Monday, October 12, 2009

IN THE NEWS : HEALTH CARE REFORM, 2016 OLYMPICS, AFGHANISTAN WAR, NOBEL PEACE PRIZE, GAY RIGHTS, AND THE PRESENT POLITICS OF GOVERNING.........

For the past 7 weeks I have been assiduously blogging almost daily about my kidney transplant experience and Phoenix convalescence, that there have been few other topics I have written a blog column about. This one, will somewhat make up for that, as it has not one topic, but five under the theme for the column. The following insights are not only my personal reflections but derived from, my political, governmental, presidential, education and understanding of how our democracy is intended to function. Of the five issues we have seen, heard, and read, in the news most recently, the most contentious and prolonged is the ongoing health care reform debate. After a century of haggling with how best to find a way to provide a national health insurance program for all our citizens and the past nine months of contending with developing and advancing renewed proposals for moving the issue forward this year to a responses of positioning, posturing, partisanship, delaying productive debate, dialogue, and constructive disagreement, in crafting legislation that is pertinent, and paid for without further debt or new taxes, it seems that this week may bring an appreciable breakthrough in advancing the cause and addressing the needs of tens of millions of Americans. There is much more work to be completed in coming months, to make health care reform that is fair, just, and the right, of all Americans possible. Compromise will be required of all sides in the matter. But compromise is one of the definitions of politics...
Chicago's bid for the 2016 Olympics has also been a news and commentary focus in recent weeks. Whether President Obama, should have gone to Copenhagen to argue for awarding Chicago the Olympics, is being disputed by many. However, I point out the President and the White House where in a no win situation. He would have been damned or praised, if he did go and it turned out as it did; or if he took a pass and did not make the attempt to argue for the Olympics. Besides other international leaders have appeared before the International Olympic Committee, in the past and present, to represent their countries' bids - the British Prime Minister for the London Olympics 2012; the French President arguing for Paris in 2016, and the Brazilian President, whose country historically prevailed in being awarded the 2016 Olympics for Rio De Janeiro...
For the past several weeks our participation in the War in Afghanistan has been in renewed focus, at the 8 year mark of our involvement and some of the deadliest months yet for our American soldiers, The overseeing American General on the ground there has requested The President to send 40,000 more troops into Afghanistan, which Mr. Obama has taken under advisement and is discerning with his White House War Council. With the Iraq War and our 7.5 year commitment to it to date, far from over, and an equally precarious predicament in Afghanistan in checking and hopefully ultimately defeating, our primary enemy, Al Qaeda an open ended, uncertain reality, at a time when a decided majority of Americans want us to end involvement in both wars, The President and he nation faces an undeniable quandry. What most concerns me are the increasingly evident parallells between our participation in Iraq and Afghanistan hold to our mired down and unsuccessful involvement in the Vietnam War in the 1960's and 1970's. Please God, for the sake of Peace and our Troops, many of them serving 3rd, 4th, 5th, tours of duty in these war zones in less than a decade, our demoralizing Vietnam experience will not be duplicated anew...
Last Friday, our country, The White House included, awoke to the news that the Nobel Peace Prize for 2009, is being awarded to President Barack Obama. Granted, he is only nine months into his Administration, but the decision as to who will be the recipient of the Nobel Prize resides solely with the Nobel Peace Prize Committee, and not the American people or our politicians. Mr. Obama is the third sitting President of four Presidents who have won the Nobel Peace Prize. Theodore Roosevelt in 1906; Woodrow Wilson in 1919; and Jimmy Carter in 2002; are the other three Presidential recipients. American patriotism and pride, not partisanship and politics, should be the hallmark of our response to this occurrence. I am hopeful that by December 10, the date of the Awards Ceremony in Oslo, Norway, a truly bipartisan spirited majority of Americans will feel that patriotism and pride for the honor of positive recognition for our President and the primacy of our country the Nobel Peace Prize is...
Eleven years ago, a heinious crime was carried out in Laramie, Wyoming when a viscious hate crime was committed against a young, twenty something, gay man, who was murdered in cold blood by gay bashers, simply because he was homosexual. That shocking travesty has resulted in a decade long campaign by the victim, Matthew Shepherd's parents, neighbors, friends, the homosexual community, and other concerned and human rights committed citizens, to advocate for federal legislation to address this issue. It is expected in the coming month, Congressional legislation will pass and the President of the United States will sign, The 'Matthew Shepherd' Human Rights Act. Again politics on the Left and the Right are swirling for and against this Bill. Whatever your personal or political point oof view on this issue, our individual and collective responses should be grounded in the dignity of the human person and not hate mongering or gay bashing...
The conclusion I am attempting to make as an honors student of The American Presidency, Political Science, and Government is : the American People elect a President to preside and govern, not to be merely bogged down in constant criticism and carping, from the day afteir their election until the day they retire from the White House. The radical and reactionary partisan, political, fringes will go to almost any length the past two decades, to bring down and even destroy Presidents, unabashedly so. This must end and true patriotism and pride of country be restored to our politics and governing, for the common good. Agree or disagree, with the philosophy, positions and policies of the current POTUS, we owe him and the Office of the Presidency he holds, our respect as the duly elected leader of our freedom and equality as American citizens.........Optimistically Yours, Happy Columbus Day !!
Troy David Powers

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