In addition to Democracy Now with Amy Goodman, I’m also a big fan of GritTV hosted by Laura Flanders. There was a segment yesterday titled “A Recipe For Disaster: Industrial Agriculture, Swine Flu, and Global Warming”. It dealt with the dangers posed by the H1N1 swine flu virus and its link to “factory farming” and climate change. Dengue fever is also discussed.

That segment can be found at

http://lauraflanders.firedoglake.com/2009/07/29/a-recipe-for-disaster-in...

and the whole program can be found on the program’s home page or at

http://lauraflanders.firedoglake.com/2009/07/28/swine-flu-and-industrial...

The whole program also has a segment on the difficulty of LGBT organizing in Lebanon and a short film “Will I Be Next” made by a young black man about gang violence in Chicago. I believe they said there were 400 murders in Chicago in 2007 and 26 students killed between 2007 and 2008. According to Laura Flanders brief introduction to the film, 11 people were killed in Chicago this past 4th of July.

@Loretta:

USAians may ultimately have to die using OBAMA-Care™ Health Insurance Industry Protection as the bitter leavings of our defeat, BUT We, the People, NEED to keep beating the single-payer drum until our soon-to-be-UN-elected hear us. Second best is not good enough. Letting our public officials weasel out of doing the job we elected them to do will make this our fault by default.

Seeking utility as the reason for our government to exist is resulting in the Wal-Martification of America. We are better than that.

Dear Tom: My son listens to you and I am reading THRESHOLD.
It is very readable. However, my son will not ACT!! and our other citizens will not act, because they are all hypnotized to be "pasive masses who obey and do not think" (Gatto). Our Military schooling is producing robots. Thus the work you are doing is just cruel!! playing "ain't it awful" to stir us up, and sell advertising, when we can do nothing!!!
The culture does not have dialog, debate, discusions, etc. The medical plan can not work, because the "feed back loop" of citizen involvement, interaction, etc. is not there. An Apple a day keeps the Dr. away, needs to add, so does, honey, hydrogen peroxide, yogert, heating pads, etc. and more people to people cures. Much illness is self-caused stress related, overweigt, smoking, alcohol, wrong thinking, etc.
You are dealing with symptoms! The roots are the 2 theories I advocate for as a 69 year old housewife. You could join what I know and what you know to WRITE A POWERFUL BOOK. My theories are: ROOT theories, with real action suggestions for any citizen.
1 Create for some students: a CHARTER STUDENT STATUS, stepped up home school program that would : give credit for education rather than credit for time in a place.
2, Develop "social capital" people energy, human energy, mentor, barter, love, cooperate, share, etc. We do not have this, because we do not have
PLACES !!! to "hang out" / socialize freely / etc. Everrything is structured in a
money / time / competition pattern, that should be BALANCED with a
social capital / flexible time / cooperation pattern. We are too overwhelmed by the power of money and advertising, The advertising, etc. goes subliminal.
and each of us stands for the most part SEPARATED, lonely, helpless.
Please chat with me.
Jeanette

Janet,
"With numbing regularity good people were seen to knuckle under the demands of authority and perform actions that were callous and severe. Men who are in everyday life responsible and decent were seduced by the trappings of authority, by the control of their perceptions, and by the uncritical acceptance of the experimenter's definition of the situation, into performing harsh acts. A substantial proportion of people do what they are told to do, irrespective of the content of the act and without limitations of conscience, so long as they perceive that the command comes from a legitimate authority" Stanley Milgram, 1965

Milgram was a psychologist who performed a series of experiments that proved conclusively that obedience to authority was so ingrained in the average US citizen they were prepared to cause lethal harm to others when instructed by authority figures to do so. All those who took part were first asked if they would be capable of killing or inflicting severe pain on their fellow human beings. 100% replied categorically 'no'. http://tinyurl.com/2vf8j

Richard,

I agree, even if we don't benefit from future single-payer care, we have to keep fighting for the next generations.

B-Roll

I'm not sure that we could have worse health care than we do now. Getting basic care for the millions of Americans who have no care, which seems to be part of all plans, would be a big improvement.

The silly is the sane.

My fault is the pun-ridden.

Loretta,

Never underestimate the machinations of the corporate elite. I could think of one way it might be worse. This is just speculation. Right now people may be limited to the insurance provided for them by their employer, if they have one, or that they afford themselves, but they have the option of not having health care insurance if they feel they can't afford it.

It's possible that this legislation could end up mandating that everyone "must" buy health care insurance, but might not have mechanisms for controlling the cost. I've heard some people say that the Senate Finance Committee's version could end up being a massive giveaway to the health insurance companies that have created this mess. Think about the bank bailout and how that's worked out.

Here's another consideration. Most Republicans and at least some Blue Dog Dems don't want the "public option" to be competitive with private insurance. But the minimum objective of the "public option" is to bring competitive pressure on the insurance industry to force it, through competition, to control costs. It's quite conceivable that the bill could be written in such a way that the public option could be created in such a way that it isn't able to compete against the already established and enormously wealthy insurance industry. The public option might have to compete against the strengths of the insurance industry rather than the other way around, which is what was intended.

I'm pretty sure that Thom has expressed concern that the "public option" might be set up to fail. That could hurt the possibility of achieving meaningful health care reform for decades.

I'm sure you realize that the corporations and their agents in the government are nearly totally unprincipled in attaining their goals. Look at the claims they've been making about the public option.

The 8 most terrifying words in the English language:

I'm a lobbyist, and I'm here to help.

The 10 most:

I'm from an Insurance company, and I'm here to help.

Loretta Long,

If you have the time and aren't afraid of becoming depressed, I'd suggest you read the article by Kip Sullivan that I linked to above. It's posted on the website of Physicians for a National Health Program that Thom had mentioned earlier.

You have to take into account that this organization and the author are advocates for a single-payer system and this might bias their views, but the article gives a pretty dismal view of the outlook for the public option and suggests that public option and single-payer supports join forces and work for single-payer.

The article is around 9 pages (over 4,000 words) and probably won't cheer you up. Corporate America plays hardball.