Crazy Old Lady Makes Excellent Point About Obama's First Year

Today, while driving, I had the good luck to hear an older woman on the radio, talking about our current President. Using my imagination, I matched the voice with a person I had known many years earlier. It sounded like a cat lady. You know, the type. A woman who all the youngsters in the neighborhood know, because she gardens inside a fence and hangs out her underthings under the roof of her back porch. Long ago she tired of losing her tomatoes to grubby-faced hooligans who most likely used them to throw at one another. She can't afford to keep up her house, but feeds the birds and keeps the curtains pulled to preserve the colors on her couch cover. Most of the children fear her, but they challenge each other to ring the bell at her house on Halloween. Those who are brave enough to do it tell no one, because she gives full size candy bars if you aren't too scared to sing a song, tell her your mother's name and take an apple as well. I have learned to listen to these wise crones, but many forget that women twice you age or older know more than you can possibly imagine.
Her point was that we are living in a drive-through culture. If we could have gotten things yesterday, that's not soon enough. She said that those who deified Obama, electing him by a large margin. We all knew that he was inheriting many of the worst crises in history, and yet we have expected him to turn the ship of state on a dime. They expected this one man to carry the day by whipping five-hundred entrenched politicians into shape (not including the hundreds of thousands of local politicians) and taming the media Medusa.
Children fill in the gaps with what they know. Real or not, their imaginations make their world. Adults respond to facts, ask the right questions and hopefully listen long enough, and hard enough to get closer to the truth. Our culture needs to turn the corner on our childish ways. We all need to eradicate feelings of entitlement that plague our children as well as many of their parents. We need to take a good long look at the current situation, fight for what we want, change.
How many of us have written letters to the intransigent representatives in the House and Senate? How many of us have stopped providing the fuel that fires furnaces of hatred? How many of us have used the rhetoric of hate, the fruits of slave labor? The disconnected contrition that fuels much of our apathy reeks of cynicism, used against us by those who have the most to lose.
I was strengthened in my resolve to fight for what is right with our country by hearing this lady's words. Those who would bow their heads and admit defeat are not worthy of the freedoms we profess to stand for. This is the part where the route to freedom gets messy. There is plenty of B.S. to shovel. It has been heaped up on us for years. If we all take up shovels, we can eliminate the threat to our freedoms in time, but if we keep our heads down, there is sure to be more coming.
Ask yourself, "Am I all that I can be?" I'm sure you know that my answer when I asked was "No.", but rather than letting that stop you from changing, rather than giving up, or getting more depressed, reach out to one another, become an agent of change. Our President needs us. Don't abandon him in his time of need. We all know what happens when that is done to us! We have the right to demand change, no matter what the money says!

Confiscatory Taxes to Fund Health System

Now, if you have read many of my posts before, you will know that corporate welfare is one of my chief concerns. Having been part of the welfare system as a child, I know how demeaning and fruitless it is to allow recipients to remain weak, dependent on the dole for their way of life. On the other hand, forcing people to pay for the lifestyles of the rich and famous is even more abhorrent to me. When virtually all of the world's economic powerhouses rely on "socialized medicine" to care for their people, why is it that we saddle the American people with the ballooning cost of "health care"? Business and industry have been allowed to either provide, or not provide care for their workers as suits them. Without the strong unions of years past, there would be no health care included in the salaries of most workers. One of the first things to go when companies hit a hard patch is their insurance programs, especially when the cost of policies start increasing at double digit rates, like they are doing today.
Now there is a new system being considered that would require the least among us to pay the lion's share of the cost of providing "care" to everyone. This only points out the disconnect between the "haves" and the "have not's" in our culture. Those who are doing well see no need to change. They also seem to have very deep pockets for supporting a phalanx of lobbyists who have spent over three billion dollars telling our politicians in Washington what they want and need out of the legislation being considered. Meanwhile, we the people are told by the major media markets that "we place Health-care Legislation way down our list of priorities". I might have missed something, but since when has the "first black" President ever had Congress at his disposal? I assure you that our representatives know where their money comes from. Asking them to bite the hand that feeds them is simply naive.
The only sensible proposal was made before the election, by a then-Senator from Illinois, who said that a preventative approach would save money no matter how much it cost by enhancing health rather than only responding to disease. (Which BTW is much more expensive.) This message has been lost in the bitter cross talk guided by the media and large commercial interests. No one wants a resolution that makes sense or is equitable, unless they realize that business as usual is killing Americans daily. The people who peddle drugs don't want change, unless it means less government oversight and higher profits. Insurance companies don't want change unless it makes them more money and increases the number of people they can exploit for their part in it. Doctors, sadly are in favor of change, but are too busy trying to decipher the new litany of new drugs being put on the market and the myriad of forms insurance companies have come up with to "distinguish themselves in the marketplace".
We voted for the President, many for the first time, because we felt that our voices would be heard. Now, powerful elites want to make us pay for the privilege of basic "health-care". For a country who is 37th in the world as far as health, we desperately need change. We voted for change, we expected change. It would be a shame to have to move to Sierra Leone or Nigeria to receive the better health care that we voted for just over a year ago, but that the wealthiest among us are loathe to accept as worthy of their support.
When all people are given the care that doctors want to be able to provide, think of the massive shift that will take place! Unsatisfied workers could quit unfulfilling jobs that only retain staff because of killer benefits. Start up companies would not have to lose sleep over not being able to care for their employees. People who are only having procedures done because their benefits are running out could wait until procedures are actually needed. The elderly could stop paying insane fees for the "security" of knowing that they will be cared for in their dying moments. Most emergency room visits could be avoided because people could afford to go to their doctors again. In the giant administrative offices of the largest insurance companies, there would be massive lay offs but it can be argued that merely finding ways to weasel out of promised coverage should not be counted as part of our Gross Domestic Product anyway. Imagine a world where human effort was put to actual care and creation of things that had inherent value rather than simply creating larger bottom lines for people who create nothing and only sell a false sense of security.