CAN AN INSIDER BE A CHANGE AGENT?
The election of the President of the United States of America will answer the question of whether an insider can be a change agent.
The belief that change can only come from the outside or from an outsider has been debunked by Donald Trump and Lyndon B. Johnson.
America is still in shock about the change that Donald Trump brought to the White House as an outsider. He has demonstrated himself to be totally corrupt and incompetent. We do not need to give a list of his failed foreign policy actions and the loss of lives of the Kurds, siding with Israel instead of remaining neutral and moving the American Embassy to Jerusalem abandoning a two state solution to the Israeli/Palestinian Problem, immigration failures and the deaths of little children and adults, the decimation of the EPA such that toxic and radioactive waste is being put in our drinking water, lakes, streams and oceans; selling government lands to his friends and billionaire buddies; instituting punitive practices for immigration, welfare and stacking the courts with incompetent and biased judges such that the judicial system may be altered for many years. There were also tax cuts for the rich and cutting 1.7 trillion from medicare which citizens including myself paid for from our payroll checks. Clinton also borrowed from Social Security and those funds have never been paid back.
Lyndon B. Johnson showed us that an insider can be more effective than and outsider in effecting change. He was able to get the Civil Rights, Voting Rights and other acts passed which we thought to be almost impossible. He knew people from both sides of the isle. He had been in Congress so long as a Congressman and Senator that he knew where all the bodies were buried and many owed him favors. He was effective as a legislator. He knew what to do. He had experience. He was able to bring about change as President. He made some mistakes. He took gold from backing the United States dollar. Now we think we can print money forever. Nobody balances the budget. Kennedy was a fiscal conservative. He believed in balancing the budget. Jimmy Carter came in with a lot of new ideas for change. He gave us Zero Based Budgeting. He set administrators on fire. They had to give back money every year that was not spent. He did other things. He was elected because he was an outsider. He was effective in International affairs if not the Iran Hostage Issue. He will never be forgiven for politicizing the Olympics and not allowing the United States to participate when it was in Russia. Nobody can forgive Johnson for escalating the war in Vietnam. He did not cause the war. Kennedy is to blame for the regime change debacle. Johnson was able to bring about change because he was an insider and knew the government and knew what to do. Johnson loved this country and wanted to do what was best for all of its citizens. He was a social and fiscal conservative but changed to effect change in the country.
America has seen the middle class disappear with the destruction and attacks on unions. Corporations no longer share any profits with the workers. Financing college is prohibitive for many unless they end up in debt. Healthcare, education, housing, infrastructure, big money in politics and greedy corporations have changed America as we know it. We now have a two tier justice system with one system for the rich and another standard being applied for the poor. We cannot go on confronting the new tech revolution and climate change by thinking that we can withdraw and return to the solutions of the fifties. We need new solutions. The issue is who can provide the new solutions? Does America really want to go to universal healthcare which is rationed in many countries? Do we want to give up our private insurance if we can afford it? Do we want to give up Affordable Healthcare when we do not have an alternative? Who wants healthcare without a public option. I have personally been in four hospitals that have closed. The major reason they closed was the change in insurance and medicare and medicaid payment reductions. Hospitals got new life when the Affordable Care Act was passed. Do they want to give that up. Can there only be a redistribution of wealth by a tax on the rich? Companies no longer hire people for forty hour weeks because they do not want to pay benefits and pensions. They do not want to pay employees a living wage. The corporate executives now get all of the money. The healthcare issue is very complex. I was in this business for a number of years. None of the candidates really seem to understand the complexity of the problem. Big Pharma is greedy and needs to be dealt with by congress and they have not taken any action.
Finally, this election was answer the question of whether only an insider can be a change agent. The problems are complex and need experience on the part of the person in the oval office to deal with the problems and the international community. Time will tell. Trump the outsider made a mess of things. We will see.
Helen ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
