This came to me via the UK, from an online friend who is more intelligently aware of what's going on here than most Americans. I'm sure all you NPR listeners have heard it, but for those who have not: read, laugh, cry.
It's the best part of summer, the long, lovely passage into fall. A procession of lazy, golden days that my sandy-haired, gap-toothed little girl has been painting, small abstract masterpieces in tempera and crayon and glitter, reminiscent of Franz Kline or Willem de Kooning (his early glitter period). She put a sign out front, "Art for Sale," and charged 25 cents per painting. Cheap at the price.
A teacher gave her this freedom to sit un-self-consciously and put paint on paper. A gentle, 6-foot-8 guy named Matt who taught art at her preschool. Her swimming teachers gave her freedom from fear of water. So much that has made this summer a pleasure for her I trace to specific teachers, and so it's painful to hear about public education sinking all around us.
A high school math class of 42! Everybody knows you can't teach math to 42 kids at once. The classroom smells bad because the custodial staff has been cut back. The teacher must whip his pupils into shape to pass the federal No Child Left Untested program. This is insanity, the legacy of Republicans and their tax-cutting and their hostility to secular institutions.
Last spring, I taught a college writing course and had the privilege of hanging out with people in their early 20s, an inspirational experience in return for which I tried to harass them about spelling and grammar and structure. My interest in being 21 again is less than my interest in having a frontal lobotomy, but the wit and passion and good-heartedness of these kids, which they try to conceal under their exquisite cool, are the hope of this country. You have to advocate for young people, or else what are we here for?
I keep running into retirees in their mid-50s, free to collect seashells and write bad poetry and shoot video of the Grand Canyon, and goody for them, but they're not the future. My college kids are graduating with a 20-pound ball of debt chained to their ankles. That's not right, and you know it.
This country is squashing its young. We're sending them to die in a war we don't believe in anymore. We're cheating them so we can offer tax relief to the rich. And we're stealing from them so that old gaffers like me, who want to live forever, can go in for an MRI if we have a headache.
A society that pays for MRIs for headaches and can't pay teachers a decent wage has made a dreadful choice. But health care costs are ballooning, eating away at the economy. The boomers are getting to an age where their knees need replacing and their hearts need a quadruple bypass - which they feel entitled to - but our children aren't entitled to a damn thing. Any goombah with a Ph.D. in education can strip away French and German, music and art, dumb down the social sciences, offer Britney Spears instead of Shakespeare, and there is nothing the kid can do except hang out in the library, which is being cut back too.
This week, we mark the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina and the Current Occupant's line, "You're doing a heckuva job," which already is in common usage, a joke, a euphemism for utter ineptitude. It's sure to wind up in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, a summation of his occupancy.
Annual interest on the national debt now exceeds all government welfare programs combined. We'll be in Iraqfor years to come. Hard choices need to be made, and given the situation we're in, I think we must bite the bullet and say no more health care for card-carrying Republicans. It just doesn't make sense to invest in longevity for people who don't believe in the future. Let them try faith-based medicine, let them pray for their arteries to be reamed and their hips to be restored, and leave science to the rest of us.
Cutting out health care to one-third of the population - the folks with Bush-Cheney bumper stickers, who still believe the man is doing a heckuva job - will save enough money to pay off the national debt, not a bad legacy for Republicans. As Scrooge said, let them die and reduce the surplus population. In return, we can offer them a reduction in the estate tax. All in favor, blow your nose.
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Comments: 17
Cutting out health care to one-third of the population - the folks with Bush-Cheney bumper stickers, who still believe the man is doing a heckuva job - will save enough money to pay off the national debt, not a bad legacy for Republicans. As Scrooge said, let them die and reduce the surplus population. In return, we can offer them a reduction in the estate tax. All in favor, blow your nose.
I just had to repeat it!!!!
But your choice of blaming Republicans or Bush are way off the mark.
The reason is that Democrats had uninterrupted control of the House from '55 to '95 and control of the Senate for the same years except for 6 years in the '80s. Since the House originates all spending bills, the fact that taxes have forced both spouses to work in most families is directly attributable to House spending authorizations. If the Dems had really cared about the poor they would have fixed it long ago.
Similarly, the interference of Congress in public education has caused its steady decline, done by a Democrat controlled Congress. This has had a very negative and continuing negative effect on the poor since a good education is one of the routes out of poverty. But the Dems have been too beholden to teacher unions to correct out public school system and continue to stop the Republicans from so doing.
The same applies to healthcare, the national debt, and many others. Democrats may comlain a lot about Bush, but while they were in power they made a lot of things worse and fixed little.
I am no apologist for Republicans, myself being an independent vote for the person type not the party. Republicans have done plenty of bad things though nowhere near as many as Democrats. Possibly, this is only because they have not been in control of Congress for many of the past 50 years.
I must admit that all is not bad. Some significant gains in welfare were made, changes enacted by a Republican controlled Congress against the votes of most Democrats and vetoed twice by Clinton. On the third try, with Democrats still strongly against it, Clinton finally signed it on the advice of Dick Morris who said that he would lose the next election if he did not sign it. Many of the poor have made their way out of poverty due to these changes and even Clinton today likes to celebrate his signing of that legislation.
I am also quite happy that we have chosen to take on the Islamofascists rather than sit back and accept their attacks on us. It is damn difficult work, one that most generations in this country have had to perform in order to preserve our freedoms. But the costs so far have been minimal compared to our previous efforts. Unlike Vietnam where the Democrats committed us to a war they were unwilling to wholeheartedly pursue, this one at least is being prosecuted to win rather than give in to the enemy. At least so far.
So before you decide to remove healthcare from all Republicans, you'd best do so from Democrats first.
Best regards, Ben
Author "Leading People to be Highly Motivated and Committed"
so long as we continue to regard either Democrats or Republicans as the bane of this country, and we continue on labeling differing views as 'leftist' 'pinko' fascist' 'ignorant' or whatnot, the government is going to keep us separated and at odds with each other. thus preventing any progress.
so i propose a new party. Radical Moderatism. i've been striving for this for a while, though it needs some polishing. seems i just argue against whoever's talking to me.
help?
For whatever it's worth, Justin, Ben blithely ignores that fact that Clinton had us in very good financial shape when he left office. GWB is completely responsible, with help from his Republican Congress, for the black hole of our national debt.
It's not a party issue, it's an apathy issue, a selfishness issue, a TV-hypnotized issue. When we all wake up, get educated, and get active -- and if that means a new party, that's fine -- then we'll turn this thing around. I hope. I hate to leave you with a debt, but at least you get my guitar.
would have laughed (or stoned) him off the stage.
Justin: what Dannielle said.
What measure of the overall economy tells you otherwise?
Even the polls show that the vast majority of people think that they are individually doing well and that is the grass roots measure of any economy.
At the same time, they think that our economy is not doing well, but then that is what the mainstream media are telling them. Are you falling for the same propaganda?
Best regards, Ben
Author "Leading People to be Highly Motivated and Committed"
If this is a good economy, I'd hate to see what a bad one looks like.
Best regards, Ruth Dickson
Author, "LIFE, DEATH AND OTHER TRIVIA"
As of now in the last five years the dollar has gone down in value 44% against the Euro.
In a few more years the average US citizen will earn about the same as the average South Korean.
But by then the average SS pay will have increased by at least $500 worthless bucks.
If you depend on others to pay your way with SS, you are a victim of propaganda. SS is going broke and your generation may be the last to enjoy generous benefits. In a very few years, the amount of money SS must pay out will be larger than SS taxes and not long after that taxes will have to be raised dramatically or benefits reduced greatly.
Bush tried unsuccessfully to convince us of the need for reforms. And while many other countries have privatized SS, we have refused to do anything. We should have followed the example of a few Texas counties that opted out of SS years ago and now enjoy benefits three times those of SS for the same payments. But the Dems were in charge of Congress and did not want to give up the power, actually wanted people more dependent on government, not less.
As for college grads not being able to get jobs, most of them did not gain knowledge which the business community can use. Businesses are forced to hire from abroad or move facilities overseas since we can't p roduce enough engineers and scientists. Grads who took african-american studies, et al, have been sold a bill of goods by propagandists.
However, our national unemployment rate is very low. There certainly are pockets where state regulations, inept companies (like U.S. automobile manufacturers), state taxes, and the like make that area depressed (Michigan for example).
Regulations can have great effect. For instance, Congress having placed off limits to development over 80% of our natural gas resources has directly caused a very high price of that commodity in the U.S. as compared to other countries which have not restricted development. For companies dependent on natural gas to make their products, these regulations forced them to move some facilities overseas in order to be competitive.
As concerns the homeless, apparently your local community doesn't believe in being charitable. At any rate, that is not a problem which can be fixed by our national economy.
As concerns high taxes, in 1960 most families could get by with one earner. In 40 years of Democratic control of Congress, increased taxes caused the one earner family to almost disappear. I admit that some of this change was due to desires to enjoy a higher standard of living.
The bottom line is that if you blame the national economy for what you see locally, you will most likely forever be addressing the wrong cause.
Best regards, Ben
Author "Leading People to be Highly Motivated and Committed"
Um, excuse me, but is this not the flawless REPUBLICAN congress to which you refer?
Best regard, Ruth
Author, "LIFE, DEATH AND OTHER TRIVIA".
Since Republicans have been in control, their margin has never been sufficient in the Senate to override Democrat filibusters of attempts to open up our resources to development.
Best regards, Ben
Author "Leading People to be Highly Motivated and Committed"