A More Decent Society

Reform would make us a more decent society, but also a less vibrant one. It would ease the anxiety of millions at the cost of future growth. It would heal a wound in the social fabric while piling another expensive and untouchable promise on top of the many such promises we’ve already made. America would be a less youthful, ragged and unforgiving nation, and a more middle-aged, civilized and sedate one. – David Brooks; NY Times

I never thought I would see the day when I would agree with David Brooks, the syndicated Conservative columnist from the New York Times. But when you’re right, you’re right. This health care debate is about the values we hold as a nation and those things we think are important. However, after that point our views are markedly different. You see Mr. Brooks believes that wealth should only flow upwards from the middle and lower classes to the wealthy. He believes that by taxing the wealthy we stifle future growth and make ourselves a less vibrant nation. I would be curious as to how he would explain the Bush tax-breaks for the wealthy and how removing the regulations from Wall Street made us a more vibrant nation?

You see what Mr. Brooks fails to divulge is that giving money to rich people has never stimulated anything except profits made from capital manipulation and not the profits made from manufacturing anything. The goal of the wealthy is not to spend money but to hoard money; this is how you get to be wealthy by not spending your own money. His premise that if we continue to funnel money upward that this will insure the future growth of this nation is false and has historically been proven to be false. What has stimulated growth in our nation’s history have been those expensive promises that he and so many other compassionate Conservatives have been opposed to from their inception. It was not the robber-barons that made us a vibrant society; on the contrary it was those programs put in place that created the middle-class. If Mr. Brooks and his cronies had their way we would have two classes: the very wealthy and the rest of us.

But beyond the economic benefits of these “promises” there is also the moral imperative of a society to provide basic services to all of their people. Just once I would like to completely shut down this evil government for one week. For an entire week the government stops providing all the services it now provides and then see how these anti-government wing-nuts would respond. My guess is they would do rather well considering the have the funds to replace government services, but what about all of those folks without a pot to piss in or a window to throw out who turn out for these anti-government rallies? I remember during the Presidential campaign at McCain rallies when he would say Obama wants to raise taxes on those people earning over 250,000 dollars a year and there would be boos and then they would pan the audience and no one at the rally appeared to make over 50,000 a year and it was amazing to me to see their responses to policies that would benefit them.

Another thing that troubles me about the column is its inherent divisiveness. Mr. Brooks is attempting to appeal to the young to choose greed over compassion. As if money and the acquisition of stuff is all that defines a nation and a person and this conversation has come to dominate the health care debate in our country. What’s in it for me is the new mantra of our society. There was a time not long ago when sacrifices for our country was more than a bumper sticker; when having compassion on your fellow citizen’s did not have to be justified by a bottom line. It’s funny whenever we discuss helping the least of us we become suddenly fiscal hawks, but where were these fiscal hawks when Mr. Bush was funding two wars and giving tax-breaks to the richest among us? Why weren’t these expenditures scrutinized to the level that health reform has been?

The bottom line is that our systems are failing not just the least of us, but all of us and until we come to that conclusion jointly as people it will continue to do so. This debate isn’t really about right or left, rich or poor it is about what is best for us as nation. We have seen firsthand what the politics of greed has wrought us. Every twenty years we are brought to the brink of self destruction by a financial industry that puts profits not only before people but also our nation. But why should we believe our eyes when we can take the word of shrills like Mr. Brooks and believe beyond reality that the rich folks will take care of the rest of us once they get enough money. The only problem with that theory is that they will never get enough money and so it goes.

Wisdom: to live in the present, plan for the future, and profit from the past – Unknown
The Disputed Truth

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The Forgotten

From the outset of the healthcare debate I have been amazed and deeply troubled by the tone of the debate. I was not troubled by the tea-baggers and town hall crazies; they can be explained by the history of our country’s corporate takeover of any serious debate concerning changing the status quo. I wasn’t even troubled by the Republican’s complete abdication of their responsibility to this country’s future by deciding that short-term political expediency trumps long-term engagement in the political process. No, the thing that has troubled me the most is how this healthcare reform debate has focused not on those who have needed it most (the uninsured) but on those who currently have healthcare. Somewhere a political calculation was made that the best way to pass reform was to downplay the moral imperative of having at least 46 million uninsured and thousands dying every year from lack of healthcare.

I wonder what does it say about a country when you have to frame an issue like this in what’s in it for me? Have we become so selfish and insensitive that we have lost the capacity to care for our fellow citizens who happen to be not as fortunate as we are unless there is something in it for us? Granted with the current economic downturn we all could use some relief and it is only human nature to seek out our own self-interest, but this latest trend of everybody for themselves is a little disheartening. It appears that the only folks who have been the recipients of charitable giving are the ones who least need it, i.e. bankers, CEO’s, etc.

Not since the death of Senator Ted Kennedy has anyone in politics spoken of our moral obligation to one another to give everyone in this country healthcare. It is amazing to me how the Republicans and health insurance companies have frightened the Democrats into abandoning the argument that people are dying every day from a lack of healthcare coverage and not only that but people’s long-term health is being seriously affected by their lack of access today. Rather than treat a cough today we prefer the current system that waits until it becomes pneumonia before providing the highest cost and least effective treatment available. I don’t understand how anyone can get traction from the argument of screw your neighbors because it is going to limit or ration your care. Would this argument be persuasive if we were stranded somewhere and had to rely on each other’s provisions or would we setup “death panels” to decide who was worthy of compassion and who was not? This argument that there is only so much healthcare to go around and that if you share it you will lose what you have goes to the heart of something dark and sinister in the human soul.

With the historic passage of the healthcare bill by the Congress it is still surprising that to me that we have not had a national outpouring for the right of all Americans to have healthcare. When it comes time to transfer wealth from the bottom up we never see commercials talking about how the corporate welfare system is running our “way of life”, but whenever we speak about transferring some of that wealth down to be shared by all Americans we have commercials and rallies comparing having compassion to communism. So let’s be clear, all of the other industrialized nations in the world who provide healthcare for their citizens are communist? The sad part is that the majority of Americans don’t even know what a communist is and so it’s this red herring used anytime anyone threatens the status quo. We must decide as a nation if access to healthcare is a privilege for just the wealthy or a right for all Americans. This I think is the fundamental question that this debate has failed to ask or to answer and as long as we have not answered that question then we continue to address peripheral issues and not the fundamental question of if it is a right then what is the most efficient and cost effective way to do it.

It is unfortunate that the majority of those 46 or so million of uninsured do not vote, so they are the forgotten or the invisible. Who speaks for those who have no voice? We have ads now asking folks to adopt animals like we use to have for adopting children, but there are no ads depicting the carnage of watching poor folks die of curable and common illnesses because they could not afford proper decent healthcare. Who comes up with this stuff? There has to be some mastermind behind this, I cannot believe that we have become this hardhearted on our own. We are willing to speak up for defenseless animals, but defenseless humans they’re on their own.

Real charity doesn't care if it's tax-deductible or not. - Dan Bennett
The Disputed Truth

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President Obama’s Agenda

It is amazing to me how the Republicans and all of their right-wing friends are trying to minimize the total repudiation they and their policies received at the hands of the electorate. According to these “objective” viewers there was no political realignment. The fact that Obama carried states that hadn’t been carried by a Democrat in years and put into play states that had been lost to Democrats for a generation does not mean that there was a redrawing of the electoral map according to these illustrious men. Their goal is simple to try and keep President Obama and the Democrats from enacting any sweeping legislation, instead hoping that they stay small and do little if anything. My guess is that they hope by trying these scare tactics and keeping the Dems thinking small that in four years if they accomplish little or nothing the Republicans can highlight how a majority Party did nothing to help the voters that elected them.

The Republicans contempt for the intelligence of the American people is infinite. It was only a few years ago that a man who garnered 271 and 286 electoral college votes in two successive elections had a mandate to suspend Habeas Corpus rights, expand government with giveaways to his cronies, and privatize Social Security with their blessings. So I guess based on their logic you only have a mandate and realignment if it meets their criteria and supports their agenda. This talk is why they are becoming more and more irrelevant. I am all for enlisting the support of all Americans for the monumental tasks that we face, but you don’t just get your butt kicked and then try to drive the car; you are lucky to be in the car! What these clowns refuse to see is the same reason they have lost touch with the majority of the American voters and lost the election. When it comes to the major issues facing the American public, they’ve got nothing. This is not the country they thought it was and they can’t accept it.

If I were advising President Obama and the Dems I would advise them to go big and go fast. Strike the iron while it is hot. I would begin with a stimulus package for the poor and the middle-class. I would force the banks to use the bail-out money for what it was designed for to make loans, not to buy other banks. I would then resubmit the SChips healthcare program for children. I would propose funds for states and local governments to ride through this economic crisis and to begin to do the badly needed infrastructure repair. I would look to pass the union registration legislation. I would begin to realign our armed forces to reflect the true nature of the dangers we face. I would invite the UN back into Iraq and give them some real authority to help and stabilize that government. I would then send my diplomats to embark on a worldwide tour to reassure the world that we do respect the world and want to be a part of it again. I would state unequivocally that the United States does not condone torture against anyone. I would enact a 10 year energy plan to make us completely oil free by 2019. I would reinstate and expand the Pell Grant program to help families pay for college for those who are willing and qualified to go. After consultations, I would develop a program to provide healthcare for the millions of Americans who currently don’t have it.

I know that this is a lot to chew on, but we have to remember what George W. and his greedy assed friends have left us with. We must mitigate the vastness of this Depression that we are facing, not wait until we are in the middle of it but while we can make a difference. I also understand that this still leaves plenty of other badly needed things unaddressed, but that was only the first day. We must not allow the naysayers and the small minded to diminish the scope of the critical programs that we need. Of course there will be shouts from the Right about the deficit and big spending liberals, but we must remember we have tried it their way and it didn’t work. A temporary allowance of deficit spending in the middle of a “recession” is not abnormal. Of course they would want us to do nothing because they will be able to ride out the storm and they could use the pain of those who would truly be suffering to rise back to power.

We also have to remember that this generation cannot sustain suffering. If this were a couple of generations ago we would just roll-up our sleeves and get it done, however this generation has not known suffering and hardship and frankly I don’t think they could handle it. They will require more support and coddling than their grandparents. So, there is much to be done and doing it piecemeal is not going to do it. We must strike hard, strike large, and strike fast…

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