An alternate reality: ending these wars (guest post)

May 29, 2010

We've Always Been at War with Eastasia

On May 30, 2010, at 10:06 a.m, the direct cost of occupying Iraq and Afghanistan will hit $1 trillion. And in a few weeks, the House of Representatives will be asked to vote for $33 billion of additional "emergency" supplemental spending to continue the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan. There will be the pretense of debate -- speeches on the floor of both chambers, stern requests for timetables or metrics or benchmarks -- but this war money will get tossed in the wood chipper without difficulty, requested by a president who ran on an anti-war platform. Passing this legislation will mark the breaking of another promise to America, the promise that all war spending would be done through the regular budget process. Not through an off-budget swipe of our Chinese credit card.

The war money could be used for schools, bridges, or paying everyone's mortgage payments for a whole year. It could be used to end federal income taxes on every American's first $35,000 of income, as my bill, the War Is Making You Poor Act, does. It could be used to close the yawning deficit, supply health care to the unemployed, or for any other human and humane purpose.

Instead, it will be used for war. Because, as Orwell predicted in 1984, we've reached the point where everyone thinks that we've always been at war with Eastasia. Why?

Not because Al Qaeda was sheltered in Iraq. It wasn't. And not because Al Qaeda is in Afghanistan. It isn't. Bush could never explain why we went to war in Iraq, and Obama can't explain why we are 'escalating' in Afghanistan.

So, why? Why spend $1 trillion on a long, bloody nine-year campaign with no justifiable purpose?

Remember 9/11, the day that changed everything? That was almost a decade ago. Bush's response was to mire us in two bloody wars, wars in which we are still stuck today. Why?

I can't answer that question. But I do have an alternative vision of how the last 10 years could have played out.

Imagine if we had decided after 9/11 to wean ourselves off oil and other carbon-based fuels. We'd be almost ten years into that project by now.

Imagine if George W. Bush had somehow been able to summon the moral strength of Mahatma Gandhi, Helen Keller, or Martin Luther King Jr, and committed the American people to the pursuit of a common goal of a transformed society, a society which meets our own human needs rather than declaring "war" on an emotion, or, as John Quincy Adams put it, going "abroad, in search of monsters to destroy".

Imagine.

Imagine that we chose not to enslave ourselves to a massive military state whose stated goal is "stability" in countries that never have been "stable", and never will be.

Imagine.

"Imagine all the people, living life in peace."

Sign up to end these wars.

Rep. Alan Grayson.Congressman Alan Grayson represents Central Florida (FL-8)

Follow Rep. Alan Grayson on Twitter: www.twitter.com/alangrayson

Link to original post:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rep-alan-grayson/weve-always-been-at-war-w_b_594354.html

The 10 Most Ridiculous Quotes About Health Care Reform--and then some really ugly stupidity

They speak for themselves.

By Daniel Kurtzman, About.com Guide

1. "The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama's 'death panel' so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their 'level of productivity in society,' whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil." —Sarah Palin, in a message posted on Facebook about Obama's health care reform plan, Aug. 7, 2009

2. "To our seniors, I have a message for you: you're going to die sooner." –Sen. Tom Coburn (R- Okla.), on what will happen if health care reform passes, Dec. 1, 2009

3. "If ObamaCare passes, that free insurance card that’s in people’s pockets is gonna be as worthless as a Confederate dollar after the war between the states — the Great War of Yankee Aggression." –Rep. Paul Broun (R- Ga.), March 18, 2010

4. "They intend to vote on the Sabbath, during Lent, to take away the liberty that we have right from God. This is an affront to God." –Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa), interview with Glenn Beck, March 18, 2010

5. "Don't get sick, and if you do get sick, die quickly." Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.), summing up the Republican health care plan

6. "Obama's got a health care logo that's right out of Adolf Hitler's playbook … Adolf Hitler, like Barack Obama, also ruled by dictate." —Rush Limbaugh, Aug. 6, 2009

7. "You have three people in the White House that are in love with eugenics or whatever it is you would call it today. … Please dear God, read history. Please dear God read the truth of what these people have said in their own words, and ask yourself this one question: Do you trust these people enough to give them control over who lives and who dies? Because that's what health care is when you have no other choice but to go to the state." —Glenn Beck, comparing health care reform to Nazi eugenics

8. "We should not have a government program that determines if you're going to pull the plug on grandma." —Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), Aug. 12, 2009

9. "That's why people need to continue to go to the town halls, continue to melt the phone lines of their liberal members of Congress, and let them know, under no certain circumstances will I give the government control over my body and my health care decisions." —Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN), a pro-lifer who completely missed the irony of using the same slogan as the pro-choice movement

10. "Exercise freaks ... are the ones putting stress on the health care system." —Rush Limbaugh, June 12, 2009

~Compiled by Daniel Kurtzman

Up to now, they've only been saying fairly stupid, outrageous and ignorant things like the above.

They're going batshit crazy now, since health care reform passed.

In Washington, Saturday, as you no doubt know, some of the "Tea Party" protesters starting yelling "nigger" at RepresentativeJohn Lewism ,spat on our own representative Emanuel Cleaver (he waived charges) and yelled "homo" at Rep. Barney Frank, all in their anger. (But no, no, they're not racist or homophobic, right?).

Now it's getting really ugly.

In fact, the ugliest, stupidest and worst of all, that I've seen, to date, is two Twitter posts that suggest assassinating the President.

Here's hoping sanity rules.

Original link here:
http://politicalhumor.about.com/od/healthcare/a/health-care-reform-quotes.htm