Hey Everyone. Let me catch you all up. It’s been a busy three weeks and because of it I have a very cool development to share with you.

Though I”ll do a specific post for Erica-America a little later, here is what I did for MTV this week. It was origianlly posted on THINK, along with a short video — and serves as a brief introduction to the time I’ve been spending with a young group of DC based Veterans.

Young Surge in Anti-War Movement

Three Sundays in a row, at 4:00PM, I would pack all my gear, strap the tripod to the pack’s side and summon my inner EricaAmerica to come out and play. Thank karma she did, which made those afternoons of metro rides and shooting the shit with young Iraq Vets not just educational, but also a lot of fun.

This group house, by some measure, is the Real Real World. A place stocked with fruit snacks and beer , testosterone and girls. But in an UnReal World sense, these co-existors were more than just age-similar. They had all served in Iraq or Afghanistan since 9/11 and upon return, joined a fast-expanding group called the Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW). The house, on the Northeast side of DC, is not only their bunker, but the central headquarter for the business of IVAW’s grassroots operations.

I had my first dose of IVAW in action back in March, when I attended the Winter Soldier event. [see my video here] I was taken back by the candid, powerful, testimonies about the U.S.’s occupation in Iraq. I realized as I walked around the confernece exactly what IVAW was doing — reporting the war from the eyes and ears of a very young, elite graduation class. A class that received educations at the University of US Occupies Iraq and are now taking their diplomas to bring attention to what they call a criminal occupation and use of force.

There is a 22-year-old freckled Embassay Guard. A 19-year old college junior. A southern farmer with flow hair and a jewish political theory student. They are unlikely messengers. But they keep coming back with a message.

Over the three Sundays I went to the IVAW Group House, I listened for those messages. I captured three tapes, about five interviews and a whole lot of b-roll. While I kick off the process of importing, editing and producing it, I thought I’d share with you all this little sound bite from former Marine, Adam Kokesh. Kokesh has his own blog and attends Graduate School at George Washington University. In Iraq, Adam served on a Military Affairs team, which, he told me, “means we’re the guys shaking hands and kissing babies.” During the tour he also set up a store front to pay Iraq famliy grievance checks.

“Historically unprecedented,” he said. “We are actually paying people for losses.”

Here is the video…

Last Saturday was great. An afternoon I’ll always remember.

I produced a crumbled credential letter to get past security. I squeezed my pint-sized camera next to Reuter’s monster lens in the press bleachers — and I focused my camera.  Not everyday do you get to cover Hillary Clinton’s concession speech. It was a close, confrontational and critical Primary race — and I would be there to witness the end of it. I remember keeping my cool while thinking, this shit is going to be historic. 

 Originally posted to THINK.MTV.COM

Thanks to everyone who stopped to tell my camera their thoughts.  Definitely post a comment and let me know what you think about Clinton’s campaign, her endorsement of Obama or what her next steps might be.

On April 24th, Helen Thomas wrote in her weekly column, “if history repeats itself, the loser of this year’s presidential election will blame the news media.” [SEE FULL ARTICLE, "The Loser Always Blame the Media"]

With the recent case of Hillary versus Barack, Helen’s assessment was spot on.

Last Saturday I had a unexpected, and even scary, confrontation. I was interviewing demonstrators at the DNC Rules meeting and had spoken to about seven people on camera. All of them supported Senator Clinton and wanted the votes in Michigan and Florida to count.

After the interviews, I was getting b-roll when I saw a guy wearing an Obama sign. I hadn’t talked to any Obama supporters so I thought this would help round my story out. He said he would talk to me, so with that, we moved away from the crowd to a quiet area. And I started to roll the camera.

I didn’t know it, but this exchange, between me, “the media” and him “the Obama fan” would come to sum up the hostility Clinton fans have felt towards the media in this primary season.

Within a minute, Clinton fans spotted me talking to the lone Obama guy and lids started to flip. I was trying to focus on the interview but I couldn’t. Loud, confrontational slurs were being directed at me. I looked over and saw two aggressive Hillary fans only an arm length away from my camera. They started yelling into the lens “This is all your fault! You’re to blame! You and the media!”

To my silent and even confused look, they went on.

“Why are you interviewing this fool?…It’s always like the media to support Obama!”

I could hardly believe it. I mean, me? This is my fault? A million thoughts ran through my head. My heart raced. This was the second time during my MTV tenure as a one-man-band that my safety felt in jeopardy. Never during, but always after, I kind of love it. It really puts me in touch with how people feel.

Within a few seconds, two cordial Clinton supporters came over and walked them away. I turned back around and went on with the interview.

The story came back to me as the North Carolina Street Teamer, Carla Babb, wrote an article about whether or not the media had favored Obama over Clinton.

With that experience fresh in my mind, here’s what I think.

To Helen’s point, the loser (and the campaign supporters) might always blame the media. But as I experienced, the assertion that my work somehow reduced (or on the flip, improved) a candidate’s political standing, while quite complimentary, is not at all true. At least I don’t think it is.

But to the Democrats as a whole — hostility, especially directed at each other, is retro active in securing the November election. It would behoove Senator Clinton to make that known to her supporters. The finger-pointing, not always aimed in the right direction, digresses party unity.

And oh yeah, one more thing. I’m not the mainstream media. I’m a citizen journalist. SNAP.

I’m a magnet to events with young demonstrators huddled by doors of buildings they aren’t allowed in. And over the last five months, some of the most fun I’ve had is when I couldn’t get in. Instead, I’ve needed to immerse myself in the crowd, buck up and start asking some questions.

Afforded no press badge, it’s all I can do - and perhaps, exactly what MTV’s wanted us to do. Reducing us amateur journalists to nothing more than one of the crowd, tests us to meet people we otherwise might not, and spotlight different takes on the issues and election. After all, each voice matters.

This Saturday, about 300 people gathered outside of a DC hotel to protest equal voting rights - most in regard to the MI and FL primaries.  But after interviewing about eight people - I began to think about the bigger picture. What were they all saying? What did they have in common? And here’s what I came up with.

Each person, in some way shape or form, had an experience that left them, a relative or friend, feeling disenfranchised by our voting process. Whether they were turned away for not having the right ID or frustrated by the hanging Chad issue of 2000 - these people were pissed. Well, pissed - but also passionate. From a bright 17-year-old to a 35-year-old D.C. resident without a vote in Congress, each sent me the same message: this voting system is broken and we need to fix it.

Here is my video from the event that day. I hope I fairly represented the many voices I heard and in some way, inspire you to think that hey, this really does matter.

As one soldier told me, “Erica, it’s a fast and furious world.” That it is.

This week’s video draws from footage from the Winter Soldier event last March and brings into the story the shortcomings of the GI Bill, in particular what it offers soldiers for education. As I reported for MTV, three former Presidents, a dozen U.S. Senators and fourteen Nobel Prize winners went to college on the GI Bill. The last time it was updated was back in the 80s, when we were at peace, not war, and soldier were less likely to serve multiple deployments and then choose to move on.

From my work on Veteran issues I’ve heard a lot of talk about why they joined. Some did out of patriotism, and felt, after 9/11 it was their undisputed duty. Others, and perhaps the most common thread I’ve heard, is the cost of education. A shot at a four year university that they otherwise wouldn’t be able to pay for.

I can trace my fascination with GI’s, the cost of education and war, back to Indiana University. For three years, my next door neighbor was ROTC. From our manicured front lawn, I would watch my peers walk in and out of the former Fraternity house. In uniform and up with the sun, they would practice marching orders and do endless push-ups. A part of me felt sorry for them, perhaps not rightfully so, but still — because I wondered if a commitment to our armed forces was their best option to pay for a four-year university.

Not long after those careless afternoons, the war broke out. I remember having profound realizations that several of those students — soldiers — would now be sent to fight a war. And I questioned. Were they recruited – in a bigger picture by the Pentagon – with the knowledge a war was on the brink? And Is college tuition the new draft?

Today, 57 Senators are supporting a large increase to the GI Bill for public university tuition. In a letter I obtained from the Senate, Defense Secretary Robert Gates asked Senator John McCain, who is on the fence, to consider how the bill might hurt retention.

“The Department estimates that serious retention issues could arise if the benefit were expanded beyond the level sufficient to offset average monthly costs for a public four-year institution.”

Here’s my video. Hope you’ll check it out and let me know how Congress should approach GI Rights while we fight two wars and send soldiers on multiple deployments.

Quick Disclaimer: No one is perfect, especially EricaAmerica. I misspelled “Sergeant” at 1:26. Take total responsibility, but am so tired from I am calling it a day and putting the effort into research. I totally need an editor. One man band life is hard. 

Sorry guys, I didn’t actually get to watch this one. Either way, I wanted to post McCain’s May 7th appearance on The Daily Show.

Speaking of McCain, his daughter, the McCainBloggette, is still at the blogging which seems to have taken off. In her March 9th YouTube report, she told more than 75,000 viewers that during a party at her family’s ranch in Sedona, reporters from the Politico brought her mom flowers.

Check out her recent video from a weekend at the family ranch. Is this what Crawford looks like?

And now back to her Dad.

Here is Helen Thomas’ weekly column. Part of me likes it because I’m learning something about history, the other part appreciates it because Helen offers advice about where we - the media, bloggers and journalists -can take the election dialogue to make it more constructive. She ends of the article with seven questions - true to her no BS style- that all of us should be asking right now.

On January 23, 1973, President Nixon made a public statement to the American people. After five years of peace talks, the United States had reached a peace accord with Vietnam. United States Prisoners of War (POW) would be released and, as Nixon announced over a live television broadcast, an internationally supervised ceasefire would soon commence.

By March, U.S. troops had pulled out completely, and men aged 18-26 had one less thing to worry about: the draft.  Not long after, the draft officially ended and the U.S. converted to an All-Volunteer Force (AVF).

vol•un•teer n. (v l  n-tîr ): A person who performs or offers to perform a service voluntarily.

The scenario for enlistment is now much different than when we were at war with Vietnam. Today, millions of men and women voluntarily enlist in the Navy, Marine Corp, Army and Air Force. Many hope to make the military into a career, and thousands see the world with assignments to Air Force bases in Japan and Korea, Naval fleets in the Pacific and Army barracks in Saudi Arabia. But when I mentioned the phrase ‘voluntary military’ to an Army Intelligence Officer and Army Infantryman, my sincerity was met with laughter.
 
“When I was deployed to Iraq, I had about three months left in my eight year military service,” Army Infantryman Camilo Mejia told me.

“Three months. And before being deployed to Iraq, my company commander got everyone together and he said, ‘If you’re about to get out of the military, you’ve been extended until the year 2031.’ 2031…After eight years of service. So I’m not sure you can call that voluntary.”

I paused to consider what he had said. And I wondered, what exactly does it mean when your military contract is extended without your consent?

It means you’ve been stop-lossed.

According to the Department of Defense’s (DOD) online dictionary, stop-loss is described as this:

“to suspend laws relating to promotion, retirement, or separation of any member of the Armed Forces determined essential to the national security of the United States… This authority may be exercised by the President only if Reservists are serving on active duty under Title 10 authorities for Presidential Reserve Call-up, partial mobilization, or full mobilization.”

So in a basic sense, if the President determines that the loss of a soldier, sailor, airman or Marine would compromise the security of the U.S., the contract is extended. Simple as that. According to the Army Times, the Army has been hardest hit, with more than 10,000 members being stop-lossed in recent years.

As the war in Iraq enters its sixth year of occupation, 4,000 American deaths and multiple deployments – experts suggest that stop-loss is a major factor in producing the the highest rate of desertion in the military since 2001, leaving the military strained. But just who is deserting, and how can a volunteer decide to do something so drastic?

Stay tuned for more on GI Resistance and a first hand account of a Marine who joined at age seventeen with incentives of college tuition. Barely two years later, he found himself on a journey of self-discovery and resistance — and, as he told me from a Federal prison, there was no choice but to desert after learning of a second deploment to Iraq.

This is Erica Anderson. Washington, DC. Street Team ’08.

Who said we can’t have fun this Primary season?

During Street Team orientation in January, my colleagues and I had full reign of Viacom’s downtown Manhattan building. On our way to seminars and meals, I’m sure we shared elevators with writers, producers and execs who all thought the same thing. “Who are these kids?” and “WTF are they doing here?”

This week The Daily Show correspondent, Demetri Martin, aired a segment called Trendspotting. In it, he talked about the young vote. Around the 3:30 mark, he busts into a music video with Las Vegas lights flashing “Street Team ‘08″ and breaks into new territory, spoofing MTV’s Street Team with his cast of colleagues.

Here is a link to the Daily Show clip.  

One of my Street Team colleagues made an observation on a about the segment on our internal gchat group thread.”Dude, that writer probably rode with us in the elevator during our orientation.”Dude,” I thought, he’s totally right.

As announced by the George Washington Hatchet, Clinton returned to Washington on Monday to deliver a “major” foreign policy speech. The speech, which involved an audience of a little over 200 people, was more a conversation with donors, as noted by the reserved seating, than for the students who were allowed to straggle in and find the few open spots minutes before her entrance.

Still, the audience at large was hardcore Hillary and hung on every word of her forty-five minute foreign policy speech which followed her common theme of experience. Based on the mosaic of expensive suits, bow ties and military Generals, I took away that this audience was less comparable to a true representation of the American people and more the Washington elites who play with their pocketbooks, especially when campaign season is abreast, like an extracurricular activity.

“The American people don’t have to guess whether I understand the issues, whether I would need a foreign policy instruction manual to guide me through a crisis, or whether I’d have to rely on global advisors to introduce me to global affairs. I’m lucky to have had a pretty good inside view, over the eight years in the White House and now over seven years in the Senate,” she said.

The speech came a day after the Washington Post published an article, The Value of Newness, by David Ignatius, who challenged the idea that experience won’t do much for the rapidly changing landscape of 21^st century global warfare. In the Op Ed columnist’s words, “the intellectual matrix formed by the Soviet threat, and before that by Hitler’s rise in Germany, needs to be reworked. There is a new set of problems and personalities – and if America keeps trotting out the same case of characters and policy papers, we will fail to make sense of where the world is moving.”

Could Ignatius be right?

The timing of Clinton’s speech, and that of Ignatius’s article, came not long after significant caucus returns: the Democrats abroad global primary. The group, made up of expatriates living across the globe, cast absentee ballots from February 5-12 in 33 different countries. The results, which were reported last week, endorsed Senator Barack Obama with an overwhelming majority of 65 percent of the vote to Clinton’s 35 percent.

Will this loss hurt Clinton more than others? If her speech was any indication, she’s not phased. Her candidacy may be fading with eleven straight caucus losses and a dipping approval rating, but none of that is demonstrated by her devotion to the campaign trail and her aspirations of the Presidency.On a closing note, Sen. Clinton spoke in a calm voice to the crowd.

“I will never let America’s good name be disgraced. I will always protect and defend our nation. And I will always advance the tradition and values that have made our country, as President Abraham Lincoln said, “the last, best hope on Earth.””

With the nomination hanging on her performance in Ohio and Texas, it appears Hillary has one last, best hope. A shot at the general election. 

At age 87, Dean of the White House Press Corp, Helen Thomas, is still kicking ass and taking names. Throughout her tenure as a wire reporter for UPI, Thomas helped to break the Kennedy assasination, traveled to China with Nixon, and covered the “Washington side” of Vietnam, Korea, the Israeli-Palestinian conflicts and now Iraq. Today, she writes a column for Hearst News Corporation which comes out every Thursday in the Falls Church News Press. When I asked Helen about her New Years Resolution, she paused and then with a burst of energy said, “Send Bush to the Hague!”

The McCarville Report, an Oklahoma-based blog, put last Tuesday’s DC primary in perspective when he said this: 

“The nation’s capital and its suburbs have a rare opportunity to help decide a presidential election rather than just obsess about it, as next Tuesday’s three-jurisdiction contest centers on Washington and its two neighbors.”

Obsessing? Is that what you call staying up until 3AM following the returns and then regurgitating it to the first person you see at work? Perhaps, but he’s also right about another thing, DC can have an impact. The city is the perfect battle ground for Obama and Clinton because it is as unique as a Democratic demographic comes:  gay, straight, immigrant and southern Baptist, female power and collegiate – topped by some of the biggest pocket books in the country.   

Check out how I spent the day jumping from poll to poll.

In this video, I’ll talk about the upcoming seven Primaries/Caucuses and January fundraising totals. Excited yet? Oh, you will be…Looking back at the CNN Dem Kodak Debate, I consider the ideas of experience and transparency in government — who’s talking about it and who’s not. (And accept my apologies in advance, Clinton indeed won NH but in the moment I had a brain blank.)

Super Tuesday was super indeed, but just as soon as it began, it’s over – and while much of America will breathe a sigh of relief, the season has just begun.

Still neck and neck, Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are running a marathon far more competitive and unprecedented than anything this nation has seen. The unbelievable part is they both have the audacity to hope that each will win enough delegates to win the Democratic Convention in August.

But if you watched the Super Tuesday returns, you know it’s still a close race. And when it’s close, it means there’s little time to rest. As reported by the Washington Post, Clinton and Obama have already set out on the next crucial Primary competitions, in DC, Virginia and Maryland.

Next Tuesday, voters from the District of Columbia, the humble abode to the next President of the Unites States, or POTUS as we like to say, will decide where to spend their 38 delegates. My prediction? Too close to call.

Last July, DC Mayor Adrian Fenty (D), endorsed Barack Obama. According to Mayor Fenty, the endorsement had much to do with Obama’s potential to engage people least involved in the political process, and in the case of DC, the 600,000, including myself, without a vote in Congress – are exactly who he’s talking about.

In a prepared statement, Fenty had this to say:

“Senator Obama has committed to empower those who have been locked out of our political process for far too long, and his commitment to helping Washington obtain full representation in Congress is particularly important to our residents.”

You bet it is, Fenty. Nothing says I don’t matter like leaving a right to vote at the DMV when I decided it was time to get a DC license.