Policeman for Kerry (you heard right)

A couple of entries ago ("A Parade of Dorthys," Thursday, May 06, 2004) I noted that I often have a difficult time putting Bush's policies in the "Christian" and "compassionate" framework he supposedly represents. The results of so much of what has been implemented by this administration simply makes life worse for everybody.

It is doubly confusing because the image that is sold to us, and so many buy, is that of a kind, spiritual man who genuinely cares about our quality of life.

So why is the nation's murder rate consistently increasing during the Bush administration's reign? The Daily Kos addresses this question today by referencing a great article and a positive development for Kerry.

First the article: The Washington Monthly just released an article entitled: Bush's War On Cops. In it, the author,Washington Monthly editor Benjamin Wallace-Wells, notes that crime rates are directly proportional to the number of cops on the street. Naturally, the Bush policies have bankrupted states, which in turn forces them to cut, cut, cut:

"The real cause of the police shortage is not in City Hall but in the White House. The Bush administration's first budget eliminated all direct funding for street cops. The war in Iraq, fought largely without allies, has required the call-up of huge numbers of reserves, many of whom are cops. And instead of using the men in blue as eyes and ears on the domestic war on terrorism, the administration has, in effect, used them as glorified security guards."

The event: The International Brotherhood of Police Officers, a police union that backed President Bush in the 2000 election, is endorsing Kerry for this one.

“After three and a half years of disappointing leadership under George Bush, we need to change course in November and elect a president with a real record of supporting police officers and a lifetime of standing with law enforcement," IBPO President David Holway said in a statement provided by the Kerry campaign.

How long, really, can Bush's image stand?

Fearless and searching...

There are really no talking points, or quick off the cuff remarks one can make about the barbaric beheading of Nicholas Berg. One can only watch in stupified wonder as events unfold in Iraq. Even as we witness this atrocity, we have to remember that it is not connected to revelations of US abuse of Iraqi detainees at Abu Grahib prison. They say it is, but they are lying. The maniacs that cut his head off would have committed this crime eventually no matter what. For them, it is only a matter of timing the atrocity.

We also have to remember that this act does not exonerate the US of its responsibility for the systematic abuse of the very people we are supposedly trying to liberate. The two aren't related. I say that very, very mindful that as yet, the abuse suffered by the prisoners in Abu Grahib pales in comparison to that suffered by Nick Berg. It doesn't matter. I know it would be easy to say, "See, see what they do? You have to play rough with rough people." But we cannot legitimately claim the moral high ground if we do not truly occupy it. Torturing mistakenly arrested prisoners, as was documented in this Red Cross Report on prison abuses in occupied Iraq, means that we automatically abandon the high moral ground. It means we have met the enemy, and he is us, Nick Berg or no Nick Berg.

It might also be tempting, at least to those on the right, to point to Berg's murder and blame the messenger - The media and whining liberals and their "anti-american" agenda". Some say that Nick Berg's death was abetted by the So Called Liberal Media and the traitors on the left that continue to make hay over Abu Grahib. Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., said: "I'm probably not the only one up at this table that is more outraged by the outrage than we are by the treatment." But this would be a mistake. In this case, the media is performing a valuable service. It is holding up the mirror and showing us the road to hell we are in the process of paving. Unless those on the right and the left equally deplore the treatment of prisoners, while being grateful for the transparency that allows us to examine it as a nation, we may yet finsh the job.

We must despise the acts of the criminals that killed Berg while engaging in a fearless and searching moral inventory of our actions in Iraq. It will not be easy to contain our rage as we walk through this process as a nation. But this is the only way to truth. While I blame no one but the criminals for sawing of the head of Nick Berg and believe they must be brought to justice, I also acknowledge that Berg would not be in Iraq if George Bush had not lead us off the cliff and into war. We would not see the kinds of systematic abuses of power in Iraq if the administration had not built them into the system - our system - first in the Patriot Act, then in Guantonomo Bay and finally in Iraq.

I can't afford Health Care, please raise my premiums

I am on a mission this year to try and understand the minds of those Bush voters who support him because he is a moral man, or because they believe he embodies simple beliefs like the belief in Jesus, the Pledge of Allegiance, and prayer in school. I want to understand why they continue to support him when it is usually against their economic interest to do so. I want to understand why they are apparently moved in their hearts to give money and time and votes to a man who so avowedly works against their self interest. I am slowly reaching the conclusion that, when it gets down to cases, they don’t agree with the effects of the policies they supposedly support. On the other hand, I am also reaching the conclusion that they are not aware of the effects of the policies they supposedly support. I think that if they did know, they wouldn’t vote the way they do. I am optimistic that way.

What follows is one more of my ongoing conversations with Republicans. This one is about Health Care. In his letter the author presents the dilemma of not being able to afford health insurance if his wife quits work. He talks how upset he is over this and about how his Republican values prevent him from seeking government help. I gently question these values in relation to his conclusions about health care. I do this because I believe that what we are seeing today is an exposure of core American values to the real 21st century world. Some of these values will endure and some of them won't. But one thing is for sure, Democrats have to have an intelligent dialog about them with people exactly like wifemom (A Parade of Dorothys, Thursday, May 6) and the writer of the letter below. Otherwise, the ignorant will oversee our gradual descent into an oppressive theocracy. We can't have that can we?

I’ll leave my statement of beliefs to my response:

My personal health care dilemma and my daughter.

As many of you know, I have a new daughter, my first child.

I just dropped her off at daycare and I'm a little choked up over the situation. My wife wants to stay at home. Unfortunately she can't. I think she is taking this a little harder than me. We get our health insurance through her job. We ran the numbers last night and we can't go it alone on my salary. My small firm does not offer health insurance.

Health insurance will cost approx. $900.00 per month.

Financially we just can't make it. My wife will have to work.

I've read a lot of the health care posts around here lately. Many of them boil down to just making health care free for everyone. Even though I find myself in a difficult situation, making health care free and just taxing those "evil corporations" and "rich" people is not the answer.

In one sense I do wish there was some sort of single payer health system. Then my wife could be at home with our lovely daughter. But, being a republican, my logic overrides my emotion on the issues. In the long run, I know it is wrong for America to make more and more things 'free' and just tax more and more working Americans.

Health care is not a freebie. It is your responsibility and you better plan on paying for it. It is NOT a right.

Being a republican I accept personal responsibility for the situation I and my wife are in. It is not time to run to the government to solve my problems. It is time to depend on myself. Something more Americans need to do.

We'll be OK. Little Maddy will be fine until I can solve this problem for myself. I'll work a little harder, I'll be a little more creative, I'll take a second job if I have to. I'll do whatever it takes. Because I believe in the independence of the American spirit. I will not look to government to solve my problems with short sighted solutions.

I S**t you not. My eyes are welling up as I type. However, I will not let my desire to have Mom stay at home, lead to me supporting a short sighted solution which will further erode the rugged independence of Americans and myself.

I will do this myself, and little maddy will be able to stay home with Mom. Then we can get to work on that second baby.

Mr. X:

I have given your moving post a lot of thought.

As to policy, first let me say I admire your stance. It's human and represents a lot of what is great about America. I have bootstrapped it many times. With 4 boys, there have been plenty of times when I did not know how we were going to put food on the table. Yours is a very human dilemma and one I can personally relate to.

Before I make my points, I'd like to ask you a favor. Will you, just for a moment, put aside your political convictions and replace them with the blank slate of your imagination? Good.

Point 1: Next I'd like to ask you a question. What if you did not have to abandon your principles in order to make health care affordable for you and others in a similar situation? Would you?

You could still work like a dog, bring home the bacon, not accept any "handouts" from the government. The only difference would be that you could afford healthcare.
Would you do that? I think that would be a good thing. And the government can make that possible by acting on behalf of its citizens.

The entire purpose of government is to support you and me and our fine principles and ideals. If the Government cannot support the highest aspirations of its citizens with something as basic as health, then how can we trust it? How can we think that the government is on our side, the side of working men and women, when it treats our health as a commodity to be brokered to large insurance companies? And let me assure you, these companies have paid billions of dollars so that you have to keep paying more than you can afford for their products.

I am not advocating any one solution. I am advocating what to me appears to be a fact: There is a solution; we should find it together rather than sticking to this or that dearly held ideology. Results are more important than principles or pride when the health of our children is at stake.

Point 2: You are lucky. You have access to health insurance. You have choices. They are tough choices, but that's real life and we deal with it. Health care reform in this country is not really about people with the kinds of choices you have. It's about the 40 million people who have a lot less than you, are equally as hard working, and have no access to health insurance whatsoever. There are millions of single mom's raising kids who did not argue for poverty in the womb. There are millions of hourly wage workers who have their hours "managed" so that they can be defined as "part-time" so the employer does not have to offer benefits. There are millions of disenfranchised students who have outgrown their parent's policies. The list is extensive. I ask you again, what if you did not have to abandon your principles in order to make health care accessible for these people?

Point 3: We must learn to practice enlightened capitalism. A healthy society is a profitable society. It is just flat out better business to take care of our work force and our citizens. Why? Because they earn more, pay more taxes, don't get in as many accidents, don't divorce as much, don't clog the health care system with poverty-related ailments, etc., etc. It is cheap to be happy and healthy.

The converse is also true. It is expensive to be unhealthy. If an uninsured kid breaks his leg on the playground, who pays for it? When an uninsured worker falls chronically ill, and has an extended stay at a hospital, who pays for it? We all do. Poor healthcare results in the exact opposite of the above list.

Point 4: Health care is a right. It is a self-evident right listed in the Declaration of Independence. It is the right to life. I think a civil society must hold this as a common value. If we do not, we will fail our children. Why provide healthcare to your daughter at all if she has no right to it? And if it isn't a right, what is it? Is it a privileged service, then, like nannies, maids and beauticians, available only to people who have the dough? I uncategorically reject that and I think you do too, in your heart. The neo-con argument that the uninsured somehow deserve their precarious status is an unqualified load of horseshit. You shouldn't feed it to yourself as you go through this difficult time.

Plinky, plink, plink

Ok. There is activism and then there is activism. Are you ready for the Million Ukelele March? God knows I am.