Ed Huntress wrote:
> "John R. Carroll" <***@machiningsolution.com> wrote in message
> news:prRzj.25094$***@newssvr14.news.prodigy.net...
>> Ed Huntress wrote:
>>> "John R. Carroll" <***@machiningsolution.com> wrote in message
>>> news:xrKzj.18980$***@newssvr25.news.prodigy.net...
>>>> Ed Huntress wrote:
>>>>> "strabo" <***@flashlight.net> wrote in message
>>>>> news:***@isp.n...
>>>>>> Ed Huntress wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> "Eat shit and die, you stinking racist pig."
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Your words, your personal hell.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> One should have the grace to bear criticism of one's
>>>>>> beliefs.
>>>>>
>>>>> Who are you talking about, Strabo? Tim and the racist pigs who are
>>>>> joining him don't have much grace. On the other hand, degenerate
>>>>> racist pigs can't be expected to have very much of it.
>>>>>
>>>>> Racist degenerates and other social misfits usually aren't big on
>>>>> "social grace."
>>>>
>>>> Hey Ed,
>>>> When I awake in the morning, and I mean every single morning, I
>>>> pinch myself. Even before I pee.
>>>> In fact. I just pinched myself for good measure.
>>>> You should too, and given that, I'm at a loss to understand
>>>> something here.
>>>> Guess WTF that thing is.
>>>>
>>>> I've got to add that I just spent two hours witn one of America's
>>>> best political consultants and I had an excellent time 'splaining
>>>> why none of what's seen as "Important" really matters.
>>>>
>>>> Every one of these fuckers ( I actually said that ) is even asking
>>>> or answering the right question. The Great American Experiment
>>>> isn't going to have a Roman terminus, it is entirely Greek.
>>>
>>> Uh-oh. I'd better get out my decoding ring....d8-)
>>>
>>> My instincts tell me there's something really good in that message,
>>> but I'm on the wrong wavelength, John. I'd really like to have a
>>> sharper idea of what you mean.
>>>
>>> However, you just struck a chord with that issue of what's
>>> important. I've been reading Bill McKibben's book _Deep Economy_,
>>> and it's making me believe I had it right when I was about 20, and
>>> then I forgot everything important.
>>
>> Exactly so. You are on to something here Ed but it isn't a memory
>> problem that you face.
>> You see, when you were 20 you thought you had the big picture dialed
>> in. You
>> thought you knew something as a "given" and that something just
>> became a part of who and what you were as a man. This thing that you
>> came to appreciate at 20 and - did find remarkable - ended up being
>> something taken
>> for granted and not just by you but by an entire generation.
>>
>>
>>> McKibben's books are like a Chinese
>>> meal, but they're good while you're reading them. He grabs ahold of
>>> some pretty big ideas but he never seems to wrestle them to the
>>> ground.
>>>
>>> Anyway, if I'm not just reading into your message what I'm actually
>>> reading with my other hand, here's something that's important: don't
>>> ever stop fighting the bastards who suck the life out of people, and
>>> communities, and societies. Don't ever let them confuse silence with
>>> acquiescence.
>>>
>>> Now, something tells me you shared a defining moment with that
>>> political consultant. 'Care to elaborate?
>>
>>
>> LOL
>> Sure, I told him that being a good winner was important and that his
>> girl isn't.
>> I then handed him a card that I've carried with me every day for
>> the last seven years.
>> On one side, in great big letters, it says
>>
>> "Beauty is only skin deep/Ugly is to the bone".
>>
>> This is what it says on the other:
>>
>> " You see, this must be a terrible feeling. You make a decision
>> based on expediency, and it doesn't work. You are then left without
>> either expedience
>> or principle. With Nothing. This is sad. I never want to wake up the
>> day after an election or anything else with that emptiness in me.
>> Knowing that I
>> have given away the things that matter most for the sake of what I
>> thought I
>> would win and finding that I have lost and have nothing. I have not
>> said one
>> word or done one thing with the principles that I believe in and I
>> never will."
>>
>> "Knowing that, it doesn't matter how many times I lose because I'm
>> not losing anything. I will carry it home right with me to the
>> grave, till the moment when I look to see whether God approves and
>> in the end that is all that really matters."
>
> Ok, I think I get that. I'll go with the principle business in
> general. I just wish more people would think longer before deciding
> which principles are worth having.
I hate to write Ed. I really do.
The long version of what I was to lazy to post here will appear in the
Washington Post shortly and under my own name as a byline with one of their
regulars. It might not get through the editorial review process and if that
happens I'll post the piece here in it's entirety or maybe just send it
along privately. It's a little distressing.
As I didn't address it in my remarks for publication I'll raise a single and
indicative issue here as an example.
America has a health care problem.
What that problem actually is can be honestly debated but the issue itself
has been decided. The benefits of a healthy population far exceed the costs.
Period.
Hillary Clinton has a plan/proposal before the voters for universal coverage
and you can't opt out. She'd see the government in the collection business
if you didn't buy insurance coverage. That dog won't hunt and she knows it.
Not only does she know it, she's counting on exactly that.
Barak Obama has a plan that doesn't mandate participation but again involves
universal coverage. He and his want to compel a combination of subsidies and
price incentives that will allegedly make coverage cheap enough that
everyone will either buy in or have coverage subsidized completely. That
won't fly either.
John McCain? Well, who the hell knows. John quit telling the truth a while
ago and the advantage of electing him to office is that he will know he's a
one term girl and, knowing that, might thumb his nose at convention and go
entirely his own way.
The political calculus, and what I told Murphy, is that this guy is the
modern version of Barry Goldwater, not Bob Dole. He's being set up by his
political enemies in the Republican party to take a huge pasting. They will
then attribute his loss to the fact that he was not a "real" conservative
and therefore not either worthy of a win at the pols or any recognition of
responsibility by the party. He will be completely hung out to dry and in
2012 it will be one of the big themes for Republican candidates and voters
both. This is a dog that will indeed hunt but it's disingenuous and
disgraceful. That was why I passed him my little card. He recognized the
original author almost at once and was honestly shocked that I'd have it in
the same room let alone close to me. He did "get it" however and I think
Mike and I have probably shared our last conversation as fellow
Michigander's or friends.
Here is the point.
America doesn't only need a universal, single payer health care plan.
First, and as a nation, we have to decide what services will be included as
well as how to balance preventative care against long term health. We have
to decide what level of health care is in our national interest and what
level lies in the realm of private coverage. This will literally be a life
and death value judgement and it will be based on practical realities
involving avaliable resources and the returns those resources can
reasonabl;y produce for society.
George Bush, in his infinite wisdom, vetoed expanded coverage under SCHIP
because of the extra 35 billion dollars it would cost over ten years. When
he did so, he condemned America to 200 billion dollars of direct costs when
these kids are aging adults and untold lost productivity for 50 years. In
other words he,our current leadership, and America at large, are more than
willing to have fathered and promoted the concept that we ought to be a
country that accepts a future with less opportunity and a lower standard of
living for our children that we have today as a desirable end. Boomers, in
the mean time, will suck the well completely dry. They have the votes and
lack the moral fiber to care about the consequences.
If America is a "Great Experiment" it is looking increasingly like moldy
cheese in the fridge. In other words, an abandoned science project. The real
truth is that America ceased to be an experiment and became a work in
progress over one hundred years ago and is a lot more like an immature adult
with great strength, no real discipline and lacks any genuine institutional
or cultural history that older cultures benefit from.
Americans need to bend their efforts to their work in progress before it
blows up in everyone's face.
That could happen you know.
See Ya' round
--
John R. Carroll
www.machiningsolution.com