Model35mech
Model35mech's JournalWhen boomers look back they remember the Great Blue House
Younger folks may have no knowlege of that time
Control of Control of
House Senate in that order left to right
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then
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DHS infiltrated by hundreds of Oath Keepers
In this morning's array of stories on MSN.COM
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/leaked-documents-indicate-over-300-members-of-far-right-paramilitary-oath-keepers-may-be-current-or-former-dhs-employees-project-on-government-oversight-reports/ar-AA15co6u?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=37fa99cdf93c4c818f8dfa70e8255b10
story actually by cdavis@insider.com
A leaked membership list suggests that Oath Keepers have infiltrated the Department of Homeland Security.
More than 300 members of the paramilitary group describe themselves as current or former DHS employees.
DHS did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Need gift recommendation... reads on contemporary Anti-Federalism
I'm looking for texts that cover discussions and/or history of any of the following...
The contemporary geography of US anti-federalism,
The wash-and-repeat cycle of anti-federalist popularity,
Anti-federalism and the radical right,
Anti-federalism, the religious right
Anti-federalism and Jurisprudence, which is to say anti-federalism and the contemporary Federal Court System... In this vein I'm thinking of criticism of such as anti-federalism and originalism, anti-federalist interpretations of the Constitution, the role of anti-federalism in guiding the direction of contemporary American governance, regulation/management of society, etc.
Thanks.
I know this site as lots more collective experience than me, and I look forward to recommendations
So, let me stand this on its head a little bit.
Lots of thanks to veterans over the last few days... certainly deserved, and I think mostly appreciated although many of my contemporary vets don't think their efforts were special or heroic...
Be that as it may be, I'd like to take a turn in a different direction.
Thank-you, the American people, for Veteran's benefits. Neither all nations, or even this nation over its history has cared for its veterans as you, the American people, care for and support spending of tax-dollars on Veterans benefits.
Your concern impacted me greatly and it deserves to be acknowledged.
In my freshman year of high school, the Iowa Test of Educational Development projected me to be in the top 5 in my High School class. But that same year, my oldest brother flunked out of junior college and my father turned against education, declaring that he wouldn't support the other 4 of us in the pursuit of becoming in his words educated idiots (it is disappointing to have your fair haired first born collapse academically). And so knowing that as the middle son of 2 janitors, in the era before National Defense Loans to help needy kids pay tuition, I wasn't going to be in a position of familial support to even think about applying to attend college. I gave up, expecting to find my way into the world of work without education. And I graduated 535th in a class of just shy of 600.
My birthdate came up a low draft number, and I was forced to make decisions for which I really wasn't much prepared to deal. I chose to volunteer for the draft. I know that's strange, it requires understanding concepts like being drafted into the military, and making the choice to have some fraction of choice in doing so. At the time, I wanted inches of steel or concrete between me and VietCong bullets. So I enlisted into the Army with a choice of an unknow job in an Armored unit.
While being inducted, a nice young specialist 5 called me out of a line and along with 5 or 6 others suggested that maybe we should think about serving in military intelligence, which according to him could be completed in air-conditioned buildings surrounded by thick concrete walls. Sounded just like something I was looking for, except the 4 year enlistment. Among the options of things to do was being a computer terminal repairman, of course back then, a computer terminal was an eight level code model 35 teletype (hence my handle above). I did 9 months of training an went off to Vietnam. And there, I legitimately earned my VA benefits, and I legitimately got exposed to Agent Orange although I didn't know that was how the base I was on controlled the weeds in it's perimeter fencing and antenna field.
So, after 2 years 9 months and 12 days the US Army Security Agency said they didn't need me anymore and asked if I wanted to end my service. Being incredibly bored and not stupid, I signed that piece of paper. Promised not to go to places like Isreal, Russia or China for a decade or so and departed for the rest of my life.
The rest of my life didn't start like I had ever thought. I did a bit of teletype repair for RCA Data Services, and decided to use my VA benefits to go to College. That choice took me thru the BA I thought I'd never have an opportunity to pursue, because VA educational benefits and as I did reasonably well, launched me in pursuit of an MA and PHD, then a career teaching at mostly undergraduate colleges and universities.
Well into my career I developed a host of medical problems. Problems that the VA thought could be presumed to follow from the Agent Orange exposures I had back so many years before. And so under examination of VA clinics I was found to have diabetes and coronary artery disease. And, amazingly, the treatments were (and for the diabetes continue to be) covered by the VA.
So most all of the most significant events of my recent life have turned around that care. I earned the eligibility, but you all paid taxes that made it possible. And I think I really owe you some thanks. Thank-you as a nation for caring about veterans and extending that compassion to vets like me. I did my service not with a fire arm or in a unit of the line, I did it in electronic warefare centers, and my 'weapons' were most often a tiny 1/4 inch wrench and a flat bladed screw-driver. I have no real idea what I was part of, because that's the nature of working in intelligence.
I'm pretty sure that I am far far from being a hero. I am pretty sure that VA benefits opened gateways for my life that let me into a life I couldn't have otherwise had. And then, 35 years later, those VA benefits repaired my heart, and continue to deal with chronic problems presumed to be from Agent Orange.
I'm not bitter about any of it, I actually feel indebted to all of you who pay taxes and accept with not too much angst providing Veteran's benefits.
So, THANK-YOU for your service to veterans. It is so significant to the lives of so many, multiply your compassion on my life times hundreds of thousands.
Really.
Ukraine announces liberation of 41 communities Kherson Oblast
Meanwhile, Russian forces are demolishing bridges, energy and communications infrastructure in an attempt to forestall the inevitable and long awaited Ukrainian advance.
This afternoon's Ukraine interactive map is really a sight/site to be seen!
https://liveuamap.com/
Learned a new word yesterday from sport radio... Hateraide
A play on Gatoraide I suppose. Likely long in use, but as I don't get around much, I'm sure I'm late to the party.
The commentator was complaining about people whose only commentary on sport is limited to complaints (hmm. maybe some irony there).
I think this is a word that describes a lot of what passes for political discussion in the US.
Now, I no longer feel limited to talking about people who've drunk the kool-aid because Hateraide is that energy drink of political discourse that perfumes your speech with rankle.
And it comes in the diet version "Rant", as well as full strength "Rage"
Wow! Jeff Sachs says world thinks the US attacked Nord Stream pipelin
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2022/10/03/jeffrey_sachs_most_of_the_world_doesnt_view_the_ukraine_war_the_way_the_us_media_does.htmlHow far US credibility hase fallen!
Jeffrey Sachs: Rest Of The World Thinks The U.S. Probably Sabotaged The Nord Stream Pipeline, But It Doesn't Show Up In Our Media
Posted By Tim Hains On Date October 3, 2022
A Bloomberg TV host pushed back against Columbia University economist Jeffrey Sachs on Monday when he suggested that the U.S. and Poland are probably behind the destruction of the Nord Stream pipeline.
"A lot of the world is watching these events in horror," Sachs said. "They view this as a horrible clash between Russia and the U.S. They don't see this, as we do in the media, as an unprovoked attack by Russia on Ukraine."
"Most of the world doesn't see it the way we describe it. Most of the world is just terrified right now, frankly," he added.
Unfortunately my memory of DU goes back to my original account circa 2003
and a membership number that IIRC was around 23,000, give or take a thousand.
I come here not to disparage Mr Pitt, but to acknowledge him, his successes and also the sharp stones along his path.
Will Pitt was a human being. He had feelings, and passions. He touched hot rails, and his account was closed several times.
If you are swimming up-stream, and feeling like things are working against you, I ask you to not cave-in to disappointments and stress. Will Pitt paved a path that I am sure presented him with disappointments.
Consider these old old texts.... and remember, people get over it, and so can you
Dear William Pitt,
I'm sorry you're being flamed here at DU, and I'm sorry you're thinking of leaving. I'm sure I speak for a lot of people when I say your work has informed, inspired and moved me, and I hope you decide to stay.
Truthout was the first alternative news source I found, and it's still my favorite. Your interview with Scott Ritter opened my eyes to the truth about Iraq, and opened the eyes of my Republican in-laws. When the MSM ignores or distorts a story, I know I can go to your site and learn what's really happening.
Your presence at DU is valuable in a different way. First, if reading Truthout is like attending a great lecture, then reading DU is like attending a great seminar. Okay, maybe it's not always so great. It gets snarky and petty sometimes, I agree. But posters like you bring it back to a higher level. DU is self-correcting that way.
Second, your presence here at DU is a constant reminder that the people who are changing this country for the better aren't superheroes, aren't gods and goddesses, aren't abstractions of any sort. Nope. They're people. And I could be that kind of person, too, if I were willing to act with your courage, integrity and focus.
Third, this is selfish, but I would really miss reading your journal if you left. Your journal entry about meeting Cindy Sheehan filled me up and made me cry and kept me from just slogging through another day, numb and unaware.
Maybe you can keep posting your journal entries without reading the comments if things get to be too much? Or maybe, maybe, lots of other folks will chime in and tell you how much your work here means?
p.s. For folks who don't know what prompted this post, I'm responding to this:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=364&topic_id=1056736&mesg_id=1059497
WilliamPitt Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Apr-29-06 08:49 PM
Response to Original message
72. A humble answer
Somehow, I managed to become central to a DU flameout that I have since completely missed. I headed up to New Hampshire to dog-sit for my mom, who went to South Carolina for a "We're all turning 60!" reunion gathering this weekend. I haven't bothered since then to check the web, because the internet connection here in the woods is dial-up and galactically slow. So I finally got around to checking in tonight, and lo & behold...
* One thread from a man I once considered an ally shitting on me, another truthout writer, and basically everything not oriented with pushing his film project;
* Several threads about Raw Story and atheists, which became my problem because I chose to support Raw for the five thousand good things they've done, rather than burn them down for one ill-advised article;
* Several threads about all this together.
To answer your question, *****, about why there is so much fighting, I can give you the perspective of someone who has been here since May of 2001. That perspective is pretty straightforward: most of the people who post here agree with you completely. Those that don't - people whose professional jealousy overwhelms their good sense, people whose single-issue monomania denies the viability of even a nanoblip of disagreement, people who get phony-tough behind a fake name and a keyboard, and people who are here to do nothing more than tear up the process - will always make this place disagreeable. This place will never, ever, ever live up to its potential because of this, and that is sad.
Before too much time passes, there is going to be a decent crowd of people on this forum who will owe Jason Leopold an apology. I'll bet you all the money in my wallet they won't offer one, but there it is. For myself, I apologize to anyone who felt that my support for Raw Story equalled support for a column that unnecessarily (and incoherently) attacked a group of good people. That was not my intention, and in retrospect, I should have made that clear from the jump. I wanted to help Larissa, because I believe she deserves that help and respect, and inadvertantly made things worse. That was my failure, and I am sorry for it.
This is a good thread, *****, and well-meaning in every sense. But I have been here too long and seen too much shit (and, to be fair, caused too much of my own shit) to believe this place can or will ever rise to the level of integrity that people like you bring to it every day. The same reasons why this place will never reach its potential are the same reasons why the Left spends so much time on the outside looking in politically. You would think we wouldn't have to learn the same hard lessons over and over again, but you'd be wrong.
It has been said by many long-time posters that the healthiest thing one can do from time to time is take a break from this place. I seldom do, and when I have tried in the past, I always get sucked back in. But I think the time has come for a real one. I have too much to deal with in my personal life, too many pages to edit for my next book, too many real enemies in the Bush administration and congress to fight, and too many good Democrats to help get elected in '06, to spend my energy here fighting people that - in any sane, stable community - would be natural allies.
In other words, I have better things to do with my time. Guess what, *****: you and everyone who agrees with you also have better things to do with your time. If there are people here who want to turn this forum into a boneyard for jackals and phony-tough flame-warriors, you should let them. You can't stop it, no matter how hard you try, and your skills and passion are far better served in a place where you don't have to ask people on the same side to stop tearing each other apart.
See ya on the flip-side.
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Member since: Sat Apr 16, 2022, 04:17 PMNumber of posts: 1,535