White House Transparency: A False Comparison

December 4, 2009 in Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Republicans have made much of the White House Social Secretary Desiree Rogers refusal to testify before Congress over the incident of the White House “party crushers”, Tareq and Michaele Salahi. Certainly this is a serious breakdown of the security of the President. As one who takes the protection of President Obama very seriously, I am concerned. But the protection of the President does not lie with the Social Secretary or any other White House staff. It lies exclusively with the Secret Service. And the Director of the Secret Service, Mark J. Sullivan, took responsibility and acknowledged blame. That was unique for any Government official to acknowledge. I only wish Pres. Bush and V.P. Cheney would also take responsibility for the grave mistakes their administration made and the great problems they left us to sort out and suffer through for many decades. But that’s not the full story with Republican condemnations of the White House for not letting the Social Secretary to testify.

In an attempt to diminish President Obama’s credibility with the people and to raise their mistrust in Government (the same Government that they ran for many decades) Republicans make the false comparison between Obama’s Social Secretary refusal to testify and Bush’s White House Counsel Harriet Miers and Political Adviser Karl Rove refusal to testify before Congressional committees over the appointments and firings of U.S. attorneys. Whereas the first isolated incident involved admittance to a social event at the White House, the circumstances with Rove, Miers, Gonzales and company involved a systematic orchestrated attempt to politicize government agencies through political appointments (and so Party loyalty) to non-political career positions. Whereas the first incident put our President at risk (exclusively the responsibility of the Secret Service), the subversion of our government to Party interests puts our Country at peril. These are not equivalent. This is a false comparison dripping with political spin.

Bravo Senator Bennet from Colorado!

November 22, 2009 in Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

This Sunday morning (Nov. 22, 2009) on John King’s “State of the Union” news program at CNN, I heard something I longed to hear and thought I would never hear coming out of the mouth of any elected political figure from any party! When Senator Bennet (Democrat from Colorado) was asked if passage of the President’s Health Care Reform came down to his vote and knowing that a ‘yes’ vote would cost him his job, would he still vote for the bill? In a clear, direct and assured response, Sen. Bennet said ‘yes’! I have been following American politics for a long time. I have never heard of any other politician put the interest of the people ahead of their own political interest. Bravo Senator! You have resurrected my faith in our Government and in the Democratic Party!

It is so trite and so unprincipled that politicians would allow themselves to be political ‘hit men’, nothing more than hired guns doing the bidding of whoever funds their political campaigns and puts money in their pockets. Typically they look at politics as a career move and would work for that political party and special interest that will further their careers most. So you had in the past Democratic senators switching to the Republican Party (take Sen. Shelby of Alabama for example, or ex-Senator Coleman of Minnesota); or the other way, like Sen. Specter of Pa. going over to the Democratic Party just this year.

These politicians are very capable and talented people. They can do very well for themselves in so many other areas, be it business or academia or ngos (like what Pres. Clinton is doing with his Global Initiative or Vice Pres. Gore is doing with environmental issues). Why would politicians sell their souls and their integrity selling their votes to special interests and against the interest of the country? Shame on you, senators!

America needs more senators like Sen. Bennet of Colorado. And more I believe are emerging out of the ashes that Republican policies and Conservative Ideology reduced our country. In the same program I heard clear sensible arguments from Sen. Brown (D from Ohio) and Sen. Shaheen (D from New Hampshire). Their message resonates well with the American people, in spite of polls used by Republicans (like Sen. McConnell of Kentucky in the same program) to bolster their arguments.

Polls conducted by third parties, no matter how independent they claim to be, should be mistrusted. Big money and influence are behind all matters that affect government policy. The stakes are high and special interests will stop at nothing to keep their grip on power in Washington. Third party polls, as also some news networks, can be used to pressure politicians that the people are not with them. That they will lose their jobs in the next election.

There is only one poll that expresses the peoples will and need. And that is the convincing election of President Obama who promised to fix our broken Health Care System. Principled Senators like Bennet came to Washington to do the peoples business, not to just have a job. One more clear sign of the ‘change we can believe in’ with the election of Barack Obama.

Mammogram Panels and Truth in Advocacy

November 19, 2009 in Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The recent guidelines on mammogram screening for breast cancer made by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force Panel raises some interesting questions. What is this Panel? Who is in this Panel? Who funds this Panel and its members? Who uses this Panel and for what purpose? And why did this Panel time these provocative new guidelines at a time of heated debate over Health Care Reform? With ‘death panels’ demagoguery and ‘tea bagger’ disruptions of town hall meetings and unprecedented Health Industry lobbying of Congress and constant airing of deceptive TV ads that aim to scare and confuse people, this latest Panel announcement hurts Democratic efforts to reform our Health Care System and plays into the interests and talking points of the Health Insurance Industry. These new guidelines raise peoples fears of a ‘government take over’ of our Health Care System and the ‘rationing of health care’. What these unfounded fears overlook, however, is the denial and rationing of health care now by Health Insurance Companies and the running of our Health Care System by private companies driven by personal profits. When it comes to our lives and health care who should we trust more, our President that needs our vote or private insurances that want our money?

It can be argued that this Panel is an independent group doing its job, without regards to timing and politics, overseeing our Health Care delivery system, looking at data objectively and making ‘best practice’ recommendations to be used by Government and Health Insurance Industry alike. This government panel, however, was appointed by a Republican President, George W. Bush. This is the same administration which, under the influence and direction of people like Karl Rove and Attorney General Gonzalez,  had politicised most every ‘independent’ government agency. We had our fill of seemingly independent regulators of our Banking System and Wall Street and Environmental Protection, and we know what happened there!  These so-called independent agencies eventually become an extension of the political party that appointed them and of the industries they regulate —  sharing personnel and often supported by them,  giving them legal and political cover to do with the public resources as they please. What’s most disturbing and dangerous is that this happens covertly under the public radar screen, giving these regulating agencies credibility they just don’t deserve. Their strategies are well-coordinated, often followed up by political news conferences aimed to reverberate the same theme and read from the same script — as we saw happen with Congresswoman Backmann and other GOP Representatives, the very day this announcement was made.

If there are conflict of interests, political interests  and Health Insurance money  behind this Panel’s new guidelines on mammogram screening ‘We the People’ need to know! We have laws on ‘Truth in Advertising’ for the products we buy on the public market. We also need laws on ‘Truth in Advocacy’ for the ideas we buy on the public airwaves as well.

Stray Dogs and Street People

November 13, 2009 in Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Some critics vacationing in Greece make sweeping condemnations of an entire country and people based on stray dogs in Greek cities. But is this a fair basis to judge a society and its values? How about homelessness and crime and dog fighting and gang violence and school shootings? You see far less of that in Greece than in most all other places – like London and New York. When was the last time you saw young attractive well dressed girls walking alone in city streets going home three o’clock in the morning, without fear and in total safety? I have, every summer I visit Greece.

Stray dogs always existed. This is not a ‘man made condition’, but a condition of Nature. Brits and Americans round up strays and put them in shelters. Although this puts strays out of sight, the problem does not go away. Just like the problem of crime does not go away by building more prisons and locking up more people! For every animal abuse  in Greece even greater abuses can be found in some dog shelters and in dog fighting farms in the US and UK. Conditions for strays in Greek city streets are much better than their neutering and caging and eventual euthanasia in most British and American dog shelters.

Greeks just deal with strays differently. Since ancient times Greeks believe in Nature, in Freedom and in Coexistence. Greek strays (like Greeks themselves) are free to roam in peaceful coexistence with their surroundings. Whereas these critics would see strays sleeping in the shady side of a city street offensive, I celebrate such sight and see in it ample evidence of the same spirit in modern Greeks as with their illustrious ancestors. Or don’t you believe there were strays in ancient Athens? Some even may have laid side by side with Socrates and Plato absorbing the wisdom these critics lack.

Election 2009 : Reading the Tea Leafs

November 4, 2009 in Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Even before a single vote was cast, political pundits and spin-masters of both political parties were busy defining political reality for us. The election of Republican candidates for governor in Virginia and in New Jersey is not the real story of this election 2009, however. There are local compelling reasons why Bob McDonnell won in Virginia and Chris Christie won in New Jersey. In Virginia you have a charismatic and strong Republican candidate in a traditionally Republican state poised against a weak and ineffective Democratic candidate in Deeds. And in New Jersey you have a very unpopular Democratic governor Jon Corzine seeking re-election in a state that is experiencing hard economic times and high unemployment. The people voted once again for change! In both of these states, President Obama continues to be popular, though polls show rising disapproval for his handling of Health Care Reform and other key issues. Obama’s slipping poll numbers reflect more the disappointment of supporters of his policies than outrage by opponents to his policies, as Republican would have us believe.

Republican spin-masters interpret these results as Obama’s policies being rejected by the people. That the people fear the changes Obama is seeking in solving the many problems created by prior Republican Administrations. That the people would rather go back to the ‘good old days’ of a country governed by Conservative Ideology the past thirty years. Such self-serving political tea leaf reading can only be as successful as the confusion, uncertainty and fear that people feel these days. And that’s what makes these political pronouncements dangerous. They feed on peoples fears and confusion, stoking political hot buttons for narrow special interests, taking us down the road of America’s demise. We must not let these misleading views take hold of our national consciousness.

The real story in yesterday’s election is the repudiation of Conservative Politics in the Congressional Election of the 23rd District in Upstate New York. Republicans held this seat for more than one hundred and forty years! In this election you have a clear contest between Democratic policies as represented by President Obama and Conservative Ideology as represented by the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Dick Armey and Sarah Palin, who actively campaigned for the Conservative candidate. This was an election for a member of Congress! This was a clear referendum of where the people stand on national and not local issues. And in this election Bill Owens the Democratic candidate won, with little campaigning at that.

Democrats across the country should take heart and see this victory as a clear signal that people want change. That going back to the same policies and the same people and the same solutions of the past thirty years that brought America to its economic knees is no longer an option. We must move forward with the kind of change that President Obama can only bring about. Not Socialism, but a functioning government that can serve the people and not the narrow special interests. America is strong only when its people are strong and secure. Obama understands that. Republicans can only spin this Truth with clever political curlicues.

Our Profit-less Health Insurance Companies

October 28, 2009 in Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Lou Dobbs of CNN, and other apologists for the Health Insurance Industry, make the point that since the profit margin of Health Insurance Companies is a meager 1.5% attacks that vilify them as exploitative and predatory are unjustified. Such spurious arguments are nothing more than smoke screens to appeal to the free market/capitalist believes of most Americans while hiding the real issues and abuse. Anyone who has recently dealt with Health Insurance Companies will tell you of their anger and frustration with all the complexities, obstacles, denials and exclusions these companies make to any legitimate claim. I will spare the reader of my own personal experience dealing with my daughter’s health insurance company over routine medical care. Suffice it to say it has been the worst experience of my life dealing with any private or public company or institution.

 

But what of the argument that these for-profit private companies make so very little profit? Well, let’s say they show so little profit. And certainly it is in their PR interest to show small margins. There are many ways of hiding revenues. One way is in high salaries, compensation and benefits. Another is in administrative costs ( at 30-35 %, the highest for any industry and much higher than the administrative cost  of 4% for the government run Medicare program). Yet another way of wasting our premium dollars is to spend great sums of money in marketing and advertising. Still another way that profits are ‘eaten up’ by these companies is in their very extensive and expensive lobbying efforts and issue advocacy advertising that buys them influence with our government and aims to keep them in the business of running our Health Care System –  for the benefit of the few against the needs and interests of the people. All these expenses would be rendered totally unnecessary with a government run Health Care System. Eliminating just these wasteful expenses from our Health Care System would mean huge savings for all of us. More than enough to help cover all of us and give us real Health Care Security. (Paying for Health Care Reform)

Take Down the Drug-Ads!

October 19, 2009 in Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Have you noticed the increasing number of prescription drugs television commercials? Marketing of prescription drugs in such a blatant fashion flies in the face of the belief that nothing should stand between ‘the patient and their doctor’. So what is the purpose of prescription drugs advertizements? These only create a non-medical market demand for a drug, when such medical issues should be left for doctors to determine. Doctors are either pressured by patients to prescribe a drug they’ve seen advertised (against their own independent judgment), or doctors themselves are complicit with such advertisement, as they see their new roles as sales distributors for such products.

Americans have the highest cost for health care and prescription drugs in the world. As a country we pay two to three times as much per man, woman and child (insured and uninsured) for health care than any other country. People in others countries pay far less for the same prescription drug by the same pharmaceutical company than Americans pay. Many of us go to Canada or Mexico to purchase the prescription drugs we need but can’t afford to buy in the U.S.

Advertisements of prescription drugs and other marketing activities account for some 70% of the price we pay for these drugs, by some estimates. At a time when so many people cannot afford health insurance and are at the mercy of fate were they to get sick, such vast and costly advertising of drugs is just unconscionable. It is unnecessary and inexcusable and should be stopped. Certainly if we can prohibit cigaret and alcohol advertisements in television, we can stop prescription drugs from being advertised as well. These advertisements create an artificial demand and raise the cost of drugs for all of us. They also provide the pharmaceutical companies with a gateway to our collective consciousness to influence and shape our public opinions and attitudes. All this power paid for by us in blood, sweat and tears.

A Winning Strategy in Afghanistan

October 15, 2009 in Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , | Leave a comment

President Obama is about to make the most important decision of his Presidency. (see “Why the ‘Troop Surge’ in Afghanistan is a Bad Idea”). Will he send forty thousand more troops in Afghanistan and commit America to a prolonged, costly and uncertain military conflict there, or will he make a new beginning with a new strategy that depends less on military conflict and more on cooperation among people, peace and economic development. I like to suggest that we can still win in Afghanistan without escalating the military conflict there. Here is what I think should be done:

Limit America’s military involvement in Afghanistan to fighting and disrupting Al Qaeda activities there and in Pakistan. This can be done by establishing strong military bases along the Afghan-Pakistan border and other key areas from which quick-strike forces can seek and destroy Al Qaeda terrorist activities, using drones and other high tech weaponry and surveillance. Al Qaeda simply will not be allowed to train and organize in the area. This can be achieved without a massive military buildup seeking to defeat the Taliban first. We can have a ‘watchful presence’ in the region for as long as necessary, without military conflict and involvement with the Taliban.

Eliminate GI foot patrols through villages and towns that only create ‘targets of opportunity’ for terrorists and do not make the local people any safer or better. This will also vastly reduce civilian casualties inflicted by American military operations, which are often terrorist traps set up by deceptive intelligence for the purpose of inciting the people against America. Continuing with the same tactics of fighting insurgency in Afghanistan is a losing strategy. We can end the conflict with the Taliban by simply ignoring them and reducing them in stature and importance. Take away their ‘reason for being’ and they wither away.

Use a fraction of the cost of full scale military operations in Afghanistan to help the people directly by buying up all the heroin poppy cultivation, building schools and infrastructure, and generally build up the economy and political institutions of the country. The Taliban can be offered a place in the political table, if they should choose to take it. By buying up all the heroin poppy production we’ll cut off the Taliban’s main source of funding and will allow the people to move away from the corrupting and immoral heroin trade. If the Taliban choose to destroy and disrupt such efforts, then they will be sowing their own seeds of destruction, rejection and condemnation by the people and will give America the moral high ground. Every Taliban terrorist act, without reciprocal American inflicted civilian casualties, will bring about greater resentment and rejection of the Taliban by ordinary people – just as it has in Iraq that resulted in the country seeking a different course away from terrorism and killings.

President Obama now has the opportunity to earn his Nobel Peace Prize by the decision he’s about to make in Afghanistan. I pray that he decides wisely.

Why the ‘Troop Surge’ in Afghanistan is a Bad Idea!

October 14, 2009 in Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , | 1 comment

Advocates for sending forty thousand  more soldiers in Afghanistan point to the success of a similar troop surge in Iraq to support their position. But there are some very important differences between Iraq and Afghanistan. The sectarian conflict and insurgency in Iraq arose spontaneously and artificially from the American occupation of Iraq and from the toppling of Saddam Hussein. These events left an internal power vacuum and political struggle for control in the country. The Insurgency was not a well organized and well established broad movement, but  makeshift alliances of convenience among war lords and foreigners with their own conflicting agenda (e.g. Al Qaeda in Iraq, the Sunni, Iran, etc.). These alliances among diverse groups and people could be compromised and have been broken by Gen. Petraeus’s strategy and tactics. 

But in Afghanistan we have the Taliban! This is a well organized movement that once ruled the country before the American invasion in ‘01. It has still many supporters among the widely spread population, and had some eight years of American negligence and mistakes in Afghanistan to regroup, strengthen and better organize. Their influence and history goes back to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. And they are widely credited for defeating the Soviet Union, a military superpower at the time. They are well trained, well equipped and fanatical fighters. And they are defending their own homeland, fundamental beliefs and way of life. They blend in with the mainly agrarian population and probably are supported by many of them as friends and relatives. And they are fighting their style of warfare, following their game plan,  forcing America to fight them on their terms. This is not good. This is fighting the Wind. Just when you think you have defeated them they can rise anew from the ground and the woods and the civilian population to strike again and again with suicide bombings and road side IEDs. And they have neighboring Pakistan to hide and plan. This is Vietnam all over again. And no troop surge and escalation of fighting will defeat them. The Taliban simply cannot be militarily defeated because they are not a military force, but a Force of Will that only strengthens and becomes more resolute with every struggle and suicide bombing.

The Taliban can only be defeated by taking away their ‘reason for being’. More American soldiers patrolling the streets of Afghan villages and towns only strengthens their cause and support. More GI boots in Afghanistan means more ‘targets of opportunity’ for the Taliban and more civilian deaths to make the local population even more embittered and hardened towards America and towards their own government. You can defeat the Taliban by taking away their Afghan heroin trade. America, instead of spending hundreds of billions in executing a war (as we did in Iraq) can spend far less than that in helping the population move away from the corrupting heroin poppy cultivation and by improving their lives through education and work. All people are naturally inclined to seek a better life for themselves and for their children. In a world of peace and prosperity movements like the Taliban just can’t exist. They wither away and disappear on their own accord once their ‘reason for being’ has gone. And if there is to be a ‘destructive force’ in Afghanistan, let it be the Taliban. This will only bring their ultimate demise that much sooner.

America, and President Obama, are at a critical crossroads in Afghanistan. A troop surge now will commit America to a prolonged, costly and uncertain military conflict in Afghanistan, very reminiscent of Vietnam. To make matters even worse, our real purpose for being in Afghanistan (fighting Al Qaeda) has now shifted over into Pakistan. President Obama has inspired the people of the World with renewed hope and a different approach to World problems. The biggest casualty of a ‘troop surge’ in Afghanistan I predict will be Obama’s ‘audacity of hope’.

How to Kill Health Care Reform!

August 25, 2009 in Health Care Reform | Tags: , , | Leave a comment

… “buying time”! That’s the strategy Republicans and other opponents of Reform are following dealing with President Obama’s election mandate for Health Care Reform. The President’s position will not get stronger with the passage of time, but only weaker. Consider the August offensive by Conservative groups with the pretext of taking time to ‘do Reform right’. President Obama was right in wanting passage of the Health Care Reform bill before the summer recess! But the spineless Democratic Congress did not deliver, even with such unprecedented majorities. We’re seeing success of this “buying time” strategy by opponents of Reform with deception, mass confusion, misplaced aggression, outrage, malcontent and declining poll numbers. Delaying Health Care Reform now will essentially kill all attempts at Reform for a long time (possibly till the next great economic collapse). It will also deeply weaken the Obama Presidency and will politically paralyze him from doing anything (as it did Pres. Clinton).

When will the Democrats learn the “politics of surge” that worked well for the Republicans. You never admit defeat, you never admit weakness, you spin polls and public opinion, you assume an election mandate, even when you lost the popular vote and are put in the Oval Office by a politicized Supreme Court, and you do it with any means you can and not necessarily with bipartisanship. That’s the recipe for political success in Washington, e.g. the Bush Tax Cut for the wealthy that squandered Clinton’s ‘budget surplussed as far as the eye could see’. (“Why Do Republican Administrations Love Budget Deficits?”).

The Democrats have yet to learn to play ‘hardball politics’ and to go for the ‘political jugular’ as the Republicans have been doing for many decades (“Republican Infallibility and Democratic Failures“). It’s really pathetic that the only time Democrats can be politically successful is when Republicans ruin the country with reckless and greedy policies that only favor the wealthy and special interests. And even then, Democrats are capable of pulling ”defeat from the jaws of victory”.

 

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