Today I talked to a low-information voter who always voted Democratic, but it wavering right now, thinks "McCain is kinda cute" and "McCain is likely to pick a moderate for VP" and "if Obama picks Hillary for VP, he'll have me". Arrrgh!
My responses:
"He is worse than Bush. All Bush wanted was to have fun, go to parties and be able to say 'Hey guys, guess what - I am the President!' McCain is an unhinged, diabolical, sexist, violent nutcase"
If you want to stay in Iraq for 100 years, vote McCain:
If you want to bomb Iran, vote McCain:
If you want a guy prone to senior moments, vote McCain:
If you want a guy who plays the race card in order to blame Obama for playing a race card, vote McCain.
If you want someone who is having such a dreadful campaign that even Corporate media cannot save it, as much as they drool over him vote McCain. They can't even save his vanity.
If you want a guy who believes that anthrax attacks came from Iraq, vote McCain.
If you want a guy who keeps hiring and firing wierdos and shady types, vote McCain.
He was the biggest proponent of the "surge", yet has no idea what and when and how it was.
Candidate who has no idea how global the world is today as he does not know how to turn on a computer, check e-mail and go on the Web?
Candidate whose main strength is supposed to be foerign polocy who does not know which countries exist and which not, and which ones border each other? A tortured guys who likes torturing others?
Candidate who openly says he does not understand economics, then contradicts what his economic advisors say and what his Website says and, after that is pointed out, still continues with it?
The fact that the two candidates are roughly even in recent poll suggests to me that half the country are nuts. If they think Bush years were bad, don't they understand that this guy is a hundred times more dangerous? Because he is equally evil, yet smart?
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Bora, in the roleplaying game community we have a term; the fantasy heartbreaker. A fantasy heartbreaker is a fantasy RPG designed because of perceived flaws in D&D, and promoted as being better. But hardly anything is ever said about how good the game itself is. The promoter spends all his time tearing down D&D, but no appreciable time building up his design. Fantasy heartbreakers end up failing because nobody sees any reason to play them. Because nobody gives them any reason to play them.
Is Barack Obama a fantasy heartbreaker?
Evene if it is a choice between two evils, I'll vote against McCain. You know that I was an Edwardsian and never jumped on Obama hype (and blogged against Obamamania).
But I do not want to see a Republican anywhere near any levers of power, from local to federal, for about 20 years it will take us to clean up the mess.
And, Republicans rule (top-down). Democrats are spineless, but at least they try to govern (bottom-up). And we will keep Obama's feet to the fire and he has already shown he listens and talks back (he allowed his own site to be a center of disgruntlement against his FISA vote and he personally responded).
He may not be perfect, but he is malleable, and his opposition is just plain vile, so I'll vote for him with clean consciousness.
Many voters are concerned about John McCain's age and health. Many wonder, and 'biased' mainstream media refuses to ask, if John McCain suffers from PTSD from his the five years of captivity, including three years in solitary and torture so extreme that, as he put it, "broke" him to the point he attempted suicide several times.
Google the news for 'mccain mole and you will see over 600 mainstream media articles updating us by the hour on a simple mole removal.
Google the news section for 'mccain ptsd' and you will see zero articles from mainstream media pondering this question.
One of the most important considerations with regard to medical predictions of future PTSD, is how the initial trauma was dealt with:
In 1999, Dr. Michael M. Ambrose, director of the Robert E. Mitchell Center for Prisoner of War Studies, was contacted by John McCain to conduct a mental health review. The quality of the review is a matter of dispute as some say Dr. Ambrose did a full medical exam of the patient and others say the doctor only reviewed McCain's old medical records.
After the evaluation was completed, John McCain's 1999 campaign released a statement by Dr. Ambrose, which stated:
"McCain has never been diagnosed with or treated at the center for a psychological or psychiatric disorder (The term PTSD first appeared in the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders in 1980, years after John McCain's initial military medical evaluations). He has been subject to an extensive battery of psychological tests and following his last examination in 1993, we judged him to be in good physical and mental health.''
The McCain campaign press release included a statement by Dr. Ambrose, which reveals John McCain created a fantasy world in order to escape the reality of captivity and torture. They further stated McCain always heard the guards coming with his food, but "was often so much in his private world, that he strongly resented their coming around and bringing him back to reality by intruding. He was enjoying his fantasies so much."
"findings suggest that it is less what happens at the time of a trauma (e.g., disrupted encoding) that predicts PTSD than what occurs thereafter (i.e., persistent avoidance)." [John Briere, Ph.D., Catherine Scott, M.D., and Frank Weathers, Ph.D.]
The keyword here is 'persistent avoidance' which was evidenced by the findings of Dr. Ambrose.
"The presence of dissociative symptoms soon after exposure to trauma has been found to predict the subsequent development of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)" [Gary Tucker, MD, Published in Journal Watch Psychiatry October 9, 2002]
"The amount of dissociation that follows directly after a trauma predicts PTSD" [American Psychiatric Association]
"Individuals that are more likely to dissociate during a traumatic event are considerably more likely to develop chronic PTSD" [Brown, Scheflin and Hammond (1998). Memory, Trauma Treatment, And the Law.]
"In several studies, dissociation at the time of a trauma (peritraumatic dissociation) has been found to predict symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder at follow-up assessments' [Michael W. Otto, PhD, Published in Journal Watch Psychiatry July 21, 2005]
" early numbing contributed to the prediction of later PTSD" [Center for the Treatment and Study of Anxiety, Psychiatry Department, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine]
"Peritraumatic dissociation is frequently considered to be a risk factor for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)" [Doris C. Breh PhD, Department of Psychotraumatology, Psychosomatic University Hospital Heidelberg, Heidelberg, Germany]
Ambrose later told the Associated Press "He had a very healthy way of dealing with his experiences." One of the examiners even noted that McCain had improved his ability to control his infamous temper due to his years of torture and captivity.
Anyone familiar with Workers' Compensation or personal injury cases understands full well you can pull the right strings or pay a 'company' doctor to say anything necessary to help your client.
It is worth noting the 1999 McCain campaign only released a small number of redacted medical records, the pages were not allowed to be photocopied and only a few select news organizations were privy to what few medical records were made available under these conditions.
John McCain has a consistent history of out of control outbursts of anger and even admits an adverse reaction to the sound of jangling keys. Author Robert Timberg, who McCain has said "knows more about me than I do," calls these episodes "an eruption of temper out of all proportion to the provocation" and says they are a result of Vietnam coming "back to haunt him."
VA studies have shown time and again that POWs suffer a much higher risk of developing PTSD than combat veterans. Even so, to this date, mainstream media still has not pushed for full disclosure of John McCain's military medical records and refuses to ask the one simple question:
'Is John McCain emotionally fit for the most stressful job in our country, the Office of President of the United States, our Commander in Chief?"
Journalists have a choice. They can continue to tiptoe around the elephant in the room, put a politician before country, violate the spirit of journalism and ignore the ethics that bind them, or they can do their job.
This article is nothing but a disguised slam at mccain. The writer should be ashamed of himself. You know a lot of veterans with ptsd look at this site for helpful news on ptsd. You make a joke of it just to put out your polictal views with misleading headlines. I wish you had ptsd of the most sever level so you would suffer each and everyday with it. Maybe then you would not be such a mean person to play games, You are not worthy to even have a computer!
I have PTSD. There's no shame in it. And there's no way in hell McCain doesn't have it. There's no way in hell ANYONE would not have it after that experience.
Severity of PTSD varies, and certainly it doesn't necessarily mean you're unable to do a job (though I'm personally disabled) but the scary thing is the denial aspect of things.
If you have PTSD and know it, you maybe can take it into account, work around it, etc. If you have PTSD and deny it, then your PTSD will rule your actions. It will rule you.
Is it just me, or does it seem like this comment thread suddenly turned into its own web column?
No need to 'disguise' slams against McCain - he deserves it, and I have never said that I was "Fair and Balanced". This is a liberal blog. It's my duty to educate my readers about the evils of GOP.
Yes you do have the right to post, thanks to veterans. But your sly way of drawing people uninterested to your site shows what a sliz bag of crap you are. The site GOOGLE NEWS ALERT FOR REVIEW PTSD VETERANS is a site used for veterans who use it for help, not to be drawn into your views harming veterans. What's the matter you can't draw enough readers using your true web site and name. Leave this site along as it helps veterans, this is not a site for polictial hit people.
McCain was tortured into making a false confession, yet he approves of torture for coercing confessions.
That's all anybody needs to know.
I beg to differ. There was nothing "disguised" about Bora's slam. It was pure ad hominem--and not even particularly persuasive ad hominem.
If Bora's going to persuade me that Obama is alright, he's going to have to do a lot better than that. Quite frankly, I found Bora's post to be truly pathetic.
Um, Jack,
I dont think you understand how Google News Alerts work. A "Google News Alert for Review PTSD Veterans" is not a website, it's a search tool. It's a Google tool that sends you an email whenever some website somewhere on the web that Google recognizes as a news source publishes something that has the words PTSD and Veterans in it. That's all. It works just like a regular Google search.
You can start one on any combination of words, too - I could set a Google alert for [banana prices], and it would send me an email whenever any site that Google recognizes as news source publishes a page that has the words banana and prices in it.
So if a site that Google recognizes as a news source has a new webpage that mentions the words "ptsd" and "veterans" anywhere, then that page is liable to show up in your Google News alert about "ptsd veterans". Regardless of whether the webpage actually is about PTSD or mentions it on an aside. There's nothing the site owner can do about that.
In this case, the actual blog post doesnt even mention PTSD, - it was only a commenter, MsSwin, who started going on about it. That still makes it show up in your Google News alert, even though the original author never even mentioned the subject. Again, nothing he can do about that.
So perhaps better tone it down with the fury at the blogger/site owner?
Orac, this post did not talk about Obama, I'm sure Bora has his reasons for liking Obama and that could be a post as long as this one. This post is about McCain and his fuck-ups and lies with the point of showing that he is a scary choice for president. It don't see anything wrong with that, every point Bora made is backed up with a reference.
If something in my post is factually erroneous, provide documentation. I cannot vouch for fidelity of information provided by commenters - that is what the other alert commenters are for, to point out errors.
And yes, this post was never going to be about Obama - I will let him speak for himself. This post was a quick collection of things that a low-information voter appears not to know, yet should, about McCain.
And thanks, beek, for describing how Google News notification works. Obviously, I have no control where my content shows up and there is nothing sly about it.
"Half the country is nuts?"
Yeah, that same half thinks peace is going to come from a barrel of a gun. I say that nutty line of thinking is a strong indicator of the failure of education in this country. Arrrggghhh! Are we doomed?
A think a quarter thinks peace is going to come from a barrel of a gun. The other quarter does not follow politics much, and what they get is from the Corporate Media salivating over the Sharp-Shooting Maverick (who votes 100% with Bush, flip-flops a dozen times a day, and is as batshit extreme as any other Republican). They can still be educated, I hope.
Here's more for your fun perusal....
I do not speak lightly of PTSD. My father served in the military for 33 yrs, Army CWO4, and two of my brothers served in Nam, one of whom, Marine/two tours, has suffered from 100% PTSD since the mid seventies, years before they gave it the official handle. I've worked with veterans since then to help them obtain benefits so often denied by our own government. It is a national shame that returning wounded have to file class action lawsuits in order to obtain benefits they so deserve.
I do not wish PTSD on anyone but I certainly do not wish a president suffering from PTSD on the American people. And seriously, do you think a candidate who will not address the issue of his own probable PTSD will be inclined to address the same issue among our veterans? Google the news section for mccain ptsd and see how many articles you will find about mccain speaking out on this issue.
Of even more concern is McCain's lack of support for veteran health care and other needs:
Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America has given John McCain a grade of D for his support of veterans:
www.iava.org/full-ratings-list
Disabled Veterans of America gave him a 20% rating on support for veterans while giving Obama an 80% rating:
www.capwiz.com/dav/scorecard.xc
Per Vietnam Veterans of America John McCain has �voted against us� in 15 key votes:
www.vva.capwiz.com/election/home/
John McCain is one of the few veterans running for office that VoteVets has refused to endorse:
www.votevets.org
Another veteran group keeps track and offers links to McCain's history of votes against veteran care:
www.veteransforcommonsense.org
To name just a few votes by John McCain against veterans:
McCain voted against an amendment providing $20 billion for
VA medical facilities [5/4/06]
McCain voted against providing $430 million to the VA for outpatient care and treatment for veterans [4/26/06]
McCain voted against increasing VA funding by $1.5 billion by closing corporate loopholes [3/14/06]
McCain voted against increasing VA funding by $1.8 billion by ending abusive tax loopholes [3/10/04]
The man even voted against giving combat duty troops more time at home between extended tours.
John McCain had the gall to not only be rude, but to lie to a vet about his record of endorsements from veteran groups and then had the nerve to refuse further questioning on the issue:
"I�ve been endorsed in every election by every veterans organization that do that, I�ve been supported by them, and I�ve received their highest awards from all of those organizations. So I guess they don�t know something you know."
Later, during his town hall meeting, McCain admitted he does �not have a perfect voting record,� and then announced questions about veterans issues were off limits: �I will be glad to debate a lot of things, but not that one."
www.thinkprogress.org/2008/07/08/mccain-veterans-award-redux/
Not only was John McCain a no show when it came to voting on the GI Bill he opposed, a bill which the American Legion and the Veterans of Foreign Wars fully supported, he now wants to limit veteran health care to only combat related injury in order to save money. Per retired Army General Robert Gard, McCain's proposal to limit health care to only combat injuries would "shortchange those veterans who suffer from non-combat related conditions". McCain is apparently unconcerned about the number of veterans this would affect, including the 15% of female combat veterans who suffer from military sexual trauma.
This comes as no surprise. When the VA was busted recently for circulating a memo suggesting doctors lower their diagnosis on veterans suffering from PTSD in order to save money, John McCain replied: "it's not important."
Older veterans remember well how John McCain and John Kerry shut down all further investigation into remaining MIA/POW in order to open up trade with Vietnam over the protests of family members. They remember full well how these families were treated and talked to by McCain. They also remember how John McCain's father-in-law immediately opened up a beer industry in Vietnam as soon as trade resumed.
www.aiipowmia.com/testimony/
What one of the newest veteran groups on the block, Union Veterans, has this to say about John McCain:
"Not only has McCain voted the wrong way on veterans' issues - such as opposing increased funding for veterans' health care the last four years in a row - but he also doesn't support middle class people's issues," Mr. Ayers said. "He wants to tax people's health care benefits, and supports unfair trade deals, including NAFTA."
www.unionveterans.org.
John McCain runs on a platform of being a vet yet he obviously does not support the needs of veterans. Why support a politician who does not support our troops? Surely, our veterans deserve better.
Outstanding post, my dear!