Thoughts on those who keep badmouthing public health care

I found this reposted on Facebook this afternoon. I have no idea who wrote it or where it came from, but I feel like it pretty much makes the point.

"This morning I was awoken by my alarm clock powered by electricity generated by the public power monopoly regulated by the US Department of Energy. I then took a shower in the clean water provided by the municipal water utility. After that, I turned on the TV to one of the FCC regulated channels to see what the National Weather Service of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration determined the weather was going to be like using satellites designed, built, and launched by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. I watched this while eating breakfast of US Department of Agriculture inspected food and taking the drugs which have been determined as safe by the Food and Drug Administration.

At the appropriate time as regulated by the US Congress and kept accurate by the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the US Naval Observatory. I get into my National Highway Traffic Safety Administration approved automobile and set out to work on the roads built by the local, state, and federal departments of transportation, possibly stopping to purchase additional fuel of a quality level determined by the Environmental Protection Agency, using legal tender issued by the Federal Reserve bank. On the way out the door I deposit any mail I have to send via the US Postal Service and drop the kids off at the public school.

After work, I drive my NHTSA car back home on the DOT roads, to a house which has not burned down in my absence because of the state and local building codes and fire marshal's inspection, and which has not been plundered of all its valuables thanks to the local police department.

I then log on to the internet which was developed by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Administration and post on freerepublic.com and Fox News forums about how SOCIALISM in medicine is BAD because the government can't do anything right."

... Take that.

HOLY SHIT, WE WON!!!

THANK WHATEVER GODS MAY BE, BARACK OBAMA IS GOING TO BE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA! HE'S THE PRESIDENT-ELECT! IT REALLY HAPPENED!!

Oh my goodness. It's stupid o'clock in the morning, I've stayed up the entire night to watch with mu knuckles in my teeth, hoping against hope that we wouldn't screw this up. Hoping so freverently, so terrified that it would all go down in flames. That my poor, beleaguered. bleeding country wouldn't be able to overcome the years of fear and manipulation and misguidance and abuse-- but somehow, oh, somehow...

Danger Muffin and I hosted an Election Night Party at the Abode, and we had a regular grab-bag of nationalities present. The dedicated Election coverage kicked off on the BBC at 11:00 pm, and I hunkered down on one end of the leather brown loveseat and bared my poor little soul to the exit poll results. At one point, D-Muff had her laptop, I had mine and an Aussie friend had hers out as well, all of us monitoring different news-network websites, searching for different calls, calling out percentages, waiting for television to tell us how it all unfolded.

There were hot dogs and hamburgers and two delightful apple pies as made in our postage-stamp kitchen by D-Muff herself. All of this lay mostly forgotten on the table as the points finally began to break in Obama's favor, steadily rising in in the face of the once-solidly republican south. Could it really be so?

Everytime a state was called for Mr. Obama, we actually cheered. In our tiny flat in northern Scotland, we tuned in and tensed up. I watched with disbelieving eyes as the point count crossed the line of demarcation, the victory line-- but years of watching these fiascoes unfold had taught me all about concession calls and how bitter and long these things will sometimes be.

The bbc cut to McCain's speech, not a word about a phone call being made. "My friends, we have -- we have come to the end of a long journey. The American people have spoken, and they have spoken clearly. A little while ago, I had the honor of calling Senator Barack Obama -- (boos) -- to congratulate him -- (boos) -- please -- to congratulate him on being elected the next president of the country that we both love."

Oh. my. god.

Really? REALLY? You made the call?!?! It's true-- you've recalled that spark of fairness that first endeared you to me all those years ago when you were sensible and moderate and not shackled to the religious right and sponsored a bill against torture!! You're not going to drag this out because you can't pallate loosing after such a long fight. You really are putting the country first.

"Tonight -- tonight, more than any night, I hold in my heart nothing but love for this country and for all its citizens, whether they supported me or Senator Obama -- whether they supported me or Senator Obama, I wish Godspeed to the man who was my former opponent and will be my president."

This was the first time in the night that I started to cry. I think this might have alarmed the Englishman seated on the floor to the right of the sofa, but I was pretty far past caring.

The bottom banner on the screen shifted to MCCAIN CONCEDES. The Aussie confirmed that Fox News had shat itself and was no longer reporting anything on its website. Gore Vidal made us all laugh and I waiting for what I knew was soon to be coming from Grant Park.

And then it happened. He took the stage. I gripped the pillow in my arms and stared through the shimmer I couldn't rub out of my eyes.

"If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible, who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time, who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer. It's the answer told by lines that stretched around schools and churches in numbers this nation has never seen, by people who waited three hours and four hours, many for the first time in their lives, because they believed that this time must be different, that their voices could be that difference. It's the answer spoken by young and old, rich and poor, Democrat and Republican, black, white, Hispanic, Asian, Native American, gay, straight, disabled and not disabled. Americans who sent a message to the world that we have never been just a collection of individuals or a collection of red states and blue states.
We are, and always will be, the United States of America."

Right about there was where I began to cry in earnest.

"The road ahead will be long. Our climb will be steep. We may not get there in one year or even in one term. But, America, I have never been more hopeful than I am tonight that we will get there. I promise you, we as a people will get there. "

And sitting here, at 6:30 in the morning, I can tell you now, on a gush of expelled air and a sniffle I can't hide, that we as a nation have dared to hope. We can hope.

I can hope.

Thank you, Mr. President(Elect) for one of the best nights of my life.

Book Review: The Audacity of Hope

You know how people throw about that line, the one about laughing and crying and being moved? Yeah, I'm not throwing it lightly-- I mean it. I just hope this guy does as well.

Now, I know I've kept quiet on here about the presidential election. It's a devisive topic around the dinner table at the old family homestead, but I'm coming to realize in my quarter-life age that I'm trending democratic. Mostly it has to do with a belief in solid foreign policy and emphasis on higher education. So shoot me. I also don't think the government should have anything to say about specifically moral issues and that we should keep people alive who want to die, but that's an entirely seperate post.

ANYWAY, this book. Oh, this book. I've been a fan of Obama for a while now, considering I've believed for a long time that there was no way for Hilary to win. My native country might agree in theory if not in act that a black man and a white man are equal. It will be another century before they'll say the same for a woman. No way in hell would the home of the brave elect a woman as commander and chief in the midst of a foreign campaign, no matter how ill-advised and ill-executed. It just won't happen. And so I found myself taking interest in a young senator with the oratory skills of a preacher.

His charm is undeniable. There's no beating around the fact that he is wildly charasmatic. Not that such is a bad thing-- in fact, I think the White House desperately needs a little tact and smooth-handedness-- but what's behind it? He's preaching change, which I'll agree that we need, but what does his variety of change look like? A straight answer on this was hard to find.

Until I bought his book. Yes, I walked into Waterstone's on Union Street and bought a full-priced book. Incredibly unlike me, but I'm glad that I did. I found his writing style to be easy to read, his chapters well-defined and his points clear, and the whole experience refreshing. But more than all of that, I found out what his change for America would mean. And I couldn't be happier.

A whole chapter on education reform? The world beyond our borders? Race? Religion? REALLY?!? He thinks we should be investing in retooling our struggling work force and investing in our people rather than slashing taxes in a wild bid to keep the dying industries we should have out-moded thrity years ago. He thinks that we need to listen to the rest of the world, regardless of the frustration of sitting in meeting after meeting, consulting the non-specifically involved, asking our old allies and our new colleagues on the global scene what they feel would make the entire planet a safer, friendlier, more-sustainable nest for humankind? He thinks that racism is still a problem that we can no longer talk about in mincing, antiquidated terminology or pretend to be a war of another generation? Again, REALLY?!?!

This, my friends and invisible readers, is a book everyone voting in the election should read. EDUCATE YOURSELF. Don't take my word for it. And see if you don't choke up just a little bit on the last page. I did, I won't deny it.

Here's a man who actually respects and loves the constitution as a living and historic document, not as one or the other. A man who understands the necessity of the separation of powers, who respects the singular importance of congress. A man who isn't going to speak to me like I'm an idiot or patronise me by pretending that truly complicated situations have simple and perfect solution. Thank whatever god you like, I am.

Hell, I'm thrilled at the prospect of simply voting for someone with the chops to write a book, let alone the utterly terrifying and exhilirating prospect of respecting my president again. Lo, how things just might change...

I'm giving this the full five flying flags. Take that.

Some food for thought...

(I'll write about the mini-trip to Sweden soon, but now is not the time. In the meanwhile, I couldn't pass this up.)


"Every people should be left free to determine its own policy, its own way of development, unhindered, unthreatened, unafraid, the little along with the great and powerful… These are American principles." --Woodrow Wilson


... How times have changed, eh? Something about this makes me want to cry in frustration.