This is my very first post of my new blog, Angeladetroit’s blog. I want to welcome everyone to my site. You will see things here that you will agree with and some that you will not, but I promise you that everyone’s opinion will be respected here and that you will never be bored.
Angeladetroit
Is it safe to come out now? Has the tumult and the shouting died? Has everyone calmed down, just a little bit? This past August and September I’ve been hiding out from the health care debate. I’ve kept my head firmly buried in the sand and away from all the anger, screaming, and misinformation that has dominated this debate, lest I stick my head out and get hit by one of the stray bullets, like death panels, and be redendered totally senseless, as some people already have.
Opponents of health care reform contend that the bill contains funding coverage for illegal aliens and abortions, defunding medicare, and don’t let me forget pulling the plug on grandma. So adament are they in these assertions that no amount of denials from their congressperson, health care officials or even the president can dissuade them. In fact, the president’s word carries so little weight with them that a congressman who opposes health care reform publicly called the president a liar during a recent speech to congress. It would seem that the anger of last year against the banks and brokerage firms who are largely credited with causing this country’s biggest economic collapse since the Great Depression, has been transferred to the proponents of health care reform. And, as the anger against the banks has seemingly subsided, I’ll wager that the anger against the health care reform has subsided enough for me to make a few practical observations.
First, if we take on face value that all of these angry people turning up at town hall meetings to denounce the health care reform bill are all just private citizens exercising their constitutional rights, how do they know so much more than the rest of us? The congress men and women who are holding these town halls do so with the specific purpose of answering the questions that their constituents may have about the bill. But, interestingly, these people never have any questions. They apparently know everything they need to about the reform bill and its purpose. They apparently know more than their congress person, the president and the media. They have all the information they need about health care reform and there is nothing else they need to know.
Frankly, and this is not a put down, most Americans don’t even know who their congessperson is or in what district they reside. Study after study has shown us that only a small minority have knowledge of basic civics and even less participate in it. Yet, the opponents of health care reform would have us believe that the majority of Americans are opposed to it. I for one, believe that you can never have too much knowledge and that there is always something that we can learn.
Second, there seems to be a major misconception on the part of many Americans who oppose health care reform, that they will be able to keep their health care coverage and their doctor forever, as long as there is no health care reform. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Over the last few decades, health care costs have risen four times as high as incomes and this trend is expected to continue. Currently, there is nothing to mandate that employers provide health care coverage for their employees. With these types of rising costs, is there any doubt that many employers would eventually find that providing health care too costly to the bottom line? Indeed, many employers have already come to that conclusion. In addition, many employers have reduced costs by switiching insurance carriers. In many cases, different insurance carriers means different doctors. So, even those with coverage and doctors that they like will not necessarily get to keep them.
To those average citizens that are attending townhalls, I strongly urge you to listen , ask questions, and draw your own conclusions. Yes, I understand that the professional resentment hustlers like Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck have told you everything they think you need to know. But, I ask you. Who should you trust more, your neighborhood congressman or the hustler on the corner?
angeladetroit
One of the most talked about stories of the past week involved the incident where rapper Kanye West interrupted country singer Taylor Swift’s acceptance speech at the Video Music Awards. Kanye took the stage in a misguided plea for his friend, Beyonce, who had just lost to Swift. While a clearly mortified Beyonce and the rest of the world looked on, Kanye proclaimed Beyonce’s video “one of the greatest of all time”, leaving the stunned 19-year-old singer humiliated and speechless.
Without a doubt, Kanye’s behavoir was a serious breach of civility, etiquette, and even fair play. He was out of line, out of bounds, over the top and all of the other cliches that I can’t think of at the moment. But with all that being said, I was shocked to see the level of the hate and vitriol directed at this man over the past week. From celebrities to the average man (woman) the invectives were flying freely and often. Even presidents got on the hate Kanye bandwagon. Thug, turd, tool, vermin, slime, scum of the earth, the crap on the bottom of my shoe are only samples of what I can print. It’s sufficed to say, Kanye West is the most hated man in America at the moment.
Now is the time, I think, for everyone to take a deep breath. We’re about a week out from this so some of us may have calmed down at least enough to examine all of this and try to put it into some context.
First, is Kanye West really the worst thing walking the earth? I think not. I believe that we need to seperate the man from the behavoir. We’ve seen this type of thing from Kanye before. Kanye West has a reputation for storming the stages of award shows when he doesn’t win. So, clearly, he had no particular animosity against Taylor Swift. And, to be fair, Kanye West has passed along awards that he himself has won to other artists who he felt were more deserving. Most importantly, this is still the man who stood up for the victims of Hurricane Katrina and denounced then President George W. Bush for his handling of the crisis on national television, which was a very courageous act at the time.
Second, our reaction to Kanye West says more about ourselves than about him. Many of those who have watched Kanye over the past several years agree that he appears to be spinning out of control. The sudden and tragic death of his mother probably accelerated this downward spiral and the fact that he was tipping a bottle on the red carpet should have been the last straw to make his friends and colleagues take him in hand and ask “what’s up?” One of the most vitriolic and bizarre reactions came from Kelly Clarkson of American Idol fame. As reported, she tweeted that she never hated anybody so much and she doesn’t even know him, she hated him more than her ex-boyfriend and she has a “Moon Man” , (the term for the award) and that he can have hers. . . . and so on. Huh? So much hate for someone you don’t even know is illogical and over the top. Kelly seems to have made this more about herself than either Kanye or even Taylor. Based on that reaction, Kanye clearly is not the only one with issues. On the other side of the spectrum was the calm, thoughtful persepective of Jay Leno who nearly brought Kanye to tears on his show’s debut by gently asking him what his mother would have thought of his behavoir. Leno had made his point. Kanye West had done a bad thing, but clearly, he was not a monster.
Angeladetroit
Many people have asked me why I wanted to publish my own blog. There are many answers to that question. One is that I wanted to try and be a voice for those who are either unable to speak for themselves or have trouble articulating their feelings. Another is that while I feel that I have important information to impart, I also realize that I have much to learn from you. And that is what I want most, for this blog to be a learning experience for all of us.
Over the past year, we have seen the election of the first African-American president in the United States of America, the escalation of the war in Afghanastan and the de-escalation of the war in Iraq, health care reform, town halls, the death of Michael Jackson and the return of Michael Vick. So, where do we start? You tell me.
I will be posting daily and discussing the issues of the day. I invite you all to leave a comment about what I have discussed. I also want to encourage you to ask questions, or make suggestions about how this blog can be improved or just about the issues that concern you. I will be reading them frequently.
Thank you all for visiting my site.
Angeladetroit.
