The Republicans and the Democrats have lied to us about the serious economic problems

First Bush lied to us about the war in Iraq; and the Democrats acquiesced and followed Bush to war.

Now both the Republicans and the Democrats have lied to us over and over again about the seriousness of the economic mess we are in.

Barack Obama obviously has known for a very long time, at least two years if not longer, that the economy was going to hell in a hand basket during the entire time he was campaigning for president; and, he never even broached the seriousness of the situation until problems became so out of hand they could no longer be kept hidden.

While the "officials" still don't dare use the "D" word--- depression--- they now admit that this "isn't your 'garden variety' downturn." So, we have gone from speculating that this is probably a minor "blip" to acknowledgment of being in the midst of a recession, to "this isn't your 'garden variety' downturn."

I suppose we should appreciate the current candor since we know that it is so difficult for these people in high places to tell the truth about anything.

The seriousness of what lies ahead changes everything and the way we view problems and look for solutions to existing problems which we all know are only going to get worse as the economy sinks deeper and deeper into troubled waters where humans have never been before.

Dilly-dallying with minor and incremental reforms is only going to make matters worse; Franklin D. Roosevelt found this out.

Wealth re-distribution--- major, major wealth re-distribution--- is the only way to head off complete chaos and mass suffering at this point.

Saving the capitalist system is not even an option to consider; I doubt it can be saved, and only those who have profited from the creation of the present crisis would want to save it.

The main thing is saving people--- keeping people working, in their homes, fed, clothed, going to school, and in good health.

Health care is a prime example of where immediate action to bring health care to millions presently without access to health care can prevent millions more suffering the same fate as we take steps to re-distribute the wealth in this country--- a process that should have begun over seventy years ago in order to prevent where were are today.

Barack Obama and those muddle-headed middle class intellectuals pushing alternative schemes to single-payer universal health care in the form of tinkering with a completely broken and unfixable system blew their wad when they lied to the American people by with-holding important facts about the economy.

Obama was afraid of offending those people in high places he used to get to the presidency.

Congress twiddled their thumbs as the economy spiraled downwards out of control, refusing to enact single-payer universal health care legislation in the form of H.R. 676.

Now it is too late for even H.R. 676.

It is time for all of us to act responsibly and take a fresh new look at what is required given the dire economic straights we have found ourselves in due to nothing of our own making and which was intentionally made completely out of our control. The American people, the working class had no say in anything... we worked and we worked and we created massive, unimaginable, great wealth... wealth that was stolen which has now come back to haunt us all and society requires this wealth be returned as a prerequisite to getting us out of this mess. Not returned in small increments but in massive amounts; and real fast if we are going to avoid mass misery unknown in modern human history.

Solving the health care mess is part of solving the economic problem because no matter what, there needs to be an immediate massive redistribution of wealth in order to stave off mass misery for the working class and there is no better way to quickly redistribute wealth than to take the profit-gouging insurance industry completely out of the picture.

In my opinion, Congress has waited far too long to implement health care reform.

Single-payer universal health care as in H.R. 676 is a "no-show" and would now be too little, too late; completely unworkable with no way to continue funding the kind of high profit margins required by greedy doctors, HMO's, hospitals, nursing homes and private for-profit in home care and the health care industry. Simply taking the insurance companies out of the picture still leaves these others sucking massive wealth out of the system that we can no longer afford the luxury of.

Given the very serious and deep economic depression we are into, nothing short of full-scale socialized health care will have any impact on the economic side.

Of course, single-payer universal health care would still alleviate the problem of access to health care for millions of people... but the enormous profits still being sucked from society simply is too much to bear.

President Franklin Roosevelt learned the hard way that when you dilly-dally as the economy crumbles you waste time and end up with an even bigger mess by trying to appease big-business with incremental-ism.

Now is no time to worry about appeasing the American Medical Association and these others who have had their greedy fingers in the pie for so long.

There is only one pie and when it is gone, it is gone. Our economy has had the ingredients to bake another completely depleted so we have to carefully share what is left for the time being.

There are those who argue that such massive redistribution of wealth through universal social programs like socialized health care will lead to people demanding more socialism to solve their other problems as capitalism is on the skids to oblivion while dragging us all down the road to perdition.

We need to answer them firmly: So what? Whatever works best to maintain the best quality of life and standard of living for the working class and Obama's cherished middle class is simply what needs to be done.

Single-payer universal health care would have only been an incremental step towards socialized health care anyways; an incremental step to appease the American Medical Association and big-business along with muddle-headed liberals afraid to challenge the status quo even though they know capitalism is falling apart at the seams as the entire foundation crumbles.

Obviously, none of the other health care schemes are even worth considering given what we now know about the current state of the economy.

Those pushing anything other than full-scale socialized health care today do so for selfish political reasons and society can no longer afford to indulge these self-centered individuals. We now need to look at the common good; the health of everyone and the economic well-being of our Nation.

Let's hope and pray Barack Obama and those who have been desperately trying to derail the single-payer universal health care movement in favor of all these incremental reforms will now see and understand the error of their ways... hopefully Obama will have the courage to socialize the entire health care system very quickly, within days of taking office... delaying weeks or months could further drag us all down to a place none of us want to be in.

We need a far ranging and deep discussion of this now so there is momentum pushing and prodding Obama to do what is right... obviously, he, like Bush, has lied to the American people about the depth and dire consequences of the economy that is far from merely faltering for a few months as Bush lied to the G-20; capitalism is failing and we can't allow its failure to drag all of us down with it.

Instead of the present fifty-million people without access to health care, failing to socialize health care during this kind of economic crisis and disaster will leave over 150 million people in this country without access to basic health care.

Figure it out, as unemployment mounts these workers will not be able to afford to pay any insurance premiums as they struggle to feed their families and keep a roof over their heads; and the very last thing we need is for the government to be subsidizing the profits of this health care industry--- not the insurance companies, not the doctors or HMO's or hospitals who have been gouging us for so long.

The Republicans obviously used up any goodwill they might have had with their lies about Iraq; people are fed up that the Democrats acquiesced to these crooked and corrupt Republicans for eight long years. Now we have had Democrats and Republicans tell us lie after lie after lie about the economy--- we simply can't get any straight answers based on hard facts and scientific data about what is going on... the people like Bush and Obama who know what is going on are still stuck in a mode of playing word games about the nature of this crisis so they have used up any goodwill they might have had with the American people.

Obama, the new kid on the block when it comes to wealth and power, now finds himself trapped between the grassroots people who gave him their votes and the wealthy Wall Street crowd who provided him the money to put on his show; he is now caught with no friends real friends that he can trust in high places while quickly losing any and all respect from those who gave him their votes.

But, Obama's problems are of his own making and we shouldn't allow those now pulling his strings to destroy us all.

As liberals and progressives, what many call "the left;" we have some very serious work and choices to make.

Health care is one of the choices we need to take a stand on.

The choice we make in health care reform must now consider not only what will best serve the health care needs of the people; but, the economic health of the Nation.

People before profits.

Massive redistribution of wealth is required and socialized health care is one of the ways to do this.

Socialized health care must be part of a larger project of redistributing the wealth which must include drastic cuts in military spending including ending these senseless wars for oil and drugs in Iraq and Afghanistan... let Bin Laden rot in his cave in Pakistan; we need to drastically raise the minimum wage to a real living wage. There needs to be a moratorium on all home foreclosures and evictions and all student loans should be forgiven as paid in full... if need be, let everyone who owes on student loans work it off for three months in the soup kitchens and food shelves.

This is the kind of emergency program required to stave off massive human misery in the days ahead and will allow the economy to muddle along as we figure out how to finally get rid of this rotten capitalist system which has now become such an enormous burden on us all.

That Barack Obama and his surrogates in the blogging world are still hard at work trying to derail the single-payer universal health care movement as so much more--- socialized health care--- is now needed, is the epitome of pathetic. While destroying the health of the people Obama is slitting his own throat because the rich and the powerful in high places who paid for his way to the presidency are going to be falling right along with their crumbling system.

Barack Obama now has some serious thinking of his own to do. He might want to keep in mind that Franklin D. Roosevelt faced an organized coup attempt when he started tinkering with incremental-ism instead of bringing on massive redistribution of wealth programs at the time they were most needed.

Perhaps Barack Obama is such an opportunist he doesn't even understand what is at stake and the seriousness of the situation... all the more reason for those who were deluded into supporting him better find a way to get past Rahm Emanuel for a serious talk with him.

What the heck made these dumb donkeys and dumb clucks think they could get away with telling lies about the economic problems like they lied about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan... perhaps we give them reason to think we are stupid?

Alan L. Maki