We love our Veterans “really”.

We love our Veterans “really”.

This Memorial Day as a twenty-year Air Force service veteran I was sitting down missing my Vietnam-era Army veteran brother, Jerry Posey. He died in December 2020 after a long series of injuries attributed to being shot in the Back in Vietnam. He barely survived the war but eventually was overcome by its consequences.

I just want everybody to know that even though your country talks a good talk about how they support Veterans, there is a downside few want to talk about.

After all the ceremonies and hoopla thanking veterans for their service, today sit down and write your public officials, President, Congressional people, etc,  about the following issues on behalf of all veterans:

• Unwilling to inform and accommodate key family members at critical points in the illness
• Lack of communication and individualized treatment plans to share with all involved in treatment efforts
• Uncoordinated treatment access and integrated processes and procedures
• Third-rate treatment facilities at many stages. Some animal shelters might be rated better.
• Enabling additive and harmful pharmaceutical treatment regimens and drug therapy
• Bureaucratic delays and obstruction to timely treatment resources and information
• No sense of service oversite or evaluation of the performance of staff and program outcomes in all program areas.
• No holistic approach to psychological /physiological patterns of behavior of patient as seen by family or recommended and presented by various providers.
• Failure of outcomes not adequately addressed.
• Lack of support for external family members in recovery and healing processes.
• Lack of professional social workers and behavioral professionals necessary to address ongoing and advancing illness.
• No end-of-life counseling or planning for anticipated death consequences.
• No method to provide levels of transparency to families
• A general alienation of family and support groups. Sometimes using intimidation tactics to avoid interventions.
• Financial care resources/benefits are not adequate to provide end-of-life care commiserate with commercial market prices and services. The veteran must be declared indigent to be qualified for inpatient services.
• Oh I forgot, black veterans face persistent ongoing racism into the grave!!!!!!!!

 Yeah, we love our veterans.

NOT THIS TIME JOANN

I knew at some point, I had to address my opposition to JoAnn Hardesty’s reelection for Portland City Commissioner. Since we have only a few days before the May election I had to let our community know my thoughts. Most do not know I served as a fundraising Co-Chair for her last campaign. Let me say at the outset I do not know her opponents well, but my God, they couldn’t be any worse than JoAnn. You would have to be blind not to recognize that all of the City Commissioners are on the hot seat given Portland’s deplorable condition right now.

Besides the obvious, there are several reasons why she shouldn’t be re-elected and they are as follows:

1. She is a stone-cold bully and drama queen and most people know it. Most of us who have personally been in meetings and public conversations with her have to acknowledge these faltering traits. It’s her way or the highway and not to dare promote an opposing point of view. This was in full display in October of 2019 when she bullied her way into the nominating committee chair to elect and install E.D. Mondaine as the President of the Portland Branch of the NAACP following her election to City Council. She was warned that E.D. was a freak and she ignored the facts and proceeded to promote and leverage him throughout government and with other influential people and organizations.

2. She is ruthless and vindictive. What I originally thought was courage, turns out to be the insistence on being right and in control at all costs. If you oppose her you can be guaranteed to be blackballed and ostracized to the margins. If it doesn’t fit into her worldview, it doesn’t exist. If that wasn’t bad enough, she is genuinely toxic, polarizing, and disruptive.

3. She is willing to shave moral principles to get what she wants regardless of who is harmed in the process. She had to know that suing the City and the police union regarding the union’s false report would only inflame the already impaired and degraded relationship with the Portland police. We are all less safe, particularly black males as a result of JoAnn’s unbalance assault on law and order. Stevie Wonder can see how this City is consumed with lawless behavior across-the-board. Her willingness to skirt moral imperatives also showed up in her administration of NAACP business when she was President of that organization. These are items her endorsers would not have a clue about.

4. She has an enormous big head. You have to notice that she is willing to take credit for anything successful she is vaguely associated with. She is always clambering to be in the media and promote her agenda, excluding or minimizing the work of the other commissioners. One would think the City of Portland was her private property and she had some unilateral power to control decisions. In other words, she is a power control freak. She does things like exaggerating her military service. You would think that she commanded a battleship in the Navy when it is clear she was only a low-level secretary type, barely separating with an honorable discharge if that.

5. She has some personal life skill control issues well documented in the media. If you can’t manage personal business issues, how can you be expected to manage the City’s business? We can’t afford another four years of her insane drama. Character Matters. While she tries to associate herself with Avel Gordly, in truth she is the polar opposite.

6. We have to take another critical look at her previous background and positions of influence; the NAACP, ACTION, former State Legislator, and private business experience. There are dysfunctional patterns on display and the broader media needs to tell the full story, especially WW.

I won’t criticize her for being poorly educated because of the racist history of the miseducation of black people in America.  And we know the supposedly highly educated are making fools of themselves too. Nevertheless, I find myself struggling to oppose a black woman in a most prominent position, but the truth is the truth and she must go for the sake of the entire community.