Like Dick Nixon after his vacations, Obama returns to the White House “tanned, rested and ready.” Good for him. But nine months into the Obama presidency, many are asking, what about health care? What about the war? What about torture and warrantless wiretapping? What about the stranglehold of Wall Street on the real economy, and the unpayable debts of tens of millions of families? Why does the White House seem to value Glenn Beck's opinions more than those of its own Democratic base? What happened to the candidate whose presidency was supposed to be the fulfillment of Dr. King's Dream?
Distracting, Dissembling, Disappointing. Barack is Back!
By BAR managing editor Bruce A. Dixon
Distracting: If Joe Wilson Didn't Exist, The White House Would Have Needed To Invent Him
In the week since the president's much ballyhooed speech on health care, most of the air and ink, both in corporate media and most tellingly, among so-called progressives hasn't been on what the president did or didn't say. It's been on the member of Congress who interrupted the president, calling him a liar.
South Carolina's Joe Wilson is an unrepentant racist creep, no doubt about itt. But first, a member of Congress calling the president a liar should be pretty much par for the course. If either prolonged proximity to prevaricators teaches one anything, or if it takes one to know one, a member of congress should be pretty much an expert on liars, right? It also means the accuser could be lying too.
Secondly and more important, it should not be an offense against law or courtesy to call any president a liar, any time. It's not like the Oval Office teleprompters have never been sullied by the well-suited bearers of false witness. Absolutely nobody can say that U.S. presidents don't lie. So-called progressives who joined the corporate media's week-long orgy of outrage over Joe Wilson's bad manners are only marginalizing themselves next time they want to call out a prevaricating president. It wasn't that long ago that Secretary of War Donald Rumsfeld advocated felony charges against the impolite protestors who interrupted his untruthful testimony before the Senate.
Joe Wilson's interruption served the highest purposes of the bipartisan political establishment. It distracted public attention from the actual content of the president's speech, and the barren prospects it presents for health care reform as anything other than a bailout of the predatory private insurance industry. It allowed corporate media to divert discussion of health care to the longstanding and frankly racist demand on the part of most Republicans, and many Democrats that the border be extended into every doctor's office and emergency room, and medical providers be required to ascertain citizenship of the ill and injured. And while the First Black President and his party have not fully obliged them, they have done nothing to actively discourage the virulent racist sentiment that underlies much of the opposition to the extension of health care benefits to all.
Dissembling: Is it Health Care Reform, or Bailout For Private Insurers?
On the questions of health care and health insurance, the president's speech offered no surprises and according to the polls, changed few if any minds. Obama at last openly likened his vision of health insurance to car insurance, in that everyone will be required by law to purchase the health insurance industry's shabby and deceptive product. The president mentioned single payer, the solution favored by a majority of the nation's physicians and people, and endorsed by more than a hundred members of the previous congress, but dismissed it with the specious claim that single payer would somehow “disrupt” the care people already receive.
The president grossly undermined congressional Democrats who support a “robust public option” by spelling out just how constricted, crippled and un-robust he intends to make any “public option.” Obama's public option “...would only be an option for those who don't have insurance....In fact, based on Congressional Budget Office estimates, we believe that less than 5% of Americans would sign up.” Five percent is less than 15 million people, far short of the 120 million or more that a not for profit public option would need in order to force downward the prices of drug companies and private insurers.
While President Obama mentioned Medicare, he omitted the fact that Medicare was passed into law and enacted in a mere eleven months, compared to his vision of “health insurance exchanges” which will take until 2013, after the end of his first term, to begin covering the uninsured. Also lacking was any precise description of what the American people received in return for the president's concession to drug companies in giving away the right to negotiate their prices downward, or just how these health insurance exchanges will ever bring the cost of insurance, or of health care down.
As always, the refusal of the president and his party to consider the single payer solution to the nation's health care woes deprived him of the most cogent answers to every rightist and Republican charge from “socialism” to “it costs too much.” So the president could say the death panel rumors were false. What he could not say was that leading private insurers in the nation's largest and wealthiest state reject a full one-fifth of all medical claims outright, as the California Nurses Association revealed last week. He could not advance his health care plan as a job creation machine because he aims to keep private insurers in business rather than allowing a single payer system to create a net gain of 2.6 million new health care positions after subtracting for the 550,000 people in the insurance industry who would have to look for other work.
The president repeated unlikely claims, that he would make the private insurers cease the revocation of policies because policyholders get sick or injured, that he would make them lower deductibles and stop refusing treatment. Effectively, he promised private insurers a bailout; tens of millions of new customers whose policies would be paid for by the government. The president left out his proposal to pay for some of this with a profoundly regressive tax on the employer-provided health care benefits that millions of Americans already receive. For low and middle income workers, such benefits are a relatively larger portion of their total wage and benefit package, so such a tax would hit them much harder than higher paid employees, even if those employees had much better coverage.
Disappointing: Will Obama Take Down Democrats in 2010?
Congressional Democrats recall the precedent of another first term Democratic president who disregarded the will of his own party's base to make NAFTA its first and most urgent priority, and pay attention to health care and other matters only afterward. That president's failure gave the Congress to Newt Gingrich and the Republican class of '94. If the American people believe the Obama administration fails to deliver on health care, if that administration continues its cynical escalation of the unwinnable war in Afghanistan and Pakistan, 2010 could be the new 1994.
More and more of the president's supporters are coming to see, as Ian Welsh puts it, that “the fundamental truth about the Obama administration is that it is the Bush administration run by slightly less incompetent, marginally less evil people...””
Whether it's Barack Obama's support for extending provisions of the Patriot Act and the state of emergency George Bush initiated to grant himself extra powers in 2001, his continuation of Bush polices aimed at privatizing public education, the Obama giveaway of $12 trillion to Wall Street, or his retention of Team Bush at the Pentagon, President Obama seems determined to mock the hopes that his candidacy once inspired in tens of millions of supporters.
Richard Nixon's advisors used to say their man was “tanned, rested and ready” after his summer vacation. Well, summer's over again. Barack is back. He was born tanned, and after long weekends and extended golf games with the world's biggest money launderers he should be rested. We presume he's ready. Distractions, dissemblings, disappointments and all. Are we?
Bruce A. Dixon is managing editor at Black Agenda Report and based in Atlanta. He can be reached at bruce.dixon(at)blackagendareport.com.
Comments
Why?
Today, I still want to ask what about health care? What about the war? What about torture and warrantless wiretapping? who could give me an answer?
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Opinion
If either prolonged proximity to prevaricators teaches one anything, or if it takes one to know one, a member of congress should be pretty much an expert on liars.
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The US government is facing
The US government is facing for uncertain future, the never ending health care reform the terrorism, economy and the severe one is the and unemployment. Perhaps most of the blame was given to Obama, obviously as a highest leader he needs to take the lead and do the necessary action with those above mentioned predicament. Most of them would probably are looking for a job since there had been a lot of individual who got laid off from their jobs. They can try to browse via net because there might be some employment opportunities that will suit for their qualification. The internet has changed communications and commerce, and the speed and ease of the internet altered the entire consumer landscape. Just about everything can be accessed online; payday loans, cars, household goods, clothing, and even tools for credit repair. The internet has become one of the major, most dynamic ways to communicate. The internet has exploded, and opened doors to almost anything and everything, including finance and employment opportunities.
Come on, no human is a saint
Come on, no human is a saint let alone, a politician.
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What's going on?
That's right, we have very hight expectation on this current president, it seemed there's a lot of things going on not on the right track of our prediction. hopefully our worries are unnecessary.
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Being a president of a big
Being a president of a big and powerful country is not easy. The position of Barack Obama is not an easy task. It needed all the skills, efforts, wise decision-making and the likes in order for his administration to succeed. With the present crisis that the US is facing, it is not hard to guess that the president is givivng extra effort to give attention to all the problem that the counrty is facing now. Let us help him! Let us be united! We all know that everyone has difficult times – whether it's an emergency expense like getting your car towed, or a medical emergency, and that's when some people could really use a low rate personal loan. A low rate personal loan for a few hundred dollars can be a real help in tough times, and bank overdraft fees are something you want to avoid. A short term personal loan, like other financial tools, is something you don't want to rely on long term – it's a short term solution for a short term problem, and long term solutions are best dealt with professional advice. So whether you want to call it a low rate personal loan, or payday loans, it's a tool for heading off emergencies.
I am happy that there is a future.
It is not hard to guess that the president is givivng extra effort to give attention to all the problem that the counrty is facing now. Let us help him! I am happy that there is a future. More and more people can now afford at least a used datejust mens. This is the way blacks should judge politics.
Sibel Edmond's last words may be our own
GIRALDI: And, of course, none of this has been investigated. What do you think the chances are that the Obama administration will try to end this criminal activity?
EDMONDS: Well, even during Obama’s presidential campaign, I did not buy into his slogan of “change” being promoted by the media and, unfortunately, by the naïve blogosphere. First of all, Obama’s record as a senator, short as it was, spoke clearly. For all those changes that he was promising, he had done nothing. In fact, he had taken the opposite position, whether it was regarding the NSA’s wiretapping or the issue of national-security whistleblowers. We whistleblowers had written to his Senate office. He never responded, even though he was on the relevant committees. As soon as Obama became president, he showed us that the State Secrets Privilege was going to continue to be a tool of choice. It’s an arcane executive privilege to cover up wrongdoing—in many cases, criminal activities. And the Obama administration has not only defended using the State Secrets Privilege, it has been trying to take it even further than the previous terrible administration by maintaining that the U.S. government has sovereign immunity. This is Obama’s change: his administration seems to think it doesn’t even have to invoke state secrets as our leaders are emperors who possess this sovereign immunity. This is not the kind of language that anybody in a democracy would use. The other thing I noticed is how Chicago, with its culture of political corruption, is central to the new administration. When I saw that Obama’s choice of chief of staff was Rahm Emanuel, knowing his relationship with Mayor Richard Daley and with the Hastert crowd, I knew we were not going to see positive changes. Changes possibly, but changes for the worse. It was no coincidence that the Turkish criminal entity’s operation centered on Chicago.
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Speaking of distractions and disassembling...
While Wall St. whore John Fund gets air time on NPR to trash Acorn for "corruption," check this shit out--straight out of a LeCarre novel but all to real. Sibel Edmonds, the most gagged person in US history, per the State's Secrets Act, has gone on record in a deposition. Let's see if Good Morning America or Today with Matt and Meredith talk about this absolutely mind blowing espionage, or will they kill our brains cells with scintillating murder tales: http://www.amconmag.com/article/2009/nov/01/00006/ Read this shit and tell me if it isn't true that the US and Israel are the largest terrorist entities in the world? When the "inevitable" "dirty bomb" goes off in the United States the American Pravda and lumpen proletariat will blame the "Muslims" unawares that devil worshipers in their own government did them in.
GIRALDI: So we have a pattern of corruption starting with government officials providing information to foreigners and helping them make contact with other Americans who had valuable information. Some of these officials, like Marc Grossman, were receiving money directly. Others were receiving business favors: Pentagon associates like Doug Feith and Richard Perle had interests in Israel and Turkey. The stolen information was being sold, and the money that was being generated was used to corrupt certain congressmen to influence policy and provide still more information—in many cases information related to nuclear technology.
EDMONDS: As well as weapons technology, conventional weapons technology, and Pentagon policy-related information.
GIRALDI: You also have information on al-Qaeda, specifically al-Qaeda in Central Asia and Bosnia. You were privy to conversations that suggested the CIA was supporting al-Qaeda in central Asia and the Balkans, training people to get money, get weapons, and this contact continued until 9/11…
EDMONDS: I don’t know if it was CIA. There were certain forces in the U.S. government who worked with the Turkish paramilitary groups, including Abdullah Çatli’s group, Fethullah Gülen.
GIRALDI: Well, that could be either Joint Special Operations Command or CIA.
EDMONDS: Maybe in a lot of cases when they said State Department, they meant CIA?
GIRALDI: When they said State Department, they probably meant CIA. EDMONDS: Okay. So these conversations, between 1997 and 2001, had to do with a Central Asia operation that involved bin Laden. Not once did anybody use the word “al-Qaeda.” It was always “mujahideen,” always “bin Laden” and, in fact, not “bin Laden” but “bin Ladens” plural. There were several bin Ladens who were going on private jets to Azerbaijan and Tajikistan. The Turkish ambassador in Azerbaijan worked with them. There were bin Ladens, with the help of Pakistanis or Saudis, under our management. Marc Grossman was leading it, 100 percent, bringing people from East Turkestan into Kyrgyzstan, from Kyrgyzstan to Azerbaijan, from Azerbaijan some of them were being channeled to Chechnya, some of them were being channeled to Bosnia. From Turkey, they were putting all these bin Ladens on NATO planes. People and weapons went one way, drugs came back.
GIRALDI: Was the U.S. government aware of this circular deal?
EDMONDS: 100 percent. A lot of the drugs were going to Belgium with NATO planes. After that, they went to the UK, and a lot came to the U.S. via military planes to distribution centers in Chicago and Paterson, New Jersey. Turkish diplomats who would never be searched were coming with suitcases of heroin.
Welcome to Mafia Nation, land of the free, home of the brave. Small wonder the poppy crops production has EXPLODED. Just an "unintended consequence" of reaching "hearts and minds." Goddamn, is all I can say.
And you think a handful of bigots and White Christian Nationalists are the main problem? Think again.
Barack Obama's Presidency
During his campaign, President Obama constantly reminded his supporters "I would not be able to make the necessary changes alone". Unlike the right wing and other forked tongued Demecrats, holding his foot on the fire must be done constructively because there are people in the Whitehouse whose selfish motives are beyond belief!
While George W. was busy screwing up the country, the noisy corporate crowds who are now condemning President Obama were never seen or heard. They were as mute as the pretentious Democrats in Congress who are good at soliciting votes from Black community only to abandon them after getting elected.
Black vote is always taken for granted by people who seek them. All they have to do is contact those black elites with whom they are constantly in touch to fire-up African American voters to head to the polls. These black elites then get handsomely compensated for their efforts. Bill Clinton has been the master in his courtship with black elites in galvanizing African American voters or cutting deals with many African leaders on behalf of his corporate friends.
The question that these elite deal makers must ask themselves "Are the African people, both in USA, and abroad served by their deal making efforts or are they the sole beneficiaries of the deals they hatch?" Do these elites have the best interest of the people they claim to represent or have the voiceless herded to polls merely vehicles towards their selfish ends?
There have been numerous claims of the President throwing his supporters under the bus. I believe he should not be allowed to have an excuse to do that. However, there are many forked tongues individuals inside the administration and within the Democratic elected officials willing to inflict real damage by being on both sides of the President’s agenda. These are the people who must be watched because if they have no loyalty to those who vote to elevate them to power, they must not be where they are. Real people go to polls to give them an edge!
More stunning is this article:
http://washingtonindependent.com/59633/suit-alleges-trusted-black-figure...
There is nothing worse than inviting a person and setting him up to be pushed off the cliff by one of your friends. Many hardworking black people with dreams of homeownership or college education have their lives ruined by corporations promoted by African American elites, Republicans and Democrats alike. It looks like these three groups work as tag teams against the poor and middle class. Most of the ruined lives are setup by their fellow African Americans. Decent African Americans, with voices, must not allow the voiceless among them to be pushed off the cliff either by the President or those self serving elites.
How much does a "soul" cost these days?
Thanks for linking the story regarding Tavis. For me, his "glow" was already dissipating from watching his show on public television. Nothing but a Black Wannabe Charlie Rose channeling the same publum otherwise known as "received or conventional wisdom," i.e., the Status Quo. Tackling "tough issues" with the machismo of a enunch. Like Barack Obama, he's a black stooge with an air of "street creed" and celebrity-status. I'm so sick of these Black Traitors/Vampires and their "branding," making themselves corporate entities unto themselves. I don't give a f****k what they listen to on their i-Pods, their musical tastes in no way reflect their craven souls.
How much does a "soul" cost these days, are they cheaper now that we're in a recission? Tavis should has his ass wiped. He knew damn well that he was f*****king these people, who trust him like they trust Obama. He was already a millionaire from his "branding." How many millions does his puny soul need? No way can he claim ignorance. This is the Orwellian World that soul-selling has wrought: Hosting "wealth accumulation" seminars while insuring the eventual wealth loss of the attendees. It's all in the f****king "branding" isn't it?
On another note, listen to Obama disassemble about sending troops to Afghanistan, trying to make it seem like a gut-wrenching, soul searching decision, full of sober thought. I bet a $50 donation to BAR he'll send the troops eventually; it will probably get loss in the media fog, AFTER the propaganda has soaked in, and in the MIDST of another scintillating crime story.
Debatable, perhaps?
BAR: More and more of the president's supporters are coming to see, as Ian Welsh puts it, that “the fundamental truth about the Obama administration is that it is the Bush administration run by slightly less incompetent, marginally less evil people...””
Debatable, here's why. The Bush Administration at least, on the surface, galvanized progressive interests whereas the Obama Administration through stealth, duplicity, and reneging has damn near destroyed the progressive interests. Reflect on this proof, in 2008 even the so-called "moderates and independents" abandoned the Bush Brand. (I'm not debating how truly progressive they are/were) It's a matter of whether a knife to the gut is better than a knife to the back. I might have a second, if even a nano one to confront the guy jabbing at my gut, but the "friendly" conniving bastard will get you in the back most every time.
Last, the racism charges, while patently true and obvious, are, nevertheless, distractions as well. Why? Don't f***king kid me!. Racism, sexism and classicism won't never disappear but there is a possibility they will mitigate over time. And the simple fact of the extent to which bi-racial relationships ARE increasing (I won't even get into demographic birthrates), well, you get the picture.
Not all of the Teabaggers are racists is my point. Over on the liberal blogs I read, the libs are cutting Obamageddon a new asshole too. Let's not forget this. I simply argue that it's important to keep this in perspective and not allow progressives of all races to fight charges and counter-charges of racism, we must encourage criticism of EVERY DAMN PUBLICLY ELECTED OFFICIAL IN AMERICA. That is our patriotic duty. (Sound like Bush, huh?) Because while we are fighting charges of racism, the Oligarchs are putting the big one up our collective asses. It's classic divide and conquer, same shit that's going down in Iraq, same colonial gameplan that's worked successfully for centuries. Who is so f***king stupid as to believe in something as Orwellian as Post-Racial America? Own up to the truth, and move on to tactical ground.
Lair lair Your Pants are on FIRE!!!
Thanks Bruce for an objective look at the real story instead of the distraction. The whole Joe Wilson spat was a pre planned event in my humble opinion. Just think for a minute how could some photographer or any photographer for that matter find Joe Wilson out of 535 other members of Congress and frame (perfectly I might add) the subject clearly focus and click the shutter in less than one second??? I’m a shutter bug and I know that it is pretty difficult to do even with auto focus and auto advance (and fore knowledge oh by the way). The photographer would have to start shooting BEFORE Joe actually spoke and hoping that one frame would catch him in mid speak after auto advancing (assuming he did not know who was going to speak or when that person was going to speak and where he/she would be at). Here is an article that speaks to this same topic
http://www.psychologytoday.com/search/query?keys=who+took+this+picture
I am not saying that it could not have happened but it would have to be a convergence of events good timing and a lot of luck.
As Bruce clearly stated the whole Joe Wilson blow up was used as a distraction by the media morons to redirect the public’s attention from the content of Obama’s speech. All that the speech did was to confirm what most reading and thinking people already knew. Obama’s health care reform plan stinks to high holy heaven. Even if passed in its present mumbo jumbo state or some other mangled version after both houses get through poking holes in it. None of the reform will take place until 2013, 2013 you say WTF is up with that??? That gives the insurance leeches plenty of time to find all the loop holes (that should not be hard since they help write this piece of stink up the joint crap) so that they can write insurance policy to take full advantage of those loopholes (like a bullet train rolling down the tracks at 100 miles an hour).
I don’t know what is worse how easily the public was lead down the Joe Wilson distraction DEAD END by the media goons or how We the People allowed Obama to straight PUNK us all by presenting/pushing the pile of do do on us that he is calling health care reform. Like I keep saying, just keeping us Dirt ignorant Dirt poor and Dirt healthy.
Peace
S Murph
Snake oil
I am of the same humble opinion and I would apply those same deductions of reasoning to the Glenn Beck media circus: Their pulling there magic tricks on us again and the obama supporters or those people of color who sympathize with his humble meia created persona are supposed to buy it all as a real round Robin breakdown. So, when absolutely nothing bennefitting the people transpires they can all say -"well, how can he get anything done with all those racist, right wing, lose nuts harrasing him?"
I am alomost, at this point, certainly convinced that the whole primary race between Obama and Clinton was a huge dupe job.
Which is more evil, a rattlesnake that informs unequivocally that if you don't see and hear its warning clearly enough, it will attack or the Rattlesnake that dons a Rabbit-fur Jumpsuit and just as you're feeling at peace and one with nature it sinks its fangs in where it really counts?
Oh poor, poor Round Robin, they sho' picked him clean. Yeah, OK!
The Acorn sell out is ANOTHER eye-opener
I agree with your comments in total Cool Breeze, and the Acorn sell-out is an abomination that ranks right up there with:
* the sell out of Rev. Wright,
* the surge has succeeded beyond our wildest dreams" (on Fox network), and now,
*Acorn
which is a bigger sellout, an INSTITUTIONAL sellout vs. V Jones who is just one person. I'm listening to Tom Ashbrook on NPR doing a show on Acorn "corruption." Painting isolated cases of malfesance into some corruption machine. Look at the amount of money Acorn receives from the government, compare it to Blackwater and military contractor fraud, hell compare it to the Faith-based frauds out there. The media is so f***ked up that they barely even covered Blackwater goons raping young white girls, US citizens. Let alone the billions they've stolen. Look at this report on "training" in Afghanistan, a corporate crime with no results. What a goddamn shame!!
Meet the Afghan Army
Is It a Figment of Washington's Imagination?
By Ann Jones
Training security forces is not cheap. So far, the estimated cost of training and mentoring the police since 2001 is at least $10 billion. Any reliable figure on the cost of training and mentoring the Afghan army since 2001 is as invisible as the army itself. But the U.S. currently spends some $4 billion a month on military operations in Afghanistan.
The Invisible Men
What is there to show for all this remarkably expensive training? Although in Washington they may talk about the 90,000 soldiers in the Afghan National Army, no one has reported actually seeing such an army anywhere in Afghanistan. When 4,000 U.S. Marines were sent into Helmand Province in July to take on the Taliban in what is considered one of its strongholds, accompanying them were only about 600 Afghan security forces, some of whom were police. Why, you might ask, didn't the ANA, 90,000 strong after eight years of training and mentoring, handle Helmand on its own?
http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175116/ann_jones_us_or_them_in_afghanistan_
My friend in Chicago said before he was elected, Obama has thrown EVERYONE in Chicago, especially Black and/or Progressive, under the bus, this guy is a narcissist and sell-out extraordinaire. Welcome to Obamageddon.
9.29.09 NYC Medicare for All march
9.29.09 NYC Medicare for All march
http://is.gd/3o9yn
Medicare For All (HR676, S.703), NOT Obamacare (HR3200)or Baucuscare!
From: Healthcare-NOW!
Subject: Medicare for All March and Rally - NYC
Supporters of single-payer national health care,
The Private Health Insurance Must Go! Coalition is building for a mass demonstration at Aetna Insurance in Manhattan on September 29. Please join us for this important action. If you would like to post flyers, you can download the pdf: http://www.healthcare-now.org/docs/sept29.pdf .
Please spread the word to friends, family, coworkers, members.
In common cause,
Healthcare-NOW!
www.healthcare-now.org
www.phimg.org
Pelosi and Obama have sold out to the Health Care industry
The Europeans established national health insurance after WWII before a huge health care industry like we have in this country had developed
It’s not going to happen here as long as our politicians are taking big bribes from the health care industry.
We have to remove bribery from our political process. European parties receive government funding based on the number of votes they receive, and bribery is out of the equation.
Health industry lobbyist (bribery specialist) Steve Elmendorf is having a big bribe-Pelosi event on September 24.
No doubt there will be many more $2,400 tickets sold than could possibly fit in his apartment, "bought" by health industry employees, but paid for by their employers.
Speaker of the House
Nancy Pelosi
Thursday, September 24, 2009
6:30pm ~ 8:00pm
At the home of
Steve Elmendorf
2301 Connecticut Avenue, NW
Apt. 7B
Washington, D.C.
$5,000 PAC
$2,400 Individual
I agree, Dissident1
America's debate over health care is something I cannot comprehend. To me, the arguments in favor of "the public option" are worse than the Town people and worst of all are the Democrats who are using this for more robbery, exploitation and social control.
I have a national health plan. I had it when the left-wing president Martin Torrijos was president. I have it now that the right-wing Martinelli is president. I would have had it if the left-wing Balbina Herrera had been president instead. I even would have had it if psycho Nazi Guillermo Endara of the PVMP ("Moral Guardian Of The Fatherland Party") had won (He got 2% only phew!).
When my mother broke her wrist, she had four days in Johns Hopkins Punta Pacifica hospital, operated on by a US-trained orthopedic surgeon, in a private room and it cost B./10 (TEN DOLLARS). What is WRONG with American people????
what' wrong with American People???
I think the more acurate question would be...What's wrong with the people controlling the American people?
Yes, ignorance plays a role; but there are masses of ignorant people too in places where Social Democracy is more than just a name and the Governmental policies that imbue the publics of those country's with a sense of dignity and collective accountability don't make the policies; but they have grown accustomed to them and therefore make very loud noises when they are threatened.
Europe is very old, it's country's have been scrappin' over these and many other issues a very long time. Conversley, the United States is an arrogant young Empire that was founded as a Republic (which it still is, not a Democratic Republic) on individual freedom and independance and massive greed over collective responsibility and socialist philosophies. The only time the government wants to get every body together and join forces for all is when it wants to go to war or when it wants to win an election in order to go to war. The rest of the time, the great fathers in Washington keep themselves busy finding new and insidious ways of fooling it's people into voting for the wrong politician and keeping us devided and blaming, hating, fighting and fearing one another to the point of distraction from the tricks they're really pulling off.
Dirty rotten tricks; That's what the Country's made from and of, it's what makes it tick. And the recent abandonment by the majority- seated Deomcratic House of the 40 year old social organisation ACORN; an organization that helped Obama become president, is an outrage and abominationt against collective social conscience and human dignity. And as Mr. Ford observed here last week; Glenn Beck did'nt fire Van Johnson, Obama did.....like wise, the conservative did'nt paint ACORN red and divest it of any and all Government funding the democrats and the Obama white house did.
What's wrong with Americans?
" When a young man learns how to wash his hands properly, then he is allowed to eat with his family."
-Yoruba Proverb
What's wrong with the
What's wrong with the American people? They are ignorant. Our school systems don't produce critical thinkers or avid readers with a desire to seek information. People get their info from mainstream media who provide 24/7 entertainment, crap, and most important - govt/corporate propaganda posing as news. Those offering facts and dissenting opinions are rarely on the pundit guest list of mass media, including NPR. We have 24/7 news on TV, internet, and in print but are as uninformed and misinformed as we were when there were only 3 networks. Most people have been indocrinated so long by mass media's sins and omissions they don't believe anything unless it comes from Fox, CNN, NYT, Oprah,or their local news bobbleheads.
Clinton Lied
Bill Clinton lied about Monica Lewinsky, but for some reason everyone thinks that Obama's a saint and can't lie. Why is this? Maybe that thing called the liberal media has something to do with it.
-Nikki-
African Americans have been
African Americans have been entertaining elected officials who think they have the rights to get the African American votes. This has been done while private jail business, which is filled with young black men and traded in Wallstreet, is booming.
Why can't our votes mean something tangible, for God's sake? Other communities' votes always bring something!
The Trojan Horse has thrown progressives off balance
but as each day and week passes they are regaining some footing. Chris Hedges echoes the sentiments of other posters here when he writes:
"The right wing is not wrong. It is not the problem. We are the problem. If we do not tap into the justifiable anger sweeping across the nation, if we do not militantly push back against corporate fraud and imperial wars that we cannot win or afford, the political vacuum we have created will be filled with right-wing lunatics and proto-fascists. The goons will inherit power not because they are astute, but because we are weak and inept."
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20090914_stop_begging_obama_to_be_ob...
The title of the essay sums up all, "Stop Begging Obama, and Get Mad." I don't have a crystal ball, but I believe the fog is starting to dissipate around the progressives and increasingly the posters I read are angry and fed up with the 2 party oligarchy. Unfortunately, we've been "trained" in America to look for "leaders" to lead us, to deliver a call to action, but since the Trojan Horse has thrown progressives (and the Black community specifically) off balance, it is hard for individuals or groups to find their voices, to galvanize. If you decry the growing racism in America and cite all manner of statistic (Southern Poverty Law Center, etc.) the President will counter that it doesn't exist, the media will paint it as a "fringe" and then turn around and paint Right Wing protestations in general as a "movement." It is not easy for the average person to see through the fog of media propaganda especially when it's aided and abetted by the "Black" president and the Dem Party, especially when their critical thinking faculties are held hostage by identify politics. "We must defend the Black President at all costs." Bullshit. Give me a three-legged hermaphrodite in the WH as long as I get progressive policies.
BAR can defend itself, but bless them for doing all they can to educate and inform people on the evil and Trojan Horse that is Obama, that is a huge start and takes herculean stamina. (see Pana's comments about sharing BAR). How quickly we forget the futility of making these same arguments during the election process? How quickly BAR's and posters warnings went unheeded. It is not easy to enlighten, but information will help tremendously, and BAR has done yeoman work to spread the information. BAR is not the Congressional Black "Circus". When more and more details of the so-called fraud perpetrating as health care reform emerge more and more Americans will reject it. And all the black solidarity in the world won't save Obama's Af-Pak misadventure. Black Americans by a wide majority will never sanction wars of aggression regardless of the White House occupant. So it will take time and it is important not to minimize the struggles inherent in an Information War.
But there is a glimmer of hope in what I read in the blogsphere,- persons are becoming enboldened as they become more disenchanted, and starting to call it like they see it. And perhaps a movement will coalesce around the Af-Pak misadventure, the growing consensus (even Geo. Will acknowledges it) is that this is a military and economic disaster. A resuscitation of the antiwar movement could be a starting point? the "Black is Back" coalition could be a starting point for protests although the media will paint them as a "radical" fringe.
Do not under estimate the struggles of the Information War and remoldening the thought process of a Black America or a Progressive America punched-drunk by Obama, the Trojan Horse extraordinaire.
Thanks, Englightened Cynic!
Never mind even George Will whom I give credit for speaking out.
Even President Alan Garcia of Peru, the ultimate far-right wing US. puppet president and beneficiary of Barack Obama and Tom Coburn's U.S.A./Peru F.T.A.A., joined with Chavez, Morales, Correa, Fernandez de Kirchner, Bachelet, Vazquez, Lugo, Funes and Ortega and all of the Colombian oppositon and even some Colombian Conservadores, to protest the implementation of Obama's New and Improved "War On Narco-Terrorism" USA PLAN COLOMBIA. (I think that Lula and our president Ricardo Martinelli were disgraceful and weak on this, by the way).
I've said this over and over again. When you are to the right of Alan Garcia and George Will on imperialism and oppression you have set the gold standard of evil.
Grace Lee Boggs,94, has some great comments at end of DN
At end of last segment, today's DemocracyNow,
Grace Lee Boggs, www.democracynow.org
Video is online, transcript later. (I can't paraphrase it.)
P. S. I just sent a small check to BAR, before my rent
goes up and while I can.
P.P.S. Yahoo has a headline with something like,
"new health care plan is favorite of industry".....
One day
The questions becomes what are we going to do about it? There are so many issues that we could take it to the streets over, but all progressives do is complain and complain. In 2012 when the GOP takes everything back BAR is gonna be on the same website complaing about the powers that be. Where is the action?
RE: One day
Valid point! Folks should have as much information as the brain can hold in order to take action. The he did, she did, they did schtick is getting tiresome.
Thank You So Much From Your Friend In Panama
Friends,
You seem to be the only Americans who seem to grasp your president's true nature. He's a coward. He's a sadist and a slimy salesman and god damn him to hell for Plan Colombia. Barack Obama has made every Latino HATE AMERICA. HATE THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE.
His manner violates every aspect of honor in my culture. The lecturing. The indifference to violence. The vulgar displays of privilege. And I am a successful businessman. I'm not a brute. But I have three step-kids in Bogota and their mother and I don't want to take them out of their school and their city but I have to get them safe from America's Mr Wonderful's para-militares, and mercenaries and thugs and regular military all over the city which was violent to begin with before this pathetic weakling president made it a butcher shop.
I get that Americans love him. I don't care. I despise what he's done. Latinos laugh when we hear all this pride about first black president; So pompous and disrespectful and lecturing and acting like little girl not a man while he runs an empire of hate.
I'm sorry for my anger. But I'm hoping to find a sympathetic reader. I cannot speak to any Americans I knew just socially anymore unless they're Republicans. I just stopped speaking to anyone I ever knew in America who said one kind word about Obama. because I know what he is. Like Emperor Nero or Marie antonette.. He's a weakling and coward who kills and then lectures like a prude and exploits everybody especially Americans themselves who still love him even while their money and rights are taken away.
No latino would stand for that. We can deal with brutes as presidents and thanks we don't have to anymore but a weak man with no principle who has others kill and steal from smaller countries and then goes on TV talkng about new beginnings and how much latinos love him.
Please.
I think there might be something constructive that BAR can do to help diffuse some of this actually. I show this blog to friends who can read English and it's a big relief to know there is a protest community. But what I've noticed from TV and youtubes is that it's these masses of wealthy white people Im white too but i mean white americans who really worship him because they think they can be black people by association or to show they are so open minded or that sort of stuff. I thikn that if just a few strong blalck people with values and humanity like all the writers here could somehow just tell white people they don't have to be anything but who they are. I'm used to American peoples misunderstanding of our culture and their vulgarity and insults but.unlike Obama I'm not a crybaby if someone insults me because they're ignorant.
Disculpen mi rabia, porfis!
Y un abrazo de oso de mi parte.[it was relaxing from my rage just to write those few words of Spanish instead of the oppressor Obama's language]
it was obvious
to anyone not drunk on Obama-mania that he was a fraud. there is no way "the man" would allow Obama's name to be mentioned in the corporate media as a serious presidential contender, without thoroughly vetting him on maintaining the status quo.
most of the Obama voters i know are still in denial.
as a Nader voter, i'm even astounded at how quickly Obama has blatently abandoned campaign pledges and supporters; he's not even trying to triangulate like Clinton, its just so obvious and the list of broken pledges just keeps growing.
there will never be any real change in voting for a democrat or republican; its just not gooing to happen.
Yes. More!!!
Only one word made me feel uncomfortable: use of
the word "crippled" for Obama making sure a
possible public option would be bad, inadequate.
As a person
with disabilities, I understand the use of language,
particularly in talking about health care and "cripple"
would fit a "picture", but to people with disabilities,
some variations on names/conditions of disability as
negatives, are troubling. I do like your writing, Mr. Dixon.
PS I do appreciate that the art has artist name credit.
Afrodescendants Must Establish Human Rights
We the awakened Afrodescendants have no faith whatsoever in a diseased and dying racist oligarchy which has always imposed ethnocide and forced assimilation on us. Political vampires have no mercy for political hemophiliacs, especially when those bloodsuckers are running out of shady places. Only a very desperate Caucasian ruling elite would appoint a puppet like Obama to create the temporary illusion that the USA has changed its evil ways. However, imploding ghettoes, dysfunctional schools, and skyrocketing unemployment, along with mounting international migraines all bear witness that The Fall Of America is irreversible. Do not wait for more unjust wars, food shortages and more intense weather plagues to erupt before you start supporting the rising Afrodescendant Government in your midst. Our focus is saving and elevating 250 million slave descendants in the western hemisphere by establishing our Human Rights and securing massive Reparations.
As-Salaam-Alaikum,
Senator Malik Al-Arkam
www.allforreparations.org