The Progressive Argument Against The Bailout

NOTHING in this "bailout" package will lower the price of the gas you have
to put in your car to get to work. NOTHING in this bill will protect you from
losing your home. NOTHING in this bill will give you health insurance...This
bailout's mission is to protect the obscene amount of wealth that has been
accumulated in the last eight years. It's to protect the top shareholders who
own and control corporate America. It's to make sure their yachts and mansions
and "way of life" go uninterrupted while the rest of America suffers and
struggles to pay the bills. Let the rich suffer for once. Let them pay for the
bailout. We are spending 400 million dollars a day on the war in Iraq. Let them
end the war immediately and save us all another half-trillion dollars!

- Michael Moore

Politics In America: A Nation Of "C" Students

Here is Michael Moore commenting on the selection of Sarah Palin as the Republican VP candidate. But he is really saying much more about the average American, the people who make up a large part of the electorate; the same people that elected George Bush twice...and the same people that could possibly elect McCain-Palin:

"But before everyone gets all smug and self-righteous about the Palin selection, remember where you live. You live in a nation of gun owners and hunters. You live in a country where one out of three girls get pregnant before they are 20. You live
in a nation of C students. Knocking Bush for being a C student only endeared him
to the nation of C students. Knock Palin for having kids, for having a kid who's having
a baby, for anything that is part of her normalness -- a normalness that looks very familiar to so many millions of Americans -- well, you do this at your own peril. Assuming she's still on the ticket two weeks from now, she will be a much tougher opponent than anyone expects. You live in a country that voted for Dan Quayle."

It's scary, isn't it? We live in a country heavily populated by uneducated, unsophisticated people who can be easily manipulated by right wing demagogues on talk radio and right wing politicians waving the flag, praising God, and demonizing gays and immigrants.

This is why the Democrats, who should be a cinch to win the white house this year after eight disastrous years of Dubbya Bush, are in danger of losing the presidency in November. Bill Clinton won by becoming more like Republicans...moving to the right, and "triangulating" (being all things to all people.)

Obama is not that type of Clintonesque unprincipled politician, I don't think. He and Biden need to make a strong case that they will best serve the interests of the average American rather than the rich; that America can once again be great in the eyes of the world; that diplomacy and alliances are more valuable than "go it alone" military force; and that all Americans should have jobs and health care. Obama and Biden need to hammer home small "d" liberal democratic values, not Democratic Leadership Council centrist claptrap. Maybe then they'll will be able to convince Moore's "nation of C students" to vote Democratic.

Jim

Iowa: After The Deluge

Michael Moore feels bad for Hillary:

"I can't tell you how bad I feel for Senator Clinton tonight. I don't believe she
was ever really for this war. But she did -- and continued to do -- what she
thought was the politically expedient thing to eventually get elected. And she
was wrong. And tonight she must go to sleep wondering what would have happened
if she had voted her conscience instead of her calculator."

...and, Moore has an interesting question for Mr. Obama:

"...if you can, tell me why you are now the second largest recipient of
health industry payola after Hillary. You now take more money from the people
committed to stopping universal health care than any of the Republican
candidates. "

I don't feel bad for Hillary myself. She is firmly in the Clinton tradition, the same tradition that abandoned core Democratic Party principles under the guise of being "moderates," and using centrist-based triangulation when Bill was president. (Triangulation: that's when you stake out a fuzzy third position on an issue with lotss of generalities that allows you to pander to both sides on an issue by telling each what they want to hear, e.g., on gay marriage, Hillary is against it but she favors domestic partnerships at the state level.) She would be more of the same. Ugh!

As for Obama, he's a Kennedyesque figure and a powerful orator. However, he cannot bring himself to stand for full equality for gay men and lesbians, which leaves me with the feeling that for all of his fine talk, he's not ready to back it up with courageous stands for social justice. Like Moore, I have serious questions in my mind about Obama.

PHOTO: A locomotive projection on the wall of Grand Central Terminal - part of the holiday laser light show this year.

Jim

Michael Moore: We Need Different Priorities

Here's another interesting house - this one is on the beach near the center of The Pines.

Michael Moore's "Sicko" has opened to big crowds and good reviews. There's no movie theater out here in Cherry Grove. Therefore, I'll have to wait to see it until I begin spending more time off island in the Fall. Here's a great quote from Michael about the public's reaction to the film:

"British MP, Tony Benn, says, "If we have the money to kill people (with
war), we've got the money to help people." That line always gets the loudest
applause in the theater. It is estimated that, before Bush's War is over, we
will have spent two trillion dollars on it. Let me say this: I NEVER want to
hear again from ANY politician that we "don't have the money" to fix our
schools, to take care of the poor, to provide health care for every American.
Clearly, the money IS there when we want to illegally invade another country and
then prolong a disastrous occupation. From now on, we have to demand that our
tax dollars be there for the things we need, not the things that make us one of
the most detested countries on earth."

That's right on target. One of the rationales used by the conservative justices on the Supreme Court for basically overturning or gutting the historic "Brown vs. Board Of Education" desegregation decision this past week was that we need to fix all our schools. That's right of course, but the justices didn't mandate that, they just threw out Brown. As Michael Moore says, we do have the money to fix our schools, but we're squandering it in Iraq. He's right: we have to demand a change in our country's priorities.

Jim

Andrew Sullivan: No Problem WIth The Wealthy Getting Better Health Care

Gay conservative Andrew Sullivan, in discussing Michael Moore's movie "Sicko," writes on his blog:

I see no problem with the wealthy having access to better care than the
less wealthy...It seems to me that this is equivalent to saying: I see no
problem with living in a free society.

Now, let's see how many other items will fit nicely into this warped
formulation:

1. I see no problem with child labor, it seems to me that this is equivalent
to saying: I see no problem with living in a free
society.

2. I see no problem with workers having to earn their livelihood
toiling under unsafeworking conditions, it seems to me...,
etc.

3. I see no problem with workers not being able to organize or strike for better wages and working conditions, it seems to me...etc.

etc., etc., Again, Sullivan's warped conservative view that liberty always totally trumps equality is symptomatic of the skewed conservative philosophy that is preoccupied with liberty and unconcerned with justice. It is indicative of a case of arrested philosophical development, a fixation on Hobbsian/Lockeian self-interest as the sole driving force of human endeavor, without regard to the possibility of Humeian benevolence. For conservatives, the liberty/equality equation is zero sum, which is a reaction to the demise of the feudal state that gave rise to Hobbsian thought. The correct formulation is sum sum. We can have both liberty and a just society that addresses inequality, as formulated in the writings of John Rawls. I do see a problem with the wealthy having better access to health care than the less wealthy. It offends my sense of justice. Apparently, Sullivan has no sense of justice.

Jim

Town Services - Finally!

Here's a shot of workers from the Town Of Brookhaven Highway Department at work replacing one of several sets of steps to the beach that we lost when a Nor'easter hit in April. In past years, the community has footed the bill and paid to replace lost beach access stairways. I could never understand why we had to replace our own steps while in other communities the towns replaced them. I'm glad to see that the steps will be in place in time for the holiday weekend. I wonder what went on behind the scenes this year that resulted in the town actually doing what it is supposed to do: repair and replace the walks and stairways.

You have to love Michael Moore. He's out there exposing the worst excesses of the Bush Administration and highlighting U.S. societal ills. His latest film, to be released in June, focuses on our third world level health care system. Watch the trailer:



Our health care is 37th in the world behind Slovenia! Great.

Jim