Posts from — April 2008

Here she goes again. Obama makes a thoughtful, perhaps politically inexpedient remark about how the right has been propagandizing working people into “values” voting - an articulate depiction and refreshing to hear (and similar to an argument made by Bill Clinton made during his first run, ironically.) Then the multi-millionaire Hillary turns this on its head, calling Obama a patronizing elitist.

If you haven’t seen Obama’s speech, here’s the part that’s under attack:

Pretty honest stuff. But Hillary twists these important words to score cheap political points, saying that we “don’t need a president who looks down” on workers, who “need a president who stands up for them, who fights for them, who works hard for your futures, your jobs, your families.”

Crikey. This is playground politics of the worst kind. And then to top it off here comes Hillary the sharpshooter, killing every duck in her sights. I bet she’d be great to have a beer with, too. And we know the importance of that criteria when judging presidential candidates.

I do hope the good folks of Pennsylvania recognize the desperation out of the Hillary campaign and put us all out of our misery on April 22 .

I hate to fly, so these news reports about faulty wiring and grounded planes scare the crap out of me. On one hand I’m relieved to know that the FAA is waking up from an eight year snooze and forcing airlines to address the problem. On the other hand, what the hell have they been doing all this time?

According the NY Times, “Congress’s stance toward the industry has shifted from benevolence after the terrorist attacks…to a more combative approach.” Turns out the FAA has been giving the airline industry a free ride in deference to lost profits after 9/11.

This points to a fundamental argument about the function of government in our society. Should government “back off” and trust businesses to self-regulate? Or should government soften the edges of the profit drive, making sure that planes don’t fall out of the sky?

There’s a natural antagonism between businesses and consumers, just like the natural antagonism between workers and bosses. The airlines want to make money. I want to survive my flight. I can’t go out and inspect every plane before I put my seatback in an upright position, but the FCC can. That’s the power of government when it’s organized to serve the public good (don’t those airline execs travel their own planes now and then? Talk about willful self-deception in the face of profits.)

Here’s the bottom line: We’ve had a generation of deregulation, starting with the conservative ascension under Reagan in 1980 who declared that “the era of big government is over.” That really meant the end of the New Deal which - along with the once-mighty power of organized labor - had created the greatest distribution of middle class wealth in American history, if not world history. Wasn’t perfect, a lot of people were still left out, but we were on our way.

So take a look around at our crumbling infrastructure, at the healthcare debacle, at the mortgage crises, at energy costs, at the middle class squeeze and the expanding working poor, at the massive economic growth of the top income earners, at media oligopoly, at the revolving door between industry and regulatory organizations at the FDA, at the FCC, etc. etc. and ask yourself: Are we really better off with deregulation?

So back to the airlines: They’re fixing the wiring problem, finally. Makes you wonder what other regulations are being ignored. Think about that self-regulating free market the next time you step onto an elevator. Going down?

We all know about our lousy health care system. But when you actually tangle with it firsthand and try to guide someone you care about through the madness, it’s like a nightmare that turns real.

Let me tell you, there is nothing more frustrating and – I’ll admit it – frightening than watching a parent’s chances reduced to what their insurance will or (more often) won’t cover. You’re standing in a hospital as if you’re talking about a car transmission but it’s your father that’s sitting there in a daze. And it comes down to is this: If he can pay, he can live. If he can’t, he may not.

We’ve assigned our very existence a dollar value.

This is totally nuts. After all, OUR government ought to take care of OUR needs. But take a look at recent American history objectively and you’d think that our government’s main purpose is to simply fight more effective and aggressive wars. We’ve forgotten that government exists because theoretically, a centralized authority representing the will of the majority is supposed to address our needs better than might be possible for us as individuals. But 25 years of conservative government - topped off with a $3 trillion war - has brought us to the edge of financial ruin. We can’t take care of people who need help because - as Vonnegut used to say - we’re too damned cheap. Or maybe it’s that we’ve handed over our democracy to a minority corporate power whose interests are not aligned with just about everyone else.

Meantime, you have to hold your breath as you drive over another rusted, tumbledown overpass or past another dying city, while we can’t even provide life-saving care when it’s needed most. Something is very, very wrong here.

So where’s the mass outrage? There ought to be marching in the streets by now. Maybe the general indifference can be blamed on the corporate media, which redirects justified anger towards paper tigers, like “communists” or “liberals” or “the clash of civilizations.” At the same time we soak our brains in hours of commercial entertainment which has one sole aim: To get us to fill our homes with more stuff, to think about our next car or ‘gotta have it’ gadget, as if things will give meaning and provide contentment to our lives. They never do. But we keep falling for it, time after time. It’s easy to forget that life is for living, not just an opportunity to go shopping.

The bottom line is that it’s not “other people” who need affordable, comprehensive health care. It’s everyone: Our parents, our kids, our best friends. Someday, inevitably, it’ll be you and me.

This is a site about progressive change. So I’ll end this post on a positive note: Maybe it’s time to “unplug and de-program” ourselves; turn off the media manipulations and re-focus on the things that matter. And convince your neighbor to do the same thing.

Resources

There are many organizations working to address our sick health care situation. Here are a few:

• HealthCare Now
• Guaranteed Healthcare (check the petition for “CheneyCare”)
• Nine-Nine-Oh-Nine: Healthcare for ALL by 9/9/09

OK, that title is pure creative license. And it’s still April Fools, according to my clock anyway. But when I saw the real USA Today headline: “At Hearing, Big Oil Says its Profits Aren’t Extreme” I couldn’t help myself. I mean, if you had a blog, what would you write? Just give this a read:

Sure, $123 billion is chump change. I’m out there gasping for air whenever I fill my minivan, but what’s a few hundred billion among friends?

So then what do you think about $464 billion? That’s the profits of the top five oil companies in the United States since Bush entered the White House. You can’t make this stuff up.

But wait, there’s more! What about those tax subsidies set up for these “struggling” companies? At least in this arena there’s some decent news since Congress is trying to kill these tax breaks once and for all (you can send a friendly note to your representative via Public Citizen here).

So let’s summarize: $3 trillion for a war (that had nothing - wink wink - to do with oil), $billions of tax breaks, and a national energy policy hand-written by the Oil Industry itself. Woops, there’s also that little planetary emergency we’re facing.

I don’t envision any president as a superhero to swoop in and save the planet from the evil-doers. But honestly, when it comes to energy policy, I’ll take Dick Nixon over the criminal regime we’ve had for the last eight years.