I was doing my blog rounds today, and Cindy posted a link to a
Mudflats essay. It's a reaction to Barney Franks and the Nazi comment at a town hall meeting. It's quite a good essay; I lost all patience reading some of the responses.
This mudflinging that started in the last administration is picking up steam. I think that a lot of it is manufactured, so we'll screech at each other in the streets while others pick our pockets. Makes for great headlines, but it doesn't get a thing done.
Because ONE small group compared Obama to Hitler, it does not mean that everyone who thinks conservatively does. That's ridiculous.
I've been to Dachau, I've looked at the ovens. And shivered.
There are no pictures of my mother before the age of eight. They burned when their home was firebombed. My grandfather was a shoemaker, not someone at Yamamoto's side.
My mother starved in wartime Japan, where one squash fed 8 people-the men got the vegetable, the women got the broth, and to her dying day, my mother was likely to stand in front of the refrigerator, gorging herself on jam because some switch in her body had flipped in that time, but never turned itself back. She could clean out a 32 ounce jar of jam in an afternoon, just her and a spoon. So I understand the ravages of wartime on a soul, and have seen it ripple out to ensuing generations.
I'm not flinging mud, or calling this administration anything.
We obviously NEED some healthcare reform. Having seen how one stimulus package was rammed thru legislation, a hurry-up bill does not interest me.
I don't trust our lovely government reps these days. When I went on my road trip a few weeks ago, I saw a lot of dealerships in a lot of small towns struggling. The Kia dealers are excited as hell because of Cash for Clunkers, but Detroit is still struggling, and so are all the loyal "made in USA" buyers. I feel like Washington is putting bandaid after bandaid on mosquito bites, while ignoring the rusty nail sticking out of their foot. The very fact that Cash for Clunkers and the auto bailouts weren't linked, when it would be a cost savings and a SMART move for everyone concerned, has me really worried. By golly, we just spent a lot of money stimulating Honda, Toyota and Kia. Whose dealerships DID we subsidize??
Did you ever watch a smart person who can't multi-task? They are fixing one part of the perceived problem, putting brick after brick into place, never looking at how the problem is morphing, changing, responding, and never really checking the result. They have worked really hard-but only fixed the problem on the surface, while a big mess festers elsewhere. Here's what I mean:
As a sound bite "sending millions to our disabled veterans" sounds great, doesn't it?
I got a stimulus payment last month because I am a disabled veteran. I don't know why I got it. I thought it was odd; unless you are of the group of people who are really stretching from nickel to nickel, I think a lot of folks would just throw 200.00 in the bank. Times have been tight-it makes sense to hold onto extra cash. So it's gonna start my grandson's college fund, not stimulate anything. That was a lot of money that went to a lot of checking accounts, but I don't think it helped the neediest enough, and those who had enough might not have done enough with it.
They didn't sight the target when they crafted that plan. I'd have done without easily, and saved my grandson's money up on my own. Instead, that money is a debt we owe now.
We need a smart, well thought-out healthcare plan, not the one we see because we are shopping at eye-level.
