Demonizing Government Is Not Smart!

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Dwight Eisenhower famously cautioned us to... "beware the military industrial complex." What he was warning us about was an atmosphere in which the private sector co-opts the public sector for the benefit of their bottom line. That has pretty much happened in the U.S. because the electorate has bought the line t...hat the private sector is good and the public sector is bad; that government is bad.

Ronald Reagan was good at delivering snappy lines including, "Government isn't the answer. Government is the problem." Then he proceeded to lead us into a substantial recession and left us with more debt than our government had accumulated in its history. That's bad governance. Government isn't bad. Bad governing is.

That's why Bill Clinton's "middle-way" succeeded in leaving us with a balanced budget and a surplus for the first time in decades. He recognized that the private sector has a place in our society but there are things that government can do if they're well managed. I disagreed with him on many issues but he certainly worked with a Republican Congress to put us on the road to recovery.

Then George W Bush spent every dollar of that surplus and trillions more by granting tax breaks while launching two wars that we could ill afford. He insisted that government is bad; that the private sector could solve our problems if we just reduced taxes and got out of their way. I didn't agree with Bush on much of anything, although I supported his approach to immigration reform but he just didn't seem to understand that government isn't bad; bad governing is.

Right now our government is struggling to dig us out of a recession bordering on depression at a time when people seem to buy the concept that Ronald Regan and George W Bush put forth; that government is the problem.

There's a roll for the private sector and one for the public sector and we must be vigilant to negotiate a proper balance between the two.

We all want strong national security, public education, safe prescription drugs, clean air & water, well built bridges & highways, scenic national parks, comfortable retirement and health care for our elders and we don't seem to want to pay for them.

Remember: government isn't bad; bad governing is.
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Joe Klein at his Best. Bush's Last Days : The Lamest Duck!

"By mid-November, with the financial crisis growing worse by the day, it had become obvious that one President was no longer enough (at least not the President we had). So, in the days before Thanksgiving, Obama began to move — if not to take charge outright, then at least to preview what things will be like when he does take over in January....

That we have slightly more than one President for the moment is mostly a consequence of the extraordinary economic times. Even if George Washington were the incumbent, the markets would want to know what John Adams was planning to do after his Inauguration. And yet this final humiliation seems particularly appropriate for George W. Bush. At the end of a presidency of stupefying ineptitude, he has become the lamest of all possible ducks....

[H]is ridiculous, preening appearance in a flight suit on the deck of the aircraft carrier beneath the "Mission Accomplished" sign. The flight-suit image is one of the two defining moments of the Bush failure. The other is the photo of Bush staring out the window of Air Force One, helplessly viewing the destruction wrought by Hurricane Katrina. This is a presidency that has wobbled between those two poles — overweening arrogance and paralytic incompetence....

In the end, though, it will not be the creative paralysis that defines Bush. It will be his intellectual laziness, at home and abroad. Bush never understood, or cared about, the delicate balance between freedom and regulation that was necessary to make markets work. He never understood, or cared about, the delicate balance between freedom and equity that was necessary to maintain the strong middle class required for both prosperity and democracy. He never considered the complexities of the cultures he was invading. He never understood that faith, unaccompanied by rigorous skepticism, is a recipe for myopia and foolishness. He is less than President now, and that is appropriate. He was never very much of one."

He never understood that an ideologist surrounded by more of the same did not constitute a healthy atmosphere for vetting an issue. Nor did he ever understand that arriving at a conclusion via his "gut" and working backward to justify it was a recipe for disaster. Put simply, George W. Bush, whom I believe stole two elections, sat in the White House for eight years, and we're paying for it. I now believe that the pardon of Richard Nixon left the theory of a "unitary" presidency unchallenged for Richard Cheney to take up as a sword against our constitution. He literally appointed himself Vice President with a plan to expand this pernicious vision of a virtually unfettered chief executive.

I keep seeing that video of Nixon saying, "But you see if the President does it, it isn't illegal."

It's exactly why I've urged Speaker Pelosi to put the weight of the Speaker's Office behind an investigation of the illegal, unethical, and immoral activities of this administration; not via a "Blue Ribbon" 9/11 type commission but a real Congressional investigation that will exact accountability. Anything less threatens to leave a cancer on our government that will metastasize and lay in wait for a future charlatan to take advantage of.

I invite you to join me in this action.

Those Wacky Canadian Socialists!

Cynthia, a Canadian reader of Americablog recently wrote:

"I just thought I would write you and tell you what it is like as a Canadian with Health care. I am 53 yrs. old, female and I am a Registered ER nurse. I am married, with 2 grown children. For all my life, I have never known a time where I could not go to a Doctor, a hospital, or a clinic, or a specialist. I have never had to worry about paying up front.

"We do pay taxes, but then so do Americans and get no Health care for the taxes they pay. I have seen during my career, many Americans and illegals (we get them too!) come to Canada to get Health care. They think it is free, but far from it. They forget that we pay taxes for it. I have one good friend who was born in Detroit, and lived in Toronto, and then moved to Texas. While there, she got pregnant. She moved back to Canada to have the baby, as she told me she could not afford to have it in Texas. She still lives here now. Do I think I live in a Socialist country? Not anymore Socialist than the U.S. We are a democracy, just like the U.S., we have "Fat Cats" on Bay Street in Toronto just like your Wall Street. We have capitalism, just like the U.S., we have poor, middleclass, and rich, just like the U.S., I have heard so many republicans put down Canada and England's health care system, and say we are Socialist countries. Well, we are exactly like the U.S., except that we get Health Care for our tax dollars, whereas, the U.S. citizens get taxed, but no Health Care for that tax.

"I think every American should "rise up" and DEMAND a universal Health Care system. Why should Americans pay Insurance companies that more than not, find ways not to pay for a "sick" person. I find that disgusting! We all want to be healthy, and be able to go to a Doctor and a Hospital and receive care without going "Bankrupt", and it would even be better to pay a little more tax to the government than to pay taxes and Health care premiums to Insurance companies who are only in it for the money. So, no matter what they say about our Canadian Health Care system, I have to say, I feel great that if I have to pay taxes, at least I am getting something for the tax that I pay. No one in the U.S. should be without Health care, and no one should have to go bankrupt and worry if they can pay premiums. I do hope that President Obama ends up putting in a "Universal Health care program", I think it is every American's right!."

Couldn't have said it better myself.

So, what do we do with this piece of information? I plan to forward it to the President Elect and hope you will do likewise. Remember, it's our responsibility to communicate to our government what our priorities are.

Don't Back Down!

I thought I was pretty knowledgeable about what's happening vis a vis our government but this just blows me away:

"In Boulder, two days ago, a rosy-cheeked thirtysomething mother of two small children, in soft yoga velours, started to tear up when she said to me: `I want to take action but I am so scared. I look at my kids and I am scared. How do you deal with fear? Is it safer for them if I act or stay quiet? I don’t want to get on a list.’ In DC, before that, a beefy, handsome civil servant, a government department head — probably a Republican — confides in a lowered voice that he is scared to sign the new ID requirement for all government employees, that exposes all his most personal information to the State — but he is scared not to sign it: `If I don’t, I lose my job, my house. It’s like the German National ID card,’ he said quietly. This morning in Denver I talked for almost an hour to a brave, much-decorated high-level military leader who is not only on the watch list for his criticism of the administration — his family is now on the list. He has undertaken many dangerous combat missions in his service to his country over the course of his career, but his voice cracks when he talks about the possibility that he is exposing his children to harassment.

"Jim Spencer, a former columnist for the Denver Post who has been critical of the Bush administration, told me today that I could use his name: he is on the watch list. An attorney contacts me to say that she told her colleagues at the Justice Department not to torture a detainee; she says she then faced a criminal investigation, a professional referral, saw her emails deleted — and now she is on the watch list. I was told last night that a leader of Code Pink, the anti-war women’s action group, was refused entry to Canada. I hear from a tech guy who works for the airlines — again, probably a Republican — that once you are on the list you never get off. Someone else says that his friend opened his luggage to find a letter from the TSA saying that they did not appreciate his reading material. Before I go into the security lines, I find myself editing my possessions. In New York’s LaGuardia, I reluctantly found myself putting a hardcover copy of Tara McKelvey’s excellent Monstering, an expose of CIA interrogation practices, in a garbage can before I get in the security line; it is based on classified information. This morning at my hotel, before going to the airport, I threw away a very nice black T-shirt that said `We Will Not be Silenced’ — with an Arabic translation — that someone had given me, along with a copy of poems written by detainees at Guantanamo."

This is part of a BLOG post on Firedoglake written by Naomi Wolf, well known feminist author. I'm not sure what to do with it so I'm looking to you for advice.

Please click on the title of this post and read the full account, then post your thoughts here; tell us what to do with this information. Should we act on it? How? And perhaps even more important, how does it make you feel? If you believe this is information that should be shared widely I invite you to forward it to friends and family. If our republic is at risk, the more people who know it the better. Speak out! Don't Back Down!

Want to know where the Speaker stands on an issue?

Several people have asked me where Nancy Pelosi stands on a specific issue and I couldn't tell them so I did some research. She has a website at speaker.gov which carries comprehensive information about her roll as Speaker and how she plans to deal with issues. It includes a blog tilted The Gavel .

Today the site carries her statement regarding the president's speech last night. To read it click on the title to this post. Under Latest News you'll see a link to her statement.