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Totten reports that a citywide litdrop is in the works in Burlington this weekend, all to continue to try and change the subject from a financial scandal that related to Burlington Telecom, to a conversation about Burlington Telecom. This is presumably the same flyer that was distributed in some parts of the old north end entitled, “Burlington Telecom, the Facts Not the Politics.” All of this, again, will simply serve to marry public impressions of the landmark public utility with their impressions of the scandal itself, which – if successful – places BT in dire jeopardy so long as Kiss & company continue to feed the flames of anger by denying responsibility for any screwup. All of this is precisely why die-hard opponents of BT are so willing to oblige the Progressive leaders, as its like handing them a loaded gun and pointing it at BT’s temple. (I say Prog leaders, as the Prog or Prog oriented folks I’ve spoken to tend to be concerned about the same things everyone else is)

And so down the hole we keep going. What follows are some of the apparent distinctions (or just odd fits) that arise in a side-by-side comparison between this week’s piece from Jonathon Leopold, and the next day’s reporting from the Free Press of the leak of emails between the city and its attorneys on the matter (emails which the City Council correctly voted to release publicly, even though the final decision on their status was in the hands of Mayor Kiss prior to the leak). While the Council’s vote was a great step towards healing, the denial-lit drop is liable to rip open the wound wider than ever. I’m afraid this may continue until BT becomes Burlington Telecompost. I hope I’m wrong. Gawd, why is it just so hard to say “mistakes were made” and move on?

Comparison after the flip…

I’m not sure what the rules about cross posting are here but I feel like this is important enough to speedily filter through progressives at every level. This is by Chris Bowers over at OpenLeft, which is an excellent site by the way…

[Editorial note: this was a violation of site policies.  If you want to quote Open Left, feel free to provide a link and a short quote and some of your own commentary –Julie Waters]

Last March I put keyboard to blog and “authored” this bit titled Food for thought ….

Well, here’s a bit more for you to chew on:

Exposure to high levels of a controversial chemical found in thousands of everyday plastic products appears to cause erectile dysfunction and other sexual problems in men, according to a new study published Wednesday.

The study, funded by the federal government and published in the journal Human Reproduction, is the first to examine the impact of bisphenol A, or BPA, on the reproductive systems of human males. Previous studies have involved mice or rats.

(High BPA levels linked to male sexual problems, Washington Post, 11/11/09)

But don’t worry about those gender bending and other life giving hormone disrupting chemicals that we’re mistaking for food substances. After all the new health insurance deformation is going to make sure the already super well heeled pharmaceutical industry is going to make even more cash … in part by selling us the means to combat the problems caused by our “food” industries poisoning us.

Got diabetes? No problem … there’s a pill we can sell you for that (no guarantees mind you, however).

Got a case of BPA toxicity? No problem … there’s an erection creating pill we can sell you for that (no guarantees mind you, however).

Got money? Ha … that’s a problem that can be easily solved.

Want universal, publicly funded health insurance? Not a chance … we might be frugal and decide it’s more efficacious to stop the poisoning instead of favoring the fat pocket books of the already rich.

Right-Wing Hard-Liners Both Inside and Outside the Party — Including the Poobahs of Fox News and Talk Radio, as Well as the ‘Teabaggers’ — Have Rendered the GOP Leadership Impotent and Hijacked the Party, Driving It So Far Rightward That It Cost the Republicans a Congressional Seat They Held For More Than 140 Years; Florida Is Likely Their Next Target

(Photo courtesy Craig Pendleton/University of Maine, Farmington)

(Posted 5:00 a.m. EST Thursday, November 12, 2009)

Abraham Lincoln, the nation’s 16th president, who led the country through the Civil War, famously said that “A house divided against itself cannot stand.” He was, of course, referring to the nation after the secession of 16 Southern states to the Confederacy.

But who would have thought that, nearly 150 years after he was elected president, Lincoln’s words would apply to the very Republican Party he helped co-found in Ripon, Wisconsin in 1854 with other anti-slavery expansion activists?

As commentator Cris Sautter writes, the GOP bears no resemblance to the Party of Lincoln and is on the brink of being torn asunder in its own ideological civil war.

For copyright reasons, I cannot post Sautter’s commentary in its entirety on Green Mountain Daily. But I have been granted permission by his publisher to post it as a guest commentary on my blog site, The ‘Skeeter Bites Report, which you can read HERE.  

Crossposted at Air America Radio.

Today is Veteran’s Day and every year, veterans are honored on television, the newspapers, parades, etc. We salute the American flag, wear yellow ribbons in honor of the troops, listen to the playing of Taps, watch the 21-gun salutes and hear the speeches about those who gave their lives for freedom and democracy.

But what about those who sacrificed and served their country and speak against the horrors of war? What about those who come back from war never the same? Why do we honor the silent, dead warriors, but not those who have been harmed by war and feel the need to speak out?

Dahr Jamail is an award-winning independent journalist whose work has appeared on National Public Radio, in The Guardian (UK), The Nation, The Progressive, and more. In his latest book, The Will to Resist: Soliders who refuse to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan, Jamail brings us inside the movement of military resistance to the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan. War is traumatic and many veterans who speak out against their actions (or their government’s policies) want their experiences to be validated, understood and accepted. Yet anti-war veterans organizations are not honored to the same degree as the Veterans of Foreign Wars, the American Legion or Disabled American Veterans. Jamail believes all veterans must be honored, even those who speak out against war. The Will to Resist opens the door to the lives of many servicemen and veterans who speak out against war and killing, and their need to regain their humanity. Jamail talked about what war resisters endure on a daily basis, including the recent tragedy at Fort Hood, TX.

In researching this book, is it true that many service members and veterans lack adequate psychological and emotional counseling? Did Nidal Malik Hasan received adequate attention for his needs? Could the Fort Hood tragedy have been avoided if he had received adequate attention?

It’s true that people in the U.S. military who need post-traumatic stress disorder treatment as well as secondary trauma treatment, like Nidal Malik Hasan, are not getting what they need. I can’t tell you how many soldiers I’ve been talking to, some who are in the book, who are already diagnosed with PTSD and then they are sent back over to the front lines in Iraq and Afghanistan. As of last year, more than 43,000 soldiers already diagnosed with a medical condition, including PTSD, were classified as non-deployable and were deployed anyway. In Hasan’s case, this is a guy who was counseling people with severe PTSD who had lost limbs and were at Walter Reed. He had an extremely heavy workload, he was overworked, and he clearly needed counseling himself for secondary trauma he was experiencing. This was certainly a factor that contributed to what he chose to do by carrying out this atrocity. I think the Fort Hood situation on Friday, as well as what’s been happening there this year, clearly illustrates more than anything else, how severe the situation is in the military with people not getting psychiatric and psychological treatment they need. Another thing to add about Fort Hood that Friday’s tragedy doesn’t illustrate enough: this is an Army base that so far, this year, according to the most recent statistics there were 10 suicides this year- at that base alone.

Is it systemic that the military’s reaction to handling soldiers’ and veterans’ emotional and psychological problems is, “suck it up,” “don’t be a pussy,” or “quit being a fag?” What did you discover?

Absolutely. I just wrote a story about a guy who came back from Iraq with severe PTSD. He was being held in this unit and they were threatening to send him back again. He was trying to get counseling because he was suffering from regular abuse from his commander. One time the soldier met up with some of the other folks suffering from PTSD. They were all talking with each other and the commanding officer called them “a bunch of PTSD pussies.” It falls right in line with this kind of code in the military you exactly described. It’s based on the whole premise that boys don’t cry. It’s the grade school mentality of ,”we need you to be a mindless robot that’s willing to follow any order we give you.” If you have any concerns, physical or psychological, you need to suck that up and keep moving forward. Anyone that shows weakness or asks for help, they are ridiculed regularly and ostracized and this is another factor why so many people who need help are not getting it.

You write about stories of discrimination in “The Courage to Resist.” What about racism and Islamophobia? The Armed Forces claims they do not have any form of racism. Is it more prevalent than we think? Does the military cover it up like they often do with sexual violence and other recurring social problems?



Racism, sexism, homophobia are all a big problem. This is an institution where mysogynistic behavior is embedded in people. That would certainly include race and racism. I’d say there is a kind of informal segregation in the military. When I was in Iraq, I talked to several people, including a Jordanian contractor who worked at a base serving food to soldiers. There were entire units that were only Hispanic, and Spanish was the only language they spoke. Slang terms like “nigger” and “spic”are used and all of this is common in the military. I think this is another indicator of how dysfunctional the military really is as an institution.

I know racist language is used in dehumanizing the enemy. But on an ordinary day-to-day basis, is it bigger than we think?

Absolutely, I think all of that falls under the umbrella of dehumanization. When someone joins the military, the military will break them down in basic training and prepare them to follow orders to kill people. To do that, you have to dehumanize the people they’re going to kill. So Iraqis become “Ragheads” or “Terrorists.” In Vietnam, the Vietnamese were “Gooks” and in World War II, they were “Japs.” In that process of dehumanizing “the other”- they cannot do that without dehumanizing themselves. They have to kill off parts of their own humanity so they can be willing to go out and kill somebody else. This is another factor of why racism is so bad in the military. Anything that doesn’t fit in with the dominant paradigm of a white male soldier is going to be an object of racism and discrimination in that institution.

One of the responses I often hear is “this isn’t systemic” or “there are always rotten apples” or “there’s always going to be some element of racism” in any institution. What is your response to that?

Yes, because when soldiers complete their training, they’ve all been through this process and were subjected to what we were just talking about. I’ve had many veterans tell me that’s exactly what it’s like. It’s like the high school boys locker room syndrome where you are consistently reinforced- all the talk and behaviors in basic training- if anyone goes against it, they are ostracized or ridiculed.

Vietnam Veterans got significant attention for speaking out against the war in the 1960s and 1970s. Polls constantly show that the Iraq and Afghanistan occupations are very unpopular with the American public. Why aren’t groups like the Iraq Veterans Against the War, Veterans for Peace, Gold Star Mothers for Peace, and such, gaining ground like Vietnam Veterans did? Especially with all the activist tools they have today that they didn’t have back then…



I think it’s because it was an entirely different era. The first main thing we could point to is lack of a draft. The draft mobilized the entire population in the country. It wasn’t just poor people that were forced to get a college education or serve. All of a sudden upper middle class kids had to be very concerned and of course, people resisted. Nobody wanted to be forced to go. So not having a draft is a critical component. Also, the lack of a real antiwar movement with any real power (like) the civil and women’s rights movements (had). All of these things were going on simultaneously and Vietnam was the perfect storm for an antiwar movement to stand up and give the backing necessary for an effective GI movement. All of what’s said is in the context and what I hear so much from soldiers today is, “Look, I was afraid to stand up because I felt like I would be all alone. I didn’t feel like there would be any support and I felt like I’d be hung out to dry.” That was not the case during Vietnam. It was the opposite. The people who stood up were heroes. They had housing, friends, they were hooked into this underground railroad where you could be shipped to Mexico or Canada and it was a completely different scenario.

A thing I often hear is soldiers don’t decide where they go, they’re not supposed to have opinions of the conflict, and it was all part of the contract they signed. I’ve heard this in regards to Ehren Watada’s recent case and others veterans you talked to. How do you and/or your book respond to that?

Here’s my rebuttal. According to the U.N. Conventions, the United Nations charter says there’s only two reasons why a country is allowed to have a “just war.” One, it must be ratified by the U.N. Security Council. The other is it must be an act of self-defense. Iraq doesn’t pass either of those. This war violates that and it also contravenes the Geneva Conventions. With Afghanistan, international lawyers like Marjorie Cohn, president of the National Lawyers Guild, are arguing that Afghanistan does not meet those qualifications. It did not have the U.N. Security Council ratification and they’re now arguing this was not an act of self-defense. Neither the country nor the people of Afghanistan attacked the United States. Thus, it’s a violation of international law. Because of that, there’s a (supremacy) law in the U.S. Constitution that states that when the United States signs a foreign treaty, that law becomes our law and essentially a part of our Constitution. Soldiers are sworn to support and defend the Constitution and they are violating their own oath by following an unlawful order (namely Iraq and Afghanistan). Those who are standing up and refusing are actually being hyper-patriotic. When you stop and read the laws of the letter and listen to what these international lawyers are talking about, it’s very clear that the people who are dissenting and refusing these orders are following the law right to the letter.

This interview will be published on Veteran’s Day. Why are veterans’ peace groups and veterans who speak out against war not taken seriously on Veteran’s Day? Every year I read about how this group or that veteran was not allowed to march in this parade or that one. It seems that Americans are pushed into honoring only those veterans that are sanctioned. Your response?

It sounds like a similar situation as to why my articles (and probably your articles) are never going to make it into the New York Times or the Washington Post. If you take a stand and you write an article coming down on the side of international law and you’re being critical of government or the wars, you’re perceived as biased. But if you write articles that are pro- war or pro-U.S. government policy, then you are considered objective. It’s the same thing with these veterans groups. They are censored and kept out of the public eye. Another example is high schools. Military recruiters can go into any high school, hand out their propaganda, help them go to college and recruit people. But Veterans for Peace can’t go into high schools because what they’re talking about is too political. The military is going in and that’s not political, but people talking about peace and alternative ways to get college funding is political. It’s the same thing when these organizations are censored and kept out of the media.

 Chief Technology Officer Tom Evslin is very concerned and makes some charges about the behavior of Vermont’s legislature and you can read about it in West Virginia. A self proclaimed real conservative formerly head of overseeing millions in Federal ARRA spending here in Vermont was recently appointed by Gov. Douglas and charged with preparing telecom initiatives for the upcoming legislative session.He has taken his worries out of state.

Vt.Buzz points out that Evslin is quoted in the Charleston Daily.

“Some states took the stimulus money, used it as a Band-Aid and used the breathing room to make sustainable cuts in the cost of state government, and as the stimulus is withdrawn, it won’t be painless but it will be survivable,” said Evslin, who is now Vermont’s chief technology officer. “Other states have been taking the Band-Aid and not really making the changes they need to make.”

Evslin said there have already been backroom comments from some people who don’t want to make sustainable cuts precisely for that reason.

“They’re afraid if they do adapt, they won’t be able to argue for a second stimulus,” he said.

In other words, they want to spend all the money and ask for more.

“It’s a bit like killing your parents and throwing yourself on the mercy of the court because you’re an orphan,” Evslin said.

http://dailymail.com/News/stat…

http://www.burlingtonfreepress…

( – promoted by odum)

cross-posted on the Progressive Blog

Below is a memo I sent to the Joint Fiscal Committee. It deals with the VEPC / VEGI background growth rate issue I blogged about on Aug. 13 (VEPC and the Money-Go-Round).  

The issue is on the JFC’s agenda for tomorrow’s meeting.  This is an opportunity for the committee (including two gubernatorial candidates) to finally stand up to VEPC and stop wasting the taxpayers’ money.  At a time when the administration (often with the approval of the Leg.) is cutting programs and jobs, it is outrageous that this charade continues.  Short of killing the program (only the full Leg. can do that), this is a way to make VEPC more accountable and efficient.  I hope readers will communicate with the members and ask them to do the right thing.

more below

To: Representative Michael Obuchowski, Chairman Joint Fiscal Committee

Date: 9 November 2009

Re: Comments on VEPC’s pre-filed testimony re. the VEGI background growth rate methodology

Cc: Joint Fiscal Committee

The Auditor’s findings highlight a serious flaw in the program that needs to be remedied.  As the principal author of the first review of VEPC, I first noted this problem nine years ago.  I am grateful that the committee is taking the time to reconsider the issue.

VEPC claims that changing the methodology will introduce a “bias” into the cost-benefit analysis.  Interesting choice of words.  The bias would be toward reducing waste in the program because the current method subsidizes job creation that would have occurred without the incentives.  

VEPC stated, “Such biases would ultimately and unintentionally discourage job creation from small and recently embarked business endeavors”.  There is absolutely no evidence to support this claim.  Presumably, the remedy would not affect applicants with little or no history in Vermont.  In such cases, VEPC could use the industry growth rate just as it does now.  

VEPC argued that “The current practice of sector-based, long-term…hurdle rates for background growth is an economically sound process that has worked well”.  It may have worked well for companies that received unwarranted subsidies, but not for taxpayers.  Applying a 2% industry-wide background growth rate to a firm that has grown at a rate of 6% makes no sense whatsoever.  

VEPC praised the so-called “standardized approach” that creates a “level playing field”.  But why should the “playing field” be level if it results in waste?  Many applicants come to VEPC with a history.  To ignore that in the name of uniformity is to ignore the intent of the program — pay only for incremental new jobs.  VEPC’s reliance on the “uniformity” card is nothing more than misdirection.

VEPC noted that changing the methodology would require increased due diligence.  At what point can we say there is enough waste in the program to justify more due diligence?  Over time, the cost to the treasury may have been millions of dollars.  To me, that seems like sufficient justification.

As the legislature looks for efficiencies in state government, no program should be off limits.  I am aware that crafting a solution will not be easy; it’s complicated.  At the very least, I hope the JFC will convene the technical advisory group to dig in and come back with recommendations.  

Members of the Joint Fiscal Committee

Representative Michael Obuchowski, Chair

Senator Ann Cummings, Vice Chair

Senator Diane Snelling, Clerk

Representative Janet Ancel

Senator Susan Bartlett

Representative Martha Heath

Representative Richard W. Hube

Representative Mark Larson

Senator Peter Shumlin

Senator Richard Sears

Crossposted at Huffington Post. Tomorrow is independent journalist Dahr Jamail. – Christian

The bonds established between mothers and children are sacred.  Mothers provide unconditional love, caring and support, and they teach their children to live in the world with a sense of purpose.  But life circumstances oftentimes get in the way of relationships and affect the outcomes for better or for worse.  In times of war, the bonds between mothers and children can change in the blink of an eye.  Strong relationships that took years to develop can be wiped out when a loved one is killed by enemy fire and other circumstances beyond their control. Many families in America have experienced this.  So have many others in the Mideast.

Susan Galleymore is the author of Long Time Passing: Mothers Speak About War & Terror. Galleymore, co-founder of Courage to Resist, made international headlines as she traveled to Iraq to visit her son stationed in the Sunni Triangle.  The more Galleymore learned about the military, the more she learned about how war affects mothers at home and mothers in Iraq.  Her journey continued as she met with mothers in other war zones such as Israel and the West Bank, Lebanon, Syria, Afghanistan and the U.S..  I spoke with Galleymore about her new book and how war affects mothers and children, communities and cultures, veterans, and current service members.

Full interview after the break.

 

They say time and time again that “information is power”‘ and books can be used as an effective tool for social change.  Upton Sinclair’s “The Jungle” and Rachel Carson’s “Silent Spring” are two good examples.  What role do you believe books play in effecting social change?  Do you see “Long Time Passing: Mothers speak out About War & Terror” as a book to be used in the same means as Sinclair’s or Carson’s?

Galleymore: The goal of the book is to create a larger story around the war in Iraq and Afghanistan.  It’s not just something that’s happening here in the U.S. but that the ripple effects are occurring all over the world and we are really interdependent.  I think Rachel Carson was trying to get at that as well.  There are interdependencies that we’re not really recognizing.  If anything, my book is trying to do something like that by using a story format.  In this case, every single story is exactly the way it was told to me.  I didn’t impose my own cultural values or understandings on it.  So I’m trying show these human beings have stories that are really enrichening to not only people in the United States, but to the larger picture of what war does.

What life-changing experiences did you have in your travels to the Mideast? What myths were shattered?

Well, I come from another country where we’ve seen the effects of war.  My grandparents were immigrants after the Second World War to South Africa and we experienced a war against the indigenous people, if you could call it that.  I came to the United States as a young woman and had my son born here the first year I arrived.  I never understood how the American military works but I also think it has changed, certainly in the last 30 years.  I never understood there was such a push to recruit young people.  That’s particularly true now that we have a volunteer military. There’s a lot about how things function in American culture that I, as an outsider, didn’t know.  But I’ve come to realize that people who actually live in this country for generations don’t understand either how the American military works.  That was a huge learning experience.

Once I realized that my son had been sucked up into the military, believing all the cultural values from the movies, such as what a hero is, what a man is, etc., I had this urge that I had to talk with him about it.  Once I got to Iraq, I recognized that this was a much larger story.  The first Iraqi woman I talked to said  her whole family was essentially wiped out by American troops on a couple of Humvees.  They just shot up the whole car, killing her husband and three kids.  She survived, she was pregnant, and her eight year-old daughter survived.  So there was a story to be told.  We can’t imagine being in America and having that happen.

I also lived in Israel during the mid-1970s and I came from apartheid South Africa.  So I was very comfortable in Israel at the time because it reflected a lot of the values that I came from.  Of course it is an apartheid system (in Israel).  Anyone who knows anything about how systems function realize that Israel is an apartheid system.  

One of the things I learned about Israeli and Palestinian boys is Israelis are socialized to join the military to defend the homeland.  Palestinian boys are pigeonholed to be suicide bombers because they’ll be seen as martyrs.  Did you encounter this in your travels? How difficult is it for Israeli and Palestinian boys not to go down this path? Are there any efforts being done to raise boys not to pick up a gun or strap on explosives? What roles do mothers play in shaping their sons?

One of the mothers I interviewed lost her son in a suicide bombing while two other of her sons were in the Israeli Defense Forces.  Now this is a family that came from a ‘left perspective’ and her sons have become Refusniks and they are very active in a group called Combatants for Peace.  Combatants for Peace works with former Israeli soldiers working with former Palestinian prisoners.  They always work together, they make joint statements, and there were many other groups in Israel doing joint work.  It was fascinating because sometimes I would talk to people who say ‘I’m a Zionist and I work in this particular group’ (not necessarily for Combatants for Peace).  But there’s a lot of complexities in these issues.  It’s fascinating because it’s kicking up the level of thinking. Americans need to do about how complex the situation is.

It’s also hard to be a man, especially in American culture.  There’s no ritual for it.  I think that’s partly what brings a young man into the U.S. military, but in Israel there is (a ritual).  In Palestine, it’s much more of a male dominated society and the ritual there has been so disturbed by the Israeli invasion of the culture.  Everything is on shaky ground there and people are really struggling to hold on to their culture.  

In the book, you try to understand the tension between individualist American culture and the complex communities of family and residence that typify much of the Middle East. What were some of  the things you learned when two different cultures came face to face like this?

It’s interesting.  In America, we’re taught that the best thing you can do is become independent and self-sufficient as soon as possible.  In the Middle East, that’s not the case.  It’s a collectivist-based culture.  What I find is, unless you understand that the basic assumptions are very different, you’re going to have conversations that are meaningless.  A person from an individualist culture who is talking to a person from a collectivist culture are going to have a conversation that’s not grounded in a similar reality.  It’s very difficult for Americans to understand that people in the Middle East (if I can generalize) don’t want to be Americans.  They’re proud of their culture, history and heritage.  Americans tend to think everyone wants to be like us, because we’ve been told “we’re the greatest, the best, the most powerful”, etc.  It’s very difficult for people to conceptualize that it may not be the case.  I think we’re seeing that in Afghanistan right now.  The Afghan people are saying “leave us alone! We don’t want you or your democracy!” The Afghans have their own traditions of democracy and we’re not allowing them to surface very much.  

I know current service members have told me time and time again “we don’t get to choose which wars we get to fight in.  We go where our president and Congress wants us to go to.”  But they do have voices.  They should speak and think for themselves.

Another discussion that needs to happen is what is a volunteer?  We often say, “these soliders volunteered to do this.”  Well, they didn’t volunteer to go off and kill Iraqi and Afghani civilians.  They went out to promote what they heard was the message of their country, which is, “we are about freedom and democracy.”  When they get over there, they discover it’s about opening corporate markets.  There’s a tremendous element (of) trauma they begin to feel.  What are the troops going over there to do?  What does a volunteer actually mean and what rights do they have?  If you’re a volunteer, it should also mean you should be able to not be a volunteer when you’ve had enough or when you’ve decided  to get out.  That’s not the case.

Today is Veterans’ Day. What do your book and your experiences  add to this national holiday? What did you learn about our soldiers and the wars they fight in, that would be appropriate for people to know on this holiday?

The stories of the troops are extremely important to hear and to make connections with other war or combat events the U.S. has perpetrated.  There are books on Vietnam where atrocities were par for the course.  We need to recognize that atrocities are par for the course in war, no matter which one.  If you put a young person who’s 18- or 19-years old in situations that are completely terrifying they’re not at all like the movies.  I hear a lot of that from the troops.  Then you bring them back home and you do not allow  them to tell their stories.  As long as we shut our troops and veterans up, as long as we do not want to hear what they have to say, we’re going to continue to have the devastation of our young people that we’re seeing.  There is battle fatigue, shell shock, and general trauma.  That is the result of war and that is what our veterans are going to deal with.  We, as their families, need to understand what we’re asking them to do and we need to respect what they tell us.

Every Memorial and Veteran’s Day, it’s very difficult for groups like Veterans for Peace, Iraq Veterans Against the War, Military Families Speak Out, and others to have their voices heard.  What kinds of obstacles are they up against in order to be heard?

That’s a good question.  The average American is very resistant to know what is being done in their name.  There is a lot of resistance to know what our veterans bring back to our country when they return from war.  Veterans trying to speak out about atrocities, the immoral wars, etc. are shut up by other veterans.  It’s this thing that if we talk about the kinds of things we are generally silent about, then what does it mean about who I am? What does it mean about what I did over there? What does it mean about who we are as a country?  It’s not just accepting some new information.  It’s really reconfiguring your whole reality and that’s a very difficult thing to do.  That’s what needs to happen and I think that’s why there’s so much resistance.  You’ll see the Veterans for Peace or the IVAW with antiwar banners, and you really see other veterans coming down really heavily on them!  It’s about that, “don’t share the secret, don’t tell!”  We saw what happened to John Kerry when he ran for president.  He was swift-boated.  What was that about?  That was about not wanting to hear the reality of war and I think some of that has to do with the enormous profits made in war.

You mentioned the stigma and attacks soldiers face from other soldiers for speaking up against war and occupations.  Could you elaborate on that?

I think the most commonly known example of this is the Swift Boat Veterans’ effort to discredit John Kerry during his presidential bid. As you know, Kerry came out against the Vietnam conflict, supposedly throwing his medal over the White House fence after participating in the very first Winter Soldier Hearings.  It turned out it was really only his ribbons, not the actual medals.  As you probably recall the Swift Boat Vets piled on Kerry, denigrating his service, his courage, etc.  These days, when groups such as Veterans for Peace or IVAW parade (or even apply to participate) they are often roundly scorned from the sidelines or refused permission to participate officially.  I see this as stemming from a complex set of issues: an inability to distinguish between “the war” and “the warrior”; a refusal to admit how terrifying and confusing combat is, for “we” are “men” and so don’t admit fear etc. If “we” talk about what happens in war, we’ll let the cat out of the bag and have to re-examine some basic cultural concepts and if one decent person (say a service person) admits to war atrocities, it raises the spectre of other decent people being capable of the same- the “we’re all painted with the same brush” syndrome when something shameful comes to light.  These are the sorts of complexities inherent in how war is sold and consumed.

Despite all the trauma mothers experience and share in the book, you said that despite it all “the basic humanity of people shine through.”  What examples stand out for you the most?

What has become much clearer to me is that the human heart is a vibrant living entity and that underneath all the collective and individualist categories we have, that the human heart wants to reach out and make contact.  I found tiny villages in south Lebanon where people would say ‘Oh, you’re an American.  Weren’t those people hostile to you?’  That was never the case.  It was more, “Come in!  Who are you?  Yes, we can share our story with you.  Yes, please tell people about us.”  I would say my faith in human beings has become much deeper and become more determined to surface; that reality that we want to make contact with one another.

You hear some numbers floating around out there that are pretty dramatic in regards to the 5 person (or 6?) Democratic primary for Governor. Shay Totten says the winner might only need 12,000 votes. Philip Baruth has thrown the number 17,000 out there.

Now consider that this week, GMD will get roughly 5400 visitors. I know anecdotally that most folks who view the site only come by once every few days, but there’s a not-insubstantial minority that comes by daily. On the other hand, this is a slow time of year for us, and traffic goes markedly up during the session, so lets say 5000 is a safe weekly bet overall – certainly when things get going. And I daresay that our readership is overwhelmingly inclined to vote in the Democratic primary. In fact, I’m willing to bet its upwards of 90% of readers. And 90% of 5000 is 4500.

Compared to 12,000? That’s 38% of the needed votes to win the right to face Brian Dubie. 17,000? That’s 26%.

Pretty sobering thought, eh? This puts the GMD community into a mighty, mighty position indeed insofar as picking the Democratic candidate goes.

While I think the readers of this site will be major players in the Dem primary, I do think those numbers are off. There is no good comparison to come up with projected turnout numbers for our gubernatorial free-for-all. Most likely, folks are looking back at 2006’s high-profile primary for Lieutenant Governor between current candidate Matt Dunne and Former House Democratic Leader John Tracy of Burlington.

In that race, 34,690 Vermonters picked up Democratic Party ballots statewide. If that’s the metric, then Totten is assuming that whoever reaches 35% in the 5-6 way race likely takes the prize, and Baruth is assuming a just shy of 50% threshold. Not unreasonable assumptions.

But in truth, I think we’re in uncharted territory, and that 2006 turnout number is way, way off. In fact, I’m going to go out on a limb and say we may well see that number very nearly double.

There are a lot of differences between this go around and 2006 – and every one of those differences equals more votes. In no particular order:

• It’s the Governor’s race, not the Lite gov. Big difference. Duh.
• 5 candidates instead of 2. Double duh. In and of itself, that would increase numbers, but the geographic spread is significant. Instead of two counties’ local candidates in play driving up turnout in those counties (Chittenden and Windsor), you’re going to have candidates from Chittenden and Windsor, as well as the Democratic vote mines of Washington and Windham (and Lamoille too).
• It’s starting much earlier. More time = more press = more interest = more recognition of the race and the candidates among the greater electorate.
• It’s starting earlier part 2: More field. Symington’s late start last cycle meant she depended to an unhealthy degree on paid media. Starting farther out, you’re looking at the long haul, and that means field. With 5 or 6 campaigns actively in the field for the better part of a year, building infrastructure and contacting voters…. well, the effect on turnout will be dramatic.
• The entire 2010 legislative session will take place in the full-on throes of the longer election season. Expect bigger, bolder moves and attempts by the candidates to distinguish themselves, which equals more media, as well as more engagement by – and influence of – constituency and issue groups… who will be speaking to (and engaging) their members.
• Nearly every candidate has already appeared on at least one statewide ballot. The name recognition stage of primary campaign development will be comparatively trivial.
• Early paid media. I remember one, very effective ad from Matt Dunne in his race with John Tracy. There’s already a lot of money in this race with a long way to go. Expect unprecedented primary campaign ads for Vermont, raising the profile and the interest even further.
• Progressive engagement. These candidates will continue to differentiate themselves from each other, and without a Progressive candidate (or with the usual Progressive candidate – Anthony Pollina – fully in the mix with his fellow lefties), many (I daresay most) Progs will be inclined to pick a horse and engage in the primary.
• Legislative engagement. The Democratic House and Senate caucuses tend to be relative non-entities in the gubernatorial campaign (to the perennial chagrin and frustration of the Democratic candidates). There are already strong feelings about this race among Dems in the legislature, and it’s likely these folks will more strongly engage as ambassadors for their favored candidates at the district level, likely turning out more of their constituents.

Yup. We’re in a whole new world here. A world that I truly believe could lead to two votes for every one in the Tracy/Dunne affair.

But we’ll go ahead and dial it down a little bit from that. Let’s say, ohhh… a turnout of 60,000.

Now its likely over the next year that 2 or 3 front runners will coalesce from the crowd. Sure, you can say 50%+1 wins it, and set a goal of 30,000 votes – but that doesn’t really reflect reality. If its down to 2 real leaders 45% or 27,000 is a safe goal. If – as I suspect is more likely – the race sugars out to a 3-way, Totten’s 35%, or 21,000, probably wins it (assuming that’s where he did indeed derive that number from – either way, its a good thumbnail).

However you slice it – even with such a dramatic increase in turnout – these are still teensy number goals for a high profile, relatively big money race. It means that, if the field operations get up and running, candidates may well be able to ID virtually every voter they need for get out the vote efforts. Pretty wild, that.

Of course, in such a small state with a number of choices who are all so well known to primary voters, those IDs will be soft indeed – and highly fluid in response to every move each candidate makes – or chooses not to make.

In any event, it’s a new ballgame for Vermont politics, and if anybody tells you they know exactly how it’s all going to go, tell ’em they’re full of crap.

And yeah, that includes me, especially.

Lots more on this to come – including some musings on what each candidate may need to do to come out the other end victorious…