Retired Northern Oklahoma College president Dr. Edwin Vineyard Sr. is the author of the Militant Moderate. He is the author of two textbooks, has held several educational and business posts, and he is a recipient of state and national leadership awards. Dr. Vineyard says, “For most of a long career in public life, it was necessary to exercise restraint in commenting on political matters. Since retirement, I have enjoyed the freedom to do just that.”
Everybody knows
There was a shockingly strange and simple statement made this past week by a leading professional in the health care field. The president of the California Nurses Association said plainly and clearly: “Everybody on Capitol Hill knows what the solution to health care reform is!” That got the attention of this writer.
This nursing leader went on by saying that although everybody knows the solution, there is a lack of willingness on the part of Congress to do anything about it. She attributed this to the millions of dollars of political contributions from the insurance industry and the activities of their lobbyists at the capital.
This lady pointed out that the premium dollars paid by the consumers were being siphoned off to pay armies of lobbyists handing out millions of dollars around and among senators and representatives. They (members of Congress) are not working for the people, she declared, they are being bought by insurance company dollars accumulated through not paying claims of the ill and by putting sick people off coverage.
Citing the deplorable condition of the health care system, which she said nurses know and see the effects of this on patients, she thought it obscene that Congress was fiddling around with minutiae about plans while patients suffer and the uninsured are dying. She cited 43,000 deaths a year because of lack of treatment due to no insurance.
So, if everybody on the Hill knows the solution to our current health care mess, just what is that?
To this nursing leader it was quite simple: “Medicare for everybody.”
Many of us have wondered this same thing, “Why not something similar to Medicare for everybody? Why not just a free and open option for everybody to continue their own health insurance or switch to a government sponsored program with a schedule of benefits similar to Medicare?”
This would certainly seem to be the simplest and best plan. It is a plan that nearly everyone knows about and is not that hard to comprehend in form and detail. The costs of various medical procedures, products, and services have already been set at an affordable rate, not the exorbitant rates billed by hospitals.
Anyone who has had any procedure performed in a hospital lately knows the obscene rates at which services are first billed. This writer had an outpatient service done recently which was billed for $3,000. Medicare paid only $110.
Although some providers complain about Medicare payment schedules, nobody loses money. Hospitals are spending large advertising dollars to attract patients, including Medicare ones.
Paying for medical services at the billed rates would bankrupt the rich. But the rich have insurance companies negotiating rates for them, and Medicare sets its rates. The uninsured have no advocate. They are billed. They are sued. Their property is attached. Their wages are garnished. Or, they declare bankruptcy. Often there is little other choice than the latter.
There a number of facets of the opposition to decent and affordable health care at reasonable rates which this writer has great difficulty in understanding and accepting.
It is hard to understand how politicians, either for personal greed or for the sake of pure politics, are so corrupt that they will oppose something so desperately needed by the people – when they know the solution.
It is difficult to understand how those who proclaim religious and moral beliefs the loudest can ignore a moral imperative, such as people dying unnecessarily and sick people suffering, mistreated or untreated.
It is difficult to understand how those who declare themselves to be conservatives can oppose changes to reduce human hardship while introducing efficiencies into the system, markedly reducing health care insurance premiums for themselves and their employees, and helping businesses survive competitively. The dodge of opposition by calling this “socialized medicine” is rank sophistry, which must plague even a calloused conscience.
What is wrong with Democrats? Why don’t they step out and do exactly what they know to be right? Are they corrupted by money also? Are they fearful of a backlash from right wingers at home? Where is their statesmanship?
How can our “representatives” in government just ignore polls which show their constituents favor a public plan by a majority of 64% on up to 73% in different polls?
How much has to do with the proposed surcharge in income tax rates of 3% for those making over a half-million a year? Is this really the varmint in the woodpile?
In the end, sooner or later, we must come to the realization the plain and simple solution is indeed the best for all. Everybody, insured or uninsured, should be given a choice. One of the choices which should be available to all is a premium driven form of Medicare operated under the same kind of federal rules.
To use a common expression: No one should die because of the lack of health care coverage, and nobody should go broke because of sickness. It is that simple. So is the solution.
Some of those who are the most prolific advice-givers are the least qualified to be dispensing guidance. So it is with this writer, whose credentials in press relations could be called into question.
This writer recalls that sometime early in his 25 year tenure as a college president, he attended a breakout session at a national conference on the topic of press relations. He recalls well the admonition of that experienced speaker: “Don’t get into a fight with a newspaper unless you own one.” It was akin to Mark Twain’s advice not to battle with somebody who buys ink by the barrel.
This advice must have been received a while after a certain incident in the writer’s early career, or else this writer flagrantly failed to follow it. Just prior to leaving home to attend a banquet of the local chamber of commerce, he looked at that day’s evening edition of the town news. There on the front page was an attack on the college on some matter of local controversy with city fathers. Anger swelled.
That anger had not abated when this writer took the speaker’s rostrum, waved the local newspaper at the crowd, including its publisher, and termed it the owner’s “yellow scandal sheet.” He said to the folks there that maybe he should apologize for the college cluttering up the east side of their nice town and causing problems.
This was definitely not the epitome of good public relations, although raves were immediately received from college personnel and many local friends. Somebody needed to call the paper and the local government to task, they said, for mistreating the town’s major economic and cultural asset.
Curiously enough, there was a bit more local sensitivity after that. The newspaper owner and I later became friends, and his lovely wife served a very helpful term on the governing board of regents.
Nevertheless, this writer would not normally recommend this as an avenue toward good press relations, although now and then a private talk with press people may help alleviate any growing tensions.
In the case of our president, one should not expect any change in the negative treatment of him by Fox “News,” regardless of any positive overtures or straight comments from the White House. Fox is indeed a network driven by political ideology. It is not going to change if treated with finesse. It will continue to feature negative news and commentary about the Obama administration and democrats in general, no matter what. Fox has shown itself to be anti-government, if the administration is democrat, by promoting and sponsoring anti-government rallies. That is NOT a news network.
What does the president lose if he “alienates” a non-news network of continuous negativity and personal attack? How can a network which features vicious personal and political attacks become more unfriendly than it already is?
This writer rarely watches Fox “News” more than a minute or two at a time, except when he is an unwilling part of a captive audience in public places such as doctors’ offices, hospital waiting areas, and fitness centers. He considers the usual Fox network programming to be offensive, and he has been known to request that the channel be changed.
The President is correct, of course. Fox is not a news network, but it is a video journal of “perspective” as he said. It has been sickening when Fox hypocritically claims itself to be “fair and balanced.” News, often slanted, is interspersed within daytime programming, but the prime time is devoted to right wing attack programming.
It is also true that during the evening hours MSNBC programming has a left-of-center ideological stance. Their early morning seems to the right-of-center, while mid-day programming seems to be normal news coverage. But MSNBC lists its evening programs as “a perspective on the day’s news and events.” That is honest.
Except for Lou Dobbs, and maybe other gaffes, CNN is the most “fair and balanced” of the cable news networks. It is in fact worrisome because it compulsively offers two sided arguments about everything. It cannot put on a news report, or its own network news analysts’ comments, without some kind of rebuttal included from one or both parties. It becomes a constant, tiresome, annoying harangue. No wonder they are losing viewers.
In spite of popular criticism from the right wing, the mainstream network television newscasts seem to be the most fair in their coverage and presentations. PBS is remarkably educative without being obnoxious.
Even the newscasts from area television stations sometimes seem to be stricken with editorial bias in selection of content, in the language with which issues or scenes are described, and similar subtleties. Then, too, we are afflicted there with features like “my two cents.” But at least those two pennies worth are labeled.
Somehow we need to find a better way of presenting the news of interest in this country. Perhaps we should go back to the concept of well-run, journalistically professional newspapers where they keep their editorial comments on one or two pages and boldly labeled so.
The reader of an ethically run newspaper can then skip the editorials, which are properly allowed to be politically biased, silly, or just plain annoying. He/she can proceed to read news that is normally properly and fairly collected and presented without bias or selection.
Surely someone can devise a television format for cable network “news” that emulates that conceptual framework.
Please allow this writer to be one of the many voices in Oklahoma, and others across the nation, to declare imperatively: “FREE BOBBI PARKER! Stop the incessant, harsh, continuing persecution (prosecution)!”
For those to whom the name may not be familiar, Bobbi Parker is the wife of the assistant prison warden at Granite who allegedly helped Randal Dial, a trustee prisoner, escape from custody. She allegedly drove the car out the gates with Dial hidden inside. Dial had been working in an art shop in the Parker garage in a residence on the prison grounds.
It was speculated and discussed widely at the time whether Mrs. Parker was a willing participant in Dial’s escape, or under threat and duress. Some thought there was an illicit love affair, and this made for juicy gossip. However, no charges were filed against Parker until long following the time when she and Dial were found 11 years later in Texas.
Insufficient evidence was present to file charges within the necessary legal time limits of the actual offense, if any. Prosecutors were pushing the statute of limitations again before filing charges after she was found. In the meantime, she has adjusted back into her family and holds a paying job.
The only other witness in the case (Dial) gave a dying deposition that she was an unwilling participant in his escape. He said that he had a hold on Mrs. Parker then and through the years by claiming the power to harm her husband and children. True or not, she and Dial are the only ones who know.
For all the rest of us, it is mere supposition based on the fact that she left with him and then stayed with him. We don’t really know.
This writer has numerous questions. Why are charges filed now? Who is Mrs. Parker harming or threatening now? What danger is she to the public? How do we know she was not forced to leave with Dial? Was her family threatened then and afterward by Dial, as he said? Was she a victim of Stockholm’s syndrome? Who is helped now by this prosecution? Who is being hurt by this prosecution?
There are some similarities between the Bobbi Parker case and the recent finding of the 11 year old kidnap victim after 18 years. Like Parker, that girl must have had opportunities to escape. Why did she not do so? Just as in Parker’s case, we do not really know why. Stockholm’s syndrome may be argued in both cases.
In Parker’s case, a remarkably understanding and forgiving man has taken her back unto his bosom and her two children have participated in reintegration physically and emotionally into a tight knit home. She has a job. Why do we want to disrupt all this for an expensive prosecution and possible incarceration at public expense?
Of course, one answer would be a prosecutor who is looking for his/her 15 minutes of fame on the state and national stage. But another could be the kind of prosecutorial mind-set which seems to permeate our justice system.
Too many prosecutors appear to think that their role is prosecution, regardless of guilt or innocence of the defendant, or the expense and human hurt it creates. Some have been heard saying, “I don’t determine guilt or innocence, I just prosecute to the best of my ability and let the jury decide who is innocent and who is guilty.”
Forgive us for saying so, but that is a simple minded attitude. The prosecutor is an officer of the court, and thus a part of the justice system. After all, the goal of the whole process is “justice.” If that can be decided at the prosecutorial level, with full consideration to all persons, to society, and to the issues involved, then that is the level at which justice should prevail.
Another simple minded view is that of “crime and punishment,” i.e. all that is of concern is that the guilty be punished. Too often the writers of our laws have been so concerned that they appear hard on crime that they have written in harsh punishments, three strikes laws, and mandatory sentencing, plus 85% rules on time served. For the same reasons, judges have sometimes been too concerned with public opinion in sentencing offenders to harsh penalties for minor crimes or those associated with alcohol and drugs.
In the final sense, it is we who are at fault. We voters have elected our prosecutors, our judges, and our lawmakers with a view that violators “be locked up and the key thrown away.” We have demanded punishment which may or may not fit either the crime or the circumstances. These people, along with our law enforcement personnel, are our “public servants.” They do what we say we want. Oklahoma is a “backwater” state.
One author, long ago and hardly remembered (although quoted in this writer’s master’s degree thesis in 1951), said: “Justice un-tempered by mercy is cold and harsh, and has no place in our human society.”
We have a Department of Corrections. Do we really mean “corrections,” or do we equate “punishment” with “corrections?” We used to talk a lot about “rehabilitation,” but now that term seems largely reserved for celebrities who get into trouble because of alcohol, drugs, or some similar cause. They go into “rehab,” and we think of that as a subterfuge. That’s too bad.
Rehabilitation is really quite a proper and appropriate concept. We used to have the idea that prisons (reformatories) did that. But our prisons have become little more than secure, but squalid and dangerous, warehousing services for a growing segment of our population. We pay county jails and private prisons fees just to warehouse prisoners that our state penal system is too overloaded to take. What kind of mess is this?
If “corrections” or “rehabilitation” are to occur, we need a different goal for our prisons. We need programs designed to do that, rather than just “incarcerate.” We send too many non-violent offenders to prisons, and we keep them there too long. While there, they receive little or no treatment.
Starting with those of us in society itself, we need to make different demands on our law makers, and different demands on those who serve in our system of justice. We must rid our Capitol of hypocritical demagogues. Those who have become calloused to human considerations should seek different careers. When constantly exposed to the dregs of our society, it is easy to form attitudes which are difficult to rise above in considering the possible changeability of human behavior.
But we must rise above our current practices! Setting Bobbi Parker free would be a start.
As an octogenarian, this writer does not follow all the current slang employed by the younger set in describing the conduct of others. Back in the olden years, we had a saying about people whose behavior clashed with our commonly held code of social acceptability. We would say, “He has no class!”
One thinks that it might be well to drag out this descriptive term, and apply the connotation which it carries to current conduct. We have seen so many examples of rowdy, boorish, vulgar, unsportsmanlike, uncivil, bully, and just plain asinine public behavior recently. It is time to call such conduct what it is, and to call the perpetrators to accountability as “having no class.”
Certainly we have seen some really bad, “no class” behavior from segments of our population recently.
This comment is not directed now at the verbal brawls of the summer town hall meetings, although those examples would certainly qualify as standouts for the “no class” designation. We are not referring now to the diatribe of lies and distortions by political pawns of the insurance industry about health care proposals intended for the welfare of citizens of this country. However, that political misbehavior would certainly qualify as “no class.”
President Obama, showing great class, went to Europe attempting to aid with the American city of Chicago’s bid to host the Olympics, while also having a face meeting with General McChrystal from Afghanistan. The Olympics would have been a tremendous boost to that struggling metropolis, and it would have been good for America. The award went instead to a city in Brazil, no doubt deserving in some way other than fielding teams of competitive Olympians or supporting past events.
At this news, videos show crowds attending a conservative political organization gathering cheering and deriding the failure of our president to accomplish a goal which was evidently already decided before his entry into the game. The opposition’s national committee chair and dozens of members of his party showed their glee to the public. Their conduct said, “Anything bad for Obama is good for us – even if it hurts the country.”
We have a term to apply for those who cheer a loss of an American president of the opposition party in a positive effort to benefit the country or any segment thereof internationally. They have no class! Further, they could be dubbed as exhibiting unpatriotic conduct.
We have just seen the surprise international honor of the Nobel Peace Prize come to an American, who happens to be the elected leader of our country. Do all Americans rejoice, as might be expected, for such an honor? No, there were no cheers for our president from the opposition party, only derision and belittling of the man and of the honor itself. That response came from the titular and other leaders and members of that party. It is appropriate for us to say, “You have no class!”
Further, we would like to extend that label to all those political and news pundits who questioned, “What has he done to deserve this honor?” they questioned. “This award was for not being George Bush, who was disliked and hated abroad,” they said. “This was given on the forward expectation rather than things already done,” they said.
We would like to extend the designation, although not quite as severely, to all these pundits, “You have no class! You are supposed to be intellectuals, and this is all you can come up with?”
Harsher terms might be employed for those talk show hosts, AKA party leaders, who have used the public airwaves to deride the honor extended to our president. Picking up negatives from the extremist Muslim group, the Taliban, Mr. Limbaugh declared his agreement with those now killing our troops in Afghanistan. With something beyond his usual pomposity, he derided Mr. Obama, the Swedish Nobel committee, and declared our president had won the world’s favor by degrading his own country.
To Mr. Limbaugh, Mr. Beck, their friends, and ditto-heads, “You have no class!” Your public statements tell us that you think, “Anything good for Mr. Obama is bad for us – even if it honors our country.”
We wonder whatever happened to all those campaign posters that said, “Country First.”
Personally, this writer would in no way question the awarding of the Nobel Prize to our president, even though it was a surprise to all of us. He challenged himself to name another person who deserved it more. Although admittedly a bit short on worldwide knowledge and experience, this writer cannot think of another person who would have deserved it as much.
Since Mr. Obama first came on the national and international scene, even while still engaged in running for his party’s nomination, he began to revive the world’s hopes of something different and something new. He brought hopes of a new era in international relations.
With the emergence of this nation’s more restrained and respectful policy approach to other countries, and the absence of bullying and threatening, “axis of evil” accusations, and “cowboy diplomacy” of the past, Mr. Obama brought a season of good will and optimism about the world’s future. It is difficult for us to see how any other candidate, within either political party, could have brought these positive changes so quickly. Nor could any other world figure have done so.
With his personality, his rhetoric, and his progressive actions in diplomatic outreach, Mr. Obama has changed the international climate already. He deserves the Nobel Peace Prize as would no other.
This writer once gave a lecture to about 200 college freshmen entitled: “Things You Are Against.” As an introduction to that talk, he said something like this: “We have heard many times how our lives are defined by the things which we are for. I will tell you today that others can tell a lot about your character, and just who you are, by the things you are against.”
It is important now and then to sit quietly and assess ourselves by thinking about what kinds of things we are against. What makes us angry? What disgusts us? What arouses our negative emotions? What upsets us? What irritates us? What bothers us?
Since this is a journal of social, economic, and political commentary, we shall focus principally upon conditions and events in that general sector. What bothers us about political, social, and economic dynamics in this country?
Although we do not want to become bogged down in numbers or statistics, one fact just read again this day bothers me. I was reminded that the richest 1% of the people in this country have more wealth than the lower 95%. Say what you will, and call me names if you wish, but that condition is morally wrong and incompatible with a democracy such as ours. It sets the stage for an upheaval.
Even in the most extreme form of meritocracy, as capitalism wrongly defines itself to be, such a condition is abhorrent.
Our situation in distribution of income is almost as shockingly unfair. Given that some might perform more skilled and technical services than others, and some carry higher risk and greater responsibilities than others in the business and industrial sector, it is morally wrong when the CEO of the organization makes 700 times the wages of the average worker.
It is abhorrent that we have lived through an economic period when that ratio between executive pay and worker pay has increased by 2,000%. It is clear the conditions in this country have favored the rich to get richer in comparison with the working classes. This is not a fair playing field.
It is aggravating to me when the political demagogues of this country succeed in fooling the masses and influencing generations with such a fallacious uttering as: “Government is not the solution to our problems. Government is the problem!” Only ignorant or narrow-minded, opinionated people really believe that smoke and mirrors fallacy.
However, from thence came lasting reductions in the progressive income tax for the highest earners, cutting the tax rate in half, and the start of our largest deficits and huge annual increases in the national debt. A product of this attitude toward government came as deregulation of the business and financial sector. That deregulation led to rampant abuses, soft insubstantial economic growth, and artificial calculations of substance to the detriment of all of us.
The American people and the economy of this nation (and the world) were put in jeopardy by the freewheeling, risk-ignoring, irresponsible conduct of those in leadership in our financial sector.
This led to the necessary expenditure of tax payers’ funds in bailing out the Wall Street giants, who were “too large to fail,” because of after-effects on our whole system. This expenditure was near $1 trillion. That was followed by almost another $1 trillion in economic stimulus funds being put out to save jobs and to prop up failing state and city governments.
It has been clear that this situation came about as a result of deregulation, and it can only be straightened out and prevented from re-occurring through government regulation. The leaders of those businesses we saved are now spending big money to bribe Congress into rejecting the administration’s proposed regulatory legislation. Now that irritates the heck out of me, and it should irritate all taxpayers.
It is even more irritating that members of our Congress have so little integrity as to be susceptible to such immoral maneuvering and monetary corruption. Those who then try to justify this stance on some false principle of free enterprise and non-regulation, are hypocritical and doubly disgusting. This is the equivalent of their turning their back to us, and then dropping their pants in our face.
Leaders of the political party of deregulation, the favorite of those who have put us all at risk and subjected all of us to big losses personally, and great expense to taxpayers, now stand aside in the role of the cynics and accusers of the new elected leader for the spending steps necessary to solve the economic mess they left behind as their legacy. Again, we detest this hypocrisy.
In passing, a current irritation is the outcry of those who have expected to taxpayers to buy their pimped-up electric golf carts for them. Had there been any such intention, no bill would have ever seen the light of our legislative chambers. Many of us even question subsidies for electric cars, and we certainly did not intend to buy souped-up golf carts for the country club set.
But, more exploration of this subject must await another day and another column. There are lots of other things that bother us.
In the recent past we have been an outspoken advocate of health care reform. We agree that the present situation is abominable – overly expensive, insufficiently accessible to all citizens, and full of greed and corruption. We agree with most of the ideas of the president for remediation of these intolerable conditions.
However, we are NOT in agreement with all the ideas being proposed by those in Congress, particularly the Senate. When Senator Baucus came out with his “plan,” it made the Militant Moderate shout: “Stop the train! Let me off!” Where are those town hall meetings, I want to object loudly.
Please don’t try to do this reform in such a way that it will not offend the insurance companies. Giving them more clients and increasing the profits which they gouge from their premium payers is not our goal. The Baucus ideas are a “bird’s nest on the ground” for predatory insurance companies.
If we can’t do something right, then for gosh sakes let us NOT do something else wrong in health care.
The prescription drug plan, passed under the last administration was a give-away to pharmaceutical companies. Yes, it did help seniors, but it helped the drug companies more -- at the expense of Medicare. Nobody with business sense would deliberately leave out mass bargaining by the government for drug prices and encapsulate in law a prohibition from re-importation of American drugs cheaper abroad.
This was plainly and simply a sell-out to the pharmaceuticals. Now, under the Baucus plan, we would create a new group of captive new clients for the insurance companies to harvest at taxpayers’ expense.
The private option, called Medicare Advantage, passed under the last administration under which insurance companies are paid extra to recruit Medicare enrollees and sign them up for similar benefits administered by the insurance companies is another rip-off for the Medicare system. It costs the Medicare fund 13% more for every senior who is enrolled in the private insurance plan. This comes out of the trust fund provided by Medicare taxes and Medicare premiums paid by other seniors.
This is a dumb thing for the government to be doing, and it is obviously a rip-off from Medicare and taxpayers -- just handed to the insurance companies. But “privatization” was the big theme song of the Republicans. They tried to privatize Social Security also. Remember?
It would indeed be good to cover another 45 million Americans with health insurance coverage of some kind, but to just hand these over for insurance companies’ profits with Uncle Sam covering the tab is ridiculous.
That Baucus plan would do nothing to reduce the exorbitant costs of health care, to introduce efficiencies, nor to set a bargaining floor for premiums and provider payments that a public plan alternative would do. Insurance companies would just have it all handed to them. They would have no incentive to bargain with providers on behalf of their consumer clients as long as they make their profit anyway. Premiums would continue a fast rise.
There are many who suggest that the millions in campaign donations funneled to Republican leaders, and to some Democrats like Mr. Baucus, influence their proposals for “reform.” The facts are there. Make a guess.
Wouldn’t a free choice plan including one called something like Medicare II, separately accounted and funded but with similar coverage and discounts, really make a lot more sense? This would be true especially for people over 50, who would be paying insurance company premiums 5 times the 30 year age group under the Baucus plan?
Mr. Baucus, if you are now the engineer of the train, and if you are determining the direction it will go --- then, “Stop This Train! I want off! I want to catch a train going another route.”
Mr. Obama, give us a free choice plan throughout, so that we can choose a public, Medicare-like plan if we prefer that to private insurance company offerings and rates.
“I want my country back.” This plaintive outburst of a woman at one of those rowdy town hall meetings in August still concerns this writer. She seemed quite emotional. It was puzzling.
The logic of this woman’s self-proclaimed misery may be difficult to discern. From time to time one is prone to ponder this woman’s dilemma, and to wonder what inner turmoil could lie behind that woman’s words. The video clip showed her in the midst of those shouters and rude haranguers. She sounded off in a loud, assertive, emotional manner in the meeting. Since then we have noticed those words on signs carried by protestors.
What is missing that makes this not her country any longer? Who has stolen her country? If this is an outcry against change, as it seems to be, then what change? What change makes one so emotional – political, economic, social, religious, or what?
For some time we have heard outcries from religious fundamentalists that “they” have taken their country away. Their complaint is not having officially sponsored prayers in classes or at formally scheduled school events. Of course, they don’t phrase or think of it that way. It is just, “They took prayer out of our schools.” These same people think that Christianity is guaranteed by the Constitution, while “freedom of religion” actually guarantees that there will no official compunction to worship in any prescribed way. Sometimes, simple is not simple enough for simpletons.
Unfortunately, there are those out there on the right wing fringe who encourage paranoia about the banning of religion. They say “God” and Christians are being persecuted. They circulate false rumors and e-mails about taking “in God we trust” off coins, “under God” out of the pledge of allegiance, and other similarly weird ideas – wrongs they attribute to Democrats. They do not always appreciate being corrected.
That is one issue that has brought out a lot of emotion. The abortion issue is another. The rhetoric about “baby killing” has worked many religious souls into an emotional lather. Some take guns and murder doctors.
Somehow the inherent freedom of women from government enforced pregnancy, child-bearing, and child rearing seems to have been lost somewhere. Too bad. Weren’t we appalled not so long ago by Serbian soldiers raping Croatian women to force them have “Serb” children?
How about taxes? For most of us taxes are just an onerous part of life, about which we complain and occasionally say a few bad words. Normally we do not cry or become emotional about paying our taxes.
There are some nowadays who seem bent on trying to make us feel persecuted by taxes. This is confined primarily to Republicans who object to paying taxes during Democrat administrations.
While they did not object to deficits of $1.6 trillion resulting from tax-cuts for the wealthy, nor the $1.2 trillion spent on an unnecessary war, somehow they now object to a lesser deficit putting money out to consumers, cities, and states for priming the pump to start up an economy left on the brink of disaster by the last administration. Some of these people come from the group that has health insurance, and they oppose health care reform because they are afraid they might have to pay a tax on theirs in order for the uninsured to have similar health security.
The “tea party” extremists believe that government is an enemy, and they get people all worked up emotionally. That group has become seditious and unpatriotic in its rhetoric. Mix this with a few gun-toting nuts and you have an armed insurrection. Do we not understand this?
Q. Who is paying the freight to promote “tea parties?” A. Wealthy persons and corporations who are enjoying lower tax rates while middle class and lower class burdens increase. Latest stats show that in Oklahoma, the wealthier are paying a much lower percentage of their income for state and local taxes than the middle and lower groups. (The primary reason is high sales taxes and low income taxes.) Oklahoma ranks 42nd in tax burden as a percent of income, yet we have all those weird people out protesting. Our tax-cutting legislature is killing public services in Oklahoma.
Although the notion is repugnant to most of us, some may feel their country has been taken away because a person of color is president. We overhear remarks of that nature, and about the number of black or Hispanic people now in government positions. Some have questioned whether a Congressman from South Carolina would ever have yelled insulting accusations at a white president appearing before a session of Congress.
President Carter has joined others in saying openly that the intensity level of the health care and anti-government activists has a racial basis. Sadly, these observations appear to be correct.
Indeed our country is changing. It is always changing. Some changes are progressive in nature, but nevertheless difficult for some people to take. Most people in our nation wanted change, and Mr. Obama promised change. We elected him. Why should we be tolerant of the false and character impugning attacks being made on him and on the agenda of change that he promised? We wanted our country back from those who drove us to ruin.
This country needed change. Most people want change.
Some people do not want change. Those with vested interests in the status quo do not want change. Some of those have no ethics and no morals. Some have very little love for their country if it is not run to serve and to please them. Some want to exploit the rest of us for profit. Those most prosperous among us too often have little concern for the less fortunate. Many of them consider government an ally in doing business their way, and they pay for that help by campaign donations and through lobbyists. These consider the government an enemy if it regulates their activities, takes back tax subsidies, or threatens their corporate or personal favors.
Those who do not like government prey upon consumers, who are dependent upon government for protection. Sometimes they fool ordinary people into becoming their allies. Without these deluded ones they might lose power.
Many of us would indeed like to have our country back – one that is free of lies, distortions, and nutty conspiracy theories. We’d like a country ruled by a process of civil democracy. We would like our democracy uncorrupted by money and corporate powers.
This writer was never a fan of Viet Nam era war movies. Perhaps that is because he was never a fan of the Viet Nam war. That whole period seems to have been a sordid, ugly time in our lives and in the life of our nation. Young men were dying without really ever having a cause for which we could unite and believe.
I saw the highly acclaimed film “Apocalypse Now,” back during its early release time. I was not impressed. In fact, most of the film seemed to be very much a jumble of confusion and mixed messages. It was neither a patriotic war movie nor an exciting adventure film. It was a drab, confused array of scenes and mumbled conversations that defied comprehension.
I have often wondered just what the point of that movie was supposed to be. I know what it meant to me. It carried the message that war is a dark, dismal experience, full of pain and gore, and that often it has little meaning for those in the middle of it. In which case, those fighting often come up with their own sense of meaning, which begins with staying alive and surviving.
I have often wondered if the movie had an intended “moral” to it, other than its depiction of war as an ordeal in receiving and inflicting terror. I have my own notion as to the moral of the film. It hit when the renegade American colonel character played by Marlon Brando came into the drama.
He was the leader of a renegade army of his own, answering to no higher brass and not playing by any civilized rules of war. The Vietnamese feared him. He was cruel beyond imagination, stopping at nothing in fighting, capturing, torturing, and killing the Vietnamese – soldiers or civilians.
There was a conversation between the Colonel and the young American officer, still struggling with his conscience and the activities of war. The Colonel’s brief lecture was Machiavellian in nature, as “the end justifies the means.” That is, in war all actions taken to win are justified. There are no rules. (It is similar to the same justifications now offered by Mr. Cheney for torturing prisoners.)
The Colonel pressed his point that in order to win against a cruel enemy, one must become even more cruel. The enemy must fear you. The young officer then raised a question, “But if we become more cruel than our enemy, then who has won?”
The Democrats face such a dilemma in this country today as they face foes who show little sense of decency, civility, or morality in the conduct of politics.
Democrats have endured bullying by angry, shouting, gun-toting mobs, They are accused of being Nazis. Their proposals to help with health care are used to ignite all kinds of lies and suspicions. The president’s pep talk to school students has brought out unbelievable accusations of indoctrination of children with socialism (or even homosexuality and abortion by some). Programs to rehabilitate the economy have met with some success, but are loudly condemned. Democrats have as yet passed no taxes, but rather a reduction for average payers, and yet they are accused by angry, seditionist “tea party” crowds of raising taxes and running up outrageous deficits. Preachers are shouting, “I hate Obama!” and publicly praying for him to die.
Republican leaders declared that if they could defeat Obama’s health bill, they could ruin his presidency. They have joined powerful lobbyists and rich corporations in this effort. It matters not that the people need it.
Sometimes it would be easy to understand if Democrats started shouting back, if they went out in force and pushed those unruly mobs out, and if they carried guns and brought things to a fight or a “Mexican stand-off.” What if Democrats started shouting back at loud-mouths dominating the conversations on TV talk shows? It would be easy to understand if there was a huge effort to coordinate a boycott of all sponsors of Limbaugh’s program and such programs on Fox News. It would be easy to understand if Democrats formed pickets and demonstrations outside radio stations carrying Limbaugh, and outside the Fox studios and program sponsors.
It would be easy to understand if Democrats started calling lies what they are, if they started calling those who believe them “dummies” and “crazies,” and if they started called the tellers of falsehoods “liars and hypocrites.”
But then the question arises if Democrats fight back in these ways, have they sunk to the same low life behavior of pond scum, such as practiced by actors in the opposition? Are we in a new apocalyptic age, with no compass of “right” and “wrong?”
The answer is “No, not necessarily, but close.” If democrats use unacceptable, inappropriate, dishonest, or unethical methods, then they become similarly culpable. If they simply and plainly counter and rebut what is said and done, if they “call out” the perpetrators of lies and unethical conduct, and if they forcefully advocate their own ideas and programs -- they are engaged in appropriate tactics. If they tell the truth as best they discern it, they are okay.
During the President’s speech before joint houses of Congress, one Republican, in a breach of ethics and conduct, rudely disrupted with a shout, “You lie.” Such conduct is bad enough from an ignorant lout, but from a Congressman it is despicable. Worse than that, this lout was stupidly wrong in his assertion. Ignorant and stupid people should keep their mouths shut, and should never be elected to Congress.
Recently a very nice column appeared in the Enid News, written by a talented staff columnist. It recognized the passing of Senator Kennedy in a warm, yet analytical fashion, remarking about the civility of the Senate in which those from opposing parties had historically functioned in the conduct of national business.
In the course of his treatise, he cited the election of 2000 when the Supreme Court decided the presidential election, and he dwelt on the point of the acceptance and smooth changeover of government under highly emotional circumstances. This was indeed a remarkable thing, considering the skullduggery which had transpired leading up to that point.
Proving a point I always made when teaching educational psychology -- namely that people do not necessarily learn what they hear or read, but do learn that which the stimulation causes them to think – this writer could not help but think about what it might have been like if that presidential shoe had been put on the other’s foot.
What if the Supreme Court had been made up of five Democrats and 4 Republicans? What if Al Gore’s brother had been the governor of the state of Florida? What if Kathleen Harris, the director of elections in Florida, had been an active partisan Democrat? During the hanging chad malfunction and the manual recount of votes in Miami-Dade, what if information on the raucous protests, shouting and disorder in the hallways showed the hallways filled with identifiable staff persons of Democratic congressmen and Democratic Party employees? What if this shouting and disorder in the halls had ostensibly caused officials to stop the recount -- keeping those votes from going Republican?
What if a democratically controlled Supreme Court took away the legal jurisdiction from a Republican majority Florida Supreme Court before the votes had been properly counted? Out of such a situation, what if Al Gore had been named president by that Supreme Court?
After the actual Supreme Court decision, flawed as it was, Mr. Gore quickly conceded the election. He went public immediately asking all his supporters to respect the court’s verdict. Mr. Gore seemed quite concerned with the preservation of the Union, and that no precedent of disorder or any challenge outside the legal system even remotely be considered.
Again, what if Mr. Gore had won in that bizarre scenario? Could we have expected the same gracious manner and actions from Mr. Bush, Mr. Cheney and their crowd of advisers and supporters? Think about that!
Would Republicans accept losing under such conditions with only a smattering of outcries about a stolen election?
While Democrats considered Mr. Bush’s first term as an illegitimate presidency, the anti-war demonstrations and cries for impeachment came in his legitimate second term for offenses in office. Nobody was leading “tea parties” against taxes, although a burden had been shifted off the wealthy to the rest of us. No one called for rebellion or secession from the union because the deficit was run up by an unnecessary war and those selective tax cuts. Nobody wore guns to protest with Nazi hate signs.
Noting such Republican tendencies and their penchant for conspiracy theories, their belief in ideas about the mysterious birth place of Mr. Obama, suspicions of him as Muslim, accusing Obama of plotting to kill off old people -- then might one not expect quite a different response from Republicans? The current paranoid Republican flap, led again by right wing talk shows, about Obama giving a motivational talk to school kids tells us: “Yes.”
Comedian Argus Hamilton’s recent column noted that while Democrats tend to look at the glass as “half-full,” Republicans say, “Somebody drank half my glass!” Republicans have also been known to circulate the rumor that: “Somebody pushed Humpty Dumpty off that wall. Then Obama’s health care plan rejected Humpty because he was too old.”
And, what mental process makes people so motivated to support predatory insurance companies? What have they been told? What are they thinking? Without a public option, who will be the big winner in all this battle? And the answer is --- the gouging, cold-blooded insurance companies. They will have bought and paid for the right to gouge us through their donations to interest advertising groups and from their lobbyists to congress people from both parties.
We have witnessed disorderly and threatening behavior, the “tea parties” against taxes not yet levied (actually lower), the hate speech and gun-toting, and the touting of insurrection and secession, all by Republicans or organized, supported, and defended by them. This has happened in six months of a new administration overwhelmingly elected with a known platform.
How could we ever believe the Republicans would have accepted the controversial 2000 election in the same gracious manner as Al Gore and his followers? No, they do not accept election of an overwhelmingly popular candidate. Through their use of money and media, they have managed to convince large numbers of Americans that the agenda they voted for is somehow bad, socialistic, and downright un-American.
Of course, much of this is due to enactment of necessary solutions to actual economic problems inherited from the last administration. There is also the matter of accumulated deficits from tax cuts and lavish war spending. Given a clean slate with no huge inherited problems, most of the Obama agenda might have already been passed. The diversion of the economy has taken time, attention, and energy away from proposals to change the future of the country and its citizens.
Mr. Obama, just get us out! Get us out of Iraq! Get us out of Afghanistan!
There is little being accomplished by keeping over 100,000 troops and a large corps of civilians in Iraq. Those people really do not want us there. Their legislature is referring the matter to a public vote. Why wait around?
It would be better to leave now rather than under the terms of the agreement made by Mr. Bush, which keeps us there another year and a half. They seem to have their own internal religious fights to wage. There is no point in our being in the midst of those.
Some may say that it is sobering to Iran if we have an unoccupied fighting army close by their borders. We don’t really plan on invading Iran, do we?
The problems in Afghanistan are not as much different from those in Iraq as we might tend to think. We went there to get Bin Laden by taking sides in a civil conflict. The Taliban government had given Bin Laden safe haven while he plotted against us, and they refused to turn him over. We joined with the northern regional rebel forces to put the Taliban out of power.
But both the Taliban leaders and Bin Laden took refuge in the wild country of Pakistan, from which the Taliban continues to harass our occupying forces. It is their country, not ours. We are occupiers, not really welcome there.
If the Afghan people do not care enough about their freedom to do their own fighting against the Islamic fundamentalists, then that ceases to be our problem. Their present government is corrupt. Their elections are rigged. We should not keep wasting ourselves in that war of occupation.
It seems increasingly evident that our principal reason for being there – to hunt down and kill Bin Laden – has become subordinate to fighting with the Taliban. Maintaining a base in Afghanistan for pot-shots from drones at Bin Laden and his cronies holed up in Pakistan may be of some value. But that idea should be re-studied. There are other ways of taking pot-shots from afar, if we have the intelligence to aim them.
It seems as though we are again off course. Some call it “mission creep.” Mr. Obama does not appear immune to the afflictions of Mr. Bush. We did not go to Afghanistan to occupy their country, nor to take care of their governance problems for them. That is their business, and we should get out of there shortly and leave it in their hands.
We have not adopted the Afghan or Iraqi people for welfare projects, and we can not afford decent care for our own people right here in the U.S.A. If we have not given up the notion of nation-building by now, we should do so.
The United States should plot its future without occupying land and facilities around the world, and without keeping large military forces lodged in foreign lands.
Our 30,000 man force in South Korea is not sufficient to deter an attack by hordes from the north, but it is instead a liability in case of such a new war. They could be captured in a situation much like Bataan and Corregidor in World War II. They should not be exposed to such vulnerability. Prosperous South Korea can defend itself.
If we stop involving ourselves in ground wars in the Middle East, we will no longer need facilities in Germany – nor the forces stationed there throughout the cold war. We have widened NATO commitments right up to Russia’s front door. That is neither wise nor necessary. There is no support here for war with Russia if they invade obscure nations in central Europe, especially territories of the former Soviet Union.
There is a mood in this country for disentangling ourselves from foreign conflicts and foreign alliances. We have had our fill of sacrifices for fights in Korea, Viet Nam, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Our own national security must be directly at stake. There will always be a safe haven somewhere from which our enemies will plot against us. We cannot occupy them all.
We possess the technology to make pin-point strikes from afar on those who threaten us. An earlier missile attack on Bin Laden’s camp came within an hour or so of doing what we have not been able to do since. Let us use our technology as we did then and in Kosovo, and improve our intelligence.
Postscript: Since writing the article above, a Post/ABC opinion poll has been released. It seems that 51% of the people do not believe that the Afghan war is worth fighting. Only 24% support increasing troops there, while 45% say troops should be reduced. Only 47% say they support the war there. Mr. Obama should take note that 70% of democrats say that Afghanistan is not worth American blood. It appears that the Militant Moderate is much more on target than anticipated earlier.
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