I think it’s about time to start blogging again.
I haven’t been here for a while because the political landscape has been pretty plenty full of opinions, and yet there’s really been little happening except the Repubs stonewalling the Dems. But it is starting to be very different.
Recent polls show that more than 72% of Americans want to see a single payer system for healthcare. Yet the Obama administration has said that a single payer system is off the table. And just today they commented that they are open to a non-public option.
I need to be clear here: if Obama doesn’t start showing some spine on this issue, I may begin to waiver in my support for him. I mean, this is the guy that said during the campaign, “if he could wave a magic wand he’d make it all a single payer system.” Where have his testicles gone? Has he been purchased by the insurance industry as well? I mean, just how powerful can a 40 person minority in Senate really be FFS?
We’re really going to have to start watching and paying attention again. Obama is our president – we elected him and he is there because of a mandate for CHANGE not bipartisanship. That would be a nice also, but frankly, when the opposition was in power they could give a shit about the Dems, Liberals or, frankly, anyone that wasn’t in their club. I say this with the utmost respect and conviction: FUCK THEM. They brought us war, almost managed to collapse our economy, have outsourced our jobs overseas and lied repeatedly about what they are up to. The current push to write a check to the insurance companies is nothing more than CORPORATE WELFARE. The insurance companies ARE THE PROBLEM.
I’m going to have to start taking up digital ink again on this issue, because it’s really, really starting to bother me. Hoping you’re still out there,
/perk
Obama seems to have a distinct lack of testicles on almost every issue. I completely agree that his spinelessness on the issue of a single-payer health care system is distressing. I mean, I’m all for pragmatism — if the single-payer thing is just a non-starter, then maybe it’s not worth wasting political capital on. But I don’t feel like it’s been pushed hard enough to know. And I feel like the public is generally supportive of single-payer.
He’s shown a similar cowardice on addressing his promises to go after the Defense of Marriage Act, and his Justice Department has even defended it. Getting rid of DOMA may not be at the top of his priority list, but that doesn’t mean his administration needs to be defending it! I just don’t get it.
I have never been Obama’s biggest supporter; I voted for him with some trepidation and a lot of hope. Now the hope is fading and the trepidation remains.
I don’t think Obama is guilty of being too bipartisan. I just think he’s been largely ineffective in giving his supporters what they voted for.
Obama is fond of saying, “Let’s see how things play out” which is normally both prudent and good. But as president he needs to act decisively more often than not.
That indecisiveness reminds me of Jimmy Carter. He quickly earned a reputation for being indecisive.
North Korea is a really hot issue right now. This is quickly becoming Obama’s Cuban Missile Crisis but I don’t see him handling it like Kennedy did. The NK have threatened us with nuclear war and instead Obama is getting ready for the July 4th cook out! HUH?
Obama was the bigger man and offered mutual respect to Ahmedinejad. In return Ahmedinejad has demanded a public apology from Obama personally in regards to his “arrogant” interference with Iranian elections. So much for talking with the Iranians.
I don’t mind Obama that much myself though. I thought he was going to steer this country hard left but he’s really rather pedestrian. Harmless so far.
Obama’s not too bad.
My biggest fear about Obama from the very beginning of his campaign — and I told everybody that would listen — is that he’d turn out to be a Jimmy Carter. Well-meaning, but ineffective. So it’s interesting that you make that comparison. If McCain hadn’t made so many bad choices — like picking Palin — I might even have voted for him, I was really worried about Obama’s inexperience even though I agreed with most of his politics.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want “Carter II” to be the result four years from now. But I still fear that it might be. Let’s all hope that it doesn’t turn out to be a fair comparison.
While I agree with the overall sentiment, and completely agree on the healthcareWTF point, I also find it interesting that he is being held to such a silly short leash. He has been in office for 6 months. I doubt he is knows where all the bathrooms are in the whitehouse. OK 6 months, maybe things should be starting to change, and I would grant that. BUT. The complaints started airing 1 month into his office, so I have a hard time acknowledging them now.
But there still does seem to be a need for bigger balls. I do wonder if saying that Single Payer is off the table was an attempt to score some softening points with the cons in congress. It is a completely asinine move on his part if he actually meant it.
Frankly, I think some bulldozing is in order. Have a meeting with the dems (and any rep that wants single payer), get them ALL to agree to just go with a plan stolen from a country where it works, and then vote it through. Fuck the reps and any other naysayers. Make it an anger issue, since it should be anyway. It should anger people that healthcare is a privilege. And, it does. Almost 3/4 of Americans want it, not some pansy ass half-breed abomination of private-run singlepayer-sometimes system.
It is still very early in Obama’s presidency but I’m already surprised at how many democrats are beginning to criticize Obama for being somewhat indecisive.
He was rather decisive on the stimulus bill but he had to scale back the rhetoric about how many jobs would be created by this summer, so it was kind of an expensive flop.
He’s also all over the Cap and Trade bill. I think he has prioritized that because he didn’t want it to get bogged down in a congressional election year.
I’m not really for the Cap and Trade bill and he’s too liberal for me frankly. Yet it’s interesting to me to see how and if he is going to make good on the promises he made to his supporters who voted for him. A good president acts on his principles in my opinion.
But North Korea is a much more urgent issue in my mind and he’s hasn’t really stepped up to the plate yet on that one, at least not in an unwavering and decisive way. That makes me a little nervous.
@ Ineffective: I have to disagree here Dave. There is a really important point that I think you’re avoiding: the right is still gigantically effective and the country is still wooed by Rush and the like. There’ll be no sweeping changes all in one, because regardless of both public mandate via election and popular opinion overwhelmingly in favor of a single payer option, there are still the politics to play out. Edwards described how this should be done during his campaign: slip in a public option and then evolve, rather than trying to do it all at once. It is my deepest hope that this is the chess game he is playing.
I also don’t believe he will be Carter at all. Carter had great ideas and was strong with wonky and difficult to understand policy, and also had a pretty good future view (natch, his description of what was coming re. energy/oil) – but he could not lead people. Obama, first off, moves people. Moves them big. The problem is that he’s up against the strongest anti-Liberal voices that we’ve seen in our lifetime – he’s got a lot to do. And let’s not forget that he’s not even 200 days in – it took the conservatives about 30 years to destroy so much, it’s going to take him a bit to move Congress into positions that start to fix it, as well as for the fixes to work.
@ Indecisive: I don’t think he’s been indecisive at all – I think he’s been pretty clear about his positions and desires. I think he’s being enormously canny and trying to play a very dangerous game. Specifically re. North Korea – what more would you have him do? Shall we go galloping in there and stomp him? We’d be in SO MUCH better position if we’d not done that for Iraq. Let’s be clear: the biggest danger North Korea offers is either not-reall-intercontinental-ballistic missiles that could fall on China, or selling wares to other rogue states. So I think the naval notion of containment is absolutely appropriate and also needs its time to work.
IMO, one of the most important things we must regain and be comfortable with, is patience. We, as a country, have none. Fix it now. Kill the bad guys. The conservatives, based on twisting the writings of Goldwater, the bible and their notions of who should really have money, have slowly, patiently sucked up media outlets and maneuvered the public opinion so far right that what we think of as “Liberal” is in the middle, if not even still somewhat on the right.
We are really broken. It will take time and a lot of political cleverness to return us to a moderate path.
@ Short leash (Sorry BD, missed your post) – completely agree. Bulldozing would be an excellent first step. Many of the entrenched politicians that call themselves Democrats must be purged and new critical thinkers and people that actually are in favor of doing something for the public good rather than their own pockets must be put in place. To your point: if just under 3/4 of the population wants a single payer option, how much longer are we going to allow them to circlejerk on the hill?
Fellas, money goes to money. Know what I mean? Republicans, democrats…all of it is nonsense really. Obama says one thing when running for president and does another in office, just like Bush senior.
Even recently conservatives like Lindsey Graham said we might need to nationalize the banks but he wont go near nationalized health care. They go where the money is.
I’m really starting to think the whole thing is just a sham. These guys are all buddy buddy behind closed doors and they are all filthy rich. Even fox news. Murdock was a major contributor to the clinton campaign but they try to spin fox like it’s a conservative news outlet.
But what do we really expect from a guy like Obama? I mean, he’s a lawyer AND a politician!! Is anything that comes out of his mouth the truth? I doubt it.
@Rush
Only die hard conservatives listen to rush. They aren’t going to change their mind about anything anyways. Rush isn’t converting liberals to conservativism at all imo. He’s harmless to you libs.
I don’t think the right is effective at all. They are preaching to the choir so how is that effective? If 3/4 of the population want single payer then how is the right being effective? I would think the right was effective if 3/4 HAD been in favor of SP but now only 1/4 are. But that’s not the case.
What it comes down to, I cynically think, is that Obama is following the money.
@ Right preaching to the choir: no lie there – recent polls show that, to keep the base, they’ve had to become more shrill – which pushes away more independents, which gives the extremes more power, which means they need to be more shrill… it’s a bad cycle for partisans.
@ Conservatives – I don’t know how many REAL conservatives we are hearing from. They’re screaming foul about spending money – where were they when we had an illegal, off-the-books war we were spending on? It’s nasty hypocrisy.
@ Obama, money, lawyers and the like – I fear you are right, but just don’t want to be that cynical yet. Obama gets the opportunity to work his administration and then be judged on his accomplishments IMO – not applying an already cynical eye to him before he’s even really had the opportunity to have a few fuck-up-fix-up cycles.
That said, to imagine that ANY politician is not following the money would be rather naive I think… Bill Mahr made a great comment many weeks ago talking to T. Boones Pickens. He said, “Well, someone’s got to make money off it.” He was talking about the fact that T is pushing natural gas as a national security, economy and ecology fix. Nice, but hardly altruistic or nationalistic. T has sold most of his oil holdings and is now deeply, deeply in natural gas.
I’m OK if someone makes money while we move to something else – it’s the way of things. But I just want it to move so that it’s BETTER for the average joe – not that the money has moved and he is just left holding the bag. Or debt.
agreed edgar. the money is as money does.
That said, the challenge is how to convince the money that change can make more money.
Example is green tech. Solar companies are starting to really get rolling on installs. I, for example, am looking into get solar on my roof (i have over 85% sun availability which is huge). There are companies that you pay ZERO, and they sell you your electricity for 10% less that your local provider, they then sell the overage to the provider. Estimate for us is 100 bucks a month in savings during the summer.
They just need to figure out how to make Single Payer profitable to the pharms. Tough challenge though, since they already are sucking the golden teat…
I think the out of control rise in BIG FAT malpractice lawsuits have quite a bit to do with the cost of health care these days. It just can’t be overlooked. The last 20 years or so have seen a trend where “everybody is suing everybody”
$80,000 in damages for spilling hot coffee from Mcdonalds on your lap and other things like that have just about become a steady joke. Of course malpractice lawsuits have similar egregious claims.
I seriously think that has something to do with it, and not just a little something but a big something. But who’s talking about it? Every one in congress is in one way or another benefiting from HUGE malpractice suits.
You are SO on it Edgar it’s not even funny. Actually, my next post is about exactly this topic, which I have some experience with. The amount of litigation is just beyond stupid. It goes against what the spirit of the system is supposed to protect.
Side note – I actually used to live next door to a neurologist that was called in to look at nerve damage for that very McDonalds person. I am 100% with you on stupid claims, but as it happens, this one was for real: That McDonalds had been repeated warned that their coffee machine was way too hot. They passed her boiling coffee (literally) that spilled and grafted her nylon stockings into her privates. The pictures of her were absolutely horrible. She will never be the same. So in that case, it actually worked like it should have: McD was negligent, and the payout was probably less even than she should have gotten for permanent disfigurement.
But again, I agree with you absolutely in principal.
Yeah the media was all over that one, reporting “just the facts”. Well, just the facts except the ones that make the lady seem sane and not just a money-grubbing overly-litigious wastebag of a human being.
I went and examined the evidence presented in the civil suit and my immediate thought was “Non-issue. They had it coming. Good on her.”
Couldn’t believe the media circus.
There are real and legitimate concerns that necessitate the underpinnings of a litigious society. It’s quite necessary that the underdog with small means is treated fairly and equitably since we’re talking about massive corporations with lawyers on retainer. Maybe we should just do like the Brits and make the loser pay all the legal fees?
They brought us war, almost managed to collapse our economy, have outsourced our jobs overseas and lied repeatedly about what they are up to.”
Actually, Clinton could’ve had Osama handed to him on a silver platter, but her was too busy thinking about hummers from a fat chick. 9/11 was planned during his watch.
The mortgage fiasco can be traced back to Carter, then doubled down by Clinton and Frank.
Lying repeatedly?
Upset that the Reps stole a Dem trick?
Outsourced the jobs, I concede. The Capital Gains tax needs to be removed to encourage business over here.
Liberals are soooo easy (and fun) to fuc* with…
Obama seems to have a distinct lack of testicles on almost every issue
Well, Duh! :doh:
That was eveident during the campaign.
He’s inexperienced and was more interested in being the first biracial president. Also, the media ran this campaign, and PrezBO was their darling.
Appointing a tax cheat to the treasury??
And, why did a lot of his appointments withdraw???
I am pleasantly surprised that PrezBO is more moderate than leftist. He has gained credibility by being on the correct side regarding SSM, and he knew that immediate withdrawal from Iraq was a bad idea.
Now we just need to set him straight regarding private handguns…