The New Holocaust

I want to ask you a simple question. If millions of people died at the hands of a hierarchy of tyrants, wouldn’t that be something that would require immediate action? Would you be willing to sacrifice short term prosperity for long term peace? Wouldn’t you hold people accountable?

In Nazi Germany, Adolf Hitler killed 6 million Jews, and tortured many more. Despite being a maniac, he did so for an ideology. A small group of health care insurance executives have committed a Holocaust of their own through a destructive policy, and for nothing more than greed. An estimated 18,000 people die every year from lack of insurance. Apply this new statistic retroactively to the roots of our current healthcare system and we have a full blown genocide. 1,260,000 people are dead because of lack of insurance. Iowa’s population is about 2,000,000. (http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/healthcare/2002-05-22-insurance-deaths.htm)

An estimated 50 million at any given time are living under a cloud of fear because they have no health insurance. Fear that if they ever get a serious illness, they could be plunged into poverty for the rest of their lives. Fear that they will have to choose between food or medical bills.
Meanwhile, wealthy insurance companies profit off of the sick and injured while spending billions a year to lobby the government and you through the media. They do so without remorse, and with the defense of wealthy politicians-most of whom have never been uninsured. Blowhards like Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, and even CNN’s Rick Sanchez have unthinkably repeated blatant insurance lobby propaganda. Conservatives so quickly to fight for the lives of the unborn fall silent on this issue.

What’s more important, corporate greed or human life?

Gays in the Military

Recently Iowa became one of the few states to legalize gay marriage-a topic I talked about extensively a few months ago. But I’m here to talk about another issue involving the gays. That “issue” is the military’s “Don’t ask don’t tell” policy. The policy allows gays to serve in the military, but only if they keep their orientation a secret. The military reserves the right to investigate its soldiers if they are believed to be homosexual. If a soldier is ever identified as being gay, they are to be immediately discharged.

Yes, this is an actual policy, still being readily used by the military. And it’s hardly an ignored rule. In January of this year, 11 servicemen were discharged for being outed as gay. This comes at a time when the military has lowered recruitment standards for the first time in over 2 decades, simply to get enough people to fight a two front war. The military is so desperate to get new recruits that it has offered over 1000 waivers to convicted felons in the last two years. Despite recruitment woes, the military continues to conduct gay witch hunts, becoming an organization that says yes to convicted felons but says no to gays.

At a 2008 debate, John McCain was asked about his stance regarding “Don’t ask don’t tell”. He expressed his support for the measure, claiming that allowing gays to serve would “erode unit cohesion”. It turns out this isn’t a new thought. When there was a push for African Americans and Women to join the military, the very same rational was used to exclude them. In 1942 the Vice Admiral of the military claimed “The minute the negro is introduced into the military, unit cohesion will plummet.”

It’s not that I support the military. Quite the opposite. They are profiteers of death, ignorance, and greed. The military is a patriarchal, bigoted organization that continually undermines our peace, prosperity, and finances. It’s the civil rights aspect of this issue that concerns me. The fact that a government organization can discriminate to such an extent in 2009 is worrisome. It’s high time we ignore the Christian religious right and their archaic views. It’s time to embrace logic, not bigotry.

Socialism

During the last few days of his miserable campaign, John McCain labeled Barack Obama a Socialist. Everyone immediately defended Obama and claimed that McCain had crossed the line. They claimed McCain had crossed the line with that one. From the dumb, ignorant assholes who brought you Creationism its......Socialismphobia! After all, that's what Joseph Stalin was right? Karl Marx? Those were the bad guys, and they believed in Socialism, so therefore it must be wrong.

That couldn't be further from the truth. Socialism, like Capitalism or any other major political theory should be practiced in moderation. 100% Socialism fails just as much as 100% capitalism. But I'm here to argue that Socialism has its merits.

Do you like the fact that the government provides a mandatory education for all of its citizens? Do you think the government should provide Health Care to it's citizens? (The World Health Organization finds that the top 30 countries for health care all use government run programs) Do you like labor unions that fight for worker's rights? How about the minimum wage? Medicare and Medicaid? Social Security? Age Standards for Jobs? Mandatory Working Conditions Standards? How about Government regulatory agencies? Unemployment Benefits? Disability Benefits? How about the national power grid which provides energy at low costs? School Lunches? How about the FDA?

But that's not all. Your Local Fire Department and Police Department are both Socialist Programs. Same with NASA. The Public Works and Arts administration are two more examples. Both programs were introduced by Franklin Roosevelt, who's New Deal got us out of the Great Depression. Too bad the idea wasn't originally his. It was stolen from a Socialist Worker's Party candidate for President that ran less than a decade earlier by the name of Eugene V. Debs.

Several European countries have taken large leaps in the direction of Socialism. Nations like France, Denmark, Sweden, and Switzerland are some examples. When it comes to education, economic disparity, life span, and overall quality of life, these nations topple the United States. It's because they've socialized their economic, medical and education systems much more than we have.

Our country has the largest gap between the rich in the poor in the industrialized world. We're falling behind in education, and are number 37 in terms of health care. Isn't time we embrace something that makes so much sense? Fear tactics have gotten us nowhere, and many people fail to grasp what exactly what Socialism entails. It's high time we get with the program and embrace an ideology that will move us forward rather than backward.

American Arrogance

Obama's recent speech in Cairo was heralded as a massively progressive speech. It was lambasted by some right wing pundits as "going to far" to appease Muslims. It was about as far left as our foreign image has ever gone. So what's my problem with the speech? It was full of justifications for America's old, archaic, hypocritical and unfair ideas in the realm of foreign policy. In other words, it was still too conservative.

Picture for a second that China-a monstrous foreign power, invades both Canada and Mexico. Soon the saber rattling begins in the direction of the United States almost daily. Our country takes in more than 2 million refugees, many wounded and in poverty. Imagine we had the ability to develop a super weapon as a deterrent to an imminent Chinese invasion. Would that be justifiable?

I argue that it would. And that's exactly what Iran is doing. They are surrounded by two war zones, are being constantly threatened by the United States, and have had an influx of displaced Iraqis enter their country. Seeing that Iran's history with the U.S is rocky at best, and considering the U.S has the largest nuclear stockpile on Earth, Iran has every right to develop a nuclear weapon. Mahmoud Ahmedinijad may be a bit much, but he has no power in the Iranian government (contrary to popular belief). The Ayatollah has the final say on all matters so you can bet any nuke would be used only as a deterrent.

Secondly, we continue to side with Israel no matter what-a position completely bankrupt of rational thought. Israel is a terrorist state. It spends more money on its military than the rest of the Middle East combined. It may come as no surprise that it buys its weapons from American contractors, so it becomes pretty obvious why America supports Israel-it provides a ton of profit to our military industry. For every 3 deaths in the Israeli military, 12 Palestinian civilians die. This is what the World Court calls a War Crime. Israel bombs schools and hospitals in blatant acts of aggression. Meanwhile, the American media decries Hamas-one of the biggest governing bodies of Palestine, as a terrorist organization despite the fact that Hamas was democratically elected and provides free education, health care, and unemployment benefits to its citizens. Meanwhile Israel is the leading state sponsor of terrorism in the Middle East.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict really remains a religious dispute between Islam and Judaism. Ultimately it is a battle of whose invisible sky daddy is better. Taking the side of Israel is irresponsible, immoral and dangerous, and a foreign policy decision that should be changed.

Obama's Disappointing First 6 Months

Obama originally ordered Gitmo to be shut down, citing the fact that it was a blemish on America’s foreign policy because of torture. The prisoners would be transported to the states, which isn’t exactly a revolutionary idea considering it’s what we do most of the time for terrorism (Gitmo was used so interrogators could get around judicial law since it isn’t American soil). Now, a slew of uneducated Senators from both sides of the aisle are refusing to let them into the U.S. This view is fucking retarded. Terrorism and treason are two of the highest crimes possible in America. Terrorist suspects would be solitarily confined, so there wouldn’t be any behind bars conspiracies like several Senators would like you to believe. As for escapes, the odds of escaping a Supermax high security prison are astronomical. Nevertheless, it looks like Obama will capitulate and end up moving the Gitmo prisoners to be tortured in Afghanistan in secret CIA black sites. Obama failed with Gitmo.

In 2003, Obama claimed single payer health care was the most ideal reform for the health care dilemma. Now, he appears to have taken single-payer off the table in favor of a highly watered down government plan that will compete with employee-based health insurance. Obama has conference with health insurance companies, and a board of doctors that make millions a year. He has forgotten to consult those who are the victims of the health insurance industry, and overwhelmingly prefer a single-payer system. Obama is failing with Health Care.

When we declared war with Afghanistan in 2001, the country was in a nationalistic fervor. Over 75% of the hijackers were from Saudi Arabia, but we never considered action there because they are a trading partner. Secondly, the terrorists behind 9/11 were not state sanctioned-it was from a private group-Al Qaeda, so it’s not applicable to attack a state for an act it didn’t commit. Lastly, we wanted to catch Bin Laden. If we wanted to catch him, war would be the last thing to do. Armies are slow and have bases. We made it 10 times easier for Bin Laden to know where we are. Despite the fact that Afghanistan is an obviously illegitimate war, Obama has decided to ramp up the war effort there. Obama failed with Afghanistan.

George Bush was known as our “born again President”. Barack Obama has invoked Jesus more times in 5 months than George Bush did in 8 years. That’s fine, but Obama has infused his religion into our government. He has vastly expanded George Bush’s faith based initiative. The faith based initiative offers incentives for religions-particularly for Christianity. This is a clear violation of Separation of Church and state and unconstitutional, not to mention the fact that it awards people motivated to do works through religious means rather than the goodness of their own hearts. It puts blind faith and ignorance on a pedestal. Obama failed with the Faith Based Initiative.

Obama is also continuing America’s arrogant foreign policy. Obama continues an unflinching support for Israel-a terrorist state. He also continues to pursue a hypocritical and unrealistic foreign policy in regards to Iran and North Korea. Obama’s foreign policy blunders are so vast they get their own chapter: see “American Arrogance”. Obama is pursuing a failing foreign policy.

Obama has let down the LBGT community, by capitulating to religious blowhards and bigots. Obama has failed to do anything about “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell”, a policy in the military that is blatantly homophobic which doesn’t allow gays to serve openly in the military. Obama continues to be opposed to same sex marriage, and recently reaffirmed his support for the Defense of Marriage Act. The Defense of marriage acts basically makes it so states don’t have to accept the gay marriage certificates of other states. This is unconstitutional since it goes against the full faith and credit clause of the constitution. States have to honor laws from other states if there is no contradictory law on the books. In the same press release, Obama expressed that he wanted to “preserve the sacred institution of marriage”. Oh great, another dipshit religious President. Obama is failing the LBGT community.

Obama still remains immensely popular. That’s probably because he’s BFF’s with the media. Interviews with Jay Leno, ESPN, Extra, NBC, NPR, Newsweek, Associated Press, Time, and 3 Prime Time Press Conferences have all been conducted in the first 5 months. The media reports on everything he does-as long as it’s not important. Obama swats a fly, Obama and Biden go eat cheeseburgers, Obama takes Michelle to Broadway, Obama writes a school excuse, Obama gets a new puppy for his daughters, Obama gives away DVDS/iPod—these are all actual headlines. Obama is an overexposed media whore.

Obama pledged to get us out of Iraq. Now he has a plan. His plan is hardly a withdrawal however. It leaves 50,000 “residual forces” in Iraq-that’s nearly 25% of the current levels. Pre-surge it would amount to a little over 1/3. Obama fails with Iraq.

How To Pay For Health Care

One of the biggest debates about Health Care is how exactly the U.S is going to be able to afford it. In a matter of about a half hour and the search engine Google, I found a simple way:

Bush tax cuts: $176 Billion per year

Defense spending: $710.2 Billion per year

Projected HC Reform cost: $1.2 trillion for 5 years

So, let’s get rid of the Bush tax cuts. Economists from both sides of the aisle agree that the cuts overwhelmingly benefit the rich (those making over $250,000). Eliminating just those would chip off $880 Billion. That leaves the only $320 Billion. The U.S accounts for 47% of the world’s military spending. 2nd place is the entirety of NATO which accounts for 23%. If we cut defense spending by just 10% per year, we would still hold an overwhelming military advantage, and we would save $355.1 Billion in five years. Furthermore, repealing “Don’t ask Don’t Tell” would save a projected $1 Billion in military recruiting costs in 5 years time. So that’s how we pay for health care, in the process we save our military a hassle, maintain our military advantage, and revoke a tax cut that roughly 10% of our population truly benefits from, and create a $36.1 Billion surplus. Sounds like a plan to me.

Ronald Reagan-Great Orator, Horrible President

Ronald Reagan was a great orator. His speeches were among the greatest of all our Presidents and he was rightly called the “Great Communicator”. I have come to the conclusion that this is the chief reason why he is regarded as one of our greatest Presidents. However, his policies and tenure tell a vastly different story. The truth is Reagan was a bad President.

Ronald Reagan’s deregulation of our economy, and his insistence on raw supply-side economics helped lay the groundwork for our current economic crisis. Reagan allowed many economic policies from the New Deal expire under his tenure-even after they had been renewed for almost a half century. Meanwhile, Economists criticized “Reaganomics” for overwhelmingly benefitting the rich. This makes sense considering Reagan subscribed to an economic theory called “Trickledown economics”. Trickledown economics asserts the idea that if the wealthy are given more money to spend, they will do so in a way that benefits the whole society. Obviously this hasn’t worked. Not only that, but Reagan spent LOTS of borrowed money. In fact, 25% of government spending was borrowed money under President Reagan. Comparatively, under Clinton this figure was 6%, under Carter 13%, under Nixon 14%, under JFK and Johnson-6%. Clearly Reagan spent too much money. The National debt increased exponentially under his watch.

Reagan also was a horrendously militant President. Under his administration, the U.S government covertly overthrew several democratically elected governments around the world, including Lebanon, Grenada, and Libya. He oversaw the biggest peacetime military arms buildup in history, and illegally sold a ton of weapons to Iran to covertly fund rebels in Nicaragua. Meanwhile, Reagan receives credit for the downfall of the Soviet Union because he said the phrase “Tear Down This Wall”. Really it was increased pressure by the people of Russia, a coup under the Presidency of Mikhail Gorbachev. The coup happened during the Presidency of George H.W Bush anyway, nearly 4 years after his presidency.

Reagan also expanded Nixon’s “War on Drugs” into a completely immoral crusade. Reagan signed a bill into law that put into the 3-strike rule. The three strike rule punishes people caught with Drugs on 3 separate times to life behind bars. A great percentage of Presidential pardons have been from this immoral, irrational rule. The bill also brought a bit of racism into drug policy. Crack cocaine, more popular among minority neighborhoods because of its affordability, carries a much tougher sentence than powder cocaine which is more popular among white people. This makes sense considering Reagan voiced his opposition to the Civil rights Act when it was in Congress.

Ronald Reagan was one scientifically illiterate son of a bitch. Yes, to be fair most politicians are, but Ronald Reagan was even more so. The Strategic Defense Initiative, dubbed “Star Wars” was debunked by nearly every mainstream scientist that was questioned about it. For those who don’t know, Star Wars was a project that would have been a missile defense system that used a “shield” of U.S satellites to fire down incoming Soviet missiles. In other words, it was scientifically unattainable. Reagan supported abstinence only education and as a result teenage pregnancy went up by 60%. Reagan was an anti-evolutionist; letting his religious identification beat out scientific fact. He believed life began at conception, despite the fact that a sperm and egg combined have no organs or detectable brainwaves. Once again, Reagan let his religion override science. Ironically enough, Reagan was against stem cells while in office, even though there is promising leads for an Alzheimer’s cure with stem cells. Additionally, Reagan was the type of Christian that you see in abundance nowadays: He was obsessed with the end of the world. In his diary, after a meeting with Israeli leaders, Reagan claimed “Sometimes it seems like God is going to end the world at any minute.” How can a President who believes that not let it influence his Middle Eastern policy (which was unabashedly pro Israel)?

Reagan had no respect for unions, as evidenced by his refusal to recognize an air traffic worker’s strike under his watch. He ended up contributing to the firing 11,359 people as a result. He refused to acknowledge the AIDS epidemic until 7 years into his administration, and voiced opposition to bills that offered the LBGT community protection against hate crimes. His rejected Supreme Court nominee, Robert Bork serves as a reminder of an unqualified extremist judge. Six members of his administration were arrested while two were never prosecuted despite breaking lobbying laws.

To top it all off, Ronald Reagan (with the help of Jimmy Carter) helped inadvertently cause 9/11 through training Osama Bin Laden. The following is a quote from Ronnie himself:

“To watch the courageous Afghan freedom fighters battle modern arsenals with simple hand-held weapons is an inspiration to those who love freedom. Their courage teaches us a great lesson—that there are things in this world worth defending. To the Afghan people, I say on behalf of all Americans that we admire your heroism, your devotion to freedom, and your relentless struggle against your oppressors.”

The Mujahedeen whom Reagan called “Afghan Freedom Fighters” were fighting the Soviets with the help of U.S CIA training. Among those trained was Osama Bin Laden. We trained him how to fight a massive country with limited resources. Gee, that sounds a lot like the technique he used in 9/11 doesn’t it?

Not that Reagan would take credit for any of this. During his 8 years, Reagan used the phrase “Jimmy Carter” more than 1000 times. Obviously this was political opportunism.

Reagan wasn’t that great of a President, in fact he was a bad one.