"I asked Sgt. Gaskins about his hopes for the future. He replied that he has no future." — psychotherapist Rosemary Masters

This is the cost of our wars, and sooner or later we need to begin paying down the debt. But it is only payable in the devalued currency of the truth. For now, Soldier, we’re still in denial and you’re under arrest.

Welcome to PTSD Nation.

We don’t have a draft because in Vietnam our draftee army mutinied and refused, finally, to continue pursuing a hellish, unwinnable war. Today, as we pursue an equally hellish, equally unwinnable war, we are in the process of destroying our all-volunteer, gung-ho army, one GI at a time.

Brad Gaskins, of Newark, N.J., was at one time as gung-ho as a soldier can get, the ideal recruit, the boy with a hero’s heart. He’d been the starting quarterback on his high school football team and had enlisted in the Army at age 17, while still a senior. That was 1999. He wanted to serve his country, fight hard, win a medal. He swelled with pride when he wore his olive-green dress uniform to church. When we think “support our troops,” we’re thinking of Brad Gaskins.

A few decades ago, upwards of one-third of the American workforce was unionized. Now the figure is down around 10 percent. And news media are central to the downward spiral.

As unions wither, the journalistic establishment has a rationale for giving them less ink and air time. As the media coverage diminishes, fewer Americans find much reason to believe that unions are relevant to their working lives.

But the media problem for labor goes far beyond the fading of unions from newsprint, television and radio. Media outlets aren’t just giving short shrift to organized labor. The avoidance extends to unorganized labor, too.

So often, when issues of workplaces and livelihoods appear in the news, they’re framed in terms of employer plights. The frequent emphasis is on the prospects and perils of companies that must compete.

Well, sure, firms need to compete. And working people need to feed and clothe and house themselves and their families. And workers hope to provide adequate medical care.

Remarks at Denver, Col., impeachment forum November 17, 2007, organized by "Be the Change."

For the past year or so, every month the moon gets full, and I suddenly get a couple of hundred emails telling me that Nancy Pelosi has announced that she will allow impeachment hearings if she gets enough emails or phone calls or handwritten letters.

And a lot of the emails I get are along the lines of: “Is it true? Because if it’s true my group can send 5,000 letters.”

And I usually reply along the lines of: “Of course it’s not true, but since when do you need an invitation to act like a citizen of a democracy? Send her 10,000 letters immediately, and do so precisely because it’s not true!”

That does it. It's time for the Democratic Party to stage its own debate, ask its own questions, and offer the video to networks as a completed package. Allowing CNN to not just air a debate but to ask the questions proved on Thursday night (even more dramatically than in the past) to be a soul sickening disaster.

A serious debate would begin by asking each candidate (including Mike Gravel, who was locked out of the room) what he or she would do if elected president. Thursday's debate in the opening 30 minutes had me longing for even the level of honesty and substance of the MSNBC debate hosted by Keith Olbermann in Soldier Field some months back, at which Olbermann managed the superhuman feat of asking things like "Would you cancel NAFTA?"

Charles Mercieca, Ph.D.
President, International Association of Educators for World Peace
Dedicated to United Nations Goals of Peace Education,
Environmental Protection, Human Rights & Disarmament
Professor Emeritus, Alabama A&M University

Sooner or later, the world is bound to experience a lasting peace. Needless to say, we must continue to practice patience and perseverance in our positive and constructive efforts to this end. In doing so, we should always keep in mind that violence begets violence and more violence begets more violence.

History of Military Violence

The reality and consequences of such violence may be brought clearly into perspective if we were to give a glance over the last 6,000 years of recorded history. Each time the military was involved we always witnessed the destruction of entire cities, the infliction of crucial pain on many people along with the brutal massacre of innocent people amounting to millions.