Buffy Anne Summers, aka

Posts Tagged ‘politics’

What happened in Haiti was simply an act of God, or an act of Nature, right?

Sort of.

But not entirely. What our mass media isn't telling you is that some of our "leaders" helped create this appalling situation.

Yes, this is what the pundits always call politicizing a news story, and what our mass media generally decline to do.

I could and probably should go into more detail, but as Max Blumenthal has done such a good job of that already, I'll merely point you in his direction:

http://maxblumenthal.com/2010/01/how-washingtons-plot-against-haiti-worsened-the-disaster/

http://dir.salon.com/story/news/feature/2004/07/16/haiti_coup/print.html

http://i2.democracynow.org/2004/7/20/did_the_bush_administration_allow_a

And can you believe Obama asked George W. to join in a bipartisan effort for Haitian relief? Really? After what happened (and is still happening in many respects) to New Orleans? Almost anyone, even John McCain, would have been a better choice. I guess in most ways Barack's just another politician, and the only reason I can continue to support him is that the alternatives all look to be much, much worse.

Well… heads up guys. Hope to be back in posting mode sometime soon. Have just been so busy lately… y'know?

Dear Mr. President, I would like to tell you how disappointed I am in your presidency so far. I would like to, but I don’t think I have the words to express it adequately.

You promised. You promised the beginning of a new era, a new way. And you told us not to expect you to do it alone, not to go home but to stay involved, to keep up the fight, in short, to help you.

And then you took office. What happened? When since have you inspired us and led us and asked us to help? You began by leaving many of the various and Constitutionally questionable policies of the previous administration untouched, and asked us to be patient. You said it wasn’t time yet to close Gitmo, and asked us to be patient. You have so far refused to pursue any significant prosecutions of the previous administration in spite of mounting evidence that such prosecutions are sorely needed, and asked us not to look back.

None of that has been very inspiring, Mr. President, but most of us have continued to give you the benefit of a doubt.

Yet now, most recently, on health care and climate change, you have refused to draw a line in the proverbial sand and state unequivocally what is and is not acceptable — and even while failing to fight for a public option in a health care “reform” legislative battle (that now appears to be the war-time equivalent of providing free armaments and ammunition to the enemy), you pronounced an abysmally inadequate agreement in Copenhagen a great success.

During all of this, when did you inspire us? When did you ask us for our help? When did you take a stand, a specific stand, a real and unequivocal stand, and say to us, I will not turn, but I cannot do this alone, I need your help, I need you to come forth with the passion you had during the campaign and make your will known in terms that our detractors cannot mistake, and cannot deny, and cannot overwhelm with mere propaganda?

The sad fact is that that moment never came.

Yes, you have had a very full plate. Your predecessor left you with a daunting job, and I don’t mean to be ungrateful or harsh. But I and my friends have put ourselves on the line, and some of us may have endangered the future of our own careers, our own health care options, and otherwise, by taking a stand, publicly and honestly and dangerously. Because we believed in the cause and because we believed in you. Should we have just stayed silent?

Maybe you remember, or maybe you don’t, but I told you one time, several months ago, that if you wanted things to be easy, especially now, at this extraordinary time in history, then you’d had no business running for president, even less persuading us to believe in you, and even less actually being president.

If these were ordinary times, and if you were an ordinary politician, I very likely would chalk up all that has transpired this year to “politics as usual.” But these are not ordinary times and you are not an ordinary president. You encouraged a whole new generation to be involved, and you inspired many more to believe in possibility one more time. You promised change we could believe in.

Yet having begun with the potential to be one of this country’s great leaders and one of the best things to ever happen to this country, you are now at risk of becoming one of the worst. Not just because you never drew a line and stood your ground, not just because your fine words and speeches seem so much more empty of substance today than they did a year ago, but because your apparent inability to draw that line and stand that ground risks poisoning a whole new generation with the cynicism and apathy that has plagued this nation, and this world, for far too long.

I am still hoping that you are smarter and more clever and more courageous and more committed than I am giving you credit for, that somehow, like a magician, you will pull rabbits out of a hat, or better, cause elephants to disappear before our eyes, and we will ooh and ahh and be amazed at your strategy and gape in wonder at the change that has finally come, the change we really can believe in.

But it is beginning to feel as if the hour already is getting very late, and any and all evidence of that hypothetical, brilliant strategy has yet to show itself.

Mr. President, you are clearly a very intelligent man, clearly a very thoughtful man; you are charming almost to a fault, you speak well and have your way with words, often deliver your oratory almost without flaw, and are understandably concerned about your legacy.

But Mr. President, throughout the various battles this year, we didn’t need just your intelligence, and your thoughtful consideration, and your charm, or just your beautiful words, and we are very selfishly more concerned about our own futures and the future of our country and the world than we are about your legacy. We didn’t need talk. We needed walk.

What we needed was for you to take a stand and fight and refuse to turn even in the face of defeat. That would’ve inspired us. We would’ve stood with you and together we probably would’ve won, but if necessary, gone down in defeat with you, and come back again to fight again, knowing that the battles were right.

What we needed was — what we still need is — your leadership.

As you know, Mr. President, U.S. policy in Afghanistan is up for grabs. The debate rages around you in Washington about what to do.

The hawks, like John McCain and Joe Lieberman, advocate escalation — tens of thousands more troops. But others advise caution, and argue for a nimbler, counterterrorism approach.

As per usual, the war-mongers are questioning not just the strategy, but the motives and patriotism of those who disagree with them.

What’s the old saying about the man with a hammer thinking everything is a nail? It seems to me that’s how the right-wing and much of the Republican leadership think. Just about everything we’ve touched lately, we’ve smashed with that hammer, and their answer to cope with the increasingly failed result is a bigger, badder hammer — at a time when maybe we can’t even afford it anymore.

What I truly understand about the Afghanistan war could be handwritten on a post-it note, probably with room left over, but — since I occasionally like to delude myself into believing you or a member or your staff read this blog from time to time — I’d nevertheless like to add my puny little voice to those who are saying maybe it’s long past due for a little more nuanced approach: thoughtful, intelligent, and with an understanding that we have, and have always had, other tools at our disposal besides Olaf’s big ol’ hammer.

Please provide that leadership, Mr. President.

On this, the anniversary of the attacks of September 11, 2001, I thought it might be worthwhile to again assess the real damage done. Yes, there was the tragic loss of life on that day that now almost seems to have occurred somewhere else, in some other country, and I certainly do not mean to lesson the gravity of that loss, but I’m intent here on talking about some of the other damage that was done — the damage we’ve done to ourselves.

Although, prior to the attacks I would never have thought I would ever say such a thing, it was in some respects, a far more innocent time. In those more halcyon days, most of us I suspect thought that an American — with only the rarest exception — was simply an American, a US citizen simply a citizen, some of course better, far more responsible citizens than others, some to the political left and some to the political right, but nevertheless, a more or less given that, left or right, we were held together in as many ways as not by a common thread of understanding.

It is the sort of denial that seems almost a requirement to live in this post-post-postmodern age (or whatever), and it was naive, and perhaps in some ways it really was innocent, yet most of us I suspect know and have nearly always known that the edges of our society have always been raw with the rampant and the rabid, but that understanding nevertheless did not require very many of us to acknowledge the extent to which the half-cocked and half-crazed were waiting for their opportunity to pounce.

And suddenly, with the attacks, came that opportunity at last.

Suddenly, a man who was inarguably one of the most deeply flawed and unqualified to ever inhabit the house at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, toward whom most Americans, judging by the polls, had already lost much of their initial good will and faith, became, overnight — primarily it seems because he could use a bullhorn and make a few terse comments — our Great Leader.

So we were told.

For many months — and to a slightly lesser extent, even years — after, to offer criticism of that particular president became tantamount to being unpatriotic, of offering solace to the enemy, of being un-American, of being treasonous.

So we were told.

As nasty as American politics had been in recent decades, it had rarely seen this sort of opportunism, this sort of vitriol, obsession, or sheer, mindless indecency. Suddenly, anyone who did not agree with the deeply flawed policies of our deeply flawed president had the choice of being silent or of being attacked by a propaganda machine with the sole intent of threatening, bullying, silencing, and blacklisting all comers.

Fortunately, enough fought back, and passions gradually cooled enough, so that that machine did not achieve the total political and media dominance to which its operators aspired. (At least some of us think it was fortunate.)

And yet.

Here we are today, still caught in the aftermath of a political tsunami in which it has become acceptable, even heroic to many, for an elected leader in our Congress to heckle the president of the United States in the middle of his speech, in which it has become acceptable, even heroic to many, to openly carry and display firearms into venues in which the president is scheduled to speak, in which it has become acceptable, even patriotic to many, to simply make up your own "facts" on any subject whatsoever, to attribute a statement to your opponent that is exactly the opposite of what your opponent actually said, to lie about everything, to give one’s loyalty only to one’s political party, or team, to concern yourself with winning only, and for your side only, and to treat any concerns about the actual future of this society as inconsiderable and beneath contempt.

It has been said, by many on the right, and on many occasions — in utter denial of all the damage that has been done — that we should all just shut up and be appreciative that the Bush administration protected us from further terrorist attacks. And I am willing to admit, despite mounting evidence to the contrary, it may well be that Bush, Cheney, et al, did protect us, that some of their policies were far more effective than we know, or are, apparently, allowed to know.

But even if all of that is true, if we should ever be attacked similarly again (or worse) there is still one question that has to nag incessantly at anyone in this country who still has a mind, who can still think a semi-coherent thought, who still cares: who or what will protect us from the fully-cocked and the fully-crazed, the rampant and the rabid, who are now orgasmically frothing at the lips at the thought of when their opportunity may come?

In short, who will protect us from ourselves?

This is going to be a very short post, but since I have yet to see anybody in the mainstream media ask this question, I decided it was about time to bring it up:

Shouldn’t Republicans be supporting the public option on health care?

For nearly 30 years, since the "Reagan revolution," all we have heard out of most Republican leaders and operatives is that government is no good for anything, and that private enterprise is so much more competitive and so much more efficient than government can ever be.

So guys and gals, this is your chance to prove it. Why not support the public option and let the insurance companies prove your point once and for all? If private enterprise is so much better, more competitive and more efficient than government, if government can’t do anything right, then you should jump at this unprecedented opportunity to prove what you have been saying for at least the last 30 years.

In other words, why not put your private enterprise system where your mouth is?

Well, I’ll tell you why you won’t support it. Because you don’t really believe what you claim to believe. You are afraid to death that a government public option would work, that it would eventually force some of your biggest political contributors out of business. In other words, because you are and have always been full of hot air, not just unable to prove your philosophy is valid, but unwilling to take the chance that attempting to do so might backfire — just a bunch of greedy hypocrites who are willing to do anything for your corporate masters.

Oh yeah, you all talk tough, you all act tough, but when the rubber hits the road, when you really have the chance to prove what you have been pushing on this country for decades, you don’t have the spine for it. Cowards.