Whole Foods CEO

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Apparently, the crunchy granola world is flustered over the fact that Whole Foods’ CEO wrote an op ed where he said, among other things, that health care wasn’t a right http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32471153/ns/us_news-washington_post/. Why does this shock people? A lot of companies that you might think have a liberal bend have people running them who are extremely conservative. Where do you think all that money for conservative think tanks & operative groups comes from?


For example, for all the talk about how liberal Hollywood is, the fact is that it’s really only the actors who might be liberal. The entertainment industry is run by multinational conglomerates whose boards of directors & CEOs are mainly conservative. Dominos Pizza is run by an ultraconservative who gives the majority of his money to far right causes. That’s why I don’t eat their pizza.

If you really want to find out where your money is going, do some research online. There are many web sites that keep track of who gives how much money to which causes. Then, send these CEOs a message that you will not give money to their companies. People who shop at Whole Foods should not be shocked in the least.

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Obama Leadership

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In one of New York City’s free tabloids, there was a front page headline that said Sweating the Numbers: Obama’s Approval Ratings Drop To 50% Over Economy. First off, I doubt that Obama’s really worrying about the poll numbers right now. Real leaders don’t concern themselves with petty issues like that, especially when there are a lot of problems that need fixing.
Second, a little historical perspective is needed here. Ronald Reagan, like Obama, inherited a recession; his from Jimmy Carter. Reagan took 3 years to pull the country out & while he was busy implementing policies, his approval ratings dropped…a lot. In fact, when he ran against Walter Mondale in 1984, he was actually behind in the polls until their second debate.
As it turned out, a lot of his policies are beginning to work. All of the economic indicators seem to show that the economy is beginning to bottom out & turn upward. The stock market is up almost 2000 points from its bottom only 6 months ago (so much for antiObama CNBC & the Obama bear market). Even unemployment, usually a lagging indicator, actually dipped downward last month so that's a good sign.
When people are trying to fix problems, they will not be popular because eventually, they will ruffle feathers (see health care reform for a more recent example). The real leaders won't stick their fingers up to see which wat the political wind is blowing. They will stand strong & with conviction that what they are doing is right.

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Mitt Romney's Health Care

Mitt Romney wrote an op ed piece in USA Today http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2009/07/mr-president-whats-the-rush.html?poe=HFMostPopular about the health care system & Massachusetts's solutions in dealing with it. The piece is entitled "Mr. President, What's the Rush". Romney's two points in the piece is that health care reform doesn't have to happen now & that republicans are not the enemy.
Mitt Romney is wrong on at least one of those points. Time is of the essense. There's a reason why it's taken 50 years to get this far with reform. It's because the people who are against it are well funded & entrenched. Every president has started to attempt reform & have been driven back, leaving it to the next person. In the meantime, people die from a broken system that helps the very few get richer & richer.
As far as the republicans go, there are some who want to see the system change, while the vast majority want to see the president fail. They want to try to score a victory against President Obama. They could care less about the American people & trying to fix the system. To them, this is a game. Well, the American people need to tell them that this is not a fucking game!!! There are people dying because they either can't afford to get the proper care or they've been turned away due to a cruel system. This has to stop. What better time than now to stop it? The time is now to fix it. There should be no more delays & stall strategies. Peoples lives depend on it.

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Too Many Issues?

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According to the new NBC/WSJ poll, 37% of Americans believe that President Obama is dealing with too many issues. My main question is this: just what issues should he drop? Should he drop economic ones? Maybe he should forget about health care because we all know that’ll fix itself pretty soon. Maybe he can get those pesky foreign governments like Iran & North Korea to behave themselves so he won’t have to handle such little problems.
People tend to have ADD when it comes to reality. We tend to forget what kind of trouble we were & still are in. We may not have that deep forboding feeling we all had in Febuary & March when it felt like the world was caving in but believe me, the problems haven’t gone away. We still have high unemployment. We have a health care system that’s going to bankrupt us. We have a regulatory system that needs serious fixing to prevent the banking crisis from theoretically happening again. The stimulus package money is just now beginning to work its way through the system. We have a swine flu pandemic, which isn’t affecting us as much right now but will once the weather starts turning colder. That’s a lot of plates to spin but you know as well as I do that if he starts dropping problems in favor of others, people will be screaming that he isn’t doing enough.
These are tough times we’re in right now & there are many plates to spin. So far, the president seems to be doing a pretty good job of it.

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My Problem With Obama

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Let me first state that I am an ardent supporter of President Obama. I signed the Draft Obama petition in 2006 & worked for his election through 2008. I’ve got posters, booklets, & other souvenirs from his election & inauguration. I download his speeches & appearances onto my computer so that my kids & grandkids will have something to go on other than stories & watered down versions of events, like we get when looking at 2 minute clips of Kennedy.
Now that I’ve firmly established my Obama street cred, I’ve got beef with the guy. It’s got nothing to do with foreign policy, of which he’s doing a pretty good job so far. I’m not angry at him with domestic policy. I’m going with a wait & see attitude on the stimulus package, health care, & the like. My old Yes We Can attitude is fading over one major subject & that subject is transparency in government.
When Obama ran for president, he said that the American people deserved to know what’s going on with their government. He started off strong by setting up websites where you could check where the money was going with regards to the stimulus package. However, there now comes word from MSNBC that the administration is blocking the news media from getting lists of visitors to the White House http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31373407/.
It’s an old policy that the Bush administration had in place but had gotten them into hot water (No more secret meeting to write energy policy. Remember that campaign rally slogan?). Obama’s reasoning is that privacy needs to be in place in case important people are interviewing for administration positions, etc. I find that to be a lame excuse at best. Once the position’s been filled, they should release the names, not block the public from knowing.
The second policy that I have a problem with is giving major donors to the election campaign diplomatic positions. I know that it’s a policy that’s been in place since the dawn of politics but it’s a policy that has truly run its course. It smacks of cronyism, whether these people are qualified or not. Having given lots of money should completely take them out of the running for what are mainly cushy positions (with some major exceptions).
Continuing both of these policies fly in the face of his campaign promises & need to come to a halt now. True transparency in government means not continuing with the secretive politics that have been played in the past but by letting the American people know what’s being done in their name.