Well written. Being myself an Austrian (not only by economic affiliation) with ties to the USA I just today contemplated that in a way Obama will do much more damage to the American reputation than Bush (2) ever could.
Bush could be seen as an anomaly. He was not elected by a majority of the American people for his first turn, and even if everybody shook their head about the obvious oilgrab in the Iraq based on blatant lies, people could somehow understand that you don't change an administration amidst a war.
Obama was seen as a return of the USA that was always admired by many if not most people in Europe.
Like someone coming to their senses after a violent fit, Europe was ready to embrace an America that put effort in preserving and spreading civil rights, peace and democracy with means that did not involve letting countries descend in mayhem that bloody dictators would envy.
Then
- he did not shut down Guantanamo (and he could have done it if he had acted fast and spent time to convince his party)
- he did not Veto a continuation of the Patriot Act
- he let his administration spy on the press to an unprecedented extent
- he defends spying on everybody outside or with ties to outside the country
If this is the rational, the civilized America, then we are in deep trouble.
I'd love to hear some statements from the Norwegian Peace Prize Committee, who in a fit of Obama euphoria gave him the prize during his first presidency.
In my estimation, the award was not given in a fit of Obama euphoria as much as it was awarded in celebration of the removal of George Bush.
I have heard it claimed that the committee's choice of Carter and Gore as recipients were more criticism of Bush than they were in response to those efforts, but I do not believe that argument holds. Many of the recipients from the first eight years of this century were very much deserving.
While I agree in essence with your characterization of the job done by Obama, I do want to point out (again) that it will take quite some advances in physics before we're able to locate the parallel universe where Obama may have been able to shut down the prison at Gitmo.
I think it's hard to imagine the sheer and total resistance to shutting down that prison if you haven't been in the country to see it yourself. I still don't understand the reasoning to this day. But there was never a chance, with the Congresses Obama was handed with, that the prison would be completely shut down.
I don't know whether it's a bunch of representatives attempting to look 'Tough on Terror' or what... but you have to pin Guantanamo on the people as a whole.
But there was never a chance, with the Congresses Obama was handed with, that the prison would be completely shut down.
You've added a critical word there with "completely".
Congress blocked Obama from bringing Guantanamo inmates to the US for imprisonment or trial. But 86 of the 166 inmates are never going to be tried. They're already cleared for immediate release. Everyone (CIA, DoD) has agreed to this. Obama has the power to release them with the stroke of a pen, and the State Dept. apparently has a plan to do it and is just waiting for the go-ahead. So while Obama may not have the power to close Guantanamo completely, he does have the power to free more than half of the prisoners there, the ones who are not accused of anything. Yet there they stay, for no discernable (other than political) reasons.
Pinning the blame on Congress has worked for Obama politically, but if it's true that he's the one keeping more than half of the prisoners there, and with weaker justification since they are the ones unanimously agreed to be innocent, then it seems fair to say that Obama is more at fault than Congress is.
In that case, given that the United States government forcibly removed them from where they were beforehand, it would make sense that the United States hosts them if they can't go home. After all, many of them have been there long enough to potentially qualify for US citizenship.
The problem is that not only have a lot of them been there long enough to qualify for US citizenship, but they've experienced enough torture and fundamental violation of their human rights that they also qualify as avid haters of America and its citizens.
So the US has created a monster, and is not willing to let that monster live in its neighborhood, and nobody else wants it either, so .. there they stay.
Don't worry though, a lot of the Gitmo detainees know the situation is dire, and thus: the hunger strike. For some of them, death will be the only escape.
A sincere apology, along with providing counselling, free housing and a stable pension to take care of their living expenses - would go a long way.
Also, hatred grows exponentially, with each day they spend in prison and is multiplied by the international audience that's watching the story unfold. If you fear their hatred, the most rational thing to do is to release them and package their misfortune in tale with a happy ending.
Not doing that will lead to even more hatred and even bigger monsters.
> The problem is that not only have a lot of them been there long enough to qualify for US citizenship, but they've experienced enough torture and fundamental violation of their human rights that they also qualify as avid haters of America and its citizens.
I think that's quite an assumption to make. There's no doubt that the prisoners will have sustained serious injuries to their mental and physical health, but that's the job of the US government to address. The right thing to do is to move them to a mainland facility, give them treatment for the problems they have and release them as and when they're ready to enter society. If they then choose to sue the government that's their choice and the US government should suck it up.
This needs to be so painful for the US government to deal with that it never happens again.
And yet, to add insult to multiple injuries, they are not even allowed to die. They are force-fed. If nothing else can be done, they should be allowed to starve themselves to death if that's their wish. I wonder if Boehner, Limbaugh, etc. would be ok with that.
The interview I cited didn't say where, explicitly; what he said was that arrangements had been made by the State Department and it was the White House holding things back.
I'd like to know the answer to your question too, but I'm hesitant to accept the "there's nowhere to send them" meme, which one hears often, without something to distinguish it as fact rather than propaganda. For example, another often-repeated meme, "these are the worst of the worst", is apparently entirely untrue in these 86 cases. (Even the half dozen prisoners who have actually been tried were apparently mostly just cooks and drivers and such.)
Portugal has offered to take detainees (2), http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/europe/08/07/portugal.syri... and I believe other countries have also offered. I am not sure whether this already has taken place or whether it relates to the individuals still in captivity.
Just release them. Since the US was the country which arrested them in the first place, interrupted their lives and kept them for 11 years without a trial, at least the US could grant them residence permit. Sure, there might be a terrorist or 10 among the 500 detainees left but no real court would ever be able to convict them after a decade of torture and other human rights abuses. Also, since the US already has state-of-the-art surveillance in place they would be able to keep an eye on these guys in the future ;-)
I disagree. Obama had a lot of oppertunity here, but more importantly he never intended to actually stop indefinite detention. Rather than go through all the reasons here I'll just point out one of many articles that debunks this reasoning-
I rather see him publicly try and fail, than not try. To stand up there and point out how he did as much as is constitutionally possible, and point out the representatives who prevented it from happening. ie the fault of gitmo not closing should be clear and not rest with him.
So a person can just make empty promises on a campaign, get elected and do a bunch of crap people disagree with via executive order, and then blame all the stuff he didn't do on Congress?
edit: And yes, informed voters should know what the President can and can not reasonably promise, but I would hope that presidential candidates would actually have the integrity to not intentionally mislead people, and that a person who promises to close Gitmo would at least be more outspoken about his desire to do so.
The way people discuss oil prices in popular media makes it abundantly clear that they have no damn idea what they're talking about.
Oil is a global commodity. It goes to the highest bidder. It will always go to the highest bidder, because if it went to anyone else that person who values it at less than the highest bidder values it would have the incentive to sell it to the highest bidder. The way that oil plays out in wars and politics is not a matter of who gets the oil, it's a matter of how much oil is released onto the market. This is why anyone who complains about things like the U.S. exporting oil to other countries amidst high gas prices is an idiot.
So now let's talk about Iraq. How much oil did the U.S. get from Iraq? It turns out not very much because Iraq is now selling a huge amount of its oil to China. But guess what that means: Now China can satisfy its demand for X barrels of oil from Iraq and doesn't have to get it from Venezuela or Russia or Saudi Arabia or the U.S., which means the U.S. can get that oil which China didn't need to buy. Because it's a global commodity.
The real question you have to ask is whether the amount of oil Iraq is currently releasing onto the global market is more or less than it would have been under Saddam. But determining that requires quite a lot of speculation, and it isn't even clear that lower short term global oil prices are even in the interest of the United States.
"...Oil fields contracted include the "super-giant" Majnoon Field, Halfaya Field, West Qurna Field and Rumaila Field." [1]
If you look up each of those fields, you'll see they are licensed to Shell, BP, and Exxon [2] [3] [4] [5]
Given all of those companies have a strong presence in the US and definitely have lobbying power. I'd say the US got effective control over one of the largest oil reserves in the world.
- West Qurna: ExxonMobil, Shell, Lukoil, Statoil, Eni SpA, CNPC, Petronas
- Rumalia: BP, CNPC
- Majnoon: Shell, Petronas
Of all these, only ExxonMobil is an American company. Shell and BP are not American, regardless of the presence, unless you want to call Exxon a British or a Dutch company as well.
But more importantly, all these contracts were awarded on a competitive basis, with a bidding process. Especially telling is an entry for Rumalia field: "ExxonMobil which also bid on servicing this field at a price $4.80 walked away due to price cutting terms by the Iraqi Government leaving BP and CNPC as winners of the contract.".
You don't have to be an American company to benefit from American policy. And I'm sure congressmen benefit from the "non-american" oil companies.
The question I would like to know the answer to, is who was drilling the oil before the war... it seems unclear, but if it was Iraq (national companies) then the war was defiantly an oil grab.
I doubt CNPC, Lukoil, Petronas, Statoil, and others were in collusion with the Bush administration to invade Iraq and gain control over its oil by competitively outbidding each other in the end.
I'm half Dutch/German and i fully agree with the view of the author and the article.
However, i believe one important piece of information is missing from most articles i read about this topic;
Obviously it is much harder to create/restore something than it is to break something. In my opinion Bush made a big mess and Obama is doing a great job turning the whole thing around and leading the Americans in the right direction.
There is only so much one person can do, and besides that, change should always happen slowly to prevent instability.
We forget that the reason all of this was possible in the first place are obviously the American people itself; For example why on earth did they vote for George Bush the second time...
From my point of view, the Americans have some kind of unrational fear of terrorists and choose to give up all privacy because they believed it would give them more security. Instead, it gave them another terrorist: the NSA.
Hopefully they will learn from their mistakes and continue in the right direction. I believe Obama started of good and hope he will continue to do so.
Do you somehow not realize that most of these policies (e.g. NSA) were expanded by Obama? Are you really so enraptured by a deep film voice? Name 5 positive things Obama did that "continue in the right direction".
Europe (alongside EVERY nation that has a respectably digital-ready
telecommunications network) spies on it's peoples.
It's almost a mark of a nation's jetting into the trillion dollar club.
America gets the lion share of the criticism because it has been
bestowed on - for better or worse owing to its capacity for taking
human toll (of its own citizenry) - the uneasy office of the
global police order.
European critics should ask themselves which country constitutes the
majority of NATO's standing forces.
Is it Spain? Germany? Scotland? France? Italy?
You can have your say when your countrymen submit themselves in
(proportionally) larger numbers.
I have no idea what the NATO has to do with it. As an Austrian, NATO was never there to protect us.
Your argument is at best ignorant, and at worst willfully distracting from the cause.
America was admired for setting an example as a great nation where people can live freely. The policing activities after WW2 (for which Europe has to be thankful) were mostly ill conceived (with the low points being Vitnam and Iraq).
As an Austrian, NATO was never there to protect us.
America was admired for setting an example as a
great nation where people can live freely.
What, in the civilized lands of Stiegl, has ever threatened the free
movement and assembly of people, at least since the downfall of the
Austro-Hungarian empire?
And what has prevented Austrians from immigrating to the shores of
America, like the Germans, Swedes and the Dutch?
I'd really like to know.
(Very trace amounts of sarcasm deposited in this response.)
What has NATO got to do with it? We (Austria) don't want to be part of the global police, nor do we need one.
And we can have our say without beeing part of NATO.
This is about spying on your partners, including high ranking officials, torture, secret laws and courts, extralegal executions, and a general degeneration of U.S. policies towards authoritarianism, which we have been witnessing for almost a decade now.
Do you really have a say? Austria was not allowed to join any global police (NATO or Warsaw Pact). I.e. it got in independence in 1955 only after promises of neutrality.
The US standing military is for defending the US empire and has nothing to do with NATO. NATO's task was never to be a global police. That's a task some US politicians selected for the US. We've seen how that works.
Have an up-vote! I came to the comments to place this link. The level of detail is incredible and scary. Combine this with the actual content of the mails, social media, search queries and you have basically injected yourself into the mind of people.
As Germans feign outrage for the actions of the Five Eyes, specifically the UK and America, they rubber stamp the same style laws that amusingly, went into effect very recently:
Well the German supreme court declared these laws partly unconstitutional. In Austria the supreme court has still to decide.
Of course these laws should be abolished.
But these cases show an important difference: These laws while outrageous, were created transparently and published.
This enabled citizens to take actions against them, and hopefully at some point they will be abolished.
In the case of the NSA everything was covered by gag orders under the penalty of committing a felony. That is way more insidious.
And those laws were debated by Germans, about how much they should know about each other. If they had all truly decided that everyone should be open, and that they could vote it away later, then everything's good.
Having Americans spy on everyday Germans, that's completely different.
It's one thing for an American on the street to see a German and size him up to see if he's a threat. Does he have a weapon, is he of sound mind, etc. It's completely another to follow him home, peek through the windows, poke through his phone, computer, trash, and then say you're only defending yourself and that everyone does it. The level of intrusion is unreasonable.
The laws underlying those gag orders are also public, transparent, debated beforehand, etc.
The principle of the gag order comes from the implementation of the law. Obviously the public law itself allows gag orders, otherwise Google's lawyers would tell Google to go ahead and publish them. Gag orders have been around in America, at all levels of law enforcement and security, since waaaaay before all this.
The big defect is allowing long-duration (or even permanent) gag orders, and not just for the NSA-style stuff. There's been quite a few court cases where parties settle on something which is public-interest but the judge seals the whole damn case forever.
Yup. All this outrage is fabricated. This isn't country versus country. This is people versus the State, and the people have already lost. The german government is doing what it must to fool the people, yet again, into thinking their governments are representative.
Bread and circuses are far cheaper today than in ancient Rome. It doesn't take much.
This law didn't get rubber stamped. The first time the government passed the law, it was declared unconstitutional by the german Supreme Court, after Patrick Beyer, a member of the Pirate Party challenged it in court.
Now the government tries to change certain parts to pass it again. Patrick Beyer said he will challenge it again and chances are pretty good, that it will be declared unconstitutional again.
The author is part of the Green party directly fighting the law you mentioned. Also if you cannot see the difference between the law Germany passed and what the US is doing with PRISM, you seem to be on the wrong website ;)
You think the German intelligence bugs embassies of other countries (and the UNO ??) and has secret deals wiht Google, Apple etc.?? I highly doubt it, the ramifications would be too high in case it became public.
Anyhow, we are discussing US right now ... not Germany. (Check what ad hominem means :)
This is why, in this age of mass media and constant opinion, perception is the only thing that matters. The NSA has been doing this for years and other countries have too. Everyone suspected it, backhandedly inferred it. Now the outrage happens when the media takes him as a dark horse. It's unfortunate, but unless you're a scientist, that's the system we live in.
Given the eight years of the Bush administration Europe was as desperate for change as the American left and I think this accounts for most of the initial excitement about him. In hindsight this may seem foolish, but looking back I can remember exactly how great the divide was (not that it seems to be getting any better).
The standout quote for me is on the second page: "When courts and judges negotiate secretly, when direct data transfers occur without limits, when huge data storage rather than targeted pursuit of individuals becomes the norm, all sense of proportionality and accountability is lost." This sums up the current situation quite nicely. Absolute power always corrupts absolutely. Always.
Highlight from the article: The guy published [1] the meta-data T-Mobile collected from his phone as a practical example of the information that can be extracted from it.
I have to admit I was never a fan of Obama and didn't understand those who trusted his promises as a candidate. Every candidate makes promises they rarely keep, but Obama was well known for the level of change he claimed he would bring. None of this administration's scandals have surprised me.
Once my (bright, Valedictorian,
PBK, 'Summa Cum Laude', Woodrow Wilson,
NSF, Ph.D.) wife gave me a question:
We were running a little consulting
company, and one of our clients was
from a wealthy family. My wife
asked me about that client,
"What has he actually done himself?"
that is, that he didn't mostly get
just handed to him from his position
in the wealth and power of his family?
That was a good question. Prescient. Indeed,
when he started making decisions really
on his own, he made just awful decisions
and lost again and again, in total a bundle,
a big fraction of
his share of the family's wealth.
Not unexpected: The great American
novel is rags to rags in three
generations!
Okay, look at Ohama: What has he actually
done besides have several smart and/or
wealthy people help him ride a wave
to get elected?
From what I can see, generally his approach
is when there is an issue in the news, have his writers
formulate some cliches on the issue,
mouth the cliches, and then do
nothing or nothing significant
and wait until the MSM, etc. forget
about the issue.
In one step more detail, he has
in mind a coalition -- that's one
role of a politician, to form a
winning coalition. So, e.g., one
of the groups he wants in his
coalition are the greenies.
So, back early in 2008 he gave
an interview with the San Francisco
Chronicle where he said that his
idea was to have carbon "cap and
trade" and slowly "ratchet up"
the standards until the coal fired
electric generating plants were
"bankrupt". When I read that, I
went into orbit somewhere in the
outer planets before returning to
earth. Why? Easy enough to find in
Department of Energy reports
was that then 49% of all of our
electric power and, as I recall,
23% of all our energy was coming
from coal. So, in simple, stark
terms, his "bankrupt", taken literally,
would do more damage to the US
economy than Hitler, Stalin, and Mao
ever hoped. And Obama admitted
the effect, that electric rates
would "skyrocket".
But eventually I understood that I
had gotten all excited over next
to nothing: Yes, apparently some
old coal fired plants have been
shut down -- a good report would
be of interest but I don't have
a reference to one. But electric
rates have not gone up like
a "skyrocket". I doubt
that the coal plant shutdowns
have amounted to much.
Indeed, Buffett recently
bought Burlington Northern
Railroad which is big in
hauling coal to coal plants.
So, no doubt Buffett took
Obama's SF Chronicle interview
as, to quote the movie All the
President's Men, "total BS".
So, what the heck did he do?
Well, he got some greenies all
happy for a while and likely
got some political donations.
With the happy greenies, he got
freedom to aim some of the
TARP II and stimulus money
(supposedly $92 billion
and later another $45 billion) to
green projects that
likely resulted in some
political power and campaign
donations.
Big, huge waste, right? Well,
yes, but maybe not totally useless:
Heck in WWII we got
out of The Great Depression
in about 90 days by pouring money
into guns and bullets that
were junk by 1945 (suddenly
had 1-3 jobs for everyone
who could work, women included,
especially if they could learn to
use a rivet gun).
So, maybe pouring $92 billion
plus $45 billion into projects
that might, unfortunately, be just junk soon
enough might help get the economy
going, e.g., as that money soon gets
spent for the usual things --
food, clothing, shelter,
transportation, medical care,
education, .... Or, it was like
the helicopter solution --
fly over the US and drop money
until the economy is going again.
Maybe the greenies
are less than 20% of the population.
So, what about the 80+% of the
population not greenies who don't
want to see 49% of our electric
utility industry destroyed?
Well, apparently that 80+%
just didn't pay attention to
the Obama greenie remarks and
otherwise didn't take him
seriously. And one step
more, as soon as shutting down
our electric power started
to pinch, people would scream
bloody murder and the situation
would be turned around.
So, net, curiously, the 20-% get all
excited and contribute to a coalition
long enough to win an election;
the 80+% mostly pay no attention;
and soon enough everyone forgets about the
issue.
So, can build a coalition, say, long
enough to get elected: (1) Pick a list
of controversial issues and, for each, pick
a small group of highly concerned
citizens. (2) In some speeches, feed each group some
radical raw meat cliches that they will really
like. (3) In reality, do next to nothing or nothing
on the cliches. (4) Let time pass, new issues
dominate the news, and the old issues
fade into the background.
Then what about the real work? (1) Wait
until others propose solutions.
(2) Wait until some such solutions
get some traction. (3a) If the solution
is really popular in the country, then
support it. (3b) If the solution
is just to be implemented in the
Executive Branch, then let it
but don't publicly support it;
if the solution flops, blame
the lower level people who implemented
it; if the solution is successful,
take credit.
But, mostly don't actually have a
vision and push it and bet own
political capital on it.
If Obama has a vision, then my guess
is that he just wants as much more
money and power in DC as he can
bring there so that DC can
take the US by the horns and
lead it somewhere, say, to
social justice. Otherwise
he gets time to work on his
golf game and jump shot.
What's wrong? He's not really leading.
He's not really out in front
with solutions. He mostly is just
letting things happen from others
and avoiding being close enough
to get blamed. So, there's not
much coordination.
Mostly he's avoiding
blame.
Why don't people notice what he's
doing? Because things, especially
the economy and wars, are not bad
enough for people to be
interrupting the rest of their
lives to raise hell insisting
on something better. And,
people do pay a lot of attention to the
MSM, and the MSM has a very
short attention span.
E.g., for the Benghazi controversy?
The NSA controversy pushed that
out of the headlines. For the
NSA controversy? Issue cliches
and otherwise let Clapper, General
Alexander, and Biden
meet the public. For Snowden,
mostly just f'get about him.
Back to the golf game and jump shot.
Or, "How to be President without
Really Trying". Works as long
as the voters put up with it
and there's no crisis that
demands more.
Crisis? What about hurricane Sandy? As at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Sandy
"Hurricane Sandy was the deadliest and most destructive hurricane of the 2012 Atlantic hurricane season, as well as the second-costliest hurricane in United States history."
So, with hurricane Katrina, W got
excoriated, eviscerated, drawn, quartered,
etc. With hurricane Sandy
Governor Christie got some publicity,
Mayor Bloomberg was busy,
but Obama got no blame. Cute.
Yeah, for instance the biggest overhaul of the healthcare system (Obamacare) happened without really trying. Imagine what he would have done if he was in office not playing golf. Also, looks like you are a time traveller from October 2012. So a flashback for you
> Yeah, for instance the biggest overhaul of the healthcare system (Obamacare) happened without really trying.
I was watching during the selling before
the voting for Obamacare, and I concluded
that Obama did next to nothing.
What did happen?
The Dems had both houses of Congress. Senator
Kennedy had long had a team working on healthcare
overhaul and had a plan on the shelf. That plan
got pulled off the shelf, modified, and then
rammed through, e.g., by Pelosi, Reid,
and Emanuel.
For Obama, when he
went to a town hall
to support the bill, he made some remarks
about the costs of an amputation, got his
facts badly wrong, got slapped down by
the American College of Surgeons for
saying things that were "uninformed,
misinformed, just plain wrong, dangerous"
http://www.facs.org/news/obama081209.html
Then Obama essentially quit efforts at public support
of Obamacare.
When a team of Republicans
went to the White House to try to draft
a better bill, Obama was not really
engaged.
Obama signed Obamacare, but he had next
to nothing to do with getting it passed.
Obama didn't have to work to get Obamacare
passed: Kennedy's old plan,
Pelosi, Reid, Emanuel, and
the Dem majority were enough.
That's just the way it was.
It is different, very different. Obama
avoids blame. He's terrific at avoiding
blame. E.g., at Harvard Law, he was
editor of the Law Review but didn't
write anything so never got criticized
for writing anything. In the Illinois
Senate, he voted "present" some huge
number of times and, again, avoided
any blame.
Reagan? He got blamed for Iran-Contra.
Obama's not getting blamed for
NSA, Snowden, Benghazi, Morsi,
Syria, etc.
Obama is uniquely good at avoiding
blame.
Also Obama is uniquely good at pulling
together a coalition with the technique
I described.
Obama managed to avoid any significant
role or blame for the response to
hurricane Sandy. W seemed to be involved in
responding to
Katrina and then took everything that went wrong
in the neck.
I like the remark in the movie Hunt for
Red October: "I'm a politician which
means that I'm a liar and a cheat
and when I'm not kissing babies I'm
stealing their lollypops. But it also
means I keep my options open.". In other
words, avoid taking a public position.
If a president has a vision or program
he feels strongly about, then he will
do all he can to push it, expend his
political capital, and maybe get something
done. But another approach is just to
step back and keep fingerprints off
things that might not work. In Obama's
case, it also helps, maybe has been crucial,
that long the MSM was on his side.
There is one point to his credit, and this seems to actually be his one and only priority:
The Affordable Care Act.
He realy stuck his neck out for this. And I think it is a laudable effort.
If Obamacare really is better for US health care and
patients, both soon and long term, and not wildly
more expensive, then fine with me.
I don't know how much Obama's for Obamacare: He has
made lots of supportive comments, but he also
claims to want to shut down the coal plants. He's
going to do next to nothing on the second, so maybe
on the first he's just spouting stuff. From his
remarks that the American College of Surgeons shot
down, I doubt that Obama really knows enough about
US health care to like Obamacare very much.
For Obama "stuck his neck out", I don't see it. The
bill passed due to the Dem majority in both houses
of Congress and the pushing of Pelosi, Reid, and
Emanuel, and from all I can tell Obama had little to
do with it. Now that the bill is law, he can praise
it.
As Obamacare, Obama's name got attached to the
bill and the effort, but that was mostly just
politics by people who don't like either Obama or
the bill and similar to what was done with Hillary
care because it was obvious that we shouldn't trust
our health care system to Hillary. And nearly no
one would really want to trust their health care to
anything designed or implemented by Obama.
On the act itself, no doubt US health care could be
improved. Just how to do that is a serious
question. There is the academic health care
systems analysis economic optimization planning
community with Karen Davis, etc., but I've been too
close to such academics and wouldn't trust them to
hand me a band aid. Maybe what Switzerland,
Singapore, Sweden have is better. It appears that
lots of people complain about what England and
Canada have.
I was for improving the US health care system, but
when I saw the sausage making that resulted in
Obamacare, I concluded that the hard work of
designing a better system had not been done. E.g.,
I saw that what was proposed had been taken off the
shelf from some work by Senator Kennedy's health
care planning staff. Kennedy was dreaming; such
dreams are a good way to kill patients and waste
money.
My fear is that as Obamacare goes into
implementation, it will seriously hurt US health
care and millions of patients -- some soon, much
more later. And as the IRS goes around plucking
money from checking accounts, people might get
torqued.
Pelosi's remark "got to pass it to see what's in it"
may have a point: It may be that heavily what the
implementation is will be from regulations written
by rows, columns, and layers of paper pushers in
some big building about 70 miles from the Washington
Monument.
So, Obamacare will be implemented slowly. Maybe as
problems become obvious and people scream, the paper
pushers will modify the system. I hope so. Due to
the slow implementation, there will be some time to
modify the system as it is implemented.
Here is some of what I suspect will happen. In the
short term, people won't like the changes if only
because they are changes. Then people will really
not like the role of the IRS. In the long term, I
suspect that a lot of the best people and companies
will leave health care and, then, quality will fall.
Getting the quality back will be super tough. I
suspect that the flow of new, advanced, powerful
biomedical products -- drugs, devices -- will
greatly slow. I believe that a lot of seniors will
get much worst medical care. The Palin image of
"death panels" is not really wrong.
US health care is a patchwork system pulled together
piece by piece over nearly all the decades of modern
medicine. In some ways, the system works great,
likely the best in the world. In some other ways,
it's not very good. So, improvements are possible.
But improvements are not going to be easy, that is,
without damaging a lot that is good or spending too
much money.
My fear of Obamacare is that it was mostly just a
political football and from nothing like a serious
effort to design a better system. Instead, the
political part was, really, just the Kennedy dream,
a dream of 'good health care as a basic right for
everyone' or some such essentially socialistic
notion. Pelosi? She wants more socialism from a
bigger government. With Obamacare she was as happy
as the lead high school cheerleader just named
Homecoming Queen. The political part is that Pelosi
took the old Kennedy dream and pushed it through,
that is, pushed through that the US is on the way to
socialized medicine. So, in the US socialized
medicine is now a fact that will be difficult to
change.
That's what Pelosi wanted -- the principle of
socialized medicine, that the Federal Government is
directly responsible for the health care of everyone.
Just what the details will be and how it will work,
Pelosi didn't care. Instead she will let the
Executive Branch iron out any winkles and have
Congress modify the law in places if necessary. But
what she wants is socialized medicine; she's
confident it will be better. So, again, especially
to Pelosi, Obamacare was politics, that is,
socialized medicine, socialism, having the central
government directly responsible for each person's
health care, and not really about how to design a
better health care system. Good, bad, or otherwise,
Pelosi wants socialized medicine and just trusts
that it will be good.
Socialism keeps being attractive; has been around
the world for about 100 years. Some of the
attractions are that everyone gets together, joins
hands, sings Kumbayah, and sets up the central
government as responsible for some aspect of their
financial, material, etc. security. They assume
that, with everyone joined together, the idea can't
fail. So, no more rich people, no more poor people,
everyone just the same and good. The sales pitch
has worked off and on seriously for about 100 years.
That's what Pelosi wants -- socialism. She's a true
believer.
Mostly people who try socialism find that it's
darned expensive -- have the central government
spending ballpark 50% of GDP and doing the spending
as politics and, thus, inefficiently. The
Thatcher remark was "The problem with socialism is
that eventually you run out of other people's
money". In the USSR the workers concluded "They
pretend to pay us, and we pretend to work.". Russia
finally totally gave up and went back to a wild west
show. East Germany got rid of socialism ASAP.
France keeps struggling with high costs, slow
economic growth, high unemployment.
Switzerland? It's wealthy with a lot of healthy
people. So, they have a shot at pulling off
socialized medicine. The Scandinavian countries?
They are big into socialism and are accepting their
central government spending ballpark 50% of GDP.
Also the countries are small and culturally
homogeneous, and where they are not so homogeneous
recently they have been encountering big problems.
In the end I believe that you will discover that
Obamacare is really not about health care, really is
a threat to good US health care, and really was and
is about politics, in particular, some of the dreams
of socialism.
One of the dreams of socialism is a basic income for
everyone with an opportunity for more for anyone who
wants to work for more. Fine with me except for one
little point -- arithmetic. So far in the US, it
doesn't add up. That is, productivity is not high
enough. Instead, it is still the case that for the
productivity the US needs to keep the cars moving
and the store shelves stocked, the hospitals and
schools working, the software written and the Web
sites up, etc., some people have to work darned hard
and with the "basic income" provided wouldn't. So,
we still need the motivation of free enterprise.
Hopefully with more robots we will have enough
productivity to make the arithmetic work.
I believe that, as health care, Obamacare gets a
grade of D- for its design work, that it really is
not about health care but is about politics, really a
socialistic dream of Pelosi; I believe that
socialism won't work yet in the US, and the
Obamacare, due heavily to its bad design work, will
both in the short term and especially in the longer
term seriously hurt US health care. My prediction is
that as people scream, Obamacare will just get
repealed. For Obama, he will likely be out of
office then!
Reagan? Now I remember some of what
he pushed with his political capital:
He called the Soviet Union an "evil empire"
and stood at the wall in Germany and said
"Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.".
Then he pushed 'Star Wars' hard,
had Ed Teller in the Oval Office
explaining nuclear powered, orbiting
X-ray lasers, etc.
During his campaigning and his many
rubber chicken talks for GE, he kept
saying how important it was to have
a balanced budget, but in office he
told Stockman to "spend". And he
spent big time on the US military.
So, we got a lot of Abrams M-1 tanks.
Leaders in the aviation parts of the
US military were expected to fly
and got their personal plane to
fly, e.g., an F-16. When
Reagan negotiated with Gorbachev
in Iceland, Reagan would not
give up on 'Star Wars' --
he was pushing hard.
The difference is, Reagan had an
agenda and used his political
capital to push things. It's not
clear what political agenda
Obama has, beyond making the
Federal Government bigger and richer
to enable more on social justice,
and he essentially
never pushes anything.
During the Reagan Admin,
my wife and I were doing some
consulting, and there was an
issue in healthcare: The previous
administration figured that if
reduce the number of hospital beds,
then will reduce the cost to the
Federal Government for healthcare.
So in each US county, etc., there
got to be fights, with lawyers,
for the available
number of beds. I was involved
as an expert witness on the statistics
of how many beds were needed.
Then Reagan came into office and
right away cut out the group
trying to regulate the number of
beds; that was just part of
Reagan wanting smaller government.
Yup, I lost that part of my consulting business!
Maybe one likes Obama better or
Reagan better, but there are
differences!
The best the Federal Government
does is terrific stuff --
NSF, NIH, DARPA, TVA, FAA,
FDA. Otherwise
I figure that any money the Federal
Government doesn't spend it doesn't
waste; any program it doesn't pursue
does no harm. So, I'm for
a more limited Federal Government.
Then in a sense I should like Obama
because from all I can see
actually he isn't doing much,
that is, is concentrating on
his golf game and jump shot.
He is spending a lot of money,
but likely the economy still needs that.
Otherwise I suspect that the next
president will have lots of places
to cut back.
Oh, by the way, we should not miss
that mostly or entirely, Obama
has never had a Federal budget!
So apparently he just spends money,
and when he runs out Congress gives
him some more.
One effect may be that starting
in 2016 real estate prices
within 200 miles of the
Washington Monument will
head for the floor, e.g.,
from DC beltway bandit
body shops no longer paying GED
employees up to $200,000 a year.
That area is now the
third
richest in the US, behind
Silicon Valley and
the hedge fund area of
CT. I suspect DC's going
on a diet, especially
as interest rates start to
rise!
First: what does this have to do with technology? Second: damn right Germany shouldn't trust us, because the world doesn't trust Germany and hopefully it never will. It doesn't bother me in the least that we're keeping an eye on them, I'd be nervous if we weren't.
Getting kind-of tired of this. When the Snowden "revelations" came out, my thought was "And...?"
Everybody paying attention knew the US government, and all governments, were sucking down all the data they could get. If you don't like it, AES-256 is widely available. Problem solved. If you think bitching or voting (Ha!) is more powerful than encryption, think again.
Bush could be seen as an anomaly. He was not elected by a majority of the American people for his first turn, and even if everybody shook their head about the obvious oilgrab in the Iraq based on blatant lies, people could somehow understand that you don't change an administration amidst a war.
Obama was seen as a return of the USA that was always admired by many if not most people in Europe.
Like someone coming to their senses after a violent fit, Europe was ready to embrace an America that put effort in preserving and spreading civil rights, peace and democracy with means that did not involve letting countries descend in mayhem that bloody dictators would envy.
Then - he did not shut down Guantanamo (and he could have done it if he had acted fast and spent time to convince his party)
- he did not Veto a continuation of the Patriot Act
- he let his administration spy on the press to an unprecedented extent
- he defends spying on everybody outside or with ties to outside the country
If this is the rational, the civilized America, then we are in deep trouble.