THE VIEW FROM HERE

If it were only that easy — don’t you wish we could just start
over and pretend we didn’t have massive unemployment, 45 million
citizens without health insurance, a war in Afghanistan, unsolved
environmental problems and a state that is practically
bankrupt.
Wishes and pretending are not the forces that get things done.
Equally ineffective are arm-chair critics who condemn the efforts
of the president and those who are striving for solutions against
almost insurmountable odds. As President Obama said in his speech
in Oslo, “We can acknowledge that oppression will always be with us
and still strive for peace.” In other words you can’t stop trying
unless you want tyranny to prevail.
This country fought and fumbled its way out of World War I, The
Depression and World War II by trial and error not by critics and
shameless political demagoguery. As the New Year arrives we need to
accept responsibility and pull together to find resolutions to our
health and economic problems. If we don’t there is no question that
Medicare and Medicaid will go bankrupt in a few years. So far many
of our politicians are more intent on drawing lines in the sand and
pontificating than considering decent health care for everyone.
In the January issue of Harper’s magazine Mattalhias Schwartz’s
article on Warren Buffett states, “He is the richest man in the
world most of the time. Sometimes he is only second.” Further on in
the article Schwartz explains what Buffett does differently.
“Buffett sits in a room and thinks. Like most drudge work thinking
is an undertaking that most Americans would rather sub-contract to
someone else.” Unfortunately that’s what we did and look at the
mess we are in. It is time to think — especially about those less
fortunate and uninsured.
At the end of 2009, after 60 years, we still have politicians
(that we elected) refusing to pass a universal health care bill to
cover 45 million of our citizens. These politicians have the best
healthcare system money can buy and we pay for it with our tax
dollars.
I remember reading a book called “Turn About.” In it a little
god changed the places between husband and wife because the man did
not comprehend his wife’s problems while she was pregnant. The
husband got the message when he awakened pregnant. We need a little
god to change Wall Street and Main Street. Maybe the stimulus money
would start gushing down to help small businesses and unemployment.
A little dose of The Mikado wouldn’t hurt either—”Let the
Punishment Fit the Crime.”
Lucie Jensen is a Healdsburg resident.