Battling for change we can believe in

[Political Waves]

We continue to struggle against the concentrated effort to stop all Left turns, by whatever means necessary. The military coup in Honduras is the latest wrinkle. And although the celebrity grief-a-thon has taken Iran off the cable channels for awhile, the situation there remains dire for many.

It was inevitable that their organic revolution would shift form and today that appears to be a combination of tactics learned in their earlier revolution, including smaller if peaceful assembly inviting violence [albeit an approved gathering,] the continuing use of call and response, Allah Akbar, from their rooftops in the evening and changing their color scheme from green to black and, as they've been denied mourning ritual [a social and religious imperative that kept the '79 Revolution alive and vibrant.] 

The crackdown by the Ayatollah has resulted in death and imprisonment, newly created tribunals to handle protesters, urging severe penalties; with the British embassy staff arrested. The major players continue to shift for position, but it appears to be shaping up as further power grab for the Iranian Guard and more obviously, a military coup. Juan Cole continues to be my point man on this -- don't miss his daily postings -- and he put out a guest op/ed yesterday that sums up the situation:

The current civil uprising in Iran reflects not just a protest against a rigged election. Nor is it primarily a symptom of contentions for power or clashes between opposing perspectives on the nature of the Islamic regime. It is, rather, resistance against a political coup, whose engineers plan to impose a Taliban-style Islamic government on Iran. The coup has been organized by an alliance between the supreme leader and the most militant and fundamentalist faction within the ruling establishment, backed by the Revolutionary Guard.

Lets face it; this IS all Obama's doing, in his role as the poster boy for another way to look at things, champion of exploring detente solutions to big challenges and monkey wrench-thrower into all things configured to polarize. When Iran was pitted against George Bush and the NeoCons, it had the worthy adversary it needed to insist on its oppressive Kool Aid. Along comes a reasonable man and the argument falls apart; much like the Republican rhetoric. And believe me ... if the Pubs had a Republican Guard they could march out to crack heads and bully citizens back into line, they'd be using them today.

So, as stated in some of the articles linked below, this is escalation of a slo-mo takeover by the hardliners ... met with an organic movement by the people they mean to control. It will be messy and the short-cut to normalizing relations with Iran has been stunted for awhile, but eventually this will shake out because when you have rot from within and a growing realization of it, change is on its way.

And speaking of rot from within, the health care conversation just seems to be getting more and more stupid. Financial projections being tossed around are all based on the known-knows of the bloated system rather than the streamlined possibilities; as with so much we've seen in Obama's short tenure, the eventual product gets watered down by the special interests who own the legislators. Big money is at stake and big lobbying bucks are flying around.

If we can't get single payer, as yet, we also can't do without public option; that would give no competition at all to a system calculated to ruthlessly milk us of money and options and deliver very little. O has given us a grassroots forum here, a collection of our stories which speak louder than all the Congressional huffinpuff combined. This is Must Read stuff, and your opportunity to contribute. SEE TO IT that this gets passed around; and while you're passing, you might include the Alternet article below that is another of those effective comparisons to Canadian health care.

More often than not, those who are impeding the truth about health care are already ON socialized medicine [Medicare] and ... from my own experience with my elderly father ... getting more duplicated tests and medications than they need, anyhow. I've never had a cat scan -- I'd bet he's had over a dozen in the last couple of years. Serious issues notwithstanding, his care has been complicated by too many specialists, inadequate record keeping and sharing, and eagerness to bill the system; all of which has come from our HMO for-profit mentality. Chaos reigns; and it seems as though once you give your power over to this system, you're on the bus to perdition until you meet yer Maker.

Common sense needs to prevail now; do your part to pass this stuff around. Here's fact: health care has risen by FOUR times that of wages in the last couple of years; and that's due to DOUBLE in the next few.

We need an awakening to what must be inevitable if we are to create a bridge into a viable 21st century; and the opportunity to change this system rarely comes ... it's NOW or we and our children will suffer well into the future, as will our economy and even ... gasp ... our national security. Use the link below to contact your Congress critter; if you'd done it before, do it again. Make yourself a Verizon commercial: CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW?

By the way, Bernie Madoff just got 150 years in prison for his ponzi activity -- let's hope he's not an isolated scapegoat, but just the beginning of accountability for this financial mess.

Below, a couple of important health reads -- and ... Iran.

Jude



We've Been Trapped Inside a Bad Health Care System So Long, We Don't Even Know How Much We're Missing
Our current system has robbed us of the chance to save, educate ourselves, see the world and live to a robust old age.
Sara Robinson, Campaign for America's Future
June 26, 2009

http://www.alternet.org/healthwellness/140918/we%27ve_been_trapped_inside_a_bad_health_care_system_so_long%2C_we_don%27t_even_know_how_much_we%27re_missing_/?page=entire

Sometimes, when you're up to your chin in alligators, it's hard to focus on the fact that there's a big, broad, alligator-free world waiting somewhere out there, beyond the edge of the swamp.

In this case, it's hard for most Americans to even imagine that nobody in the rest of the developed world lives this way. We've been living inside the restrictions and making the trade-offs required to hang onto our all-important health care coverage for so long that we don't even realize that we're cutting those deals, or what we're giving up, or how thoroughly those choices have come to dominate and limit our lives.

If you're an American under 40, you can't remember a time that the health care system didn't work this way -- or that keeping coverage wasn't a dominant factor in making your life choices. If you're older than that, the memory of another, happier era beyond the swamp is dim, and fading fast.

This was one of the things that struck me hardest when I arrived in Canada five years ago. The swamp-blindness was so dark and deep that it took a while to adjust to a world without alligators. It's almost impossible to describe to folks back home how different life is when health insurance simply doesn't factor at all into how you choose to live your life. There's almost no language for it. Rather than even attempt it, I sometimes just ask my American friends and relatives to open up their imaginations, and answer the question for themselves:

How would your life be different if you never had to worry about getting, keeping, or affording health care again?

What other choices might you have made?

Where else would you be right now?

How would it change your plans for the future?

I've seen people reduced to tears of rage and frustration by these questions. When you really stop and think about it -- pause for a few minutes to take it all in, past, present, and future -- it becomes clear that the full absurdity and the sheer enormity of the sacrifices we have to make for an almighty health care card are the greatest obstacle to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness that most of us are burdened with today.

Polls say most Americans who have health care are satisfied with it. But nobody ever asks them if they're satisfied with what they've had to do to get it, keep it, or afford it.

What would you do differently? I watch my Canadian neighbors live their lives, and the world beyond the swamp comes into sharp and stunning focus.

My neighbors go to the doctor when they need to -- and often, when they don't. If they're just feeling funky for a day or two, they go. If the splinter is too big to handle with a needle, they go. Anything goes a little bit sideways -- they go.

By American standards, they're probably overusing the system. (My husband once asked an employee who was nursing a cough, "Have you seen a doctor about that?" The guy just looked at him, confused. Of course he'd seen a doctor. Up here, only an American would ask such a stupid question.)

But the upshot is that the small symptoms of really big things -- little lumps, creeping blood pressure, wounds that don't heal right, coughs that don't go away -- are caught and diagnosed early in a GP's office, instead of months or years down the road in a full-blown crisis at the ER, which is now the American way. And this is central to cost containment: getting emergent problems calmly headed off right away in a $30 office visit is a lot more cost-effective than having to deal with the full catastrophe later on in a $3,000 emergency-room drama scene. And it allows people to maintain their good health through the years, instead of delaying treatment until it's too late to recover it and permanent damage is done.

My neighbors heal, recover, and go on with their lives. The U.S. disability rate last year was 19.1 percent, and rising fast. In Canada, it's 14.3 percent -- and Statistics Canada believes that the only reason their stats are creeping up these days is that people who once hid their disabilities are now more willing to admit them.

That disability rate affects the country's economic competitiveness. Americans just don't have the time or money to spend on a proper recovery after a major event, or get the full course of treatment that a chronic condition requires to be truly well-managed. Fearing for our income or our jobs, we hurry back to work too soon. Our insurance doesn't cover necessary follow-up therapies, so things may not heal thoroughly or properly. We can't afford the drugs, so we cut the pills in half, or stop taking them entirely.

The result is that too many of us end up far more impaired than we need to be -- and may, in fact, never be quite right again. Deferred maintenance -- which is what this is -- takes a ferocious toll on the American workforce, which is now being forced to compete with workers around the world who get better care, make better recoveries, and are able to return to work at full strength.

My neighbors start small businesses. Americans routinely stay chained to jobs they hate because they can't afford to lose coverage. Canada has an exuberant entrepreneurial culture, fueled by favorable tax structures for small business and a preference for Main Streets over malls. Canadians may bet the house and the kids' college funds on a new venture; but they never think twice about whether or not they can afford to leave BigCo because they'll lose their insurance, or what will happen to the new business if they get hit by a delivery truck, or how they'll afford some kind of minimal coverage for their new employees.
Unburdened by health care costs or concerns, their ventures are far more likely to thrive.

My neighbors go back to school. Low-cost government-subsidized universities combined with assured health care make it easy for people to make mid-course career adjustments, pursue their passions, and expand their horizons. The upshot is a better-educated, more capable workforce that's constantly improving its skills.

My neighbors quit jobs they hate. "Take this job and shove it" is a lot easier -- and sweeter -- when your boss isn't holding an almighty health care card over your head. Bosses know this, too, and working conditions are often better as a result.

My neighbors stay home with their kids. They can afford to do that, because they're not wholly dependent on whichever breadwinner can manage to find a job with a decent health care plan.

My neighbors invest. They've got stable household budgets that aren't being thrown off by surprise health events. Because Canada doesn't have a mortgage interest deduction, most Canadians reduce interest costs by taking out 10- or 15-year mortgages. The payments really squeeze the family budget for that decade -- but by their 40s a lot of them own their homes outright, something most Americans will never achieve. Home ownership, college savings and retirement funds are all big-money investments that you simply can't commit to if you're liable to be hit with five-figure medical bills at any moment.

My neighbors travel. Americans don't get vacation time; and when they do get it, they tend to stay in-country. A lot of Canadians take three weeks off in the winter to go somewhere fabulous and warm (understandable, given the climate). The sheer variety of these escapes boggles me yet: They fly off to build schools in Guatemala, or take holiday jobs in New Zealand, or learn French in Morocco. Even the guy who paints my house can afford to do this, because he's not spending half his annual income on health care premiums. That $15K-a-year savings will buy a whole lot of margaritas in Cancun.

The result is a population with broad global awareness, and extensive global ties -- a necessary thing for a country whose economy depends completely on trade. And it may be an important factor in keeping Canada progressive. According to Diana Kerry, who ran her brother John's overseas campaign in 2004, Americans who own passports vote Democratic three to one. So travel makes you liberal. Who knew?

My neighbors seldom go bankrupt. The Canadian bankruptcy rate has soared in the past year to 4.3 per thousand. In the U.S., it's 11.1 per thousand. The entire difference between these two figures is accounted for by the fact that 62 percent of all U.S. bankruptcies were driven at least in part by medical expenses.

But tidy numbers like this elide a harder reality: Bankruptcy doesn't just cost us financially. It also destroys the foundations of our social capital. When the house, the dreams, and the future are gone, very often the marriage is the next thing that goes, too. Bankruptcy travels in close company with domestic trouble, divorce, drug use, homelessness, and broken families. (After medical-bill refugees, the second most common people in bankruptcy courts are recently divorced women.) If, as conservatives like to remind us, the family is the basic unit of civilization, then our health care system is directly making its profits by pulling down our social foundations -- and ultimately undermining our ability to hold our civilization together.

My neighbors have never seen anyone die because they didn't have health care. With 22,000 Americans dying every year due to a lack of health insurance -- that's one every 24 minutes -- there aren't many of us who don't know someone who lost a loved one because they couldn't get the treatment they needed. (For me, it was my father.)

But when I share this factoid with Canadians, they invariably do a long double take. They lean back, squint, stare, and pause to reassess my credibility (if not my sanity). It's literally unbelievable. They can't even process it. I must be making it up, or at least exaggerating. It's just beyond the realm of imagining that a rich nation like America would let that kind of thing happen -- let alone let it happen sixty times a day, for years on end.

And yet, they know things are bad down here, because everybody who goes South buys travel insurance before they cross the border. Everybody has heard scary stories about people who got sick or hurt and ended up in an American ER with a five-figure bill to pay. It's just a stupid risk, and they're not willing to take it.

What would you have done differently if you'd never had to worry about health insurance? How would life be different now? How would it change your plans for the future?

Go ahead. Think about it. Let yourself get good and angry. The current system has robbed an entire generation of Americans of their full potential. It has made us serfs. It has narrowed our horizons. It has undermined our families and communities. It has deprived us of the chance to save, to own a home, to educate ourselves and our children, to see the world, to retire in comfort, and to live to a healthy and robust old age.

It has left us in this swamp, chin-deep in alligators. And the first step in getting back out is getting very clear in our own minds that there are other places where people don't live this way -- and then angry enough to lean on our leaders, and make it just as clear to them that we don't intend to live like this any more, either.

Your representatives need to hear from you. Today.

Because your future is still out there -- and the most important thing you need to get there is a health care plan nobody can ever take away. ++


CIGNA Exec Whistleblower Puts Wind In Health Care Reform Sails
Jamie Court, Consumer Watchdog via HuffPo
June 24, 2009
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jamie-court/cigna-exec-whistleblower_b_220445.html

Nebraska's Democratic United States Senator Ben Nelson is one of the holdouts on national health care reform, after accepting big bucks from the health insurers -- ranking #10 in the Senate for taking health insurance cash. He met his match in the Senate Commerce Committee today when a former CIGNA executive came to Congress with a simple message:

"My name is Wendell Potter and for 20 years, I worked as a senior executive at health insurance companies, and I saw how they confuse their customers and dump the sick - all so they can satisfy their Wall Street investors."

Potter testified that:

I know from personal experience that members of Congress and the public have good reason to question the honesty and trustworthiness of the insurance industry. Insurers make promises they have no intention of keeping, they flout regulations designed to protect consumers, and they make it nearly impossible to understand -- or even to obtain -- information we need. As you hold hearings and discuss legislative proposals over the coming weeks, I encourage you to look very closely at the role for-profit insurance companies play in making our health care system both the most expensive and one of the most dysfunctional in the world.

Woof! Wendall Potter may be the secret weapon that wins passage of health care reform in America. Read his full testimony here [pdf.]

The health insurance Potter described today is hardly the one Congress would want to extend to 47 million more Americans. Potter makes as good a case for the need for a public option to the for-profit market and for health insurer accountability as I have heard yet in Congress, just as the president goes on ABC tonight to make his case. Senator Jay Rockefeller, who chaired today's hearing made an eloquent and passionate plea for change too. He also released a report showing how patients are being screwed by insurance fine print. Reformers are finding their stride. The more the focus on insurers, the stronger this reform horse will run. ++


bonus
 

Ann Telnaes 'toons

here

here 
 
here
 

Power-Cling!
Mark Fiori 'toon
6/24/09
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2009/06/24/fiorecling.DTL

 

 
Behind the Protests, Social Upheaval in Iran

NYT editors

6/23/09
http://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/23/behind-the-protests-social-upheaval-in-iran/

 

New clashes in Iran as standoff worsens with West
WILLIAM J. KOLE, AP

6/29/09
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/ml_iran_election

The Thugs Who Lead Iran's Supreme Leader
Gary Sick, Daily Beast
6/27/09
http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-06-27/the-thugs-who-lead-irans-supreme-leader/full/

Sunday's Protest March Broken Up; Rafsanjani Defers to Khamenei

Monday, June 29, 2009
Juan Cole, Informed Comment
http://www.juancole.com/2009/06/sundays-protest-march-broken-up.html

Battle for Iran shifts from the streets to the heart of power
Ayatollah Khamenei's support for President Ahmadinejad has led both moderates and hard-liners to start plotting against him
Peter Beaumont, The Observer
Sunday 28 June 2009
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jun/28/iran-mahmoud-ahmadinejad

 
The power struggle inside Iran appears to be moving from the streets into the heart of the regime itself this weekend amid reports that Ayatollah Hashemi Rafsanjani is plotting to undermine the power of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Rafsanjani's manoeuvres against Khamenei come as tensions between the speaker of the parliament, Ali Larijani, and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad also appeared to be coming to a head.

Mass demonstrations on the streets against the election results have been effectively crushed by a massive police and basiij militia presence that has seen several dozen deaths and the arrests of hundreds of supporters of defeated candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi. But the splits within Iran's political elite are deepening.

In the past few days, Larijani - who was fired by Ahmadinejad as chief negotiator on nuclear issues with the west - has announced his intention of setting up a parliamentary committee to examine the recent post-election violence in an "even-handed way". In response, Ahmadinejad supporters within the parliament have discussed the possibility of impeaching Larijani.

In a move with even greater potential significance, according to several reports Rafsanjani has been lobbying fellow members of the powerful 86-strong Assembly of Experts, which he chairs, to replace Khamenei as the supreme leader with a small committee of senior ayatollahs, of which Khamenei would be a member. If Rafsanjani were successful, the constitutional change would mean a profound shift in the balance of power within Iran's theocratic regime.

"Although Hashemi Rafsanjani is not a popular politician in Iran any more, he is the only hope that Iranians have ... for the annulment of the election," said an Iranian political analyst who asked not be named. "He is the only one who people think is able to stand against the supreme leader."

The membership of the Assembly of Experts, which has the power to appoint the supreme leader, is split between those supporting Rafsanjani and those who have gravitated around the highly influential ultra-hardline cleric Mohammad-Taqi Mesbah Yazdi, who is widely seen as both a supporter of Ahmadinejad and the president's religious mentor. Yazdi is also believed to have his own ambitions to succeed Khamenei as supreme leader. Like Ahmadinejad, he is fiercely opposed to the push by reformists for more democratic representation in Iran.

Yazdi is also understood to have a large following among both the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps and the basiij militia, both also sources of support for Ahmadinejad.

Rafsanjani has long been a proponent of weakening the power of the supreme leader. He is understood to be arguing in favour of replacing Khamenei with a leadership council of three or more senior clerics.

The splits in the Assembly of Experts - the least visible aspect of the present crisis - will be critically important to its eventual outcome. Even avowed conservatives are reported to have sided with Rafsanjani against Yazdi and his faction, suggesting that there are real limits to the power it has been exercising in the past few weeks.

The complexity of the present political manoeuvres has meant Iran's elites have been made to take sides, reflected in the decision by almost half the members of the parliamentary assembly to boycott the celebration dinner called by Ahmadinejad to mark his "re-election".

The largely behind the scenes moves have come as Iranians opposed to the regime have been forced to go underground with their protests, despite the threats of Khamenei and the brutal attacks of the Revolutionary Guards and basiij militia.

The challenge to the street protests entered a new phase last week when Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami called for the execution of protest leaders at Friday prayers in Tehran in a further move seen as intending to intimidate the opponents of Ahmadinejad.

Despite that, the nightly defiant cry of "Allah-o-Akbar" (God is great) has increased since Khatami's warning.

In a further sign of defiance, large numbers of people have switched from wearing green to black, to mourn those killed by the security forces during demonstrations.

"Before this, black was an ordinary colour; now it has a different meaning," said Soheil, a 22-year-old student. "It means that you are angry with the government and you want re-election."

Others keep their car headlights on, also in protest. "It's not important for me whether the riot police destroy my car or not; the important thing is to continue my protest despite the huge censorship on the internet and SMS networks and TV channels," said 45-year-old Mina, as she drove - lights ablaze - through Tehran yesterday. "This is the only way I can show my protest." ++

 

 

"I'm asking you to believe. Not just in my ability to bring about real change in Washington ... I'm asking you to believe in yours."
~ Barack Obama

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