Stoopid Stuff

Hard Choices

Barack Obama:

That we are in the midst of crisis is now well understood. Our nation is at war, against a far-reaching network of violence and hatred. Our economy is badly weakened, a consequence of greed and irresponsibility on the part of some, but also our collective failure to make hard choices and prepare the nation for a new age.

I'm not optimistic. I can't share your hope. I don't believe there is any reason to believe, even with this singular human being assuming America's leadership position, that suddenly America will be able to reverse course and do the things necessary to go from doomed to healthy, from unsustainable to viable, from blind plunge to controlled crash.

Obama is right. It is about those hard choices. The question is really does he have the political courage to make them, and will the system allow it? If we thing about what those choices truly need to be, it becomes clear that we, as a society and as a community will continue to cover our ears and close our eyes, running headlong into disaster even while denying that disaster is even a possible outcome.

1. Health Care. The system is broken. The only real, sustainable answer Single Payer, operated as a government agency. As long as for-profit private insurance companies are the primary source of coverage, and private employers desperate to cut costs are the primary buyers of coverage, no amount of tinkering around the margins will serve to make health care for Americans increasingly rare, and increasingly shoddy.

2. Defense Spending. The days of the Trillion dollar American Military have to be over. Now, not next year, not next decade, now. Even with 50 or 60% cuts in military spending starting in fiscal 2010, the skyrocketing cost of veterans benefits coming as the result of the last 20 years of profligate combat deployments will still be a real drain on the American economy. A few suggestions. Cut the nuclear stockpile to 120 warheads. 100 on Submarines. 12 ICBMs in silos. 8 air-deliverable warheads. Period. Destroy the rest, they serve no real purpose. Eliminate all strategic bomber programs, from the B52 to the B1 to the B2. In today's combat environment, they are useless dinosaurs. Eliminate all but 5 Submarines (2 Boomers and 3 Attack), and all but 2 Aircraft Carriers. Combine the Navy and the Coast Guard, eliminating redundancies and waste. There are a lot more, but all we actually need is a means to ensure that an amphibious force doesn't land on American Shores and depose our government, and a means to defend genuine American interests abroad.

3. Domestic Spending. Consider what actually is needed to make American society viable in the for the next 50 years. Education, infrastructure, carbon mitigation, a real social safety net, etc. Now consider what is realistic. What American politics will allow. It doesn't take a genius to recognize that even with Barack Obama standing tall and eloquent in the bully pulpit, courageously willing to commit political suicide to try to put America on a truly sustainable path, that level of courage will be awfully scarce amongst the garden variety pols and pundits that will have to do the heavy lifting if something truly dramatic is to be accomplished.

There are lots more. You can make your own list. The "hard choices" are nothing more than the basic, grownup sacrifices any community has to be willing to make in order to guarantee it's own survival. Choices that can generate some near term pain. Choices that can interfere with getting everything you want and getting it NOW. Choices that America has refused to even consider for decades.

I wish President Obama all the best, and I'll do anything I can to support him. And, I suppose, if America was a Monarchy I'd be more hopeful. But what's required at this point is dramatic action. And once it's all watered down into politically safe little symbolic acts, it will have no more value than it's intrinsic placebo effect. And I'm pretty sure that won't be enough...

posted by mikey @ 3:04 PM