I took my last US Air Force physical this morning. No, I’m no longer on active duty, but for the last 13 years I’ve gotten my medical care from USAF doctors at the Davis-Monthan AFB clinic here in Tucson. When I turn 65 later this year, I’ll go on Medicare like everyone else and will have to find a civilian primary care provider.
Two good things: one, I’m fine; two, my USAF doctor this morning was very thorough, making sure my records were in shape and scheduling me for a couple of small tests that should have been in my records but were missing. The bad thing, of course, is that I won’t see this particular doctor again, and she was great. On the outside, I suspect, the level of care she gave me this morning will be rare, maybe not there at all. I’ll be just another damn Medicare patient.
Oh, well, at least I’m healthy.
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A freight company is bringing our replacement spa cover this afternoon, so I’m housebound until they show up. I wonder how much of a hassle getting rid of the old spa cover will be. If you live inside Tucson’s city limits you can put big garbage out on the street twice a year on designated days. We live in the county, though, and have to deal with our own oversized garbage, which means a drive to the landfill and a $10 fee. Of course most locals just haul their stuff to the nearest wash late at night and dump it there. Believe me, as a Hash House Harrier, I’ve stumbled on every unauthorized dump site in Pima County.
Well, now I’m just bitching.
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Since I’m bitching … I think Obama made a mistake by giving in to the racists and releasing a second birth certificate. The first one was more than sufficient, and releasing it, back in 2008, was more than any other presidential candidate had ever done or been asked to do.
So far today I’ve only been on Facebook, and that only briefly, but I’m seeing what I expected to see. The birthers, racists all, are unsatisfied, and friends of Obama are for the umpteenth time on the defensive, trying to portray Obama’s giving in as a mature political decision made to help get the nation’s political debates back on track.
I was a friend of Obama too, and I still admire his way with words, but he gives in to political and media pressure far too often. Every time he does, his stature shrinks. Who will be the winner, now that Obama’s released a second birth certificate? The mature and wise leader, or the rabid racists and their media enablers? What’s that old saying about wrestling with a pig? Oh yeah, I remember: you both get covered in shit, and the pig likes it.
Obama caved on Janet Napolitano’s DHS domestic terrorism report. He caved on Van Jones, ACORN, and Shirley Sherrod. He caved on the public option. He caved on calling out the racist Boston police. He caved on closing Guantanamo, and he caved on trying Guantanamo detainees in US civil courts. He caved on the budget, giving up high speed rail and badly needed stimulus/infrastructure work projects. He’s in the process of caving on Social Security and Medicare, and I predict he’ll cave to military and defense contractor pressure to keep troops in Iraq forever. He said he’d fight for labor, but when the shit hit the fan in Wisconsin he was nowhere to be seen. What hasn’t he caved on? Don’t ask/don’t tell, and good on him for pulling that one off, but damn it, the man has not shown himself to be a fighter.
He chases after centrality, and the Republicans see that as a weakness. Every time Obama backs down, the Republicans double the dare, shifting the “center” farther to the right. Obama campaigned as a progressive Democrat. Once in office he started moving toward the center, and as Republicans gained power and began shifting political debate rightward, he became more of a Blue Dog Democrat, and today he’s almost indistinguishable from a late 1990s mainstream Republican. Of course mainstream Republicans today are almost indistinguishable from mid-1960s John Birchers and early-1950s Dixiecrats. If Obama keeps chasing the center, he’s going to wind up in Michele Bachmann territory.
And of course, the center Obama keeps chasing isn’t the center at all. The center is right where it always was. Most Americans want a public option, and they sure as hell want Social Security and Medicare. The false center Obama’s chasing after is a political construct, a matter of go-along-to-get-along expediency, always moving one way or another depending on who’s pushing the media narrative at any given moment.
Obama looks all the weaker for playing their game. This is not what I voted for, an America where an elected president backs down and an overindulged media clown like Donald Trump gloats. What the hell is wrong with Obama, and what the hell is wrong with us?