Hide your children from the President's Socialist Propaganda: Work Hard, Stay in School

This is absolutely absurd. Bush 41 addressed school children during school hours during his first (and only) term, and there wasn't this kink of uproar. There is no indoctrination here. It's not like Obama is staging a photo-op like Saddam or Kim Jong Il to show how much they are loved by the people, or parading tanks and infantry down Pennsylvania Ave like the Soviets did in front of the Kremlin.

There are numerous studies that show people's perception of darker complected skin colors is of suspicion and mistrust. We have a dark complected President for he first time in our Nation's history and the rhetoric coming out of Fox News, Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Neal Bortz is "I don't trust this guy!" If we had a white President, would this even be a story or be this level of mistrust or suspicion of the President and his motives? I think not.

I had a conversation with a family member over a online petition to stop Government Run Health Care. I replied that this was total crap and I wasn't going to participate and I proceeded to chastise this member of my family for pushing this stuff. Long story short, I went through the whole list of how the Health Insurance Industry and the status quo was totally unsustainable and that there was little truth to the things they were regurgitating from Conservatives and Private Health Care (opponents) talking points against real Health Care Reform.

I posed the following questions to them to see what aspects of national common good they would do away with to "save" our nation from socialism:

Should we totally dismantle Public Education and only educate people that can afford to pay for Private Schools? Should we only build roads that are paid for by private companies and they charge tolls for their usage? Should we only allow private security firms to take charge of our community policing? Should we trust utilities and pharmaceuticals to do the right thing and not monitor if they are polluting our water and air or putting drugs on the market that have not been tested to see if they are safe?

They agreed with me on all these questions, that doing away with all this stuff would be a bad idea. But, then they said that Obama was "shady and slippery as hell." They don't trust him. I go back to what I said at the beginning - There are numerous studies that show people's perception of darker complected skin colors is of suspicion and mistrust. We have a dark complected President for he first time in our Nation's history and the rhetoric coming out of Fox News, Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Neal Bortz is "I don't trust this guy!" If we had a white President, would this even be a story or be this level of mistrust or suspicion of the President and his motives? Coincidence? Ironic?

Again, I go back to Dick Cheney's roll in the CIA Terror Suspects "Enhanced Interrogation" techniques. If Bush (43) had continued to listen to Cheney, the First, Forth, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, Eighth, and Ninth Amendment would have totally been erased from the Constitution, all in the name of National Security and fighting terrorism. Thank god that GWB finally figured out that Cheney was trying to shred the Constitution.

So, how is detaining and questioning suspected terrorist a threat to the Bill of Rights? In the name of National Security, anyone (even natural born Americans) could be accused of supporting terrorism if they spoke out against the Government or questionable policies (possibly, but that wouldn't happen in this country). When people are not feeling financially secure, spreading mis-information and governing by fear is much easier.

So parents, you have more to fear from Dick Cheney's attempt to shred the Bill of Rights and governing by fear than the "Work hard, stay in school" capitalist message of indoctrination from President Obama. All of this misplaced fear and mistrust of Obama is firmly rooted in bigotry. People need to grow up.

Picture found at: http://fratres.files.wordpress.com/2009/04/socialism1.jpg

The role of government in our lives: Secret CIA programs or Government backed Healthcare?

More information is coming to light about the extent of the CIA’s domestic spying and counterintelligence programs, which were engaged much sooner after September 11th than previously knows. According to an Associated Press article released last night, Congress was intentionally kept in the dark about specifics regarding these programs and possibly others upon the orders of former Vice President Dick Cheney.

This latest revelation is a continuation of information being released to the United States Congress and the public by current Central Intelligence Agency Director Leon Panetta. This began back on May 15th when Panetta notified Congress he had ended the waterboarding program that had existed under the two previous CIA Directors, exposing the extent that the waterboarding interrogation technique was used on Gitmo detainees to gain intelligence. This also ignited a back and forth of “he said, she said” between the CIA and Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi if the CIA had briefed her and seven other House and Senate leaders on top secret intelligence matters, including the extent of waterboarding.

A couple of questions come to mind regarding this latest development. The first is how much executive power did President Bush abdicate to Vice President Cheney during his tenure in the White House? The second question is, was Vice President Cheney going rogue during this period of time and who else was involved? There is a strong appearance of abuse of power on the part of Vice President Dick Cheney, but I am not a lawyer.

There is a concern that during the Bush Administration, legal interpretations of the Constitution were strained to justify programs to gather intelligence at the domestic level as well as foreign, or laws were broken all in the name of National Security. While the Posse Comitatus Act might not have legally been violated, there are strong indications that the spirit of the law was violated, again in the name of National Security.

The Washington Post is reporting that United States Attorney General Eric Holder, Jr. is “leaning toward appointing a criminal prosecutor to investigate whether CIA personnel tortured terrorism suspects after Sept. 11, 2001,” a move that is being described as trouble for the Obama Administration and its desire to move beyond these issues in the Bush Administration.

This brings me to the point of the choice between two evils, one perceived and one very real. Americans for Prosperity and Conservatives for Patients Rights are pushing hard on the whole boggyman message of “Government run healthcare.” Conservatives and supporters of the Private Health Insurance sector are resurrecting the fears of government controlled-rationing of health care that was used during the Healthcare Reform debate back in 1992-93. There has also been a lot of comments to the effect that “most of these uninsured people choose not to have health insurance” or they are uninsurable because “they made bad choices in their lives that have created pre-existing conditions” so that health insurance companies don’t want to insure them.

While these comments might hold true for some people, my experience working on the issue of Healthcare Reform revealed the vast majority of the 47 million Americans that are uninsured either make too much money to qualify for low income health insurance (Medicaid) or can’t afford to purchase private health insurance plans. What is obvious is the status quo is not sustainable.

It might be an unfair question to ask, but if you had to choose between keeping Congress in the dark on secret CIA programs in the name of “National Security” or the Federal Government having a role in making healthcare accessible and affordable to everyone, which would you chose? It appears that Conservatives would support secret CIA programs that jeopardize Constitutional integrity over public health and the common good. What is certain is that the prospect of an investigation into former Vice President Dick Cheney will hijack a large part of President Obama’s agenda and failure to figure out Healthcare Reform will derail it. The convergence of these two issues might be the moment of truth for President Obama, on top of how he continues to handle the economy.