obtained e-mails from VAM leaders to their membership that makes clear that the organization was providing operational support to the school budget opposition, even if the group never took a formal membership vote to do so.

In an e-mail to VAM supporters from Phil Dodd and forwarded by school budget opponent Dan Boomhower, Dodd said:

 While VAM has always supported good education and understands there are problems with the complicated state education financing system, we think the board should consider taking a harder look at the budget in light of this large projected increase”

Maybe not exactly a statement opposing the budget, but damn close. 

 Then, in an e-mail to VAM membership on February 2, VAM leader Phil Dodd, writing on behalf of the VAM Steering Committee, said “As you know, the proposed school budget tax increase of 13% has caused some consternation in town. . . . VAM is supporting the idea of forming a citizens’ committee to study the school budget with the goal of minimizing future tax rate increases.”

In a follow-up e-mail to the VAM membership on February 7 Dodd, again on behalf of the Steering Committee, devoted one full paragraph of a two-paragraph message to the school budget:

 “Meanwhile, some VAM-affiliated folks and others are mounting an effort to urge voters to vote no on the school budget so it can be sent back for reconsideration. This is not an official effort of VAM at this point, but if you are opposed to the proposed 13% school tax increase and want to get involved, please read the following e-mail.” (Emphasis added.)

And the attached e-mail was from another VAM leader, Carol Doerflein, and argued for creation of a coordinated campaign to oppose the school budget:

 Too often, items on the school budget published in the Times-Argus and the Bridge go without any citizen response. This is a lost opportunity for those of us who believe the school budget to be unsustainable and who have constructive points to make in favor of rationalizing and prioritizing the budget ahead of Town Meeting day. 

Informed voters able to consider critically the proposed FY2015 school budget before they head to the polls will offer us the best chance to send the budget back for reconsideration by rejecting the current proposal. 

 We need to get our views out there in a continuing way between now and March 4th. The more people who express their opinions publicly, the greater the likelihood of creating a favorable environment for reining in property tax increases by encouraging voters to return the proposed school budget for further review.  A new budget with reduced expenditures achieved through sensible prioritization would serve the interests of the whole community, lessening the impact on taxpayers while refocusing efforts to make high quality education in our city sustainable for the future.  Should we fail this year, we may usefully lay the groundwork for success next year by gaining enough votes to draw the attention of budget-makers and thereby increase chances for a more responsible school budget proposal in FY2016.  

This process won't be useful or credible if it is the same people writing the letters. We need new names, and new perspectives, on changing topics that can be large or small, on many issues that concern us all or on a single issue that particularly engages one individual.  Even a handful of letters could make a difference. 

In light of this organized campaign, is it really believable that VAM was not actively trying to defeat the school budget?

You can draw your own conclusions, but I think the answer is a clear no. Maybe the fact that they're trying to hide from their victory is a sign that they're afraid their anti-school budget campaign may not be as popular as they thought. 

Just when you thought they couldn't sink any lower, the members of the Republican  majority go and prove you wrong.

Last week it was Boehner having Netanyahu speak to a joint session of Congress to undermine President Obama's negotiations with Iran, but now the Republicans in the Senate have topped him.

Monday 47 Republican senators sent an open letter to the president of Iran again seeking to undermine the nuclear weapon negotiations by means of a veiled threat to refuse to ratify any treaty reached by the parties, and to rescind any executive action Obama may take to implement an agreement.

Their letter says, in part:

First, under our Constitution, while the president negotiates international agreements, Congress plays the significant role of ratifying them.  In the case of a treaty, the Senate must ratify it by a two-thirds vote.  . . .

 Anything not approved by Congress is a mere executive agreement.

What these two constitutional provisions mean is that we will consider any agreement regarding your nuclear-weapons program that is not approved by the Congress as nothing more than an executive agreement between President Obama and Ayatollah Khamenei.  The next president could revoke such an executive agreement with the stroke of a pen and future Congresses could modify the terms of the agreement at any time.

Sadly, this repeats a pattern the Republican Party has been guilty of before. In 1968, when he feared that Hubert Humphrey might seize victory from the jaws of electoral defeat, Richard Nixon dispatched Anna Chennault to South Vietnam to encourage them to block any possible negotiation in the Paris peace talks, promising a better deal if he was elected. Nixon's sabotaging of the peace talks may have extended the war for another five years, at a cost of untold tens of thousands of lives.

Once again, the Republicans have chosen to put their partisan interests ahead of the national security of the United States. If they are successful, the product of their betrayal will be the defeat of the nuclear weapons talks, the immediate resumption of nuclear weapons development by the Iranian government, and the acquisition of nuclear weapons by Iran within a few years.

Boehner, McCain, Orrin Hatch, and most of the Republican extremists in the Senate (along with so-called moderates like Kelly Ayotte) seem intent on a 2015 version of the October Surprise plot of 1968.

Have you ever seen anything more contemptible?

It's school budget and school board election time, and once again there is a split in Montpelier between people who support maintaining the activities of our excellent schools and those who have been arguing for austerity the last few years.

The leading candidate for the austerity forces is Tina Muncy, a former teacher and principal, who has the support of Vibrant and Affordable Montpelier, the new conservative party in Montpelier. (VAM to its members, the Chai Party to its adversaries.) During last year's budget fight Muncy was one of the loudest voices against the school budget not only the first time around, and one of the few who also opposed the budget on the revote after cuts and restructuring that attracted the support of even some of the VAM leaders.

This year's election has stirred some controversy when City Council member Thierry Guerlain, one of the founders and leaders of VAM, signalled to voters that they should bullet vote for Muncy, a tactic that rubs some people the wrong way. This has led Montpelier resident Jed Guertin to post this letter to the editor of the Times Argus, which I am posting with his permission:

 One eliminated

We’re lucky in Montpelier to have five candidates for two school board seats. I’m writing this letter to simply present two observations, not to tell you for whom you should vote.

1. Everyone has a right to vote or not vote, but I was dismayed to see a city councilor suggest that citizens even consider pocketing a vote to see only one specific candidate get elected. 

2. While attending school board and program finance committee meetings this fall and winter, I had a chance to observe Tina Muncy’s approach to school budgeting. The finance committee’s charge was to “make recommendations … that show potential to reduce or at least control costs and show promise to improve or at least maintain the quality of educational outcomes as measured by the board’s ends policies.” 

It’s one thing to show ways to cut costs; the hard part is to take the time to analyze and then measure the impact of those potential cuts on students. Tina appeared strongly in favor of cutting the budget (the first part of the committee’s charge) but seemed uninterested in addressing the need to analyze the impact of those cuts on students, the second part of the committee’s charge. 

For that reason, Tina Muncy will not be getting my vote. But thankfully that still leaves me with four excellent candidates.

 I'm very concerned about investing power over our school budgets on someone who has so publicly opposed adequate funding for this most vital community activity. Whether the austerity forces will get their way this time around remains to be seen.

Over the years we've taken pleasure lambasting the SVR secessionists, both for the idiocy of their policy proposals and for their willingness to cozy up to outright racists, but we haven't had much to say about them lately (seeing as how they're pretty much consigned to irrelevancy and all).

Still, this year is special because it's the sesquicentennial of the final year of the Civil War. While some have spent the year honoring the Union and marking the traitors' perfidy, the League of the South, longtime allies of the Second Vermont Republic, have chosen a special way to mark the anniversary.

Here's what their head, Michael Hill, has to say:

 The League of the South looks to the present and future. However, from time to time we do look back at our past.

This 14th of April will mark the 150th anniversary of John Wilkes Booth’s execution of the tyrant Abraham Lincoln. The League will, in some form or fashion, celebrate this event. We remember Booth’s diary entry: “Our country owed all her troubles to him, and God simply made me the instrument of his punishment.” A century and a half after the fact, The League of the South thanks Mr. Booth for his service to the South and to humanity.

http://leagueofthesouth.com/honoring-john-wilkes-booth569/

Is there anyone still kicking around at the Second Vermont Republic who is willing to disavow their connections to this actively racist organization?