Bush administration fueling change for the worst in America

By Robyn Blumner
July 16, 2007

Who are we? asks filmmaker Michael Moore in the movie "Sicko." It is a question I have been asking myself lately.

Moore asks the existential question relative to the kind of society Americans have. Why don't we have a national health care system on a par with other Western democracies? Why do we allow private health insurers to insert a profit motive into denying necessary care to sick people? What is it about American culture that has tolerated and even defended this abolition of responsibility to one another?

This brought me to a larger puzzle: What is American culture? When I randomly ask people I know this question, "hot dogs" comes up with rather distressing frequency.

I think it is indisputable that this nation's greatness emanated from its cultural roots in the Enlightenment. We as a people have few outward characteristics in common, but we share a set of understandings that have largely liberated human beings to live up to their potential. This includes a fealty to reason, the rule of law, individual rights, popular sovereignty, the common good and equal opportunity. With these cornerstones, American society was built. Even as we amalgamated our cultural soup with every new wave of immigrants, we held on to those core understandings.

But these ideas almost sound quaint today. The Bush administration has done more damage to our national identity than any administration before it. You can't be a nation of equal justice when the president has eyes only for the fairness of process for loyalists like Scooter Libby. You can't have the rule of law when the vice president claims laws don't apply to him. You can't have a nation of reason when the government elevates faith and politics over fact and science. And you can't have equal opportunity or a common good when the rules are rigged to solidify ever larger gains for those at the top. Bush has substituted our Enlightenment values for his own: crass materialism (go shopping to show your love of country,) class privilege, anti-intellectualism, cronyism, religious zealotry and American exceptionalism.

Without leadership to express a conceptual vision of the best of who we are, we have moved from a nation of ideas to one of things. Creature comforts and entertainment products define American culture as much as our Constitution once did. McDonald's and Xboxes are our ambassadors. We had been drifting in this direction long before Bush came to office, but his personal and political instincts accelerated it.

This change in our national character can be laid at the feet of government. When large numbers of people suddenly feel left behind by an increasingly stratified economy, they start struggling to appear not to be among the losers. Accumulating things is one way to convince ourselves we're still ensconced in the middle class. A prize-winning book by Michael Adams on the growing differences in the values of Americans and Canadians says that Americans are becoming more self-involved, focusing on personal needs and their own survival in society rather than broader social values.

That shift is inevitable when your government no longer appears to be on your side.

Moore clues us in to how Americans have been scared off of single-payer health care, one of the government benefits that gives Canadians and Europeans great peace of mind. The medical establishment called it "socialized medicine," raising the specter of communism. Even cowboy actor Ronald Reagan was enlisted to paint it as anti-American. Its cousin, a plan for universal coverage offered during the Clinton years, was killed dead by Republicans in the service of entrenched interests.

Then Moore points to other "socialized" services that Americans have come to expect as a benefit of citizenship. Things like police and fire protection, public schools and libraries, the postal service. When we are victims of crime, we expect the government to help. Why not when we are victims of a heart attack?

Even in our romanticized past, America's go-it-alone spirit and limitless opportunity was built on the free land granted homesteaders by the government.

The original G.I. Bill helped put millions of returning veterans through college, even granting them a monthly stipend above tuition costs. When we think nostalgically of the mid-20th century, we're remembering a time when government was a partner of the middle class, protecting workers, providing an economic launching pad for success and demanding, through progressive taxation, a shared prosperity.

Who we are now is not who we were. American culture is barely definable anymore. The go-go 1980s somehow convinced us greed is good and a caring society is weak. Building on this, Bush's "ownership society" is really a "you're on your own society." It's disturbing, harmful and more than a little bit sicko.

• Blumner is a syndicated columnist. Send e-mail to blumner@sptimes.com.

If you approve of this sentiment, please send Ms. Blumner some appreciation. It is not often that I see something so salient and apt appearing in print.
Published in the Athens Banner-Herald on 07/17/07

Ms Robinson combines my love of cooking with my hatred of Right wing propaganda

-- by Sara

"The right wing has perfected the art of the great, fluffy, confectionary fantasy. They take one or two muddled factoids, add a generous gallon or two of their own scrambled preconceptions, whip it all up into an airy froth, then flash-bake in the heat of their rage until the thing inflates like a giant souffle -- which they then serve up to their media audience piping hot in the hopes that it will be completely consumed before it collapses.

The whole "lesbian gangs with pink pistols" silliness was a perfect example of this baker's art in action. At the remove of a few days, now that the whole thing has cooled into a sticky and embarrassing mess, I'd like to wind up our coverage of this with a look at the real-world facts that supported (and, ultimately, didn't support) Billoworld Baking's bizarre but fact-free confection of a story."

If this appetizer teases your palate and leaves you hungry for more, sample the rest here.

Finally, WaPo does Haircuts!

This is what I call some much needed investigative journalism. After all, there have been many obvious areas that one could investigate in the last few years, Plamegate, domestic wiretapping, Guantanamo, the missing $10 billion from the Iraq reconstruction budget, you know those pallets of cash they shipped to unknown parties, heck even most people would say the Katrina follow up isn't fully mined for tidbits of interest. But not at the WaPo! There it is all haircuts, all the time. As it should be....

Read it and weep!

Splitting Hairs, Edwards's Stylist Tells His Side of Story
Man Behind Pricey 'Dos Details Long Relationship
By John Solomon
Washington Post Staff Writer

At first, the haircuts were free. But because Torrenueva often had to fly somewhere on the campaign trail to meet his client, he began charging $300 to $500 for each cut, plus the cost of airfare and hotels when he had to travel outside California.

Torrenueva said one haircut during the 2004 presidential race cost $1,250 because he traveled to Atlanta and lost two days of work. ... if $400 seemed a lot for a haircut, how about one for three times that? {That's a good question, Post!}

The stylist said he has a vivid memory of the first time he met Edwards, in 2003.

The Beverly Hills hairstylist, a Democrat, said he hit it off with then-Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina at a meeting in Los Angeles ... Since then, Torrenueva has cut Edwards's hair at least 16 times. {The start of a long beautiful gay relationship perhaps?}

"He has nice hair," the stylist said of Edwards in an interview. "I try to make the man handsome, strong, more mature and these are the things, as an expert, that's what we do."
{It does take an expert to make a democrat seem handsome or strong, doesn't it?}

"I'm disappointed and I do feel bad. If I know someone, I'm not going to say I don't know them," he said. "When he called me 'that guy,' that hit my ears. It hurt." He paused and then added, "I still like him. . . . I don't want to hurt him." {"Oh Jon, how could you do this to me?" wept Torrenueva.}

It is some kind of commentary on the state of American politics that as Edwards has campaigned for president, vice president and now president again, his hair seems to have attracted as much attention as, say, his position on health care. {That's true. I wonder just what kind of commentary it is? Perhaps, a sad commentary.}

But wait, there is more...

Torrenueva agreed to meet Edwards at the Century Plaza hotel in Los Angeles along with several fashion experts.

"There was a woman, an award-winning clothes designer -- I think she works in film and onstage, too. She was there with her swatches with materials for colors of suits, ties and what we were doing there was discussing his look. I was there for hair. {Could that have been Naomi Klein?}

"What I did was, there was too much hair on top, always falling down, and it made him look too youthful. I took the top down and balanced everything out. He couldn't see it. But then we went into the bathroom. He looked in the mirror and said, 'I love this,' and that was it."

{There is then a chronicle of all the many heartbreaking trysts to "cut hair."}

And despite the best efforts of Edwards, his wife and their campaign aides, there's been an obvious political impact. With each punch line on late night TV his image as a self-styled populist making poverty his signature issue was further eroded.
{class traitor, anyone?}

Thank goodness, the Washington Post has the journalistic credibility to finally tackle this important issue.

Stop the presses! The Post cites Aristotle and Edmund Burke!

Dear Mr. Milbank,

I had to rush to tell you of the strangest thing that happened to me this morning as I was reading the Post. I was confronted by the following offensive paragraph:

"From Aristotle to Edmund Burke, philosophers have written of the healthy tension that normally exists between the understanding and strategies of leaders and the sentiments and opinions of their people."

Aristotle? Edmund Burke? Before you know it we will be up to our ears in those weirdos Abe Lincoln and Thomas Paine! But wait, where had I heard this before?

It sounded to me like that fat, pompous windbag Al Gore was reaching into his esoteric bag of erudite tricks once again. I braced myself to begin the flagellation when I was suddenly struck by a odd happenstance.

It wasn't Gore speaking, much to my shock and dismay, it was the Post's own David Broder! Yes, that's right, Dean Broder spoke the horrid erudite words. Surely, this must be some mistake? Does the Dean think he is now The Smartest Smarty Pants in the Room? Does he think he is as smart as Gore? The Guy Who Invented the Internets?

You may want to walk across the hall and tell David to stop sounding like a pompous windbag! Hurry, before it is too late! Once those strange strange people like Aristotle and Edmund Burke are invoked it is only a matter of time before Jurgen Halbermas descends to crush us all.

Eruditely yours,
V. Publius