orlabern fotyna chariot
Dorian Aldrege
On Tuesday, October 13, the Senate Finance Committee finally is scheduled to vote on its version of health care insurance reform. And therein lies yet another story in the endless saga of money and politics.
In most polls, the majority of Americans favor a non-profit alternative -- like Medicare -- that would give the private health industry some competition. So if so many of us, including President Obama himself, want that public option, how come we're not getting one?
Just to be certain Congress sticks with the program, the industry has been showering megabucks all over Capitol Hill. From the beginning, they wanted to make sure that whatever bill comes out of the Finance Committee puts for-profit insurance companies first -- by forcing the uninsured to buy medical policies from them. Money not only talks, it writes the prescriptions.
The public outrage provoked by Phillips and other muckrakers contributed to the ratification of the 17th amendment to the Constitution, providing for the direct popular election of senators, who until then were elected by easily bought-off state legislators.
For anyone still grounded in REALITY and who is looking for a "genome target" (using the phrase as it's never been used before - we can all get on the bandwagon of redefinition), visit NCI website and read the "Text of John E. Niederhuber, Director, National Cancer Institute, Address to the 100th Annual Meeting 2009 of the American Association for Cancer Research"...
Silicone valley pot smokers will never stop pushing their own agenda for "infomatics"....they found their target audience amongst the eugenicists - here comes "chosen ones" genocide - part deux - the corporate age....
From the speech - "We discussed how physical laws governing short-range and other forces, energy flows, gradients, mechanics, and thermodynamics affect cancer, and how the theories of Darwinian and somatic evolution can better help us understand and control cancer."
There's some real creepy sinister stuff in there - up to and including granting the APPOINTED Director of Health and Human Services the POWER to decide what kind of "treatment" is provided and who can get that "treatment"...
Donations to legislators, or any federal official either elected or appointed, from any source except a private individual acting on his/her own behalf, will constitute an assumed conflict of interest. graft or bribery. All gifts valued more than $200, of any kind, to government officials, must be recorded for public scrutiny.
I am unable to put this together by myself. My hope is that a consortium of prominent bloggers will. I'm just one guy trying to change the world, one e-mail at a time. But my cause is just, and for the sake of my country and real democratic principals. We must remove corporate money from politics and try to neutralize the corporate oligarchy.
Someone was being clever and found some video from the Ozzie and Harriet era of populism (judging from the black and white footage and the clothing styles) and it was taken at a vaccine center. There were about 20 nurses available and people were coming in and out very efficiently - no lines.
Maybe people would stop demanding that health insurance companies be burnt at the stake if people saw that the employees who were saying "nyet" all day long to people actually were competant enough at something like - oh let's see - marching across the street to the labs and getting enough vaccines manufactured to stave off a pandemic...
Okay, maybe the employees aren't qualified to do something like put up their hair in a sterile cap and whip up some flu vaccine or qualify for administering it. After all, software skills like cut and paste and quick search engines for digging up secrets to use as rationalizations for the "nyet" are skills that don't translate well into actual hands-on health care.
But why not go out, en masse, to the supermarkets and do something that feeds the power-mad gene of the personlaity type who CAN say "nyet" all day long without valium, and do some preventative care like pulling the Twinkies out of fat people's grocery bags?
Whenever people become delighted that we might finally legislate mental health parity (mental health care is treated as any other illness without a cap on dollars or number of visits per year) I find myself twitching just a little bit, and licking the bottom of the valium bottle.
They even had an actuary come up and give us a bunch of numbers on a spread sheet showing just how much stress related illnesses became more serious illnesses. it was very impressive. And those of us who were wrecks ourselves, but never had seen a shrink got to feel all righteous. Sort of like we were willing to loose our minds for the good of the company.
I suggest we need to redefine the common notions associated with healthcare. Obviously, healthcare is not just being treated by a doctor. Good nutrition and physical exercise are forms of healthcare. National defense is also a form of healthcare. We need to protect our bodies from harmful bacteria, viruses, terrorists, and invading armies. If we, as a nation, are willing to fund national defense initiatives to protect American lives than we should also be willing to federally fund decent healthcare for all Americans to protect their lives.
As a nation, we are obviously willing to spend tremendous human and monetary resources to defend us from external forces. Just considering the ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan -- we have lost many lives; many more have been physically and mentally injured; we have spent billions of dollars on waging the wars; and we have diverted precious human and physical resources away from more economically productive endeavors. In the Iraq war alone, over 4,000 soldiers have died and over 30,000 American soldiers have been injured. The military expenditure of human resources and monetary capital has been terribly expensive.
By a conservative estimate, the United States military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan have cost our nation well over $900 billion and the cost is steadily increasing. However, the actual cost is largely a secondary consideration mainly because our nation has been galvanized to defend ourselves from terrorist attacks. We are very motivated in our battle to save American lives from external forces. And because lives are at stake, our national defense has been performed without any notion of budget deficit neutrality.
The real master and dictator of the Republican party is not Hanna or Roosevelt, but Rockefeller, the trust magnate. He rules by deputy, and his agent of legate is Senator Aldrich of Rhode Island. Rockefeller and Aldrich are bound together by business ties, and the son of one has married the daughter of the other. Rockefeller is a wise and prudent man. He does not appear to be interested in politics, preferring to keep in the background and pull the strings that make the Republican puppets dance to the trust tune. But Rockefeller is vastly interested in the tariff and Wall street, and through Aldrich, who is chairman of the finance committee of the senate, he is able to manipulate legislation for his selfish advantage.
Elaine and McKinley, astute politicians that they were, advised and urged reciprocity as a means to overcome the protection incubus on trade. Their strong personalities might have brought it about for a season, but the scepter has fallen into weaker hands, and the protected trusts are omnipotent. The only exception is the long held up Cuban reciprocity, and as the sugar trust would gain under that arrangement it may be conceded. Audacity is a characteristic of Republican politicians, and could any political programme be more audacious than to continue to protect the trusts, the few at the expense of the many?
I sadly believe that if the progressives and moderates in the United States government can't deliver on any of the changes Pres. Obama promised and are unable to wrestle power away from the anti-enterprise capitalist that disavows and paralyses democracy, a Coucescuan solution shall be put forth by the growing disenfranchised populations of America. If the top 1 or 2 % think they are sheltered from the reoccurrence of history they are blinded by their own arrogance and just as for Louis, Nicolas, Benito, Nikolai, (insert despots name here) in their times, the day of reckoning shall be brutal.
Washington IS BROKEN & until control of power is removed from the few, that have SENIORITY, & the return on big money 'invested' in Congress is neutralized, NO REFORM in Wall Street, Washington, ETC. will have a chance!
I believe David Durham`s forthright article hit the nail on the head.Here in the US it is the power of the Pentagon with its clinging ghoul the Industrial/Military Complex that dominates our world. The press is a strong contender helping to keep alive FEAR and the fear of fear. We need, as you suggest to study more history.
Consumer strikes en masse could change many things. But the politicians have a way of forgetting and going back to old ways. As such, it would take continual strikes to keep the knuckleheads in DC going down the right path.
After all 70% of the economy is based on the consumer. But such strike would take a measure of self-sufficiency that 99.9% of the modern day people lack. They can't miss one paycheck or will be behind on their mortgage or If they are unable to go to market for a few days they will starve.
Some raised chicken or had dairy and made butter and cheese and swapped with those that grew grain or potatoes or made soap or maple syrup. And many of the homesteaders did it all. People had real life sustaining skills back then.
We got lots of deer here too. But they would be gone in short order if people were hungry and there were no laws on hunting restrictions. We live in an artificial world that is out of balance with what nature had intended.
Most of us have lost that skill of self sufficiency and we have shifted gears to be dependent on gov and a few other such as farmers or oil producers or China to take care of the whole pop of the US. The problem is, it is very hard to go back without causing a lot of pain. (Actually a lot of deaths)
c01484d022