I read the Sunday New York Times today. I was sorry to see that Maureen Dowd, brilliant as she can be, wrote near unprintable drivel. That didn't bother me. Most of the columnist's spend so much time doing everything else but writing that I expect to see their 'staff work' much of the time. What bothered me was the article in the middle of the front page, just under the photo from Afghanistan, which poignantly illustrated it. We just had our worst month over there, with a ton of kids having lost it all in our names. The article was well written. It was all about the problems that the 'living' returning veterans have in coming home. How difficult, or near impossible, that return can be, depending upon the horror of what the particular veteran whet through to get home. There was no fakery in any of that. PTSD is a killer, and when it is not killing directly, it is a destroyer of marriages, family relationships, friendships, sleep and all appetites. It causes drug addiction and acoholism. The worst part is that it is damned difficult to diagnose, very hard to treat, and embarrassing difficult for a combat 'hardened' veteran to admit. No fakery.
But read on in the same issue. Half way through the first section is a long article about this 'problem' that we have with people making up war stories, the places they did or did not serve, decorations or even units served with. We have a federal law that now attacks anyone who is caught even lying verbally about those things, or, and this is a grand bit of fakery, of not being able to prove what he or she said is true! Yes, said! Like in the first amendment freedom of speech 'said.' Wild times. That this article would be in the same section with the PTSD article from the front page is deeply droll. Gallows kind of humor. You see, most civilians do not make up any of that veteran junk! They usually don't even know enough to make credible stuff up. No, the preponderance of fibbers are veterans themselves, embellishing stories and maybe just demonstrating mental damage. Many many of them are veterans returning with PTSD, just like the kids pictured in that photo on page one! Do you know that there are even volunteer groups of other veterans who pursue these fibbers to catch them, label them on the internet and then turn them over to the feds for prosecution? The law is called the 'Stolen Valor' law, and it is one of the most deceptively damaging laws against veterans ever passed in this country.
Let's take a group of these woeful, and deeply hurt, returning veterans, and lets hold them to a standard which no civilian (except a complete idiot civilian, probably on drugs or alcohol) would be held. Where does stuff like this come from? Has the lead content in our water supply increased substantially? Or let's take a geriatric veteran who has PTSD stuff come out late in his life, and gets it all wrong. Are our Congressmen and Congresswomen completely out to lunch? And the veterans who go along and investigate, mostly their fellow veterans, who are these people? I was a Marine Officer in Vietnam, shot three times and brought home on a gurney, barely alive. I won't even tell anyone, ever, what decorations I received. "Let's have that fact-checked," somebody might say. Then I can allow beads of sweat to form as the report comes in. Is the report missing something I said I had? Did I give the proper unit and place? Yes, I know all that stuff by heart and I've got the medals in my closet. But, you know what, I don't want to go through the 'vetting' process. You know, in many ways, it is better for me to say that I did not serve at all. This 'Stolen Valor' law is all about that. I am not ashamed of my service on your behalf. I am just ashamed to admit it to you, or around you. PTSD has caused me to be 'hyper-vigilant,' and I am. I am hyper-vigilant of you. You can, and may, hurt me.
What fakery is up next? The new G.I. Bill! The one that gives vastly huge benefits to the guys and gals who served following 9/11? But not the veterans before? Yeah, that sure seems fair! Thanks again. And how about preferential treatment at V.A. medical facilities for returning Iraqi and Afghani veterans? A bit more thanks is due there, from those of us who bled our asses off in prior wars (and I was at Yokosuka Naval Hospital in Japan first, then Oaknoll over in Oakland, CA, and then the Naval Hospital at Camp Pendleton, CA....go 'fact-check" it!)
But this new fakery is not just directed towards veterans. It is all around us. It is in the press portrayal of that black professor named Gates, and that police officer named Crowley. The media, with the governments support, changed the whole thing all around, into complete fakery. The black guy lipped off and the cop broke the law, numerous times. That the black guy gets to lip off to the police in his own home (except about any decorations or units he might have or served with!), nobody is much arguing about his right to do that. But nobody is talking about the simple fact that our police, across this entire land, and definitely including Officer Crowley, may not arrest people for that. Fakery. Crowley got to stand up to the President of the United States and thumb his beer foamed nose. I do so hope that Obama has a long long memory.
And the H.R. 3200 fakery. I wouldn't want to pass on that. We started out with everyone talking about health care for all Americans at affordable cost. The insurance companies, and the medical providers (yes, that is the hospital in your neighborhood, and your doctors and dentists in town) do not want this. And they have a ton of influence on those Congress people I was writing about earlier. So much so that the watered-down version of this bill we are hearing about now has just about one thing left, as a solid feature of it. 47 million uninsured Americans will be paying premiums to these rotten insurance companies, except those companies will have Federal Punishment built into the collection system. And the insurance companies will still decide on who gets real coverage, what coverage and when. This is the fakery that is descending upon us in health care. If you think those Federal Punishments for not paying your new medical premium are in any way humorous, then think again. How about no air travel if you are not up to date? How about no driver's license renewal? How about garnishment? Through fakery, lies and just pure bullshit we are being led along like the bovine, press-driven, creatures we are all beginning to resemble, physically and mentally!
A lot of the things I have discussed here are not going away. The bills have been passed. The procedures are in place. Even H.R. 3200 is just about a done (and rotten) deal, thanks to the Blue Dog Democrats and the usual assortment of Southern Fried Republicans, and the big health money people. But can we recognize what we have done? And what we are doing? Can we sit and think about the reality of these things, without just being sold on all of it by that melodious voice coming from the television? If we do not pay attention to the past we are not doomed to repeat it. We are doomed to having everything become a whole lot worse! Over the course of the last ten years have things really been getting any better, anywhere? Think about it.
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