These Are Some Seriously Evil People
Remember the Walter Reed scandal? Remember the Veterans Administration hospital scandal? Remember reports that a tidal wave of veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan with serious physical and mental health needs will soon break on the shore?
With all that in mind, The Associated Press reports that:
“The Bush administration plans to cut funding for veterans’ health care two years from now – even as badly wounded troops returning from Iraq could overwhelm the system.
“Bush is using the cuts, critics say, to help fulfill his pledge to balance the budget by 2012.
“After an increase sought for next year, the Bush budget would turn current trends on their head. Even though the cost of providing medical care to veterans has been growing rapidly – by more than 10 percent in many years – White House budget documents assume consecutive cutbacks in 2009 and 2010 and a freeze thereafter.”
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: This is an outrage. If you care about our veterans, sit down and write or email your congressman now.
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40 Responses to “These Are Some Seriously Evil People”
He’s not going to be able to get those kinds of budget cuts through, Sean. Bush is not so much a lame duck as a dead duck.
Even if by some miracle he managed to do so, the Democrats , who support increasing veterans benefits, would use the issue in ’08 to wipe his party out at the polls.
It’s really pretty easy to e-mail your Congressman.
The official website of theHouse of Representatives makes it easy to find your Congressman. You can input your zip code into a little box in the upper left-hand corner. Click on the link you get to go to your Congressman’s homepage.
On that homepage, you will usually find an e-mail address.
Oops!
That was supposed to to have the link to the House of Reps.
Hope that works!
Shaun said: “These Are Some Seriously Evil People”
It was a psychiatrist, who evaluated the Nazi war criminals at Nuremberg, who posited one of the best definitions of evil I have encountered: Evil is the lack of ability to empathize with another living being.
In this light, Shaun is clearly correct…this is evil. Do any of the WH budget officials think of what these cuts mean in terms of the lives of soldiers damaged in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan? Do they care?
Of course, Kritter is also correct that these are not likely to get these through in an election year. Of course, one has to wonder at the political sanity of a White House who would even propose such cuts in the current climate…especially after the Walter Reed debacle.
Evil. Stupid. What can be said?
marlowe:
Thank you for your input. I thought long and hard before I used the word evil because it is so loaded. I was unable to convince myself that as heavy as the word is, these people are not evil when it comes to what they are doing to our men and women at arms after all of their sacrifices.
Will SD and stevstrum defend this one?
Here’s how to contact your Senators.
So, you are complaining about some future unlikely possibility.
Did anyone actually read the full article, or just look at Shaun’s carefully selected excerpt? Every passing day this site bares more of a resemblance to another site – what is that site? – Oh that’s right, DailyKos. Such Moderation.
Shaun said: “I was unable to convince myself that as heavy as the word is, these people are not evil when it comes to what they are doing to our men and women at arms after all of their sacrifices.”
Shaun, I must agree. The psychiatrist at Nuremberg, I read, was interested by how apparently normal and even appealing individuals at senior levels of the German government could be entirely indifferent to the suffering of those in the KZ. Something similar seems to be the case with the Bush WH advisors, balancing the budget on the backs of American servicemen/women.
You make an important caveat, Shaun. These men and women have volunteered to serve the United States, and put their bodies and lives at risk for their country.
It is thus particularly appalling to order these men and women to war, and then cut the budgets for the health care of the wounded and maimed.
Disgusting.
cfpete said: “So, you are complaining about some future unlikely possibility.”
Yes, I read the full article. Yes, this is highly unlikely.
But why would this even be proposed? It is politically stupid…especially after the Walter Reed fiasco…and a total non-starter. The WH is bascially sticking a sign on their back for the Democrats, reading: “Kick me.”
Also, who would even think of proposing such a measure…even as a trial balloon? Staffers with no empathy for American soldiers…who are far from any war zone…and, I imagine, with full insurance plans themselves.
Look, I am a conservative, and often disagree with liberals here at TMV, but this is just not right. Not right at all.
Yes the politically correct thing to do would be to budget 100 trillion, yes trillion, for the VA. The truth is that the VA will not get a budget cut in 2009, you don’t even need to call your Congressman or Congresswoman, it simply will not happen. No Republican or Democrat will support a VA budget cut in the end. It is just some bureaucratic budgeting process that will play itself out.
The point is that this is just a political hit piece. You want to criticize Bush, there is plenty out there. But why pick something that in the end will not occur. By the way, this article came out in February, what took you so long Shaun.
cfpete:
Yes, and Walter Reed is a paragon of efficiency, the VA system runs like a Swiss watch and the many tens of thousands of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans who are seriously f*cked up and will put an enormous stress on both the military and civilian health-care systems are a fig newton of a leftie-liberal’s imagination.
Clinton screwed with the VA budget, so this isn’t another Bush hit piece. Nevertheless, your disdain for the sacrifices these men and women make for you, if you are an American, is appalling but in keeping with that compassionate conservative mantra.
To put it another way, who wants to bet that the VA budget for 2009 will be increased before Bush even submits it to Congress.
cfp – TMV is still moderate, it has a long way to go before joining the Kossacks. Would you call Ballon-Juice, BelgraviaDispatch and CunningRealist(all Republicans) as moonbats. Even many commentators(here) are moderate by the standards of the sites I listed above.
Dear Shaun,
I fully support an increase in VA funding, and I will guarantee that the VA will receive an increase in funding. If they don’t, then you can call me a traitor, evil person, or anything thing else you want to copy from the Bush mantra. The thing is, any disagreement with your posts leads to the same responses that you use to criticize Bush.
You are an ideologue from a different perspective and willfully engage in the same attacks on patriotism as employed by Bush.
How easily you dismiss Bush’s public expression of disregard for our troops. You think it’s OK for the Commander-in-Chief to support cutting care for injured troops because no one will support it “in the end” and it will fail?
Sad.
Marlowe, I’m pleased to see you disapprove of this. There’s hope yet for (at least some) conservatives.
The truth is I give up.
Today’s political discourse consists of nothing more than a “with us†or “against us†mentality – on both sides. Each Party believes they have all the answers – well you don’t. It will always be somewhere in between. The fact is that neither Party wants to believe that – it is not a zero sum game.
But keep on arguing, keep on railing against the state of the media – and then dutifully follow their lead.
We are perhaps beyond the point where nothing less than a complete social and economic meltdown will rescue America. When that happens, remember that your neighbor might not fully agree with your vision of the future. You can berate them or label them as ignorant, or you could try to work together. We are all Americans and stewards of this dream imagined a long time ago. Our biggest battle is not with terrorists or foreign states, it is the battle to understand the ideas of our fellow man and woman.
I could express more, but what is this point.
This is a place, like many others, for people to defend their own ideals. It is a shouting match – who can shout louder?
Who wins?
I think no one does.
Well, whatever the likelyhood of the cuts to the WR budget, I think we can all agree they would happen long before Bush raised taxes on the wealthy. That Bush would make wounded soldiers suffer rather than reverse his economic policy designed to comfort the rich. I think that is the appeal of this article.
Marlowe:
I don’t think the def you quote is a good one. Evil is not merely a lack of something, but the desire to put ideas into action. One can be a sterile misanthropist that withdraws from the world, but that’s not evil.
Evil is an active force, not merely the absence of good- that’s indifference or anomy.
cfpete:
Quadriplegia, sucking chest wounds at PTSD are neither Republican nor Democratic.
My bottom line is that we make sure that veterans get what they need and deserve. I will be beating the same drum with a Democrat in the White House. It doesn’t come much simpler than that.
cosmo:
Wow! Given your definition of evil being an active force — and there has been no more activist regime . . . er, administration in my lifetime — that word applies even more.
Thanks.
Was it evil for the United States to not increase the quotas for Jewish immigrants in the late 30s and early 40s?
“I could express more, but what is the point. This is a place, like many others, for people to defend their own ideals. It is a shouting match – who can shout louder?â€
Cfpete, yes I am coming to the same conclusion . Posters use terms like “evilâ€, “knuckle-dragging†“Uncle Tomâ€, and “chicken hawk†, how are these terms in any way considered “moderateâ€. And to top it off when posters use charged terms like this any commenter that responds in kind can be banned, not exactly a level playing field [not that I want shouting matches either]. Of course not everyone does it, compare this to posts by Joe and Michael for example.
One note to our European guest Michael on Americans interpreting terms, if you come across this comment. The term “knuckle dragger“ in the post on Bush denotes a person of low intelligence, but the same term is an abhorrent vicious racist remark if used to describe an African America. The term takes on the meaning of one step above ape when used in that way. If Stein had used “knuckle dragging†to describe Judge Thomas that most likely would have been considered a racial attack even though both men are Conservative Republicans.
Yes Shaun,
I hate quadriplegics, people with chest wounds, and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
I am just that kind of bastard. My wife is a bitch and my children are the spawn of Satan. In fact, what am I thinking? My wife is a psychologist that provides therapy to veterans with PTSD. I need to tell her to stop working at Shands and the VA because we are heartless bastards. She actually trains graduate students to work with veterans. What am I doing – defeating my evil plans with my own family members?
Doubt me?
Come to Florida.
Shaun: the two are not mutually opposing. Bushco may be evil for being activist, but not for a lack of empathy or any other thing.
Chris: ‘Was it evil for the United States to not increase the quotas for Jewish immigrants in the late 30s and early 40s?’
Not evil- perhaps shortsightedness or laze, or political expedience, but you are presuming FDR knew the full scope of the death camps in 1938 or ’39. The fact is that the mass killings really kicked into gear in ’42 and ’43, long after FDR’s decision.
Perhaps there was Anti-Semitism in his choice, but the choice is not evidence of that particular evil.
Grognard: I sympathize with your and cfpete’s frustrations. I wd say, be specific, as in my above posts, and point out when others stray. I could easily accuse Chris of trying to start a fire by imputing evil on FDR. But I have simply kept my retort to the specifics.
Cosmo, thanks and appreciated, the funny thing is that I actually agree with people like Shaun on a variety of things but the conservative bashing only gets people react not reflect. Getting people to reflect on their views rather than react to well crafted inflammatory speech is the service that moderates should be offering to our friends on the left and right. I think we should be seen a s a “fair broker†of politics who will give everyone a fair hearing, not just be another way station of partisan attack.
Hey Cosmo,
I would love to be specific, but I simply do not have the time. I would even love to post some of my reports, but I do not own them – damn University – also I doubt Joe would like me to post 1500 pages as a comment. They are not all like that, it is just my longest – it has full color graphs. The Czech-Republic seemed to like it. Damn those guys can drink, and the fact that I remained conscious the entire time was the only reason we got the grant. They were surprised I outlasted the German – so was I.
Cfpete, be careful about comments, some posters know full well that the rules for posting are far less restrictive than the rules for comments and could use that to full advantage. Don’t take the bait and end up getting banned, although I do understand if you are past the point of caring anymore.
Shaun- I don’t see your post as a “hit piece” on Bush -unless no one thinks that bad intentions and cynical politicizing of the troops only when it suits your purpose matters anymore. Amazing that no matter what this administration does or doesn’t do, it will always have its defenders. Amazing.
Grog,
Honestly, I am beyond the point of caring.
Maybe you should think about the fact that you can be censored unlike the contributors.
Have I said anything more “controversial†than any contributor?
Banned by ip, yeah “I am completely unable to deal with that situationâ€
I believe I would actually comment more if that happened .
Let me get this straight. The administration told some number cruncher to shuffle some numbers around so it looks like they could balance the budget 4 years after the Admin is gone, and that’s seriously evil?
Did anybody else get a little chuckle out of the hysteronics?
I am curious if it had anything to do with the fact that there is certainly going to be some military draw down by the time this would in theory go into effect? It doesn’t say that the individual benefits are lessened, they won’t stop treatments, money will get spent no matter what the budget is. The only thing this may do is screw up a budget in 2 or 3 years, and of course give people the chance to scream evil……. evil……. EVIL!!!!!!
….snicker….
Let’s throw out the word “evil” and consider the case as it is.
The administration has presided over a war with very poor support for the wounded veterans as they return home. Numbercrunching or no, should we take it as a simple face value lie that there is no way the administration could seriously intend to lower funds for veterans?
This adminstration has lost any claim to “There is just no way they could possibly do that” that it might once have had.
Evil or not it is obvious that veterans’ care is a low priority for this CIC, once they are no longer useful in Iraq or Afghanistan. That alone speaks volumes.
egrubs, this wouldn’t take place during his admin so I don’t see them being able to lower funds after they leave. If funds were budgeted lower, lets say for the sake of argument they were optimistic, and cost climbed over projected goals there would be an “emergency” supplemental funding bill put before congress, they would pass it and some spinach farmers would get a big payday as well as the VA getting whatever money they needed. If you see where they propose limiting payments, treatments, benefits, ect then that would mean something. These numbers were projected costs and expenditures. It is not the same thing.
I didn’t, because this instance of Bush-bashing is simply another lame variation on the same long-overly-tired theme.
But the administration provides so much rope- we have to help them hang themselves, LOL. In 18 months I’ll have to get a whole new obsession!
I agree. It seems to me that labeling Bush as “evil” is to employ the same simplistic “good versus evil” that Bush uses. Surely we have higher standards than that here at TMV.
Yes, yes, yes…but … again, with this administration, is has lost any claim to “There’s no way it could seriously do that.” It’s just that simple. The burden of proof is on the administration. It has lost its credibility. There is no reason to believe little white lies simply because we hope that people will act with honor in the future.
If to lie to us about a budget, they need to lie to us by pretending they’ll reduce spending on veterans’ benefits…and this is what we are supposed to believe is the best possible way to view it…
I don’t know. At best it’s just a political screw up.
I’m tired of hoping that everything I read is a typo.
egrub—-again they will be gone so unless you also believe in mind control………
Really you ignored everything and just came back with “Bush is so evil”. Unless you show where anything will be cut it is just a projection. Are they planing on shortchanging solders or just optimistic? Lets be reasonable and not knee jerk.
Reasonable means assuming that nothing done in the next year and a half will last into 2009?
Shaun has given no reason to think that is a true statement.
Ah, there’s the rub. I have stated it before. Shaun used to be a respected journalist. He is very aware of the words he chooses, and the effects they will have. The ensuing firestorms that are set off are, in the end, simply the results he is trying to achieve for his amusement and ego gratification.