Topic #1: Obama or Clinton for President..?.er, I mean Democratic nominee. Let's keep to their ISSUES and QUALIFICATIONS for prez please. Let's keep our pond clean. // Topic #2: Healthcare Solutions // Topic #3: China's human rights abuses
Less than 24 hrs from my last post, and John Edwards is officially off the map.
“It’s time for me to step aside so that history can — so that history can blaze its path.” Now extinguished, a sentence-long-eulogy on Edwards' candidacy: whereas Clinton, and gradually, Obama, have shown their inevitable tendancy towards moderation, I would venture to say that it was Edwards' true core boldness of vision, of plan, and of visible passion--on anti-poverty, on refocusing policy on the middle-class, on healthcare--that consistently forced H.C. & B.O. to catch up with more liberal stances and leftist platforms of their own. For sakes, please don't go back to devolving into halfway-conservatives now that the guy that grew up on a mill isn't around no more.. That strategy will NOT get Republicans finally out of the Whitehouse--haven't we learned that already in 2004?? Come out and assert your spines (from now until November), say what you mean and people will listen, instead of walking on eggshells like an unattractive donkey ass.
Though love letters have been slipped from both sides, Edwards has not endorsed either Clinton or Obama as of this moment; so what next? Seems like Obama's begun hurling a few verbal dampers to the other camp: writes the Associated Press, "Obama said Wednesday a Hillary Rodham Clinton presidency would be a step back to the past," (POW!--turning her strong arm experience against her) and Barack's own words, "Democrats will win in November and build a majority in Congress not by nominating a candidate who will unite the other party against us..." (BAM!--kicking her where it hurts).
Instead, I wonder which are some of the real issues that not-completely-decided voters would like elaboration on from Clinton & Obama, to help them decide in the next 5 days? On the right sidebar, I posted a poll for you, dear Reader, containing a list of my own making so you can click your own interest (it may direct the topics I seek out here on this blog). And as always, feel free to send links to good articles, ideas, and of course please do comment away!
Possibly because John Edwards is hastily (and reluctantly) falling off the map of realistic presidential contenders, his interview with NYTimes (1/25/08)--in which he revealed stark leftist contrast to Obama/Clinton--has unfortunately been little-noted by the press & the public.
Although similar in healthcare plan as his Democratic opponents, in this interview he boldly blurted out the political explitives that Obama/Clinton have been avoiding like the plague:
Regarding his health plan ("Medicare-plus") which would allow all Americans to choose between private insurance options and new government insurance packages modeled on Medicare,
"American health consumers will decide which works best. It could continue to be divided. But it could go in one direction or the other and one of the directions is obviously government or single payer. And I'm not opposed to that."
Booyakashah! It warms the populist heart & the "Simplify health coverage!" mind like mine.
Republican candidates and policy strategists have raised the specter of “socialized medicine” and depicted the Democratic plans as a back-door route to a so-called single-payer government system.
Mr. Edwards brushed off that critique. “There is nothing back-door about it,” he said. “It’s right through the front door. We’re going to let America decide what health care system works for them.”
Yes, it's all about liguistical framing. While Republicans have continued to
champion the array of "choices" amongst our dozens of dense healthcare plans as a God-given American right (as always, free market competition will naturally and justly lead to healthy citizenry), and
demonize the god-forsaken "Socialized Medicine" that these Communists are stealthily seeking to ram up the arse,
As for the running topic question on Frog(the)Bulletin!: What are the differences between Democrat front-runners Obama vs. Clinton? Forget it, vote Edwards!!!!!!!!!!!(?)
Reader "YOUknow" posted a comment below (& on fancy new sidebar) regarding her vote for Hillary and graciously also shared this link to NPR discussion on healthcare, though I haven't actually gone to listen to it, but will sometime in the future. YOUknow says it's "awesome," so I give it its own post here, for visibility. And anyways, glad always for anything to help keep NPR alive, especially after 7 yrs of Republican neglect. Another reason 2008 to get a Donkey in.
Otherwise, her sophistication, understanding, point of maturity in her plans, and of course, experience, all far exceed that of her young charismatic rival, says the New York Times editorial board, and they have decided
She is the best choice for the Democratic Party as it tries to regain the White House.
In their reward speech of praise, they gushed that the robotic competency of 1990s Hillary has humanized and wizened a long way and is now ready to inherent the crown from the Republicans. On basically all issues--international diplomacy, Iraq withdrawal, refocus on the middle-and-lower-class, civil liberties, an end to the suffocating partisanship etc.--NYTimes makes the blanket statement that the two platforms, in terms of direction, are practically identical. Hillary's platform is just more concrete; and as a political leader she is just more substantive--and the NYTimes believes substance over inspiration is what America needs from 2008-2012.
The idealist in me still roots for Barack and his ending-staled-partisanship, building-new-coalitions proslytizing; but when it comes to managing the tough diplomatic staredowns and security after withdrawal from Iraq, facing and managing new emergency crises whatever they may be, as NYT pointed out and I have to agree, I'd prefer my trust abdicated to the tested Hillary.
Dear Reader: Any thoughts on the editorial? On Hillary Clinton?
Over in California Steven Maviglio talks about a certain "Nunez/Perata health care bill" being debated--which the rest of the country has never heard of and has no reason to ever have--and lays out why federal healthcare is a politically unviable tease (article's title: "Single Payer Dreamland"). Independent from the right-wing's militaristic defense of the private (a.k.a. vulture) insurance companies against the Socialist Michael Moores of our great nation, Maviglio (he seems like a liberal realist) advocates indeed for a middle-road healthcare built on top, and incusive of, the current broken-system. Why? Inertia. Inertia of a big country, with big Insurance, Inc. that had come when you needed coverage to stay over on your couch, then ate your food, played your TV, and got fat and is now a staple in your living room like a big Jaba bully collecting protection money, stealthily locking out undesirables in the cold (residents of their own home) who can't/won't feed it properly or who request it to exert costly effort, and Jaba has no intention of ever leaving. Of course, there are always the many who befriend a bully, or else the rest have rooms comfortably tucked far enough away from the bully to enjoy the status quo, or at least not to give a mind:
The trouble with [single-payer-or-nothing] logic is that 2/3 of Californians get their insurance through their employer. They are largely immune from that implosion. And then there's the court of public opinion: single payer polls in either single digits or low double-digits...
A single-payer health care bill would have to pass the legislature. That's been done before, only to get vetoed by the Governor. So that means there's no shot of single payer health care being signed in California by 2011 at the earliest, since Gov. Schwarzenegger will be in office until then. ...
But I'll play along and say, okay, we'll have a Democratic governor willing to sign a single payer bill. Fine. Then guess what: that law will be put up for a referendum by a massive coalition of groups against it. And mark my words that every special interest group in creation will chip in heavily to make sure it never sees the light of day. Remember the prescription drug initiatives in 2005 that went down hard? Picture that times 25. The drug companies. The doctors. The insurance companies. Whether we like it or not, they kick ass when it comes to initiatives.
But wait, single-payer shoppers, there's more! Single payer will need billions of dollars to be implemented, billions of taxpayer dollars. And that means a 2/3 vote of the Legislature. Chances of that happening? Zero. Particularly when the state is bleeding red ink.
Maviglio's article goes on to conclude: Hey, despite the logical and near-unanimous understanding that Private Insurance sucks (our lives, our health, our medical practices, our wallets), Obama, Clinton, and even Edwards are right to abandon unpopular revolution--Instead, go for treatise! Let the beast stay fattening on our couch! At the end, Maviglio even graciously shows the inevitable pitfalls of ever reimagining our healthcare system, with the case in point of a YouTube link to Obama's own moderating evolution on the issue, courtesy of Clinton & Co.
2. Striaghtforward Health-care-for-all, language, & employing the obvious
David Moberg's article yesterday in the Valley Advocate is not so insightful and ends in a whimper, but it does single out the Republican stench--I mean, the elephant--in the room, that the Democrats have yet to flat-out say the 3 words, expansion of government, despite that
a strong majority sees an accumulation of problems—from uncaring healthcare to gross economic inequality, from global warming to globalization—that require profound government response. And in the aftermath of a botched war in Iraq and a bungled response to Hurricane Katrina, they want a government that is effective, honest and open.
Further along, this article has been the most helpful in terms of laying out a particular way to gain momentum on a better health system, not because of David Moberg but because of David Moberg's paraphrasing of brilliant political linguist George Lakoff, Lakoff's paraphrased ideas, which I, in bulleted form, will quote here:
"[Despite our innate distrusts of government,] Americans want government that will both protect and empower them, says George Lakoff... He says that a democratic government is based on empathy and caring for each other."
"Lakoff says progressives should argue that protecting people against the inevitable threats to their health is as important as protecting them against national security threats."
"Lakoff says that Democrats will fare better on health issues if they talk about guaranteeing care—not insurance or coverage. Lakoff, who argues that care should not be determined by the marketplace or private insurance companies, says that a government single-payer plan is conceptually correct but linguistically flawed. Instead he describes the progressive alternative as run by doctors and patients, who can choose what care they get and from whom, in order to cut through right wing fear-mongering about “socialized medicine” (the tag that Republicans will try to stick on any progressive reform, however modest)."
"Democrats, like Obama, often say that the best healthcare plan would be a single-payer plan, where everyone is guaranteed care and can decide with their doctors the care they need. But none of the leading candidates, including Obama, advocates it.
" “Why do so many leaders surrender in advance?” Lakoff asks. “It has to do with neoliberal thought. They’re not talking about the moral issues of care and empathy, but interests.” Democrats too often talk about the needs of children, veterans, the poor, or the middle class, not about a failure of the market or the moral mandate for government as a protector of the entire national community."
I hope the next President--of course, I go with assumption it will be a woman or a mixed black man--hires Lakoff as a key advisor and squeezes Jaba out the door already. Or just throw him off the balcony.
good article on healthcare (at least according to my own opinion of where healthcare should go: government-single-payer, scrap the insurance companies); though article barely favors one over the other
agreeing on Clinton's attack about Obama's flip-flopping on once supporting single-payer universal healthcare. It's meant to say Obama has retracted from his once-universal view; but the way I see this is if he once was straightforward for federal healthcare, then he's more likely than Clinton to eventually get there
So far, I know the most about Obama than the other two: know of anyone to add to this email who might have opinions/facts to add about them? Anything to add?:
John Edwards: Very inspiring, I'm all behind him and believe in him when he says as president, he will make, lead, and carry out all the policy movements to help the true middle class and poor. However, he will therefore create harsh division from the upper class and possibly upper-middle class. He will not initiate conversation that doesn't have to do with "lifting the middle class"; he will respond to other issues when forced to, but mostly steers it back to the middle class; it's like he's not even trying to run for president of the United States--just eventually wants a role as an effective champion of the middle class, like Al Gore with a special, broad, goal after the race.
Clinton: Competent. Experience. But yes, still tied to partisanship because --of her ties to funders: has she ever addressed campaign finance? She definitely does not speak against special interest influences the way Edwards does, and neither even the level of Obama. Obama and Edwards "doesn't take money from federal lobbyists, or PACs"; does Clinton? No, because she financed by drug companies, by oil, by Chinese, etc. --unfairly, her image to right-wingers: has she ever successfully built a coalition with conservatives? Yes, she has (such as cooperating with Republican on bills to help out veterans). In some cases, Will any Republican cooperate with her or will that be political suicide, since Republican base will revolt?
Obama: Does Obama still have strong industry ties, through loopholes, despite saying "No to federeal lobbyists, PACs"? Has shown in rhetoric, and sparsely but a little in action, that he can bring together people (legislators) from differing sides. Can imagine new solutions, new directions, shown in the way he's moved this entire country's primaries--left & right sides--towards "coalition," towards change from old partisanship. But has not shown competency of Clinton on day-to-day management: will a rookie, with the gift of inspiration and creativity, be a risk as the CEO/COO?
Welcome to FrogBulletin, where certain topics and issues will be followed here at length and tagged accordingly. If you have any links you think relevant and would like posted here, email the frog and they'll be posted; or feel free to leave comments!
Author of...
Abraham Young (aka "The Frog") is also the author of the upcoming pamphlet-book Humanity At Stake.
The projected publication date for this book is May 19th, 2008. For more info: www.HumanityAtStake.com
that not-completely-decided voters would like elaboration on from Clinton & Obama, to help them decide in the next 5 days? On the right sidebar, I posted a poll for you, dear Reader, containing a list of my own making so you can click your own interest (it may direct the topics I seek out here on this blog). And as always, feel free to send links to good articles, ideas, and of course please do comment away!
