In 1953, the CIA and British Intelligence overthrew Mohammed Mossadegh, Iran’s first popularly elected leader. Even though, for the better part of the 20th century the US has been a strong advocate for the right of the people to elect a leader, we participated in a coup destroying that elementary right, for fear that the new government would favor the Russians. Instead of democracy, the Shah returned to power, bringing back the oppression and cruelty of before the original revolution. Since then, America has taken a hypocritical approach to foreign policy involving Iran, mostly in order to avoid an alliance between Iran and Russia. Yet now, Because Russia is so dependent upon Iran for their non-domestic oil, if NATO were to attack Iran, Russia would be dragged into the battle, emulating the Chinese involvement in the Korean War.

In 1975, National Geographic published an article about Iran expressing hope for its future, discussing Iran’s oil money and enginuitive spirit. Three years before the start of the Islamic Revolution, Iran was a rising tourist destination for Americans. But as violence began to erupt, eventually provoking the flee of the Shah, America became cold to Iran. Under Ahmedinejad, Iran began to pursue nuclear capabilities, and Bush became wary. America mildly threatened use of military power against Iran, but even then, they knew the consequences. Then, in June, Ahmedinejad and the Ayatollah, Iran’s supreme religious leader, rigged the election in Ahmedinejad’s favor. When the followers of Moussavi, the opposition candidate, began to protest, America stated that it didn’t care in order to preserve diplomacy, even though Moussavi is far more aligned with American ideals.

When Iran is involved, America is hypocritical and painstakingly cautious with everything we say and do. Why does Iran mean so much? Russia. As stated before, Russia is dependent upon Iran, and is therefore motivated to involve themselves in any military campaign of Iran’s, and a conflict with Russia could easily end in nuclear war. But is the delicacy paying off? Not really. The majority of Ahmedinejad supporters still have death-wishes for America, the Ayatollah still dislikes us, and the US friendly candidate lost by election fraud. Essentially, this two-faced, coded message isn’t working. It’s time to give Iran what everyone deserves: straight talk.

Obama barely mentioned the dilemma Pakistan poses to defeating the Taliban and Al Qaida. Because Pakistan is a “sovereign nation,” even though they will not take action to defeat either extremist group, we cannot cross the border and eliminate their safe haven. Last spring, taliban forces invaded south Waziristan, occupying much of the region. Even after most have been driven into hiding in the mountains, Pakistan is still struggling internally, and threatens to split into separate states. Overall, the government is unpopular, and has little control. Worst of all, Pakistan has nuclear weapons. If the government were to fall into the hands of the Taliban, Pakistani nukes could end up in the hands of Al Qaida, and almost definitely be used against us. But every political dealing is double-sided: there is a public and a furtive discussion. Lets hope Obama is more in tune in the latter than his speech demonstrated.

People on both sides of the aisle are raving about health insurance reform. They’re bragging about the end to the anti-trust exemptions and the regulations preventing companies from denying coverage because of pre-existing conditions, or dropping people who get sick. But the big fat hole in the center of patients’ safety net is this: there is no clause in the bill preventing an insurance company from charging one person  four times what they charge  his neighbor with the same plan. Without a pricing cap, patients can still lose their coverage when they are unable to pay their premiums.

The reason the system is so disheveled  is because insurance companies are insistent on maintaining even profit margins for each person, rather than having a high profit margin for healthy people, and then mild profits or even mild losses on those with medical emergencies. Companies would still make a healthy profit, but the exact numbers would be unpredictable until the bills come in at the end of each month.

Insurance companies, as well as the entire medical system have such a glut for money, that the priority is cash flow, not patient health. Doctors are ordering extra tests, prescribing overly costly treatments, and attempting to increase the number of hospital admissions, not for the benefit of the patient, but rather for the benefit of their wallets. Our health care system is wired such that doctors profit for each treatment they give a patient rather than for the recovery of said patient. In simpler terms, our health care system is motivated by spending on patients rather than healing them. With that motivation to spend, doctors are charging more to insurance companies than ever. Insurance companies, in turn, are raising premiums to unaffordable levels.

But the public option could combat unreasonable prices and the inability to afford care. It would provide constant and rational competition, forcing insurance companies to be rational, for fear of loosing customers. and if a customer couldn’t pay, he or she would be able to join the public plan, and not be left uninsured.

Our current health care bill, stripped of the public option, holds little potency in the long run. While no one can be denied coverage, if a person cannot afford to pay what the insurance company is asking, insurance is no more available than if it was outright denied to her. Essentially, without a public option, health reform is a failure. Only a few more people will actually be able to afford coverage under the new regulations than under the previous ones. Therefore, congress must pass a bill that includes a public option. If passage requires using the budget reconciliation method in order to preempt filibuster, then so be it. In the last eight years, no  one let a lack of bipartisan support stop an agenda. The Republicans are trying to use a desire for bipartisan support against the Democrats. Back in September, several senators suggested that a bill would only be successful if it got between seventy-five and eighty-five votes. such a margin is nearly impossible, even for quite popular and overarching legislation. We who support healthy Americans over insurance corporations, we who would like to see that every american has access to health care, we who think patients should come before profits, mustn’t let senators in the pockets of big business get in the way of claiming what is rightfully ours: reform.

What is a life worth? Is an American life worth more than that of an Afghan civilian? How many civilian lives are worth one Taliban? How many American lives is victory worth? These are the decisions made daily by the generals who convinced Obama to send more troops. These men haggle over the worths of lives daily, as a buyer and seller haggle over price. civilians, enemies, and soldiers are like  nickels, dimes, and quarters, mere bargaining pieces, chess pawns. But these generals are detached from the grieving families, violent or suicidal PTS victims, not to mention the sufferings on the Afghan side. It isn’t the right of the men safe behind the lines to decide who lives and who may die. My life is not a poker chip. No life is.

What if the media could make a person say anything? What if a talk show host could make a senator fully contradict himself so the host could paint him in a  bad light. If this were the case, we would have no reason to trust the media. We wouldn’t have any way of getting straight facts. Without any way to be certain about the truth, our political system would be at the hands of whoever controlled the news networks. As a nation, we would lose our independent free-will. Unfortunately, in today’s news world, anyone can twist, crop, and thrust out of context the words of our leaders, and use those distorted words to mislead the American public. Such is the reality of sound byte politics.

The current political climate is overcome by shouting heads, elected officials being herded by their big business donors, right and left wing echo chambers, and us, the confused citizens who are being systematically lied to and confused by contradictory ideas being sold as indubitable fact. Modern media has discovered how to use video clips from C-SPAN and presidential speeches wildly out of context to “prove” a point. Far worse, many talk shows, newspapers and leaflets use quotations, lacking even the discerning factor of tone of voice, often to argue a point opposite to that intended. Some journalists will go so far as to begin their clip/quote directly following a negating word such as not or never. And yet, we, the blind unquestioning public, trust the people who tell us what we want to hear, assuming that because we would like something to be true, it is.

One glaring example of this sort of deception occurred back in august, during the most feverous month of the health care debate. A lobbying group working to promote the “Death Panel” claim, used a quotation by Obama about cutting back on wasteful medical procedures to suggest an intent to euthanize the elderly, writing, “maybe you’re better off not having the surgery, but taking the painkiller.” By perverting and misrepresenting the words of influential voices, the truth can be obstructed from the view of the public.

There is a fable of disputed origins about five blind men who are trying to figure out what an elephant is. They determine that because they cannot see the elephant, they will feel it and decide. The first man grabs onto the elephant’s tail, and decides an elephant is a rope. the second feels the elephant’s side and determines an elephant is an unusually soft wall. The third finds the ear, and figures an elephant is a type of fan. the fourth grasps the tusk, and establishes that an elephant is a foreign weapon, and the fifth discovers the trunk, and determines the elephant is a furry snake. None is able to see the whole picture, and discover the elephant for what it really is. In the same way, the politics of sound bytes and misused quotations is showing us only a tiny piece of the whole message, and causing the intentions of our leaders to elude us. Sound byte politics has made us blind before turning us loose on the elephant.

“There are also those who claim that our reform efforts would insure illegal immigrants. This, too, is false. The reforms — the reforms I’m proposing would not apply to those who are here illegally.”

“YOU LIE!” shouts a member of the audience, Republican Joe Wilson of North Carolina.

Such was the scene at the President’s speech to a joint session of Congress. Jeering which hadn’t even been seen at Obama’s town hall meetings came from an elected official during one of the most formal  meetings ever held by our legislature.

What does this mean for the future? How long is it until another break in decorum so gouache comes up again? What walls have been broken?

Historically, Congress was the scene for one event equally crude, and quite a bit more painful than Wednesday’s spectacle. In 1856, in the midst of a fierce debate over Kansas’s status as a free or slave state, Senator Andrew Butler beat Senator Charles Summers with a cane, knocking him unconscious. Fortunately, we haven’t seen a re-occurrence of anything so violent on Capitol Hill since, and such I feel is the fate of outbursts like Wilson’s.

Still, I’m pushing for censure. If the House doesn’t reprimand Wilson for ignoble behavior,  then others may take follow in his path. And Wilson hasn’t issued an apology directly to congress, giving them a right ti censure.

When a child misbehaves he is given a Time Out, and told not to do it again. Such should be the same for Wilson.

It was the day the world watched us learn to be afraid. I was in the first grade, and I sat for two hours listening to  “Katie, your mother is here to pick you up,” “Billy, your father is here to pick you up,” “Bennett your big sister is here to pick you up,” coming over the P.A. I hadn’t an idea what was happening, and I sat, crying to myself, wondering why everyone was leaving. Anyone you ask can tell you exactly where they were when the first plane hit the North Tower, whether it be at a coffee shop two blocks away, or at home, on the other side of the country.

Currently, congress is debating over whether to make 9/11 a national holiday. Some say that a holiday would be perfect to remember those who died respectfully, and yet others feel a holiday wouldn’t be somber enough. But unlike most articles you’ll find here, I’m not going to tell you what to think, nor what I think. Honestly, I’m not sure myself. But what I will say is this, a quote from Elie Wiesel “No human race is superior; no religious faith is inferior. All collective judgments are wrong. Only racists make them.”

Of his many works, the fable of the man, his son, and the donkey, has to be among Aesop’s finest. It goes like this:

A Man and his son were once going with their Donkey to market. As they were walking along by its side a countryman passed them and said: “You fools, what is a Donkey for but to ride upon?” So the Man put the Boy on the Donkey and they went on their way.

But soon they passed a group of men, one of whom said: “See that lazy youngster, he lets his father walk while he rides.” So the Man ordered his Boy to get off, and got on himself. But they hadn’t gone far when they passed two women, one of whom said to the other: “Shame on that lazy lout to let his poor little son trudge along.” Well, the Man didn’t know what to do, but at last he took his Boy up before him on the Donkey.

By this time they had come to the town, and the passers-by began to jeer and point at them. The Man stopped and asked what they were scoffing at. The men said: “Aren’t you ashamed of yourself for overloading that poor donkey with you and your hulking son?” The Man and Boy got off and tried to think what to do. They thought and they thought, till at last they cut down a pole, tied the donkey’s feet to it, and raised the pole and the donkey to their shoulders.

They went along amid the laughter of all who met them till they came to Market Bridge, when the Donkey, getting one of his feet loose, kicked out and caused the Boy to drop his end of the pole. In the struggle the Donkey fell over the bridge, and his fore-feet being tied together he was drowned.

“That will teach you,” said an old man who had followed them: “Please all, and you will please none.”

The moral is, at the moment, good advice for the democrats to heed when making decisions about what to and what not to put in the health care legislation Obama is working so hard to put through. Everyone in the nation is saying something different on what ought and ought not to be in the bill. But I, and like-minded Americans have confidence in the intelligence and perceptive nature of the Democrats in our legislature, and believe, that no matter who is shouting, to them to tweak the bill this way or that, they should stick with it.

A teacher said once, when addressing his class, myself among them, that as a parent, if one is to do anything, most of all make a mistake, he or she must “believe in the mistake he or she is making; make it whole heatedly,” or else risk “confusing the child.” Such is the same for the Democrats on Capitol Hill. Even if this latest legislation doesn’t succeed, even if the public option dissolves, and we are left where we are now, at least they will have made an effort. And the metaphorical children, the voters, will know that they embraced something, which will stand up better in primaries and elections. So, closing with Aesop’s eternal words, please all, and you will please none.

What did you or I do to become an American? Did either of us walk hundreds of sweltering miles, lay in thorny brush, climb twenty foot high fences, or hide with twenty others in the back of a small trailer to get here? Nay. We were born in a hospital here. We had our birth certificate- our citizenship- handed to us, just because of our parents’ nationality. You nor I never even took a test, stood in a line, or even so much as asked to be who we are. But millions of people, from every reach of the world, have tried. People from Sudan and Somolia, Colombia and Ecuador, Cambodia and Myanmar. Each of them ask. They beg and plead; they tell of their sufferings, they travel many uncomfortable miles to get here- only to be turned away by Lady Liberty herself.

America is an immigrant nation. somewhere down the line, almost every one of us has some immigrant blood in him or her. Whether your ancestors came from Europe or Africa, Asia, or South America, they came to this country, seeking a better life for themselves and their posterity. You nor I would be here if our ancestors had been turned away when they arrived. America is a melting pot. We have absorbed fashions, foods, inventions, and ideas from each new wave of immigrants. A recent NBC news poll of college freshman showed that this generation’s favorite condiment is salsa. We need our immigrants as much as they need us.

During the Dust Bowl, hundreds of thousands moved from Oklahoma to California to find work and feed their children. California was the promised land for so many people. If they could only reach California, everything would be okay. But as they found out when they arrived, such was not the case. There weren’t enough jobs for everyone who came, and even those who did land work, didn’t get a fair wage anyway. And the locals despised them. Anyone who came to California for work was labeled n Okie, which was, at first, just shorthand for one from Oklahoma. but the phrase soon came to be derogatory, meaning a worthless vagrant, a slum-dweller. The term, involuntarily creating hate for any non-local, severely impaired Californians’ capacity for sympathy, fueling the sufferings of the Immigrants. In the words of a young orator, when someone hears the word ‘Immigrant’ they think, ”Dirty, Filthy, Job-Stealing, Mexicans.” The title, ‘Mexican,’ has come to stand for those very things in our culture, the same way ‘Okie’ was to California in the 1930s.

And what about the Exodus. I ask you, were the hebrews born is Israel, or did they travel hundreds of sweltering miles to get to their promised land? But how many Americans think of the exodus as a negative event? I say, that if anyone works harder, travels further, and suffers more, to become a citizen than any of us ‘naturalized’ softies, they deserve to be in the country to which they’ve suffered to come. Would you, walk barefoot through the desert, climb through barbed wire, or be shot at, just be an American? No? Then just give your spot up to someone who has.

     What do the shootings of  the guard at the Holocaust Museum and Dr. George Tiller, the abortion doctor, have in common? They were both killed within the late summer, Both were killed by far right Evangelicals who were not a part of, but associated with groups who failed to rule out violence as a option to eliminate what they were against- and they were victims of terrorism.

    Since September 11, 2001, Americans have instantly thought of a 25 year old Muslim, trained by Al Quaida, Blindly hating this country as the face of terrorism. We have narrowed the definition of Terror to only include foreign born hatred, and forgotten White Supremacists who were once the ones we feared.

     Names like Michael Ayers and Ted Kaczynski (the Unabomber) [Cited http://social.jrank.org/pages/1318/Terrorism-Domestic-Terrorism-Before-September-11-2001.html] no longer carry the fear and sorrow that they once did. Many say that there is no longer a reason to fear terror from within. Some will say that the Holocaust Museum shooting and the assassination of Dr. Tiller are tragic but isolated incidents- by, to use the words of Donald Rumsfeld commenting on Abu Grab, “a few bad apples acting alone.” But their numbers are growing.

     But hidden among the celebrity gossip and “Making a Difference” [copyright NBC] reports on March 16, 2009, there was a story of a man, Millionare  who who was killed by his wife after repeated abuse, upon which the ingredients for and literature on making a dirty bomb was found within his house. He was a member of the Nazi party, and an avid collector of Hitler memorabilia, and was missing only a few chemicals to make the bomb.

     “Should this guy have been found out, I don‘t know, before he died and post-9/11, have we focused too much on stopping bin Laden again at the expense of potentially stopping the next Timothy McVeigh?” Before Rachel Maddow said this on her show, few had ever acknowledged that post 9/11 america was still vulnerable to domestic terror; this still may be the case.

     But why are Americans so reluctant to admit that we have as much of a threat from an old man living in a small town in, say, Missouri, as from the Al Quaida and Taliban in Afghanistan? Perhaps it may be that we as a culture are more adept to an “us vs. them” war on terror. Or maybe this is because  of our prejudice against a religion we don’t understand, so it’s easier for us to stereotype all Muslims as “evil.” Or maybe we just want to avoid a witch hunt.

     I’m not saying that it will be easy to root out the future Unabombers without violating constitutional rights, but at least we must discuss preventing domestic terror. There are too many lives at stake to do nothing. In my opinion, the threat level should have been red for a while.