In this second part let me run through a few posts that have stuck with me over the last month, starting with one I alluded to in the beginning of the first part:

Caveat Emptor

…And this is how Obama has learned to win, eliminating people in primaries, which meant he has never faced a real opponent in a general election, because in Illinois lately, the Democratic primary is the election. Read the whole thing and learn how delegates are apportioned, and there is nothing vague democratic about it.
…
He uses the rules to eliminate competition in the Democratic primaries, but he is actually going to face real opposition in the general election, and he has never had to do that before. He is a machine politician, and nothing more.

Steve Bates of The Yellow Doggerel Democrat:

For Obama
- Or -
Dammit, Hillary, Go Home…

From the beginning of this election cycle, I have pledged to support the Democratic nominee. It is now clear that Barack Obama will be that nominee, and for all my reservations about the nominating process to this point, he is a most impressive candidate, and I support him wholeheartedly.

I am not a single-issue voter, but for family and personal reasons, my primary issue this year is healthcare. No issue affects me personally, no issue has affected my family over the past two decades, more than healthcare coverage. For that reason, I initially supported John Edwards until he withdrew. Then, in the Texas primary, I voted for and caucused for Hillary, largely because of her announced healthcare policy. Many pixels have been spilled over the differences between Obama’s and Hillary’s plans, but it seems to me they have become more similar over the course of the campaign, and Obama’s policy is vastly better than McSame’s policy: McLame’s advice may well be expressed as “be born into a wealthy family which additionally has had lifetime government-paid health care coverage.”

So we’re ready for the battle. Now if Hillary would just admit that she has lost…

(Post title amended for clarity after initial posting.)

Kvatch of Ragebot:

Hey…Clinton supporters?! Your bullsh*t, “…we’re gonna take all our marbles and go home,” attitude makes you sound about as mature as the Chimperor. For God’s sake, McCain is promising you 5 more years of war and another 3/4 quarters of a trillion dollars in debt. If you won’t vote your own interests, then at least vote your children’s. And remember, a vote for McCain is really a vote for his Vice President, and that could be Huckabee. Just chew on that for a minute.

And you…Obama supporters?! Do you really think your gonna convince the other side to make common cause with you when you treat their candidate with the kind of contempt you used to reserve for Bill O’Reilly? And all that haughty, “We’ve won, it’s time for the Clintonistas to just suck it up and get on board,” crap? Smacks of the same sense of entitlement that you’ve decried in Senator Clinton for a year now.

We’ve got a pretty easy choice in November, the Democratic nominee or Bush III. McCain won’t give back one iota of executive power. He won’t stem the rush to complete executive secrecy, and he won’t quit giving freebies to the corporatists, because, without those tools, he won’t be able to continue the war.

I should note that every one of us, Bryan, Steve, Kvatch, and myself, started out supporting John Edwards to some degree, and later moved into the Hillary or Obama’s camp (or no camp at all). There are two trends in thought here and they are what’s left to be reconciled for myself. I used Steve’s basic argument-knowingly or unknowingly–with Bryan, and it’s basically the same thing Kvatch said; We should vote for the Democrat no matter what, not just because the consequences of a McCain victory would be devastating for whats left of our country after 8 years of the worst pResident in American history, but because we should have some kind of faith in Democrats.

Well, after seeing the results of the Democratic party coming to power in 2006, I don’t roll like that anymore. That’s the other trend. I don’t know how to argue with Bryan to get him to change his mind because it’s to easy to acknowledge the truth of what he speaks of, the anti-democratic nature of machine politicians within the Democratic party. I have entered the House of the Culture Ghost and IOZ is in ascendancy.

To be continued…

May 26, 2008
Op-Ed Contributor
For Women Warriors, Deep Wounds, Little Care
By HELEN BENEDICT

THIS Memorial Day, as an ever-increasing number of mentally and physically wounded soldiers return from Iraq, the Department of Veterans Affairs faces a pressing crisis: women traumatized not only by combat but also by sexual assault and harassment from their fellow service members. Sadly, the department is failing to fully deal with this problem.

Women make up some 15 percent of the United States active duty forces, and 11 percent of the soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. Nearly a third of female veterans say they were sexually assaulted or raped while in the military, and 71 percent to 90 percent say they were sexually harassed by the men with whom they served.

This sort of abuse drastically increases the risk and intensity of post-traumatic stress disorder. One study found that female soldiers who were sexually assaulted were nine times more likely to show symptoms of this disorder than those who weren’t. Sexual harassment by itself is so destructive, another study revealed, it causes the same rates of post-traumatic stress in women as combat does in men. And rape can lead to other medical crises, including diabetes, asthma, chronic pelvic pain, eating disorders, miscarriages and hypertension.

The threat of post-traumatic stress has risen in recent years as women’s roles in war have changed. More of them now come under fire, suffer battle wounds and kill the enemy, just as men do.

As women return for repeat tours, usually redeploying with their same units, many must go back to war with the same man (or men) who abused them. This leaves these women as threatened by their own comrades as by the war itself. Yet the combination of sexual assault and combat has barely been acknowledged or studied.

I heard the first bit of sense out of Andy Rooney last night that I’ve heard from him in some time. Simply put he said the remembering does nothing for the people who are gone. Remember those who are right here, right now.

• Why I Will No Longer Support John McCain For President
• Senate passes expanded GI bill despite Bush, McCain opposition
• McCain, who missed critical vote on GI bill that he and Bush oppose, attacked Obama, who supports the troops and did vote

Somebody just put their foot in it:

Today, John McCain was one of only three Senators who failed to show up for the debate and vote on Sen. Jim Webb’s improved GI Bill. (Ted Kennedy is in the hospital, and Tom Coburn was at a funeral. McCain was at a couple of big-ticket fundraising events.) But McCain had made it clear that he opposed the Webb proposal because he shares the concern of the top brass that improved GI Bill benefits would lead to an increased rate of exit from the enlisted ranks.

Barack Obama, after acknowledging McCain’s service, criticized him for opposing the bill. Obama was too polite, and too wise, to say what he could have said: that McCain, the son and grandson of Admirals and the husband of a multi-millionaire beer baron’s daughter, never had to rely on the GI Bill for an education or the VA hospital system for his health care, and that McCain’s opposition to the Webb bill reflected his constitutional incapacity for empathy with anyone less fortunate than he is.

-Thanks a whole lot, Johnny boy. True colors and all that…

As much as I relish pointing out when rightwing bloggers slip their moorings when it comes to things military, I can’t ignore it when the leftwing does the same:

Do you remember when, in the first couple of weeks after the WTC attacks, the airports were filled with National Guard bearing automatic rifles?

They weren’t issued ammunition.

It would have been dangerous and pointless to do so.

This is an example of “security theater,” the use of an apparent, but ineffective security measure. It’s an example of good security theater, because it reassured people without endangering or inconveniencing them.

As many of you know I am a member of the New York State Army National Guard who, for approximately three years, has served on State Active Duty (meaning that beyond the advertised one weekend a month and two weeks annual training, I show up for work everyday in uniform, although not under Title 10*). The Title 32 task force I work with was formed in response to September 11th and many of the people I work with have been here since those early days. I can tell you unequivocally that our State’s National Guard had ammunition right from the start at the Airports as well as other locations.

Jay Ackroyd, latest addition to the continually watered down Atrio’s Eschaton**, provides no link to clarify which State’s National Guard he’s referring to, but that’s besides the point. I’m taken aback that it would be anymore “dangerous and pointless” for National Guard troops carry ammunition in the weeks after 9/11 than it would be on any day in the nearly seven years since that time–as we have. Oh, but that’s right, we’re just security theater.

-~-

*More about Title Ten & Thirty two:

**Duncan Black happens to be one of my favorite bloggers. I understand the man needs a break ever once in a while But Atrio’s Eschaton has become a bit crowded for my taste as of late.

Leading General Tells Troops to Start Blogging
By Noah Shachtman

Lt. Gen. William Caldwell, who heads the Combined Arms Center [CAC] and Ft. Leavenworth, told his soldiers in a recent memo that “faculty and students will begin blogging as part of their curriculum and writing requirements both within the .mil and public environments. In addition CAC subordinate organizations will begin to engage in the blogosphere in an effort to communicate the myriad of activities that CAC is accomplishing and help assist telling the Army’s story to a wide and diverse audience.”

Lt. Gen. Caldwell, the former commander of the 82nd Airborne Division, is a blogger himself, contributing to Small Wars Journal. He made waves in January when he wrote that “we must encourage our Soldiers to… get onto blogs and to send their YouTube videos to their friends and family.”

It’s a position that appears to run counter to stated Pentagon policy. YouTube is officially banned on military networks. Personal blogs cannot be maintained during duty hours. Many influential blogs are blocked. Stringent regulations, read literally, require commanding officers to review each and every item one of his soldiers puts online. And in televised commercials, screen savers, and flyers, troops are told that blogging is a major security risk — even though official sites have proven to leak many, many more secrets.

-It’s about time somebody saw reason. With people like Bob ‘Confederate Wankee’ Owens releasing photos of the effects of EFP’s (explosively formed penetrators) on our troops vehicles (in an attempt to, what, help insurgents plan better next time?), how much worse could the blogging of a soldier who’s life is on the line everyday be? Who would understand better?

Published on Friday, May 16, 2008 by The New York Times
An Antiwar March Through Towns Unused to One
by Michelle York

CENTRAL SQUARE, N.Y. - On Wednesday, Charlie Price was smoking a cigarette and sitting outside his restaurant, Charlie’s Place, on a two-lane stretch of highway on the outskirts of town.0516 02 1

He watched as a small group protesting the war in Iraq marched toward him, carrying peace signs and waving at the cars and tractor-trailers whizzing by. “I don’t think it’s going to do any good,” Mr. Price said of their efforts. “I want to get out of there, too, but I don’t think this is the way.”

Yet once the protesters, headed for Fort Drum, more than 50 miles away, reached him, Mr. Price eagerly offered them water and a place to rest - a more pleasant welcome than they had received from many others along the way.

Carmen Viviano-Crafts, 23, of Syracuse, who was carrying a small cardboard sign that read, “Bring home my boyfriend,” said that some people “gave us the finger and stuff like that.”

Since the war in Iraq began five years ago, the Second Brigade at Fort Drum has put in four tours.

For the past week, opponents of the war have taken several routes through the conservative and largely rural reaches of upstate New York - small communities that have sent many of their young men and women into the military right after high school and have paid a disproportionate price.

On Saturday, which is Armed Forces Day, protesters ranging from peace activists to Iraq Veterans Against the War will hold a daylong rally outside Fort Drum. What they lack in numbers - there were only about 40 on the road on Wednesday - they have made up for in passion, having walked about 80 miles so far.

The marchers started from several places, including Rochester, Ithaca and Utica, and merged on Wednesday, signifying the beginning of their final trek toward Fort Drum, just north of Watertown, near the Canadian border.

-My Dad marched with the contingency from Ithaca.

Don’t make me slap you, soldier.

• Missing Records
• John McCain gets tax-free disability pension
• Obama accuses McCain of ‘losing his bearings’
• McCain and the ‘presidential temperament’ question
• John McCain’s suicide attempt and his resulting PTSD

-Poster boy for so many things, but remember…it’s O.K. if you are a Republican.