What to Look for in a Socialist

I recently ran into a blog that was pro-Obama, which, declared that his association throughout his lifetime with socialists, communists, radicals, and a convicted terrorist or two was just a matter of politics. They stated that he needed these associations to further his career and get him where he wanted to go, but that he, in no way, subscribed to their beliefs. This, I assume, was supposed to be a glowing report on his crafty, smooth political maneuvers.
Apart from the fact that that that is hardly a great character report, it's also - well- bull.

The following was in the Washington Post, March 15, 2009 It was written by Billy Wharton, a member of the Socialist Party. (Notice that this was written in March.)

The funny thing is, of course, that socialists know that Barack Obama is not one of us. Not only is he not a socialist, he may in fact not even be a liberal. Socialists understand him more as a hedge-fund Democrat -- one of a generation of neoliberal politicians firmly committed to free-market policies.
The first clear indication that Obama is not, in fact, a socialist, is the way his administration is avoiding structural changes to the financial system. Nationalization is simply not in the playbook of Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and his team. They favor costly, temporary measures that can easily be dismantled should the economy stabilize. Socialists support nationalization and see it as a means of creating a banking system that acts like a highly regulated public utility. The banks would then cease to be sinkholes for public funds or financial versions of casinos and would become essential to re-energizing productive sectors of the economy.

The same holds true for health care. A national health insurance system as embodied in the single-payer health plan reintroduced in legislation this year by Rep. John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.), makes perfect sense to us. That bill would provide comprehensive coverage, offer a full range of choice of doctors and services and eliminate the primary cause of personal bankruptcy -- health-care bills. Obama's plan would do the opposite. By mandating that every person be insured, ObamaCare would give private health insurance companies license to systematically underinsure policyholders while cashing in on the moral currency of universal coverage. If Obama is a socialist, then on health care, he's doing a fairly good job of concealing it.


Obama's No Socialist. I Should Know. The Washington Post By Billy Wharton
Sunday, March 15, 2009; Page B01

Our representatives are declaring with vigor that neither they or the Pres wants a single payer health system, however, in his campaign, Obama said that that is just what he wanted. A lot has changed in the last few months. So, the socialists have given us some guidelines to look for in the future. How many of these are we getting a glimpse of already.

Rationing? This is Tragic !!!!!!!!!

This is Not Your Father's America-Literally!!

We have heard a lot about the various frightening aspects of the Health Care Bill. Sometimes, we are tempted to believe that it couldn't possibly be as bad as they make it out to be. Could it?

Are we headed for telling mom or dad that the doctor simply won't help them because they are "past it", no longer a productive part of our society? Never mind that they worked hard all their lives, paid their taxes, fought for their country, and expected to be cared for as much as they cared for others.

I spent a lot of time lately reading testimonies from citizens of Canada and England and other countries that are dealing with these problems, and they are frightening. A man, who needed heart surgery, but was denied, a woman who needed brain surgery but was denied.

One of the most frightening aspects has got to be rationing. Can't happen? Guess again. This is not your father's America.

The following is an excerpt from Dr. Goodman's website, listed below, giving a brief overview of the White House Medical advisor, Ezekiel Emanuel, GET THIS , recognize the name? Yep, brother of Rahm Emanuel.

What is the basis for these allegations of biased healthcare rationing? Dr. Goodman cites none other than White House healthcare policy adviser Ezekiel Emanuel. “Allocation by age is not invidious discrimination,” Emanuel wrote in the January 31 issue of the British medical journal the Lancet. “Even if 25-year-olds receive priority over 65-year-olds, everyone who is 65 years now was previously 25 years.” So because everyone would get an equal chance to be favored when they are young, they would be equally discriminated against when they are old. “Treating 65-year-olds differently because of stereotypes or falsehoods would be ageist,” Emmanuel maintains, but “treating them differently because they have already had more life-years is not.”

http://www.ncpa.org/about/john-c-goodman --- John C. Goodman is NCPA president and CEO of the National Center for Policy Analysis. The Wall Street Journal and the National Journal, among other publications, have called him the "Father of Health Savings Accounts," and the Media Research Center credits him, along with former Sen. Phil Gramm and columnist Bill Kristol with playing the pivotal role in the defeat of the Clinton Administration's plan to overhaul the U.S. health care system.

Here is Emanuel's take on the Hippocratic Oath.

Savings, he writes, will require changing how doctors think about their patients: Doctors take the Hippocratic Oath too seriously, "as an imperative to do everything for the patient regardless of the cost or effects on others" (Journal of the American Medical Association, June 18, 2008).

A member of my family had quadruple bypass surgery many years ago, and has since had two other surgeries that saved his life. He volunteers at Church, helps out with whatever needs done, enjoys his grandchildren and children and this year went on a 4,5oo mile trip with his wife and family.

A great uncle of mine lived to be 105, and he was a wealth of information about his WWI experiences and history until the day he died.

Our medical professionals have worked hard over the last century to prolong life, preserve life, and give us the inaleinable right of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. How many politicians, judges, teachers, ministers, lawyers, doctors, and just plain retired grandpas and grandmas are out there whose families feel that they are just as important as they were when they were 25 or 45?

Ah yes, we sure could save money, and it seems like we're headed in that direction, by getting rid of excess babies and excess seniors. We need to leave the world to the 25 year olds, because they don't need the experience or the advise of those who have gone before them- do they?

Shame on any person, country, party, anyone who would even consider this barbaric practice against their own people.

Disturbing Quotes of Our Time

CNSNews.com

Conyers Sees No Point in Members Reading 1,000-Page Health Care Bill--Unless They Have 2 Lawyers to Interpret It for Them
Monday, July 27, 2009
By Nicholas Ballasy, Video Reporter

(CNSNews.com) - During his speech at a National Press Club luncheon, House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers (D-Mich.), questioned the point of lawmakers reading the health care bill.

“I love these members, they get up and say, ‘Read the bill,’” said Conyers.

“What good is reading the bill if it’s a thousand pages and you don’t have two days and two lawyers to find out what it means after you read the bill?

So, we are told that we need to rush a bill through, that we have never had for all these 200 plus years, overnight , that no one has actually read, and, according to Conyers would not understand if they read it without the aid of lawyers.

These are dangerous and potentially lethal games that the Washingtonians are playing with our lives. Every one of these people who blindly go along with signing anything that passes under their noses needs to go at election time. Clean house!

"Sell not virtue to purchase wealth, nor liberty to purchase power."
Benjamin Franklin

Disturbing Quotes of Our Time

Obama speaking to a group in San Francisco

“You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. So it’s not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”

I know this is an oldie, but I think it's pertinent right now. Not just because it was the President's sentiments, but because it seems to represent the elitist attitude of the inner circle of politicians, lobbyists, and journalists that are shaping the "remake" of America.

Hello out there. Just because folks work with their hands, doesn't mean that they don't have brains. This has been a factor for years that continues to worsen to the point of nausea. Middle America, the Heartland, the place where every politician (except the Kennedys) swear their ancestors came from, is the core of this country, and probably every other country.

Scratch a politician, (at least during an election year), and you will find a father or a grandfather, or uncle that was a factory worker, a coal miner, a farmer. Why is it that they are so proud of this during an election, and the rest of the term, the working men and women are suddenly "hicks". Yes, we have guns, to hunt with. Unlike "city folk", they are mostly used for recreation, or to hunt animals, which people eat.
Yes, a whole lot of middle America is religious. When did this become a bad thing? Our reps should carry more of that into Washington.
No, we are not freaked out by people of different races and nationalities. What era are these people channeling. In every small town in the Heartland, we have a pretty mixed bag of cultures.

Anti-immigration and Anti-trade. If they mean that we don't like the idea of illegal immigrants, who sneak into the country, are funded by our tax dollars, and pose a potential securtity risk, then, yes, we have an issue with that.
If they mean that we are opposed to importing oil and other trade goods from countries who hate our guts, when we could be putting American workers to work drilling oil and mining coal and producing goods in this country, then yes, we have an issue with that.

I cannot count the number of times that political analysts and reporters have mentioned the fact that middle America somehow doesn't count, doesn't understand, needs to be lead by the hand.
Hey folks- this country started here, with people who knew how to take care of themselves, help their neighbors, and survive with common sense and hard work. Folks in the Heartland were the ones who grew their own food, and survived the Depression, when people in the cities were standing in bread lines.

If we get frustrated and angry it's because we know what's causing our problems and the nation's problems, but no one listens. We are not "explaining" our frustrations through some imaginary "witch hunt". We are not mob rule reactionaries, taking it out on whoever and whatever.
If we get frustrated and angry it's because of the mismanagement that has caused our factories to leave, the taxes that put small businesses out of business, and the rising costs that are crippling the small farmer.

Disturbing Quotes of Our Time

From the "Virtual town hall" at the White House on Thursday March 26th

Obama: "We could set up systems so that everybody in each house have their own smart meters that, uhh, will tell you when to turn off the lights, when the peak hours are, can help you sell back energy, uh, that you've generated in your home through a solar panel or through, uh, eh, other mechanisms. All this can be done, but it also creates jobs right now. Our biggest problem, we don't have enough electricians to lay all these lines out there."

So, where to begin
I'm sure that I am not the only one to have priced solar panels and wind turbines. This would be a blessing. Imagine, having your own electricity, off the grid. I love the idea. However, I discovered that there are certain drawbacks. First of all, in an average household, the cost of installing wither of these options is anywhere from $40,ooo-$75,ooo on average. For just one household! Of course, there are the do-it-yourself options, but these are expensive too, and unless you are really handy, you will probably have to hire someone to do it anyway. Also, if your state has a grant program that is willing to pitch in some money, you need to have it installed by a certified dealer. Aha! Also, not all electrical companies will allow you to directly link to your meter, let alone give you a kickback on extra electricity you produce.

"Smart meters" - I can just see that 100 plus, humid, stick to your clothes day, when your smart meter suddenly goes off, incicating that you are using too much power, and you need to turn off the central air. Let's see, do the "proper thing fot the sake of the national energy conservation, and die. Hmmmmmmmmmm. Big decision.

This leads us to the next question. I don't know how many homes are in the U.S., but I don't believe that the government is in any position right now to finance alternative energy for all of us. And, maybe that's a good thing. Assuming what we are hearing is that the government is going to run linves to our house from wind turbines or solar panels, and then monitor our homes, doesn't that mean that the intention is to take over the evergy sources themselves?

All this cannot create jobs "right now". Let's assume that we are going to build umpteen wind turbines and solar panels. First we need the funding for said businesses. Of course the private factor doesn't really have that right now. So, the government would have to fund it. With what money? Of course we could go partners with China, (they are certainly pro-environment). Oh, wait, China is having second thoughts about our borrowing now.
Anyway, it would take probably ten or fifteen years minimum to get the factories up and running, people trained, and the plan in action, which, according to some, would pose a major security risk for the nation by consolidating our system onto a major grid.

We could get this going if we only had enough electricians and enough lines? Please!!!!!!!

Disturbing Quotes of Our Time

JUSTICE GINSBURG: Yes, the ruling about that surprised me. [Harris v. McRae — in 1980 the court upheld the Hyde Amendment, which forbids the use of Medicaid for abortions.] Frankly I had thought that at the time Roe was decided, there was concern about population growth and particularly growth in populations that we don’t want to have too many of. So that Roe was going to be then set up for Medicaid funding for abortion. Which some people felt would risk coercing women into having abortions when they didn’t really want them. But when the court decided McRae, the case came out the other way. And then I realized that my perception of it had been altogether wrong. (emphasis added)

What? At what point did anyone, Supreme Court Justice, or anyone else become in charge of population control? And, what exactly are the populations that we wanted to control? And, who is "we", the so called elite, the government, the intellectuals?

Are we controlling the population of poor, potentially disabled, minorities, dysfunctional? How do we know they would have been?

Many famous, influential and successful people who have impacted society in a good way have come from these "less than desirable" roots. Who decides?

I seem to remember, or at least have read a lot, about a time, when someone said that their country would be better off without Jews, gypsies, homosexuals, and physically and mentally impaired people. Did this not spark some sort of reaction in the German people? We are appalled that no one stood up and said, "These are human beings. They have rights!"

Since about 1974 there have been over 50 million abortions in this country. 50 million. Not all of these were the result of rape or incest or some other tragedy. I would guess that the bulk were recreational abortions, the result of someone who gave up the pill because it caused weight gain, or got careless because it just didn't matter. There was always a way out.

50 million. Who were they, or more to the point, who might they have become?