Tomorrow we come to the end of another year. Today will be my last opportunity to speak with you in 2010, and all I can say to this year is Good Riddance.
The year began with a double whammy in January. The Supreme Court overturned democracy with their despicable ruling in Citizens United v. FEC, and opened the floodgates for corporate money to control elections. To add insult to injury, later that very same day, Air America radio shut down for good, leaving me among the millions of un- or under-employed, and leaving America with far fewer liberal voices on the public airwaves.
Although we got something called “health care reform” this year, what finally passed was a watered-down shadow of what we fought so hard for. Although eventually things will get slightly better (no pre-existing conditions, no rescission, etc – though the insurance industry will undoubtedly find ways around those before they go into effect), we also won’t have an opportunity to buy into medicare, nor will Americans realize the dream of health care as a basic human right. Instead, we have a mandate to purchase a product from a for-profit company that is already reaping record profits on the backs of our health care system. It’s still broken.
We also got something called “financial regulatory reform” which truly doesn’t do anything to prevent the same sort of economic meltdown we experienced in September of 2008 or, for that matter, another great depression.
Courtesy of BP, we Americans experienced the worst environmental disaster in history, and the Gulf of Mexico will likely never be the same. And now, our government is talking about building new nuclear power plants!? I hope I’m no longer around when one of them has an accident, or is the target of a terrorist attack.
2010 brought us the porno-scanners in airports and touchy-feely TSA agents that will do nothing to keep us safer on airplanes, but will continue costing taxpayers lots of money and American people their dignity.
The Democrats took a “shellacking” in the midterms… but that’s because of all the things I mentioned above. Truly, if the Obama administration and the Dems in Congress had done what we elected them to do, without watering everything down to appease the Republicans, I believe things would be a lot better, and the results in November would have been quite different.
So, here I sit, getting ready to guest host the Randi Rhodes Show for one final day in 2010, and looking forward to talking with today’s guests:
Brent Budowsky of The Hill has some predictions for 2011; Eric Boehlert of Media Matters will tell us about their latest efforts- Equality Matters and Drop Fox and their 2010 Glenn Beck Misinformer of the Year Award:
Plus Senator Bernie Sanders will let us know what we can expect from Congress in 2011; and comedian John Fugelsang will help me finish recapping the year gone by.
Of course, we’ll spread a little more love for the 99ers. And I hope you’ll chime in too with your New Years wishes and predictions.