The May 14 panel was devoted not just to Alzheimer’s, but to all the economic costs that attend to the disease. As boomers approach their final whimper, the toll caring for us, before we exit the stage, is gonna take a trillion dollar toll on everyone. The problem of course will be that we will not have a trillion dollars; likely not the first part of a trillion. What then?
The panel included Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor and ex-Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich.
(I first need to make two positions clear. Way ‘round the bend I loathe Republicans generally; not only those holding office, but especially those who voted GOP in 2004 and 2006. I see the office holding GOP and those who pull the levers to put them in office as more of a threat to the liberal democracy that was the spirit behind the Declaration of Independence and the crafting of the Constitution than any outside terrorist organization. Bush and all who made a Bush administration possible have done more damage than a million bin Ladens ever could have. That said, it does not imply that I cannot, or do not, respect certain members of that party for highly specific reasons.
Not at all for his political ethics do I respect the former Speaker [It is not for me to weigh in on his personal life, or any part of it. Moreover, I submit that no one retains a moral right, legal ones notwithstanding, to do so either.] That stipulated to, whether the topic is history or the federal bureaucracy or the medical bureaucracy or the operation of either of those monoliths, Newt Gingrich is a walking encyclopedia of facts and factoids, and ideas worth considering.
My most heartfelt recommendation: Toss his analyses and suggestions out . . . ONLY after you’ve thoughtfully listened to what he has said, and ONLY after you have objectively considered what he has offered.)
Essentially Newt was propounding on behalf of not merely emotionally embracing all current technologies but embracing as a national philosophy the proposal that the technological nation is who each and all of us are truly who we are and how we define ourselves. Contrary to the “government-is-always-the-problem” mantra hummed by the overwhelming majority of Republican office-holders and much of their constituent supporters, Gingrich asserted that government has a “vital role to play” in the transformation. Furthermore, also as a sort of reality-check rebuke to the party line, he suggested that increasing taxes for specific objectives as well as using tax incentives must not only be a part of the process, adhering blindly to a “no-new-taxes” ideology was stupid, made no common sense. “If you can solve a problem that isn’t going to go away, that is going to cost several times as much by waiting until there are no options left, by spending a dollar today, then common sense tells you to spend the dollar today.”
But it was key-note speaker, Pennsylvania’s Governor Ed Rendell who provoked my “to the barricades” rant. “Finding the money isn’t the problem. Finding the money has never been the problem . . . when the political will is gathered around a cause. The example he slammed on the table is a four-letter word, “the first letter is ‘I’ and the last letter is ‘Q.’”
Every week, when this country could be marching to greatness, when we could be leading the way on every front — humanitarian, human capital development, scientific, technological (In 2000 the US held 70% of the wind-machine patents; today we’re down to less than 4%!) and medical breakthroughs, across the board infrastructure maintenance and development, education, on every subject in every venue — into this young century, we are pouring $2.5 billion down a flaming rat-hole!!!!!
And it’s going to get worse, not better. A parade of retired generals have testified that our military is broken, we can push neither men nor machines much farther until the collapse is total. A parade of experts have testified that we are not safer, as a product of Iraq, we are in fact considerably less safe than we were, or could be, or should be.
And John McCain claims “We’re winning.” And I scream at the top of my lungs in my empty room: “How is that Sir? Our butt is being kicked on every front that counts, we’re staring into the black abyss that we’re throwing the younger generation into, and “We are winning”? Exactly what sort of prize is it that we are winning? By what god-awful, stench-laden, buried deep in the septic tank standard are you defining “winning” sir?
I am not, nor was I recommending, or in any other fashion intimating, that any person or group storm the White House or threaten POTUS. It was and is an emotional outburst: Why? Why did we do this to ourself? How? What made it so damned easy? The brass ring was there. All we had to do was grab for it. We even did grab for it . . . once. We even held it in our hands. Then we threw it into the dirt.
George Bush, to find common ground with those who sacrificed everything, decided to sacrifice golf. And you’re gonna counsel me to not rail? While I’ve gotten mad, my country has gone stark raving mad. And I shouldn’t be angry, why?
Forget it. I am angry. I’m just so damned angry that I could _(fill in blank)_!
— Ed Tubbs
Palm Springs, CA(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
