Nattering Nabobs of Negativism

Eighty-five year-old man
arrested for trying to ram
ex-wife with motorized wheelchair.

I must be unusually impatient. I know that Obama is said to have accomplished a great deal in his first couple of months in office, and I know it is unreasonable to expect that he would have solved all the problems in such a short time. But it still seems to me that all is for the time being in limbo, at least with respect to the things I believe to be the most important. Perhaps this is because Obama has so many things to do that he has just not gotten around to everything, perhaps it is true he has taken on too many things at once. But however unreasonable it may be I would like to see some action with respect to war crimes. Most everyone (except for some desperate Republicans) seems to recognize that serious war crimes were committed during the Bush/Cheney administration. And it is also known that the failure to act against such war crimes is in and of itself criminal. Obama as a constitutional lawyer has to be aware of this, but as far as I can see nothing much is happening in this area. I know, I know, there are committees and things supposedly investigating this but that is quite possibly just a way of postponing any action for as long as possible.

Then there is the issue of Iran. On the one hand Obama has held out his hand to the Iranians and some kind of initial contact may have been made between our diplomats and theirs. At the same time little action has been taken with respect to this issue. As the Iranians themselves have pointed out (albeit in somewhat different language), talk is cheap. And at the same time Obama is suggesting improved relations there was apparently a meeting to discuss ways to threaten Iran. Threaten them into what? Negotiations I guess, but basically there is nothing much to negotiate as the Iranians have done nothing illegal or improper under all existing agreements. They have rights under the various treaties and such to develop nuclear energy and they seem to have faithfully followed the guidelines set forth in those agreements. We keep insisting they are trying to build a bomb, they keep insisting they are not, and all available information seems to indicate they are telling the truth. If the Israelis weren’t so paranoid, and if they stopped continuing to threaten to bomb them a solution could quite likely be worked out here.

The immigration issue is another area where nothing seems to be happening except talk. Granted this is an almost impossible situation but are we just going to go on talking about it forever without taking any action? It appears that no matter what solution is suggested there is a large block of people opposed to it. As trying to get consensus here is obviously impossible, someone has to simply come up with a reasonable plan and implement it, knowing full well that it won’t please everyone.

Our insatiable demand for illegal drugs is threatening to destroy Mexico. But rather than try to do something about changing the demand we just continue to spend more money and send more troops to help Mexico fight what is virtually a civil war. I was told of a study the other day which indicated that if Britain would legalize drugs they would save 50 billion dollars a year. How much do you think the U.S. could save by taking what is an obvious and simple solution to this monumental problem? I do not see any responsible people in the Obama administration even considering legalization of drugs, not even marijuana. This is just plain and simply stupid.

I am obviously out of tune with the Obama administration on several additional fronts. It seems clear to me we should be getting out of Afghanistan, “the graveyard of empires,” because we cannot possibly “win” anything there. Obama is sending more troops. It seems clear to me we should be slashing our military budget by a lot, Obama is increasing it. We should be telling the Israelis to shape up and stop committing war crimes, as well as stop building more and more illegal settlements in the West Bank, and if they do not, we will stop sending them billions every year. Many people who have studied the health care issue for years know that the least expensive and best system would be a single-payer system. As far as I know, no one in the Obama administration is even considering a single-payer system, at least not seriously.
With a Democratic President and Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress it would seem to me things should be moving along much quicker and smoothly than they are. Obama should give up his idealistic goal of bipartisanship as it is perfectly obvious by now the Republicans are never going to participate and will continue to do everything they can to bring Obama down. It would be different if they had any ideas worthy of the name, and if they had serious proposals that would merit some attention, but they do not. They have apparently decided to just say no to everything, whether it would benefit our country or not. What is supposed to be a viable democratic political system has degenerated into little more than childish petulance and name-calling. What used to be the Republican Party has become, to use Spiro Agnew’s apt description of the current Republicans, “nattering nabobs of negativity.”

LKBIQ:
In this world of sin and sorrow there is always something to be thankful for; as for me, I rejoice that I am not a Republican.
H. L. Mencken

TILT:
Trucanini, said to be the last living Tasmanian, died in 1876. Her skeleton was hung in the Museum (I have seen a recent book that claims there are even now some 200 people in Tasmania who claim descent from the original Tasmanian stock).