Well…read ole Georges op-ed in the newspaper this morning and I just had to laugh at his rantings against the political power that he feels is too concentrated in the executive branch….I can trump this by just one question…where the hell were you, George, when your buddy GW was growing the executive branches power more than any president in modern history. And, George, you decry this growing power now, but where were you when ole GW was using “signing statements” to reserve to the executive branch the power to ignore congress and the laws it has passed? It is just another instance of “it’s okay if it’s our guy”, but if the opposition is in control, they are going to take over the country by executive fiat. Such a disingenuous take that I think you should be ashamed, George.
The second part of this one is his assertion that “American exceptionalism is obnoxious to progressives”, no, George, I have never met or heard a progressive say that America is not exceptional…but what progressives do is live that exceptionalism…who try to make this a better country for those who don’t have money or power; to use the power inherent in this country to truly become exceptional..not last in the industrialized world in access to affordable healthcare…or in the access and affordability of higher education. What the right does, aided by shills like George, is to thump their chests just like the fratboy jocks they are and dance around shouting “we’re number one!” when it’s not true…geez…
Well…the latest shot in the culture wars was fired by the repubs this week when they rolled out the new talking point that deals with “American Exceptionalism” and their contention that Obama doesn’t get the fact that the US is the most exceptional country on the planet, and it is only the Dems with their liberal ideas that don’t accept the fact. Really? You have got to be kidding me….let’s take the issue of healthcare to start: I know you’ve heard the repub shills for the insurance and medical industry opine that we have the best healthcare of any country in the world when it’s really not true or only true for the folks that have the best insurance. Not for the 50 million of us that have no insurance and can’t afford it….and let’s add the fact that healthcare expenses in the US are twice what they are in other developed countries..owing to the fact that insurance companies leech away profits that should be used for patient care…the only exceptional part of this equation is the exceptional way the medical/insurance industry have bought the repubs to do their bidding.
Then, let’s look at the income disparity that has exploded with the 8 years of the repubs under Bush but that started under Saint Ronald of Reagan…back when the top 2% only had about 9 percent of the country’s income but has steadily risen to today where we see that the rich only continue to get richer while the middle class part of the economy stagnates…to the tune of the top 2% now have over 25% of the economy’s benefits with the average CEO’s salary ballooning from 10 times the average worker’s salary to over 500 times the average…now, that is exceptional for the rich, but the rest of us have been left behind.
The last point that I want to make is just about the idea of America; that we were the moral arbiters of the world and we were different because of our system of governance was self-correcting and dedicated to the ideals that founded this nation that included the abhorrence of the basest instincts of humans as evidenced in the killings and torture that were rampant in the rest of the world. But, then that changed under the Bushies…what is exceptional about abandoning our ideals for expediency? Now, I don’t want to gloss over the real tragedies that have been a part of the American experience…and I do feel that the US is exceptional when the governance rises to the needs of the people and puts them first…but when the repubs and their allies put their own and businesses needs above that of the people, that is not exceptional…that is just another wedge issue that these guys are cynically using to drive this country further down the wrong path. Geez…
What you never want to be….