I completely disagree with John Zogby’s characterization of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. These countries were ruled by sworn enemies of the United States of America, Saddam Hussein and the Taliban.

Two more evil and destructive ruling groups have not existed since the fall of the Iron Curtain. Afghanistan under the Taliban served as the training ground for the only successful attack on our homeland in almost two centuries except for Pearl Harbor. Iraq under Saddam plotted to assassinate a former President of this country and publicly and actively rewarded the families of terrorists.

The cost of these two wars was indeed high both in blood and dollars. But it indubitably worth it.

“Transformation of the American Dream…enthusiasm all across the U.S. about the themes in the book – living with less as consumers and citizens, embracing diversity of views and ways of life, looking inward to find spiritual comfort and demanding authenticity from the media, our leaders, and leading institutions.”

I’m not sure that’s an accurate picture of America’s direction. It may just be a snapshot in time…and a blurred one at that.

I’m not sure that redefining or “transforming” The American Dream is a great assessment of what we need to do, or want to do.

Do we need to down size our American aspirations and ideals to fit the world? Or does the world need to up size it’s aspirations and ideals to an American standard?

I don’t see anybody sneaking across the North Korean border to “live with less,” or swimming to Cuba, or seeking political asylum in Iran.

I think we need to reassert The Spirit Of American Rugged Individualism and return to the roots of personal responsibility and self-reliance that built our nation.

We need eschew and reject the mentality of the “have less” care-taker nanny-Nation, where personal freedom and liberty are traded for low-level creature comforts; and where personal achievement and self-expression is supressed in the name of group-think, conformity and political correctness.

We still have the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

We are not guaranteed happiness and equal outcomes from our talents, efforts and even luck.

I for one, prefer a nation with towering Sequoias and inspiring Redwoods…to a nation of uniform “live with less” toothpicks made from these giants by our government.

T. J. Berkinmeier says it well … certainly better than our friend John Zogby. (I stumbled over the too-frequent spelling errors, however!)

It’s good to remind ourselves what made us an exceptional nation to begin with — so different from all the rest. Even with all of our challenges, would you really want to live anywhere else? (Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Andorra, Monaco, Malta, Gibralter and San Marino don’t count.)

I would be interested to see an in-depth poll about the Wall Street bailout(s) done by Bush/Paulson and now Obama/Geithner. It would be useful to know how many people have contacted their Congressmen and women about the bailouts, what they know about them, how they feel about them, how they are affected by the economy, what they expect will happen because of the bailouts, their feelings about executive pay, bonuses, and other corporate abuses, etc.

It was my impression that there was a lot of public resistance to the first TARP plan, which everyone keeps calling the “$700 billion bailout” but actually it came back from the Senate with another $150 billion attached to it. So it’s really the $850 billion dollar bailout. Meanwhile, the Treasury was working behind the scenes to dole out $2.2 trillion to banks and financials that most people never even heard about.

Now we’ve got Obama’s $800 billion, plus Geithner is pushing for another $1.2 trillion in direct aid to the banking industry. And we know that failing industries will be lining up behind the auto industry for handouts. So far we’re talking about almost $5 trillion dollars and some economists say it’s short by trillions… up to $4 trillion is what I’ve heard.

Another topic that’s related to our economy is the health care system. We now have an “official” number of 42 million uninsured, but I’m sure that’s growing daily as the unemployment rate grows. 85,000 Americans die each year (estimated) because they don’t get health care they need. Health insurance is more expensive than house payments. It’s ruining small businesses and destroying family budgets. The obvious fix is single payer health insurance… polls say people want it, doctors want it, small businesses want it… why can’t we get it?

Questions… always questions.

-Wexler

Single payer health care is a wonderful idea but extraordinarily hard to implement. We currently spend about 15% of our GNP on Health Care and collect about 17% of our GNP as Federal tax. If we arbitrarily assign health care to the government, we must, in essence, double our Federal tax burden. That will produce a massive shock to the economy. If we tried to apply that burden to corporations, many of them would go under. That means we must reduce their load while tripling the Federal tax on many or most individual taxpayers.

And after dealing with that shock, we’re likely to obtain the same shoddy health care systems that the other single-payer systems “enjoy”; i.e. they ration services via delay of service or outright refusal to pay.

Some examples I’m familiar with: A person needing a hip replacement is in near-constant pain and is virtually crippled yet one-year waits for surgery are not unusual in single payer countries. In contrast, I had to wait 3 weeks for my replacement in the U.S. and that “delay” was caused by the time consumed in pre-surgery protocols. My daughter-in-law’s French insurance paid 25% of the total cost of her two caesarean deliveries. She makes monthly payments to the hospital but is not remotely near paying off the debt from the births of her 2-year old and 5-year old.

If we want a single payer system, we must make drastic changes in our current health care system. It would be insane to introduce Single Payer before implementing the changes and that is part of the political stalement we are facing, e.g. tort reform is the most logical first step but the Dems and GOP are on totally different sides of that issue.
Note that the inflated cost of malpractice insurance is only a small part of the total cost of our ridiculous tort system; defensive medicine and over-regulation of Pharma are just as costly.

-Al

My goodness, John! How did you manage to attract so many reactionaries in such a short time. Even Paul Krugman can’t do that. I hope this blog eventually has a more even and hopefully even progressive population of participants so that it doesn’t have to be read in a cave.

Last November “We the People” beat Republican ass in order to move our country ahead in a manner beneficial to the American PEOPLE. I thought we were doing that to benefit Barack Obama in an effort to allow him to move us ahead. But so far Obama has been kissing Republiucan ass to try to get Republiucans to join us (i.e., We the People). Will someone please tell Barack he can’t do that? Republicans are fascists who love multi-millionaires and hate working people. They never change. Republicans are also racists. They hate black people, especially you, Barack. They never change.

So my advice to you, Barack, is stop being nice to fascist racists (i.e., Washington Republicans) and be nice to real, regular American working people.

@Michael Casagrande
Iraq March 2003 to present wasn’t a “war”, it was the pre-emptive attack/unlawful occupation/resultant quagmire of a legal soverign nation by our country, the USA, breaking all international laws to slaughter over 1 million innocent world citizens based on the lies of the raving nitwit, George W Bush.

“Bob Jacobson” wrote:
“My goodness, John! How did you manage to attract so many reactionaries in such a short time …”

I think the real reactionaries out there right now aren’t the people who read John Zogby’s blog. It’s people like Hugo Chavez and Raul Castro (who want to take the world back to 1920s communism) and Osama bin Laden and Ahmadinizhad (who want to take the world back to the 1450s). Making allowances for these kind of people and their predilections is hardly “progressive.” Instead, it’s as reactionary as if we decided to engage with segregationists like David Duke who also look way, way backward for their inspiration.

There are many things that I, along with everyone else, have an opinion on. First of all, why do we have to do with less? If this “pork bill” wouldn’t have gone through, we wouldn’t have to repay it in the amount of $40,000 plus, per person. The only thing that will get us out of this mess is to reduce the regulations and taxes on business so that they can come back to the US instead of going out of the country.

Secondly, “single payer” health-care (ie: National Health-care) doesn’t work. It doesn’t work in Europe, Canada, or anywhere else; which is why they come here.

The war effort against Terrorists has been going on since the 1800s (remember the pirates of the Barbary Coast?). They are the same group (different members with different names, but still the same)…Extremist Muslims! Whether you like to say it or not, this is what they are. How we defeat them is the question.

Bologna. John, GeorgeNJ, Bob Jacobson are full of bologna, They really don’t know our countries history, they just believe in socialism. They are obviously products of the NEA classroom, probably attended Ayers workshops.

I certainly pray that ‘this is” not, “the way we will be”, what a downer.

@William W. Wexler Wexler, I was in touch with my two Senators, Snowe and Collins, expressing my extreme disappointment at their capitulation. My beef? FAR too much pork, nowhere near enough dollars going back to the backbone of America, the American workers, already in deep difficulty. While billions upon billions go to the auto industries and banks, the common man suffers the consequences of our elected officials’ poor judgment.

There’s no other way to look at it. My opinion. I cannot be convinced that Americans, in general, WANTED this to pass.

GeorgeNJ is a perfect example of the exclusionary, hate filled politics now corrupting political Left. They accuse others of the very faults they refuse to see in their own politics and tirades. As a working, middle class, life long Republican I find his comments offensive, threatening and beneath what I hope will be some level of decorum here. If this blog is going to be another forum for hateful rhetoric from or towards ANY legal political group then I will skip it in the future.

Is this Zogby’s response to Words That Work? And I guess more importantly… is at as good? I haven’t had a chance to read it. I enjoyed your opponent’s book tremendously… I’d say it was about 65% useful to me and I rate most books as 10-15%. I’ll give yours a read when I have some downtime.

Also, do you address internet polling? I’ve done many an online Zogby poll and always wonder if self-selection of membership is reflective of the populace. I know you can say people can lie on the phone, but really each level of interaction I think is more valuable than the next…. in person highest, on phone next highest, snail mail next, and then online…and I say this as someone who grew up with the internet for half of life (second half of my 20s). Just curious.

I have no plans for living with less or letting the government dictate to me “THE WAY OT WILL BE!” So get that stupid idea out of your head right now. Seven States have aleady passed resolutoions telling the Federal Government that they will not be subject to Federal takeover of powers belonging to the States and people guaranteed by the 9th and 10th Amendments. So start promotong that or remove my name!

You pollsters are rabble rousers that ask misleading questions so you can contort peoples comments. GOOD BYE!

“The Way Will Be” is to a great extent a result of “The Way We Have Been”. The track of world events from prehistoric times up to the present has indelibly imprinted human behavior and the probable response to future events. We are the product of our collective past and the sum-total of all life experiences. We are all part of nature and cannot escape the fact that resources are finite and consumption is also. We cannot consume ourselves into utopia.

Bob Jacobson :My goodness, John! How did you manage to attract so many reactionaries in such a short time. Even Paul Krugman can’t do that. I hope this blog eventually has a more even and hopefully even progressive population of participants so that it doesn’t have to be read in a cave.

Read in a cave? I read nothing in these initial posts that I felt was reactionary. We need a very even-handed discussion of where this country goes from here.

Until the next election, the progressives are in charge of the country and the first items on their agenda are funding more abortions both at home and abroad, giving terrorists access to the American legal system, eliminating Welfare reform (replacing a hand-up with a permanent hand-out again), paying off their supporters (i.e., ACORN, the unions, environmentalist groups . . .) with billions of our tax dollars, and the biggest expansion of Government in the history of the world, an expansion that will take generations to reverse and generations to pay off. It’s clear to me that the new American dream is to live off of the efforts of others.

GeorgeNJ :Last November “We the People” beat Republican ass in order to move our country ahead in a manner beneficial to the American PEOPLE. I thought we were doing that to benefit Barack Obama in an effort to allow him to move us ahead. But so far Obama has been kissing Republiucan ass to try to get Republiucans to join us (i.e., We the People). Will someone please tell Barack he can’t do that? Republicans are fascists who love multi-millionaires and hate working people. They never change. Republicans are also racists. They hate black people, especially you, Barack. They never change.
So my advice to you, Barack, is stop being nice to fascist racists (i.e., Washington Republicans) and be nice to real, regular American working people.

Republicans are black, white, yellow, red and brown working people, and half of “We the People.” If you pay attention, you’ll find that there are as many, if not more, racists in the Democrat party. The main stream media just don’t cover them in the same way they cover Republicans. Any racist comments made by a Democrat are “taken out of context” but let a Republican say the same thing and they are crucified.

@GeorgeNJ
Now, now–we are not all racists out here in Repulican land. I for one have friends and relatives of all descriptions, social classes and races. I have gay friends, and have volunteered in agencies that benefit gay folk, homeless folk and drug addicts/alcoholics (and worked in the field as well). We, too, are part of the American people. There is no reason on earth why we can’t have a discourse together, solve problems together. But, first we need to stop calling others names and stereotyping.

@Al Ruskin
Removing the cost we pay to the health insurance providers will eliminate
the burden on businesses . Check out out H.R. 676.
Oh and by the way. We already have government health care, medicaid and medicare.
I don’t hear anyone asking to do away with those government run programs?

I’m beginning to wonder: when will hard-core Republicans stop trying to refight the Civil War???

@GeorgeNJ The Obama crowd want to put our med records on a fed database, want to stifle our right to express political opinions that don’t agree with them, are setting themselves up to control banking, manufacturing and every facet of our lives and you think Conservative Republicans are Fascists?

What actions to “move our country ahead in a manner beneficial to the American PEOPLE” did you have in mind? Can you expand upon “a manner beneficial”?

I am taking the opening of this blogas an invitation to comment on the national and international affairs and the nature of the Zogby polls.

What does the nation need polling about NASCAR for. Are they your only sponsor. NASCAR and the other professional spectator sports are like the Galdiatorial Games which were run to distract the attention of the US people from the antics of “The Best Government You Can Buy?

After reading the various posts, my question is? Where in the Constitution does it say the government is to do such? Also where in the Constitution does it give Congress or the President the authority to pass such legislation?

It it is not in the Constitution it belongs to the States and what we need is to file suit against the federal government that these two so called stimulus bills are fraudulent and unconstitutional.

A group of constitutional lawyers need to get together and file suit, and ask we the people who believe in the Constitution to help fund the effort — I would gladly be one of the first to do so. Are there any strong lawyers out there who believe in our Constitutional Republic?