Our Pathetic Political Discourse
When American voters reelected George Bush to a second term in 2004, the rest of the world could not comprehend why. A major publication in Great Britain asked, "How can 59,054,087 people be so DUMB?" The answer is quite simple. George Bush and Karl Rove hijacked the political discourse.
The media followed in lock-step and a willing citizenry, demonstrating not an ounce of critical thinking, went right along with it. Did the people learn anything? The answer cannot be fully determined today. But considering the firestorm voters and the media are allowing Hillary Clinton to get away with, it looks like the American people are more naive today than four years ago.
The national political discourse is at best a train wreck. After more than seven years of the worst presidency in this nation’s history and what lies in its wake, it is reprehensible for a presidential candidate to focus on anything but the grave issues that stand before us today. Tragically, and potentially to the detriment of our democracy, Hillary Clinton — zealously supported and enabled by the ratings-craved media — is hijacking the national conversation. And over what? The interpretation of two words: "bitter" and "clinging."
While the nation is focused on Clinton’s selfish, narcissistic, and destructive endeavor to rule the free world, George Bush and John McCain are quietly focused on taking the country even deeper into multiple crises.
Osama bin Laden is doing a great job forcing the collapse or our nation. History has proven that economic collapse is the root cause of virtually every failed world power, and we’re on a great track to make that happen. We are running two wars, with the cost of just one, Iraq, being estimated at $3 trillion. And thus far, we have borrowed every penny of it because we can’t afford it.
Fueled by staggering war costs and a credit crisis, our domestic economic crisis has begun to propagate throughout the global economy.
The collapse of the housing bubble in the United States is mutating into a global phenomenon, with real estate prices swooning from the Irish countryside and the Spanish coast to Baltic seaports and even parts of northern India.
This synchronized global slowdown, which has become increasingly stark in recent months, is hobbling economic growth worldwide, affecting not just homes but jobs as well.
As if health care availability and costs were not bad enough, the insurance companies have decided their profits are not quite what they would like for them to be. Therefore, they have decided to push even more costs to the insured, assuming they can still afford to maintain it.
Health insurance companies are rapidly adopting a new pricing system for very expensive drugs, asking patients to pay hundreds and even thousands of dollars for prescriptions for medications that may save their lives or slow the progress of serious diseases.
With the new pricing system, insurers abandoned the traditional arrangement that has patients pay a fixed amount, like $10, $20 or $30 for a prescription, no matter what the drug’s actual cost. Instead, they are charging patients a percentage of the cost of certain high-priced drugs, usually 20 to 33 percent, which can amount to thousands of dollars a month.
The system means that the burden of expensive health care can now affect insured people, too.
But that shouldn’t be too much of a concern, because if people can’t eat, what difference does it make? There is a very serious food crisis. Costs have skyrocketed and the world’s food supply, including the U.S., cannot be met. In fact, the food crisis may be worse than the economic crisis.
The world’s economic ministers declared on Sunday that shortages and skyrocketing prices for food posed a potentially greater threat to economic and political stability than the turmoil in capital markets.
What’s helping to fuel that? An incredibly corrupt farm bill passed during the Clinton administration and the corrupt politicians in Congress that have fought to support it. Of course, it would be too much to ask Senator Clinton to enlighten us about her involvement or future plans. She’s much too busy telling small-town Americans what a demon Barack Obama is. And while demonizing Obama the past few days, she was rapidly revising her trade agreement position in the background to cover up for her past lies and conflicts of interest related to husband Bill and Mark Penn.
The divide between the two Americas John Edwards has fought against so long continues to widen, but that’s not a problem Senator Clinton is particularly interested in either. Instead she focuses on telling voters Barack Obama doesn’t care about them. Clinton, meanwhile, is doing swimmingly well with the $109 million she raked in over the past six to seven years.
But if an inquisitive reporter or voter were to prompt Hillary on the poverty issue, I’m sure she has plenty of platitudes to offer about how hard she has fought for the lower and middle income families. In fact, Clinton has done such a great job representing her state and the nation, schools are making major cutbacks in their lunch programs.
New York students will have to settle for pizza without tasty turkey pepperoni topping. In Montgomery County schools, tomato slices were pulled for a few weeks from cafeteria salads in favor of less-expensive carrots or celery.
Sharp rises in the cost of milk, grain and fresh fruits and vegetables are hitting cafeterias across the country, forcing cash-strapped schools to raise prices or pinch pennies by serving more economical dishes. Some school officials on a mission to help fight childhood obesity say it’s becoming harder to fill students’ plates with healthy, low-fat foods.
These are just a few of the serious issues facing this country, but what are Americans getting sucked into? Hillary’s blitzkrieg on Barack Obama that is nothing but distractions and distortions. Since Friday, Hillary has released 14 press statements criticizing Obama (as of 2:08 PM today). And that does not include all the press conferences or her speeches. She’s flooding the media and duping voters just like George Bush did McCain in 2000 and throughout his administration.
How many press releases does it take to inform the media of one’s position? How many different ways can one position be told?
In addition to the 14 press statements she released criticizing Obama, she released seven additional statements (21 total) during the same three-day period on several very serious issues. For example, "Women Turn Out Strong in Pennsylvania" or "America’s Mayors Applaud Hillary Clinton’s ‘Solutions For Safe & Secure Communities Now’ Plan".
To further illustrate how Clinton is trying to manipulate the media, Barack Obama released four press statements during the same period. One of those statements was a response to Hillary’s "bitter" attack.
America was duped in 2000 and 2004. If voters allow Hillary Clinton to have her way, she will prove voters are easier to hustle and are significantly more naive in 2008, when the risks are much greater than ever before.
