“We pledge to honor families, traditional marriage, life, and the private and faith-based organizations that form the core of our American values.”
The sum total of the attention paid to these issues in A Pledge to America.
Who is pointing out that, to say the very least, none of these is honoured by neoliberal economics or neoconservative foreign policy? That the America which did honour these things enabled herself to do so by means of highly extensive local, state and federal government action?
That nothing in the record of the GOP begins to match the Hyde Amendment, which was proposed by a Republican, but which was passed by a Democratic Congress and signed into law by Jimmy Carter? That the Senate Healthcare Bill passed to placate Blue Dogs who voted against it anyway, and wavering Republicans who did not exist, is not only vastly less responsible fiscally than would have been the House Bill, but also vastly less pro-life? That the Pregnant Women Support Act will harness the power of the federal government to save countless lives in the womb, but would probably fail the strict constructionist test written into the Pledge?
That traditional marriage is Obama's own view, that the voters of California and Florida re-affirmed it on the same day that they gave their Electoral College votes to him, and that the borderline (if borderline) secessionist tendencies in and around the Tea Parties would do nothing to prevent state-level deviations from it, just as they would do nothing to prevent state-level continuations of abortion, the eradication of which by federal action, not least against poverty, is a cause comparable in every way to the use of such action to eradicate Jim Crow?
Among so very, very, very much else besides.
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Excellent points, as always.
ReplyDeleteAfter repealing the Senate Healthcare Bill, the Pledge consists of 6 reforms in Healthcare that will enact. The reforms are exact same ones found in the Bill! Sounds like one of those political scenarios where "Disagree with everything your opponent says, but if your opponent says something you agree with, find a way to take all the credit".
Other than that, the Pledge is nothing but a plot to make frivolous cuts to government that will empower Wall Street (again), under the guise that it is a sign of hope for the masses.
Ah... politics!