This man speaks from the heart. He speaks of actual humans and their lives, not some ideological crap from a book.
H/T BarbinMD over at Kos
4 hours ago
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Sunday, October 11, 2009
Friday, October 9, 2009
GTFU
America needs to realize that it is time. It's time to understand that we as a country are 233 years old. I'm not sure how that relates to a human lifetime. Dog years=7 human years, so maybe 10 nation years=1 human year for an nation age of 23, but it seems like our country is still in but should be out of puberty by now. With the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to the president, maybe, just maybe the world has recognized that we have taken the important step of starting to grow the fuck up as a nation and as a people.
A Nobel Prize, Or, How The World Looks Thumbing It's Nose At Stupid
Phil Nugent is so on the money I'm going to re-post his take here and link to it.
I'll freely admit that, when I turned on the computer this morning and saw the news that President Obama has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, my first thought was that the Yes Men or some similar bunch of jokers must have hacked into the Yahoo! News page. A lot of talk has already been stirred up about how this is ridiculous because it amounts to awarding a major international humanitarian award to someone on the basis of lofty ambitions, idealistic goals, and inspiring speeches. You think? If you have to give someone an major international humanitarian award every year, then, given the state of the world, you're going to spend a lot of time making symbolic gestures. Read the list of Nobel Peace Prize laureates and the citations attached to their awards, and you will notice many variations on the phrase "for his/her/their efforts". Not successes, mind you, but efforts. Considering that Yasser Arafat got one, in tandem with Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Rabin, for his "efforts to create peace in the Middle East", which some might argue is kind of like giving Susan Atkins an award as Midwife of the Year. One of the few instances when someone got it for a single concrete act came in 1973 when Henry Kissinger (and Lê Ðức Thọ, who had the grace to turn it down) won the prize for the cease-fire in the Vietnam War, and that has long been recognized as the greatest sick joke in the award's history.
The news does seem a little like a joke about the way that Obama seems (especially to his enemies) to seem to stride through life to the tune of Karen Carpenter singing "Close to You", just as (say) the story about Newt Gingrich having a pouty fit because he didn't get to spend a lot of snuggly alone time with President Clinton during the flight to Israeli for Rabin's funeral seemed like a joke about Gingrich's petty, megalomaniac instability (and the way that he himself derailed the budget shutdown by telling the story seemed like a joke about Clinton's ability to dance on the bodies of his own self-imploding enemies). In the end, though, who cares, really? Why, all those people who, this time last week, were practically dancing in the streets because Chicago wasn't going to get to host the Olympic games, which they saw as a slight to Obama. (Limbaugh and the dittoheads who have openly prayed for Obama to "fail" aren't kidding--they really don't want anything good to happen in this country for the next four years, lest he get some of the credit for it. This is their patriotism, the same kind of patriotism that, when George W. Bush was in office, took the form of condemning anyone who suggested that soldiers in combat zones overseas be given sufficient body armor and other protective resources, if the President and his Defense Secretary didn't want them to have it.) When the Olympic Committee is seen to be dissing Obama, wingnuts are suddenly hugely impressed by the wisdom of international deliberative bodies, but when the body in question is offering Obama a Nobel, it's probably only a matter of time before a meme is generated alleging that he only got the award after Roman Polanski put in a good word for him.
It is already being helpfully suggested that Obama should do the right thing and turn the prize down, pointing out that he is not (yet) worthy, and thus heading off "a Nobel backlash" that, writes Mickey Kaus, "seems non-farfetched." Really, you think so? You think that a man who has been routinely denounced for his steady availability (i.e., over-exposure) and bi-partisan reaching out (i.e., spinelessness, wresting defeat from the jaws of victory), and eloquence (i.e., empty fancy talk), all of which he brought to the job, like rain to the desert, after eight years of a rigid ideologue who hid behind his handlers and couldn't manage to be articulate enoug to even be coherent much of the time, could somehow fall under attack for having been given an impressive-sounding prize that he hasn't earned by a bunch of foreigners? Is it really so important to these people who gets the Nobel this year that they think Obama shouldn't have it on his mantle if he has the chance to stick it up there, or is this what it feels like: battered liberals doing what they've begun to accuse the President of doing, and trying to reach out to the very people who've been using them for pinatas by agreeing, hey--our guy ain't that great! I might agree if I thought the award going to Obama was an abomination, like the Medals of Freedom that Bush pinned on all his lackeys and toadies. But at worst it's just silly, albeit silly in a nice way, and anyway, it's not as if I'm the one who's being invited to drag my ass out to Oslo in the winter.
Of course, the people who'll yel loudest about it will be those who can't see a Nobel for the President as a nice thing for the country but as a slap in the face, because they think this democratically elected president who was voted into office in a landslide and is widely liked, if not loved, as a dictator whose existence is an implicit condemnation of their values and their way of life. (The very lowest of the low will see it mainly as more evidence that well-spoken black dudes just have everything handed to them.) And you know what? They're right, kind of, at least about the part regarding what's being implicitly condemned. The Nobel does have one very real purpose, and that is that, by giving it to the right person once in a while--a Dalai Lama, a Lech Wałęsa, a Desmond Tutu, an Al Gore--you can really piss off some people who richly deserve to be pissed off. The Committee has done its best to suggest that Obama was given the award because of the things he wants to do, but I suspect that he was given the award for something he is, or rather isn't: i.e.. he isn't George W. Bush, or Bush's designated successor. Which ought to be recognized as a very low bar, but there's more to it than that.
The Bush years should be--will be--remembered as the country's moral low point since the end of slavery, a time when an inane little man with no qualifications but his family connections lost a democratic election, was appointed to the job of leader of the free world anyway, by his father's old cronies and party colleagues and with the complicity and approval of the press, and then proceeded to spend his full term ignoring the needs of the country and its people while using the time to instead order up legal rationales for an imperial presidency dedicated to the justification of torture and wars of choice, while creating a climate of fear that was meant to provide a reason for all of it. It was a horror show, and for those of us not of boundless faith, there were moments during it when it felt as if it would never end and that the most rotten people in America had succeeded in permanently reshaping the country and its values to make a better climate for their lizard skins. This all must have been dismaying to the many people in Europe who love what this country is supposed to stand for, who have a special place in their hearts for its history and its stated ideals and principles, and who were especially saddened, in 2004, to see a man voted back into office as recompense for having been caught wiping the Constitution and his own beloved Holy Bible with his diarrhetic ass.
You don't hear much about it now, not in this country, not even from most Bush haters (who do have a lot else to focus on), but among Bush's crimes and atrocities, one of the greatest still has to be the way he took the moment after 9/11 when the whole world was offering America its condolences and tender best wishes and threw them down and danced on them with a stupid cackle, just to show his gym buddies how tough and "independent" he was. Just as Walesa, in the days when Poland was in lockdown, and Tutu, when apartheid was still the law of the land, were given the Peace Prize largely to show them the world's gratitude that there were living counter-examples to their own corrupt and degraded societies, Obama has been given the prize for letting the world breathe a sigh of relief at the news that, no, it isn't going to go on forever, that the people whose job it is to decide wanted it to stop. (Even though, Garry Wills recently pointed out, it hasn't yet stopped as thoroughly as it should. But that's another post.) In light of this, the award should rightly have been given, not to Obama, but to the voters of the United States, who made the real heroic choice last November. But to have done that would have come too close to admitting the real reasons for giving the prize to Obama, which would have amounted to saying aloud that America, from the moment that the Supreme Court decided that honor and intellectual decency were things that it would be happier without, to at least the 2006 midterms, seemed about as much of a lost cause as Poland under martial law and South Africa during apartheid. And you don't win a peace prize, or get chosen to distribute them, by saying things like that.
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
B of A or Brain of Ass
Over at Blog on the Run this little tidbit about Bank of America should let you know a little of how the big boys work fuck us over. Be sure to click on the link which brings up the filing in Ohio. Good luck in keeping your blood pressure down.
Why Anti-Trust is a Key
Anti-trust is supposed to keep competition strong by not allowing domination of an industry by one or a few entities. The last 30-40 years have seen the basic end to this, not only in our country but in others as well. The following is a great summery of this, both how and why.
TAP - How Detroit Went Bankrupt by Barry C. Lynn
h/t TPM
TAP - How Detroit Went Bankrupt by Barry C. Lynn
h/t TPM
Friday, September 11, 2009
The Speech We All Were Waiting For
The presidents speech on Wed was a good speech, given the politics in this country. I particularly noticed these two paragraphs:
One of the major problems is not even the bankruptcy problem, it is that without health care coverage we have to wait till problems become emergency room problems. That is they only get solved in emergency terms. You are sick but don't know why, so you go to the emergency room. They will save your life if possible to do in a day or a week. But long term chemo or radiation, probably not. Your kidneys have shut down, might you get dialysis, sure one time. Then what. You break an arm. It's probably set and cast. You come back to have the cast removed. Would there be any checking during the weeks of wearing the cast? To make sure the bone was set and healing properly. Probably not.
That's bad health care.
Is it the doctors fault? The hospitals fault? The patients fault? The insurance companies fault?
Actually as the president stated, it is our fault. We elected the people who vote against our interests, year after year, after year.....
Why? Well insurance and health care wasn't nearly as expensive when I was a youngster. We grew up being told we were the best, we could do no wrong. We took that to mean all things American were the best that things could be. We didn't follow politics and world events to see what other countries were doing, unless they seemed like they might threaten us. And mostly not even then. So we fell complacent, fat, dumb but somehow not all that happy. And now as so many of us are scrapping by, or even less than that we are in deep.
Little steps over 5 or 10 years will not be enough. We have seen what works. Maybe not every system will work here. But we know what does not work. The system we have now. Does. Not. Work. Even people who have good insurance don't always use it, because they know or believe their rates will increase or they will be denied or canceled.
We just spent enough to fund full single payer for everyone for a decade on a stimulus package that we should not have needed. We have spent enough in Iraq to also fund the same thing for an additional decade. Or we had a tax cut that would fund single payer for all for over a decade. So that's 3 decades of single payer that we spent already on crap that has not only not helped the vast majority, it has killed hundreds of thousands of people. And let's not forget that we pay a lot now for this crappy insurance, if we can get it.
The president is only partially correct. We are not at the breaking point, we have sailed past it, whistling in the dark that all is well.
I am not the first President to take up this cause, but I am determined to be the last. It has now been nearly a century since Theodore Roosevelt first called for health care reform. And ever since, nearly every President and Congress, whether Democrat or Republican, has attempted to meet this challenge in some way. A bill for comprehensive health reform was first introduced by John Dingell Sr. in 1943. Sixty-five years later, his son continues to introduce that same bill at the beginning of each session.
Our collective failure to meet this challenge – year after year, decade after decade – has led us to a breaking point. Everyone understands the extraordinary hardships that are placed on the uninsured, who live every day just one accident or illness away from bankruptcy.
One of the major problems is not even the bankruptcy problem, it is that without health care coverage we have to wait till problems become emergency room problems. That is they only get solved in emergency terms. You are sick but don't know why, so you go to the emergency room. They will save your life if possible to do in a day or a week. But long term chemo or radiation, probably not. Your kidneys have shut down, might you get dialysis, sure one time. Then what. You break an arm. It's probably set and cast. You come back to have the cast removed. Would there be any checking during the weeks of wearing the cast? To make sure the bone was set and healing properly. Probably not.
That's bad health care.
Is it the doctors fault? The hospitals fault? The patients fault? The insurance companies fault?
Actually as the president stated, it is our fault. We elected the people who vote against our interests, year after year, after year.....
Why? Well insurance and health care wasn't nearly as expensive when I was a youngster. We grew up being told we were the best, we could do no wrong. We took that to mean all things American were the best that things could be. We didn't follow politics and world events to see what other countries were doing, unless they seemed like they might threaten us. And mostly not even then. So we fell complacent, fat, dumb but somehow not all that happy. And now as so many of us are scrapping by, or even less than that we are in deep.
Little steps over 5 or 10 years will not be enough. We have seen what works. Maybe not every system will work here. But we know what does not work. The system we have now. Does. Not. Work. Even people who have good insurance don't always use it, because they know or believe their rates will increase or they will be denied or canceled.
We just spent enough to fund full single payer for everyone for a decade on a stimulus package that we should not have needed. We have spent enough in Iraq to also fund the same thing for an additional decade. Or we had a tax cut that would fund single payer for all for over a decade. So that's 3 decades of single payer that we spent already on crap that has not only not helped the vast majority, it has killed hundreds of thousands of people. And let's not forget that we pay a lot now for this crappy insurance, if we can get it.
The president is only partially correct. We are not at the breaking point, we have sailed past it, whistling in the dark that all is well.
Proper Blogging
If you don't already - read Hulabaloo every day. Digby just gets it. And writes about all of it well.
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
Great health care reality ad
Health care/health insurance is/should be one of our primary issues and we need all the help we can provide. The following group is one of those trying to help. Please watch the video and support it if you can.
Here is the link for the supporting group.
Health care reality
Here is the link for the supporting group.
Health care reality
Friday, August 28, 2009
Great Writting on the Kennedys
One of the best written pieces on the Kennedys, Anne Laurie nails it. Please read it if you haven't already.
The "Luck" of the Kennedys
The "Luck" of the Kennedys
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Ted Kennedy 2/22/32 - 8/25/09 RIP
I have not been a huge fan of the Kennedy clan over the years. But I have to say that he was a good guy. He went not just the extra mile, he went several extra. Two brothers shot down in the prime of life, in political life, just because they wanted to bring equality to all Americans. He was wealthy and did not need to spend his entire life trying to make people's lives better. He could have spent his life getting richer, thinking only about himself. He did not. If we had a few more politicians like him this country, this world would be a better place. It was a better place for him being here, even with all his human failings. He joined and served as an enlisted man in the Army, something I did not know till today. But even without military service he should always be remembered as a patriot, a person who loved his country. He may have been born into a family of privilege, and even enjoyed that privilege, but he did not act like a privileged person.
I am old enough to remember JFK being elected and assassinated. I watched and listened to Bobby Kennedy and was amazed at the depth and direction of the man. Ted lived up to that, his brothers would have been proud.
His great quote at his brother Robert's funeral:
"My brother need not be idealized, or enlarged in death beyond what he was in life; to be remembered simply as a good and decent man, who saw wrong and tried to right it, saw suffering and tried to heal it, saw war and tried to stop it.
Those of us who loved him and who take him to his rest today, pray that what he was to us and what he wished for others will some day come to pass for all the world. As he said many times, in many parts of this nation, to those he touched and who sought to touch him: 'Some men see things as they are and say why. I dream things that never were and say why not'."
The words stand today and ring true about Ted, just like they did for Bobby.
I am old enough to remember JFK being elected and assassinated. I watched and listened to Bobby Kennedy and was amazed at the depth and direction of the man. Ted lived up to that, his brothers would have been proud.
His great quote at his brother Robert's funeral:
"My brother need not be idealized, or enlarged in death beyond what he was in life; to be remembered simply as a good and decent man, who saw wrong and tried to right it, saw suffering and tried to heal it, saw war and tried to stop it.
Those of us who loved him and who take him to his rest today, pray that what he was to us and what he wished for others will some day come to pass for all the world. As he said many times, in many parts of this nation, to those he touched and who sought to touch him: 'Some men see things as they are and say why. I dream things that never were and say why not'."
The words stand today and ring true about Ted, just like they did for Bobby.
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Liberty and Health Care
I'd like to be a great writer. Well actually I'd like to be great at quite a few things. But as I'm just a blogger I get to link to great thinkers and writers. Not the same but there you are.
Read Digby today, hell read Digby everyday. It probably won't make you a better writer (it is possible!) but it will always be worth your time.
This one's a keeper:
What's So Good About It?
Some days I just have to wonder what is with our world? You know the one here in the states, the one where our education and political systems brings us a VP candidate who can't even speak in clear, understandable language. Where people rant against their fellow citizens having health care. Where slavery is not dead, it's just moved from the plantation to your boss's office. Your boss gets to keep you captive because otherwise you may not be able to keep living.
Read Digby today, hell read Digby everyday. It probably won't make you a better writer (it is possible!) but it will always be worth your time.
This one's a keeper:
What's So Good About It?
Some days I just have to wonder what is with our world? You know the one here in the states, the one where our education and political systems brings us a VP candidate who can't even speak in clear, understandable language. Where people rant against their fellow citizens having health care. Where slavery is not dead, it's just moved from the plantation to your boss's office. Your boss gets to keep you captive because otherwise you may not be able to keep living.
Saturday, August 8, 2009
More about fascism
Sara Robinson's post on fascism at FDL, http://seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/6987 has raised quite a stink.
Some of us think that it may be one of the most important posts ever. Some disagree.
But as I look around I see people who seem to be too stupid to find out any actual facts and to see that their only source offacts info is the Glen Bullshitters of the airwaves. As Sara's post is about the sinking of democracies by their crazy, seemingly disenfranchised citizens and we are right on schedule to be at the point of no return I think that should be depressing.
The only way to get past this and keep the country that we know is to recognize this, and now, so that we can act on it.
The only problem with the right wing talking about fascism is that they don't realize they are talking about themselves.
More H/T EB Misfit
Some of us think that it may be one of the most important posts ever. Some disagree.
But as I look around I see people who seem to be too stupid to find out any actual facts and to see that their only source of
The only way to get past this and keep the country that we know is to recognize this, and now, so that we can act on it.
The only problem with the right wing talking about fascism is that they don't realize they are talking about themselves.
More H/T EB Misfit
Friday, August 7, 2009
Where to from here?
Please read the following post at FDL by Sara Robinson
http://seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/6987
With all the lies and fear mongering from the right on an issue that would help almost everyone in some way and most likely not harm anyone, what we're actually seeing is a desperate last grasp power grab. And that is truly depressing. I thought that is what was but Sara's post brings the history of this kind of movement front and center. I wish with every fiber of my being that it can be turned around, headed off, reasoned with, whatever. But I'm afraid that we won't be able to.
I think what we're seeing is the start of the death of a nation. I've never wanted so badly not to be an eye witness.
H/T Earth-Bound Misfit
http://seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/6987
With all the lies and fear mongering from the right on an issue that would help almost everyone in some way and most likely not harm anyone, what we're actually seeing is a desperate last grasp power grab. And that is truly depressing. I thought that is what was but Sara's post brings the history of this kind of movement front and center. I wish with every fiber of my being that it can be turned around, headed off, reasoned with, whatever. But I'm afraid that we won't be able to.
I think what we're seeing is the start of the death of a nation. I've never wanted so badly not to be an eye witness.
H/T Earth-Bound Misfit
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Hilzoy!
Hilzoy is leaving. We won't have her to listen to, to learn from, to grow from.
And we feel sorrow for that.
We sometimes forget that people have actual lives and they move onward and hopefully upward. We try new things, to keep us from going stale, to learn more, to keep from going nuts, and to just try new things or places.
I wish Hilzoy the best.
I have never met her but I feel like I have. She seems like a friend and it's hard to loose a friend, to know they won't be available.
Maybe she'll come back and brighten up the internet once again.
I sure hope so.
And we feel sorrow for that.
We sometimes forget that people have actual lives and they move onward and hopefully upward. We try new things, to keep us from going stale, to learn more, to keep from going nuts, and to just try new things or places.
I wish Hilzoy the best.
I have never met her but I feel like I have. She seems like a friend and it's hard to loose a friend, to know they won't be available.
Maybe she'll come back and brighten up the internet once again.
I sure hope so.
Monday, July 13, 2009
A rant for my birthday
The murder in FL of the couple who have adopted the special needs kids. http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/07/12/florida.couple.slain/index.html
John at Balloon Juice has an interesting post http://www.balloon-juice.com/?p=23991 about the death penalty and it's possible application in this case. I'm not disagreeing with him that this kind of crime makes one think of the death penalty, I'm just tired of being that kind of person.
The death penalty is not about justice, it's about retribution. And it's not that we don't all have it in all of us to want retribution, it should be about all of us being better humans. Or at least trying. I think we need to question why do some countries have many, many fewer murders per capita, and no death penalty? What is it about americans which makes at least some of us think that this works?
I like my country but we have some fucked up customs and practices that really screw up a lot of lives. The death penalty, crappy health care, the rich get richer and the rest screwed (that one probably is universal, just not as well practiced), great ideals for our government and laws, many of which are ignored in the execution, wars on everything (brute force sometimes works on pickle jars, not as well on most everything else), our general public political discourse seems to consist of lying long and hard enough to make people believe the lies. Is it like this everywhere or just some of our quaint traits?
John at Balloon Juice has an interesting post http://www.balloon-juice.com/?p=23991 about the death penalty and it's possible application in this case. I'm not disagreeing with him that this kind of crime makes one think of the death penalty, I'm just tired of being that kind of person.
The death penalty is not about justice, it's about retribution. And it's not that we don't all have it in all of us to want retribution, it should be about all of us being better humans. Or at least trying. I think we need to question why do some countries have many, many fewer murders per capita, and no death penalty? What is it about americans which makes at least some of us think that this works?
I like my country but we have some fucked up customs and practices that really screw up a lot of lives. The death penalty, crappy health care, the rich get richer and the rest screwed (that one probably is universal, just not as well practiced), great ideals for our government and laws, many of which are ignored in the execution, wars on everything (brute force sometimes works on pickle jars, not as well on most everything else), our general public political discourse seems to consist of lying long and hard enough to make people believe the lies. Is it like this everywhere or just some of our quaint traits?
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Hilzoy neocons vindicated?
Hilzoy on Finkelstein
http://obsidianwings.blogs.com/obsidian_wings/2009/06/neocons-vindicated.html#more
The end of the post sums it up nicely:
http://obsidianwings.blogs.com/obsidian_wings/2009/06/neocons-vindicated.html#more
The end of the post sums it up nicely:
Towards the end of his article, Finkelstein writes:"The mistake the neocons made is that we were not conservative enough, not patient enough. Such impatience with dictatorships is understandable, indeed laudable. But the frustrating truth is that there are limits to what can be achieved by outsiders. Instead we have to wait as national movements, one by one, stand up for their rights. And sometimes, tragically, we even have to stand aside as those movements are crushed by their oppressors."
Well, yes; that would be one way to put it. Another would be to say: neoconservatives were not just insufficiently patient; they were reckless beyond belief, willing to bring down unspeakable costs on other people without bothering to weigh the possibility that their simplistic and unrealistic views of the world might be wrong. If Mr. Finkelstein wants to change his ways and become more "patient", power to him. To my mind, though, this column, with its equally simplistic (and insulting) view of his opponents, shows that he has not changed nearly enough.
Mr. President
I received an email from the president today asking for money. Here is my response:
Mr. President
I would like to contribute, but I like to eat and keep a roof over my head. I'd like to keep my small business but I'm not sure I can do that either. I know that you inherited this mess and the opposition party (I call them that because that's all they know how to do, oppose everything) is not making it easy, but it is your job to lead on all the problems, to provide solutions or to back the people who can.
BTW why do I need to donate money that I don't have to help you do the job that you get paid for? And for which I voted for you. And donated to help you get elected. And spent time helping to insure that people voted. I thought about 1100-1200 people work in the WH. I imagine most of them have other job priorities but isn't this one of the most important things you can do in your time as president?
So.
Health care. What we have now is so backwards in providing care that the only way to fix it is to start over. I have a saying that is of course over the top, but when I have a complete mess and the only way to fix it is to - nuke it. Take the situation back to zero and start over. So I "nuke" my office every so often. That's the concept that we need in health care. "Nuke it" and start over from scratch. Single payer, universal health care for all citizens. Roll Medicare, all the state programs into one, single payer system, like the Canadian or almost any of the European/Australian systems. Take health care away from business, both in the purchasing and supplying.
So here's what I say .... Screw the insurance companies. They've had years/decades to make this better. But they went the other way. It is now time for all the citizens of this country to join the 21st century and have actual health care.
And in case you are wondering, no I don't have, nor can I afford health insurance. I am a few years away from Medicare, which has anyway been limited by congress at the request of the insurance industry so that they can sell supplemental policies. Once again screw the insurance companies. They've made their billions at our expense.
It was our turn. We spoke out, very loud. We donated. We trusted and continue to trust that you will do your job. But it is now your turn.
Thank You.
Ruckus
Mr. President
I would like to contribute, but I like to eat and keep a roof over my head. I'd like to keep my small business but I'm not sure I can do that either. I know that you inherited this mess and the opposition party (I call them that because that's all they know how to do, oppose everything) is not making it easy, but it is your job to lead on all the problems, to provide solutions or to back the people who can.
BTW why do I need to donate money that I don't have to help you do the job that you get paid for? And for which I voted for you. And donated to help you get elected. And spent time helping to insure that people voted. I thought about 1100-1200 people work in the WH. I imagine most of them have other job priorities but isn't this one of the most important things you can do in your time as president?
So.
Health care. What we have now is so backwards in providing care that the only way to fix it is to start over. I have a saying that is of course over the top, but when I have a complete mess and the only way to fix it is to - nuke it. Take the situation back to zero and start over. So I "nuke" my office every so often. That's the concept that we need in health care. "Nuke it" and start over from scratch. Single payer, universal health care for all citizens. Roll Medicare, all the state programs into one, single payer system, like the Canadian or almost any of the European/Australian systems. Take health care away from business, both in the purchasing and supplying.
So here's what I say .... Screw the insurance companies. They've had years/decades to make this better. But they went the other way. It is now time for all the citizens of this country to join the 21st century and have actual health care.
And in case you are wondering, no I don't have, nor can I afford health insurance. I am a few years away from Medicare, which has anyway been limited by congress at the request of the insurance industry so that they can sell supplemental policies. Once again screw the insurance companies. They've made their billions at our expense.
It was our turn. We spoke out, very loud. We donated. We trusted and continue to trust that you will do your job. But it is now your turn.
Thank You.
Ruckus
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Perplexed
I don't get conservatives. They seem to want to take away liberties, freedoms, and now even life itself. Well not all life, only humane, caring doctors. They seem to want to suffer even more in life and to make others suffer.
UPDATE - looks like not just Doctors. http://oxdown.firedoglake.com/diary/5702
So does anyone with an once of sense now have to look out for (wackos) terrorists on every street corner?
I'd say the problem is Christian religion. Or maybe all religions, but look at the Christian religion as that seems to be the religion of choice for conservatives. Maybe it's the suffering thing, for we must all suffer for the sins of humanity. What a load of crap. Unless you believe that there are only a finite number of souls and we are all reincarnated. I wasn't there, I was born in the last century, not 20 of them ago. I may have some responsibility for Bush being president as I didn't work hard enough to not get him elected, (oh wait I believe that he was appointed, anointed or some such).
What is it that makes someone so selfish, so inhumane, so..... well un-christian? Do they even read the book they profess to adore, especially the part about oh I don't know, Christ?
I have been looking off and on for about 50 years for the answers to this and I haven't heard or found any. When I was in bible study and actually read the book (10-11 years old) and found it to be, well bullshit. This is not a book about how to live your life, it's about how people with limited education, no scientific knowledge perceived the world. It seems that with knowledge the world is or should be a less scary place, but religion has to keep it scary or no one would follow. And not only scary but that what little piece of it someone has will be taken away if they don't stay scared.
So now our politics are not only infused with this crap, it has totally affected our lives. We can't have health care for all, not enough suffering. We must wage war, not only against other cultures, but even within our own culture. The war on drugs, the war on abortion (and make no mistake it is a war), what is the desired end result?
I am asking questions because I don't see anyone else asking them. I don't have answers but I'd like to hear if you do.
UPDATE - looks like not just Doctors. http://oxdown.firedoglake.com/diary/5702
So does anyone with an once of sense now have to look out for (wackos) terrorists on every street corner?
I'd say the problem is Christian religion. Or maybe all religions, but look at the Christian religion as that seems to be the religion of choice for conservatives. Maybe it's the suffering thing, for we must all suffer for the sins of humanity. What a load of crap. Unless you believe that there are only a finite number of souls and we are all reincarnated. I wasn't there, I was born in the last century, not 20 of them ago. I may have some responsibility for Bush being president as I didn't work hard enough to not get him elected, (oh wait I believe that he was appointed, anointed or some such).
What is it that makes someone so selfish, so inhumane, so..... well un-christian? Do they even read the book they profess to adore, especially the part about oh I don't know, Christ?
I have been looking off and on for about 50 years for the answers to this and I haven't heard or found any. When I was in bible study and actually read the book (10-11 years old) and found it to be, well bullshit. This is not a book about how to live your life, it's about how people with limited education, no scientific knowledge perceived the world. It seems that with knowledge the world is or should be a less scary place, but religion has to keep it scary or no one would follow. And not only scary but that what little piece of it someone has will be taken away if they don't stay scared.
So now our politics are not only infused with this crap, it has totally affected our lives. We can't have health care for all, not enough suffering. We must wage war, not only against other cultures, but even within our own culture. The war on drugs, the war on abortion (and make no mistake it is a war), what is the desired end result?
I am asking questions because I don't see anyone else asking them. I don't have answers but I'd like to hear if you do.
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
Freedom - a long rant about the basics
Our freedoms and ideals, that we used to take for granted, if not gone, are eroding rapidly.
Innocent people now have to fear having their houses broken into, not by common criminals but by those thought to protect us, the police. Police who use overwhelming force, wear masks, have no name tags or badges. This is not happening everywhere but it is happening, to innocent people, to mayors of cities. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/23/AR2009012302935_pf.html
The police cover it up or arrest people on bogus charges. Mostly this seems to happen due to the "War on Drugs", a futile prohibition which has cost lives, families and futures.
Now that we know that we were/are being spied upon by our government should we worry that this won't be the only reason? Of course they're not all storm troopers - http://edition.cnn.com/2009/US/01/22/metro.hero/We find that our leaders failing on such personal levels as paying taxes, which the average citizen doesn't get away with. Our large corporate heads demand outrageous salaries and bonuses with no responsibility for these sums, their only allegiance is to themselves and maybe their shareholders. These people are supposed to be leaders as well and they have failed miserably, just like the majority of our politicians.
We used to at least think that some of our national leaders could be trusted to have the people's best interest at heart and mind but mostly they have quietly, and not so quietly removed or devalued most of our ideals over the last few decades, with the convoluted legislation and regulations they have enacted. And with party rules that help keep out only the "approved candidates".
I wonder how many of the politicians even know all the ins and outs of the laws they have voted on. I wonder how many have even read the entire bills. Many of the bills are hundreds of pages long or are so vague in their language that there is never agreement exactly what they say. Or they leave the actual rule making up to departments, like the IRS, Treasury (bank/wall street bailout), and we see how good that's worked out.
So my questions are:
Has it always been this way and are we only now becoming more informed (not by the MSM of course), or at least more aware? Or as I believe we have been sinking into the cesspool bit by bit until the overwhelming stench has awoken more and more of us.
What can we do about this as a nation of , for all intents and purposes, 2 political parties, one of which has gone batshit crazy. I mean we all expect politicians to lie to us, just not so blatantly and with so little understanding that there is public proof of their lies. Of course we actively campaign for Democrats but is that enough? And are they enough?
Innocent people now have to fear having their houses broken into, not by common criminals but by those thought to protect us, the police. Police who use overwhelming force, wear masks, have no name tags or badges. This is not happening everywhere but it is happening, to innocent people, to mayors of cities. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/23/AR2009012302935_pf.html
The police cover it up or arrest people on bogus charges. Mostly this seems to happen due to the "War on Drugs", a futile prohibition which has cost lives, families and futures.
Now that we know that we were/are being spied upon by our government should we worry that this won't be the only reason? Of course they're not all storm troopers - http://edition.cnn.com/2009/US/01/22/metro.hero/We find that our leaders failing on such personal levels as paying taxes, which the average citizen doesn't get away with. Our large corporate heads demand outrageous salaries and bonuses with no responsibility for these sums, their only allegiance is to themselves and maybe their shareholders. These people are supposed to be leaders as well and they have failed miserably, just like the majority of our politicians.
We used to at least think that some of our national leaders could be trusted to have the people's best interest at heart and mind but mostly they have quietly, and not so quietly removed or devalued most of our ideals over the last few decades, with the convoluted legislation and regulations they have enacted. And with party rules that help keep out only the "approved candidates".
I wonder how many of the politicians even know all the ins and outs of the laws they have voted on. I wonder how many have even read the entire bills. Many of the bills are hundreds of pages long or are so vague in their language that there is never agreement exactly what they say. Or they leave the actual rule making up to departments, like the IRS, Treasury (bank/wall street bailout), and we see how good that's worked out.
So my questions are:
Has it always been this way and are we only now becoming more informed (not by the MSM of course), or at least more aware? Or as I believe we have been sinking into the cesspool bit by bit until the overwhelming stench has awoken more and more of us.
What can we do about this as a nation of , for all intents and purposes, 2 political parties, one of which has gone batshit crazy. I mean we all expect politicians to lie to us, just not so blatantly and with so little understanding that there is public proof of their lies. Of course we actively campaign for Democrats but is that enough? And are they enough?
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