Election 2008--CLOSED

[Ellen (tellyouwhat)]

I agree with all of the above -- and I was thinking that the problem with rounding up the mentally deficient homeless is that the guy who might be in charge of deciding who is insane might also be a homophobe.   

Well, dealing with the mentally ill homeless on an ongoing basis at work I don't see that this would be much of an issue.  The APA declassified homosexuality as a mental illness over 3 decades ago, so we are unlikely to seem much steam from those quarters, imho. 

Living in a city where there are a large number of mentally ill homeless makes you realize that there must be SOME sort of government solution to this - and not the Rudy Giuliani solution of simply driving them underground or to someone else's city.  It would involve large scale drug and alcohol treatment programs as well, as many of these people are self-medicating.

I think this goes back to Ronald Reagan, something about removing funding for the hospitalization of the mentally ill, who cannot and/or will not work and pay rent and stay off of the streets.  The homeless population increased dramatically after that policy changed and I don't think it's been seriously addressed since Reagan.

Unions, for example -- I know they are not always great and when they have a lot of power they are trouble -- however, they do provide checks and balances in the system that is much more likely to favor those with the money and power.

The problem with unions is that they develop oligarchies of their own which are often in no way related to the problems they were designed to solve.  And one area where they could use some serious scrutiny is the degree to which they do not advocate re-education and re-tooling of the work force in response to market change.  Sadly they have become (particularly in places like Michigan) agents of stagnation instead of agents of change. 

This has not always been the case - in advocating for the 8 hour work day and health and safety in industry they made some big strides in the early 20th century.  And they were (in part) responsible for eliminating child labor in the U.S. (and child labor is another one of those things that comes up for me when I hear those with a religious bent on the right talk about 'family values' - it was due to the social gospel/social progressives that changes were made to THAT family value - that kids should get out and work for a living at age nine).

Right -- I think in the new century unions need an updated model. 

I knew when I got my bank job in the eighties that the benefits offered were because the bank wanted to keep us happy WITHOUT a union.

Through the 80s and 90s, as unions got weaker, our benefits package eroded as well.

I am optimistic that we can all come to the table with this union history in mind (bloodshed, grief, etc.) and possibly get labor laws we can all live with. 

Even businesses should prefer that to old-model unions.  You'd think they would have an incentive to agree.

[tonydude]

  But torture has to be one of the issues for which a line in the sand is drawn and never crossed again.  Otherwise, this country will continue to tread water in the cesspool where Bush put us.

  JD - this is a tough post for me.  It's on the subject of torture of U.S. citizens by psychological waterboarding that dates a long ways back and so is very resistant to exposure and prosecution. The very subject, itself, seems impossible, but, after the first part of the post, I will end with where it has been verified, perhaps leading to the death of Dr. Martin Luther King, and showing why it is so difficult to confront.
  The subject is difficult, personally, for me, because some forum members may have read earlier posts I had written about my own being psychologically battered over having met a jerk named Ariel Weinmann, on an exercise walk here in Norfolk.  For months I was gooned by the Naval Base security units in outrageous ways, most of which would discredit me just by recounting them (which is the intent).  Weinmann, a sailor who had downloaded evidence of domestic spying on U.S. citizens, turned himself in and got off with a sweetheart deal.  The long entry on Wikipedia has now been nearly erased at the request of "a military study group".
I don't want to repeat the story, but my part in the affair was innocent (I knew he was in town before the time told to the military court, and therefore I knew the court had been lied to). But the troubles I experienced, got my interest.
  The methods of psychological waterboarding are to induce stress even while discrediting the victim.  Remember Dan Rather's story of being surrounded and bullied by men in suits saying: "What's the frequency, Dan?"
That was considered just an unexplained event, but, please note, it kind of made you wonder about....Dan Rather.  And his credibility.  Which was the intent.
  More recently, the Veterans for Peace complained of being harrassed nearly senseless by federal agents and Sen. Patrick Leahy was threatening to hold hearings.  But he never does.  Leahy talks a good talk, and does nothing.  But they reported all kinds of weird pressure which amounted to psychological waterboarding, which IS torture.
 We do know of cases of which we approve, at first.  The original anthrax suspect was surrounded night and day by hordes of FBI agents, their presence meant to induce stress. Recently, whoops, they decided - wrong guy.  Absolute proof it was someone else, who, kind of conveniently, committed suicide.
 But psy-ops or mental torture goes a long way back.  Some of you may have been aware of J. Edgar Hoover's vendetta against Dr. King, which is well documented. But according to King's staff (and Jesse Jackson would know of this), there were the mysterious phone calls and even packages with cassette tapes that showed proof of King's extra-marital affairs and which could only have been obtained by wiretap.
  The pressure on Dr. King was mounting, especially as the packages and calls taunted him for being a moral degenerate and a phony.  That's mental torture.  And so maybe he had a dilemma: how to go out of this world - in disgrace, or as a martyr.  Maybe.  We do know he stopped taking normal security precautions, so essential in that climate of racial hate.  We do know, the night before he died, he referred to the possibility of his death.  And we do know, he broke every previous security rule by going out on that exposed motel balcony alone.  Was he psychologically waterboarded?  Yes.  Did he make a tragic, stoical decision?  We'll never know.
  But it's inconvenient to pursue any of this because J. Edgar Hoover could never have carried on any of this vendetta, using mental torture, without the knowledge of the Attorney General:  Robert F. Kennedy.

  The problem with investigating and prosecuting torture of U.S. citizens include the finely-tuned methods themselves, designed for deniability of intent, the apparently infrequent use of these methods, the inability of the victims to present a credible complaint (see: Dan Rather, above), and finally, worst of all, the approval of these techniques by both Democratic and Republican administrations.
  But is psychological waterboarding torture? Yes. Is it used on U.S. citizens?  Yes (see books by critics of the FBI, including Richard Kessler, for descriptions of the relevant programs).  Will Obama put a stop to it?
I kinda think it is too rarefied an area for him to challenge the federal agencies.
  This has been a tough post for me.  I'll  go back to other issues and other threads.  But torture is torture.  And our government is not innocent.  These are cruelties and felonies that just will go on until someone talks. But, hey, maybe that's what Weinmann did.  Stole the evidence and ran for Europe. And gave up when the feds began harrassing his father.  Which is what he basically told me that day, only, I hadn't a clue who he was or what he was talking about.  Back to Cowboys Up.  And Planet Heath.  After this final repeating of what needs to be said: torture is torture, and Obama should clean this mess up while there's a chance to begin again.

[Ellen (tellyouwhat)]

I don't think Clinton tackled it too early.  He just didn't have the balls to stand up for his decision.

But the conventional wisdom is that it was too early, unfortunately.

WE know it is already later than it should be.

Anyway Obama may be able to buck conventional wisdom, but he's got an awful lot on his plate right now, and it's hard to imagine he will move this type of volatile issue front and center in the first year.

So I hope the California Supreme Court does it at their level.

[michaelflanagansf]

I think this goes back to Ronald Reagan, something about removing funding for the hospitalization of the mentally ill, who cannot and/or will not work and pay rent and stay off of the streets.  The homeless population increased dramatically after that policy changed and I don't think it's been seriously addressed since Reagan.

This is one of those strange situations where democrats and republicans worked at different times for different goals and wound up with the worst possible result.

The deinstitutionalization of the mentally ill actually began under Kennedy, when he moved many of the mentally ill from big state run institutions (a/k/a snakepits) to group homes or community homes.

Reagan's part in this was in trying to devolve the group homes and place the mentally ill back with their families - or in the community.  It might sound good on paper, but instead what you wind up with are people on the street calling you 'Mr. and Mrs. Hitler' (as Linda and I were called last year by a shrieking loon on the street).

In attempting to save money on group homes we are now spending an inordinate amount of money in our cities public hospitals in the emergency rooms.  People who are experiencing psychotic episodes or who are intoxicated to the point of being a problem are often sent there.  It makes using the emergency rooms nearly impossible in those hospitals as well.

It's also important to realize, in terms of what government needs to do, that there are people who are mentally ill who are combative and do not realize the level of their delusions (take the 'Mr. & Mrs. Hitler person, for example).  These individuals will resist being institutionalized - but it is the government's role (imho) to act as an ombusdmun between the general public and these sorts of individuals.  I know this brings up the shadow of 'thought police' among some, but frankly I've been living in a city which is an open asylum for quite a while and I think the pendulum has shifted too far in the other direction.

[michaelflanagansf]

No he didn't have them.

Harry Truman had them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_9981

I don't really have time to give this the sufficient argument this deserves, John, as I am at work.  Suffice it to say that Harry Truman served one term and that Bill Clinton was interested in serving two.  That, and Harry was prone to making decisions that people would argue about for years - some of them involving bombs.

However, it's important to remember that one of the places that Clinton found opposition to his policies on gays in the military was within the Democratic party - particularly from people like Sam Nunn.

But yes, Clinton was not Truman - nor was he Johnson either (who had his own way of getting things through congress).

[BayCityJohn]

I don't think Clinton tackled it too early.  He just didn't have the balls to stand up for his decision.

But the conventional wisdom is that it was too early, unfortunately.

The same type of 'conventional wisdom' that Harry Truman had to deal with in 1948.

The idea that President Harry S. Truman would integrate the armed forces in 1948 was counterintuitive.

Truman, after all, was the product of a segregated society in Missouri. He served as an artillery captain in the segregated World War I Army. He had a reputation as a machine politician who didn’t rock the boat.

There was really nothing in his biography to suggest he would champion integration.

Yet less than four months before the 1948 presidential election, Truman signed Executive Order 9981.

“It is hereby declared to be the policy of the president that there shall be equality of treatment and opportunity for all persons in the armed services without regard to race, color, religion, or national origin,” the July 26, 1948, executive order read in part.

The sweeping change virtually guaranteed that Truman would not win the so-called “Solid South” in the elections. The Southern states were reliable wins for Democratic politicians at the time. Truman’s stand on race relations caused many politicians to bolt the Democratic Party and run as “Dixiecrats.”

Strom Thurmond -- who later would represent South Carolina in the U.S. Senate for almost a half century -- opposed Truman in the election, garnering 39 electoral votes as the candidate for the segregationist States Rights Democratic Party.

New York Gov. Thomas E. Dewey, the Republican nominee, was considered a shoo-in for election. Thurmond took four states that normally would have voted Democratic in the November election, but Truman still won.

Through the next four years, Truman battled with military and civilian leaders to ensure they carried out Executive Order 9981. The Truman order was a landmark in American history. It intimated that separate was not equal five years before the Supreme Court agreed.

http://www.defenselink.mil/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=50561

I don't know how much opposition Truman faced, but I do know that by the time I was born in 1956, the culture I was going to grow up in was a lot more integrated than the rest of America.

For the first 13 years of my life my family lived on or near Army bases.

I had friends of every race.

When we moved to Bay City in 1969, it was very difficult for me to fit in with the neighborhood.  I made the mistake of making friends with a black kid at school.  I learned the hard way that that was not acceptable at that school. It was very different than what I had known. In high school it was almost as bad, although things were just starting to change by the early 70's. Remember, this was in Michigan just a few years after the Detroit riots.

In the miltary, calling someone a nigger was not only unacceptable, it was illegal. We rarely heard that word, and if someone did use it, they could expect to be ostracized by most of their white friends. And if a teacher heard one of the kids using that word, it was reported to the father's commanding officer. I never heard the words 'chink' or 'spic' until we moved back into a civilian neighborhood.

I don't know if Truman's executive order was the first law to make hate speech illegal. I'll have to do more research.

But I do know that it worked. I grew up in a culture that was not only non-racist, it was anti-racist. To this day I feel like I have more in common with straight black men that grew up in the military than I do with a lot of white gay men. America is still a lot more racist and segregated than the culture I grew up in.

The executive order also opened up a greater opportunity for advancement.

In the late 50's my father was stationed in Gelnhausen, Germany for a couple of years. He must have really liked it there because we moved there with him in 1964. Anyway, this guy was my father's boss for awhile:

“Powell’s first assignment—the second item in a military resumé that would
grow to thirty–four entries and include three continents, seven U.S. forts, the White House West Wing, and nearly every ring of the Pentagon—was as a platoon leader with Company B, Second Armored Rifle Battalion, Forty–Eighth Infantry, with the United States Army in Germany.
Powell arrived in October of 1958, four years and ten months after Secretary of State John Foster Dulles had first enunciated the policy of ‘instant, massive retaliation’ against a direct Soviet attack ‘at times and places of our own choosing’; almost two years after Soviet troops and tanks had rolled into Budapest and crushed the revolt there; and long after there was any real hope, except in the dreamiest diplomatic circles, that the two post–World War II superpowers could find any sort of meaningful common ground.

Powell was stationed for much of that time in Gelnhausen, near the border of the Hessen and Bavarian states, on the Kinzig River, less than fifty miles from the East German border, where—so military doctrine held—the ground war between East and West was most likely to begin.”

http://www.1-33rdar.org/genpowell.htm

[michaelflanagansf]

Once again - both Truman and Johnson made a lot of people (on both sides of the spectrum) angry.  They were both one term presidents.  For Clinton gays in the military was not a priority - and unlike Truman after WWII he did not have a large group of people who had served in a segregated armed forces who then wanted their rightful due.  There was not a segregated gay/straight armed forces much like there were segregated black/white military divisions.  Gays were simply removed from the armed forces - deemed unfit for combat.

Another distinct difference is that African American soldiers coming back from Europe had seen both how Europeans dealt with people of African descent (Black Africans as opposed to Arabic Africans, that is) and had different expectations.  They had also seen the implications of fascist governments, both in Germany and Japan and the implications that their racist policies had on people like the Jews and the Chinese.

These are distinct cases.

[BayCityJohn]

These are distinct cases.

They may be distinct, as in "seperate but equal", but the issue I'm addressing is Clinton's lack of conviction to fulfil his campaign promise and stand up for what he said he believed in.

Truman faced as much or more opposition to an unpopular decision than Clinton. And Truman did it before the election knowing that it could cost him that election, and it nearly did.

[michaelflanagansf]

They may be distinct, as in "seperate but equal", but the issue I'm addressing is Clinton's lack of conviction to fulfil his campaign promise and stand up for what he said he believed in.

Truman faced as much or more opposition to an unpopular decision than Clinton. And Truman did it before the election knowing that it could cost him that election, and it nearly did.

All I'm saying is that the history of both decisions is distinct.

I do not believe that this was ever a strong conviction on Clinton's part.  He said it was, to be sure, but I don't think he was ever committed to it.  I think that his signing the 'Defense of Marriage Act' (while screwing around in the White House) was far more immoral than what happened with 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' (which was, by the way, crafted by Colin Powell - who was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the time and opposed lifting the ban on gay servicemen):

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1598653,00.html

I have always thought of this as simply a campaign promise by Clinton.  And I don't generally take politicians campaign promises too terribly seriously.

However, when he signed DOMA on a Friday night at midnight to avoid press coverage he lost my vote in his second election:

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D03E2DF133DF931A1575AC0A960958260

[BayCityJohn]

I didn't vote for anyone in 1996 for the same reasons.

Bill Clinton was a wimp.

[BayCityJohn]

Once again - both Truman and Johnson made a lot of people (on both sides of the spectrum) angry.  They were both one term presidents.  For Clinton gays in the military was not a priority - and unlike Truman after WWII he did not have a large group of people who had served in a segregated armed forces who then wanted their rightful due.  There was not a segregated gay/straight armed forces much like there were segregated black/white military divisions.  Gays were simply removed from the armed forces - deemed unfit for combat.

But we weren't always removed, at least not in my experience.

When I came out at Fort Knox in 1974 and told the chaplain that I wanted out of the Army because I had met someone I fell in love with after I enlisted but before I left home,  I had several meetings with the company CO and a couple of the drill sergeants.

The CO and one of the sergeants urged me to stay in the Army, and told me that my sexual orientation shouldn't be a consideration. and that if I changed my mind and wanted to stay in that they would stick up for me.

I ended up leaving anyway with an honorable discharge.

[michaelflanagansf]

I was working on a 4-F deferment on the basis of homosexuality when I was in High School (in 1969, as I recall).  Then they changed the law and I didn't have to declare.

Here's more on Truman and the election of 1948:

Was Truman courageous for issuing the executive order?

MICHAEL BESCHLOSS: I think it wasn't so courageous. I'm tougher on Truman, I guess, than Haynes is, because here we thought this World War II, which was above all a war against racism and Fascism. We were full of that, and what we said to the world while fighting that war, then our armed forces came back to the United States and it was exactly the situation that existed before Pearl Harbor. Even Harry Truman said that he was sickened when he heard about black troops who had fought heroically in Europe, came back to Mississippi, they were dumped off an army truck, and then beaten. Truman said his stomach turned over when he heard that, but he didn't do very much. There were executive orders. There were mild things, but nothing that was really extreme in getting the armed forces desegregated pronto. And it took until this election year-1948-for Truman to begin to act. He said that this should be done in a speech to Congress. But even at the Democratic convention of 1948, as Haynes has described, there was a plank that was for a very fast desegregation of the armed forces proposed by Hubert Humphrey, the mayor of Minneapolis. Truman opposed it. Truman said we should do it more slowly. He said, I am for legal equality; I'm not for social equality. The plank was passed against his opposition, and it was only because, as Haynes has suggested in the fall of '48, Truman needed that black vote, that he finally came around to this achievement that belatedly he did, and we now remember him for.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/military/july-dec98/integration_7-31.html

[jack]

one more cross post, because i had SUCH an amazing day and i want to share it...

on an entirely different front...

what a fantastic day i had today.  this impression is of course enhanced by the gazillion cups of good columbian coffee i drank and an unfortunate sugar relapse brought on by the arrival of a couple plates of free donut based sugar coated pastries.  i am high as a kite on sugar, caffeine and serendipity.

that little spontaneous protestation of mine may very well have generated something much needed in this area, a sense of community NOT based in bars and tricking. 

as a result of the publication of that picture of me with the sign, contacts were made locally, and nationally.  i asked some of the folks i had met if they would be interested in working towards a response action to the passage of the various propositions, and the complet lack of participation in a nationwide action in this area, despite the obvious presence of an appreciable gay population.   

everyone i asked signed on to at least a meet up, and we were joined by the editor of south florida's online news source of record, dan renzi of the SOUTH FLORIDA BLADE, who drove all the way over from the east coast to participate.

it may have been the best brainstorming session in my experience.  the different backgrounds and talents seemed to mesh without effort.  we have the backing of the BLADE for sources and expertise, and we have a plan going forward.

we are creating a sw florida gay resource and community blog.  it will be slow going at first, while we build a readership, but there is plenty to do on the front end to create a product that will interest people and be informative and relevant.

our focus is to provide a place for a real COMMUNITY to coalesce.  as unlikely as it seems, i believe its going to happen.  serendipity seems to be on our side.  the little neighborhood coffee house i selected as a meeting place, in lieu of the more obvious starbucks was revealed after our purpose was discussed to be gay owned, and will offer its facility for meetings after closing time, should we wish it, an has agreed to be our first listing as a gay welcoming business.  we will be canvassing area retailers and services and relay our experiences locally as a community service and resource.

we will be busy little campers, and we will hopefully, by our next confab, double our number by recruiting at least one friend or ally each.

it is an exciting time, and i suspect aided by a current not of our making.

(and dan kept referring to me as famous   hee hee)   

updates and links will follow as available

[michaelflanagansf]

I didn't vote for anyone in 1996 for the same reasons.

Bill Clinton was a wimp.

I think I voted Green party.

I don't believe that Clinton was a wimp, I think he was a user, however - or to be kind a pragmatic political animal.  While in office I always thought he was trying to do whatever he could to forward his own power and agenda.  Sometimes it worked well, as in Yugoslavia and Northern Ireland.  Sometimes, not so much.

The truly weird thing is that sometimes people surprise you with their actions - Clinton did (negatively) regarding DOMA and dubya surprised me with some of his AIDS policy actions - particularly removing the restriction on HIV positive people coming into the US that had been in place since the Reagan administration (which Clinton did not remove).

[BayCityJohn]

I was working on a 4-F deferment on the basis of homosexuality when I was in High School (in 1969, as I recall).  Then they changed the law and I didn't have to declare.

Here's more on Truman and the election of 1948:

Was Truman courageous for issuing the executive order?

MICHAEL BESCHLOSS: I think it wasn't so courageous.
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/military/july-dec98/integration_7-31.html

I agree with Beschloss that the timing of the executive order was political, and the convention was the straw that broke the camel's back.

But Truman had been working on the order since October 1947. It wasn't something he came up with because of Humphrey's speech.

http://www.history.army.mil/books/integration/IAF-12.htm