Restoring The Public Trust

Bill Moyers has a must read over at Tom Paine. I recommend the entire article.

The recent book, Economic Apartheid in America: A Primer on Economic Inequality and Insecurity , describes how “thirty zipcodes in America have become fabulously wealthy” while “whole urban and rural communities are languishing in unemployment, crumbling infrastructure, growing insecurity, and fear.”

This is a profound transformation in a country whose DNA contains the inherent promise of an equal opportunity at “Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness” and whose collective memory resonates with the hallowed idea – hallowed by blood – of “government of the people, by the people, and for the people.” The great progressive struggles in our history have been waged to make sure ordinary citizens, and not just the rich, share in the benefits of a free society. Yet today the public may support such broad social goals as affordable medical coverage for all, decent wages for working people, safe working conditions, a secure retirement, and clean air and water, but there is no government “of, by, and for the people” to deliver on those aspirations. Instead, our elections are bought out from under us and our public officials do the bidding of mercenaries. Money is choking democracy to death. So powerfully has wealth shaped our political agenda that we cannot say America is working for all of America.

In the words of Louis Brandeis, one of the greatest of our Supreme Court justices: “You can have wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, or democracy, but you cannot have both.”

Tiny Hunting Vests

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Credit to Monk who adds:

Who can forget the image of GOP supporters who hoisted their blue stained finger tips in the air to show support for past Iraqi elections? Never mind the fact that the symbolism was laughable in the sense that the only democracy that will emerge will be one that the current US administration approves of.

So I introduce "The Little Orange Vest Project". We will be manufacturing tiny orange hunting vests that people can carry around, slide on their finger and hold up proudly in the air.

These can be worn at protests, GOP speaking engagements or better yet... just hold one up when debating neocon lunkheads face to face.

The tiny orange vests symbolize everything that is wrong with this administration:

Firing without having a clear idea of what the outcome will be and then scrambling deceitfully to control the disastrous outcome.

Lift them high America. They're tiny hunting vests. They smell of freedom.

Science and Universal Health Care

Congressman Jim McDermott of Seattle points out the obvious in this column.

Before long, a single drop of blood will force us to confront health care coverage in the United States, whether we want to or not. While the nation has ignored, minimized or denied there is a health care crisis in this country, scientists have charted a new frontier for the 21st century: the human genome. This advancement will change everything.

What was science fiction the last time the United States had a serious discussion about health care -- during the Clinton administration in 1993 -- is now science fact. The Human Genome Project painstakingly mapped 3.2 billion pairs of genes that are the blueprint of the genetic code. Subsequent -- and ongoing -- research on the genetic markers of disease have brought us to the dawn of a new day when a single drop of blood can reveal the diseases you are likely to suffer in your lifetime.

Blame and Responsibility

Molly Ivins has a good column on the difficulty the Bush administration has in taking responsibility for anything.

Which brings us to one of the many paradoxes of the Bush administration, which claims to be creating “the responsibility society.” It’s hard to think of a crowd less likely to take responsibility for anything they have done or not done than this bunch. They’re certainly good at preaching responsibility to others—and blaming other people for everything that goes wrong on their watch.

Of course the Cheney shooting was an accident.

But is it an accident if your home and your life are destroyed by the flood following a hurricane? Especially if the flood was caused by failed levees, a government responsibility?

Is it an accident if you are born with a clubfoot and your parents are too poor to pay for the operation to fix it? Is there any societal responsibility in such a case?

Is it an accident when your manufacturing job gets shipped overseas and all you can find to replace it is a low-wage job at the big-box store with no health insurance, and your kid breaks his leg, and you can’t pay the bill, so you have to declare bankruptcy under a new law that leaves you broke for good, with no chance of ever getting out of debt? Or was all of that caused by deliberate government policy?

Cheney is much given to lecturing us about taking responsibility. When and where does societal responsibility come in?

Dude, Where's My Party?

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Ward Sutton at The Village Voice

President Creates Cabinet-Level Position To Coordinate Scandals

The Onion is certainly our finest news source.

WASHINGTON, DC—In his State of the Union address to the nation last night, President Bush announced a new cabinet-level position to coordinate all current and future scandals facing his party.

'Tonight, by executive order, I am creating a permanent department with a vital mission: to ensure that the political scandals, underhanded dealings, and outright criminal activities of this administration are handled in a professional and orderly fashion,' Bush said.

The centerpiece of Bush's plan is the Department Of Corruption, Bribery, And Incompetence, which will centralize duties now dispersed throughout the entire D.C.-area political establishment.

The Scandal Secretary will log all wiretaps and complaints of prisoner abuse, coordinate paid-propaganda efforts, eliminate redundant payoffs and bribes, oversee the appointment of unqualified political donors to head watchdog agencies, control all leaks and other high-level security breaches, and oversee the disappearance of Iraq reconstruction funds. He will also be responsible for issuing all official denials that laws have been broken.

'Many of the current scandals in Washington are crucial to the success of my priorities for the nation,' Bush said. 'The Department of Corruption will safeguard these important misdeeds.'

White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card characterized the president's announcement as part of a larger effort to usher in a 'new era of scandal management.'

The Myth of White Supremacy

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