Letters to the Editor
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@lizr
Edwards is no longer running so it's really a side issue whatever each of us think of him.
I did agree with him on poverty issues and some other things, but what difference does it make now.
The real question is do you want 8 years of John McCain (aka a contination of Bush/Cheney) or not?
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Still another Anonymous can't put a name to his own words...
Anonymous: "Especially since Saddam was our friend and wasn't stirring up any problems for us right? Taking out Saddam was a good thing, dear. Done right it would have given you access to loads of cheap crude oil to drive around in the SUV with the "environmental" license plates."
Dear?
SUV with "environmental" license plates?
Oh, fuck you. I drive a car that gets 35 miles per hour.
Taking out Saddam wasn't a good thing, not this way. Our containment policy (average cost: $5 billion per year) was vastly preferable to this. It had problems too -- all the abuse of the UN oil-for-food program -- but I'll bet fixing those would have cost a bit less than a trillion dollars.
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35 miles per hour...
...er, gallon
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Robert Sandy
Actually, you've taken a very civil tone and I appreciated hearing some of your thoughts about Hillary's accomplishments. It was nice to get some substance even if I didn't agree with it.
Apologies too for my bit of sarcasm. I also feel passionately about my candidate. As you can see, the war and healthcare are two key issues for me, even given my career emphasis on the environment. I have had a recent family experience with cancer and once you see the financial and other devestation that this can create, you begin thinking a lot more about healthcare. Right now, once someone loses in the health lottery, they are confined to their current job, IF they are lucky enough to have an employer that provides insurance. God forbid if they have to go independent with a pre-existing condition, and I really don't think that Hillary's mandate is going to do much for this situation if there is no better attempt to regulate the insurance industry. As one writer here so aptly put it - it's putting a bandaide on a gangrenous leg. The insurance companies are the big winners in every case. Unless there is some kind of deal where premiums are sliding scale, and severely regulated, we are going to wind up with the same people forgoing health insurance, and sinking further into debt and poverty because the government is penalizing them.
I hope whomever is elected can come up with a better solution. If we just had all that defense money being poured into Iraq ...
But Peace ... I hope you are right about Hillary's abilities if she wins. I really do ...
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FU2
Oh, fuck you. I drive a car that gets 35 miles per hour.
Maybe or maybe not. Nonetheless, ironic as it may be the red state rurals are among the most environmentally friendly folks around (however inadvertently). They don't drive long commutes,often farm or raise a good deal of their own food and supplies, don't buy bottled water, and generally live pretty lean.
Taking out Saddam wasn't a good thing, not this way.
Wrong. Saddam was NOT our friend. Taking him out was a good thing - unless you have a better plan for supplying our endless demand for cheap energy, which so far no one has come up with.
The problem was the Bush/Neocon arrogance and ineptitude.
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@SocandTwigs
It was nice to get some substance even if I didn't agree with it.
Surely you must be joking. Every last thing s/he provided is a documentable fact. What could you possibly disagree with!!! Good grief already.
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Anon
I know - how about taking that billions of dollars spent in Iraq and actually funding work on alternative energy for a change? Christ, at least we would have been 8 years ahead of where we are now.
No war for oil, and I don't have a car btw.
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Anonymous
You know, Clinton has addressed those things if you bothered to listen. She has talked about making it affordable AND making it so that people CANNOT be denied insurance and insurance companies CANNOT deny necessary care for some ludicrous reason.
That affordability is created by mandated insurance because EVERYONE pays for it. She has also talked about options for people really would have problems paying a higher price.
You paid $5000 out of pocket. How much would you have had to pay if you didn't have insurance? Probably three times that. Believe me I know what you mean. I'm still paying off a hospital bill that won't be paid off until 2012.
Just because it's stated as being "mandated" in Mass. doesn't mean they have addressed the costs. But it doesn't mean Clinton's mandated plan won't.
Think of those possible 15 million of those people that it's said will bail out of getting insurance in Obama's plan. If 10 percent end up with a serious illness, how much will that end up costing them and us? And how much will it save if they have to pay a smaller price for insurance, but still pay and yet are covered when that serious illness or accident occurs?
If everyone pays into the pot, then the costs get spread out and shared. Not like it is now.
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good grief anon
let me clarify ... since you seem a little slow.
It was nice to get some substance, even if I don't agree that 1) the experience that you suggest Hillary has makes her a good candidate for the White House, 2) that her experience is an indication of her ability to make good, moral, transparent decisions as chief executive, and 3) her experience is in any way shape or form superior to that of Barak Obama.
Got it? cool!
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I voted for Ferraro
I'm old enough to have pulled the lever for my own vote for Ferraro's ticket--although, as usual, it was more a vote against the other side.
So I guess I qualify as an older feminist woman who can tell you, Rebecca, that you don't need to feel bad if you pull the lever for Obama. There's nothing unfeminist about that. (I live in California and I sure as hell don't vote for Feinstein just because she's a woman, though I'm fine with voting for Boxer.)
There are many reasons I'll mark Obama on Tuesday, but the clincher for me is how desperately America needs to change its image in the world after everything this President and a compliant Congress have done. Nothing would be a clearer signal to more people in more countries that we repudiate George W. Bush than we, the people, electing Barack Obama.