If it Ain't Broken then Don't Fix it!

When a car is running low on gas, you fill the tank.

When it needs oil, you put oil in it.

When a person has gained a lot of weight, to the point where it makes living difficult and dangerous, he sets out a plan for himself to lose this weight. Excess weight, caused by a sedentary lifestyle, poor eating habits, etc. usually lead the person in question to make changes, major ones, if they are serious about shedding the pounds and getting back to a "fighting weight."

An obese person will not lose weight by putting two sugars instead of three into his coffee; he won't lose that weight by cutting down on intake of carbs; say, instead of eating all of the fried potatoes with his omlette in the morning, he will only eat half; or, instead of white toast with butter, he will eat wholewheat toast with butter.

If he is serious, he should, perhaps, eat organic muesili with freshly-squeezed carrot, apple, celery and pumpkin juice for breakfast--and that's it! He should take apples and celery to work and munch on them when he has a craving for some cake, cookies or other "treats." For lunch, a nice vegetable soup with no bread and water should replace the Chili's salad, turkey club and fries that he would normally eat.

After work, he should add to all of the walking up and down steps that he had done over the course of the day (to include walking to lunch, work if possible, furthest parking spot from the Chili's of diner or cafe, etc.), he should commence a serious (but doctor advised) workout regimen. Dinner: a salad of lettuce, spinach, celery, carrots, tomatoes and some olive oil with balsamic vinegar to be followed by some nice salmon and some long-grain, brown rice (with no extra sauces extra for maybe some tabasco).

Over the course of a month or so, this person's body, and mind, will get used to these new eating habits. The cravings for sugar will become less; the calls from cheesecakes and cheeseburgers and juicy steaks with nice fries will grow dimmer and eventually, the pounds will start to drop; the workouts will become more intense and the man happier, healthier and thinner! He will have made a structural change to his own personal/biological "infrastructure."

When a nation's economic infrastructure is bankrupt, it needs infrastructural investment; when it's banks, medical industry, food-producing industries, financial industries, military and private industry that provides that military with its arms are completely unregulated, the nation needs government oversight; when one of the most cultural cities in the world is allowed to drown and rot for 5 days in the world's "wealthiest" country, we must ask ourselves: has not obesity affected our ability make ourselves healthier? Have we not lost the ability to compete in a world with fitter, healthier nations?

Obesity is greed. It is gluttony. Bankrupting our nation is greed, gluttony. Cutting taxes in the hope that our economy will be revived is similar to our fat-friend from above, eating only half of the potatoes at breakfast (but otherwise making no other changes in his life) and then being shocked when he doesn't lose any weight.

Like our friend, we too must make across the board structural changes; make improvements to our infrastructure in order to kill the cravings for greed, gluttony, sedentary living.

We need change, we voted for it, we got it and now we need to lose the habits of the Republicans that have so blatantly put the interests of the few ahead of the interests of the many: we are today the fattest, most out of shape, most in-debt nation in the world. And now, those cravings for ever more food have led us to start canabalizing the very system which served us so well for so many years: DEPOLITICIZE THIS ECONOMIC RECOVERY FOR THE SAKE OF AMERICA, NOT THE SAKE OF THE GOP.

We have been living with a short-term mindset for the past 25 years--had we passed universal health care in 1994, American taxpayers would not be paying tens of billions today for the uninsured. If we invest today in our nation, we will be fitter and healthier tomorrow.

Sadly, the Republicans don't care about tomorrow, they are only concerned about where they will eat their next meal.