The 2008 election is coming. A number of “debates” have already taken place among the plethora of candidates for each of the two parties, but no one who cannot buy their way into the White House is allowed much of a voice. Dennis Kucinich has been a consistent voice for democracy, peace, universal health care and a mutual respect among all peoples regardless of race, creed, color, faith, gender or sexual preference. John Edwards has been a similar voice of compassion, reason and a desire for peace, as well as a strong pro-labor voice. But, a substantive address of important human issues is not what the campaign for the presidency is about. The Electoral College doesn’t allow a multiplicity of political parties to exist, representing the diversity of three hundred million Americans. Instead, we have a meager and ineffective two-party system that distills issues into either/or propositions, and disenfranchises voters who do not have a bundle of money or property at stake, only survival against a receding economy and a healthcare system that is non-inclusive to the working poor.
Let’s face facts. An American presidential election is about who can coalesce a massive campaign chest of corporate donations, and in this respect, Hillary Rhodam Clinton is the frontrunner. We actually have only a one-party system. It is the corporate lobbyist party, and whomever rises to represent corporatism the best will win the election. The candidate with the most money has won the presidency every American presidential election since Kennedy. Therefore, the interests of banks, insurance companies, weapons-makers, pharmaeceutical manufacturers, energy producers and corporate media are put ahead of issues of public health, labor, the environment, reason, compassion and common sense.
The short answer is this. The status quo that supports the major corporate campaign contributors will remain intact. Imperative issues, such as “global warming”, ending the Iraq war, creating a universal healthcare system, ending torture as an American policy, repealing the damage to Constitutional rights resulting from the US Patriot Act,and restoring our dessimated international reputation with reasonable diplomacy among the world’s nations will take a back seat to the needs of corporate giants, their welfare and protection. Changes will be few, progressive campaigns to the contrary, because the terrrible precedents of unreasonable, and illegal, presidential power have already been allowed to pass into policy, without a challenge by Democrats, without a call for impeachment, without the legal checks and balances.
An Election is coming, but don’t look for any change reflecting reason, compassion and a desire for peace. The American Dark Age will continue. The singular hope on which the fate of this nation rests is that Hillary Rhodam Clinton can rise above the means that will get her elected, creating a revolutionary presidency for humanistic and rational progress, and use the new ”unitary exective” precedents set by Bush that are now so acceptible to Congress and the Senate to establish a benign dictatorship that reflect the needs of the American people. If she can do so, my hope is that she can effectively lead and communicate her directions in a manner that is much more direct and decisive than her husband’s presidency. Don’t get me wrong, I think that Bill Clinton has a rare gift for communication and speech-making, but he didn’t have the confidence in his own policies and his gift for communicating to courageously defend his agenda. Thus, the Bill Clinton presidency was marked by watered-down promises, over-compromising on ideals that he could have persuaded the nation to put into action. My hope is that Hillary will have the courage of her convictions, and use the revolutionary ocassion of being the first woman president in U.S. history to create a much-needed renaissance to the American Dark Age.
It’s a long, long shot of hope, with odds very much against it. But, it is a hope.
Amen.
MH
The “much-neeed renaissance” in healthcare is possible if our elected leaders will recognizw that reimbursement for medically unnecessary procedures, medically unnecessary diagnostic testing, and medically unnecessary services must be denied. Unless the incentives for providing those services are removed, healthcare costs will continue to escalate, premiums, co-pays and deductible will continue to shackle millions of families.
charlesclarknovels
Agreed, and we can hope that any universal healthcare service will not be under the watch of either for-profit healthcare providers nor for-profit healthcare insurance companies. What I would like to see is a basic healthcare provider system, where physicians, nurses and technicians are salaried. Care and treatment plans would be based upon patients’ needs, rather than on the profit incentive to provide expensive, and sometimes unnecessary, scans and tests, or over-charging people for medications and incidental medical and hospital services.
Of course, private medical insurance will still be available for those who desire and can afford the best,or at least more costly, medical care and treatment.
Amen
MH