Learning From (Others’) Experience - Newsroom: U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders (Vermont)

Learning From (Others’) Experience - Newsroom: U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders (Vermont)

My oh my! Single payer health care? Read this link to get a glimpse of how this works in Taiwan. Then contact Sen. Sanders, Independent, VT., and tell him to keep on working for single payer health care in the USA! Keep well. Thanks z

President Obama's Way

I believe that President Obama is most effective President for the people since Franklin Roosevelt. Roosevelt led our nation to victory over Nazi Germany, Japan, and Fascist Italy after he led our nation to recovery from the Great Depression. He mobilized us as one nation to combat World Fascism. He mobilized us before the war by creating thousands of public works projects that employed many millions of workers, and improved the infrastructure of our nation. The Great Depression of the 1930's was caused by greed infested speculators who were allowed to run rampant because of lack of regulatory laws and enabled by President Hoover and others. Roosevelt soon after his election took steps to improve financial and investment regulation and prevent harmful banking practices. Subsequently many of the financial regulations were eliminated by Republican administrations removed and loosened by other administrations, usually Republican ones. However, President Clinton also did his share of damage by helping to enact NAFTA trade agreements that encouraged unregulated investments world wide to the eventual detriment of the American worker. President Lyndon Johnson, like Roosevelt who enacted Social Security, further improved our social system by enacting Medicare and Medicaid. Johnson's downfall occurred because of the Viet Nam war that was as unfounded as our present wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Since the Johnson Administration our country has been essentially flat-lined socially while becoming engaged in unjustified wars in Central Asia, and allowing deregulated financial institutions to run wild and cause a near-Depression again.

We have been flat-lined and declining, that is until President Obama's election and his work and efforts over the last year to restore our country's floundering economy, severely damaged by Clinton and Bush Administrations' deregulation of financial institutions, trade markets, and the increased tax-favored corporate flight to low labor cost foreign manufacturing sites. There, foreign workers produce things that we buy from production operations (often owned or controlled by American corporations) and are virtually unregulated environmentally or by labor laws, and where workers(including children)are paid the equivalent of two dollars a day or less, often working 12 hours a day in literal slave labor conditions just to survive. Each one of us in the USA fosters this slave labor every time we buy clothes for ourselves and kids. Just read the labels to see where the products are made and you will see countries like Thailand, Cambodia, Singapore, Taiwan, Malaysia, China, Mexico, Honduras, and virtually never the USA. The same holds for almost all the manufactured products including appliances, dishes, shoes, purses, radios, TV's, computers, etc. The list is endless. The USA has become the world's disposal place for goods made by the poor of the world who barely survive. This is happening while we are unable to provide jobs that pay enough to support the American middle class, that is fast sinking into lower economic status.

The stagnation and decline has taken place since the hey days of the MBA (Master of Business degree) that began in the late 1950's and now infests all corporations world wide with individuals and corporate leaders whose principle responsibility is to fatten the bottom line. This self-centered greed and myopia from so-called educated business leaders is the major cause of economic inequity and the decline of the American worker. This largely unrecognized disease receives blind public acceptance and support. It has become normal and accepted to allow politicians to award these corporations for their huge campaign contributions to help assure that whoever is elected does not shake-up the self-aggrandizing, self-perpetuating business and political systems. We must eliminate this two-headed monster before it obliterates us. Greed and padding each others pockets with moo la cannot be allowed to dictate policy and purpose.

Our president, President Obama possesses the intellect, awareness, and persistence to tackle these monstrous and potentially cataclysmic problems. He also understands that human-induced change for the better cannot be sped up beyond the abilities of politicians and most importantly the public to become informed and educated to participate and encourage constructive changes. Obama advocates bi-partisanship despite constantly being rebuked by the Republicans and others who do not understand the issues and problems as he does. We are fortunate that this opposition does not deter him from trying again and again. He exhibits both a deep understanding of complex issues, the reasoning ability to lay out alternative solutions, and the instincts and passion to follow his path despite rabid opposition or lack of cooperation from political adversaries. This type of behavior represents the hallmark of political and human courage that is essential for our county's future prosperity and the future presidents that we elect.

I believe that President Obama will lead us out of Afghanistan and Iraq to a foundation for eventual peace in the Mideast and Central Asia. I believe that he will rally the American public and enable us to see what must be accomplished to allow economic fairness for all Americans while raising the economic and physical well-being of all peoples everywhere. We are very blessed to have a leader of President Obama's abilities and must follow and encourage President Obama's Way.