I am not going to comment on Chana Joffe-Walt’s recent reporting on NPR about disability which received wide circulation. There were many responses. I will, however, post the Open Letter from 8 previous Social Security Administration commissioners, published on April 4, which I think also deserves wide circulation. Jon

April 4, 2013

As former Commissioners of the Social Security Administration (SSA), we write to express our significant concerns regarding a series recently aired on This American Life, All Things Considered, and National Public Radio stations across the U.S. (“Unfit for Work: The Startling Rise of Disability in America”). Our nation’s Social Security system serves as a vital lifeline for millions of individuals with severe disabilities. We feel compelled to share our unique insight into the Social Security system because we know firsthand the dangers of mischaracterizing the disability programs via sensational, anecdote-based media accounts, leaving vulnerable beneficiaries to pick up the pieces.

Approximately 1 in 5 of our fellow Americans live with disabilities, but only those with the most significant disabilities qualify for disability benefits under Title II and Title XVI of the Social Security Act. Title II Old Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance (DI) benefits and Title XVI Supplemental Security Income (SSI) benefits provide critical support to millions of Americans with the most severe disabilities, as well as their dependents and survivors. Disabled beneficiaries often report multiple impairments, and many have such poor health that they are terminally ill: about 1 in 5 male DI beneficiaries and 1 in 7 female DI beneficiaries die within 5 years of receiving benefits. Despite their impairments, many beneficiaries attempt work using the work incentives under the Social Security Act, and some do work part-time. For example, research by Mathematica and SSA finds that about 17 percent of beneficiaries worked in 2007. However, their earnings are generally very low (two-thirds of those who worked in 2007 earned less than $5,000 for the whole year), and only a small share are able to earn enough to be self-sufficient and leave the DI and SSI programs each year. Without Social Security or SSI, the alternatives for many beneficiaries are simply unthinkable.

The statutory standard for approval is very strict, and was made even more so in 1996. To implement this strict standard, Social Security Administration (SSA) regulations, policies, and procedures require extensive documentation and medical evidence at all levels of the application process. Less than one-third of initial DI and SSI applications are approved, and only about 40 percent of adult DI and SSI applicants receive benefits even after all levels of appeal. As with adults, most children who apply are denied SSI, and only the most severely impaired qualify for benefits.

Managing the eligibility process for the disability system is a challenging task, and errors will always occur in any system of this size. But the SSA makes every effort to pay benefits to the right person in the right amount at the right time. When an individual applies for one of SSA’s disability programs, the agency has extensive systems in place to ensure accurate decisions, and the agency is home to many dedicated public servants who take their ongoing responsibility of the proper stewardship of the programs very seriously. Program integrity is critically important and adequate funds must be available to make continued progress in quality assurance and monitoring. In the face of annual appropriations that were far below what the President requested in Fiscal Year 2011 and Fiscal Year 2012, the agency has still continued to implement many new system improvements that protect taxpayers and live up to Americans’ commitment to protect the most vulnerable in our society.

It is true that DI has grown significantly in the past 30 years. The growth that we’ve seen was predicted by actuaries as early as 1994 and is mostly the result of two factors: baby boomers entering their high-disability years, and women entering the workforce in large numbers in the 1970s and 1980s so that more are now “insured” for DI based on their own prior contributions. The increase in the number of children receiving SSI benefits in the past decade is similarly explained by larger economic factors, namely the increase in the number of poor and low-income children. More than 1 in 5 U.S. children live in poverty today and some 44 percent live in low-income households. Since SSI is a means-tested program, more poor and low-income children mean more children with disabilities are financially eligible for benefits. Importantly, the share of low-income children who receive SSI benefits has remained constant at less than four percent.

Yet, the series aired on NPR sensationalizes this growth, as well as the DI trust fund’s projected shortfall. History tells a less dramatic story. Since Social Security was enacted, Congress has “reallocated” payroll tax revenues across the OASI and DI trust funds – about equally in both directions – some 11 times to account for demographic shifts. In 1994, the last time such reallocation occurred, SSA actuaries projected that similar action would next be required in 2016. They were right on target.

We are deeply concerned that the series “Unfit for Work” failed to tell the whole story and perpetuated dangerous myths about the Social Security disability programs and the people helped by this vital system. We fear that listeners may come away with an incorrect impression of the program—as opposed to an understanding of the program actually based on facts.

As former Commissioners of the agency, we could not sit on the sidelines and witness this one perspective on the disability programs threaten to pull the rug out from under millions of people with severe disabilities. Drastic changes to these programs would lead to drastic consequences for some of America’s most vulnerable people. With the lives of so many vulnerable people at stake, it is vital that future reporting on the DI and SSI programs look at all parts of this important issue and take a balanced, careful look at how to preserve and strengthen these vital parts of our nation’s Social Security system.

Sincerely,

Kenneth S. Apfel

Michael J. Astrue

Jo Anne B. Barnhart

Shirley S. Chater

Herbert R. Doggette

Louis D. Enoff

Larry G. Massanari

Lawrence H. Thompson

Today is the 10th anniversary of the start of the Iraq War. On this anniversary I think it is critically important we recognize the utter pointlessness and human waste represented by this war. For many complicated reasons, Americans largely do not appear to appreciate the horror of the war or the moral debacle it represents. Among crimes, there cannot be many worse than starting and conducting a war based on lies. We are too cavalier about war and violence. I do recall demonstrating in the days before the war (along with millions of other people around the world) who knew this war was wrong before it started. It is hard to know what has been learned from the war in Iraq. If we had truly learned from Vietnam, Iraq never would have happened. The letter below was written by an Iraq war veteran named Tomas Young. It appeared today on Truthdig. For those who did not see it there, I wanted to share it.

A Message to George W. Bush and Dick Cheney From a Dying Veteran

To: George W. Bush and Dick Cheney
From: Tomas Young

I write this letter on the 10th anniversary of the Iraq War on behalf of my fellow Iraq War veterans. I write this letter on behalf of the 4,488 soldiers and Marines who died in Iraq. I write this letter on behalf of the hundreds of thousands of veterans who have been wounded and on behalf of those whose wounds, physical and psychological, have destroyed their lives. I am one of those gravely wounded. I was paralyzed in an insurgent ambush in 2004 in Sadr City. My life is coming to an end. I am living under hospice care.

I write this letter on behalf of husbands and wives who have lost spouses, on behalf of children who have lost a parent, on behalf of the fathers and mothers who have lost sons and daughters and on behalf of those who care for the many thousands of my fellow veterans who have brain injuries. I write this letter on behalf of those veterans whose trauma and self-revulsion for what they have witnessed, endured and done in Iraq have led to suicide and on behalf of the active-duty soldiers and Marines who commit, on average, a suicide a day. I write this letter on behalf of the some 1 million Iraqi dead and on behalf of the countless Iraqi wounded. I write this letter on behalf of us all—the human detritus your war has left behind, those who will spend their lives in unending pain and grief.

I write this letter, my last letter, to you, Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney. I write not because I think you grasp the terrible human and moral consequences of your lies, manipulation and thirst for wealth and power. I write this letter because, before my own death, I want to make it clear that I, and hundreds of thousands of my fellow veterans, along with millions of my fellow citizens, along with hundreds of millions more in Iraq and the Middle East, know fully who you are and what you have done. You may evade justice but in our eyes you are each guilty of egregious war crimes, of plunder and, finally, of murder, including the murder of thousands of young Americans—my fellow veterans—whose future you stole.

Your positions of authority, your millions of dollars of personal wealth, your public relations consultants, your privilege and your power cannot mask the hollowness of your character. You sent us to fight and die in Iraq after you, Mr. Cheney, dodged the draft in Vietnam, and you, Mr. Bush, went AWOL from your National Guard unit. Your cowardice and selfishness were established decades ago. You were not willing to risk yourselves for our nation but you sent hundreds of thousands of young men and women to be sacrificed in a senseless war with no more thought than it takes to put out the garbage.

I joined the Army two days after the 9/11 attacks. I joined the Army because our country had been attacked. I wanted to strike back at those who had killed some 3,000 of my fellow citizens. I did not join the Army to go to Iraq, a country that had no part in the September 2001 attacks and did not pose a threat to its neighbors, much less to the United States. I did not join the Army to “liberate” Iraqis or to shut down mythical weapons-of-mass-destruction facilities or to implant what you cynically called “democracy” in Baghdad and the Middle East. I did not join the Army to rebuild Iraq, which at the time you told us could be paid for by Iraq’s oil revenues. Instead, this war has cost the United States over $3 trillion. I especially did not join the Army to carry out pre-emptive war. Pre-emptive war is illegal under international law. And as a soldier in Iraq I was, I now know, abetting your idiocy and your crimes. The Iraq War is the largest strategic blunder in U.S. history. It obliterated the balance of power in the Middle East. It installed a corrupt and brutal pro-Iranian government in Baghdad, one cemented in power through the use of torture, death squads and terror. And it has left Iran as the dominant force in the region. On every level—moral, strategic, military and economic—Iraq was a failure. And it was you, Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney, who started this war. It is you who should pay the consequences.

I would not be writing this letter if I had been wounded fighting in Afghanistan against those forces that carried out the attacks of 9/11. Had I been wounded there I would still be miserable because of my physical deterioration and imminent death, but I would at least have the comfort of knowing that my injuries were a consequence of my own decision to defend the country I love. I would not have to lie in my bed, my body filled with painkillers, my life ebbing away, and deal with the fact that hundreds of thousands of human beings, including children, including myself, were sacrificed by you for little more than the greed of oil companies, for your alliance with the oil sheiks in Saudi Arabia, and your insane visions of empire.

I have, like many other disabled veterans, suffered from the inadequate and often inept care provided by the Veterans Administration. I have, like many other disabled veterans, come to realize that our mental and physical wounds are of no interest to you, perhaps of no interest to any politician. We were used. We were betrayed. And we have been abandoned. You, Mr. Bush, make much pretense of being a Christian. But isn’t lying a sin? Isn’t murder a sin? Aren’t theft and selfish ambition sins? I am not a Christian. But I believe in the Christian ideal. I believe that what you do to the least of your brothers you finally do to yourself, to your own soul.

My day of reckoning is upon me. Yours will come. I hope you will be put on trial. But mostly I hope, for your sakes, that you find the moral courage to face what you have done to me and to many, many others who deserved to live. I hope that before your time on earth ends, as mine is now ending, you will find the strength of character to stand before the American public and the world, and in particular the Iraqi people, and beg for forgiveness.

I am reprinting this piece written by Dave Lindorff that appeared on the Counterpunch website on February 22, 2013. I liked Dave’s spirit.

Talkin’ ‘bout My Generation

In Defense of Baby Boomers

by DAVE LINDORFF

I’m fed up with the trashing of the Baby Boom generation.

Sure you can find plenty of scoundrels, freeloaders, charlatans and thugs who were born between 1946 and 1964, but you can find bad and lazy people in every generation. In fact, the so called “Greatest Generation” who preceded the Boomers abounds in them. That doesn’t prove anything.

What has me ticked, as someone who was born in 1949, is that the right wing has for decades been attacking my generation in particular, and has succeeded, pretty much, in portraying us Baby Boomers as self-centered, spoiled and entitled. The right has then cleverly used that deceptive image to go on and attack important programs like Social Security, Medicare, college loans, etc., by trying to divide the generations against each other, claiming that we Baby Boomers are intent on abusing, even bankrupting, those programs.

The truth is something else entirely.

The generation born after World War II in fact has been admirable and almost unique in its altruism. While our parents were either overt racists and sexists or turned a blind eye to those twin evils, and for the most part uncritically accepted the imperialist policies of the post-war US government, our generation challenged the idea of imperial war, supported the struggle of African-Americans to win voting rights and to end legal segregation and, after a struggle in our own ranks, fought for equal rights for women — with many of the men of our age cohort joining in that struggle.

My generation did more in our personal lives and lifestyles, beginning in the 1960s and continuing on through the decades, to break down walls of religious and racial bigotry, than any before us, and we have raised children who have continued that legacy.

As for Social Security, it was our generation that has had to pay more into the system to anticipate our greater longevity and our greater numbers, paying vastly higher Social Security payroll taxes than our parents ever did. We also strongly supported the creation of Medicare in 1965, at a time when we were still more than 40 years from being able to make use of it.

We did it for the generation before us, not for ourselves. Back in 1964, when the last Boomer was being born, our parents were only paying 3.625% of their pay in FICA taxes. When my father was 60, and only a few years from retirement, he began paying 5.4%. We Boomers, meanwhile, have been paying over 6% of our income into Social Security since 1988, which means that for those of us now nearing retirement age, the 30-35 years of our working lives when we were earning our greatest amount of annual income, we were paying over 6%. into the Trust Fund. Since employers match those amounts, we were actually paying over 5% per year more of income during our working lives than our parents paid in theirs.

And the right wing — and even some conservative Democrats — call us selfish and entitled!

We also, far from being selfish, raised families in the face of a prolonged and deliberate corporate assault on working people that saw our unions broken, our pensions terminated, our health insurance benefits slashed, college costs for our kids inflated, and job opportunities for both ourselves and our children lost. We saw our home values crashed by greedy bankers. We are new facing a crisis and a threat as we near retirement age, not because we were self-indulgent and lazy, but because we are the victims of a colossal corporate rip-off, one supported by a corrupt right-wing political movement. This campaign has gutted the programs that several generations of labor activists and workers, including we ourselves, fought to create.

If there is anything critical that can be said about the generation born after 1946, it would be that we got so caught up in our struggles of the moment, and then in raising our families in the face of these challenges, that we have not maintained our “fuck you!” attitude towards authority, and our sense of solidarity with one another and with those who are on the outside of the society and the economy.

My sense is that most of us in the Baby Boom generation still have our basic values. We want a better, fairer, more peaceful world–a world free of imperialism, racism and sexism — but we have lost the sense of militancy that is needed to get there.

That makes me hopeful that as our children move off onto their own, and as we get ever closer to the point that we are depending on programs like Social Security and Medicare for our survival, that we will recover that sense of urgent militancy and that “fuck you” attitude that carried us through the years of the Indochina War, of President Nixon’s Cointelpro repression, and of the Reagan-era assault on the New Deal legacy.

It is time for the Baby Boom Generation to return to its roots. For the sake of ourselves and our friends and demographic compatriots, for the sake of our children and their children, we need to recover that distrust and rejection of authority that is embedded in our generation’s DNA. We need to recall and recreate that exciting sense of community that came with standing shoulder to shoulder against the uniformed enforcers of the Establishment.

It is time to gather up our canes, our walkers and our hearing aids, to ignore our aching joints, and to again start marching and shouting: “Up Against the Wall Motherfuckers!” and “Hell No! We Won’t Go!” (peacefully and quietly into old age, that is).

Dave Lindorff is a founder of This Can’t Be Happening and a contributor to Hopeless: Barack Obama and the Politics of Illusion, published by AK Press. Hopeless is also available in a Kindle edition. He lives in Philadelphia.

After the recent piece I wrote for the Concord Monitor about guns in the New Hampshire Legislature, I received an interesting opposing response. A former state representative from Georges Mills, Spec Bowers, wrote that mass shootings have occurred in a church, a shopping mall, a restaurant, a movie theater and a school. Bowers argued that victims who had guns sometimes stopped shootings by firing back.

He said would-be killers target and prefer gun-free zones as a place to shoot because they calculate they will run into less opposition there. Since evildoers could be anywhere, Bowers felt legislators who were armed were best equipped to protect themselves and others.

He went on to discuss the risk of a criminal opening fire against unarmed legislators and visitors at the State House and he described the risk as “improbable but all too possible”. I would ask: what does that convoluted formulation actually mean? Is such an event probable or improbable?

This is where it gets tricky because hard answers are difficult to come by. There is some very small percentage chance of such an event. Minimizing the possibility of a State House shooting could appear to be insensitive to legitimate security concerns.

I would argue that while almost any scenario is a theoretical possibility, 200 plus years of New Hampshire history have demonstrated the unlikelihood of a State House shooting. A rational response would not blow the possible risk out of perspective. As I suggested previously, metal detectors and security screening at any State House entrance would go a long way toward addressing the risk.

What has struck me since the shootings at Aurora and Newtown has been the irrationality, bordering on hysteria, of the pro-gun, no-regulation folks. For example, President Obama is routinely seen as an enemy of the Second Amendment. The NRA has called him the most anti-gun president in American history. It apparently matters little that Obama is on record supporting the Second Amendment. In his first term, he took zero action on gun control. He only acted after Newtown. If he had done nothing, I think he would have been widely condemned for inaction.

Nevertheless, he is seen as a modern day George III, intent not just on some modest gun control but on wanting to confiscate all guns. The gun store in Merrimack NH, Collectible Arms and Ammo, has had a picture of Obama on the storefront window along with pictures of Hitler, Stalin and Mao. The owner was quoted in the Union Leader saying that the picture montage was a nonpartisan statement.

Along with the irrational fear about President Obama is an obsessive concern about the threat posed by the federal government. Many gunowners are anxious to let you know that the Second Amendment is not about deer hunting. They say it is about protection from the federal government which wants to take your guns away.

From a critical perspective outside the pro-gun movement, that movement appears to be rife with conspiracy theories. There are a wide range of such theories and in fairness it is hard to know what percentage of pro-gun folks subscribe to the theories. Most feature President Obama who is cast as a James Bond-style super villain who is staying up nights, feverishly figuring out ways to get his hands on the estimated 280 million guns that are in the private possession of Americans. There is a racial fear component to many of these theories. Maybe part of this is simply fear of a Black president and the changing demographics of the country.

Since President Obama took his gun control initiatives, gun and ammunition sales have gone through the roof. Prices for guns and ammo have climbed dramatically. It is almost as if some gunowners think they must get certain weapons and ammo now because they might be off limits later. Why they feel so compelled to get these arsenals is a good question. The trumped-up fear mostly serves to profit gun manufacturers.

I do think there is more generalized anxiety now about the bad economy, global warming, and societal breakdown. I have met people in New Hampshire who have stockpiled weapons and food in preparation for some Armageddon-type events. They want to be prepared for the End Times. This perspective overlaps with those fundamentalists who see the end of the world approaching.

In his essay, “The Paranoid Style in American Politics”, historian Richard Hofstadter described an angry style of mind which accurately captures the pro-gun movement of our day.

“I call it the paranoid style simply because no other word adequately evokes the qualities of heated exaggeration, suspiciousness and conspiratorial fantasy that I have in mind.”

Hofstadter wrote that a feeling of persecution is central and is systematized in grandiose theories of conspiracy. I think the pro-gun movement is the latest incarnation of a paranoid trend that has been repeated many times in American history. In his essay, Hofstadter, who died in 1970, gave quite a few examples including Senator Joseph McCarthy’s anti-communist witchhunt and the John Birch Society.

There is one other thing that bothers me that I wanted to mention. We lack public health research about gun safety because a decade ago the NRA managed to quash all federal money directed at gun injury research prevention. The NRA had been concerned about public health research done by a Tennessee ER doctor named Art Kellerman. Dr. Kellerman had looked at questions like “If a gun kept in a house is used, who did it shoot and what were the consequences?” Dr. Kellerman found it was 43 times more likely that a gun kept in the home would be involved in the death of a household member than it would be used in self-defense, NPR reported this story.

I think assuming public health research about gun safety is equivalent to gun control is irrational. In considering public policy, we should not fear evidence-based research. I suppose I may be part of a minority in New Hampshire but I question whether everybody having guns makes us safer.

It is approaching mid-March and I am already dying for spring. The past winter started off slow. Into January, we were having another winter in New Hampshire like the last one – almost no snow and relatively warm. Then February hit. We got our fair share of snow.

The snow banks remain high in my yard although the temperatures climbed into the high 40’s this weekend. It now has the look of the start of mud season. For those unfamiliar with New Hampshire, mud season is a distinct time of year : roads turn into mush, then soup.

There are quite a few dirt roads in my neighborhood. You really do not want to drive down them. Your car can sink into deep ruts and practically be swallowed. Sometimes you do not know if you will get through. School buses get stuck and have to be pulled out. Making it more interesting is the fact that roads will freeze at night in utterly rutted condition. Going over those roads is not for the faint-heated. Then during the day, they will unfreeze and it is a driver beware situation.

Even though a dirt road near my home provides a very convenient shortcut on my drive to work, I have no plans to drive on it until April sometime. It is not worth the risk. If you are fortunate and you manage not to damage your car, you will not escape the mud which is guaranteed to decorate your car extensively. At the very least, you will need a car wash.

Part of mud season is the frost heaves. Roads break up. There are holes where there were not holes before. You really need to go slow and protect your car going over these babies. You are looking for trouble if you go too fast.

Rain is in the forecast this week. It may be bye-bye to the snow. Black fly season cannot be too far off!

In honor of spring, here are 2 poems that I have loved for a long time (one is really a song). Gracias a la Vida was written by Violeta Parra, a Chilean songwriter and composer. This poem/song has been most famously sung by Mercedes Sosa and also by Joan Baez. The second poem is from e.e. cummings.

Gracias a la Vida (Thanks to Life) by Violeta Parra

Thanks to life, for giving me so much.
It gave me two bright stars, that when opened,
can perfectly distinguish black from white
and high in the sky, the starry background,
and within the crowd the one that I love.

Thanks to life, for giving me so much.
It gave me hearing that, in all its reach
records – night and day – crickets and canaries
hammers, turbines, bricks and storms.
And the tender voice of my beloved.

Thanks to life, for giving me so much.
It gave me sound and the alphabet.
With them the words that I think and declare:
“Mother”, “Friend”, “Brother” and light shining down on
the road of the soul of the one I’m loving.

Thanks to life, for giving me so much.
It gave me the ability to walk with my tired feet.
With them I’ve walked cities and puddles
valleys and deserts, mountains and plains.
And your house, your street and your garden.

Thanks to life, for giving me so much.
It gave me a heart that causes my frame to shudder,
when I see the fruit of the human brain,
when I see good so far from evil,
when I look inside your bright eyes…

Thanks to life, for giving me so much.
It gave me laughter as well as mourning,
with both I distinguish happiness from pain –
the two elements that make up my song,
and your song, as well, which is the same song
and everyone’s song, which is my very song.

e.e. cummings

since feeling is first
who pays any attention
to the syntax of things
will never wholly kiss you

wholly to be a fool
while Spring is in the world

my blood approves
and kisses are a better fate
than wisdom
lady i swear by all flowers. Don’t cry
the best gesture of my brain is less than
your eyelids’ flutter which says

we are for each other: then
laugh, leaning back in my arms
for life’s not a paragraph

And death i think is no parenthesis

As a person who grew up in the Vietnam War era, I have been waiting a long time for a book like Nick Turse’s book, “Kill Anything That Moves”. In spite of all the books and articles written about the Vietnam War, I do not think we have seen the war as it actually was, in its fullest dimensions. Turse’s book goes beyond anything written to date to present a more honest picture.

I suppose there is some score settling here. I am part of the 60’s generation that hated the war. I spent much time demonstrating in opposition to the war. I see Turse’s book as an implicit vindication of the anti-war movement because Turse carefully documents how the American war led to widespread civilian deaths and a broad pattern of atrocities.

The book brought back so many memories of the period. For those who lived through that time, practically everyone would remember the My Lai massacre where American troops methodically slaughtered more than 500 unarmed women, children, and old men. Life Magazine ran graphic pictures of the massacre. It shocked the nation yet even My Lai did not lead to a critical reexamination of what we were doing in Vietnam.

Turse shows My Lai was no exception. He shows that American military conduct in Vietnam followed from policies engineered from the top. The policies were criminal. Higher-ups always tried to hide their role or pin atrocities on lower level fall guys. Turse’s book shows how far we are from ever acknowledging the degree of culpability for American criminal conduct.

I suppose for those who dispute Turse’s perspective he could be dismissed as an anti-war partisan. The problem is that Turse relied on records he obtained from a secret Pentagon task force that had been assembled after the My Lai massacre. The army had not wanted to be caught off guard so it had created a War Crimes Working Group that collected hundreds of incident summaries and sworn statements from veterans. Turse discovered the information which had been yellowing in the U.S. National Archives. He also followed up after this discovery, speaking to more than 100 American Vietnam veterans as well as former military war crimes investigators, generals and civilian leaders. Turse writes:

“From them I learned something of what it was like to be twenty years old with few life experiences beyond adolescence in a small town or inner city neighborhood, and to be suddenly thrust into villages of thatch and bamboo homes that seemed ripped straight from the pages of National Geographic, the paddies around them such a vibrant green that they almost burned the eye. Veteran after veteran told me about days of shattering fatigue and the confusion of contradictory orders, about being placed in situations so alien and unnerving that even with their automatic rifles and grenades they felt scared walking through hamlets of unarmed women and children.”

Turse shows that the war was less against the enemy than against the South Vietnamese people. The obsession with body counts, the search and destroy missions, the free fire zones. the B-52 raids, the burning of villages, the use of napalm and white phosphorus, defoliation and Agent Orange, the systematic use of torture, the pacification effort to drive people from their villages – all contributed to turning Vietnam into a depopulated, cratered, and blasted wasteland where millions were traumatized, disabled, and barely surviving.

Turse points to the absolute contempt and racism Americans had for the Vietnamese people. He quotes President Johnson who called Vietnam ” a piddling pissant little country”. Henry Kissinger called North Vietnam ” a little fourth rate power”. Turse shows how a culture of violence and remorseless killing was legitimated by explicit racism. He quoted army veteran Wayne Smith:

“The drill instructors never ever called the Vietnamese, ‘Vietnamese’. They called them dinks, gooks, slopes, slants, rice-eaters, everything that would take away humanity…That they were less than human was clearly the message.”

Turse cites the MGR – ‘the mere gook rule” which held all Vietnamese were little more than animals who could be killed or abused at will. The MGR excused all manner of wanton killing and atrocity. Revenge killings were hardly unusual. Embittered troops would lash out at any Vietnamese to get payback. The dehumanization and mass killing of civilians were a common occurrence. Turse goes into many many detailed examples.

It has been much remarked upon by many Vietnam war commentators that it was almost impossible to identify and separate out the enemy from the civilian population. That no doubt contributed to the difficulty in outlining rules of engagement. Turse describes very unpredictable conduct by American troops. One day they could be handing out candy to the people. The next day they could be burning the same villages.

Turse also persuasively shows how war crimes were covered up by top Washington officials. Their strategy was to drag out investigations for as long as possible, intimidate witnesses, hide evidence, and ultimately bury cases. The media was hardly bathed in glory. With the notable exception of Seymour Hersh’s My Lai expose, not much broke through. Turse outlines how war crimes were largely whitewashed. He does note the Winter Soldier Investigation organized by the Vietnam Veterans Against the War in Detroit in 1971 where Vietnam veterans heroically and courageously spoke about their Vietnam war experience.

I remember the Russell Tribunal organized in 1966 by Bertrand Russell and Jean Paul Sartre. Those proceedings were not mentioned by Turse in his book but they deserve recognition as part of the bearing witness.

Even as a grizzled. somewhat cynical, 60’s survivor I found Turse’s book profoundly disturbing. I am reminded of the famous Kafka quote about how what we must have are books which come upon us like ill-fortune and distress us deeply. Reading this book, it is hard to think we are even willing to look honestly at our own past. Turse’s book is an important contribution to the battle against forgetting and against the politics of impunity.

When I lived in Alaska in 2011, I read about the legislative decision to allow guns in the New Hampshire State House. The supporters of that idea described the Legislature as a target-rich environment. They have said disarming legislators turns the Legislature into a kill zone. One former legislator wrote to the Monitor recently that without guns, legislators were sitting ducks.

The fantasy seems to be that someone in the House gallery will open up on the House floor, shooting down and picking off targeted representatives. If legislators were carrying weapons, they would theoretically be able to shoot back and dispatch any attacker. Or maybe the thinking is that just the fact of carrying a weapon would act as a deterrent for any would-be shooter in the gallery.

As someone who worked in and around the Legislature from the late 1990s to 2010, I have to wonder about the paranoia behind such views. I never felt the area around the State House was unsafe or any kind of danger zone. In Concord, we are not talking violent inner city neighborhood or even scary dark alley. Concord is downright safe.

To the best of my knowledge, in the 200-plus years of the New Hampshire Legislature, there has never been a shooting, stabbing or any act of life-threatening violence directed against any legislator in or nearby the State House or the Legislative Office Building. Civility has been the general rule.

So why the fear of being shot while doing the people’s business as a legislator?

I suspect it is at least partly due to events like Newtown, Conn., and Aurora, Colo. Such events shake faith in the normalcy of institutional life. You never know what might happen, even if a legislator has a greater statistical chance of being struck by lightning than being shot on the job. There is always the infinitesimal chance something could happen.The subject of guns provokes so much passion and so many inflammatory reactions that, unfortunately, historical perspective is lost. The history of guns in America is surprising. However one interprets the Second Amendment to the federal Constitution, history shows that regulation of guns has always gone along with gun rights. Guns have been regulated since the start of our country and the founding fathers balanced gun owners’ rights with public safety needs.

In his writings, including his book Gunfight: The Battle Over the Right to Bear Arms, UCLA constitutional law professor Adam Winkler has stated, “The found

ing fathers instituted gun control laws so intrusive that no self-respecting member of the NRA board of directors would support them.” Winkler showed that laws banning the carrying of concealed weapons were passed in Kentucky and Louisiana in 1813; in Indiana in 1820; in Tennessee and Virginia in 1838; in Alabama in 1839 and in Ohio in 1859.

Winkler describes the old Wild West as not so wild when it came to guns. He says that frontier towns usually barred anyone but law enforcement from carrying guns in public. Typically, in frontier towns, gun owners had to check guns at stables on the outskirts of town or drop them off with the sheriff. In exchange, the gun owner received a metal token so they could retrieve their guns when leaving.

It turns out that the famous shoot out at the O.K. Corral in Tombstone Arizona was about gun control. There was an ordinance in Tombstone prohibiting the carrying of deadly weapons. When Wyatt Earp confronted Tom McLaury, it was because McLaury had violated the town’s law about checking his gun. McLaury had failed to leave his gun at the sheriff’s office.

Winkler also shows how the National Rifle Association, up until the 1970s used to be quite a moderate organization. Founded as a hunting and sporting association in 1871, the NRA supported many gun control measures, including the 1934 National Firearms Act and the 1968 Gun Control Act. It was not until the 1970s that the NRA ever started advancing the argument that the Second Amendment guaranteed an individual right to carry a gun rather than the people’s right to form armed militias to provide for common defense.

I do think the hysterical overreaction to President Obama’s gun control proposals reflects a lack of historical awareness. Whatever one thinks about his executive actions and his proposed legislation, the response that his proposals are tyrannical or that he is acting like a monarch are pure hyperbole. Obama is clearly within his constitutional authority to issue executive orders. As Winkler notes, presidents dating back to George Washington have issued executive orders. Opposition to mandatory background checks, an assault weapons ban, and a high-capacity magazine ban is political. One can argue about how effective the proposals will be but the proposals are almost certainly constitutional.

No constitutional amendment, including the Second, is beyond regulation. That has been well-established. Consider laws that keep guns away from convicted felons and the mentally ill. Obama’s proposals are no different.

All the talk about tyranny and impeachment is sour grapes from people who were unhappy with election results. There is an irrationality seeing modest gun control proposals as some executive branch power grab.

As for the New Hampshire Legislature, guns have no place in the State House, any more than they do in a courtroom. Would anybody seriously think about arming litigants engaged in a courtroom battle? Why is the Legislature any different? People with passionately held views debate and argue. Adding guns to a potentially volatile mix hardly seems wise. Guns add an element of intimidation and bullying.

As a judge, I am thankful for metal detectors and security guards. The New Hampshire Legislature has no metal detector screening, although most state capitols do. Maybe that is something to consider in New Hampshire, although it is a departure. It could help address the apparent insecurity some legislators feel.

I have a hard time with legislators who make a big deal out of possessing guns in the State House, like that is some accomplishment. That is more like grandstanding and macho posturing. It is not doing something for constituents. Legislators should focus on the needs of the people – not guns on their person.

(Jonathan P. Baird of Wilmot is a federal administrative law judge. This column reflects only his views, not those of his employer, the Social Security Administration.)