I couldn’t agree more with you. It’s also why I voted for Jill Stein.

I just wanted to add my $.02 as a person “harmed” by the publication of the Pentagon Papers. I graduated from airborne during the DC May Day riots, May 1971, receiving orders for Vietnam. I was there while all this was going on. I can tell you as a teenager, an eighteen-year old soldier, it did not register. I was a volunteer, as all men before me in my family, and saw communism as a threat. My point is I doubt a guy in Kandahar really cares about what Manning exposed. Also, I saw you on Amy Goodman and look to reading your book. Thanks.

Peter: Asking for witnesses to come forward and receiving unsolicited letters are two different things. Also, lobbyists–those who walk in to advocate a position–must register. I think there are 30,000 lobbyists. There is an online database staffers use that shows membership and money of organizations, etc., they represent. Due to a quirk in the law at the time (they have since been merged) I was the chief steward of part of that police force on Capitol Hill. You would be surprised how many people get arrested and sent to DC general lock-up. I suggest you try a smell test, as you say. Call up an office out of your district. If they don’t check your zip code first and refer you to your rep they are really, really, new. Same with a letter. They read the zip and send it over or send it back.

Thanks, but that is a false assumption. It is actually against the law for a congressman or senator to respond to me unless they are my actual representatives. McCaskill would send it back and tell me to send it to MY representative. I have letters to prove that. Notice, of course, when Julia Roberts goes to Capitol Hill those old farts trip all over themselves. Same for the women when Brad Pitt shows up.

I worked on Capitol Hill and they seem to respond more to real investigative journalism. Just one example. I was a chief steward for the Library of Congress and reported psychiatric abuses of employees. It was a very detailed report. I gave it to the 12 Senators and 12 Congressmen on the relevant committees. Heard nothing. Then CBS got the report and ran with it, on July 4th weekend (about 1996), including an interview with me. Only then did Congress actually get the Librarian to stop the abuse.

I got to see how congressmen act when they aren’t around you and without cameras. From that, take a guess how they refer to you behind your back. And I am referring also to McCaskill and Gillibrand.

You can also blame the media. Too many failed to report what was going on in the Church. I have sent the following email to various reporters who “wrote” articles on this scandal. I have yet to hear anything. Is it too hard to write a history since WWII on rape (and murder) in the US military? How many other women from 1976 would like to come forward?

>>I would like to find a journalist who could look into a case from about 1976. My sister graduated from OCS around 1975. As top of her class, she was awarded an Antarctic slot. Fortunately, she got sick and another graduating woman took her place. In the station, the woman was walking down the hall when a man threw a blanket over her, beat the crap out of her, then raped her. The Navy was unable to get her out immediately, but insisted she work until they did. Later, she was purposely run over by a snow tractor. She would have died, but the snow was soft. The tractor left marks on her legs. My sister met her again shortly after all this at the BOQ, and the woman told her what happened. Although there were only 22 men at the station, the Navy refused to investigate. It would have been easy in my opinion: who was on duty, who had bruised knuckles, who knew how to drive a snow tractor. As a Viet Vet, I am sure the other men had a good idea who did it.

I really would like somebody to investigate this as I feel it has value. Just who were the other men? Did any become admirals? Interviewed forty years later, would anyone point the finger at who did it? How does the woman feel? My sister said she left the Navy over the incident. By the way, women were only one percent of the military back then. In the Eighties, my sister was tasked with giving a lecture to male officers at the Pentagon about women in the military. Although she outranked many there, they repeatedly interrupted her with comments like “women belong in the kitchen,” etc. No admiral jumped up to defend her and tell the men to STFU. I was an enlisted man so I never had much respect for my officers and that fit for me.

I would also like to make another observation, one I have tried through posting comments on articles. The US military executed over a hundred American soldiers for rape in WWII and, yes, Emmett till’s father was one of them and deserved to hang. I have a niece in the Navy, so why not execute these scumbags today? I think women should be able to serve and have whatever job they want. I don’t know how many WACs or WAVes were raped and or raped and murdered in WWII, but that would be an interesting statistic.

I notice she, like many, zero in on Muslims regarding Christmas. Every year since 2002 at the Library of Congress, until my retirement in 2009, I collected cards and presents (books and DVDs) for our wounded. (I served in Vietnam in 1971, that’s why.) The only complaints I got were from Jews, not atheists or Muslims, with condescending comments like “you know Jews serve also, don’t you?” I will tell anybody what I told them, Christmas isn’t about Jesus, it’s a business invention, but make it what you want. I told them Christian soldiers covered for Hannakah and Jewish soldiers covered for Christmas. I send secular cards, so they can do the same. It never mattered, as I went through this every year. To those who think I’m anti-Semitic, I lived and worked in Israel. Did you?

It is far too complicated to write here, but it all started with Prigg. Of course the Dred Scott Decision, the primary law concerning returning slave property from a Free State, was what angered the North. Fifteen years prior to the Civil War (I’m excluding SC’s Nullification here) saw much action by anti-slavery citizens. On numerous occasions anti-slavery posses killed US Marshalls–only to be acquitted in court. Just look at the history of Kansas and armed gangs that “kidnapped” slaves from Missouri. What I am stating is look at the LEGAL reactions by anti-slavery in fighting draconian federal punishments. The Free States eventually found LEGAL means to trump federal laws, sometimes along with civil disobedience when federal agents showed up. I wrote about it decades ago. PLEASE think outside the box, and I don’t mean that insultingly. When local police start arresting federal agents for not complying with state law, Holder and the DEA will realize they don’t have enough agents to go around. They will also realize they don’t have enough US Attorneys and AUSAs to go around fighting a continuous stream of state lawsuits. Congressmen will have to side with their constituents or lose the next election. Maybe 15 anti-Drug War states will threaten to secede from repressive federal laws. It happened once, so it can happen again. At least I am optimistic it could. And wouldn’t that be rich?

These DEA clowns have it wrong. Prigg v Pennsylvania, which ruled STATES neither have to enforce federal laws they disagree with nor assist federal police enforcing the law. This was in regards to the various Fugitive Slave acts and laws. The legal precedent is there, so I don’t know why any state attorney general worth a damn refuses to challenge the raids–yeah, thanks Obama–currently going on. Why aren’t Californians demanding their state tell Holder’s buttboys no? Starting with Prigg, the federal government responded with more abusive laws like today, i.e., making it a felony and huge fine to not comply. The feds were shot down by court each and every time, including the Supreme Court (yeah, I know, Roberts=Taney). “Settled Law,” IMHO, shows states and citizens can legally nullify federal agents regarding drug raids. These DEA people would have hunted slaves in Free States and are just as immoral as the US Marshalls back then. If NORMAL would listen for once, they need to start a mirror of the Innocence Project and start funding creative lawyers to finally nullify the “drug warriors” like attorneys did the “slave catchers.” It did not matter that slavery was deemed “constitutional,” just like Holder et alia scream that federal drug law trumps state law. I would find it rich if state anti-slavery laws were re-written against a BLACK president AND attorney general who insist on using federal agents against citizens who want change.

I have trouble typing Arabic, but Abdul you’re a pig.

Without denigrating your opinion as we can all be right, I believe people in my circle know more about him. I am, for one, puzzled about his attacks on Jesse Ventura, even though I did not care much for Ventura when I met him. He has spoken about his medals on other occasions. Many vets complain that the certificate does not state the actions taken saved lives, instead listing enemy soldiers killed.

I agree totally with you. One friend drank himself to death at 40. Single occupant car fatalities are also hard to prove as suicides. Watch Huston’s “Let there be light.”

Mary. Thanks for relentlessly trying to correct misinformation. I am a Viet Vet and there really is no answer. We were left to deal with it, just like my father (WWII) and grandfather (WWI). My group was able to start PTSD recognition and therapy. It doesn’t seem to help much, looking at the evidence. I would also like to add a comment on the “over 50″ crowd of vets. I read a study where one reason for this was the possibility that vets got things under control, basically not dealing with it through working. After retirement, PTSD will reassert itself (so to speak). To the remark that Kyle was a killer and a)got what he deserved, b) undeserving, c)fill in the blank with prejudicial comment, Kyle noted he did not receive medals for “saving” lives as a sniper. He stated he was troubled by the deaths he caused, but tried to tell himself he was saving soldiers and civilians as a result. I expect snark on this.
وعبد ألاأنت خنزر

Jon:
The link and claim that such video games are as popular in the US as Europe and, hence, not linked to violence is disingenuous. Here is a link regarding banned video games: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_banned_video_games
I’ve in Germany and their laws are quite strict. It is not just games with Nazi references, but games that have violent content such as beheadings and show cruelty. I think you also overlook that special forces training also includes video games; when I was in we practiced “quick kill” using BB guns. This really is a complex issue, which some posters above notice, and has more to do with culture than anything else; just look at the banned games in each country. I am also speaking as an anthropologist and individual who lived in Asia, Europe, Central America and the Middle East. Just one example: I was taught about guns by my late father, and learned gun safety in the Boy Scouts. We went to high school with our guns and went hunting or shooting after school. Those days are long gone, as the dysfunctional family histories of these shooters prove.

One needs to analyze the AARP Board members to get a real clue on this organization. I only know one, Joanne Jenkins, through her work at the Library of Congress and the disaster she was. Her AARP bio is misleading, but expected. She was not the second-in-command, as the Deputy Librarian is, but she interjected herself all the time–quite illegally by overriding EEO complaints. She was on Liddy Dole’s staff, as I remember, and Daddy Bob got her the LC job. I doubt she ever applied for any job in her life like the rest of us. AARP also is part of the Madison Council at the Library, so you can read up on that with my few posts here at Firedoglake. She was there when Alan Simpson made the comments on Social Security as well as knowing all the other hacks. LC is run by right-wing Republicans and an easy entree for scum with money to access Congress and the White House. So…who would want to join AARP knowing what I know? http://www.aarp.org/about-aarp/executive-team/info-2009/Joann-Jenkins.html

DW: Thanks and thanks for noticing. I wrote a few articles on this subject a year ago in a column on Firedoglake. Due to Eldercare–need I say more–I am unable to do much else since the last posting. If you use the waybackmachine you can access an old website http://www.deepinthestacks.com Everybody at work knew who “the most likely to be assassinated librarian” was; management could do nothing since I was not breaking any laws. My website was noted in the German Parliament and caused a law (and investigation) regarding how LC got the Waldseemuller Map. The Russian media translated the parts on the Russian Mafia at LC. When Khodorkavsky was arrested and jailed, Putin stated he “was sending Billington a message.” In other words, the only people not aware of the Library and the Madison Council are the MSM and American “investigative journalists.” I hope to expose a few more for “Library of Shame,” eldercare permitting.

So how many times do I have to post about the Library of Congress–where CRS is–until all of you get it? It’s where I retired from, so I know what I’m talking about. The Librarian is ex-CIA and quite a right-wing nut. Just google “Madison Council” (which Billington started and controls) and see names likes Ken Lay, David Koch and John Thain. Just about all are right-wing scum surrounded by scandal. CRS has been under attack for quite some time. CRS employees were forced to form a union decades ago when a Republican senator got a researcher fired. A CRS attorney, who since then has died, got him his job back. BTW, these senators, etc., sure like having researchers help their kids. Madison Council members also get access to these researchers. The point is the Library of Congress, a fabulous institution founded by Jefferson, was corrupted years ago. I got tired writing detailed reports to Congress about thefts and water damage caused by mismanagement. Just for one example I turned into the DoJ, Billington let a friend take out a rare Russian 16th Century Bible. I had fun tearing apart Billington’s defense, not to mention the book was still not back (which took a few months). I also noted the employee pass card would show who opened the lock. When it came back I noted to the DoJ an employee noted it was a fake. What happened? You need to ask?