.
The items listed by MoveOn.org are "do you still beat your wife" kinds of issues. They are Miss America questions. They are soft-shoe and easy listening for the dull-witted masses. What else would they be, though? This is from the "General Betray Us" folks suddenly turned earthy and populist. It is these populist misleadings by groups who are so virulently campaigning for left-wing agendas that makes them so despicable. What is the real agenda? It is not (1)health care for all, (2) end of the Iraq War, or (3) clean energy. These are populist, not progressive (so-called) or liberal ideas. But, that said, I am glad even MoveOn.org is getting behind them.
1. Health care for all has been a thing that the Democrats have owned since Prez Clinton and Lady Hillary tried to make it so. Good for them, but I hope the approach is different this time around. I hope it is less Sweden and Canada (40% taxes might be fine if I can live through a heart attack and receive a colonoscopy every year without going into debt, but what if I can't afford food because retail prices rise 40% or more, too??!), more SMART regulation and streamlining of the bull involved with insurance and health care.
Shame on the GOP for not taking the knife of regulation and sticking it into insurance companies that are letting the under-covered and the poor to drop dead or live in misery rather than develop truly reasonable coverage alongside government. Not that this is an insurance problem -- it is a national problem. Our leaders need to act on it or they are not our leaders, they are elected lobbyists for insurance companies and eventually the voting will reflect this and they will be fired.
Insurance companies are getting rich while everyone from the poor to the middle class insured (under-insured) cannot afford to see doctors for "preexisting" conditions that include acid reflux and back pain. They must instead either ring up large bills or claim poverty and live in an ER waiting room to be helped.
To say "this system sucks" is a generous estimation of American health coverage and insurance and how it interacts with the humans on the one end and the doctors on the other. It is failing us. Utterly failing many, not only the uninsured. Failing. Is that a word Americans like to hear? No. So, fix it. It is failing. FAILING.
Personal example: I received a rejection letter from my general doctor months after I lost a job in 2008 (a contract abruptly and inequitably was ended, I did nothing wrong) and could not pay on what the insurance company refused to pay. I was trying, through an intermediary group, to make sense of why they refused to pay for things, as it was not simply preexisting coverage, not reasonably, anyways. Other doctors visits, for things I was never before treated for, were completely rejected.
Conveniently, the insurance company claimed despite the contrary that I and my providers (the doctors) had not provided necessary forms. This is while the intermediary was working with me and the providers to get a reason for not covering my visits.I have the bills to prove that health coverage falls short even when one is "insured" and earning well over minimum wage. I was earning $62,000.00+ (none of your business, but I am telling you) and had coverage that cost me about 15% of each paycheck, and that was the best I could afford. It was diddly, clearly.
ERs: This is our system of care for our tired masses. Forcing ERs to see everyone, for things like colds? Our answer to coverage of all is putting the burden, in a backhanded way, on hospitals and on taxpayers (public and county hospitals gotta be funded somehow!)? Meanwhile, insurance companies investing in Peter Pan markets such as AIG must be bailed out. That's just pathetic.
After 25 years or more of failure in bringing modern, excellent health care to everyone, while other countries manage it, I wish Obama luck. However, I say we must stay away from higher taxes to fund it, for all our sakes!!! We are dangerously close to what they call the "European model" and this country does not need it. There's better ways to do it! There simply has to be -- this is a country that behaves differently than other countries in many ways, and that is why we are the only remaining superpower; that is why we are admired by other countries, even those who resent us! (Jealousy is a strong motivator in people who are not endowed with a solemn or calmed intellect.)
Since no one cares and can get organized enough to truly fix the problem, America ought to be as ashamed of itself. In this day and age, we ought to be as ashamed as we would rightfully be for slavery, child labor in the 1800s-1900s, relocating Native tribes, and other such distasteful blights on our history.
There's a term for America's handling of health care in the last 25 years or so: Disgustingly irresponsible.
2. The "Iraq War" is ended, and has been ended, really, since a new government launched there (however insecure it is, to this day). I never cease to be amazed at how much traction this idea of "ending the War in Iraq" gets, seeing as it is tantamount to race baiting. Call it pacific-spoiled-brat baiting. Now we are supporting a struggling government there, not toppling it, and thus we are fighting a war on terrorism today. A ware against some rather dangerous extremists who cannot tolerate anything but a Taliban-like Islamic state. But MoveOn.org cannot bait people by being anti-American by going against the war on terror, so they choose to use the old language. Obama did not go down that road, thankfully; he moved to a rhetoric of going after the terrorists and the people who caused Sept. 11, 2001, and talked of "responsibly" ending the War in Iraq (whatever that ever meant to him, I do not know; sounds like a deceptive change of his earlier opinion to me).
So what MoveOn.org is accidentally or intentionally saying is that they want to end the war on terrorism, as if that action is a bad thing. This is propaganda, and it is tiring. This is either an horrendous dumbing-down of the issue, or outright anti-military, anti-American sentiment. Despicable either way, but I am confident they are simply pandering to the pacifistic ideas of anyone who wishes war were a thing of the past. (Naive, yes, but tactical to exploit in a land of spoiled media-addicted college students and the like.)
3. Where the Sun does Shine: The refusal, over the past 30 years, of bringing solar and wind power to the masses, is now changed; it is thanks more to the stubborn and simple campaign by an oil man at his own cost, and with capitalist and realist motivations, not the far leftists and Al Gore's fans. I find it fascinating that there is such a tenor, in mass media, that capitalist motivations to go to clean energy is suddenly OK, because T. Boone Pickens says so. We will eventually see resentment over this, as we have seen resentment by liberals over the fact that our military is not a police force, but a force to be reckoned with.
Recently, Pickens backed down on his wind farm plans, since the oil price has dropped so low. Does that mean that the interest, as it had died in the 1970s, will go, too? In Washington, it had better not. The question is whether Washington, on this issue, will lead with the apathy of people in mind (I think you'll find that energy change is still merely a pop issue, not a "real" issue, to many) or with its eagerness to create industry and new wealth for businesses and communities. Dependence on oil, foreign oil especially, is risking our very stability, especially in times such as we are in right now, with questionable economic conditions reverberating through industry after industry.
I hope the Obama Admin focus on these things, and I hope this type of change succeeds. Fully! Since all these are good things, and they don't require infantile deception and snippets of facts, I hope MoveOn.org can focus on them, too, and not the other things, such as making all conservatives out to be ogres.
