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The Frustrations of Writing for a Progressive Veterans' Web Site Are Legion!
by Tom Barnes Trust me. It is no easy thing to be a progressive and write for a progressive veterans’ web site. There are veterans and their supporters every where who see that point of view as treason. There are dyed in the wool GOP minions who see it as a personal insult. There are psuedo scientists, both of the hard science and social science type, that find it threatening. Then there are the larger and much better endowed veterans organizations that find us laughable. As for me, I find it all odd. Very, very odd.
When I served in the U.S. Coast Guard I met men and women with every conceivable ideology imagionable. But we all did the job together OR we were told to leave. Sometimes people left by Admin Discharge, sometimes by Court Martial, sometimes by end of enlistement and simply going home. But whoever did not fit in was basically given one or two warnings and then we cut them loose. We did not care what they believed. We only cared about what they did, how they acted, how they behaved, what they did for the total group. That is the way it was with us.
The major veterans organizations have become lobbying groups. They knew for generations that there were hundreds of thousands of disability cases that were log jamming the system at the D.V.A. and they said nothing. NOTHING. They were all caught up in wearing goofy hats and going to annual conventions and playing fat, overaged, out of commission soldiers for their wives. What a shame. They did not serve us as well as they should have. Many of us died before benefits could be received because the funny hat veterans organizations were caught up in denying reality, running bars, going to picinics and telling war stories. Veterans be damned. THAT is why this web site was born. We cannot have that nonsense anymore if we are going to gain anything for our fellow veterans.
I am lifetime member of the D.A.V. and a member of the American Legion. Both groups at one time or another represented me in the almost eight years of appeal after appeal that I went through to get declared IU Totally Disabled. In the end, the federal government (Office of Personnel Management) declared me totally disabled due to service connecte disabilities and retired me from the Smithsonian Inst. THIS is what forced the D.V.A.’s hand and forced my appeal to be seen, not any action by the veterans organizations. What a mess. I won’t ever forget it.
We are progressive because damned near nobody else is in the veterans’ universe. We have to be. Somebody has to see and say what is really happening without all the goofy flag waving, flag burning amendments, Reich wing manifest destiny horse manure that infects virtually every veterans organization or web site that it out there.
We exist because we have to exist if the truth is going to get out. The funny hat organizations won’t tell it like it is. They have too much to lose if they do so. We have very little to lose. Most of us have already lost a great deal. Do not look a gift horse in the mouth here. Take what you like and leave the rest.
CWO3 Tom Barnes, USCG (Ret.)
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Short URL: http://www.veteranstoday.com/?p=7689
Posted by Veterans Today on Jul 1 2009, With 0 Reads, Filed under Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
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Amen!!
Dear Tom: I am so glad that while you were on active duty, you didn’t care what your fellow Guardsmen believed. You are to be respected for that. But then you sit down at the keyboard and suddenly the real bigoted, biased extreme left-winger, anti-American starts banging away at all Veterans who do not fit the VT acceptability model. You are a “Progressive.” It must be saddening to realize that Henry Wallace could not beat FDR. Why we would be so progressive today that we would have our own tomb honoring Lenin. It is tragic that Veterans Today does not represent or defend the rights of all Veterans. It just represents you, Duff, Skinner and a few others of that ilk. You write and write and write but accomplish nothing for the vast majority of Veterans who are anything but Left. So you compromise your mission – unless your mission is to just trash and trash and trash. Surely, you must know that HATE is a blowtorch within your body that will ultimately destroy you. You must come back to the center to get well. Hurry.
Farming and soeing thought mines the power of 6. Clues are everywhere, all one has to do is feed the spooks ! Here is some food, as example. Where I live there beautiful plants growing everywhere, seems no one notices that the plants are CASTER BEAN, the most deadly bio toxin on the planet.
Max
And your miliary background is?
Generally, anyone who uses the term "left" is usually someone uncomfortable with living in a Democracy.
If you have something to say other than whining at Tom, please do so. Take on the VA, reform the military or you can keep wearing the pointy hat outfit and burn crosses.
Do something, don’t just talk (write) us to death.
Some of us are fixing the shithole here…even if we have to fix the folks who made it that way first.
I know the difference we are making. We are changing people’s lives.
Why don’t you start by doing something positive.
Most of us here hold or have held positions in the military and civilian life of broad responsibility and authority.
Feel free to kiss our white little heinies that people who have other things to do…the folks with those nasty grad school educations..etc…..work for their fellow vets instead of drinking themselves blind and blowing chunks behind a rusty pickup truck in a VFW parking lot.
g
DC
Always a hoot.
g
To Mike Griffith:
Please use your real name when you write here. Do not hide under a psuedonym.
I have asked you several times to use your name. Blue Max is what you hide under when you attack. Do not be a coward. Use your name if you are going to attack one of us.
I think you are a coward.
CWO3 Tom Barnes, USCG (Ret.)
Tom,
THANK YOU! Now I feel a lot better that someone else recognized that the Nationally Chartered Veteran Service Organizations absolutely REFUSE to lift one damn finger to do the job they were meant to do, and NEVER WILL!
God forbid they get off their fat butts to do one damn good thing for veterans!
And sad to say that’s why so many other Veterans Organizations are popping up all over the country, to fight for what has been promised and long over due, what is right, and to correct the wrongs both in the VA and VA Medical Centers nationwide!
But it’s also sad, most veterans won’t get involved to help in that very fight to gain all that is due to those who honorable served!
Most fear losing what little benefits and care they get now, unfounded as it is, it’s true and the biggest reason most won’t even volunteer as little as an hour every month.
Granted, Veterans-For-Change (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/VETERANS-FOR-CHANGE/) probably does the same thing a hundred other organizations does, drafting letters and sending to all 535 members of Congress, but if we all hound on them long enough and hard enough we can make a difference.
Other organizations do protests, marches, phone calls, they too can make a difference, but the key fact still remains without all veterans and spouses getting involved the numbers aren’t there to support the cause and fight!
Everyone has their own agenda, opinions, ideas, but in the end, if all veterans support the issues, take a stand, and support other PRO-ACTIVE organizations things can and will change!
Jim Davis
President
Veterans-For-Change
Jim,
We just got a veteran 100% disability today. He is homeless and 62 years old.
g
You guys need to quit pounding on the veterans service organizations and pound where you can get something done. I don’t know what Barnes, Duff and Davis want. Make a wish list and let us uninformed, uneducated veterans see what we should be working toward. The CFR that has veterans regulations reads like gibble gabble. Us average uneducated veterans have a hard time sorting through the BS. Pound on Congress and see if they will simplify the process that a veteran has to through to receive compensation. I firmly believe if a veteran has service related disability, that he or she should be compensated for their injury or illness. At the present, the system is so clogged that I am amazed that the VA gets anything done and they are never going to get ahead, if more claims are coming in than going out. At present, The VA is not here to help veterans, but veterans are the prize that keeps over a million state and federal workers employed
What I want is transparent government, especially where veterans issues are concerned.
Hey Duff: Here it is. Enlisted July 1950 at 18; staff Sgt at 19, commissioned at 20, commanded my first company at 21; left the military as a Major, Infantry (US Army) because I had other fish to fry.
Built an organization doing $100,000,000 in sales. Retired and am pushing 78. Am not now nor ever have been disabled. Worst thing was a bad case of pneumonia from waking up in a slit trench filled with ice water.
Graduated wtin honors in Mass Communications; Phi Beta Kappa. I am an Independent and in the beginniong of my association with Veterans Today, I believed you were fighting for all veterans, but every time you or Barnes write, it invariably swings far Left, thereby alienating needy Veterans who don’t happen to hate everybody you hate. I’ve told you that before.
The word Left does not bother me, although I believe we were better off with the Republic the Founding Fathers gave us than we are with this thing morphing into Socilaism from a bastardized version of Democracy.
If you truly want to help ALL veterans, you need to follow the money right through the Constitutin to the Congress, not the Executive Branch.
Why not enourage all veterans to throw current Democrats out and replace them with Republicans, and thow out all current Republicans and replace them with Democrats. Maybe if we did that, incoming Pols would respond to the needs of Veterans. They sure as hell don’t now and all your wrting doesn’t change them one damn bit.
As for kissing your little white heines, that won’t happen for two reasons:
First, I out rank the hell out of you, and second, you have never built a $100,000,000 organization from scratch. Hell, I don’t think you can match executive experience of Sarah Palin. But that’s not relevant.
In summary, why not getr back to the middle of the road so that you don’t alienate half your readers every time you sit down at the keyboard. Surely, Alienation is not your mission. Or Tom’s either. Because if it is: MISSION ACCOMPLIOSHED! Yet, I don’t believe you want to be remembered as a man who fights only for Veterans on the Left and not for ALL veterans, including those in the middle and on the right who are just as disabled, just as needy, and in just as much pain.
I believe you can do better and you will be remembered as a man who cared for all veterans regardless of political belief.
Wow – looks like I’ve finally found my group.
I’ve about been blasted off of vet forums for not wanting to just send e-hugs saying, “Be patient, brother *sniff*
All you can do is wait patiently….”
TIME TO RAISE SOME HELL!!!
Stick around for a while. You may not like what you see. I’m still new to this website myself. I can only say that I believe that most Veterans who post here have a desire to set things straight for the Veterans. That is my wish to see peoples attitudes change concerning the people who paid the price for the freedoms that Americans enjoy. This isn’t so much about hell raising as it is getting to the truth. I believe that is why most folks are here.
Progressive, Liberal, Conservative…What the hell difference does it make what your political idiology is if you’re trying to help Veterans? I think we can all agree that we support our Veterans. Let’s work together on that one goal. Where I have a problem is with the “progressive” writers angry hatred towards conservative values and principles.
I believe I have the same point of view as all of you when it comes to taking care of our veterans. So why does it matter that I’m for a weak and small federal government? I am hated, racist, biggotted, stupid, mean-spritied, and anything else one could come up with because I have the same beliefs as our Founding Fathers. That’s not progressive, that’s crazy.
So leave you conservative bashing out of this newsletter and let’s work together on the one common point we all share.
HEY, TOM BARNES. You keep asking for my real name. Consider that I am Snoopy and I’ve finally found the Red Baron. Or perhaps a whole
squadron of Red Barons with a few Pinkos thrown in. Reality says the ultimate goal of the Progressive is to the left of Lenin. Keep it up and I’m going to sic Sarah on all of you!
This is a serious website with very serious issues. You attack the writers. That is inappropriate unless you give your full name. WE will have you blocked if you do not comply.
Doing a bit of Profiling, are you? Funny, I see all kinds of pseudonyms
day-after-day and I don’t see you screaming about any but one today
(not counting me, of course). Since you apparently no longer believe in freedom of the press and freedom of speech, I suppose you can block me if you choose. But other readers will recognize that you are afraid of my ideas and that is the reason – not my identity -you are upset. After all, IF attacking the writers is not allowed, doesn’t it follow logically that YOU and YOUR writers should never attack? Check your own articles. Read Duff. Read the various responses by writers. This is “a seriious website with very serious issues” but it is also one that attacks any damn thing you want, be it people, places, organizaitons, Veterans, politics, past presidents, the gamut. So why are you so afraid of The Blue Max? I note that none of you holds back your counter-attacks, and you don’t see any tears flowng from my keyboard, do you! Peace, Bro, Peace.