Kim wrote:Hey Dennis,
Could Obama's inaction be due to the fact that he never did have the numbers?? I don't follow too close but from what I picked up over here, it seemed that Obama wanted proper health reform tabling sweeping changes that would really make a difference and weaken the grip the insurers have on the system.
...seems a familiar story all over the world, margins too narrow to effectively govern with any real agenda. The moment a stand is taken to form one, it is immediately ceased upon for no other reason than an opposition not wanting to allow the other side to look affective and win support.....no thought at all about what policy may be good for the country cause all the major parties now seem to have agendas which focus on what is good for big business.
...
Cheers
Kim
Hi Kim,
(hope you don't mind me dissecting your reply and highlighting sections)
Obama is a flat-out liar, a conniving manipulator. He is completely in-bed with corporate interests, and banksters, and militarists. (I know, I know - that's "par for the course" or "part of the job description" for politicians, and especially a US president, but this guy is finding new depths.)
After 8 years of Bush, in the US 2008 presidential election, many US citizens felt that a rabid dingo (my attempt to put it in Aussie terms
) would have been a better choice than the overt war-hawk McCain and his daffy-yet-malevolent sidekick in a skirt. Who would have guessed that after something like 20 days in office, Obama would order covert drone bombings in Pakistan! That is, remote-controlled killing of people targeted from thousands of feet in the air, as "suspected militants." (I believe those were the actual words used.) The US now is bombing in Pakistan, Yemen, Sudan, while still waging war in Afghanistan after 9 years (when the initial "reason" was to
kill bin Laden and maybe a few hundred Taliban.) The US, with the help of soldiers and money from loyal US friend/countries with big hearts like Australia, have killed over one million Iraqi people (and there, as the world knows, we went in to eliminate Saddam Hussein and seize his WMDs.) Seems we may have gotten a bit frustrated when looking under Iraqi beds and in Iraqi closets for said weapons, and decided to kill anyone that dared protest or sneeze or walk down the street. The US has something like 700 military bases around the world, and now there are permanent military bases in Afghanistan and Iraq. Oh, wait a minute, the "war" in Iraq is over, and now we simply have "advisers" (with tanks and machine guns) there to "assist" the Iraqi citizens. We are actually there to protect the CIA interest in opium, to protect *strategic* natural gas and oil fields and pipelines, and mineral wealth, and to plant our imperialist asses permanently in more of the Middle East - partially as staging areas for the next half dozen wars we will be "compelled to fight - in order to make the world a safe place." McCain was an overt war-hawk; Obama covert - and probably worse.
Interesting that you picked the Universal Health Care issue, because it was an issue where the spin was pure lies. It was shown that the majority party
did have the votes, and the will to include "single payer" as an option. It was revealed (New York Times reporter printed the story), that Obama met with health insurance industry bigwigs months prior to the vote in Congress, and
guaranteed them there would be no 'single payer' option on the table or in the vote. He made good on his promise, and went one better: Congress allowed the insurance company lobbyists to write the bill that was voted in! The Democrats in Congress put a feather in their cap, saying "we got health reform!", and in reality, the insurance companies got stronger rather than being phased out of their parasitic existence. The Orwellian title of the health car bill was "The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act" but in reality should have been, "The Health Insurance Industry Subservience Act."
Obama (and the voting majority of his party, the Democrats) may have done the US a big favor, inadvertently: millions of us now see beyond the shadow of a doubt that the only two parties 'allowed' to hold office here are actually factions of the same corrupt party - The Oligarchs Minions Party. And, there is a surge away from the Democratic party like never before, hopefully enough to be formidable enough to have a chance to remove these corporate-owned overlords from power.
Make no mistake, the oligarchs that own the US and much of the world do not care one bit about me or you. We are grit in the gravel on their road to even further world domination. They control the media, they buy the politicians and legislators, and sometimes allow the pretense that there are opposing views that do not quite have enough votes to become law. This is part of the circus to keep us 'hoping' and not rioting.
When the international (or extra-national) banking cartel finishes off the US dollar, probably very soon, I hope my friends around the world will not be hurt too badly - though I fear you will, because the US banking industry has such a global footprint. I'm telling friends in the US to buy some silver coins (because the paper dollar will be toilet paper) and stock up on food. it's gonna be a bumpy ride.
Dennis
