PERSONAL RESPONSIBILTY by Mary Pitt

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Fw: Today's rant

Fri, 2 Mar 2001 07:21:06 -0800

 

 

 

 

PERSONAL RESPONSIBILTY

 

by Mary Pitt

 

 

 

President George W. Bush is very big on " personal responsibility " . He

preaches it incessantly. He wants to end Social Security as we know it

so that we can assume " personal responsibility " for our own retirement

through our savings. He has placed restrictions on Medicaid so that

welfare recipients will all have to make " co-payments " in order to

gain access to medical care on the theory that this will persuade them

that they are not really sick enough to require medical assistance.

The highly-touted Medicare Part D will make our elders assume

" personal responsibility " through requiring them to sign up as

customers of the insurance companies which, again, will impose

" deductibles and co-payments " so that former Medicaid patients will

develop " personal responsibility " and think twice before ordering

refills of their prescriptions rather than wasting their money at the

grocery store.

 

However, the vaunted concept of " personal responsibility " , like Harry

Truman's " buck " , stops somewhere short of the Oval Office. Where does

the responsibilty lie for the failure of the Afghanistan invasion? Who

is to blame for the fact that Bin Laden is still free in the mountains

bordering Pakistan or holed up in a luxury hotel in the United Arab

Emirates. Who knows? Who bears responsibility for the fact that the

warlords still rule in Afghanistan and a woman can still be stoned to

death for being so irresponsible as to allow herself to be raped? Who

committed the atrocities at Gitmo and Abu Ghraib? Who is running the

show and who is responsible when things go wrong?

 

Who should be held accountable for the lies that we were told about

the Weapons of Mass Destruction that Saddam Hussein supposedly had

poised to strike the United States with a mushroom cloud in forty-five

minutes? Who interpreted Congressional approval to do " whatever is

necessary to counteract the terrorist threat " into a declaration of

war and a blanket permission to negate the power of Congress and to

revoke the Constitution, declaring it " a goddam piece of paper " ? Who

determined that, in time of war, it is a prerogative of the President

as Commander-in Chief to over-ride Congressional actions or to cancel

the civil rights of American citizens? And who appointed those who are

willing to re-interpret the Constitution in such an atrocious manner?

 

Who is responsible for the mess that was made of the Katrina disaster

and the thousands of people who are still homeless and homesick,

scattered all over the country and still unable to find family members

and friends from whom they were separated in the belated and

mis-managed evacuation? Where does the buck stop when the trailers for

temporary housing are left in the mud of Arkansas because nobody has

cut the check to pay for them? Who has kept the payment for this

unending war " off budget " so that the American people are not told how

much of the children's future is being mortgage to pay for it? Who

refuses to allow the number of innocent Iraqis that have been

destroyed by carpet-bombing and shelling of villages to be known by

the press or the public? Who has poor Scott McClellen standing before

the press conferences, spinning like a top and sweating like field

hand, defending the indefensible? And, by the way, whose idea was it

to allow the United Arab Emirates to own the operating contract for

our East Coast ports? Our President said he didn't even know about it

until he " read it in the papers " . Yeah, right!

 

Certainly not President George W. Bush! He is a CEO president. He

" delegates responsibility " by appointing people to carry out plans and

to determine objectives and " holds them responsible " for the results.

We have seen many examples of this, most recently when he embraced

FEMA head, Michael Brown, with " You've done a heckuva job, Brownie! "

You can all add to the list, starting with the image of the President

hanging a medal about the neck of George Tenet just after Mr. Tenet

had decided that he had " had a belly-full " of the lies and the

truth-twisting and decided to " retire " .

 

No, the burden of " personal responsibilty " is not for the likes of the

Bush family and their friends. Only you and I, the taxpayers, the

poor, the halt, the blind, and the elderly are expected to exercise

this admirable feat. So, pick up that yoke, put it on your shoulders,

and carry the load! Your President can feel for you, but he can't

quite reach you. It is, after all, your personal responsibility.