Here's another one for all you sophisticated Kossaks to blow off.
After a quick read through the text of the Inaugural Address, I've just been skimming through the new White House web site, particularly the "agenda" entries. I'm just an old cynical curmudgeon, but it looks to me that the Right and the usual business interests need not be too worried about what's on President Obama's and his team's minds in the realm of "Change."
As a nurse, I particularly like the Health Care entry, under which it appears that the chance to make a big change to a really fair and functional single-payer system, maybe by extending the Medicare structure or even the Veterans Administration model, will be muddled down into a little diddling with the present system, keeping almost all the lost motion and costs in place and with more administrative overhead. Hey, you execs at Humana and HCA, not to worry! They've got you covered! Universal health promotion and health care? Don't hold your breath, unless you got a pretty good private policy.
Here's another one for all you sophisticated Kossaks to blow off.
After a quick read through the text of the Inaugural Address, I've just been skimming through the new White House web site, particularly the "agenda" entries. I'm just an old cynical curmudgeon, but it looks to me that the Right and the usual business interests need not be too worried about what's on President Obama's and his team's minds in the realm of "change."
As a nurse, I particularly like the Health Care entry, under which it appears that the chance to make a big change to a really fair and functional single-payer system, maybe by extending the Medicare structure or even the Veterans Administration model, will be muddled down into a little diddling with the present system, keeping almost all the lost motion and costs in place and with more administrative overhead. Hey, you execs at Humana and HCA, not to worry! They've got you covered! Universal health promotion and health care? Don't hold your breath, unless you got a pretty good private policy.
And "Defense," taken with the language of the Address, looks a lot like more of the same to me -- lots of continued emphasis on big weapons systems and "projecting power" and multiplying the military's missions, maybe at the expense of what should be, like, y'know, totally diplomatic or people-to-people kinds of stuff?
Right out of the blocks, we have a new serving of the Bush Doctrine ("Stupidity and futility and killing people can take the place of good sense any day, as long as somebody is making Big Bucks off it."):
Afghanistan: Obama and Biden will refocus American resources on the greatest threat to our security -- the resurgence of al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan. They will increase our troop levels in Afghanistan, press our allies in NATO to do the same, and dedicate more resources to revitalize Afghanistan’s economic development. Obama and Biden will demand the Afghan government do more, including cracking down on corruption and the illicit opium trade.
There is so much wrong with this set of notions that one is hard pressed to know where to begin. The land mass known collectively as Afghanistan is nothing but a Tar Baby. To start with the notion that this congeries of tribal, ethnic, clan and family units, ruled over by opium-funded warlords whose "loyalties" can be rented (not bought) by a handful of Viagra pills and more weapons and cash "tribute," and with a level of corruption that by all reports may not be exceeded even in Our Nation’s Capital.
Does our new President really believe that "Our nation is at war, against a far-reaching network of violence and hatred"? And that the Google Maps entry labeled "Afghanistan" is where we are going to fight the good fight against what sounds mighty like a new "Axis of Evil," because that far-reaching bunch of violent haters are going to volunteer to duke it out in the Wasteland? That "the Taliban" is some kind of new Communist Monolith? I thought I heard al Quaeda was pretty much a non-entity any more. Cripes, bring back John Foster Dulles – HE was sharper than that. More troops, more Allies’ troops, LOTS more money including more billions to "disappear" into the capacious retirement accounts of Karzai and his cronies? More chances for guys in sweeping robes and long beards to blow the f___ out of those troops, with IEDs and EFPs and booby traps and all? No mention I can see of reducing, or better, killing off, the roles of contractors like Blackwater and KBR? Is the new administration afraid to bring all those thousand-yard-stare-ers back home to Indiana? And now "we" are going to "build another nation" on the rocky fractured basalt and sand of that dry quagmire? Have we learned NOTHING?
On Energy, it appears we are going to harness "the soil" for our energy needs. Gott ask, does that mean Cargill can keep pushing the cornification of our agricultural base? And did I read that biofuels generally take more energy to make than they give back in useful work?
Maybe I would give a C+ for the Ethics category, but it sure looks to me like Lobbying Business As Usual, with the chance to actually watch your pockets being picked, since how many of us have the time to attend all those now-to-be-public markups and subcommittee meetings? Several observers have noted that those greedy and hegemony-mad kleptocrats who have warped our culture have done so very openly, telling us what they were doing -- like in "Mandate for Leadership," the Heritage Foundation's guidebook for the Reaganauts and then the two sets of Bush Leaguers.
And that’s just from a quick read through. I am sure a little more time for some thoughtful reading would add a bunch more categories of more-of-the-same or what-does-this-REALLY-MEAN?.
You all-wise Kossaks -- please, tell me how wrong I am, and how having access to the White House via the Blog the new team has set up or through your other New Age connections is going to Make Things Better.
Or better yet, just tell us skeptics to Go. Away. Because This Site is for Grownups.
I can see that now. NOT.