[lbo-talk] Nader, et al

[Auguste Blanqui]

Their universal health plans suck, but they aren't trying to chip away
at Medicare and Medicaid and convert them to private health savings
accounts.
Also, besides the Supreme Court, I think people should consider the
power of federal agency appointments.  These are often not very
high-profile and don't get a lot of media attention, but they can be
of huge consequence (all the worse because people don't know much
about them).  The EPA, CDC and OSHA haven't been great since Reagan,
but they've gotten dramatically worse.  Many EPA and OSHA threshholds
and standards have been relaxed or eliminated (and the EPA's shutting
a lot of the libraries that hold really important material for
environmental scientists).  The CDC has removed a lot of condom info
from their materials.  The Surgeon General resignation of last month
gives a lot of additional insight to this.
(http://www.kaisernetwork.org/daily_reports/rep_index.cfm?DR_ID=46132)

 I'm in the public health world, and the consensus is that this has
been a disastrous presidency for public health that's distinct from
the Dems, even if the latter really sucked, too.

On 8/7/07, Chuck <chuck at mutualaid.org> wrote:
> Doug Henwood wrote:
>
> > By the way, I was reminded on The Nation cruise that it's easy for us
> > to minimize the diff between the parties, but a lot of people in the
> > USA don't have that luxury. Quite a few of the cruisers came because
> > they wanted to spend some time with people who think like they do.
> > Back home, they may be one or two of ten Democrats (and forget
> > anything to the left of the Dems). And - forgive me for using the
> > color cliches - step out of any blue zone and you're quickly immersed
> > in red. Drive 35 miles west of Ann Arbor and you're at Ted Nugent's
> > ranch. Drive a few hours east of Seattle or Portland and you're in
> > far right territory. Drive 50 miles north of Cambridge and you're on
> > the doorstep of the Manchester Union-Leader. Etc.
>
> There is no difference between the two parties. What a bunch of rich
> liberals on a Nation cruise think isn't going to change a fact that is
> obvious to most Americans.
>
> Just this last week we were treated to two good examples of why there is
> no difference. The two major Democratic candidates, the future President
> Hillary Clinton, and Barack Obama, are trying to outdo each other by
> demonstrating that they are members of the card-carrying Cruise Missile
> Left (tm). Then the Democrats paid their supporters with another
> betrayal, by helping Bush & Co. ram through a further codification of
> their international surveillance state.
>
> What was the difference again?
>
> Where is that universal health care that the Clinton's promised in 1992?
>
> How bad does this Iraq War have to get, now that it's been going on for
> 16 years, under Democratic and Republican administrations, for the
> Democrats to get the spine to demand a pull out?
>
> Chuck
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