We just have to channel more energy to constructing a different, better nation.

My ‘normative’ Friday Vent

In an op-ed piece [titled, “Progress Over Perfection”] in the Washington Post of today, Paul Begala, a political operative in the Clinton administration had this to say, by way of an analogy to today’s health care debate and relative to the history of the progressive legislation for Social Security, and thusly, I make mention of this ‘context’ since I feel it’s required for an accurate understanding.

“No self-respective liberal today would support Franklin Roosevelt’s original Social Security Act. It excluded agricultural workers—a huge part of the economy in 1935, and one in which Latinos have traditionally worked. It excluded domestic workers, which included countless African Americans and immigrants. It did not cover the self-employed, or state and local government employees, or railroad employees, or federal employees or employees of non-profits. It didn’t even cover the clergy. FDR’s Social Security Act did not have benefits for dependents or survivors. It did not have a cost-of-living increase. If you became disabled and couldn’t work, you got nothing from Social Security.”
Obviously, the ‘point’ of all this is his Argumentation for the progressive view for moving change forward in smaller increments. And if not, it will be the 1990’s all over again.

However, Begala fails to note that for historical purposes, Social Security has no purpose in this debate. If it did, he would not have started the above paragraph ‘preaching’ to America’s diversity. Thus, he’s conveniently tossing in the Democrats’ version of the ‘race card’ and that shuts down my open-mindedness to what he has to say. But then, he wasn’t writing to me, but to a much larger audience with his overall and historical tendency and which is to influence the “influencers” located in our nation’s capitol. As such, those of us residing in the hinterlands of America need not concern ourselves.

And Begala goes on to add this:

“If that version of Social Security were introduced today, progressives like me would call it cramped, parsimonious, mean-spirited and even racist. Perhaps, all those things. But it was also a start.”

Perhaps, he is talking to me? If so, I am listening, but he is not “listening” to me or “hearing” me when I suggest and advocate that Universal Health Care should be delivered via the Indian Health Services or the Veterans Administration. And in my context, Begala has mindlessly forgotten that the ‘public option’ for which he is attempting to argue in favor of, and yet, which has no Honor or Equality embedded in the legislation. In this modern age, carefully crafted legislation must empower the individual, and if not, we must accept our responsibility for having ‘dis-empowered’ our progeny. Consequently, legislation that continues to perpetuate the inevitable surcease of either the insurance industry or the employer, should have no place in a society that has a well-recognized history for government successes in such programs of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, and inclusive of SCHIPs and which is a program that defines and delivers medical care to children residing in low-income households. Therefore, a job loss simply means more than the loss of medical care for the employee and the affected family, but leading to an eventual bankruptcy.

And that is why Paul Begala is indeed wrong and his propensity for being shortsighted when he articulates his “progressive” idea is not nice to see, as seen by my rudimentary lights. I, on the other hand, argue for both the long term and to include true ‘equality’, especially when the recipient has to stand in line at the admitting desk at any facility operated and managed by Native Americans. And perhaps this too will lead to even more change when we come to acknowledge that the Rez is a simplified Third World Economy inside a First World Nation. And you too can see, Paul Begala can’t or won’t go down this road, but I will. And that’s the ‘difference’ between the aggressive-moderate–myself, and the progressive–Begala. Or is that neo-liberal now?

In this similar vein, Begala is content with revisiting the past glories while I am wanting to create tomorrow’s history today. He will settle for the lesser while I will reach higher for the ‘newer’ and the ‘better’. And since we are both members of the same political coalition, I know that I will be continuing my advocacy, and he may, ultimately, win—for today.

Jaango

He likes to take daily walks around the neighborhood, and I see him from time to time and we talk about this and that. I have never particularly cultivated his friendship because early on I detected that he had a somewhat racist bent to his thinking, and rather than get into a big flap with him about it, I just didn’t invite a whole lot of interaction.

However, the last time he came by, which was a couple of weeks ago, something must have twigged in his mind that I was simpatico to his way of thinking. He started relating a story to me about an older white woman down the street (he is white by the way, as am I, although I’m Irish) who was dating black men. At first I didn’t get where he was going with this, so I’m not saying much, as I did not really want to encourage him. Then he used the “N” word. Now I don’t know if he was just trying me out to see where I was on all this, or whether his thinking normally runs in those patterns and to him racist slurs such as this are normal thinking for him, but I stopped him cold. All these years he has made innuendos about various people who live in the neighborhood, whether it be Middle Eastern, Indian, Asian, Blacks, or whatever, but it was never this blatant. I told him in no uncertain terms that I did not appreciate language like that and that if was going to use it to just keep on walking and don’t bother to stop to talk to me.

He turned to go, and said all huffy, “Well, I’m sorry.” I told him don’t apologize, just keep on walking, and I pointed off down the street. I haven’t seen him since. Frankly, for my money, the guy’s a waste of space and is using good air that somebody else could put to better use.

I mean this guy lives a good life in God’s country (if you’ve ever spent time in the Bay Area, you know what I mean), gets a retirement for which he doesn’t have to do crap, never lived on the street or a foxhole, or been in dire need of anything, and yet he thinks this way. I would bet money that he has NEVER examined his life in any way. I don’t know his political affiliation either, but I’ll bet he votes Republican and thinks George Bush was God’s answer to “EvilDoers” (that is one word) everywhere.

Whew! Sorry to be so long winded about that.

I’m real good at spottin silver linings …

this is one of those “sticky wickets”

I don’t want people to die

but I don’t want a bunch of trash in the wilderness

our immigration policy has to be reformed for more than just humanitarian reasons

and now the government wants to “secure” the northern border too

one clusterfuck, coming up …