First, We’ll Screw The Armed Forces, by Mike Gold

You can’t make this stuff up, so we don’t!

First, We’ll Screw The Armed Forces, by Mike Gold - Brainiac On Banjo #110

Posted by Mike Gold at 23rd March, 2009

To be fair, the conservatives are right about one thing: there’s no way we’ve got the money to pay for President Obama’s entire social agenda. As worthy as it is, we don’t have the resources to fund 100% of the shopping list.

Barack’s already started to cut, quietly and in a most unfortunate place. He wants to cut our armed forces from the VA health roles if –note, if – they have access to private insurance. This is a really lousy place to cut.

Whatever you think about our sundry wars, including the present escalation in Afghanistan, let’s appreciate the sacrifice being made by the men and women of our armed forces and of their families. With battlefield care improving, we have more veterans in need of long-term care than ever before: vets who, in previous wars, would have died in combat. The only problem with the VA hospitals (compared to other hospitals) is they tend to be in urban areas, and vets in non-urban environments have a hard time getting care.

Obama’s plan will make it all the harder.

I understand the politics of the situation. Barack is using this to leverage his universal health insurance plan. Hey, we wouldn’t want to screw our vets, would we? But the idea of screwing the vets just so we can unscrew them later, maybe, leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Not all programs work out the way they should – although a great many work out fine – and this is one game that’s just immoral to put into political play.

It’s a bad roll of the dice. We know Big Pharm and Big Med and the insurance mafia are going to deploy every trick arrow in their huge quiver to kill universal health care. Once again, we are going to hear the ridiculous cry of “socialism.” We’re going to hear the ridiculous claim that Canadians have universal health care and they are dying in droves, despite the fact that the poor in Canada get better health care than the wealthy do in the United States.

Sure we can trade horror stories all day long, but we do not, by any stretch of the imagination, have “the best health care in the world.” For an industrialized nation compared to other industrialized nations, our health care sucks. You get what you can afford, maybe, and too many families have to choose between bankruptcy and critical care of a family member.

So let’s leave our vets out of this fight. It’s the very least we can do for them.

—-
Mike’s Weird Scenes Inside The Gold Mind rants can be heard every Monday and Friday on The Point podcasts, available right here at www.michaeldavisworld.com, as well as at comicmix.com, getthepointradio.com, zzcomics.com, and ravenwolfstudios.com. You can subscribe to The Point at iTunes by searching under “The Point Radio.”

Category : Brainiac On Banjo

Comments

pennie March 23, 2009

Mike,
Obama heard you–the VA plan was quashed. The trial balloon deflated quickly. You must have attained powers nearly as formidable as MOTU.
Yet, you are so right. The foot soldiers treated like cannon fodder to be expensed as damaged goods after they have defended America is so wrong it defies explanation.

Linda Gold March 23, 2009

Thanks for the update, pennie, I am very glad to hear that this awful idea has been scrapped.

Mike Gold March 23, 2009

Pennie –

Thanks for the update; this must have happened while I was writing the column on my flight from San Diego back to reality.

The point, as you note, is the same. As our vets return over these next 19 months, will they be able to get jobs?

pennie March 23, 2009

@Linda and Mike,
I believe Obama is trying hard to correct so many problems that have developed over years and decades that at times it appears even to his staunchest supports to be akin to the Dutch guy fingering the dykes–a daunting activity…

Seriously, there is so much to do, can one fault him for trying? But, to throw our vets under the bus just makes no sense and hardly fits in with the intent and scope of his other initiatives. I shared your shock and was happy it went away as just quickly as it appeared.

You’re so right about the ultimate cost–indeed, how are the bills going to be paid? It’s the proverbial rock and hard place. To do nothing amounts to social chaos. How does one cherry-pick the programs and people who are identified as the neediest? And is one result entire groups are sacrificed?

I’m not smart enough to supply answers. But I have a moral center that dictates no one gets intentionally discarded. And, like you, protest when it happens.

So your question: “As our vets return over these next 19 months, will they be able to get jobs?”
Right now, the picture remains cloudy for all of us.
I remain hopeful and supportive.
Not everything Obama has done/does/will do is “right.” But I believe his intentions are well-founded. This vets option was not. He’s trying and building experience. He did the wrong thing by suggesting it and ultimately did the right thing by swiftly discarding it amidst all the negative feedback.
Thanks for a great article.

R. Maheras March 23, 2009

Thanks for your military healthcare essay, Mike. It was very much appreciated by this veteran. It’s also good to hear that the Obama administration backed off from their initial idea.

Regarding the veterans jobless issue, below is a LOC I sent to USA Today regarding their cover story last week, same subject:

“Your March 20 front page story about the high jobless rate for veterans came as no surprise to this career military man — particularly the quote from a former paratrooper who mused that to some employers, having a military record is almost akin to having ‘a felony.’

Who’s to blame for this perception by the general populace — particularly of veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan?

Simple: The media, and, to a lesser degree, popular culture.

Because of the unfortunate tenets of Journalism 101, the media focuses almost exclusively on the negative aspects of military service (death, physical and psychological disability, etc.), while the popular culture industry, heavily populated with liberal-minded folk who literally despised the previous administration, loves to take it out on veterans by portraying us a misguided, psychologically-damaged saps who were duped into fighting in an ‘unjust’ war.

So the only thing that surprises me is that the jobless rate for veterans is not even higher than it is.”

Strong words? Unfair words? Perhaps… but that is certainly the way I view the situation from a public affairs perspective.

In the case of the media, I think they not only deserve such criticism, I can easily make a strong case — based on my own observations during the past six years — that they probably deserve much, much more.

And while many in popular culture may believe they are even-handed regarding the military, they frequently are not — particularly the film industry. A quick glance at a sizeable list of one-sided, present-day, war-related films made by Hollywood in the past few years (virtually all of which tanked at the box office), such as “Redacted,” “Rendition,” “Lions for Lambs,” and “Stop Loss,” makes it clear that many in Tinsel Town love to use the military as a convenient vehicle on which to grind their political axes.

Mike Gold March 24, 2009

The military and big business, Russ. What the media fail at is differentiating those on top who make and profit from the decisions from those who actually do the work and take the personal risks.

The media also suffer from a lack of personnel with sufficient understanding of the military and what it’s like for the soldier, the sailor and the airman. It’s not necessarily a “you had to have been there” situation; these days, few writers have close friends or relatives who’ve made the choice of service.

Allen Gladfelter March 25, 2009

I’m sorry for posting to your blog like this. I was not sure how to contact you any other way. My name is Allen Gladfelter. I am currently a student at Boise State University. I am finishing up a BFA degree in Illustration. My final paper is to be on how computers came to be integrated in comic book production. I understand that you were editor of Mike Saenz’s SHATTER. I wonder if I could interview you or trade emails with you on what you have observed in the production of SHATTER and what you might have to say about the development of technology as it relates to modern comic book production. Your assistance would be greatly appreciated!

Regards,

Allen Gladfelter

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