August 2009 archive

So I’m watching the health care “debate” in this country with my eyes half-screwed shut because some of the foolishness is downright painful to witness — aside from the real pain of knowing too many folks aren’t getting the medicine and medical treatment they need.

Hard to make a decision when politics exists nowadays simply to muddy the waters.  And while the circus goes on in the foreground, so does the power game in the back room.

President Obama has chosen to use his power cautiously in this “debate,” so that will limit the choices we will make when it comes to health care.  There are endless arguments of what could and couldn’t be on the table as far as single-payer and the watered down version of the public option (which gets more watered down every day), and those arguments try so hard to be definitive, as though there are no alternatives to what Obama has chosen to do (if you are an Obama supporter) or that Obama is simply a corporate tool (if you are among those who have had it with half-measures).

The past eight years in particular have seen each and every one of our political institutions debased and sold to the highest bidder.  And because we are not shining a bright light on the crimes of the Bush/Cheney misAdministration, we are seeing the effects of that in each and every political decision voted upon by Congress and signed into law (with or without signing statements) by the Executive Branch.

As far as health care is concerned, my view is that if there is anything at all that Obama can sign into law, he should.  I don’t think for one moment that we’ll get a real public option — but we’ll get our foot in the door when it comes to incremental change — and although I am NOT in favor of incremental change, that is the only thing that’s being offered from our government.

So I don’t look towards Obama or our government for my deliverance, big surprise.

I look towards myself and my fellow citizens of like mind.  In that, I have a great deal of faith.  The word “incremental” doesn’t even figure into our work, nor should it.

Everywhere we look, it seems, the evidence is there.

Whether the “Birthers” or 10-year olds carrying signs equating Obama with Hitler or anti-choice murderers or “intelligent design” propagandists, an epidemic is breaking out across the United States. An epidemic whose manifestation, now, are screaming masses threatening the very underpinnings of American democracy.  As per blue aardvark,

In a democracy, power comes from the ability to persuade. You win because people like your ideas.

The Republicans are admitting they can’t win a fair fight. They are cowards.

While the attention is focused on the mobs storming Democratic politicians’ town halls and highlighted are the depraved (mal-informed) rages about health care, the reality is that anti-clean energy interests are sponsoring their own variations of outright deception and fostered screaming outrage. To a large extent, one thing shared among the “outraged” voices: a deep (and proud) embrace of know-nothingness.

But this outraged know-nothingness isn’t targeted solely at Democratic Party politicians seeking to communicate with their constituents, also targeted are Republican politicians who show any signs of seeking to link their policy concepts with reality.

Pay Czar Quietly Meets With Rescued Companies

Deadline to Propose Compensation Looms

By Brady Dennis and Tomoeh Murakami Tse

Washington Post Staff Writers

Sunday, August 9, 2009

President Obama’s compensation czar has been meeting for weeks with executives at some of the country’s largest and most troubled companies as they face a Thursday deadline to propose how much they will pay their top employees.

Kenneth R. Feinberg has the unprecedented task of deciding executive compensation at seven companies that received large government bailouts. His meetings with American International Group, Citigroup, Bank of America, General Motors, Chrysler, Chrysler Financial and GMAC have been conducted in secret, with neither Feinberg nor the companies willing to say much in public.

But one window into this opaque process is an account provided by people familiar with his discussions with AIG, the crippled insurer that has received tens of billions of dollars in federal rescue money.

We cannot eliminate all risk of torture, ministers admit

It is impossible to guarantee that information used by the security services has not been obtained through torture, David Miliband and Alan Johnson now admit.

By Patrick Hennessy, Political editor

In a joint article for The Sunday Telegraph, the two Cabinet ministers hit back strongly at claims that the government is colluding in torture by insisting that everything possible is done to minimise the risk of mistreatment by foreign regimes.

However, the Foreign and Home Secretaries say Britain’s security and intelligence services (MI5 and MI6) face “hard choices” and the overriding aim is to “defend both our citizens’ rights and their security”.

The rare joint intervention by the pair, whose departments are responsible for MI5 and MI6, comes at the end of the week where ministers have faced detailed allegations of British complicity in torture – including providing questions for detainees to be asked under interrogation.