Could God have prevented the Haiti earthquake? I conclude that if God could have, God would have. I know all the answers of the orthodox  in trying to justify such acts of God, (having studied them for years and taught a course on the subject) but all are weak and unconvincing (to me). See my article:

http://www.frontiernet.net/~kenc/theodicy.htm

Anyway, it is a good test if you take the orthodox view, i. e., of all the places where an earthquake could occur, why would God permit or cause one in the poorest country in the Western hemisphere still suffering from hurricane damage?

1. Change but not too much. It might rock the boat.

2. Do not antagonize the big bankers or the drug and insurance     companies.

3. Do not show any more emotion than is absolutely necessary. 

This may not be where his idealistic heart is, but it appears to be where his pragmatic head is. Question remains: Is he doing the best that can be done under the terrible circumstances that he inherited and daily faces? Or is he not the one we thought we voted for? Is the larger problem the systemic corruption of the political system by money and parochial interests where countervailing forces working in favor of average people is lacking? I am not sure, but I am working on it.

There was no smoking gun but we dropped the ball, failed to put the pieces of the puzzle together, did not connect the dots. Stuff fell through the cracks. There will be no finger-pointing; the buck stops here. We must get our act together, put our house in order, line our ducks up in a row, and keep our eye on the ball.

Either Obama is doing the best that can be done under the circumstances, as David Brooks hints at http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/04/opinion/04brooks.html?_r=1&hp ),  or I am sadly disillusioned with him because:

1. He took the advice of his generals rather than that of his Vice-President on Afghanistan.

2. He is much too friendly with the Wall Street bankers who provided him with so much of his money.  I think he could have gotten a better deal  with the powerful financial interests for the country when they were hanging by their fingernails. I have never trusted Timothy Geithner and am not confident in Larry Summers.

3. He is all too calm, cool, and analytical on the unemployment crisis, and when he speaks he thinks his feeling but gives little evidence that he feels the pain of the jobless. Sometimes I want to see more preacher and less professor.

4. He sold out to the drug and insurance companies on health reform, making a back room deal that enabled them to get the most important things they wanted for a promise to pretend to support reform and to mute opposition. The result has no public option and no importation of  cheaper drugs. Obama got what the wanted, the drug and health insurance industries got something they could live with and a promise of millions of new customers-- guaranteeing them huge profits, some of who would be subsidized by the government, and liberal Democrats got royally screwed in the deal.

5. He seems to exhibit the triumph of hope over facts and experience regarding the transcendence of partisan politics. The current  Republicans, with few exceptions, are obstructionists, dogmatic ideologues who do not hesitate to engage in demagoguery and distortion of the facts, and would rather defeat Obama than cooperate in enacting   constructive legislation that does not meet their obstinate orthodoxy.

6. Although I appreciate his coolness under pressure, I would on occasion like to see him  get really excited about something other than his wife, children, and family dog, you know, show some deep passion about something.

But maybe he is doing the best that can be done for a progressive agenda given the mess he inherited and the lack of good options on the major issues facing him and the nation.

So, I will give him the benefit of the doubt for the moment with my head but in my heart I cannot escape disillusionment. Heck, I am just plain mad with him. Final answer forthcoming when I hear from my liver.

The more I learn about Afghanistan, the more hopeless our cause seems. The latest shock is that we are paying the Taliban through intermediaries to let our supply trucks though. We are funding both sides of the war.  See:

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20091130/roston

Karzai and company are utterly corrupt are not likely to change much. The loss of life, the suffering, and  the expense are not worth the meager goals we might achieve by staying.

Along with a growing number, I think we should devise achievable goals while we get out. The consequences might be severe, of course, and we would have to live with that. I dread especially what it might mean for the children, especially the girls who  could be denied an education or liberation from the despicably oppressive rule of men whose ethics are rooted in centuries-old brutal traditions.

What is our goal anyway? I have no better answer than Peter Berger: Try to get Afghanistan back to where it was in the 70's. See:
http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/asiapcf/08/19/afghan.untold/index.html

Maybe this is unrealistic romanticism not relevant to present conditions. But one move that is relevant would be to persuade  the local warlords and chieftains by appropriate financial and other inducements that they would be better off to oppose the Taliban and support the American cause. The local authorities, not Kabul, are the ruling powers. They don't want the Americans and other foreign troops there, but they do want a better life for their people. Make that possible. It would be cheaper that continued military occupation.

In any case, Pakistan is the heart of the problem. Berger maintains that the Taliban would never have been successful without the intelligence and military  forces of Pakistan. Hence,we should say to Pakistan: Either you deal with the Taliban and Al-Qaeda in your country with our aerial and financial assistance, or ____(fill in with the strongest alternatives that would be effective without destabilizing the country or letting it fall into the hands of the extremists with their fingers on the nuclear button). In addition tell them that we will do all we can to insure that India does them no harm while they deal with our mutual enemies within your borders.

Bottom line: there are no good solutions. Let us hope that Obama comes up with the least bad option. I trust him more than any of the certaintists, who know exactly what we should in the absolute confidence that the consequences will be a predicted.

Would strict regulation of doctors, hospitals and patients under a single-payer system provide control? Or would genuine competition among health plans over price and quality work better? That's the debate we need, but in truth, doctors, hospitals and patients don't want to be limited,

 So says Robert J. Samuelson in today's (10-26) Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/25/AR2009102502041.html?hpid=opinionsbox1

I mostly disagree with his  conservative take on things, but I think he is right about this.

Most people want lower health care costs and  greater or unlimited access to health, care just like they want lower taxes and greater government services.  Doctors and hospitals want their payments increased, and citizens don't want their taxes raised. Insurance companies want greater profits by raising premiums and refusing service.

Obama has promised lower costs and no raise in taxes for anyone but the super rich. So how will it all turn out? Well, there is always the national credit card from China, Inc. Stay tuned.

Meanwhile, criminals are defrauding Medicare of billions and billions, and when asked about it, officials have plenty of excuses but express no outrage and resolute determination to stop it. Pelosi, Reid, and Obama, are you listening?

I was talking to the Superintendent at the cemetery:

How's business? I said.

Oh, just great. In fact, people are dying to get in.

Is that so?

Yeah, besides that there are people dying today who never died before.

No kidding! You do a good job here, I bet.

Yeah, well, we've never had any complaints for any of our tenants. Nobody has ever tried to get out.

What's it like working in a cemetery?

Well, its' awfully quiet. No loud music. No wild parties,  Late at night, it's pretty dead around here.

What do you do if a prospective customer complains about a plot?

Oh, we'd start digging into it and not stop till  we got to the bottom of it.

But aren't a lot more people getting cremated these days? Does that hurt business here?

Well, you know, more people are thinking outside the box, and that is a grave problem for us.

Do you have any worries at all?

Oh yes,  I do have a few worries, but I  think about them for a while and then just bury them.

You like working here, on the whole?

Oh yeah. And undertakers are wonderful people, very loyal and trustworthy. I can assure you  they will be the last to let you down.

Oh Yeah, well in the old days his ancestral myth makers said that the lower classes needed the goad of starvation to make them work, thus justifying subsistence wages.

I have never understood that last claim, since the same myth makers insist that the rich need the goad of greater income and wealth to persuade them to  work, invest, and create jobs.

Could it be that the lure of higher wages might  also make the poor work and work harder? Or are we common folks a different form of humanity who need different incentives?

These capitalist myths are all crap and baloney, I

think.

This agrees every other analysis I have seen. Obama and Geithner bark but so far have not bitten except in mostly harmless ways. Congressional leaders express outrage. Congress roars as if in childbirth with an elephant but seems to be bringing forth a relatively harmless mouse.

You want a reason why the bills to regulate banks are being gutted? Just look at the money the financial institutions give Democrats. Check out how much Goldman Sachs and the like have given Obama.

Was it Will Rogers who said he was tired of people criticizing Congress. Why, he said, we have the best Congress money can buy!

OK, I suppose this condemnation has to be qualified a little given the announcement just made that severe pay cuts have been ordered for some big banks -- but not Goldman Sachs and J. P. Morgan Chase, who have repaid their direct TARP funds. But they benefit from other government programs and guarantees that enable them to make big profits with little risk. So, I insist that the plutocracy is still largely intact and capable of great mischief to the masses of us average folks.

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