March 03, 2007
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
"SPINELESS DEMOCRATS"
There are occasional letters to The Fresno Bee that provoke mixed feelings. Today there is a letter from a Nader supporter. The writer said he voted for Nader twice. He charges the Democrats with being "spineless." We should point out that charge is not true for all Democrats. John Murtha stood up against the Iraq war when it wasn't politically popular. People like Russ Feingold have stood up against the Republican machine.
I have been disappointed in the past failures to contest the Bush administration. Democrats didn't stand up against some of Bush's despicable nominees such as John Ashcroft for Attorney General. They didn't stop rotten Supreme Court nominees John Roberts and Samuel Alito. They've gone along with heinous legislation such as the bankruptcy bill that was a gift to credit card companies.
And yet you have to acknowledge some realities about the American political system too. The media are a major part of American politics now. The media are now owned lock, stock, and barrel by people who essentially support reactionary policies. They cheerlead war, they support globalization, they resist doing anything about climate change, they get on board with low wages and job outsourcing, and they contribute to unmercifully smearing opponents.
Our system of government was designed in 1789 when the Constitution was ratified. For the most part, it has been a very good system. Checks and balances is a wonderful concept. But the Founders couldn't foresee nuclear weapons or the alliance of big religion, big corporations, and government. We have the dilemma of needing the president and military to act rapidly to deal with military threats, even though funding and authorization for war is supposed to come from the Congress. So that "check" of the executive branch has been eroded by the pace of modern times. It has allowed presidents like Bush to commit troops and put Congress into a bind of "supporting the troops" or leaving them in imminent danger. If you're under the shadow of a nuclear attack, you don't have time to examine all the nuances. For the system to work, the executive branch, the military, and the intelligence communities have to have integrity and competence.
The Democrats also faced the problem of being in the minority for most of this administration. You can't do much as a minority party. I believe Democrats who voted for this war did so based on lies told to them by the administration. But even if they had voted against the war, it would have gone on because the Republicans in power rubber stamped everything the administration wanted.
The past few years have revealed major weaknesses in our system of government. We need a better way to check executive power, while giving presidents enough leeway to respond to genuine emergencies. We need to get the power of corporations and big donors out of government. We need people in power who truly represent all of their constituents, not just the big donors.
We need to do what works for the majority of us, even if there are those who would call it "socialistic." There is a crying need, for example, for universal health care. We need to break away from dependence on fossil fuels. We need for Americans to be as educated as our economic competitors around the world. We need more of a sense of community, not just the individualistic looking out for number one ethos that has come to dominate our society.
Showing posts with label system. Show all posts
Showing posts with label system. Show all posts
Monday, February 05, 2007
February 05, 2007
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
BUSH'S SPOILS SYSTEM
If you needed surgery, how comfortable with you be with the job being "outsourced" to someone who was loyal to the hospital administrator, but not necessarily good at surgery? That's in essence what this reactionary administration has been doing. The Heritage Foundation, one of the major right-wing think tanks, advocated outsourcing services formerly performed by career civil servants to private contractors. It's part of that old right-wing mantra that the private sector does everything better than government. Hurricane Katrina was devastating proof that the government is better run by government professionals. Bush and company have been reverting to the corrupt and inefficient spoils system that existed before civil servants became professionals based on competence, not on political loyalty. This column by Paul Krugman is at www.welcome-to-pottersville.com:
These are two different pieces of the same story: under the guise of promoting a conservative agenda, the Bush administration has created a supersized version of the 19th-century spoils system.
The blueprint for Bush-era governance was laid out in a January 2001 manifesto from the Heritage Foundation, titled “Taking Charge of Federal Personnel.” The manifesto’s message, in brief, was that the professional civil service should be regarded as the enemy of the new administration’s conservative agenda. And there’s no question that Heritage’s thinking reflected that of many people on the Bush team.
How should the civil service be defeated? First and foremost, Heritage demanded that politics take precedence over know-how: the new administration “must make appointment decisions based on loyalty first and expertise second.”
SEEKING THE COMMON GOOD
Right-wing philosophy, if you want to call it that, is really about dog eat dog self-interest. Right-wingers believe in what this writer calls "market fundamentalism," the belief that private markets always do everything better than government. It's this illogical belief in individualism and free markets that is impeding our progress in so many important areas. This article by Ruth Rosen is at www.tompaine.com:
Put it this way: What do catastrophic climate change, the widening gulf between the wealthy and the poor, America's obesity epidemic, and our society's lack of care for the young and the elderly have in common? Each has powerful special interests who insist that we need to let the market work its private magic and that government action would create more problems than it would solve.
These interest groups also block any effort to enlist the government by invoking the arguments of market fundamentalism: Privatize everything, rely on yourself and expect nothing from your government.
Market fundamentalism has become like the air we breathe; we hardly notice it. Every time George W. Bush argues for more tax cuts, he relies on the unquestioned assumption that we all embrace market fundamentalism. Like religious fundamentalism, it is based more on faith than on reason. Through constant repetition, however, the American public has been bullied into believing that private spending is rational and efficient, while public spending is always wasteful and unproductive. (Tell that to people in New Orleans.)
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
BUSH'S SPOILS SYSTEM
If you needed surgery, how comfortable with you be with the job being "outsourced" to someone who was loyal to the hospital administrator, but not necessarily good at surgery? That's in essence what this reactionary administration has been doing. The Heritage Foundation, one of the major right-wing think tanks, advocated outsourcing services formerly performed by career civil servants to private contractors. It's part of that old right-wing mantra that the private sector does everything better than government. Hurricane Katrina was devastating proof that the government is better run by government professionals. Bush and company have been reverting to the corrupt and inefficient spoils system that existed before civil servants became professionals based on competence, not on political loyalty. This column by Paul Krugman is at www.welcome-to-pottersville.com:
These are two different pieces of the same story: under the guise of promoting a conservative agenda, the Bush administration has created a supersized version of the 19th-century spoils system.
The blueprint for Bush-era governance was laid out in a January 2001 manifesto from the Heritage Foundation, titled “Taking Charge of Federal Personnel.” The manifesto’s message, in brief, was that the professional civil service should be regarded as the enemy of the new administration’s conservative agenda. And there’s no question that Heritage’s thinking reflected that of many people on the Bush team.
How should the civil service be defeated? First and foremost, Heritage demanded that politics take precedence over know-how: the new administration “must make appointment decisions based on loyalty first and expertise second.”
SEEKING THE COMMON GOOD
Right-wing philosophy, if you want to call it that, is really about dog eat dog self-interest. Right-wingers believe in what this writer calls "market fundamentalism," the belief that private markets always do everything better than government. It's this illogical belief in individualism and free markets that is impeding our progress in so many important areas. This article by Ruth Rosen is at www.tompaine.com:
Put it this way: What do catastrophic climate change, the widening gulf between the wealthy and the poor, America's obesity epidemic, and our society's lack of care for the young and the elderly have in common? Each has powerful special interests who insist that we need to let the market work its private magic and that government action would create more problems than it would solve.
These interest groups also block any effort to enlist the government by invoking the arguments of market fundamentalism: Privatize everything, rely on yourself and expect nothing from your government.
Market fundamentalism has become like the air we breathe; we hardly notice it. Every time George W. Bush argues for more tax cuts, he relies on the unquestioned assumption that we all embrace market fundamentalism. Like religious fundamentalism, it is based more on faith than on reason. Through constant repetition, however, the American public has been bullied into believing that private spending is rational and efficient, while public spending is always wasteful and unproductive. (Tell that to people in New Orleans.)
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