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Memo to Snyder: Don’t stop the radical reforms now!Afghanistan: The Public Option
October 6th, 2009 | 
Author: 
Bob Franken
Defense Secretary Robert Gates obviously works very hard at being inscrutable. He is a definite adherent to the “Speak Softly and Carry a Big Stick” approach. So when he gently suggests in a speech that President Obama’s advisers should deliver their advice “candidly but privately” you can bet he’s swinging a club at General Stanley McChrystal.
Shut it.
McChrystal was anything but private with his insistence the U.S. needs to send thousands more troops into harm’s way on the treacherous Afghanistan battlefield he commands.
Now his boss is going public himself, putting his usual placid face on some candid advice he had to his general and his military colleagues who have also gone semi-defiantly public to spread the word they favor, as they so often do, emphasizing force before finesse, this time in Afghanistan.
The “advice” from Gates? Candidly? ”Shut the hell up. Remember who’s boss.” And Gates made it clear he was also speaking to the civilians at the administration’s top levels who were also seeing to it, their private counsel to the president was anything but private. Were you listening Vice President Biden? Biden, as we know, is opposing heavy troop commitments.
The question is should we know. Secretary Gates, who, by the way, grew up in the CIA, is obviously a secrecy kind of guy, from the school of those who believes openness interferes with making effective decisions about complicated high stakes policies.
But there is another way of looking at this. What about the proposition that in matters of life and death, which is what war is, those who might live or die, along with their families, have every right to know what goes into these fateful decisions? Actually all of us should monitor very closely and influence these deliberations. It’s called “Open Government”. A quaint concept.
Not only is that supposed to be our guiding principle, but it works better. We can look everywhere around us and see the mess all the closed decision making has left. Obviously, the veil of secrecy has obscured incompetence at the very least and left the United States lost on the road into Afghanistan, and more importantly, out.
This is not to say that bona fide operational and intelligence information should be revealed when doing so would jeopardize lives or national security. The rest, however, should be out there for all of us to see. The argument that advice cannot be “candid” unless it’s “private” usually means there’s something very wrong about the advice.
As for the contention that letting it all hang out will only mean that opportunistic political opponents can sabotage any initiatives, you don’t solve that by hiding. You fix that by exposing and replacing the shameless opportunists who put their ambitions over the good of the entire country.
It’s a shame that this even needs to be said: The public should know as much as possible about what goes into their leaders’ decisions. The last thing we need is an inscrutable government.
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A state based public insurance option is NOT!! a Public Option. Nor is it a Strong, National, Medicare like Public Option.
A majority of voters would rather have a Democrats only bill with a Public Option. Rather than a bipartisan bill without a Public Option.
ATTENTION!! Congress Has The Votes Needed To Pass A Public Option – TODAY http://bit.ly/TCq7O
Why A Strong Public Option Is Essential – By jacksmith – Working Class
Robert Reich explains the pubic option: http://bit.ly/dDYSJ http://robertreich.blogspot.com/
Hollywood Supports The Public Option
http://bit.ly/3XLwPi
It’s not just because more than two thirds of the American people want a single payer health care system. And if they cant have a single payer system 77% of all Americans want a strong government-run public option on day one (86% of democrats, 75% of independents, and 72% republicans). Basically everyone.
It’s not just because according to a new AARP POLL: 86 percent of seniors want universal healthcare security for All, including 93% of Democrats, 87% of Independents, and 78% of Republicans. With 79% of seniors supporting creating a new strong Government-run public option plan, available immediately. Including 89% of Democrats, 80% of Independents, and 61% of Republicans, STUNNING!!
It’s not just because it will lower cost. Because a strong public option will dramatically lower cost for everyone. And dramatically improved the quality of care everyone receives in America and around the World. Rich, middle class, and poor a like.
It’s not just because it will save trillions of dollars and prevent the needless deaths of millions more of YOU, caused by a rush to profit by the DISGRACEFUL, GREED DRIVEN, PRIVATE FOR PROFIT MEDICAL INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX!
It’s not just because every expert in every field, including economist, and Nobel laureates all agree that free market based healthcare systems don’t work. Never have and never will. The US has the only truly free market based healthcare system in the World. And as you all know now, IT IS A DISASTER!
It’s not just because providing or denying medically necessary care for profit motivations is wrong. Because it is WRONG! It’s professionally, ethically, and morally REPUGNANT!, Animalistic, VILE and EVIL.
THE REASON THE PUBLIC OPTION IS ESSENTIAL:
The public option is ESSENTIAL because over 200 million of you are trapped in the forest of the wolves. Which is the forest of the DISGRACEFUL, GREED DRIVEN, PRIVATE FOR PROFIT MEDICAL INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX! With no way out except through needless inhumane suffering, and DEATH. While the wolves tear at your flesh, and rip you limb from lib. Then feast on your lifeless bodies like a dead carcase for transplant parts.
At the most vulnerable times of your lives (when you were sick and hurting), millions of you have had to fight and loose cruel, but heroic battles. Fighting against the big guns of the DISGRACEFUL, GREED DRIVEN, PRIVATE FOR PROFIT MEDICAL INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX! in the forest of the wolves. All because you have no place else to go. You have no other CHOICE!
But the PUBLIC OPTION will give you someplace safe to go. And it will give us someplace safe to take you. The public option will be your refugium (your refuge). Where the wolves cannot get at you when your down, hurting, and vulnerable. Where everyone who needs it can find rest, security, comfort and the care they need. Protected by the BIG GUNS of We The People Of The United States. THE MOST POWERFUL PEOPLE AND COUNTRY ON EARTH.
This is why it is so critical that we do not lead another 50 million vulnerable, uninsured Americans into the forest of the wolves, without the protections of a Strong Government-run MEDICARE like public option. We The People Of The United States MUST NOT LET THAT HAPPEN to any more of our fellow Americans. If healthcare reform does not contain a strong MEDICARE like public option on day one. YOU MUST! KILL IT. Or you will do far more harm than good. And millions more will die needlessly. Rich, middle class, and poor a like.
To those who would continue to obstruct good and true healthcare reform for the American people, and who seek to trap millions more vulnerable Americans in the forest of the wolves. We will continue to fight you. We are prepared to wage all out war against you, and will eagerly DESTROY! you. Time…is…UP! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED! No Co-op’s! No Triggers! NO INDIVIDUAL MANDATES! without a Strong MEDICARE like public option on day one.
Healthcare reform can be the GREATEST! Accomplishment of our time and century. A time when future generations may say of us, that we were all, AMERICAS GREATEST GENERATIONS.
BUT WE MUST ACT!
I therefore call on all my fellow Americans and the peoples of the World. To join us in this fight so that we may finish becoming the better America that we aspire to be for everyone.
SPREAD THE WORD!
I have been privileged to be witness as many of you fought, and struggled to take your first breath, and your last breath on this earth. Rich, middle class, and poor a like. Life is precious.
Whatever the cost. WE! MUST SUCCEED.
God Bless You My Fellow Human Beings
jacksmith – Working Class
Things You Can Do To Help NOW! http://www.everydaycitizen.com/2009/09/tired_of_watching_people_die_n.html
No Triggers! http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jason-rosenbaum/a-trigger-for-the-public_b_277910.html
Triggers http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-sirota/weve-seen-these-triggers_b_283583.html
Krugman on heathcare (http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/25/why-markets-cant-cure-healthcare/)
Senator Bernie Sanders on healthcare (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSM8t_cLZgk&feature=player_embedded)
John Garamendi on the Public Option and the Grassroots: http://bit.ly/TJMty
Howard Dean on the Public Option http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SKfW2dUnow&feature=player_embedded
We’re Number 37! in quality of health care http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVgOl3cETb4&feature=player_embedded
Twitter search (#welovethenhs #NHS #hc09 #hcr #healthcar #obama #p2 #topprog #) Check it out.