I fell asleep last night thinking about Barak Obama. Now I know that isn’t the most interesting or exciting person to fall asleep thinking about, but never the less he was on my mind after watching one so called “news” channel complain about another so called “news” channel, though those thoughts are for a different post all together. The news channels that were having their squabble seemed to agree on one thing, there is a single narrative for the story of Obama, that is, he is either a great leader who is not to be criticized or he is the product of some sort of Stalin/Hitler/Junior hybrid. Either way there isn’t too much room for discussion or interpretation. As counter point to this notion of a single narrative for the President of the United States here is a description of a mystery president, one who was described by Noam Chomsky as “the last liberal president.”
This mystery president was responsible for the following things:
The creation of Occupational and Safety Health Administration (OSHA)
The National Environmental Policy Act
The Clean Air Act
The Creation of the EPA
Opening relations with China
A renewed and more diplomatic relationship with the Soviet Union
Submitted one of the few balanced budgets in recent history, but due to pressure from congress created a deficit to extend unemployment benefits
Was a quaker
Responsible for the successful draw down of the one the worse conflicts in modern American history
A large proponent of Civil Rights and integration
Correlated Social Security with inflation
Created the Consumer Product Safety Commission
Who is this mystery president?
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Wednesday, October 7, 2009
The Public Option.
These three words have created a tremendous uproar in the United States from all sides and corners of the political spectrum, from supports to neigh sayers. One side claims it is socialism the other side claiming it is a needed and welcome change to the US health care policy. But what it is exactly, I don’t think that is a question too many people are sure of.
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Wednesday, September 30, 2009
I don’t think there is a single issue in the United States right now that is getting as much focus as the health care debate.
It seems the central focus of this debate has been whether or not the US is willing to accept “socialism” in it’s health care system (or Nazism, depending on who you ask). As I listen to, read and watch all the commentators who keep throwing around the word Socialism trying to drum up Cold War sentiments and scare people into thinking the US is on a march to the Soviet Union I am constantly reminded of something from George W. Bush Regarding SCHIP. I cannot find the direct quote, but as I remember it was “passing SCHIP will bring us one step closer to Socialized Health care” (source).
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Recently there has been a tremendous amount of debate within the US regarding a wide range of subject; health care, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and economic recovery. These debates are far too complicated for any one person to take head on, however I think it is important to the debate to have an honest look at how the United States compares with other countries in the world.
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I was hoping to write a post for May Day, which is synonymous in many countries as International Worker’s Day as a day to celebrate the gains of international labor movement.
There were the annual Immigrants Rights protests across the US, which were much smaller in southern LA this year (down to thousands from millions) after the brutal police crackdown last year.
Dockworkers on the west coast took the day off to protest the Iraq war by shutting down much of the port traffic coming from Asia.
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