Try baking the change we knead
7/15/09 | 13 comments
Pat LaMarche

Try baking the change we knead


By Pat LaMarche

“It’s time to fundamentally change the way that we do business in Washington. To help build a new foundation for the 21st century, we need to reform our government so that it is more efficient, more transparent, and more creative.” — Barack Obama

I think I’ll start selling bumper stickers that say, “Don’t blame me, I voted for change.” You can put it over the sticker you already have that says, “Vote Obama for Change.”

We can’t put all the blame on the president. You need to take responsibility for him not changing things. When you used that one-word instruction “change,” you weren’t terribly clear. Your bumper stickers should have said, “Hey, Sen. Obama, if I make you president I want you to change the way we do things not the way we talk about things.”

But let me be fair, he is changing some things.

Oh sure, he’s bailing out finance and industry just like the last president did. And he’s ratcheting up our war machine just like the last president did. And he’s co-opting his base just like the last president did.

But look at whom he just nominated to be surgeon general. Her name is Dr. Regina Benjamin, a woman respected by her peers, who has worked in Alabama bayou clinics caring for the poor. If approved, she’ll be in charge of public health and she actually has worked her whole career for the betterment of public health.

She’s actually qualified and that’s a big change from how the last guy nominated folks.

Remember when Bush 43 named Eric Keroack, an abstinence-only physician, to oversee family planning and the distribution of birth control to low-income women? And then there was John Bolton, nominated for ambassador to the United Nations except, oh yeah, he hated the United Nations. Or how about my personal favorite, Michael D. Brown, who was hand-selected by the former president to head up our emergency management agency even though his background was Arabian horses.

Oddly enough, because our current president seems to be more on the ball when it comes to resume reading, the country thinks we’re getting on the right track — change is coming — the “change we need.”

Don’t get me wrong, having the right people in charge is important. Changing the captain on the Titanic might have been a good idea — but only if he had been changed before the mishap with the iceberg. A new captain before the collision could have changed course. A new course is the change we need, too. Or as some protesters down in Washington, D.C., would like you to know, a new course is “the change we knead.”

That’s right, a whole pile of peaceniks, universal health care activists and environmentalists are baking bread in Lafayette Park in front of the White House. Keith McHenry, co-founder of Food Not Bombs, a not-for-profit organization that thinks feeding the hungry is a better use of our resources than blowing people to smithereens, is one of the organizers. McHenry says that they are “following in the footsteps of Mohandas Gandhi, Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr.,” and asks you to join their “nonviolent sit-in for a positive future.”

What do you think? Will you go? They’re not leaving until we get the kneaded change. I’m going to go. It’ll be fun. We can bake bread in solar ovens and talk about the change that folks who voted for Obama were expecting — the same change Obama had promised.

If enough of us protest, maybe someone will notice that the voters don’t want controlling interest in General Motors; they want single-payer health care like they have in the countries where the cars are made that compete with General Motors.

The voters don’t want a continually ballooning deficit; they want all that war spending cut and our soldiers to come home and the killing to stop.

It’s just like President Obama said: “I don’t care whether you’re driving a hybrid or an SUV. If you’re headed for a cliff, you have to change direction. That’s what the American people called for in November, and that’s what we intend to deliver.” Too bad the only thing the president actually has changed is his mind.

Pat LaMarche of Yarmouth is the author of “Left Out In America: The State of Homelessness in the United States.” She may be reached at PatLaMarche@

hotmail.com.

Not registered? Click here
E-mail this
Print this
Guidelines for posting on bangordailynews.com

Bangordailynews.com is pleased to offer a forum for readers to react to our stories, discuss them and provide additional information. We are reluctant to delete comments, but do reserve that right for those who abuse our forum. For more on using this site, please see our terms of service.

The primary rule here is pretty simple: Treat others with the same respect you'd want for yourself. What does that mean specifically? Here are some guidelines (see more):

Comments
13 comments on this item
On 7/14/09 at 11:14 PM, Elizabethann wrote: Click here to view hidden comment         Repeated separate thumbs down will cause comment to be hidden
On 7/14/09 at 11:54 PM, FrankC wrote:         Repeated separate thumbs down will cause comment to be hidden

Do you read or watch anything except for the NYT ?

Among the many things that you are so off base with, is that GM competition comes from Georgia, Tenn etal (http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1004876,00.html)

You are so clueless - even after Bush (who may have been a lousy president) - he never appointed such unqualified and criminal people to help run the country as Obama has.

The economy (wall st) looks to the future, so they (it) has reacted to what Obama and the dems have been sayin they will do. So if they do what they say - the ecomomy goes south !

heck - I vaguely remember you and others complaining that unemployemnt under Bus was 6 % !! OMG - I've read that its really nearer to 15-18% in some parts of the country.

Report abuse
On 7/15/09 at 9:07 AM, PeterofLoneTree wrote: Click here to view hidden comment         Repeated separate thumbs down will cause comment to be hidden
On 7/15/09 at 9:58 AM, Saltoria wrote:         Repeated separate thumbs down will cause comment to be hidden

Oh, Pat, don't be so naive. Obama has changed plenty, but not for the better. He knows exactly what he promised and he knows exactly what he is doing. He is changing the course of the country just as promised. He is changing the face of America to look like Europe. While Europe is realizing its fundamental mistakes, Obama is taking us down the same socialized path. Further, don't be mistaken. He isn't choosing people who are qualified. HE is choosing people who hold the same view toward the world as he does. Government knows what is best for you. Government for the people, not by the people. Individual freedoms are being stripped by every piece of legislation. Read the Cap and Trade bill (disguised as a climate bill) and decide for yourself. That bill is clearly designed to weaken the American people and give MORE money to government. Our government has gone from bad to worse!! For REAL change, we need term limits, not career politicians!

Report abuse
On 7/15/09 at 10:36 AM, MaineExpatriat wrote:         Repeated separate thumbs down will cause comment to be hidden

Let's see as Bush was a lame-duck, all righties declared it was Bill Clinton that had destroyed the economy. In 6 months as President it is now Barack Obama that destroyed the economy.......

And yet we as Americans wonder why the entire world thinks we're idiots.

Report abuse
On 7/15/09 at 10:29 PM, chersully2000 wrote:         Repeated separate thumbs down will cause comment to be hidden

MaineExpatriat: You are a riot.....but at the same time you make so much sense. I , for one, enjoy your comments! You make some serious points, but make me laugh at the same time.

Report abuse
On 7/15/09 at 10:53 PM, DavidReed wrote: Click here to view hidden comment         Repeated separate thumbs down will cause comment to be hidden
On 7/16/09 at 6:43 AM, greenferret wrote:         Repeated separate thumbs down will cause comment to be hidden

Pat is absolutely right - Washington DC is run by corporate lobbyists. The answer, in my opinion, is not term limits, but clean elections laws and election reforms like instant runoff voting and proportional representation.

It's telling that someone referred to Wall Street as "the economy". Well, if that were true, then forking over trillions of taxpayer dollars to Wall Street should have fixed the economy, right?

Someone else wrote of Europe "realizing its fundamental mistakes." Actually, Europeans are quite happy with their excellent single-payer health care systems. It's here in the US that people and businesses die to feed the insurance companies' profits.

Let's see, Republicans always blame the Democrats for ruining the economy, and Democrats always blame the Republicans for ruining the economy. Maybe it's time for Americans to realize that they're both right.

Report abuse
On 7/17/09 at 4:54 PM, gregdebeck wrote: Click here to view hidden comment         Repeated separate thumbs down will cause comment to be hidden
On 7/17/09 at 5:00 PM, MaineExpatriat wrote:         Repeated separate thumbs down will cause comment to be hidden

Every third post on here is about thumbs downs. I read every thread, all posts. It doesn't matter and people should stop worrying about it. It means nothing.

Report abuse
On 7/17/09 at 5:14 PM, chersully2000 wrote:         Repeated separate thumbs down will cause comment to be hidden

gregdebeck: Excellent commentary. Good catch!! Yes, quite often I have gotten voted down, when my comments were benign (no vileness,etc.) but because I am a "liberal" and Obama supporter ( imagine...how outrageous!!), I have had these small minds vote them down (sometimes.....not as much as before.) I do not vote people down.....or let's say very rarely....has to be vile and that doesn't happen on the site any longer now that they have stricter guidelines, so I do not feel the need to vote anyone down. Just because of their political views???? Come on.....

Report abuse
On 7/17/09 at 5:17 PM, chersully2000 wrote:         Repeated separate thumbs down will cause comment to be hidden

yes, greenferret: Why are most Europeans happy and satisfied with their healthcare? Telling, isn't it!! Seems that must have some validity!

Report abuse
On 7/25/09 at 6:26 AM, zanadume wrote:         Repeated separate thumbs down will cause comment to be hidden

Has anybody picked up on the fact that the ``birthing conspiracy'' -- who cares if it is true or not -- it's delicious payback for the slash and burn tactics of Obama's tribe against Bush (he ordered the CIA to blow up the WTT and Pentagon to fake a terror attack to invade Iraq) and Palin ( she lied when she gave birth to Trig, her handicapped baby actually was the off-spring of one of the governor's young daughters, or maybe the spawn of the anti-Christ.) The amazing story, not covered by the media, is that the American people now get Obama. Zogby has Obama's disapproval rating at 53 percent. Rasmussen's disapproval is 51 percent, but the key measure (strongly disapprove 38 percent, strongly approve 30 percent) makes it clear why Obama wants, has to ram his socialist agendy through the Democratic congress ASP. The rouge, racist Cambridge cop? How can anybody who listened to the president's former pastor, the Rev. Wright's tirades of `God Damn America, God Damn Whitey' be surprised that the president really... he really does ... hate whitey. And how about that promise he made -- if Congress borrows $787 trillion to pay for Democratic pork projects in Democratic districts, the economy will top out before hiting 8 percent. Why doesn't the media declare that this was Obama's ``Mission Accomplished'' declaration? As long as the guy keeps screwing the economy, why would anybody trust him with his Hector Charvez takeover of America's health care industry, which 70 percent say they are satisfied with in polls? The answer, he wants to federalize the 12 to 20 million aliens, give them more government benefits, so they will become registered Democratic voters and let him continue steamrolling the rest of America.

Report abuse
You must be logged in to post a comment. click here to log in.

Powered by: Creative Circle Advertising Solutions, Inc.