Guest Editorial by Ernest A. Canning
“Americans think that it’s healthcare that produces health, when there really is very little evidence for that. What turns out to be really important is the nature of caring and sharing in society….Where societies are more equal — and economic equality is the thing that is most important in this — people look after each other…and pretty well everyone does better. There’s almost nothing that is better in a society that tolerates the extreme levels of inequality in the United States. And so, we end up dying younger than people in all the other rich countries, despite spending half the world’s healthcare bill.” – Dr. Stephen Bezruchka, March 30, 2009
“Who are we? Is this what we have become — a nation that dumps people off like garbage who can’t pay their hospital bills?” – Michael Moore, following a segment in which a confused elderly woman in a flimsy hospital gown is dumped curbside near a Skid Row rescue mission, in his documentary Sicko!*
In Failed States (2006), Prof. Noam Chomsky, a preeminent linguist and one of this nation’s most prolific political writers, concludes that the U.S. suffers from a “democracy deficit†— the significant gap between the policy positions of the electorate and their elected representatives — which he attributes to the manner in which “elections are skillfully managed to avoid issues and marginalize the underlying population…freeing the elected leadership to serve the substantial people.â€
The deficit is especially acute in what Chomsky describes as “the most dysfunctional healthcare system in the industrial world.†Chomsky notes that a single-payer system — that is a system in which all medical providers would be paid by a government entity as now occurs with Medicare — has long been overwhelmingly favored by “a considerable majority†of the American people, but routinely dismissed by both the corporate media and the leaders of both political parties as “lacking political support†and not being “politically possible.â€
The issue touches on the core contradictions which arise because we have allowed private authoritarian entities, corporations, to subvert democracy by controlling our economy, our mass media and the manner in which we conduct elections.
This piece will focus on the irrationality of a privatized health care system which values the wealth of a handful of CEOs of the parasitic and entirely unnecessary middle-men — for-profit carriers and HMOs — over the health and very lives of our people. It will explain what corporate America and their bought-and-paid-for politicians do not want you to hear…
Still ‘Sicko’ in the U.S.A.
The importance of Michael Moore’s Sicko lies in its ability to transcend the abstraction of statistics. Moore recites the all too familiar numbers — 47 million Americans have no health insurance; 18,000 die each year (according to the National Academy of Science’s Institute of Medicine) simply because they cannot afford to pay for health care insurance.
Sicko begins with an uninsured man who is sewing up a gash in his leg; another who was forced to choose which of two lopped off fingers to save. Moore then tells us that Sicko is not about them. It’s about the 250 million who are insured, like Larry Smith, a former machinist, and his wife Donna, a former newspaper editor — Americans who’d worked hard all their lives only to be forced to move into their daughter’s tiny storage room after the co-pays for Larry’s multiple heart attacks and Donna’s cancer ate up their life savings and cost them their home. It’s about the 9/11 rescue workers who travel to Cuba, receiving, free-of-charge, medical care their own ungrateful nation failed to provide at a price they could afford.
Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP) reports “medical bills contribute to half of all personal bankruptcies. Three-fourths of those bankrupted had health insurance at the time they got sick or injured.”
Sicko exposes the fundamental conflict that arises when for-profit carriers and HMOs resort to utilization review (UR) (a system in which insurance industry physicians who never see the patients are paid to second-guess the judgment of the physicians who directly provide health care) and a myriad of other devices to avoid authorizing or paying for necessary procedures — a point underscored by the tearful Congressional testimony of former UR physician, Linda Pino, M.D., who noted that the UR physicians with the highest number of denials receive the largest bonuses and that she was promoted because she denied “an essential procedure” which “cost a man his life.”
Sicko reveals that a woman, rendered unconscious in an auto accident, was billed by her carrier for an ambulance ride to the hospital because it was not “pre-approved.” “When was I supposed to get approval,” she asked, “after I gained consciousness; while I was in the hospital?” The film portrayed the grief of a young widow whose husband died of cancer after their HMO repeatedly denied procedures as “unnecessary” or “experimental,” including a bone marrow transplant from his younger brother. In Sicko, we see a distraught young mother whose toddler died because her HMO refused to permit a local hospital to provide vital emergency care.
How can we mourn the loss of 3,000 on 9/11, yet tolerate a dysfunctional health care system that kills 18,000 uninsured each year plus countless others who were denied needed care simply to protect the obscene wealth of a few CEOs?
As the above-cited PNHP article reveals, the irrationality and waste of the deadly US health care system is underscored by the statistics. In the US 31% of all health care costs goes to the parasitic middle men — for profit carriers and HMOs. Canada, a single-payer country, devotes just 1.3% to administrative costs. Daniel Wirt, MD reports that the 31% translates to “more than $350 billion per year, provides no health care: it is consumed by enormous administrative costs, profits for investors and shareholders, and large salaries for managers of these for-profit insurance companies.”
Americans pay nearly double what people pay for health care in single-payer countries, yet the World Health Organization ranks the US as 37th in the delivery of health care services.
Where opponents of single-payer rail against paying taxes toward a single-payer system, the PNHP reports that our taxes already pay for 60% of health care costs in the US. “Americans pay the highest health care taxes in the world. We pay for national health insurance, but don’t get it.”
People in single-payer countries are healthier and live longer than we do. As revealed by Sicko, especially in the segment in which Moore interviews American exiles in Paris, with the stress and weight of America’s health care burden removed, they also appear a whole lot happier — a point which underscores the title of an article written by autoworker Phillip Bannowsky, “Capitalism produces rich bankers, but Socialism produces happiness.”
The ‘Universal Coverage’ Scam
Regardless of variances in their application, “universal coverage” schemes share two essential features: (1) they do not address the core problem which is not a lack of coverage but the presence of parasites — for-profit carriers and HMOs — which are sucking up billions of health care dollars; (2) they provide the illusion of reform while reinforcing the corruption of the current dysfunctional system by providing subsidies that will find their way into the coffers of the unnecessary parasites.
The basic area of difference entails whether to adopt a hybrid system advocated by Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-MA) that would permit individuals to choose between private and public insurance and subsidy plans offered by Senator Max Baucus (D-MT), Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, that would minimize the public option out of fear that the corrupt private health insurance carriers could not compete with an efficient public system. The Baucus plan would further burden those who have employer-funded health care insurance by taxing the insurance payments provided by their employers.
Kennedy and Baucus issued a joint statement on May 30, 2009 that they intended to offer “similar and complementary legislation that can be quickly merged into one bill for consideration on the Senate floor before the August recess.â€
Dr. David Himmelstein of PNHP explained the deficiency of the “public option plan”:
…Absent massive savings on administration, the expansion of coverage would be very costly, and costs would continue to rise in future years since the proposed plan has no means to achieve real health planning or use global budgets to set enforceable limits on cost growth. [The public option] plan would also do little or nothing for the tens of millions who are currently under-insured – they have coverage but still can’t afford care.
Dr. Quinton Young, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s personal physician and a long-time confidante of Barack Obama states:
Dr. Wirt supported this assessment, noting that whereas the number of uninsured adults in Massachusetts fell from 13% in 2006 to 7.1% in 2007, public spending skyrocketed from “$629.8 million in fiscal year 2007” to “$1089.2 million in fiscal year 2008 and $1317.7 million in fiscal year 2009…Most of the” reduction in the number of uninsured was realized by “expanding Medicaid and subsidizing the purchase of private insurance.”
‘Barack has been dishonest’
In 2003, as an Illinois State Senator, Barack Obama supported a single-payer system. But when he set his sights on the Presidency, US Senator Barack Obama changed his tune. Single-payer would be ideal if we were “designing a system from scratch.” But “people have become accustomed to getting their health insurance through their employer…a lot of people work for insurance companies…[and] for HMOs.” We need to “build off the system that we’ve got.”
When asked by Amy Goodman what he thought of that remark, Dr. Young said [emphasis added]:
…
Under the weight of this private insurance system, doctors have finished training with huge debts, $150,000 on average, and the specialties, as it’s worked out under a private system, are paying on average two to three times what primary care doctors get. Primary care is very simple. It’s family practitioners, pediatricians and general internists. You need about 60 percent of your doctors in that category to have a balanced system. Well, that’s been slipping away, and now we’re well under 50 percent of primary care doctors. And that has to be reversed, or no system will work. And increasingly, there’s large areas in this country where people cannot find a primary care doctor. And in almost every, certainly metropolitan area, there’s an excess of specialists.
Unacceptable to Corporate America, Corporate Media
Both Democratic front-runners, Obama and Hillary Clinton, supported variations of the “universal coverage” scam. The only Democratic candidate who openly supported a single-payer system was Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), a co-sponsor with Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) of HR 676 (“Medicare for All”).
If you looked only at the election results, you might assume that the vast majority of Democrats favored the Obama and Clinton policy positions; that the Kucinich policy positions had only nominal support. And you would be wrong.
In August 2007, some 67,000 voters took part in an internet “blind poll” survey which set forth the policy positions of Democratic candidates for President but did not include their names. Obama, the charismatic “change†candidate whose soaring rhetoric is second to none, received a meager 3%; Clinton, 3.6%. Kucinich was the choice of “a phenomenal 53%.â€
The explanation for this gap goes beyond Chomsky’s accurate analysis of the deception employed by the PR industry. The problem also entails a corporate-owned media which has a vested financial interest in evading substantive issues, thereby forcing candidates to purchase expensive 30-second deceitful ads — a major source of media revenue. Where European democracies conduct elections over a span of weeks, the US has devolved into the permanent electoral cycle as newly elected “leaders†must begin trolling for financial support for the next election even before they take office.
While Obama knew full well that one cannot build on a health care system whose foundations are mired in corruption, he also knew that he would never have a realistic shot at the Presidency if he adopted the only logical solution (single-payer) because that solution was unacceptable to corporate America. Candidates who stray beyond the corporate range of discourse are shunned.
Case in point: America’s “paper of record,” The New York Times, which mentioned Kucinich only four times between an April 26, 2007 MSNBC debate — in which Kucinich and former Senator Mike Gravel were relegated to the far ends of the debate stage and mostly ignored — and prior to January 25, 2008 when the paper announced that Kucinich had withdrawn from the race. During that same period, the name Hillary Clinton appeared in more than 1,300 articles, columns, op-ed pieces and letters to the editor in The New York Times.
While much was made of the large number of small donations Obama’s Internet campaign garnered, as revealed by Amy Goodman during an Oct. 23, 2008 segment of Democracy Now “only a quarter of this vast number of donors fall into the ‘small’ category (under $200)…” The cost of Presidential campaigns soared from $171 million in 1976 to more than $2 billion in 2008. “The $2-billion presidential race…guarantees vast profits for the broadcasters, the national networks and the local television stations. Hundreds of television stations are using the public airwaves, imposing themselves between the candidates and the public,” Goodman noted.
Of course, the $2 billion for the Presidential race does not include the vast sums spent on Congressional and state races, including ballot propositions in states like California. (It is meaningless to talk about campaign finance reform without recognizing the need to divest corporate control over 95% of what we see, hear and read.)
Earlier, on July 22, 2008, Goodman reported that less than two weeks after Congress, with the aid of then Senator Obama’s reversal, granted retroactive immunity to telecoms involved in the Bush spy program, “it’s been learned AT&T will be emblazoned on every delegate’s bag at the Democratic National Convention. Like Comcast, Motorola, Coca-Cola, Google and a host of other corporate sponsors, the telecom giant has donated over a million dollars to the DNC in return for prominent display space and access to elected officials.”
On Jan. 20, 2009, Goodman reported that despite Obama’s ban on corporate and lobbyist funding, 80% of the $27.6 million raised to fund the inauguration came “from 211 wealthy individuals who have bundled anywhere up to $300,000 each.”
As investigative reporter Greg Palast observed in the title of his book, it’s The Best Democracy Money Can Buy.
Shut Out of the Debate
A March 6, 2009 Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) study showed that, despite a January 2009 New York Times/CBS poll reflecting that nearly 2/3 of all Americans favored single-payer, during the week leading to Obama’s March 5, 2009 health care summit, single-payer was greeted in the corporate media with deafening silence; mostly mentioned only in articles that attacked it. Per the FAIR study, single-payer “advocates…were almost entirely shut out” of the President’s summit. FAIR reported:
The pattern continues. On June 3, 2009 The New York Times managed to cover the health care issue without so much as mentioning single-payer, let alone the fact that its own polling demonstrated that single-payer is favored by a 2 to 1 margin by the American people. It failed to mention HR 676 or the similar single-payer bill [PDF], S 703, introduced by Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT).
But it isn’t just the corporate media. A 2009 AFL/CIO Health Care for America Survey, for example, set forth eight different options, none of which included single-payer. The so-called Divided We Fail coalition whose four major members include AARP, Business Roundtable, SEIU, and the National Federation of Independent Business sent out an email to members stating “we need to have everyone at the table if we’re going to pass meaningful reform,†yet the statement it submitted into the record at the Senate Finance Committee hearings made no mention of single-payer.
A curious exception is MSNBC, which mentions single-payer multiple times on its web site in linking to May and June 2009 pieces, but the linked articles fail to discuss single-payer, except one which merely mentions that “liberals†shouted “single-payer†in protest. The effort to paint single-payer as a “liberal†position ignores the fact that it is supported by 2/3 of the American people — a fact that either suggests a much broader range of support across the political spectrum or suggests that the American people are far more “liberal†than either their elected leaders or the corporate media.
Senator Baucus, a major recipient of health care insurer monies, insists that this is not the time to consider single-payer. He has not only excluded single-payer advocates from panels appearing before his Committee, but had the single-payer advocates who verbally protested arrested. One of those arrested, Russell Mokhiber of Single Payer Action, greeted Amy Goodman “from corporate-occupied territory, Washington, DC, where the drug companies and the health insurance companies control every nook and cranny.”
Mokhiber’s greeting pretty much sums up single-payer and the “democracy deficit.” While Baucus agreed to meet privately with single-payer advocates on June 3, 2009, he continues to refuse them a seat at the table during public hearings.
The Kennedy/Baucus joint statement that they hope to pass their respective bills before the August recess, moreover, suggests that Baucus agreed to a private meeting with single-payer advocates only after the fix was in. Indeed, if activist David Swanson’s description is anywhere near accurate, Baucus’ willingness to privately meet with single-payer advocates was itself a scam. Baucus said it was a “mistake” not to include single-payer but that the legislative process was now too far along to correct the omission.
But this was no sin of omission. Baucus’ earlier remarks make it clear that he intended to keep single-payer off-the-table all along. Indeed, the very title of the Baucus hearings, [emphasis added] the Senate Finance Committee Roundtable on Expanding Coverage on Health Care Reform, by definition excludes a single-payer solution.
The refusal by a bought-and-paid-for politician to permit 2/3 of the American people so much as a voice at public hearings is nothing short of scandalous, yet the scandal goes unreported in the all-too-complicit corporate media.
The Democracy Solution Deficit
Towards the end of Sicko Michael Moore asked former British MP Tony Benn how the UK developed its national health care system in 1947.
Benn’s short answer was “democracy.”
Later, Benn added:
If the poor in the US and Britain turned out to vote for people who represent their interests it would be a real democratic revolution…
The “democracy deficit” is not an impenetrable gap. James Madison taught us that “knowledge will forever govern ignorance” and that “a people who mean to be their own Governors must arm themselves with the power knowledge can bring.” Single-payer health care and the bridging of the democracy deficit can occur if we take the time to smash through the corporate media cone of silence, something which this article, in some small measure, aspires to achieve.
Those who wish to send their Senators an email demanding that single-payer advocates have a seat at the table during public hearings can do so right here.
______
UPDATE 6/6/09: Describing its author, Senator Edward M. Kennedy (D-MA) as the “longtime champion of health care for all,” Robert Pear of The New York Times tauted Kennedy’s hybrid “universal coverage” bill as a “sweeping health plan.” While the bill includes the so-called public option, its principle features include subsidized “premiums for people with incomes up to 500 percent of the poverty level ($110,000 for a family of four)” and financial penalties on those who do not obtain “coverage,” subject to an exemption for “exceptional financial hardship.” “The bill,” Pear conceded, “gives no indication of how Mr. Kennedy would pay for his proposals, other than by requiring contributions from individuals and employers,” and will likely be merged with the bill being written by Sen. Baucus.
This is “reform” in reverse. Bad enough the parasites — for profit carriers and HMOs — are sucking up 31% of health care dollars under the current system. Kennedy would now place the burden upon the 47 million uninsured to prove “exceptional financial hardship” or face penalties, wasting tax dollars to further subsidize the parasites.
UPDATE 6/7/09: During the first quarter of 2009, five health insurance carriers, United Health Group, WellPoint, Aetna, Cigna & Humana, together with the trade group American Insurance Plans, spent $6.4 million lobbying on health care legislation. Additionally, “MetLife Inc. spent nearly $1.2 million lobbying in the first quarter on legislation related to health insurance, overhauling the health care system, home mortgages, financial regulations and other issues…”
In its Sunday, June 07, 2009 paper, The New York Times gave front page coverage to President Obama’s desire to have a direct impact on the health care debate. That and a separate article entitled “State Coverage Model No Help for Uneasy Insurance Industry†took up an entire page of the printed edition. “Single-payer” was never mentioned.
UPDATE 6/10/09: Kevin Zeese reported on OpEdNews that single-payer advocates will now be permitted to appear as witnesses before both Senate and House committees conducting hearings that will address health care reform.
===
Ernest A. Canning has been an active member of the California State Bar since 1977 and has practiced in the fields of civil litigation and workers’ compensation at both the trial and appellate levels. He graduated cum laude from Southwestern University School of Law where he served as a student director of the clinical studies department and authored the Law Review Article, Executive Privilege: Myths & Realities. He received an MA in political science at Cal State University Northridge and a BA in political science from UCLA. He is also a Vietnam vet (4th Infantry, Central Highlands 1968).
US corporate media is owned by military corporations. Military corporations follow orders from their leaders. Why the surprise yet again that military companies do things that seem to go against the common good for a human being?
Whenever there is a corporation behind something, they will ALWAYS run thing into the money rather then into the morally correct arena.
I had a buddy in college who went on to Yale Law School. After that he landed a plumb job at Blue Cross, where he climbed to be top lawyer and retired after 35 years. His sole purpose at BC was to find legal reasons to deny your claim against your policy language. He retired with a 22 MILLION DOLLAR bonus. When I asked him how ONE HMO could pay out that obscene amount to ONE friggin lawyer, his reply?
“You are SO naive about how K Street works.”
Every day I watch broadcast television, where reporters and what is termed “journalists” go out with their camera crews and stick microphones into peoples faces. I watch Oprah sometimes, I watch the view sometimes, I watch game shows where the host asks “do you want to say anything?” I watch sports fans, yet all of them have one thing in common. When the lights are on, it seems the American public is not home.
What an opportunity missed to challenge them. If everybody did it we could stop watching how an Elephant likes to hang with a dog in the Elephant sanctuary.
Studios filled every day with audiences.
Good Morning America has fans with signs crushing against a gated fence, “Hello Aunt Sally” the signs say.
The day that “Hello Aunt Sally” or “Go UCLA” is replaced with “Chronic Pain, No Healthcare for 20 years” or “Electronic Voting Machines Must Be Outlawed” is the day it will turn around. I guess people are too scared, too lazy.
Granted in the Editing room they will CUT your protest out of the reel. Wirelessly communicating cameramen with control board operator can simply switch from camera to camera.
But if EVERYONE protested, they soon wouldn’t have a REEL on their shelf, which didn’t have a protest..
REMEMBER: Live Camera’s are for LIVE PEOPLE.. But once you get a fascist NLE operator filtering the segment for blacklisted items, you have evil people working for a dangerous cult.
I once asked a well known guy at our local Channel 31 here in Sacramento.
“Why don’t you investigate electronic vote tabulation devices, you could become famous?”
His reply.
“I don’t want to be famous.”
That’s an inside look at who is on your public airwaves. I really can’t be no more blunt than that. It’s absolutely the truth. I swear it.
Now see, I get on these blogs, and my typing skills suck, along with the fact that I do a bit of drinking sometimes, and I just make myself look more and more like an ass, and (I am starting to worry) potentially a target for the fake ass war on the American citizens by my own government. I never used to be SCARED of my own government. I am a veteran for god sakes. But…
I am now. I have started finding documents like this:
http://www.tdbimg.com/files/2009/04/30/-hsra-domestic-extremism-lexicon_165213935473.pdf
Which pretty much points right at me, under (U) Definitians | (U) alternative media.
I don’t particularly enjoy the fact that I am listed on a fucking list with people who are promoting violence. In fact it’s unacceptable, and it fucking pisses me off.
Oh and your reading this blog? Your now affiliated.
Regardless of the document being redacted or not, it was DISTRIBUTED, and probably with some VERBAL communication as well, and now the 20-30 somethings’ people in the field have this crap in their mind. When they should have the Constitution and Bill of Rights in their mind.
Maybe your the kind of person that can rationalize that document? I can’t, I would challenge it, I SWORE AN OATH to challenge it.
~phil
I got one question for you who just shined what I said.
What does
“To protect and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies both foreign and domestic”
actually mean when the toolbox with teeth to actually carry out the oath are non-existent?
It’s funny how so many swear that oath, but never asked, what do I do when I find an enemy who is attacking the US Constitution?
I am not advocating violence. There actually doesn’t need to be. The people BREAKING this oath are walking freely among us. They have unconstitutional legislation active as I speak!
How about a JAG or FBI guy step up, and clarify what we should be doing.
When does your OATH end? Surely not the end of your contract! heh . My god.
You get to the root of this problem and you get to the root of all the problems the US has right now. Although I believe once you understand this knowledge, your not safe anymore. In other words you’ve painted a target on yourself.
Hey I am in chronic pain, so go ahead, waste me, it’s better than having no health care..and at least I actually have no regrets. I did exactly what I swore I would do.
You know I just thought of something else.
If the hypothetical JAG or FBI official as I challenge above, is willing to clarify the OATH OF OFFICE, why not have them also clarify it to the DHS and all the other agencies that publishing lexicons and other such nonsense which goes against the U.S. Constitution that it won’t be tolerated to be vague, and spread fear among the American citizens. See… like I said in the first post, (tonight I had one hell of a neck pain attack, I got a bag of frozen peas on it right now, no pain killers, no drugs, I have no money, no medical) I am getting buzzed from the beer now… on my 5th beer, but the pain is easing somewhat… wish weed was legal.. anyway I digress.
Hope you can remix what I just said, and shove it upstream back into the source of the fascism, and oath breaking.
Look I know FBI, you guys can’t even drink, and YOU take an oath of office. I know everyone say’s don’t trust the FBI, but I tell you what, I think your the last hope. The military is neutered until their oaths are clarified. Who else has teeth?
YOUR STONE COLD SOBER AND KNOW BETTER.
Maybe after you clear that out, you can get busy on the banksters?
Every time I hear some politician claiming that they won’t support a Single Payer plan because it’s “not politically feasible” I want to pull my hair out.
Poll after poll shows that the voting public wants a Single Payer system. What those politicians really mean is that it would diminish their political contributions from the health insurance industry.
To these people dollars = votes rather than voters = votes. We need to clearly demonstrate that listening to voters = votes and ignoring voters in order to garner dollars = FEWER votes.
Write those emails, make those calls.
Dear Ernest,
I think you hit the nail on the head: the extreme income inequality dictates that the folks who own something like 70% of this country’s wealth but only make up less than 10% of the population run this country except they use a brillant ongoing marketing advertising, “old wine in new bottles”, to con the majority of Americans to believe that our democracy works, that see, golly gosh, democracy works because well, uh hum, see we’ve got Obama (or Cheney light) elected and if democracy didn’t work how could a light colored get elected?
So all this talk about reforming health care is just smoke and mirrors by big Pharm, HMOs, to ensure they keep their profits even if it means that the little guy (and gal) get denied their medical treatment and that the uninsured don’t get any health care coverage unless they show up at the Emergency Room as the health care of last resort.
In a nutshell, the middleclass is screwed, and they would rather spend time on the weapons of mass distraction such as sports, stupid reality shows, talk shows, stupid movies and cable programs, than to have to wake up and realize they are screwed when they have a health problem or they get laid off from their jobs and they can’t get another job anything like their last job except to go work flipping burgers, mopping floors or working at WalMart.
Stupid is as stupid does until they wake up and smell the coffee and not enough have woken up and our main stream media and entertainment industries make sure of that–folks would rather be couch potatoes, overweight, watching their favorite program than to have to do anything constructive about making any kind of social changes.
It really is a very cruel and unfair world we live in and it is only getting more cruel and more unfair with each passing day when we are told that a new survey by AP says that a majority of Americans appove of torture.
And Brad, if I wasn’t unemployed, I would donate a $1,000 and sign up to give ongoing contributions if i could afford to but you know that unemployment benefits barely cover rent and food let alone COBRA monthly payments for healthcare of nearly $600.
Thanks, John. As ever, folks need to take care of themselves first. If there’s anything leftover thereafter, I’m always appreciative of the support.
Reading our articles, passing them on, DIGGing, REDDITing etc. also helps as well. So thanks for the thoughts, and for anything you’re able to do to help spread the word!
Above all, keep making noise.
As always, John Harris, your comments are amongst the most thoughtful.
Your statement about a “cruel and unfair world we live in” called to mind a profound remark Bill Moyers made in Moyers on America (2005):
But despair not, John, for pessimism serves the preservation of the status quo.
Consider Howard Zinn’s observations in A Power Governments Cannot Suppress (2007):
Corporate America and the PR industry treat citizens as political consumers. They spend billions of dollars to deceive them — and with good reason. It is not possible to maintain the vast inequities that value the obscene wealth of the privileged few over the needs without resorting to deception.
The hope of writers like those who post here at The Brad Blog, and no doubt the hope of real journalists like Bill Moyers & Amy Goodman, is to expose corporate deception piece-by-piece so that an informed and aroused citizenry can see through the fog of MSM propaganda. When that happens, hope will lie in the ability of the American people to cease acting as passive consumers of corporate spin, and to assume the responsibility of active citizenship.
A knowledgeable and fully aroused citizenry has within its power to bring about the democratic revolution former British MP Tony Benn so eloquently spoke of — even here in the land of vast inequality.
Ernest A. Canning
“To these people dollars = votes rather than voters = votes. We need to clearly demonstrate that listening to voters = votes and ignoring voters in order to garner dollars = FEWER votes.”
————————————————
This makes sense in theory; but any time we have a candidate (like a Dennis Kucinich) who actually represents our interests, too many of us get bullied and frightened into throwing our votes away…by voting for whatever candidate carries the “Democratic Party” label…no matter how reactionary his/her political positions, and no matter how much they resemble the business-as-usual policies of the hated Republicans. With every election we show the DNC that they can get away with trashing or ignoring the wishes of progressives.
Why should the DNC change a strategy that “works”? The only way we’ll be “allowed” to vote for a genuine progressive is by actually voting for a progressive candidate in the primaries (no matter how often we are told that a progressive candidate “can’t win”), and by voting for a progressive candidate in the general election (no matter how many times we are told that we are only insuring a Republican victory).
We need to be prepared to suffer a Republican victory for one election cycle. I know it’s an ugly prospect; but we can survive it for one four-year term. After all, we just finished surviving two four-year terms in HELL under Bush & Company.
Meanwhile, we’ve got to persuade the Democratic Party hacks that they shouldn’t take progressive voters for granted….convince the hacks that we are NOT bluffing! They can take us seriously or they can “call our ‘bluff'”. If they take us seriously and govern accordingly, it might save us from 4 years of Republican Hell; but if they assume that we are just bluffing [AGAIN!], we’ll have to follow through on our commitment to vote for a candidate who does represent us.
In other words, we should hope for–and work for!–the best….while preparing for the worst. To do otherwise would condemn future generations to government by a procession of rulers from one or the other of the “two” status quo parties.
They’ve called our bluff by redefining the rules. Also, it’s no longer a bluff when your vote can’t be cast, can’t be cast for the candidate you want or can’t be validated because of the fact electricity is invisible.
It used to be War, guns, gays, abortion (religion)
1992
(NewsHour Coverage of the 1992 Debates. JIM LEHRER)
1996
(Info on the 1996 presidential debates between Bill Clinton and Bob Dole, as well as the … Commission on Presidential Debates. Moderator: Jim Lehrer)
2000
(Online NewsHour: Presidential Debate- October 12, 2000)
2004
(I’m Jim Lehrer of “The NewsHour” on PBS. And I welcome you to the first of the 2004 presidential debates between President George W. Bush)
Now it’s spying, war, civil rights, corruption, banking, the markets, racism, sexism, health, torture
2008
(Jim Lehrer will moderate the first presidential debate of 2008)
Jim Lehrer
When will the presidential candidates be asked to explain what the oath of office is?
Will Jim Lehrer will ask in 2012…
1. We see blind Afgans making guns with their bare hands, how can we ever win a war against such determination?
2. Should Iraq become the 51st state?
3. Which banks will change dollars for Ameros (or whatever the NAU deems the new currency)
4. Since the TREASURY BOND market collapse, how is the government to continue to run?
5. Now that the Constitution is gone …
6. DHS and NORCOM need more money to check papers at each of the state’s borders where will that funding come from.
7. The residents of Montana, don’t like the smell of the ovens which burn the bodies on Tuesday’s, couldn’t we get a couple more fema camps built before March?
8 Since North Korea nuked South Korea and has been lobbing bombs into Alaska shouldn’t we nuke them? But what about the fallout Japan? Couldn’t Russia evacuate the Japaneese refugees?
Or do any of you really think it will be….
1. Since Nevada and California have allow massive amounts of desert be used for solar power, everyone’s rates have dropped, do you support making it free for all taxpayers this year?
2. Now that GM is producing Hydrogen On Demand vehicles and the price of oil has dropped to 25 cents as we only use it for lubrication, couldn’t we work on the anti-gravity for air travel or does that still need to be classified?
3. Now that healthcare is completely free to citizens of the United States couldn’t we expand this to visitors to the United States?
4. Now that the war in IRAQ is over …
Should we build a few more desalination plants on the Coast, or MARTIAL PLAN New Orleans and the rest of the Gulf Coast so it doesn’t flood?
5. Now that the war in … X is over when should the scheduled removal of the FIOS splitters occur 2013, 2014?
6. Now that the Federal Reserve members are all in prison, along with the Senate enablers, the ponsi scheme banks crammed down, and the stock market is on the mend, shouldn’t we go back to a gold standard?
7. Ever since Marijuana was legalized, the taxes which put California back in the Black, should we continue to tax it or should we use it to treat meth, coke and heroin and clear out the jails or would you rather it be used to cure … … … … etc?
Reality sucks don’t it?
If politicians were cars, Republicans would be Hummers. Global warming and high gas prices be damned. They’re the oil companies.
The Democratic “leadership” would be a Prius. They know they should be protecting the environment but they can’t divorce themselves from corporate America.
Dennis Kucinich and other progressives inside and out of the Democratic Party would by solar panel-aided, plug-in electrics.
Into this mix steps the corporate-owned media. They take the place of GM in Who killed the electric car? when GM destroyed the few remaining EV-1s. The corporate media’s job is to convince the voting public that they’re range of choice falls only between the Hummer and the hybrid.
Ernest A. Canning
The Political system has been turned into a money machine, pure and simple. At the Federal level they are all forced to prostitute themselves to get elected. What this means is that any real reform that would actually benefit the average American is not going to happen.
As I have watched this over the years it has become apparent to anybody who pays attention that very, very few politicians give a hoot about us. Reelection, fulfilling promises to their corporate masters, and perpetuating a system that is rotten to the core is all that matter. As I see it we are powerless to change the onslaught of the Masters of Greed. Do you really think more than a handful, Kucinich, Feingold,???, of our politicians would vote to throw themselves out of office. WE are toast at present.
Health care is the sickness that permeates our country. Foreclosures = Healthcare, Unemployment = Healthcare, Dropping Wages = Healthcare, Govt. insolvency = Healthcare, Poverty = Healthcare, it raises its ugly head in every venue and corner of our country but the paid prostitutes in Washington refuse to acknowlegde it or do anything to upset their masters.
Until we can win the battle of Term Limits and True Campaign Funding Reform we will continue to accelerate down the road to ruin. Anything else we try to do, at any level, will be trumped by the reality that the US is run by Prostitutes and Crooks.
Marid: “The Political system has been turned into a money machine, pure and simple.”
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Well, amen to that.
People should make no mistake about the battle over health care, this is an industry that is looking at potential profit margins that will rival the oil companies and that prospect is right around the corner. That’s an aspect of the the debate that’s not generally discussed and needs to be because it puts the urgency of the problem into perspective from all three sides, business, consumer and government.
Consider the baby boomers. That historically described ‘pig in the snake’ is moving into their twilight years and they are a demographic (over 60) that has historically had a lot of money saved. They save money to take care of themselves during old age. They save money for when they become ill and in case they need 3rd party living assistance.
I have dealt with the medical/insurance/pharmaceutical/nursing home industry for years with my father. I now have had to deal with it regarding my spouse. Acting in concert and with incestuous vertical and horizontal integration it is an engine to transfer wealth from the client to the industry. And it is an industry in the most literal and ruthless of terms. It is an industry that processes ill people with less regard for their safety and well being/well making than for the systematic extraction of profit from them.
What we have on the horizon is millions of people that will spend the next 20 years+ ever increasingly dependent on this industry which translates into profits that are astronomical.
The industry wants the status quo because of those profits and I suspect that government, aware of the coming deluge of patients and the cost of treating them, wants nothing to do with them. Health care will eat up the treasury. That’s not to say it’s not doable but it will be at the expense of other programs IMO.
It will by necessity put an end to the kind of military adventurism characterizing the Bush years and I suspect Obama is being maneuvered into the same military attitude specifically to kill the prospect of a rational universal, single payer program. I see in this equation two, not just one, special interest that will fight to the last man standing to kill health care that is built on a single payer model.