LMAO!!!!!! – Democratic Underground.

How Willful Blindness Keeps Everyone Living a Lie – Democratic Underground.

A fascinating lesson in how to handle the great American divide.

This is an interesting post and discussion of the Military honors Obama has bestowed on a service member. These seem to be mostly civilians in the discussion and I have had one comment made by a civilian member of the public about this conflict recently.  How would you reply?

 I have been opposed to all military operations in the Middle East for as long as I can remember. I believe, and have believed, that we have no business sending our military to that part of the world to deal with internal issues in the countries there. I was completely opposed to George W. Bush’s decision to invade Iraq and Afghanistan at the time, and oppose our continuation of military operations there. I do understand that immediate withdrawal isn’t the best way to leave, though. 

However, President Obama’s honoring of an enlisted man who had volunteered to serve 10 deployments was not honoring the war. It was honoring the service of one man as an example of all of those who serve in our military and are deployed to conflict areas. They did not start the conflict. They have nothing to do with the strategy of any military operations. They have, instead, joined the military for various reasons, and serve in the military as ordered by those who do plan the strategy. They are members of our military. 

Read the rest here

We all remember his music but we should also remember the courage he showed throughout his life and he did it with grace, in a spirit of fun and of course with a song. Here is an example from Mediaite:

Seeger was called on August 18, 1955 and quizzed about the where and when of his performances and allegiances. Seeger skillfully tap-danced around the questions, often with humor, sometimes with protest, and refused to use the Fifth Amendment as a literal get-out-of-jail-free card. He was eventually sentenced to a year in prison for contempt, a verdict he successfully appealed.

Here is a sample form the transcript:

MR. TAVENNER: The Committee has information obtained in part from the Daily Worker indicating that, over a period of time, especially since December of 1945, you took part in numerous entertainment features. I have before me a photostatic copy of the June 20, 1947, issue of the Daily Worker. In a column entitled “What’s On” appears this advertisement: “Tonight-Bronx, hear Peter Seeger and his guitar, at Allerton Section housewarming.” May I ask you whether or not the Allerton Section was a section of the Communist Party?

MR. SEEGER: Sir, I refuse to answer that question whether it was a quote from the New York Times or the Vegetarian Journal.

MR. TAVENNER: I don’t believe there is any more authoritative document in regard to the Communist Party than its official organ, the Daily Worker.

MR. SCHERER: He hasn’t answered the question, and he merely said he wouldn’t answer whether the article appeared in the New York Times or some other magazine. I ask you to direct the witness to answer the question.

CHAIRMAN WALTER: I direct you to answer.

MR. SEEGER: Sir, the whole line of questioning-

CHAIRMAN WALTER: You have only been asked one question, so far.

MR. SEEGER: I am not going to answer any questions as to my association, my philosophical or religious beliefs or my political beliefs, or how I voted in any election, or any of these private affairs. I think these are very improper questions for any American to be asked, especially under such compulsion as this. I would be very glad to tell you my life if you want to hear of it.

MR. SEEGER: I feel that in my whole life I have never done anything of any conspiratorial nature and I resent very much and very deeply the implication of being called before this Committee that in some way because my opinions may be different from yours, or yours, Mr. Willis, or yours, Mr. Scherer, that I am any less of an American than anybody else. I love my country very deeply, sir.

CHAIRMAN WALTER: Why don’t you make a little contribution toward preserving its institutions?

MR. SEEGER: I feel that my whole life is a contribution. That is why I would like to tell you about it.

CHAIRMAN WALTER: I don’t want to hear about it.

Read more from the complete transcript here.

And here is a song that Pete offered to sing to the Committee.  They refused to hear it but we wont!

For those who say that eavesdropping by the NSA only affects those with something to hide think again.  Government policy may have been negatively influenced as Harmon was a key advocate of the program that spied on her because of possible blackmail with the information collected by the NSA.  So we need to think a little deeper about the results of unlimited eavesdropping in the wrong hands.

This video is an interview of Harmon that was interrupted by “more important news” about Justin Bieber’s latest escapade.  No wonder Americans don’t have good information about their government.

The widespread coverage of this lead Juan Cole to fill in the next layer of meaning and background about the irony of this interview and its interruption .

According to Cole:

When she was in Congress, Harman was allegedly offered the chairmanship of the House Intelligence committee by an Israeli spy in return for her lobbying for reduced charges against operatives of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee who had been charged with espionage.

The conversation was allegedly picked up by the NSA.

And Harman became a key Democratic supporter of NSA.

Ask Rick Doblin Anything: Treating PTSD With MDMA « The Dish.

Lots of research on what works to deal with PTSD. Here is an interesting example from Academia. Lots of links to read further in the article on Andrew Sullivan’s blog.

Sunday’s Doonesbury- Welcome to the Military, Ladies! – Democratic Underground.

Remember the Invisible War shown at the Hippodrome by VFP several years ago.  Like Afghanistan its still going on.

Special Report: The Pentagons doctored ledgers conceal epic waste | Reuters.

Did you know that The Pentagon, among other dysfunctions is a Hoarder?
The largest military in the World with a claim on 60 percent of our disposable tax dollars, starving education, healthcare and infrastructure spending at home so we can kill abroad also is spectacularly wasteful.  Here are a few examples from the Reuters article.

At the DFAS offices that handle accounting for the Army, Navy, Air Force and other defense agencies, fudging the accounts with false entries is standard operating procedure, Reuters has found. And plugging isn’t confined to DFAS (pronounced DEE-fass). Former military service officials say record-keeping at the operational level throughout the services is rife with made-up numbers to cover lost or missing information.

 

In its investigation, Reuters has found that the Pentagon is largely incapable of keeping track of its vast stores of weapons, ammunition and other supplies; thus it continues to spend money on new supplies it doesn’t need and on storing others long out of date. It has amassed a backlog of more than half a trillion dollars in unaudited contracts with outside vendors; how much of that money paid for actual goods and services delivered isn’t known. And it repeatedly falls prey to fraud and theft that can go undiscovered for years, often eventually detected by external law enforcement agencies.

Because of its persistent inability to tally its accounts, the Pentagon is the only federal agency that has not complied with a law that requires annual audits of all government departments. That means that the $8.5 trillion in taxpayer money doled out by Congress to the Pentagon since 1996, the first year it was supposed to be audited, has never been accounted for. That sum exceeds the value of China’s economic output last year.

Consider the “vehicular control arm,” part of the front suspension on the military’s ubiquitous High Mobility Multipurpose Vehicles, or Humvees. As of November 2008, the DLA had 15,000 of the parts in stock, equal to a 14-year supply, according to an April 2013 Pentagon inspector general’s report.

And yet, from 2010 through 2012, the agency bought 7,437 more of them – at prices considerably higher than it paid for the thousands sitting on its shelves. The DLA was making the new purchases as demand plunged by nearly half with the winding down of the Iraq andAfghanistanwars.

Read the rest of the article for more damning evidence of how the financial sacrifice of American taxpayers is being mismanaged and just plain wasted.

What is our Priority?

The Boneyard – Democratic Underground.