Recent comments

  • Thursday - July 30th 2009   14 years 34 weeks ago

    B-Roll,

    Thank you for the excellent points you made regarding what we need to look out for when our legislators are voting on the public option. These will help us ask very precise questions when Congress returns home during the break for Town Hall meetings.

    To add to what you said,-- although I am glad they will raise payments for doctors to rates above what medicare is now, I also think this is a backdoor way of raising the cost of the public option so that the "competition" is fairer to insurance companies. I agree with this particular tactic though.

  • Thursday - July 30th 2009   14 years 34 weeks ago

    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.

  • Thursday - July 30th 2009   14 years 34 weeks ago

    Quark,

    So you say you like puns, hey! (People in South African put "hey" at the end of a lot of sentences for emphasis. I find that charming, hey.). Well, here are a few for you.

    1600 Transylvania Avenue -- coined during the Bush Admin.

    Capitalist Hill -- where our laws are made

    Apple Piety -- American self-righteousness, aka American Exceptionalism

    Epoxymoron -- someone who's stuck on stupid

    Irrelevantsia -- Very intellectual people who are socially and politically inert

    and there's more where that came from.

  • Thursday - July 30th 2009   14 years 34 weeks ago

    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.

  • Thursday - July 30th 2009   14 years 34 weeks ago

    Richard,

    I love puns --- the sillier, the better. My dear mother-in-law and I love to be together just to trade puns!

  • Thursday - July 30th 2009   14 years 34 weeks ago

    The silly is the sane.

    My fault is the pun-ridden.

  • Thursday - July 30th 2009   14 years 34 weeks ago

    Please forgive me for posting "silly" things. For me, laughter helps dissipate panic and fear.

    (My son told me this week that I would be a much easier person to be around if I didn't talk politics all the time...!)

  • Thursday - July 30th 2009   14 years 34 weeks ago

    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.

  • Thursday - July 30th 2009   14 years 34 weeks ago

    Dr. asked for Red Stripe.

    Cop asked for Aussie Blue Moon.

    Pres will do a Bud.

  • Thursday - July 30th 2009   14 years 34 weeks ago

    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

  • Thursday - July 30th 2009   14 years 34 weeks ago
  • Thursday - July 30th 2009   14 years 34 weeks ago

    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

  • Thursday - July 30th 2009   14 years 34 weeks ago

    Gin and Tonic,

    Sure Thom, purely for medicinal purposes.

  • Thursday - July 30th 2009   14 years 34 weeks ago

    @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.

  • Thursday - July 30th 2009   14 years 34 weeks ago

    Loretta,

    you wrote:

    "If we don’t support Obama’s public option, even in its whittled down form, we may get no plan? Isn’t that our concern?"

    I agree. The problem is that what we may end up getting might not be "Obama's public option" but a plan, codified in law, that is worse for us than what we have now. The elites are expert at twisting the wishes of of the people to benefit their lust for profit and power.

    It's tough to know what's the best thing to do. That's why we look to people we trust for guidance. There's a problem with relying on people we trust though, because we tend to trust people who tell us what we want to hear.

  • About - Threshold: The Crisis of Western Culture   14 years 34 weeks ago

    Thom, I agree with your points about thresholds, however I'm puzzled by your reaction to calls that talk about reviving the commons, particularly when it comes to the design of our cities.

    For example, you and Bernie essentially blew off a caller who suggested revising FNMA underwriting standards to require mixed-use, pedestrian-friendly neighborhoods (See http://smartcodecentral.com/smartfilesv9_2.html for example). This would be *very* effective, and would start acting *immediately*.

    Besides its beneficial effects, it would cost nothing to do.

    First, pedestrian-friendly streets are the beginning of social interaction among neighbors (sprawl streets are designed to at least present obstacles to such interaction). You don't need a lot of "community centers" if neighbors are encouraged to stroll and greet each others -- although they will ultimately demand such centers as they get to know each other.

    Such streets are also the necessary prerequisite for working transit. What kind of transit system could any community have if no one could walk to the stops? (Answer: the kind of lame, subsidized orphan-stepchild-transit commonly found in sprawl)

    Building sprawl also presents design barriers to people walking as part of their daily life -- by definition, you must drive to all significant destinations in sprawl.

    Could this have anything to do with the epidemic of obesity and chronic disease we're experiencing now?

    BTW, this answers the "French Question" -- because French cities have pedestrian-friendly streets, even though they eat a rich diet, the French are not nearly as obese as Americans.

    Such neighborhoods are safer (more "eyes on the street"), and are even favored by the market -- property in such neighborhoods typically sells for premiums compared to sprawl.

    I know you've had guests who write about this (but you haven't heard of Kunstler!?). I'd encourage you to move this to the top of your stack.

    Incidentally, the level of unconsciousness about land use planning is truly monumental, so educating the public about this is important. I'm not just talking local politics here, either. A land use scam -- getting a stadium from the citizens of Arlington Texas -- accounts for 75% of George W. Bush's net worth (says David Kay Johnston in his "Free Lunch" book).

    Land use is one of the "foundational" corruptions that feeds the larger corruption in U.S. public life, IMHO...

  • Thursday - July 30th 2009   14 years 34 weeks ago

    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.

  • Thursday - July 30th 2009   14 years 34 weeks ago

    The debate about healthcare is a bit like the debate about whether or not to vote for President Obama or Ralph Nader. If we don't support Obama's public option, even in its whittled down form, we may get no plan? Isn't that our concern?

    But it's best if we work on both at the same time.

  • Thursday - July 30th 2009   14 years 34 weeks ago

    The caller who mentioned the invocation of God as a means of changing things reminded me of a recent piece in The Onion. It was written from the point of view of the "new Chinese owners" of The Onion:

    "Weakling President Asks Imaginary Man In Sky To Bless Nation"

    http://www.theonion.com/content/news_briefs/weakling_president_asks

  • Thursday - July 30th 2009   14 years 34 weeks ago

    Off topic from today's interests, but Amy Goodman has an interview with David Phillips, the journalist who wrote the two part series “Casualties of War” from the Colorado Springs Gazette.

    The series deals with the tragic psychological toll suffered by the men and women who have served in Iraq. It examines the explosion of violent crimes committed by members of the 2nd Battalion, 12th Infantry Regiment at Fort Collins, Colorado Springs. The murder rate in the unit is 114 times that of the Colorado Springs area.

    The segment is “The Hell of War Comes Home: Newspaper Series Documents Murder, Suicide, Kidnappings by Iraq Vets” You can find it at www.democracynow.org

  • Thursday - July 30th 2009   14 years 34 weeks ago

    L Grace,

    Re: ERISA precluding single-payer health care, read the 2-sentence second-to-last paragraph on Kucinich's website:

    http://kucinich.house.gov/News/DocumentSingle.aspx?DocumentID=138052

  • Thursday - July 30th 2009   14 years 34 weeks ago

    Thom mentioned Physicians for a National Health Program earlier in today’s show a physicians’ organization that advocates for single-payer healthcare. Here’s a link to an article by Kip Sullivan about how the “public option” has been whittled from the original goal of covering 130 million Americans down to the current plan which may only cover between zero to 10 million Americans.

    http://www.pnhp.org/blog/2009/07/20/bait-and-switch-how-the-%E2%80%9Cpub...

  • Thursday - July 30th 2009   14 years 34 weeks ago

    L Grace-- Yes... I know the name of the Himalayan blackberries but I was using another descriptor. When berries feel like part of your family you like to give them nicknames.

  • Thursday - July 30th 2009   14 years 34 weeks ago

    Richard,

    Thanks for the link. I bookmarked it and will read it later.

    Bye everyone -- I need to do some errands before it hits 100 degrees here in Oregon.

    Yikes!

  • Thursday - July 30th 2009   14 years 34 weeks ago

    @L-Grace:

    Actually, Dennis Kucinich submitted legislation to spike the ban see:

    http://www.democrats.com/node/19873

    Also check podcast of Thom’s interview with Kucinich earlier this week.

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