Speech Obama should give
President Obama’s centrist cup runneth over. So, alas, he will not give this speech:
My fellow citizens. As you know, the Bush administration has left this nation with Augean Stables. I am not Hercules. I cannot divert rivers to cleanse the eight-year filth and stench. But I can offer suggestions to make this a better nation.
The first thing we must do is end our two disastrous, unwinnable wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. They are costing the nation too much blood and money and sapping our morality.
They are quagmires, wars that will go down in history as Bush’s follies. They can achieve nothing but more disaster. Moreover, rebuilding in the two countries is costing billions.
We also must put an end to global hegemony. Our military budget is bloated, the Pentagon spending $1 trillion a year. I propose closing scores of unnecessary military bases.
The Israel-Palestine tragedy is not just intractable, it may be insolvable. It certainly will never be solved as long at the United States blindly backs Israel as it has for six decades. Nor will peace come if Israel occupies Palestinian land--and continues to steal ever more.
The overreaction of Israel to Hamas rocket fire gets a tsk-tsk from the world. So does Israel’s seizure of a ship carrying food and medicine to Gaza. Israeli checkpoints and separation wall add humiliation to injury.
Our Cuban policy is a dinosaur. We should return to Cuba the naval base at Guantanamo. America obtained it by coercion in 1903 after its unjust war with Spain. We should end our cruel boycott, open diplomatic relations and ease travel restrictions.
Latin American policy must be reversed. No wonder Latins hate America for its constant invasions and interventions, colonizations and coups. We should scrap all vestiges of the Monroe Doctrine.
In domestic matters, it is a disgrace that the United States, the richest and most prosperous nation on the globe, does not have universal national health. Civilized countries do. Britain approved it in 1945 and Canada in 1966.
The federal tax system should be drastically overhauled. Tax cuts for the wealthy should be rescinded. The once progressive tax code must be restored. Fifty years ago corporations paid 60 percent of all federal taxes. Today? 16 percent.
Something long needed in this country is compulsory national service. All citizens should serve at least one year in these kind of endeavors: the Peace Corps, AmeriCorps, Teach for America, YouthBuild, teaching abroad, the military or the establishment of a modern-day equivalent of the Roosevelt Civilian Conservation Corps.
That is why I support the bipartisan Serve America Act introduced by Senators Kennedy, Massachusetts Democrat, and Orrin Hatch, Utah Republican.
I urge prompt passage in Congress of a bill allowing card-signing unionization. Republicans bleat about the sacred right to vote. The truth is that voting to unionize means pressure and harassment, intimidation, threats of job losses and threats of plant closings, and the firing of workers who dare campaign for a union.
Labor is not the enemy. Management is.
Another crying need is free college education for anyone who qualifies. An educated population makes a better population. College is far too important to work parttime, go to school half-time and fall into debt big-time.
I want every K-12 school in America to teach Darwinian evolution. That is solid science. All those antediluvian views such as so-called creationism, repackaged as intelligent design, have no place in our high school curricula.
Our nation must continue what the Founders demanded: a rigid separation of church and state. Faith is for church. It is not for government.
The civilized countries of Europe are banning advertising for all tobacco products. We should too. But America, including the retrograde Supreme Court, would rather kill people than give up the immense profits. Money is far more important than the 450,000 cancer-caused deaths annually in the United States.
We should legalize drugs. To do so would be an enormous tax source. We should also legalize prostitution in all states. That too would reap enormous tax income for the badly strapped states.
The nation faces so many other problems. One is the military’s policy of don’t ask-don’t tell. It should be abolished. To argue that the gays are a threat to national security or a danger to military discipline is to laugh. Sexual orientation is not the business of the military.
We should end the death penalty in all 50 states, legalize gay and lesbian marriages nationwide, raise the pitiful minimum wage, grant funding for federal elections to end legalized bribery and pass a congressional law rescinding a Supreme Court ruling that money is speech.
My fellow citizens, all these steps are necessary to make America the best and freest nation in the world.
My fellow citizens. As you know, the Bush administration has left this nation with Augean Stables. I am not Hercules. I cannot divert rivers to cleanse the eight-year filth and stench. But I can offer suggestions to make this a better nation.
The first thing we must do is end our two disastrous, unwinnable wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. They are costing the nation too much blood and money and sapping our morality.
They are quagmires, wars that will go down in history as Bush’s follies. They can achieve nothing but more disaster. Moreover, rebuilding in the two countries is costing billions.
We also must put an end to global hegemony. Our military budget is bloated, the Pentagon spending $1 trillion a year. I propose closing scores of unnecessary military bases.
The Israel-Palestine tragedy is not just intractable, it may be insolvable. It certainly will never be solved as long at the United States blindly backs Israel as it has for six decades. Nor will peace come if Israel occupies Palestinian land--and continues to steal ever more.
The overreaction of Israel to Hamas rocket fire gets a tsk-tsk from the world. So does Israel’s seizure of a ship carrying food and medicine to Gaza. Israeli checkpoints and separation wall add humiliation to injury.
Our Cuban policy is a dinosaur. We should return to Cuba the naval base at Guantanamo. America obtained it by coercion in 1903 after its unjust war with Spain. We should end our cruel boycott, open diplomatic relations and ease travel restrictions.
Latin American policy must be reversed. No wonder Latins hate America for its constant invasions and interventions, colonizations and coups. We should scrap all vestiges of the Monroe Doctrine.
In domestic matters, it is a disgrace that the United States, the richest and most prosperous nation on the globe, does not have universal national health. Civilized countries do. Britain approved it in 1945 and Canada in 1966.
The federal tax system should be drastically overhauled. Tax cuts for the wealthy should be rescinded. The once progressive tax code must be restored. Fifty years ago corporations paid 60 percent of all federal taxes. Today? 16 percent.
Something long needed in this country is compulsory national service. All citizens should serve at least one year in these kind of endeavors: the Peace Corps, AmeriCorps, Teach for America, YouthBuild, teaching abroad, the military or the establishment of a modern-day equivalent of the Roosevelt Civilian Conservation Corps.
That is why I support the bipartisan Serve America Act introduced by Senators Kennedy, Massachusetts Democrat, and Orrin Hatch, Utah Republican.
I urge prompt passage in Congress of a bill allowing card-signing unionization. Republicans bleat about the sacred right to vote. The truth is that voting to unionize means pressure and harassment, intimidation, threats of job losses and threats of plant closings, and the firing of workers who dare campaign for a union.
Labor is not the enemy. Management is.
Another crying need is free college education for anyone who qualifies. An educated population makes a better population. College is far too important to work parttime, go to school half-time and fall into debt big-time.
I want every K-12 school in America to teach Darwinian evolution. That is solid science. All those antediluvian views such as so-called creationism, repackaged as intelligent design, have no place in our high school curricula.
Our nation must continue what the Founders demanded: a rigid separation of church and state. Faith is for church. It is not for government.
The civilized countries of Europe are banning advertising for all tobacco products. We should too. But America, including the retrograde Supreme Court, would rather kill people than give up the immense profits. Money is far more important than the 450,000 cancer-caused deaths annually in the United States.
We should legalize drugs. To do so would be an enormous tax source. We should also legalize prostitution in all states. That too would reap enormous tax income for the badly strapped states.
The nation faces so many other problems. One is the military’s policy of don’t ask-don’t tell. It should be abolished. To argue that the gays are a threat to national security or a danger to military discipline is to laugh. Sexual orientation is not the business of the military.
We should end the death penalty in all 50 states, legalize gay and lesbian marriages nationwide, raise the pitiful minimum wage, grant funding for federal elections to end legalized bribery and pass a congressional law rescinding a Supreme Court ruling that money is speech.
My fellow citizens, all these steps are necessary to make America the best and freest nation in the world.
posted by Jake Highton | 7:43 AM
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