#237/#212 The Victory Choo-Choo Train--"All Aboard!--for Deja Vu 2010 All Over Again "

 Take a look and a double-take at the following post****** down the page, written March 2010 just after Congress passed the Affordable Care Act, which somehow was replaced with the puzzling term "Obamacare." Here's what you'll shortly discover: it could have been written today! I swear, it's la plus ca change with a vengeance, almost literally. It's as if you and me and the world haven't MOVED that much in the last couple of years. Like woo-woo suspended animation. I expect an alien to burst from my belly any minute.  Geraldo Rivera maybe/ Ouch.

So I'm recycling the "All Aboard" post #212 of 3/25/10, unchanged, to make the point above, ...and another point or two about THIS election year--namely, that the Democrats' strategy should remain unchanged as well (that is, what little there was OF it back in 2010).. SCOTUS, whatever that is, has made the President a WINNER again, and it's still all about the Kids.  With Health Care reform now firmly in place, parent's and grandparents, and aren't we all, are going to vote for The Man who did it--who assured their progeny of  health coverage no matter pre-existing conditions; of coverage to age 26 under the family's insurance; of coverage for themselves for life (no "caps") to see it all happen.. All this is among other good stuff like preventive care and more--the devil has NEVER been in the details. i.e. the specific ACA  provisions, for the clear majority (60-80%) of the Electorate--they're for the good stuff that Team Obama can now put on sale with all-to-hell impunity.  Republicans, or, technically, oxygen users, ain't got nothin' ... 

******Here's "back-to-the-future" 2010 post, updated by bold in brackets--

Or ... sort of continuing from last post, "Go for it"--said President Obama to Republicans (and Blue Dog Dems sub rosa) who would fashion this year's off-year election campaigns [now Presidential and down-ballot] on REPEAL of the new Health Care Act. His version of Clint Eastwood's "Make my day." Further along in his Iowa City presser today [3/25/10] (still here) it was the even more genteel challenge, "Be my guest."

Mr. Obama can afford to be smugly magnanimous in victory [now again this new one] because he knows he's a winner, not only in this recent battle. but most likely now in several wars to come. Why?--because in this and future legislative struggles over social justice the lately extreme-right-wing G.O.P. along with the forever-reactionary, small-state southern Democrats will be RUNNING AGAINST LITTLE KIDS. No win. Battle lost. [Here I was sadly mistaken. Republicans cleaned clock around the country in the 2010 elections.]

First of all, the forces for progressive change will be aided by--to our shame, really--the "band-wagon" effect. A check of the polls reveals that curious fact about human nature: immediately after the HCR bill had passed, more people were for it. The only difference?--it was now a winner [like the SCOTUS victory] What had been disfavored by a slight majority of the American people only a few days earlier was now favored by a slight majority. [SAME DAMN THING ... last week.  Polls already show a "bump."] Evidently, several millions of those originally opposed had set aside the time to read all 3000 pages of the bill ... and were convinced otherwise. Yeah, that's it. But whatever the case, I'm sure these numbers will grow.

For, more importantly, it all comes down to the children--their protection and well-being. The winning side. As for the new health-care program, Republicans on the campaign trail are wildly deluded that "Repeal it and start over"--John Boner's mantra--is going to have any resonance whatsoever with American voters. Correct me, but I believe parents and grandparents make up a sizable voting block. This formidable bunch of ballot-casters (including me) in November are going to vote FOR allowing insurance companies to again deny coverage to kids with pre-existing conditions? Fuhgeddaboudit. Or vote AGAINST children being covered under their parent's policy till age 26? No way. There's even a further incentive for parent-minded citizens in the same bill-now-law re-passed yesterday: it was revised to include a major expansion of the college-loan program. [Again, the down-ballot Electorate didn't buy it in 2010, but it was never really sold aggressively. Still, the People loved the ACA in detail, but somehow not in general. Brainwashed by the Teabaggers, somebody said.]

Other challenges to the status quo ante? Other changes "you can believe in" as the Obama campaign put it? Well, "Yes we can." The re-invigorated Obama administration along with the newly-victorious progressive forces in Congress [Whew, boy] will again have the kids on their side. (more)
************

#233 Blog Hard or Die--Return of the Blogman Avenger

Mr Myxyzptlk will always be my favorite supervillain. Against Superman, he don't need no stinkin' Kryptonite, because he could simply disappear at will--POOF--back to his alternate existence in ...  the FIFTH DIMENSION! ... well beyond Superman's space-time universe. Yet he could "virtually" cause all sorts of mischief, and, worse, he couldn't be stopped!

Using his superior abilities. the Man of Steel would reliably prevail over brainy supervillain Lex Luthor and others of his 3D ilk, hauling them off to some good ol' 4D jail-time. But his powers, we might say, are merely super-- i.e.extraordinary human attributes of strength, speed, and flight. That's right: Superman's ability to fly was on occasion "explained" in the early Action Comics as a super-benign "side-effect" of  certain differences in gravity, atmosphere, blah, blah, between his home planet and Earth (no indication e.g. that Kryptonians had such powers). Normal, terrestrial humans of Olympic ability can "fly" for instance at a little over seven feet; Superperson Clark Kent, however,  simply raises the bar quite a bit. X-ray vision aside, he is after all a completely humanoid.ET or ALF,  subject like us all to forth-dimensional  natural law and its vicissitudes, plot-wise, including the ultimates: love and death. Not so for Mr. Myxyzptlk..

In the late 40s and early 50s when I bought Superman comics at the Corner Store--an urban forerunner of today's convenience store, whose merchandise included those pre-pubescent-male essentials of comic books, candy bars, and squirt-guns---thirty-two pages of fun cost a dime. And Mr. M at the time was equally modest in appearance.  I was never acquainted with his futuristic avatar pictured above--love the in-your-face cigar-puffing though.. Here's the Myxyzptlk I grew up with in what is called "officially" the Golden Age of comics:

                                   
Supernerd! A daunting uber-villain, indeed. But that was the genius-part of Mr. M's first incarnation, now sadly gone. His Disneyesque appearance belied his almost unlimited powers and sometimes malicious nature, making him all the more sinister ,,, and most interesting. Some nice comic irony for a kid back then. And this super-imp could daunt. Through pure mischief and mostly harmless mayhem, he would annoy, confuse, and confound our superhero with some sort of incomprehensible interference that defied physical  laws. ... before HE was "tricked" into returning to his 5D .world.

Not to get all mythic on you, but  Mr. Myxyzptlk epitomizes the Trickster archetype ... as in Norse Loki, Anglo-Saxon Unferth (in Beowulf, and btw in my doctoral dissertation), Prometheus, Br'er Rabbit, a bunch of others that you can think of, and my nostalgic favorite: Froggy the Gremlin, from the radio and then TV program, Smilin' Ed's Gang. When it was time for hijinks on that kiddie show, after a story or a clip from an "old" western, old Ed would summon up Froggy with this stentorian call: "Plunk your magic twanger, Froggy!" And somehow POOF the squat little grotesquely bug-eyed gravely-voiced frog-puppet (no Kermit he) would appear (imagination-wise on radio) ...  in a self-made cloud of smoke as he puffed away on a giant CIGAR stitched to his puppet-lips! See first picture above. Coincidence? I think not.  Anyway, hilarity would ensue as Froggy did his magic mischief--I remember the late, late can't-hold-a-sneeze comic Billy Gilbert as a frequent guest bearing Froggy's brunt of practical jokes. Another plunk of his magic twanger, however (you are free to utilize this expression in other, creative ways, as us kids were wont to do) ... and POOF he was gone. As if to another dimension.***

Speaking of creativity, you've got to give credit the Action Comics guys for anticipating some of the current quantum-physical fooferah about extra dimensions (It's now up to eleven!) and multiverses of one kind or another. Of course they used this bit of science esoterica for good fun, but what fascinated me as a kid was that it severely challenged not just our hero's superpowers but his common-sense, intellect, and even identity, much like the crazy world of quantum theory does for us today. This antagonist was not only invincible, but in ways that the super-guy couldn't understand. (Okay ... he's non-common-sensically super, but his powers are enhanced anthropic attributes [again, aside from Xray vision], otherwise we would have a had time identifying with him as an archetypal hero ,,, as potentially one  of us. Remember, his flying ability is sort of explained as extra-good high-jumping.)

"I thought I was the only one who could fly?" says the Man of Steel questioning his very identity in his first encounter with Mr. Myxyzptlk--in his oriiginal supernerd guise--when he apparently jumps to his death out of a window.. (I had to "wiki" this to get an example--plaudits to those rich folk who saved their old comic books--because it's been a long time.) Using his 5D powers, the little guy wreaks other mischief on Metropolis and its citizens including getting fatally hit by a truck and then shockingly coming back to life ... giving the Mayor a donkey's voice ... scattering important documents all over town, Pranks. Great kid-stuff,  In fact, he lets slip to superman at one point that he is a court-jester by trade, back on his 5D home planet--explaining everything.

Of course Mr. Myxyxptlk has to be "vincible" in some way for Superman ultimately to prevail. Well, here it is (or was)  ,, he's stupid. Or at base terminally childish .. and why our super-smarter hero can always plunk the little guy's twanger and outwit him back to his fifth dimension world for--get this--a minimum of 90 days. Time to prepare the next issue, presumably..Here's the trick: Mr. M inadvertently reveals to Superman that if Mr.M hisownself pronounces or spells or writes his name backwards ...to wit: Kltpyyxym--then POOF he;s gone. And Superman in extremis is able to get him every time with some ludicrously simple stratagem. "How do you spell that name backwards again?"--I'm making that up, but the ploys were on that level, as I remember. And POOF once again  The play of wit and language and magic ... great fun. (I'll get more  to the point of my return in next post, but this is just such fun.)

***More on Chicago's radio & TV personality Sm+ilin' Ed McConnell and the the death of a childhood hero in Mosteller Musings, as soon as I get the little-sister blog cranked up again..
************

#214 Victory Choo-Choo III--"Foreign" KIds

And that includes our own.

But first, kudos to President Obama for signing yet another installment of the Nuclear Arms treaty with the Russkies--it's been twenty years--which reduces by 50% the 95% of all nuclear weaponry on earth "controlled" by us and them. Let's see ... that adds up to only 100% M.A.D. left to go. Not to mention the other 5% (un)controlled by mutually-assured, destructive madmen.

However, let's by all means keep up those symbolic gestures toward global peace, wheel-spinning though they are in real terms. Hey, our children won't be vaporized in a future nuclear war after all; they'll just keep dying in the good-old-fashioned, untidy way. More on that in a minute.

But talk about symbolic value! The US/Russia accord, signed after a year or so of intense negotiation (we're told) lends further credence, however belated, to Obama as Doer. Say what you might, and I have, Could our "new" President ever be accused, even by the wildest-eyed wing-nut, of NOT workin' his ass off at the job?! Consider this: two "master strokes" of the pen, involving THE two major areas of concern for any President--domestic policy with Health Care, and foreign relations with the Nuke Treaty. And it was all done with rather a flourish, both signings coming within days of each other.

The President IS on on roll, no doubt about it. Polls are up already this week. Can all this can be of much-needed help for foreign kids here at home, and those abroad?

YES for Immigration Reform. There were rallies all over the state of North Carolina last week (in conjunction with a general "march" on D.C.) protesting the need for more humane laws for "illegals"--especially in alleviating the plight of their children, who had absolutely no choice in ending up here, and their access to main-stream health care, educational opportunities, and gainful employment. Being an undocumented alien himself--well, Obama has certainly been singed by the flames of bigotry and xenophobia in that regard--he and the Congress should now be able to get something done.

Especially poignant at the Raleigh rally were testimonies from two young men of Hispanic heritage (yes, this is really what it's all about) just ready to graduate at the top of their high-school class. Outlook for college: bleak or non-existent. Our otherwise outstanding Community College system, for example, recently restored their right to matriculate (a long story, fraught with the usual prejudices), but these guys will still have to pay out-of-state tuition (that was the "compromise") at about three times the rate of in-state, even though they've been here virtually all their lives. Not fair. And they were well-spoken (perfect English naturally), intelligent young men whom I couldn't help compare with some of the inarticulate free-riders on NC State's and Duke U's basketball teams, interviewed at about the same time on the same local channel. "March" madness all around.

NO for IrAfPak. Because Obama's on the wrong side here, simply. Bite my tongue, but this fatal flaw will end up making him an LBJ--grudgingly remembered for his history-making domestic programs (Civil Rights, Medicare, etc.), but cursed forever for his foreign policy disasters. Lest we forget, President Johnson was responsible for the death, disfigurement, and dislocation of millions of people. Including innocent children, of course. Sound familiar? Look at it this way: for last-President Bush, Iraq is already on record as HIS Vietnam. No win. A bloody fraud of a war, and still going on. Moreover, to understate, he had less than zero domestic accomplishments to counterbalance it. Thanks to his inept and self-serving helmsman-ship we're still "underwater" in more ways than one. Obama will fix that I think, the way things are going, but When will he come to realize that the whole Middle East theater is now his very own Vietnam? And, so far, he's Bush.

It's so very, very lucky that Obama got some sort of health-care reform passed. And I'm sure there will be more social-justice measures on the books before too long. But JUST A WEEK AGO he was in real danger of becoming another G.W. Bush--rightfully ranked as the worst President ever-- failing not only on the foreign, but on the domestic front as well. Now if Obama would only stop killing kids overseas.
************

#213 Victory Choo-Choo II---More Kids

"Suffer the little children to come unto ..." Obama and the newly motile Congress, for suffering enough hath come unto them, yea and verily-wise. Much still needs to be done--NEWS FLASH: as of this verily moment the Prez is trying to keep a roof over the heads of millions of them--but before we get into that and bank-fraud and unemployment and immigration and other things that need fixing if only for the sake of our kids, let me say one more word about the HCR Act ... and the kids.

Surprised to learn after a little more research--'tis an Act of Many Pages--that, besides the crucial OUTLAWING of the pre-existing-condition thing and EXTENDING coverage to age 26 (which would presumably get the most indolent of offspring through college and a little beyond), the new law provides for a comprehensive WELLNESS program for children in conjunction with pediatricians and appropriate health providers. Is this not RELIEF abounding for parents?! Or parents to be? The particulars are a bit complicated, so I'll refer you to an approving summary by Dr. Judith Palfrey, President, American Academy of Pediatrics, here.

She's just one, by the bye, of the the vast majority of medical people and health organizations ("A.M.A." says it all) who've been behind Obamacare--even when it had Public Option so named--since the beginning. Once again: if Republicans and Blue Dogs want to run their 2010 campaigns AGAINST all of this, my advice would be on the order of "suicide is painless," as the old M*A*S*H theme-song would have it.

Point is ... President Obama's on a roll and knows it. So immediately after passage of the HCR Act, he was hard at work bringing aid and comfort to millions of home-owning families hoodwinked by bank-fraud or crippled by the unemployment epidemic that Wall Street and the Big Banks are responsible for in the first place. Some sort of "mortgage relief" will be put in place to avoid the horrors of FORECLOSURE for parents who face the prospect of homelessness for themselves and their children. (NYT here)

And speaking of the Great Recession, efforts to get us out of it and avoid it happening again should gain momentum on the coattails of the HCR victory. Maybe the Congressional Democrats will start doing what the American people put in them in the majority to do. Really, since 2006. And if you please, forget the phantom of bipartisanship. Doesn't exist for the "Hell no!" party, as recently dubbed by Sarah Palin. The so-far dystesticular Dems have now got a proven hero in Obama, and my goodness can it be so hard to give him back essentially the same REGULATIONS for the economic sector that the Reagan era took away?--which was the root-cause of our recent financial almost-apocalypse. And millions of kids on the street, or sold for medical research.

Finish regulating Wall Street and the "Too-big-to-fail" Banks; put the new Consumer Protection Agency in place; meanwhile above all get JOBS for the parents of these kids. That's the Obama/Congress agenda, post-HCR. The unemployment crisis is most distressing right now for most Americans, say the polls. Specifically, we need about 11 million new jobs just to get back on track and stay about even. The Obama team and Congress are working on so-called "jobs bills" right now, according to reports. Good ... though from what I've read, the solutions under discussion--like tax-breaks for hiring the jobless--fall ridiculously short of the figure just quoted. Like in the 200.000 range.

The Real Jobs Solution, which an emboldened Obama and his Congress must enact now, is the wherewithal to put the unemployed Dads and Moms directly to work for the Federal Government. Everybody knows our INFRASTRUCTURE lies a-crumblin' while there are, ironically, millions out-of-work who could be a-fixin' it? Bridges, roads, sewers, schools, parks. C'mon, it worked for FDR and the blighted economy of his day. And let's be be honest: about a third of the people in this country are paid for their work with their very own tax-money, as it is. It's also called Corporate Welfare.

Listen, we've already loaned about a 100 billion to the Banks and Carmakers; can't we loosen up a "loan" of a paltry 4 or 5 billion or so (from what I understand) to get people directly into those "shovel-ready" jobs we've heard tell about? Wouldn't be nice for the peasants to get a "bailout" for a change? Moreover, it would be a loan, of sorts: lent against the returns of a recovering economy. After all, the newly employed are going to sink those wages in the local Kroger for the family groceries, and to buy gas and oil from Fred's Texaco to take their kids for a Sunday drive. Now that they've got the money, and the joy of a job. It all comes back. (more)
************