Uh, Shrub, WTF Do You Mean "May Be" Flaws in the System?

[Tuckerfan]

From the horse’s ass himself.

I am concerned that there may be flaws in the system between when a soldier is on the battlefield, through the Defense Department, through the Veterans Administration, finally to the community.

(bolding mine)

I realize, oh, Chimp-in-Chief, that it was probably one of the infinite number of monkeys strapped to typewriters you use for speechwriters who came up with that particular phrase which grates on my nerves so much, but surely even that refridgerator bulb of a brain you’ve got had to know that was just a crock of shit. There is no question that our vets are getting screwed at Walter Reed. Waaaaay too much evidence of that. There might be some question that vets at other hospitals are getting the same shitty service, if you didn’t read newspapers or know anyone who’d been seriously injured while in the military.

Some time between Gulf War 1.0 and 9/11 a guy I used to know who joined the Army when he graduated high school lost a hand while in the service of his country. The military promised him he’d get a fancy prosthetic hand, he wound up with a hook. It took him a lawsuit to get the fancy hand (personally, I’d have been happy with the hook, cause you know you could just have so much fun at parties with it).

About a year ago, there was the story of a highly decorated Army soldier who went from having high marks and accolades from his superiors to being busted to down to private in just a few months (with a corresponding loss of pay). His wife, realizing that there had to be something medically wrong with him to cause this took him to some civilian doctors who quickly diagnosed him with the human variant of mad cow disease. Armed with this, she went back to the military and showed them that his problems were caused by an illness and not his fault. The military agreed and said that it would “consider” reinstating his rank and pay. Nice way to treat a combat vet, eh?

Then there’s the tale the welding instructor where I used to go to school told me. He went to the VA to see if he could get a discount on his meds through the VA. When he gave an account of his military service, one of the workers there practically lunged out of his office and dragged the instructor in there, telling him that if the instructor let some of the other folks handle it they’d “fuck everything up.” When the instructor left, he found that not only was he eligible for cheaper meds, but that several of his medical conditions were fully covered by the VA and he was going to be drawing disability payments that would be in excess of his current earnings. Gee, you’d think that the government might have, you know, actually bothered to tell him some of that before hand.

So, to put it simply, there is no question that some of our vets are getting screwed over. The question is: What are you going to do about it? Donna Shalala seems to think that you’re on the ball and will put the full weight of your Administration behind this, but excuse me if I’m not won over by this. After all, with Iraq, Katrina, Afghanistan, North Korea, and everything else you’ve dealt with, you’ve certainly proved that you’ve got the “Midas touch” where everything you handle turns to shit. You saying that there “may be” a problem gives me little faith you’ll actually do the right things to solve these problems.

[Gala_Matrix_Fire]

My question is how does Mr Bush even know about the Walter Reed issue? He’s a proud non-reader of the newspaper and doesn’t pay attention to polls. Is it possible that his advisors were independently looking into the Walter Reed issue *at the exact same time * an intrepid Washington Post reporter was?
Otherwise, it’s a complete mystery. It least it’s a consolation to know that he’s deeply concerned about the issue and has been for the last four days or so.

[Aeschines]

Bush is the first MBA president and an expert administrator. If anyone can fix it, it’s he.
:rolleyes:

[RickJay]

I hate to say this, but really, it’s unlikely this is unique to the Bush administration.

The government is always going to treat you like shit. The Clinton, Bush 1.0, Reagan, and Carter administrations were no better; it’s just that those Presidents didn’t have any wars this big to tax the hospital this much. They treat them like shit here in Canada. They doubtlessly treat them like shit in other countries.

The government is a necessary evil. Necessary, but never forget it’s evil. It’ll destroy your life if it’s convenient to do so and don’t think for an instant it won’t.

[Kimstu]

@RickJay

The government is always going to treat you like shit. […]

The government is a necessary evil. Necessary, but never forget it’s evil. It’ll destroy your life if it’s convenient to do so and don’t think for an instant it won’t.

:rolleyes: If I posted paranoid hyperbole like this about the unqualified destructive “evilness” of big corporations, I’d get ripped a new one for it, and deservedly so. Sure, government has inherent flaws and failures built into it, just like any other major human institution, but that doesn’t entitle it to get a pass on any particular bad policy.

“Oh, the nasty old government is eeeeeevil, we can’t expect it to do anything right!” Bullshit. Lazy, irresponsible, defeatist bullshit.

[Tuckerfan]

@RickJay

I hate to say this, but really, it’s unlikely this is unique to the Bush administration.

Note that I didn’t single Bush out for the blame on shit going wrong. One of the examples I listed detailed what happened to a soldier before Shrub got in office. However, were a scandal like this to erupt during any other Administration, I have to believe that they’d do a better job fixing the problem than Shrub’s going to do.

[Astroboy14]

@RickJay

I hate to say this, but really, it’s unlikely this is unique to the Bush administration.

The government is always going to treat you like shit. The Clinton, Bush 1.0, Reagan, and Carter administrations were no better; it’s just that those Presidents didn’t have any wars this big to tax the hospital this much. They treat them like shit here in Canada. They doubtlessly treat them like shit in other countries.

The government is a necessary evil. Necessary, but never forget it’s evil. It’ll destroy your life if it’s convenient to do so and don’t think for an instant it won’t.

Amen.

[matt_mcl]

@Kimstu

:rolleyes: If I posted paranoid hyperbole like this about the unqualified destructive “evilness” of big corporations, I’d get ripped a new one for it, and deservedly so. Sure, government has inherent flaws and failures built into it, just like any other major human institution, but that doesn’t entitle it to get a pass on any particular bad policy.

“Oh, the nasty old government is eeeeeevil, we can’t expect it to do anything right!” Bullshit. Lazy, irresponsible, defeatist bullshit.

YES. Thank you, Kimstu. This is exactly the sort of attitude that the powerful cultivate. Why bother trying to change anything? It’s inherently evil and will never work right. Never mind that all of these decisions are being made by humans who are subject to human ethics and responsibility for how their decisions affect others.

[RickJay]

@Kimstu

:rolleyes: If I posted paranoid hyperbole like this about the unqualified destructive “evilness” of big corporations, I’d get ripped a new one for it, and deservedly so.

Oh, come off it.

Big organizations - governments or corporations - are soulless. Humans have souls; things do not. Deal with it. They serve a purpose, but don’t expect anything from them EXCEPT that purpose. And the bigger they are, the more they’re likely to stupidly hurt people.

Can government be improved? Well, of course it can. A good start would be reducing its size.

[Frank]

@RickJay

Well, of course it can. A good start would be reducing its size.

Nonsense. A good start would be holding the humans involved responsible for their individual actions. (I’ll add that that works for corporations as well.)

[Tuckerfan]

[Lewis Black] Republicans and Democrats like to talk about the government like it’s a building or something and it’s going around doing things. Government is human beings, that’s what the fuck it is! And the reason government doesn’t have any common sense is because none of the human beings have any common sense! [/LB]

[matt_mcl]

@RickJay

Big organizations - governments or corporations - are soulless. Humans have souls; things do not.

The world would be a lot better off if we would notice that government and corporations are in fact composed of people, people with ethical responsibilities that they can be held to.

People’s responsibilities to others and society don’t vanish because they join a group.

[bannerrefugee]

@RickJay

I hate to say this, but really, it’s unlikely this is unique to the Bush administration.

The government is always going to treat you like shit. The Clinton, Carter administrations were no better; it’s just that those Presidents didn’t start any big usless wars

Sorry edit

[Quiddity_Glomfuster]

@RickJay

Oh, come off it.

Big organizations - governments or corporations - are soulless.

That’s right. No human beings work in any government buildings. They are manned by robots. The guy at the bowling alley - can’t be a government employee because he’s not a robot. The gal behind you at Starbuck’s - nah, it can’t be a government phone she holds in her hand or a government desk she sits behind.

I work for a government. We are human beings, individuals. What ‘government’ is stuck with doing often is the bidding of the moron at the top.

You vote for Bush, you’re responsible for all the idiocy. Not your imaginary bogeyman that looks like a big machine and acts like one - it doesn’t exist. It’s all about you, bub.

[matt_mcl]

@Quiddity Glomfuster

You vote for Bush, you’re responsible for all the idiocy. Not your imaginary bogeyman that looks like a big machine and acts like one - it doesn’t exist. It’s all about you, bub.

Well, not about RickJay as such, though we may have a plausible case for blaming him for Stephen Harper.

[Tuckerfan]

Well, at least we know that Bush isn’t afraid to fire people.

The White House approves all U.S. attorneys, who function as the federal government’s chief prosecutors in 93 jurisdictions around the country. As political appointees, they serve “at the pleasure of the President,” and can be replaced, at least theoretically, at any time for any reason. But group firings in the middle a presidential term are highly unusual. Though Attorney General Alberto Gonzales insisted to Congress that “I would never, ever make a change in a U.S. attorney position for political reasons,” critics were outraged at the December dismissals, among them the firing of an Arkansas U.S. attorney to make way for Timothy Griffin, a protege of White House political guru Karl Rove. The outcry forced Griffin to withdraw. Gonzales’ top deputy later claimed the firings were necessary because of “performance-related” issues. But it was later revealed that all but two of the dismissed prosecutors had won outstanding evaluations for competence.

And if you get “uppity” about it, they know how to handle that as well.

Another fired U.S. attorney, H. E. “Bud” Cummins of Arkansas, testified that he had e-mailed fellow ousted prosecutors last month, warning them of a threatening message conveyed by a senior Justice Department official. Cummins’ e-mail, which was released publicly, quoted the Justice official as warning that if fired U.S. attorneys continued to talk to the media or volunteered to testify before Congress, the department “would feel forced to somehow pull their gloves off” and fight back. The DOJ denied the allegation.

[Quiddity_Glomfuster]

@matt_mcl

Well, not about RickJay as such, though we may have a plausible case for blaming him for Stephen Harper.

Oh cripes. Then him’n me’s definitely going to have words.

[John_Mace]

@Kimstu

:rolleyes: If I posted paranoid hyperbole like this about the unqualified destructive “evilness” of big corporations, I’d get ripped a new one for it, and deservedly so. Sure, government has inherent flaws and failures built into it, just like any other major human institution, but that doesn’t entitle it to get a pass on any particular bad policy.

“Oh, the nasty old government is eeeeeevil, we can’t expect it to do anything right!” Bullshit. Lazy, irresponsible, defeatist bullshit.

Not quite. We grant the government a monopoly on certain activities, and you have no choice but to deal with them for those activities. Name one corporation that you cannot avoid dealing with. The analogy would work with a corporation that was granted a monopoly by the government, but that would just be another thing to blame on the government. Competition is good. Monopolies are bad. Government must be a monopoly in certain areas, and so it’s a necessary evil.

This doesn’t excuse the fuck-up at Walter Reed, of course. One wonders if these government officials think that no one will ever find out…

[Liberal]

@Frank

Nonsense. A good start would be holding the humans involved responsible for their individual actions. (I’ll add that that works for corporations as well.)

As of 2002, there were more than 21 million government employees, including those in the federal government (nearly 3 million), 50 state governments, county, parish, or borough governments in every state except for 3, and 35,933 sub-county (city and town) governments. With which specific involved humans would your good start begin, and who would begin it?

[Diogenes_the_Cynic]

Start at the top and work your way down.