The Republican co-chair of President Obama’s Deficit Commission, former Sen. Alan Simpson, has a certain knack for controversy. Recently he described the Social Security system as a “milk cow with 310 million tits.” Now, Simpson has taken on Vietnam veterans claiming Agent Orange injuries as people who are “not helping us to save the country.”
Simpson objects that the Agent Orange claims are paid out too freely and run “contrary to efforts to control federal spending.” He said the “irony” is that “the veterans who saved this country are now, in a way, not helping us to save the country in this fiscal mess.”
Simpson found a particularly bad way to express concerns that have been spoken by others. For example, diabetes has become the most frequently compensated ailment among Vietnam veterans — despite a lack of research connecting Agent Orange and diabetes.
This is a case of a legitimate concern being expressed in the worse possible way. In defense of Simpson, he is an Army veteran who has historically supported military spending and support.
Source: Think Progress
One will keep a safety net in place for the unemployed and uninsured and one won’t. So to me Buddah there is a choice.
The choice between two bad actors is not a real choice.
Blouise Toss Nancy Pelosi for John Boehner. That is what is happening. Mr. raise the retire age to 70 and take away the unemployment compensation extension will be the new speaker. After all he has promised to shut government down and make sure the poor kids get no medicaid. Keep the dividend checks coming but no government monies.
Buddha,
“As I recall there have been many recent stories about government cut backs in services, including this one:”
Yes and that is a direct result of our economic situation and something which angers the populace but it runs no deeper than that … they do not want to hear about the real problems … and never have … and the parties reflect that view.
Please understand that I am not defending such glorification of ignorance but could I have a political discussion every day with the general members of my local society? Good god Buddha … if I tried I would soon see the glazed over look in my friends’ eyes and eventually they would be avoiding me like the neighbors of Hyacinth Bucket.
So I come here and post away aware that the wall is crumbling brick by brick but not willing to toss the ones that are still able to hold the mortar.
“The general public does not until the garbage isn’t collected and the snow remains unplowed.”
As I recall there have been many recent stories about government cut backs in services, including this one:
http://jonathanturley.org/2010/08/02/st-louis-lays-off-roughly-one-third-of-police-force/
and this one
http://jonathanturley.org/2010/07/13/oakland-police-announce-they-will-not-respond-to-various-crimes-like-burglary-grand-theft-and-other-crimes/
I’m looking ahead of the curve, Blouise. This wall falls a brick at a time until critical failure is achieved.
Buddha,
“A malaise in a political party doesn’t equate to a malaise in the general populace.”
But I think it does. Let’s take impeachment … the Clinton impeachment hearings resulted in an exhaustion within the public that I believe was mirrored or recognized within the parties. The public was tired of it all and this was a boon for Bush and Cheney.
At the local level it goes like this … As long as the garbage is picked up on time and the snow is plowed, the citizenry doesn’t really care what the politicians do as long as there are no scandals that cause a drop in property values.
And the rising anger generally comes from the bad economy. But even that is not as deep within the populace as portrayed which is why the republicans have to whip it up with anchor babies and phony tax claims in order to spin it away from the banks and wall street.
It is people like me and thee and others who read and post here who actually care what is going on behind the curtain. The general public does not until the garbage isn’t collected and the snow remains unplowed.
Buddha,
Yes, yes, and yes but I hesitate to throw out the baby with the bathwater.
A little while ago I agreed to accept an appointment to a local government position … there was a certain amount of constitutionally unfretted (music term) power associated with that position and I swore a double oath … one public and one private … to make certain that I did not abuse the power but also that my sense of integrity would not be compromised by political “necessities”.
I put up a good fight and accomplished some very real reform and it was not a walk in the park. But then I ran into a “confidential” situation that could only be handled one way. Clean it up … get the law rewritten so that it could never happen again and accept the fact that some of the players would remain. I did all that but could not remain and maintain my own sense of integrity. I resigned after the mess was cleaned up. It was a tough decision and a wholly private one … if I stayed I would be violating the private oath I made with myself not to compromise with political necessities.
But I can understand how others would decide differently … opt for continuing the reform and accept the political comprises required.
Perhaps I am being naive and too “small townish” in applying my small experience to the larger picture …
Blouise,
A malaise in a political party doesn’t equate to a malaise in the general populace. Where exactly does the rising anger come from? It comes from the perception of the general populace that those in government or the wealthy are making themselves above the law. In the less thoughtful, this anger is being exploited by bad actors like the Koch brothers to further their desire for a feudal police state by manipulating those unable to articulate the root of their displeasure beyond a simple “government bad” trope. In the more thoughtful, as exemplified by many of the visitors and contributors to this blog, it results in an analysis that is ever increasingly pointing to a solution the requires the dismantling of both the GOP and the DNC. The rule of law only works when it is equally applied to all, otherwise it’s just another form of oppression. Hold a party responsible? Bullshit. I hold the individuals who took the oath of office to protect the Constitution from enemies both foreign and domestic accountable. Why? Because they are the constituent parts that determine the action of the whole. And it is their individual weakness that combines to create the stratified and compound injustices we see play out every day in our graft corrupted government. Passing the buck on to the party is still passing the buck.
And the kind of two-tiered corporate feudalism that fascist Washington is pushing ends in one place based on historical evidence: blood in the streets.
Buddha,
I wrote the last post while sitting in the dentist’s office … had no internet access but it grabbed a WYFI as I was driving home and posted itself … now I’ll read your latest post
Buddha,
However, isn’t that a general malaise within the country itself? Demand for the rule of law is weak within the populace. We see it in almost every institution, public and private, across the board … from the New York headquarters of Goldman Sachs to small town police forces in Texas. Pelosi’s job is to accomplish the possible and she succeeds brilliantly at that. Compare her job performance to Obama’s … compare the Bills her House has set forth to the Bills that came out of Hastert’s House … the difference is stark.
Furthermore, the Speaker’s office is no longer chaotic for Pelosi knows how to organize and how to delegate effectively. Hastert’s office was a dysfunctional mess because the man had no real administrative abilities and the House as a whole suffered due to his lack of expertise. I can guarantee that the Orangeman has even less administrative ability than Hastert and should the republicans gain control of the House (something I don’t really think will happen) we will once again find ourselves immersed in an institution run like a college frat house.
The failure to bring Articles of Impeachment was a failure that should fall squarely on the shoulders of the Democratic Party. I no more fault Pelosi for that than I fault my senator, Sherrod Brown, for failing to produce a Healthcare Bill that really made a difference. Both failures are the fault of the party and its refusal to fight for what so many of its members know is right.
Excerpt from Neo-Progressives by Lawrence Lessig
“It seems that just about every hundred years (or so, I’m a lawyer; cut me some slack; numbers aren’t my thing), the body politic we call America swells with fever as it fights off a democracy-destroying disease. That disease is “Special Interest Government,” a government captured by the economically powerful in society, as they find a way to convert economic into political power; the fever comes from the reform movement, keen to kill that disease and restore an ideal of government of, by, and for “the People.”
The rise of Andrew Jackson was the first of these cycles. His fight with the Second Bank of the United States and with the “monied interests” as he called them was the romantic political struggle for most Americans for much of the 19th Century — far more important than anything Washington or Hamilton had done.
The rise of the Progressive Movement in the late 19th, and early 20th Century was the second of these cycles. Reformer after reformer focused the American democracy on the deep corruption that had captured government. The first round of “robber barons” had completed their theft. Smart and courageous souls fought on every front to end the threat of more robber barons, and reclaim the democracy that Jackson had promised.
We have now entered the third of these cycles. The anger that has broken out across America is rightly targeted at the captured and incompetent institution that our government has become. That capture, most Americans believe, is a kind of corruption. But not the corruption of bribery, or brown paper bags of cash hidden and traded among congressmen.
Instead the corruption of today is in plain sight. The mechanism of its reach is displayed to everyone. It is the simple and pervasive economy of influence that buys access and more through campaign cash. And then without explicit recognition, the actions of our government are guided by the understanding of how those acts will affect the opportunity to raise money.
I’m sure no one in the White House had a second thought about how bizarre it was that the first deals the administration struck to get health care reform was with the insurance lobby and the pharmaceutical companies. Yet how many of the 69,456,987 votes that Obama received came from them? And so why is it so obvious that they get the first seats in the negotiation of what could be Obama’s most important (and only?) significant legislative victory?
As with each of these cycles of reform, when the fever gets hot there arises a political movement to fight the infection. Sometimes that movement has a leader. Some of us thought Obama was our Jackson, a thought that feels embarrassingly naive today.
Sometimes, however, it has no single leader. The resistance instead grows in a wide range of affected contexts, and an almost magical coordination among these disparate interests has an effect.
That was the story of the 20th Century’s Progressive Movement. It had no single leader. It had no single plan. Woodrow Wilson and Teddy Roosevelt were both leading progressives. But the two were as different as Jefferson and Hamilton. They shared a common ideal — to defeat the power of “the Trusts” to control government — but they had very different ideas about how that should be done.” [emphasis added]
Buddha,
“The rule of law is the rule of law. Either it’s upheld or it isn’t. And if it isn’t? Then it’s game on because the law either applies to all or it applies to none. That isn’t a legislative issue. It’s a Constitutional issue. She and the rest of Congress and the administration have not just failed on that issue, they have failed to uphold their oaths of office.”
I’m with you on this one. I’m sick of politicians failing to do the right thing because it may not be popular with their parties or with certain segments of the population or they fear it will cost them at election time. Someone has got to start standing up for what is right. We should be prosecuting those in prior administrations who committed war crimes. It’s either a country that adheres to the rule of law–or it isn’t.
Sorry.
You’ll never be able to sell me on Pelosi as effective. She is weak and capitulating, just like Obama. The rule of law is the rule of law. Either it’s upheld or it isn’t. And if it isn’t? Then it’s game on because the law either applies to all or it applies to none. That isn’t a legislative issue. It’s a Constitutional issue. She and the rest of Congress and the administration have not just failed on that issue, they have failed to uphold their oaths of office.
Buddha,
Agreed, but that was a party decision and Pelosi didn’t, then or now, have the numbers to thwart the party.
In my opinion, watch the Speaker rather than the President to gauge the actual direction of the party. The party wanted a better healthcare package. The Speaker delivered … the President didn’t. Etc. …
Blouise,
The reality is that removing even the threat of impeachment was a green light for the Neocons that no matter how severe their crimes, they would face no punishment.
Buddha,
Put ’em up, bud …
Impeachment was off the table because it never got anywhere close to being served and never would … that’s reality and she’s a realist. Without the backing of the party it would go no where and waste valuable time and resources.
The number of “right-minded” bills that woman has guided through the House are numerous thus always presenting all those bought and paid for Senators with a real problem … and demonstrates to the entire country what, exactly, they are.
I have much more to say but have to get to the dentist for an appointment … plus I’m going to send you a punch-o-gram!
I’ll have to say you ladies impression of Nancy “Ms. Impeachment is off the table” Pelosi is much higher than mine.
She’s as big a part of the problem as any GOP obstructionist.
I say this based on her actions.
Swarthmore mom et al,
As I said … Kucinich was the best of the bunch but I really like Hillary. What I find most interesting are the number of men (democrats) who favored her from the get-go … before Obama started making a showing. My husband and all his friends were big Hillary fans and started contributing to her long before the actual run began. They liked her over Kucinich and continue to do so.
The orange dude is a huge joke in this state. The people in his district keep electing him because of his seniority but he has absolutely no drawing power outside of his district … and very little influence, considering his national position, at the state level.
I am a huge Pelosi fan and will even consider fisticuffs in her defense!
http://gawker.com/5576538/joe-scarborough-think-john-boehner-is-laziest-man-alive No one on a blog is going to convince me there is no difference between Nancy Pelosi and this guy.
Swarthmore mom,
“You will have a new speaker from the state of Ohio.”
Are you talking about John “Agent Orange” Boehner?