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The
Year in Review
by William Rivers Pitt
These are the columns where people
like me are expected to drag out all the events, good and bad,
which took place in the year that has now passed us by. I'd just as
soon avoid the task, but as
Frank Herbert observed in Dune, "The Forms must be obeyed," so here we
go:
The earthquake in Haiti created a
human and economic disaster that lingers (hell, has gotten worse) to
this day.
Those
poor bastards in Haiti were living in hell before the Earthquake hit.
America promised them a bunch of money and, once again, President
Coburn said, "Screw
them."
The
BP/Halliburton/American-oil-addiction disaster in the Gulf of Mexico
showed us what we are capable of,
and what we cannot do when our capabilities (and our greed) outstrip
our collective talents. They managed to
cap the thing after a seemingly interminable period, and the death and
destruction in those waters is a thing
we will not know the full scope of for God knows how long.
I'm
glad this didn't hurt Obama more than it did.
How was he supposed to respond
to a tragedy a mile underwater that couldn't be seen?
He trusted the oil company to
tell him the truth - one of his worst habits - trusting evil sons of
bitches.
Kagan followed Sotomayor to the
Supreme Court, continuing what I hope to be an ongoing reversal of the
right-bent trend of the Bench, best exemplified by the ruinous
Citizen's United decision, an event which did
well to despoil the year.
Yes,
everyone on the Whore Court went to either Harvard or Yale.
Oh well, I guess that beats an
uneducated
masturbating witch.
The passage of a Health Care
"reform" package happened...does anyone even remember the Public Option
concept?
I do. The thing is better than worse on balance, especially for people
like my wife who have pre-existing conditions,
but the story behind it resonated far too closely with so much else
that transpired this year: we got something,
a half-a-loaf that could have been so much more, and was nothing near
to what had been oft-promised during
a campaign comprised of more poetry than the subsequent prose chose to
fulfill.
Reid & Pelosi could've written a 1,000-word health care bill, but noooooooo.
They saw an opportunity to secretly raise taxes and they fell right into it.
We are still in Iraq, we are
expanding in Afghanistan (despite the near-unanimous consensus that
the war is not winnable...but hey, so long as the war profiteers get
paid and the heroin addicts get
their fix, that train is gonna keep a-rollin').
Afghanistan
is now the longest war in US history and we still have no plans to
leave.
I wish Obama would drop us some clues on what he expects to accomplish.
Millions are out of work and losing
their homes, though some friends of mine have actually found work,
so let that stand as an (albeit anecdotal) glimmer of hope.
The super-rich like writing smaller payroll checks and that'll never change.
If only I was religious - I could lie to myself and say, "God has a plan for me."
But, 2011 is probably going to be a better year than 2010.
Let's hope so.