My last article showed the relationship between Bush family associate Texan B.G. Burkett who recruited the Swift boat Veterans for Bush during the 2004 election and Burkett’s attacks on PTSD in the partisan book he wrote Stolen Valor. He passes Stolen Valor off as a formula for exposing fake Veterans, which is something that Burkett and his followers do with selective political partisan glee. Frankly folks exposing fake Veterans if that is what turns you on is something any of us can do and do so in a non-partisan manner, if we wish to be Fascists, invade people’s privacy and potentially break laws, and their protections under Bill of Rights to do so.
However, Stolen Valor has gone beyond the bounds of decency when Burkett passes himself off as a Psychiatrist to make recommendations that affect Vietnam Veterans who genuinely diagnosed by qualified physicians. What is worse is when physicians start to listen to this right wing political lunatic. When physicians let their political views get in the way of their “professional responsibilities” to their patients and start listening to the partisan rhetoric of B.G. Burkett and his followers, because it fits in with some particular Psychiatrist’s or Psychologist’s “political view of the world” their Hippocratic Oath goes out the window to become just another Hypocritic Oath. http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=9214
Take note my fellow Veterans that there are physicians who supported staying the course in Vietnam regardless how many names ended up on the Vietnam Memorial wall and today support President Bush’s policies in Iraq and the Middle East regardless how many names go on that memorial have no illusions about their humanity. More so today than Vietnam, one only has to do a random search of Open Secret campaign contribution website to see how much money comes from the medical profession to the Republican Party to confirm what I say is true. How many times do you think a doctor now hangs the Hippocratic Oath on their office wall today? http://www.opensecrets.org/lobbyists/indusclient.asp?code=H01&year=2000
For those of us not physicians the Hippocratic Oath handed down from the Greek physician Hippocrates. His name nobly graces the Hippocratic Oath that, among other things, obliges doctors to “do no harm” and to place the patient’s welfare before their own. As pointed out in the article above, do a Google search and you will find that the term Hypocritic Oath appears more than numerous times to define what physicians stand for when they start putting politics, greed, and monetary gain ahead of their patients.
Maybe it is time for Veterans to take a very close look at just how much money those taking the Hypocritic Oath have contributed to which political candidates so we know exactly where their obligations lay to their patients, a political party, or the almighty dollar.
Steve Buyers Top Campaign Contributors for the 2006 election at $24,200 are Health Professionals, followed at $22,500 by Pharmaceuticals/Health Products, $9.500 from Health Services/HMOs, $8,000 from Hospitals/Nursing Homes, and $7,000 from big Tobacco to ensure we stay addicted and sick. All these who have taken the Hypocritic Oath who want to see the VA Medical Care System destroyed and dismantled to get at the patient base for profits to be made. IT IS CALLED OUT SOURCING AND NO BODY DOES IT BETTER THAN NEO-CONS. Who in their right mind really believe Iraq Jag Lawyer Vet Steve Buyer the Poster Boy Iraq Neo-Con Vet gives a Rat's Ass about Veterans with PTSD or anyother ailments given the facts of who he accepts money from. He is just as much a HYPOCRITE as they are. http://www.opensecrets.org/races/indus.asp?ID=IN04&cycle=2006&special=N
In comparison who does Veterans with PTSD and other ailments have standing up FOR THEM and to save what is left of the VA Health Car system from Steve Buyer and the Doctor Davorkians who support him standing by reading to take a scaple to the VA.
A real Veterans-Veteran Richard Mills Cornstuble who does not have the support of any of these with a Malpractice Lawsuit waiting to happen. Brother Cornstable has honorably managed to raise $10,645 bucks to go against this tool of every lobbyist and interest group under the sun and moon Buyer. That is only a fraction of what Bought and Paid For by the Lobbyist, Steve Buyer got from Health Professionals alone.
If you are an Amercan Veteran, and you support Congressman Steve Buyer for Congress SHAME ON YOU for leaving your brothers and sisters behind not only on the battlefield but for being a part of dismantling the Department of Veterans Affairs. May your soul rot in Hell. Better yet may YOU and your family one day fine yourselves in the unfortunate situation of wanting access to the VA you obvously don't feel you need now.
Why am I so passionately fired up against the medical community, because they now have joined in the attack on Veterans? Because they are part of the threat to us my brothers and sisters, and WE better take that more serious than the leadership of our VSOs do.
My good friend and fellow Veterans Activists Jay Shaft sent me this series of articles from his independent media network Coalition for Free Thought in Media ©It is a three part series called, “Blaming the Veteran: The Politics of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder”
Commander Jeff Humber, USN-Retired, D.E. Ford, M.S.W, and I.L. Meager have done and OUTSTANDING job in showing how PTSD became part of the American vocabulary after the Vietnam War as its affects on veterans became widely publicized.
They note now, a new generation of American veterans are again victims of PTSD. This series explores the impact of politics on the funding, diagnosis and treatment of veterans suffering from PTSD.
It examines the propaganda used to justify a reduction in benefits to veterans with PTSD and the effort to redirect blame for the ravages of war to the soldiers themselves.
Part I: Stacking the Deck - With trillion dollar estimates for the Iraq war, the Bush Administration looks to cut costs, eyeing treatment for the returning PTSD wounded veterans.
Part II: Ration & Redefine - Redefining PTSD and substance abuse as moral/spiritual failings opens the door to cheaper unregulated, unlicensed faith-based "treatments”.
Part III: Malign & Slime – Use of Propaganda to stigmatize veterans seeking help, reduce benefits to veterans with PTSD and blame the soldiers for their own illness.
http://www.epluribusmedia.org/features/20060206PTSD_intro.html
(BOTH PART II AND III THOUGH NOT MENTIONED BY THE AUTHORS HAVE ROOTS IN B.G. BURKETT’S “STOLEN VALOR” ATTACKS ON PTSD AND GAVE THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION THE FORUMLA REQUIRED TO DISMANTLE NEAR 30 YEARS OF RESEARCH INTO THE TREATMENT OF PTSD – INDY THINKER).
The LINKS above cover the OUTSTANDING series which is long but well worth the read.
Until next time when hope I simmer down,
Bobby "Indy Thinker" Hanafin
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