This is a link for my Dec. 21, 2020 story:
In 1982, the Mason Mental Health Center was one of the first programs to receive a grant from the Veterans Administration to operate a program to treat Vietnam veterans suffering from delayed post traumatic stress disorder. In fact, I believe we were one of only two community mental health centers to receive such a grant. Eventually the VA itself opened outreach programs themselves all over the country, and programs like ours were phased out.
Our program began in November of 1981 without any involvement with the VA. Not a veteran myself, I had been working with a few Vietnam combat veterans in therapy. They were involved in a Vietnam veterans' organization and were contacted by the local PBS television station, WKAR in East Lansing, MI, to put together a group to take phone calls at the station after they aired a special on post Vietnam stress syndrome.
They suggested that I be one of the resource people available, not to take calls, but to assist those vets who were. The phone calls began to pour in after the program and I decided on the spot to offer a group at Mason Mental Health for any vets who wanted to attend. A few nights later 25 showed up for the first of many vets groups, and spin-off groups for spouses of vets.
That was how we did business in those days. If we saw a need, we tried to met it. We weren't volunteers, one of "the thousand points of light." We were paid for what we did, but we did it because it needed to be done. The real heroes of the Vietnam veterans programs were the clients themselves. They hung together and helped each other through touch times as they dealt with inner demons.
One man in particular went on to be appointed to the Governor's Agent Orange Commission where he distinguished himself, until he succumbed to a cancer that was probably caused by agent orange. I am certain he would give me permission to publish his name as he made no secret of having been part of the Mason Mental Health program as a client. I still have to maintain his confidentiality, but those who read this will know who he is.
I would have liked to keep the program independent from the VA, but I knew that I needed to hire a Vietnam veteran who was also a professional psychotherapist, and there weren't many of them around. So when VA funds became available I wrote the grant and we were able to hire the first of several dedicated therapists.
Unfortunately, the VA took over much of the control of the program and while it continued almost until Mason Mental Health closed, our relationship with the VA was never very good. They insisted on approving clients before we saw them, even for first time emergency sessions that we were willing to do for free. We had to attend regular meetings at a VA center 60 miles away, and our therapists ended up having two supervisors. One hated bureaucracies and the other seemed to thrive in one of the biggest bureaucracies in the government. One knew his therapists could empathize with Vietnam veterans far better than he could and the other... well, I'm sure you get the idea.
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From The New York Times Editorial Board, an editorial with an illustration that says it all.
Excerpt: Meanwhile, Republicans in Congress compound their shame daily, either by standing by in silence or by working actively with the White House and conservative media to help expose the identity of an F.B.I. informant. Was it just a year ago that these same people professed outrage at the supposed “unmasking” of American citizens caught up in duly-authorized surveillance?
This self-interested assault is doing incalculable damage to the integrity of American law enforcement. It’s up to those people who have devoted their lives to the nation and to the rule of law, like Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and the F.B.I. director, Christopher Wray — both Republicans and Trump appointees, don’t forget — to stand up to the president and defend these institutions.
One doesn’t have to agree with the particulars of every investigation to see the fundamental difference here: The members of our law enforcement and intelligence communities are trying to protect the country. Donald Trump and his supporters are simply trying to protect Donald Trump.
‘You can’t overstate how critical it is that people who have information trust us to protect them,’ said a federal prosecutor, adding that Trump is working to break that trust. Daily Beast
Excerpt:
President Donald Trump’s latest round of attacks on the FBI has left morale at the Justice Department at a new low, with officials bemoaning what they view as a full-frontal assault on their institution.
“It’s a deliberate campaign to delegitimize institutions where the people who are inside those institutions are professionals and giving up lots of money for the jobs that they’re doing and it’s extremely demoralizing,” said one current federal prosecutor.
“As my father used to say, history goes forward and backward. And things go backward when the trust in bedrock institutions—which are trustworthy, by the way—is diminished for the benefit of a few. It accelerates, and you wake up one day and we’re in Venezuela.”
EXCERT: We studied qualities that were likely to attract voters despite the candidates’ overblown self-importance, excessively high self-esteem, and reluctance to accept criticism. Not surprisingly, the more narcissistic the candidate, the less likely they were to earn someone’s vote, and the less charismatic they seem. What else, then, convinced voters to pick “the lesser of two evils?”
The answer is charisma and values. Many qualities that make a leader narcissistic are the same that make them an appealing charismatic leader: showing confidence and power, taking risks, and putting one’s self at the center of attention.
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Here’s how it works. When a voter sees a candidate as charismatic, they attribute to that person super-human qualities, and the effect is even greater when the candidate touts his or her own horn. For example, a charismatic leader who inspires those they seek to lead with a utopian vision of the future, may sprinkle in a bit of narcissism to convince followers that “I am the person that will take you to the promised land.” Preferences for candidates form based on these messages. Trump’s famous oration style and liberal use of rhetoric, symbolism, and metaphors likely influenced his highly charismatic rating by our sample. In contrast, Clinton was less inspiring, not rated as charismatic (statistically speaking).
When selecting leaders, people place greater weight on positive aspects of having a charismatic leader than the potential negatives of that leader’s narcissism. Charisma is the counter-balance medicine for narcissism. Voters are willing to discount a leader’s entitlement and self-serving agenda so long as that leader’s charisma can help them deliver on their vision.
The extent voters’ values align with the values of the candidates also figures into leader selection. When voters in our sample shared what they believed were Trump’s values, and they saw him as a charismatic leader, they were even more likely to vote for him.
What does all this mean? Our study shows that when voters have a choice, they will vote for a charismatic narcissist over a narcissist who lacks charisma. Further, when voters believe that a charismatic narcissist shares their values, this may allow voters to more fully embrace the candidate.
Monday, May, 21, 2018
This has all the makings of a big week as Trump escalates his war against Mueller demanding a investigation about spies being planted in his campaign for political espionage. The DOJ may have thwarted him by simply order initiating an internal inquiry knowing full well that there's no there there to uncover.
