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Saturday, August 01, 2009

Do You Value Life


My father was a decorated veteran of WWII and Korea. He raised seven kids and loved them all to no end. Dad died from Alzheimer’s disease and the only one that cared for him for the last eight or nine years of his life was me. The only person that knew of his last wishes was me. All of the burden from seven children was on me to sign a DNR which is a Do Not Resuscitate should he go into a medical condition that could end in his death. I spent the last night with him holding his hand and he had no clue as to who I was. And yet I knew who he was. That was all that mattered.

There is a ton of controversy over the current health care legislation in Washington and there should be. I don’t want a blanket Gestapo health care plan but we all know that the system is broken. Nobody in America would drive by an accident with people, children, babies, bleeding and dying on the side of the road and yet that is what the current system does. Our health care system only cares for the people that can afford it and if you don’t have a job, you have an emergency room health care system. The costliest system there is. That means it is broken. Our health care system sucks! It’s one of the worst health care systems in all of the industrialized nations of the world.

I have Parkinson’s or some form of it according to doctors and the director of Neurology at UMASS Medical hospital in Worcester. I haven’t had insurance to treat it for a year and a half. I lost my job. I don’t bitch about it, I deal with it. I don’t have medication for it, I don’t bitch about it either. I do however have a living will.

I don’t want my children visiting a vegetable in a hospital or nursing home for a decade. I don’t want machines keeping me alive for one more second than God intended. That is my right and my decision to decide. I have made my peace with my God and I am not afraid. My path is not easy but my words for now are the truth. I am one of the people lost in the health care system that is broken beyond belief. I have my faith in God but I would like a few more years with my children. Could a health care system for all do that?

Nobody is proposing to kill the elderly. That would be idiotic just as it sounds. Matter of fact, the person putting in that addendum to the health care plan is a Republican doctor in the Congress. All he is asking for is a living will for all. I don't have a problem with that but I do have a problem with his political party selling it as a fear factor even though it came from their own political party as an addendum!

Thought for the process of the discussion for you to think about. Don’t you think you have a right in the discussion as to how you want to be treated in the end of your days? I know for a fact that I sure as hell do! Whatever organs I have that are of use, take em, use them, do whatever you want with them. My time in this vessel is or will be done. Anyone mocking this life changing legislation has never read the current wording by Senators Dodd and Kennedy. What has been added to it is not of their ownership.

Life is what it is, love it while you have it to enjoy! Go out of your way to make someone smile while you can.

Papamoka

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Wednesday, January 23, 2008

Alan Grayson in Florida’s 8th


One of the things that ticks me off about the one sided war in Iraq is the non-stop “No Bid” contract awards. With those awarded contracts comes a lot of corruption and waste. The waste is called double billing, triple billing or just plain outright billing without doing a damn thing. The money that pays for all of this abuse and neglect is our tax dollars. Wouldn’t you think that all of them pesky Conservative Republican’s would want to clean this mess up right away? That isn’t even close to the facts of the matter. Looking the other way is the mantra of the Bush 2 dynasty.

What it takes to clean this mess up and prosecute the bastards stealing all of our children’s future is to put people in the Congress that will aggressively go after anyone that steals from the American people. One of the most feared terms of any company that does business with any state or federal agency is called Disbarment. If any company is found guilty of thievery then they face disbarment. Over at Down With Tyranny they have this great piece on Alan Grayson that will go after war profiteers in the next Congress.

There's probably no one who knows more about war profiteers in Iraq-- outside of Cheney and the folks at Halliburton and KBR-- than Alan Grayson, an attorney prosecuting numerous war profiteering cases. We came across him because he is running for Congress against corrupt Republican rubber stamp Ric Keller in central Florida's 8th CD (Orlando area). Next weekend Alan will be our guest at Blue America sessions at Firedoglake and Crooks and Liars. But I called him today and asked him this tough question-- the one about Republican voters. Do these Americans actually support this kind of behavior?

Before we take a look at what Alan told me take a look at this CBS News clip I found on his website:





"I think that the Republicans, from top to bottom, are genuinely trying to change America into Amerika with a 'k.' They want America to be a place where ordinary workers cannot organize, where everybody tries to undercut everybody else in the labor market, and where the people in charge are the people who can best tap into war profiteering profits... These people want to change America and change it to make it something that Eisenhower warned us about half a century ago. They want everything in America to be under the control-- and in the teeth-- of the military-industrial complex.

"When I talk to Republicans in general these days, they're very unhappy about the war. The problem is, they're unhappy about the war because they don't like to lose-- and that's just the wrong way of looking at it. They have become willing participants in a war that at this point is approaching imperialism. If they read in newspapers everyday that we were winning the war, they would be just as happy with the war as the characters in Orwell's 1984 are happy with their endless war against some unnamed enemy that they can never clearly understand the purpose of. Republican voters have, in effect, collaborated in this effort despite their misgivings about the war and the primary reason why they're not happy right now isn't because the war is wrong or unjustifiable but because we're not not winning."
- Down With Tyranny

Over the last two terms of President Bush we have witnessed our nation being hijacked by so called leaders of the people that were stuffing their friends pockets with millions of dollars. Washington has become the city to steal money from our nations treasury and that is simply wrong. One Congressional seat in Florida may not seem big news but it is.

Alan Grayson isn’t running to bring the bacon home and fatten his own wallet. His progressive liberal thoughts are what conservatives used to be in the Barry Goldwater days. Changing our government and the practices of corruption, bribes and outright lies to the people can change from one voice on Capitol Hill and it just might start with Alan Grayson. One squeaky wheel just might get the oil special interest out of politics.

Good luck to you Mr. Grayson on your up and coming election.

Interesting reads on what Alan Grayson is all about…

Vanity Fair

Rolling Stone

CBS News

And of course Alan Grayson Campaign site…

You be the judge and the voter and decide if this guy deserves to go to Washington and kick some ass! If you care to contribute to the campaign by all means do so. Click on Act Blue to vote with your wallet.

On Friday 1/25 Crooks and Liars will have an exclusive interview with Alan Grayson so feel free to check that out when it comes on the site.

Papamoka
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