Progressives should remember well the lessons we have learned through Arlen Specter in the last few months.
That lesson seems to be.
A. Politicians care about nothing more than staying in power and gaining power.
B. A Politician that fears losing their seat will do anything to prevent it.
C. If they don’t fear you, they will not respect you.
D. Bi-Partisanship = Cow Pie
Specter, the agile old lizard that he is, seems to only have one skill, which is judging the wind in Washington. Many other Senators do not have this skill. There careers will be much shorter than his because of it.
These Senators do not realize, or do not care, that average Americans are fucking dying out there do to lack of health care coverage, whether it is preventative or emergency.
And now they are compromising with “NO!”
Well, good Senator, there is a phrase I would like to reacquaint you with.
Medical reports corroborated the detainee’s account, stating that the detainee had a broken nose, fractured leg, and scars on his stomach. In addition, soldiers confirmed that Task Force 20 interrogators wearing civilian clothing had interrogated the detainee. However, after initially reporting the abuse, the detainee said that he was forced by an American soldier to sign a statement denouncing the claims or else be kept in detention indefinitely. He agreed.
An investigator who reviewed the signed statement concluded that “[t]his statement, alone, is a prima facie indication of threats.” However, despite the medical report and testimony from other soldiers, the criminal file was ultimately closed on the grounds that the investigation had “failed to prove or disprove” the offenses.
If Reform Costs X and Fighting it costs Y – choose the lesser of the two everytime.
Executives of three of the nation’s largest health insurers told federal lawmakers in Washington on Tuesday that they would continue canceling medical coverage for some sick policyholders, despite withering criticism from Republican and Democratic members of Congress who decried the practice as unfair and abusive.
The line between taking a profit and making a killing is where ethics ends and Super Profits begin. There are thousands of examples we can find in our economy today where taking a profit is not good enough, and thus making a killing is what we do.
It seems as though once the line between making a profit ethically is crossed there is no going back. Once the people who profit by stepping over the line and making a killing have gone there, the damage is already done and it is too late. What good is it to us if we fine a polluter some millions they can afford after they have made the Super Profit and ripped the resources out of the bare earth, or by denying someone Health Care they paid the Insurance for, or by ginning up a war fro their contractor buddies. The war still happens, people die of preventable disease and no one can put the environment back together again.
This is how our economy works. Whoever can fuck over the most people the best win. You can be too big to fail but if there is any competition to worry about, don’t worry, the Government will take care of it for you, but if average Joe Sixpacks demand the same thing that is socialism, and that is bad.
So what is a person to do?
The first step to fighting the Class War is to know your enemy.
An investigation by the House Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations showed that health insurers WellPoint Inc., UnitedHealth Group and Assurant Inc. canceled the coverage of more than 20,000 people, allowing the companies to avoid paying more than $300 million in medical claims over a five-year period.
It also found that policyholders with breast cancer, lymphoma and more than 1,000 other conditions were targeted for rescission and that employees were praised in performance reviews for terminating the policies of customers with expensive illnesses.
You see, if they actually provided the health care insurance policy holders are paying for, they would not make such a big profit. It is as simple as that. $300,000,000 over 5 years is hard for a Board of Directors to turn down.
The Murder By Spreadsheet Industry is not alone here. Many industries and big businesses claim they can not survive without there special little exceptions around basic decency and common sense.
Some examples are
Mountain Top Removal Coal Mining
You can call this Environmental Disaster Capitalism
First off, these companies will NEVER invest in Green Technology and Green energy, because that costs money and any initial investment towards progress will hurt their profits, and that makes Executives cry.
Never mind the fact that there are other, less destructive ways to mine for coal, but that costs money, and is less profitable than the Super – Profits that can be made by wrecking the place. Never mind the fact that coal is toxic, toxic to the air, the rivers, everything around it. That is not important, making money, now that is what is important.
Labor Unions
If companies do not have the ability to bust unions, how will they make their Super Profits? Can large employers like WalMart get by when their employees can demand better wages and benefits? Of course.
Will they admit that? Hell no!
What costs more, making TV ads or actually paying employees more? Do the long term benefits to society and our economy outweigh the initial costs? Of course not, that would get in the way of making a killing. What are you, some kind of socialist?
Well, yes, if by socialist you mean something other than an unfettered free market capitalist. If that is what you mean by socialist I am guilty as charged.
Wall St
This one is so big I will not get into it too much, suffice it too say that they are certainly making a killing on Wall St. I have yet to hear when the Wall St Bailout will be paid back
No matter how bad the risk, the people who take those risks never feel the pain of their failure. They are Too Big To Fail. You are not.
Socialism for the rich is fine, just don’t go getting socialist on the rest of the proletariat. If you feed them once you will never get rid of them.
War and The Military Industrial Complex
This is true Disaster Capitalism at work, and the heart of all class warfare. War is class warfare.
If we do not have wars to fight how will we ever justify spending a quarter of our federal budget on our military, plus supplemental spending and all the other goodies we hand out to the MIC year to year?
And if there are no actual wars to fight, we can just invent them with a little help from the Corporate controlled media
What does Pat Buchanan have to do to get fired from MSNBC, show up to work in a white sheet?
Yes, Virginia, there is a white supremacist on MSNBC.
His name is Pat Buchanan.
Some of Pat Buchanan’s previous statements include these quotes.
“Take a hard look at Duke’s portfolio of winning issues and expropriate those not in conflict with GOP principles, [such as] reverse discrimination against white folks.”
And yes, that is David Duke whom Pat is referring to.
Sadly, that is just the beginning, and it barely even scratches the surface.
At the bottom of this diary there are e-mail addresses where you can demand that this racist hack be given das boot for the hateful bile he spews forth, bile which has no place in 2009 or America in any year.
I was recently told that an effective way of contacting my Congress Critter is to write a hand written letter and then send it off to them. Apparently, the effort that goes into writing an actual letter is a clear signal that I mean business, much more so than a phone call that never reaches my Congressperson or an e-mail that can be easily deleted.
Therefore, I propose that we all get some “Get Well Cards” and send them off to our Representatives in Congress. That way, they will know we really, really care.
We know the votes are there. Are the vertebrae there is the question.
Choosing the right card is important. It can be funny or angry, home made or store bought, and you should definitely personalize the message on the inside.
The message should be as clear as daylight. We want health care reform with a real and robust public option. You want to get re-elected. We should work together in order to accomplish our goals.
Send one to both your Senators and your Congressional Representative, as well as your local State Representatives. Let them know that the American public will not tolerate bullshit on this issue, or any other issue where the status quo and Big Business stands in the way of real reform and progress.
Mailing addresses for your Representative in the House can be found here at writerep.house.gov
And your Senators mailing address can be found here at www.senate.gov
3. Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America: $6,910,000
4. Chevron U.S.A. Inc: $6,800,000
5. Lockheed Martin Corporation: $6,380,000
No wonder there are so many alternatives to real reform and real change. If the buck stops in Washington the buck started in a lobbyists briefcase.
Simply put, if they can afford to lobby, they can afford to change.
This goes for every Special Interest and every Big Business. While they fight change and kick and scream we here in Real America are fucking dying. We are dying while fighting your wars, we are dying waiting for health care reform, we are going broke waiting for Wall St to clean up it’s act, to make a long point short, Americans know you have the money, and now it is time to ante up.
Of all the people to criticize President Obama, or any President for that matter, this is by far and away the dumbest and most criminal of them all.
Ex President and future War Criminal Geogre W Bush had some words to share with Uhmerica yesterday at an event in Erie, PA
“There are a lot of ways to remedy the situation without nationalizing health care,” Mr. Bush said. “I worry about encouraging the government to replace the private sector when it comes to providing insurance for health care.”
Asked by the evening emcee at the 104th annual Manufacturer and Business Association meeting if he finds the new president’s policies “socialist,” Mr. Bush started then stopped.
“I hear a lot of those words, but it depends on…,” he said, breaking off. He later offered a more diplomatic assessment: “We’ll see.”
The Jurassic Senate of the GOPosaurs and DINOsaurs is a fucking disgrace. Don’t blame Obama, blame these craven, weak kneed traitors to their nation.
I only discount Ted Kennedy and Al Franken for obvious reasons, as well as Bernie Sanders, who votes more like I would than any other Senator. If you think your senator should get a pass here give me a good reason why,.
The rest of the Senate can go fuck itself.
That’s right. The Senate has sold out to the banks, the insurance companies, the special interests, anybody with a dollar gets their time.
40 GOPosauars who say “No No!” , 55 DINOsaurs who say “Not Now!”, Arlen Specter trying to remember which side he is on today and whatever the hell Joe Lieberman is skittering across the wall.
The Conservative status quo sets the tone in Washington and in the MSM. The GOP sets the obstruction agenda, plain and simple, and I hope you are with me when I say I have had enough.
(P.S. – thank you Buhdy for putting this on the FP, when I saw the words
Representative Barney Frank has introduced H.R. 2835, a bill which is intended to reschedule marijuana for medical use and end federal interference in state laws.
To provide for the medical use of marijuana in accordance with the laws of the various States.
Moving the Overton window happens one step at a time. We need to take bigger steps. This bill does not address the problems inherit in the drug war or the marijuana prohibition issue. If you want a national drug policy that makes sense, this bill does not address the problem, and right now our national drug policy is a big part of THE problem.
The bill, which was co-sponsored by 13 bipartisan Members of Congress at the time of introduction, would change federal policy on medical marijuana in a number of ways. Specifically, the Act would change marijuana from a Schedule I drug, classified as having no medical value, to a Schedule II drug, which would recognize marijuana’s medical efficacy and create a regulatory framework for the FDA to begin a drug approval process for marijuana. The act would also prevent interference by the federal government in any local or state run medical marijuana program.
What seems like a valiant effort to protect medical marijuana users is not quite the problem. Of course I want medical marijuana users to be able to get the medicine they are prescribed, but that is not the Problem.
All the soldiers taken must be cared for with magnanimitty and sincerity so that they may be used by us.
This is called ‘winning a battle and becoming stronger.’
Hence what is essential in war is victory, not prolonged operations. . .
– The Art of War
Military contractors do not seek victory, but, “prolonged operations.”
Instead of breaking minds and bodies in order to win hearts and minds, maybe we should have read more history.
I have recently read Sun Tzu’s “The Art of War”. Although this book was written over 2300 years ago and in a time before drone missiles, military contractors and Military Industrial Complexes, I feel that it is a good book to read for everyone who would like to learn the age old and time tested concepts of military strategy.
We are going to give $230+ million to a DoD Base Closure Account in order to carry out operation and maintenance, planning and design and military construction projects not otherwise authorized by law.
???
Are we getting single payer health care? Are we getting a commitment to rebuilding America through building infrastructure and the manufacturing sector? Are we getting the return of the Glass-Steagal Act, or the repeal of Gramm/Leech/Bliley? Are we getting to the end of mountain top removal coal mining, or the beginning of a more sustainable energy plan? Are we getting investigations and a Special Prosecutor for the War Crimes committed by Bush/Cheney?
No.
What we are getting are drone missiles, new army bases overseas and defense contracts. With a side of suppression of evidence of war crimes and a big financial bailout on the side.
We need a public option in health care reform, preferably a single payer plan, and we need it now.
We have to fight for quality public health care as if our lives depend on it. Literally. Lives depend on it.
Sadly, the District of Columbia has the highest percentage of Infant Mortality, with 14.1/1000
Infant mortality is defined as the number of deaths of infants (one year of age or less) per 1000 live births.
If the best indicator of the policies followed by our political leaders is the quality of health, education and prosperity that their constituents enjoy, we can safely say that our nations private health care system and Republican leadership have failed miserably.
Many factors effect the infant mortality rate. First and foremost among these factors are the availability of medicine and health care to the public itself, and the amount of wealthy or poverty in which that population lives.
In instances like this many issues seem to converge. Racism, empathy, health care reform, poverty, the economy, all these issues add up to this sad fact; the same people who fear empathy, reverse racism, health care reform and all the strawmen they can raise do not care one bit about the fact that American infants die at a higher rate than any other nation of our stature that has a single payer public health care system and a strong social safety net for those who are less fortunate than others.
In this case, personal responsibility literally translates into “if you wanted to have a better chance at survival you should have been born into a family that wasn’t as disadvantaged. I am not responsible for your problems. ”
The nearly 10-year decline in U.S. infant mortality rates has stalled and disparities between black and white infant mortality persist, according to CDC data, the Wall Street Journal reports. According to the data, black infants are 2.4 times more likely to die before age one than white infants.
In 2005, 13.26 black infants died per 1,000 live births, which is similar to the rate in some developing nations, the Journal reports. Among white infants, the mortality rate increased slightly to 5.73 deaths per 1,000 live births, up from 5.66 deaths in 2004, according to the data. Overall, the U.S. infant mortality rate increased from 6.78 deaths per 1,000 births in 2004 to 6.86 deaths per 1,000 births in 2005. According to the Journal, infant mortality rates had “steady declines” in the 1990s and early 2000s, particularly among white infants.
CDC officials say the higher rates in large part can be attributed to low birthweights, shorter gestation periods and premature births. Experts say that it is difficult to identify a link between race and higher infant mortality but noted that higher rates of poverty, limited access to health care and dietary differences are possible contributors (Abkowitz, Wall Street Journal, 7/30).
More often than not, those of us who lack basic health care and preventative medicine are those people who are poor and disadvantaged. Often, those same people are minorities, women and people who are not born into the wealth that gives people greater opportunity. It should be telling that, as a society, we have failed to provide for the majority of our citizens as well as other nations that are not as profit hungry.
The divide between the rich and poor in America can be plainly seen here.
