We Choose To Go To The Moon
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The combined forces of stalled, tired old thinking and big business’ interest in raking in big bucks for the status quo at times represents as much a threat to the continued American dream as the forces of communism once did. We’re no longer a loose affiliation of rogue states, nor are we a nation of cookie cutter 1950s nuclear families. We live in the 21st century. We are a nation of 300+ million. It’s time to start acting like it.
We always have a choice. We can choose to think small and worry about malaise. We can talk a good game about evildoers without backing up our words. Or, we can choose to go the moon.
I don’t have any idea what President Obama is going to say Wednesday night, but I seriously hope he chooses the modern equivalent of going to the moon. The current Democratic majority was not aided, supported and voted for by millions of us to play small ball. Next to ending the war in Iraq, comprehensive health reform has been one of the major issues of progressive politics for longer than my almost 32 years of life.
You shouldn’t squander these moments, they are too few and far inbetween. Health care reform is more important than the re-election of any single Democratic candidate, and in fact its enactment is far more important politically to the vitality of the party. If we play small ball, if we play by the rules of the disinterested majority, many of us will seriously ask “what’s the point”?
As the President himself has said, we’ve played kick the can on this issue for way too long. The people who seek to impede progress by saying we’re “rushing” into this? I wonder how they can keep a straight face!
When Kennedy said we were going to the moon, we barely knew how to get into earth orbit. When President Roosevelt declared war on Japan after Pearl Harbor, we barely had any army to speak of, let alone the capability to fight a two front war for our survival. When President Lincoln sought to preserve the Union over the actions of rogue separatists, he never blinked an eye.
People often say America has God on its side, or providence, or some other force looking out for us when we engage in these grand national expeditions. I don’t know, and I don’t pretend to know. Everybody thinks they have God on their side, but there’s a reason we’re America and others aren’t.
I certainly don’t think its dumb luck.
Mr. President, please let us get to the work. We choose to go forward, not back.
54 Responses to “We Choose To Go To The Moon”
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© 2000-2011 Oliver Willis
“As Rahm Emmanuel likes to say, one should “never waste a crisis” — and the White House has done just that.
There was a narrow window to effect a full regulatory reform of Wall Street, the Banking Industry and other causes of the collapse. Instead, the WH tacked in a different direction top pursue healthcare reform.
This was an enormous miscalculation.
I’m not sure who to blame, but the leading suspects (in order) are Larry Summers, Rahm Emmanuel, and David Axelrod. Instead of getting a populist clean up of The Street (ala Eliot Spitzer circa 2,000), they allowed a smoldering resentment to take place. The massive taxpayer wealth transfer to inept, corrupt incompetent bankers has created huge resentment amongst the populace, regardless of political affiliation.
There was widespread popular support for a full reform. What the White House should have pursued was the reinstatement of Glass Steagall, the repeal the Commodity Futures Modernization Act, overturning the SEC Bear Stearn’s exemption (allowing leverage to exceed 12 to 1), regulating the non bank sub-prime lenders, pursuing misplaced compensation, etc. could have been accomplished int he first 6 months of the Obama administration. The consumer protection stuff could have been tossed in as well, though it was not the cause of the collapse.
What we got instead, was the usual lobbying efforts by the finance industry. They own Congress, and they throttled Financial Reform. It did not help that the Obama economic team is filled with defenders of the Status Quo — primarily Summers, but it appears Geithner also — who fiddled while the economy burned.”
http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2009/09/finance-reform-vs-health-care-reform/
omg I agree with william. Or rather, I agree with the blog that william linked to.
It’s the end of the world, folks…
big business’ interest in raking in big bucks for the status quo
You do realize that all that neat stuff that the NASA and the military churn out ends up in consumer hands thanks to big business?
Did the government give us laptops, the blackberry, slim cell phones, Ipods ?
Let’s put these dusty stereotypes to bed, and realize that everyone who wakes up above ground in America each day wants a brighter future.
Just because conservatives favor progress with caution, and see that certain values are immutable and require no change, doesn’t mean that we want to return to being hunter – gatherers.
A cave to Wall Street notwithstanding, We Can Do Health Care Reform. The way it should be done.
Bravo, Oliver. Great essay. On target.
What William and that website fail to mention is the unprecedented level of vacuous and mind numbingly ignorant plethora of obstructionism and outright idiocy advocated and promulgated by the Right wing in an intensely partisan effort to derail the Obama administration within its first year in office. From the ludicrous to the insane, tea-parties, birthers, overt lies about health care reform, to the latest wtf charge regarding the president’s speech to school childredn, there appears to be no limit to the inanity and outright bullshit they are willing to foist on the nation in order to achieve their goal of further dividing the US so consistently displayed by their poster child Bush. It seems more and more obvious that the Right wing is committed to ensuring the US becomes a nation ruled by the likes of the NRA, Fundamentalist Christian zealots, ignorance and fear.
The moon is looking better and better every day.
Fixed: When President Roosevelt asked Congress to declare war on Japan
It’s an important distinction especially after the 8 years of the “Unitary Executive.”
Otherwise, good post.
.
It’s an important distinction especially after the 8 years of the “Unitary Executive.”
8 years? Try 76 years…
Fixed.
My uncle still thinks we never went to the moon. His main argument is we didn’t have the technology. Ti which I reply, “You’re right, we didn’t. And we went anyway.”
“We choose to go to the moon and do the other things not because they are easy but because they are hard.”
This is one of those other things.
Just because conservatives favor progress with caution,
Where? I haven’t seen any of that. Just conservatives jumping up and down screaming “Nazi socialist commie Muslim hippie peace freak is gonna steal your soul!”
Frank said, “Just because conservatives favor progress with caution, and see that certain values are immutable and require no change…”
Progress with caution, I can agree with, Frank.
However, your next statement “certain values are immutable” needs a little work. Before the last Administration, I was under the impression that our country didn’t torture or jail American citizens without allowing them a day in court.
I guess you could try to lump torture and habeas corpus into the pile of mutable values, but I prefer to keep them were they stood under the law before Cheney got a hold of them.
Time to cut out the Cigna-esque middlemen who have bankrupted families large and small. Conservatives need to have self-awareness. Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity make 8 figures, you don’t. They don’t care if you lose your house because the insurance company drops you after that diabetes or heart disease diagnosis
Obama is tackling healthcare first for two reasons: a) we need to make sure the foundation of the house is sound before we start changing the locks, b) precisely because healthcare is harder politically, he needs to get it done now; even if we have just the average mid-term losses in congress in 2010 any hope of doing something effective would evaporate completely.
President Obama needs to keep in mind that conservatives fear a public option not because they think it won’t work. They fear it because they are afraid it WILL work and people will love it. Then, having unanimously opposed it, the Republican Party will be cast into the wilderness for another 40 years, as happened after the New Deal.
Interesting theory, if not for being just another paranoid delusion that seems to play well on liberal blogs comments sections. Wonder how it would explain what more and more indendependents, Democrats, and their Congressional representatives are thinking.
The Hll: Tide turns against public option on eve of President Obama’s address.
“The current Democratic majority was not aided, supported and voted for by millions of us to play small ball.”
Sing it, Oliver!
Before the last Administration, I was under the impression that our country didn’t torture or jail American citizens without allowing them a day in court.
Lincoln – suspended habeas corpus
Roosevelt / Gov. Warren – Imprisoned Japanese – Americans, while their children were bleeding and dying in Italy.
Your definition of torture was provided by the left wing apparat.
My definition of torture is that waterboarding is less of a torture than brainwashing.
I didn’t say ALL values were immutable; neither are practices or policies.
What? “Lazy Quaker”?!? There are three of us now?
Wooohoo! Hello, Friend!
Lincoln – suspended habeas corpus
Bush – didn’t suspend habeas, but violated it anyway.
What? “Lazy Quaker”?!? There are three of us now?
Sheesh, there goes the neighborhood.
Next thing you know they’ll be wanting to use the same drinking fountains.
Roosevelt / Gov. Warren – Imprisoned Japanese – Americans, while their children were bleeding and dying in Italy.
And Frank, that was wrong then, wrong today, and wrong always.
Nice to know your superior morality includes “I may be bad but that guy is worse!”
If all Roosevelt had done was intern Japanese – if he had failed, for instance to win the war and fix the economy, he would be remembered as one of the worst presidents of all time.
But then, if all Roosevelt had done was botch the war, trash the economy and piss all over individual rights in the name of security, he would have been George Bush.
My definition of torture is that waterboarding is less of a torture than brainwashing.
Perhaps, but banning Fox News would get you into all kinds of sticky first-amendment issues.
” Obama is tackling healthcare first for two reasons: a.we need to make sure the foundation of the house is sound before we start changing the locks”
Yes, because countries with government healthcare were not affected by the credit/banking/mortgage crisis.
Sheesh.
Wilbur,
Why do you associate “lazy” with ‘There goes the neighborhood’ and people who can’t drink out of certain drinking fountains?
Schmidt?
Quibbie, you should volunteer to be the site monitor czar here. Keep everybody on topic and the personal insults to a minimum.
As czar you wouldn’t have to be vetted, either, which might be a good thing for you. Objectively speaking, of course.
Wilbur, I was addressing the point that these things did not occur “before the previous administration”, not that if Lincoln / Roosevelt did it, someone else should.
That’s the point of immutable values; if the rules of government and civil discourse change, because we are at war, then they change whenever we are at war.
They don’t care if you lose your house because the insurance company drops you after that diabetes or heart disease diagnosis
Is there any evidence of these accusations I keep hearing? I keep seeing this all over from the left. Insurance companies just dropping people because they’ve been diagnosed with something. Where is the evidence of this?
Considering the fact that The Community Organizer in Chief has been leading from the rear during this entire Government Health Care debate, I expect him to puff-up his chest and be a big, tough guy tonight, and continue to force the idiot Lib/Dems to do all the heavy lifting.
I don’t know what the outcome will be, and honestly could care less.
Is there any evidence of these accusations I keep hearing?
Using the Google.
New Report Examines Insurance Company Practice of Denying Coverage To or Discriminating Against Americans Who Have Pre-Existing Medical Conditions
Dennis: Schmidt?
Jay: Glad you asked.
Gosh Jay, I wonder what would happen if you googled “Wendell Potter”?
Jay: Also.
My favorite graf from the link above:
b) precisely because healthcare is harder politically, he needs to get it done now;
Exactly. Everything else ( for the next 7-1/2 years) will be cake.
Is there any evidence of these accusations I keep hearing?
Look who suddenly requires linkage.
Frank: My definition of torture is that waterboarding is less of a torture than brainwashing.
The thing torturers like about waterboarding is that you can later present the prisoner without a mark on him, and people like you will say he’s fine. Why do you suppose Torquemada et al, who had all sorts of hot pokers and sharp instruments, or could pull out fingernails and the like, used waterboarding to make people say stuff that violated their core principles or confess to capital crimes they had not committed?
Would a judge in the United States accept a criminal confession obtained by waterboarding? No? Do you have any idea why not?
Were the prisoners who DIED under “questioning” tortured? Do you think that being chained in a standing position to the ceiling and being kept awake for a week constitutes torture?
I would like to know what your threshold is.
Jay will run away now, because he has been confronted with evidence.
I don’t know whether either of the things you describe ever took place ( see “the flushing of the Koran” ). Also, I am sure that if Torquemada had all those great “tools” available to him, I can’t imagine waterboarding being his torture of choice.
Honestly, I have a little difficulty worrying about niceties, when dealing with people who cut the heads off folks because they were born outside of the Middle East.
Yeah, yeah, I know : If we lose our moral compass, they win.
Honestly, if we torture one of those crazed fanatics, and save a bunch of American lives, f*ck ‘em!
Translation: We must torture to keep the world free from torture.
“Honestly, if we torture one of those crazed fanatics, and save a bunch of American lives, f*ck ‘em!”
And vice versa, correct? Immutability applies to both sides of the ledger, just to be clear.
I mean mutable.
“Translation: We must torture to keep the world free from torture.”
Translation: We must torture to keep the world free.
I am sure that if Torquemada had all those great “tools” available to him, I can’t imagine waterboarding being his torture of choice.
I see that you are desperately trying to avoid addressing why a “real” torturer would use this method. But the “technique” is ancient, so there must be a reason for it. Give us your best guess as to why a guy with hot pokers and sharp things at his disposal would use a method that doesn’t leave marks.
I have a little difficulty worrying about niceties, when dealing with people who cut the heads off folks because they were born outside of the Middle East.
Kind of a shame that we tortured a few innocent people to death, isn’t it. I’m sure you wouldn’t mind being accidentally tortured as long as it was for a good cause.
Say, didn’t I ask you whether a US judge would accept a confession obtained by waterboarding, and didn’t you avoid answering it?
I can’t believe that an American citizen is defending the right of all people everywhere to torture anyone they care to, as long as they consider the cause worthwhile. But there you are.
if we torture one of those crazed fanatics, and save a bunch of American lives, f*ck ‘em!
What if we torture somebody and DON’T save any lives? What if we did it just for fun?
if the rules of government and civil discourse change, because we are at war, then they change whenever we are at war.
It’s not a deterministic cause-and-effect sort of thing, Frank, people choose to change the rules; they can also choose not to.
Then of course, other people change the rules while pretending to be following them. We call those people republicans.
Dennis: fish ain’t bitin’, son.
Repack Rider — get over yourself. Who gave those bastards permission to behead noncombatant journalists? I don’t remember any of them applying for a permit.
Repack I didn’t avoid answering your question — it was just too dumb. Apparently, you have forgotten the difference between the US Civil and Criminal Code, and the Geneva Convention and the UCMJ.
Give us your best guess as to why a guy with hot pokers and sharp things at his disposal would use a method that doesn’t leave marks.
He is known to this day as the most fearsome practitioner of forced confessions during the Inquisition; I would guess bad press wouldn’t be an issue…
So that isn’t it.
He didn’t want to get caught?
Don’t think so.
Sorry, I am fresh out of guesses — maybe he was a Democrat, and wanted to look good while making other people’s lives miserable. That’s something Democrats excel at.
Who gave those bastards permission to behead noncombatant journalists? I don’t remember any of them applying for a permit.
Were these people among those we tortured? If not, what is your point?
I didn’t avoid answering your question — it was just too dumb. Apparently, you have forgotten the difference between the US Civil and Criminal Code, and the Geneva Convention and the UCMJ.
Shorter Frank: I can’t answer that, so I’ll insult you instead.
All the codes you mention prohibit torture. What differences are you referring to, and why is it “dumb” to ask you whether a US judge would accept a confession obtained by a method you claim is reliable?
A US judge might not accept a confession secured by water boarding, if the US Code in his jurisdiction forbade a law enforcement official from securing a confession using that method.
Since I am neither a judge nor a lawyer, I can not answer the question more completely than that.
Is there a point to your question?
Please make it .
A US judge might not accept a confession secured by water boarding, if the US Code in his jurisdiction forbade a law enforcement official from securing a confession using that method.
The jurisdiction for the US Code is, um, the US! And I think you’d be on solid ground not to hedge. A US judge would not accept such a confession gained through waterboarding or any other coercive means.
Any guesses why judges don’t like coerced confessions? You don’t need legal training for this one. Just take a guess.
Would you please stop with the guesses already?!
If water boarding is torture, then I guess they were being tortured. (That’s a syllogism, folks)
But for those guys , maybe wearing orange jumpsuits is being tortured; I am sure that envisioning spending the rest of your life at Guantanamo, and being denied the opportunity to kill your raped sister because of “honor” and being denied the opportunity to murder innocent men, women and children might be torture to them.
But who decides? Judge Ito? Justice Alito? Certainly not the prisoners, not me, or, IMHO , certainly not you.
Quaker, I guess you have never heard of, um, District Courts of Appeals, where they make decisions that don’t apply in other jurisdictions. The 9th Court on the west coast is famous for them.
If you must pretend to be smarter than I am, don’t be a wiseass.
‘Interesting theory, if not for being just another paranoid delusion that seems to play well on liberal blogs comments sections’
Unlike the sanguine intelligence of death panels and free health care for illegals?
Quaker, I guess you have never heard of, um, District Courts of Appeals, where they make decisions that don’t apply in other jurisdictions. The 9th Court on the west coast is famous for them.
Is their US Code different from the US Code in other jurisdictions? I think not.
Nevertheless, if you prefer to reserve only for yourself the right to engage in wiseassery, I shall be direct: Judges do not permit confessions gained through coercion as evidence because they are not reliable.
The US Code, as interpreted by the District Courts of Appeals, means what they say it means.
You are now changing the rules to say, “I meant the Code they work with it is the US Code”, when I specifically referred to how different Districts interpret that Code.
Go ahead.
I know what I meant, and I am right.
Judges do not permit confessions gained through coercion as evidence because they are not reliable.
Surely there is some way to support that assertion, or do I just take your word for it?
I, on the other hand, found this :