Anne Wortham is Associate Professor of Sociology at Illinois State University and continuing Visiting Scholar at Stanford University 's Hoover Institution. She is a member of the American Sociological Association and the American Philosophical Association.
Fellow Americans,
Please know: I am Black; I grew up in the segregated South. I did not vote for Barack Obama; I wrote in Ron Paul's name as my choice for president. Most importantly, I am not race conscious. I do not require a Black president to know that I am a person of worth, and that life is worth living. I do not require a Black president to love the ideal of America .
I cannot join you in your celebration. I feel no elation. There is no smile on my face. I am not jumping with joy. There are no tears of triumph in my eyes. For such emotions and behavior to come from me, I would have to deny all that I know about the requirements of human flourishing and survival - all that I know about the history of the United States of America , all that I know about American race relations, and all that I know about Barack Obama as a politician. I would have to deny the nature of the "change" that Obama asserts has come to America .
Most importantly, I would have to abnegate my certain understanding that you have chosen to sprint down the road to serfdom that we have been on for over a century. I would have to pretend that individual liberty has no value for the success of a human life. I would have to evade your rejection of the slender reed of capitalism on which your success and mine depend. I would have to think it somehow rational that 94 percent of the 12 million Blacks in this country voted for a man because he looks like them (that Blacks are permitted to play the race card), and that they were joined by self-declared "progressive" whites who voted for him because he doesn't look like them.
I would have to wipe my mind clean of all that I know about the kind of people who have advised and taught Barack Obama and fill posts in his administration - political intellectuals like my former colleagues at the Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government.
I would have to believe that "fairness" is equivalent of justice. I would have to believe that man who asks me to "go forward in a new spirit of service, in a new service of sacrifice" is speaking in my interest.. I would have to accept the premise of a man that economic prosperity comes from the "bottom up," and who arrogantly believes that he can will it into existence by the use of government force. I would have to admire a man who thinks the standard of living of the masses can be improved by destroying the most productive and the generators of wealth.
Finally, Americans, I would have to erase from my consciousness the scene of 125,000 screaming, crying, cheering people in Grant Park, Chicago irrationally chanting "Yes We Can!" Finally, I would have to wipe all memory of all the times I have heard politicians, pundits, journalists, editorialists, bloggers and intellectuals declare that capitalism is dead - and no one, including especially Alan Greenspan, objected to their assumption that the particular version of the anti-capitalistic mentality that they want to replace with their own version of anti-capitalism is anything remotely equivalent to capitalism.
So you have made history, Americans. You and your children have elected a Black man to the office of the president of the United States , the wounded giant of the world. The battle between John Wayne and Jane Fonda is over - and that Fonda won. Eugene McCarthy and George McGovern must be very happy men. Jimmie Carter, too. And the Kennedys have at last gotten their Kennedy look-a-like. The self-righteous welfare statists in the suburbs can feel warm moments of satisfaction for having elected a Black person.
So, toast yourselves: 60s countercultural radicals, 80s yuppies and 90s bourgeois bohemians. Toast yourselves, Black America . Shout your glee Harvard, Princeton , Yale, Duke, Stanford, and Berkeley. You have elected not an individual who is qualified to be president, but a Black man who, like the pragmatist Franklin Roosevelt, promises to - Do Something! You now have someone who has picked up the baton of Lyndon Johnson's Great Society. But you have also foolishly traded your freedom and mine - what little there is left - for the chance to feel good.
There is nothing in me that can share your happy obliviousness.
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Monday, May 18, 2009
Obama to Destroy the Best Healthcare System
Friday, May 15, 2009 3:47 PM
By: Dick Morris & Eileen McGann
When all of America's top health insurers and providers met at the White House this week and pledged to save $2 trillion over the next decade in health costs, they were pledging to sabotage our medical care.
The blunt truth, which everybody agreed to keep quiet, is that the only way to reduce these costs is to ration health care, thereby destroying our system.
Here's why:
#1 Essential to any cost reduction is a cut in doctors' fees. Congress is trying to cut Medicare fees by 21 percent. But cuts in fees and doctors' incomes will just discourage people from entering the profession and those already in it from practicing.
The limited number of doctors and nurses in the United States is the key constraint on the availability of health care. Our national inventory of 800,000 doctors is growing at only about 1 percent a year (18,000 med school graduates annually minus retirements), while the nurse population is stagnant at 1.4 million.
To stretch these limited resources so that they can treat 50 million more people is possible only through the most severe kind of rationing.
#2 As in Canada, the best way to cut medical costs is to refrain from using the best drugs to treat cancer and other illnesses, thereby economizing at the expense of patients' lives.
Forty-four percent of the drugs approved by the Canadian health authorities for use in their country are not allowed by the health care system due to their high cost. As a result, death rates from cancer are 16 percent higher in Canada than in the United States.
We will pay for the attempt to save $2 trillion with our lives.
(And remember, one cannot opt out of the Canadian system and pay for the medications out of pocket.)
#3 The only real way to save money on the scale projected is to ration health care services. Optimists say that this can be achieved by increased use of preventive care. But the Canadian experience indicates that when government — or its satellite private insurance providers — ration health care, they cut preventive care first.
In Canada, colonoscopies are so rationed that the colon cancer rate is 25 percent higher than in the U.S. (even though Canada has a much smaller proportion of poor people, whose frequently bad diets make them more prone to the disease).
Obama's pretension that people will not find changes in their current health insurance plans except for a magical reduction in their cost by $2,500 a year is a fool's proposition.
Private health insurers will be no more private than TARP-funded banks or government-subsidized car companies are in Obama's America. They will be controlled by government health care planners who will approve treatments, limit drug use, hold down medical incomes and bring their cost-cutting programs to bear.
Inevitably, their ax will fall on the oldest and the sickest among us, those least "deserving" of our newly limited and, under Obama's program, diminishing health care resources.
The other radical changes Obama is bringing about in our nation can always be reversed. New taxes can be repealed or lowered. That which was nationalized can be privatized. Government which has grown can be cut. But once the health care system is extended to cover everyone, with no commensurate increase in the resources available, the change will be forever.
The vicious cycle of cuts in medical resources and in the number of doctors and nurses will doom health care in this country. This wanton destruction will not be reversible by any bill or program. A crucial part of our quality of life — the best health care in the world — will be gone forever.
Politically, voters will feel the impact of these "reforms" very quickly.
When they face rejection or limitation at the hands of the bureaucrats, they will quickly understand that their options have become limited. Just as in the 1990s, when HMOs first became universal, the patient outrage will create a political force all its own and those who foisted this brave new world on the American people will be in their cross hairs.
© 2009 Dick Morris & Eileen McGann
By: Dick Morris & Eileen McGann
When all of America's top health insurers and providers met at the White House this week and pledged to save $2 trillion over the next decade in health costs, they were pledging to sabotage our medical care.
The blunt truth, which everybody agreed to keep quiet, is that the only way to reduce these costs is to ration health care, thereby destroying our system.
Here's why:
#1 Essential to any cost reduction is a cut in doctors' fees. Congress is trying to cut Medicare fees by 21 percent. But cuts in fees and doctors' incomes will just discourage people from entering the profession and those already in it from practicing.
The limited number of doctors and nurses in the United States is the key constraint on the availability of health care. Our national inventory of 800,000 doctors is growing at only about 1 percent a year (18,000 med school graduates annually minus retirements), while the nurse population is stagnant at 1.4 million.
To stretch these limited resources so that they can treat 50 million more people is possible only through the most severe kind of rationing.
#2 As in Canada, the best way to cut medical costs is to refrain from using the best drugs to treat cancer and other illnesses, thereby economizing at the expense of patients' lives.
Forty-four percent of the drugs approved by the Canadian health authorities for use in their country are not allowed by the health care system due to their high cost. As a result, death rates from cancer are 16 percent higher in Canada than in the United States.
We will pay for the attempt to save $2 trillion with our lives.
(And remember, one cannot opt out of the Canadian system and pay for the medications out of pocket.)
#3 The only real way to save money on the scale projected is to ration health care services. Optimists say that this can be achieved by increased use of preventive care. But the Canadian experience indicates that when government — or its satellite private insurance providers — ration health care, they cut preventive care first.
In Canada, colonoscopies are so rationed that the colon cancer rate is 25 percent higher than in the U.S. (even though Canada has a much smaller proportion of poor people, whose frequently bad diets make them more prone to the disease).
Obama's pretension that people will not find changes in their current health insurance plans except for a magical reduction in their cost by $2,500 a year is a fool's proposition.
Private health insurers will be no more private than TARP-funded banks or government-subsidized car companies are in Obama's America. They will be controlled by government health care planners who will approve treatments, limit drug use, hold down medical incomes and bring their cost-cutting programs to bear.
Inevitably, their ax will fall on the oldest and the sickest among us, those least "deserving" of our newly limited and, under Obama's program, diminishing health care resources.
The other radical changes Obama is bringing about in our nation can always be reversed. New taxes can be repealed or lowered. That which was nationalized can be privatized. Government which has grown can be cut. But once the health care system is extended to cover everyone, with no commensurate increase in the resources available, the change will be forever.
The vicious cycle of cuts in medical resources and in the number of doctors and nurses will doom health care in this country. This wanton destruction will not be reversible by any bill or program. A crucial part of our quality of life — the best health care in the world — will be gone forever.
Politically, voters will feel the impact of these "reforms" very quickly.
When they face rejection or limitation at the hands of the bureaucrats, they will quickly understand that their options have become limited. Just as in the 1990s, when HMOs first became universal, the patient outrage will create a political force all its own and those who foisted this brave new world on the American people will be in their cross hairs.
© 2009 Dick Morris & Eileen McGann
Friday, May 15, 2009
Simple explanation of Socialism
A recent survey of Americans indicates that the younger you are, the more the “fairness” of Socialism appeals. In fact, those under 30 lean strongly toward Socialism and Socialistic ideas.
An economics professor at a local college made a statement that he had never failed a single student before but had once failed an entire class.
That class had insisted that socialism worked and that no one would be poor and no one would be rich, a great equalizer.
The professor then said, "OK, we will have an experiment in this class on socialism. All grades would be averaged and everyone would receive the same grade so no one would fail and no one would receive an A.
After the first test, the grades were averaged and everyone got a B.
The students who studied hard were upset and the students who studied little were happy.
As the second test rolled around, the students who studied little had studied even less and the ones who studied hard decided they wanted a free ride too so they studied little.
The second test average was a D! No one was happy.
When the 3rd test rolled around, the average was an F.
The scores never increased as bickering, blame and name-calling all resulted in hard feelings and no one would study for the benefit of anyone else.
All failed, to their great surprise, and the professor told them that socialism would also ultimately fail because when the reward is great, the effort to succeed is great, but when government takes all the reward away, no one will try or want to succeed.
Could not be any simpler than that.
ACTION ALERT - STOP CAP AND TRADE
Posted by our friends over at "Americans for Prosperity" . This will take you 45 seconds to make a difference. Stop what you are doing for 1 minute and click the link and submit your email. The verbiage is done for you already.
Washington , D.C. is an endlessly frustrating place isn't it?
| Tell your Congressman to vote NO on the cap-and-trade scheme |
President Obama continues to tell us he "only" wants to raise taxes on "the rich" -- whatever that actually means.
Then he calls for massive new energy taxes through his "Cap and Trade" scheme that will dramatically increase the cost of gasoline for our automobiles for every American while also increasing home energy costs by thousands of dollars for American families and small businesses. All this, in the name of Global Warming.
Right now, the Energy and Commerce Committee is getting ready to vote on a cap-and-trade tax and I’m asking you to send your Congressman a message to vote NO on the current cap-and-trade scheme in the Energy and Commerce Committee.
Click here to email your Congressman:
http://capwiz.com/americansforprosperity/issues/alert/?alertid=13343471&type=CO
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Pelosi caught in yet another lie.
I for one am getting extremely (I am an extremist, you know) tired of all the double talk and blatant disregard for American intelligence coming from this administration and Congress. Here is Pelosi spewing her rhetoric again as she tries to back pedal from previous knowledge. She is now claiming that she had no knowledge of water boarding and that the CIA lied to her and Congress. She is also stating that the Bush administration lied to her as well. So here is what I gather from that:
To date I have not seen any American Leadership since the inauguration. All I have seen is blame game, name calling and a total lack of respect for the American public. I see no adherence to the Constitution and no respect for traditional values and morals.
Pelosi, I know you will see this because I am emailing it to your staff as well as yourself. I am asking you to do the right thing and step down. Many of you in Congress are not fit for the post and are leading us down the wrong path. Your position is one of service and humble gratitude. I have seen neither in your post or the administration. The American public (Extremists as you like to call 95% of the people) will not tolerate this arrogance and misuse of public power much longer. WE THE PEOPLE WILL STAND UNITED.
GOD BLESS
Related article.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/05/14/pelosi-reiterates-didnt-know-waterboarding-use/
If you would like to email Nancy Pelosi directly: she can be reached at:
sf.nancy@mail.house.gov
- She is incompetent in her position and completely unaware of critical components (past or current) going on that apparently are crucial issues today. We are so ready to attack Bush and others for these massive tactical failures (i.e. water boarding, which by the way was successful). If it is that crucial, why weren't we raising hairs when this occurred? Why wasn't she doing press conferences about torture as it occurred? Oh that's right, she didn't know even though advisers to her and liaisons at the CIA can prove she had knowledge. If you didn't know you are either incompetent or lying. Which is it?
- This is a diversion tactic. So far the policies set forth by BO and NP and camp (Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi) are NOT very popular with the Americans. Hence, lets divert attention away from those and focus on calling me a victim (another liberal tactic) and placing blame on anyone but myself (yet another liberal tactic).
- Still playing campaign politics. What I've seen so far is not leadership coming from BO and NP. I still see campaigning and placing blame on the previous leadership. ATTENTION PELOSI: THE ELECTION IS OVER. YOU AND YOUR CRONIES WON. BECOME A LEADER AND NOT A WHINER! Stop blaming and living in the past. All that shows is that you cannot handle the present and certainly not the future. How many times did you hear BUSH condemn the previous administration? That's what I thought. Regardless of what Clinton did, Bush took the reigns and moved forward. Obama should do the same. Nobody cares what was done in the past. Why? IT'S IN THE PAST! Yes, we can learn from it, but the time to move on and lead the way is now. Stop campaigning and stop the arrogance.
To date I have not seen any American Leadership since the inauguration. All I have seen is blame game, name calling and a total lack of respect for the American public. I see no adherence to the Constitution and no respect for traditional values and morals.
Pelosi, I know you will see this because I am emailing it to your staff as well as yourself. I am asking you to do the right thing and step down. Many of you in Congress are not fit for the post and are leading us down the wrong path. Your position is one of service and humble gratitude. I have seen neither in your post or the administration. The American public (Extremists as you like to call 95% of the people) will not tolerate this arrogance and misuse of public power much longer. WE THE PEOPLE WILL STAND UNITED.
GOD BLESS
Related article.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/05/14/pelosi-reiterates-didnt-know-waterboarding-use/
If you would like to email Nancy Pelosi directly: she can be reached at:
sf.nancy@mail.house.gov
The Torture pictures the government won't show you
Armed Troops Force Afghans
to Seesaw Until They Talk!
Afghan child bites soldier in
self defense after obvious torture
Soldier overheard saying "Stop or I'll tickle you til you pee!" More evidence of failed intelligence policy
Soldier attempts to eat Afghan child.
Clear evidence of forced child labor by troops.
Soldier caught in tickle torture to extract information.
Soldier forces child to hang by fingertips.
No comment here.
There's nothing funny about this one.
MAY THE GOOD LORD BLESS OUR TROOPS
WHERE EVER THEY ARE.
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