And yes, beginning with the SBV nonsense, I have been very depressed to see the same characters pop up again now. I'm doing what I can to get more (real) Democrats elected next November. The bad news - to me - is that even if we are successful, the damage now being done will not be healed for a long time. As the SBV demonstrated, the wounds are life-long. I really feel that they have serious emotional problems regarding their service in VN that drives them to trash other VN vets like Kerry (and McCain, and Cleland, and now Murtha.) And that is only a tiny part of "the damage now being done" of course. And of course, more of the "same characters" from the Nixon years are now at the highest levels of government. With the philosophy that the tragedy of those years is that the consolidation of power in the Presidency got derailed for a while. See Alito.

I don't think that I am unrealistic in working through the electoral process - it is not a panacea by any means. I do it because even if the results are small in the realm of damage repair, the damage is so great that we should be doing what we can - even if it's just as a lowly volunteer in a congressional race or showing up for a candidate endorsement forum for my local Democrats group.

On my more optimistic days, I think of the Church Commission and Texas' Dirty Thirty and others. I saw Bob Gammage speak a couple of weeks ago. He was a member of the Dirty Thirty and is now running for Governor. (He was a state rep, a state senator, a US Congressman, and a TX Supreme Court Judge in the meantime.) He made the point that the Dirty Thirty took political risks - and paid a price - but they did get Texas politics considerably less corrupt for a while. It's corrupt again. We need to clean it up again. His point was that we have to keep coming back and doing the clean up again and again, but the improvements are real. Even if they are not permanent, we benefit from having those times of relative honesty and effectively serving the people. Never all fixed or as good as we want it, but better - and better is worth something.

And the reforms that came out of the Church Commission also. FISA for example. As shirl says, it never completely stopped - the violations of our freedoms. But for a while it was no where near as bad as it was in those times - when FBI agents were knocking at my door. And that is worth something to me.

Almost all the young men of my generation came of age with the first thing they had to confront was: Do I submit to the draft and take the risk that I will have to kill - or be killed - before my 21st birthday? Or do I go to prison? Or do I exile myself from my home and friends and family - possibly forever? Over 50,000 of these young men were killed. How many more were maimed physically or spiritually? Since Nixon resigned and the VN war (finally) ended, an entire generation grew up without having to face this choice. And that is Worth It, for their sakes. Now we have to worry about another generation. Which will it be for them? As it was with my generation, or as it was with the generation after?

Which is why I'm trying not to let this incident shut me up or cause me to quit trying to work on campaigns or to support veterans. But it has me deeply worried. Our country was headed down a very dark road during the Nixon years and we were able - just barely - to grab the wheel of the car before we went off the cliff. There are no guarantees that we'll be able to do it this time.

I posted my story here because - with the exception of Gooserock, who seems to "get it," most of the folks on the blogs seem to me to not realize how close to the cliff we already are.

Any jackass can kick down a barn, but it takes a carpenter to build one. - Sam Rayburn