Play, Drujienna, Play!

Weekend mornings are always good for thinking… I wake up every day around 5:30 or 6am no matter what, but on Sunday, my wife won’t wake up for about 4 more hours, and we’re lucky if we see the baby before noon.

So I have gallons of time to lie in a semi-dream state, and then rub the crust out of my eyes and wander over to the kitchen to make some coffee; then slowly stretch and decide to go out for a jog, and enjoy a couple of slow miles in the early sunshine, getting my thoughts together; then hang out watching Meet The Press for a few minutes, waiting to cool down from the embarrassing sweat that breaks out after just a couple of miles; then a nice shower and cuddle with the dog; then make my weekend breakfast of bacon and eggs and toast and another cup of coffee… and they’re STILL asleep! Holy cow, it’s like a time warp; like I’ve discovered the secret of infinite life or something.

So you may have noticed, if you could read the horribly unreadable previous sentence, that I do catch a segment or two of political BS-talk on the tube as part of this ritual. This morning I caught exactly two stories. One – the highly publicized incident where the woman was ignored while she died a slow and painful death right on the floor of the Emergency Room at King-Drew hospital. Two – the Iraqi Foreign Minister talking about how the American timetable for results in Iraq was much too speedy and unrealistic.

Well, I think both stories can benefit from a little straight-talk politically incorrect analysis. Here goes.

The woman who died at King Drew had been in there earlier in the week, and the nurse in charge of triage thought she was a big, fat complainer. So when she came back, that nurse told her to sit down, shut up, and wait her turn, meaning “you can just sit there forever, you annoying fat Mexican woman; you’ll get no service here.”

King Drew is essentially a black hospital, and only exists because white city council members are unable to hold this complete basket-case accountable for its failures, either because they are simply afraid, or more likely, because their minds have been so deformed by years of politically correct appeasement that they believe they are doing the right thing. Lord have mercy, when good people lie to themselves, double-thinking their way through, averting their minds from the truth.

Talk about the bigotry of low expectations! It's incredible how both black and white self-aggrandizing politicians create and perpetuate this sense that blacks or other "minorities" should be treated by a different standard. It's the most destructive thing I have ever seen. I can understand why such a theory might have held 40 years ago, when civil rights changes were alive, and one could fairly argue that special treatment was worth a try to make up for prior wrongs. But the flaw in this approach is all-too-obvious now -- unless you don't want to see the truth. It degrades the person given the special coddling. It undermines achievement. It destroys potential. It creates artificial divisions and competition, where none should exist.

Back to the scene of the crime. Everyone around knew that the official word from this triage nurse was that this patient was “just a complainer”, so they ignored her. Some not-too-subtle intra-ethnic racism was at work – “if you’re not black; if we don’t know you or like you, you’ll be treated like garbage. We do anything we like here… we’re Dr. King’s legacy; we’re an entitlement from the sacred Watts Riots days, and no one can touch us.” Not to mention incompetence, along with an all-too-common and banal bureaucratic mindset: “I’m just doing my job here… don’t make things difficult”, and the related “Just follow the rules; who the hell knows why, or even if those are the rules – just stop bothering me.”

So why did this happen? Because the staff there are perfectly secure in their entrenched, civil-service, artificially-entitled universe. They’re safe, because the political CLASS treats them as if they're exempt from accountability; so in practice, they are.

What should be done? They should be held accountable. They should all be fired, plain and simple. All of them; the whole staff, top to bottom. Then privatize the thing – I don’t want to pay any taxes to support that kind of care. You do know YOU are paying for it PERSONALLY, right? – the funds don’t just fall from the sky, you know. As citizens, you should expect this hospital to provide BETTER care than average, and to be highly efficient and competent in executing its public mandate – providing great VALUE.

Instead, it’s a sink-hole, spending MY money right out of MY wallet, but I get no say… The amazing thing is that 10s of millions have already been expended to try to rescue this mess, and millions more are on the way – for sensitivity training, no doubt, and management consulting, and extra staff, and so on. And why all this money? – because they’re performing BADLY. Yes… they are REWARDED for performing badly. They get extra attention and money, and get into a negotiating position where they are entitled to ask for additional, special resources, precisely because they perform BADLY.

Could there be a clearer indication that the political process is off the rails?

Well, let’s look at the Iraqi story. This asshole Foreign Minister is saying that they need lots more time… that it took the Americans 13 years after winning their Revolution before they had a Constitution.

OK, asshole. That’s fine – take all the time you need. BUT NOT WITH MY MONEY OR WITH THE LIFE OF MY SON! Who the hell decided that we need to be there, spending hundreds of billions of dollars (a truly staggering sum) and losing thousands of precious lives, to give corrupt Iraqis time to play their power games, some corruptly on the side of horrendously corrupt insider Western powers; others just as viciously on the side of other players in the Great Game?

Holy shit, that makes me mad.

I supported the war originally, unlike almost anyone else who reads this. I still think that it could have been the correct policy – that’s how far to that side I am – if properly executed and followed up. But what we should have done, after the military victory, after Saddam’s army was defeated, was to say the following:

“Congratulations! We’ve removed the dictator – who was oppressing you, and whom we considered a threat. You now have your republic and your freedom, if you can keep it (to plagiarize Ben Franklin). We’re going to leave now [waves hand in the air, indicating an exit, stage right]. Some of our army will be stationed nearby [Jordan, Israel, Kuwait, Turkey, etc.], most will be back home. You are free to do whatever the hell you want to govern yourselves – including a Civil War if you like. BUT – if you become a threat to us, ever, or if we believe that elements have taken over that are a humanitarian outrage, we will come back in and overthrow whoever is in power again. So be careful.”

We could still say that. We SHOULD. We should not be there ONE MORE DAY.

Why don’t we? It’s a crisis of leadership and morality. There is not ONE politician or leader in this country with the balls to speak the truth, or the courage to hold others accountable, and hold ourselves accountable, to commit our strength to our convictions. We have, as a nation and a culture, grown stupid and weak. We are afraid to think clearly, or to put ourselves on the line, or to act in accordance with our beliefs. And as a result, intensely corrupt elements like the Bushes and their cabal are able to lead us by the nose. As a result, our media is useless; filling time with American Idol and Entertainment Tonight and mealy-mouthed shoutfest commentary, completely unable to report honestly or to analyze intelligently (and with no interest in doing so either).

The same underlying forces apply in the case of the other major news story of the day: the Immigration Bill. There are many interesting policy points there, and it’s a great object lesson in special interest politics and the distortions and dishonesty it breeds. But even more important, perhaps, is the simple truth that this bill is being considered without ANY discussion of what should be the policy… it’s all about the horse-race of which power center can get what it wants, and how it plays… Who are we, as a people, when we don’t even know OR WANT TO THINK ABOUT what should be our policy? What does that tell us about what our real policy is?

Have a good Father’s Day, everyone. Happy Father’s day to my own father, and to me :-)