Kucinich is refused access to Bradley Manning

The DoD is refusing to allow Dennis Kucinich speak with Bradley Manning:

Since my initial request to visit Private First Class (Pfc.) Bradley Manning on February 4, 2011, the Department of Defense (DoD) has consistently sought to frustrate any attempts to communicate with Pfc. Manning regarding his well-being. I or my staff have been shuffled between the Secretary of the Army, the Secretary of the Navy, and the Office of Secretary Gates. I was initially told that I would need Pfc. Manning's approval in order to meet with him. When Pfc. Manning indicated his desire to meet with me, I was belatedly informed that the meeting could only take place if it was recorded because of a Monitoring Order imposed by the military's Special Courts-Martial Convening Authority on September 16, 2010, which was convened for the case. Confidentiality is required, however, to achieve the candor that is necessary to perform the oversight functions with which I am tasked as a Member of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. I was also told that I could be subpoenaed to testify about the contents of my conversation with Pfc. Manning. This is a clear subversion of the constitutionally protected oversight process and it severely undermines the rights of any Member of Congress seeking to gather information on the conditions of a detainee in US custody.

Continue ReadingKucinich is refused access to Bradley Manning

From animal to food

I eat meat. Not as often as most people, but I eat meat at least several times a week, mostly chicken, but occasionally a hamburger. I rarely eat pork. Over the years, It has sometimes occurred to me that in order to eat meat I had an obligation to fully understand how a live animal is turned into food. With that as the background, this was the perfect video for me. As the creator of this video states, this is "a good story about a proud butcher open to teaching his trade, and a story I felt compelled to share with many others, like me, who didn’t want to be disconnected to their food any longer." This is a story narrated by "Larry Althiser, the owner and head meat cutter for Larry’s Custom Meats in Hartwick, NY, a small farming community in the Northern Catskills." This is not a video about factory farming. The video is direct and graphic, but it is also honest and informative.

Continue ReadingFrom animal to food

Intelligence can exacerbate motivated reasoning

At The Intersection (no relation), Chris Mooney points out that Intelligence doesn’t protect us from Motivated reasoning. In fact, intelligence can invite this problem. What is "motivated reasoning"?

In motivated reasoning, memory searches, interpretations of incoming information, evaluations of arguments, and even perception, are biased in such a way that we will be more likely to arrive at a desired conclusion (called a directional motivation . . . ). The way this is achieved, in essence, is by limiting the information that is retrieved from long term memory into current working memory (the store of information that is available for current processing), thereby biasing the information available for supporting or evaluating conclusions and arguments, as well as interpreting incoming information.
Climate-change denial is a good place to observe motivated reasoning in action: [More . . . ]

Continue ReadingIntelligence can exacerbate motivated reasoning

Chris Hedges: Kick the modern money-changers out of the temple

Chris Hedges had some sharp words for the modern day money-changers last Friday, during his speech in Union Square, New York City, during a protest outside a branch of the Bank of America:

The bankers and hedge fund managers, the corporate and governmental elites, are the modern version of the misguided Israelites who prostrated themselves before the golden calf. The sparkle of wealth glitters before them, spurring them faster and faster on the treadmill towards destruction. And they seek to make us worship at their altar. As long as greed inspires us, greed keeps us complicit and silent. But once we defy the religion of unfettered capitalism, once we demand that a society serve the needs of citizens and the ecosystem that sustains life, rather than the needs of the marketplace, once we learn to speak with a new humility and live with a new simplicity, once we love our neighbor as ourself, we break our chains and make hope visible.

Continue ReadingChris Hedges: Kick the modern money-changers out of the temple

Soldier tries to save a child, but is reprimanded

Last year, Wikileaks released the now-infamous video of a 2007 U.S. Apache helicopter attack that killed 12 men and wounded two children in Baghdad. (See here for more detail). Less well known is what happened on the ground after the attack, and the lesson it teaches regarding the mental health of soldiers. In this video, Amy Goodman of Democracy Now discusses the aftermath of the helicopter attack with a soldier who arrived at the scene after the helicopter attack. His name is Ethan McCord, and here are a few of the things he had to say:

Well, I placed the boy into the Bradley armored vehicle, and the Bradley was not a part of our unit, and neither were the Apaches. They were just attached to us that day. When I placed the boy into the Bradley armored vehicle, I was yelled at by my platoon leader for worrying about children instead of worrying about other—finding other people to kill.

. . .

Later on that evening, after the incident, when I was back at the FOB and I washing the blood of the children off of my uniforms, you know, my mind was a mess. I was very emotional, couldn’t really deal with what I had seen and, more importantly, was more upset with what I was a part of. So I went to my staff sergeant and asked to see mental health, so that I can talk about my feelings and what I was feeling. And I was denied to go to mental health. They told me I needed to suck it up and that there would be repercussions if I was to go see mental health, and I would be charged with malingering. And I was rather shocked that just by me needing to speak to somebody about what was going on and what I was feeling could constitute a crime in the Army.

. . .

I went to the Irwin Army hospital, where they had a psychologist who was on duty. He didn’t really talk to me or anything. They called my command, and one of the staff sergeants who were there came down to the hospital, and instead of—just degraded me while I was in there, said that I was nothing, I was nobody, because I was doing this.
Ethan appeared on Democracy Now to protest the military treatment of soldiers suffering from PTSD and other severe mental conditions:

They kicked me out, knowing I had PTSD, TBI and had metal rods and pins in my back. And they kicked me out on what’s called a Chapter 517, which states that all of my conditions were pre-existing. They’ve done this to over 250,000 soldiers. And it’s time to stop. It’s said between—twenty percent, at the minimum, of troops are suffering from some sort of trauma, whether it be TBI, PTSD or military sexual trauma. That’s an extreme amount of soldiers who are suffering. And they’re being denied their basic human rights to heal. And we’re trying to put a stop to that. It needs to end now. And we need to—we need to stop the redeployment of these troops.

Continue ReadingSoldier tries to save a child, but is reprimanded