Fuck Them All

I received this just now from United Progressives. My government, and its useless "representatives of the people" in Congress are nothing but corporate whores. I'm glad to be gone. Here's my favorite quote: "The current health insurance reform legislation passing through Congress amounts to a massive bailout of the profit-making health industries, which will enrich them and increase their ability to lobby and otherwise influence legislators in the future."

Fuck them all. Oh, and here's the letter...

Good Morning! I am Dr. Margaret Flowers. I am a pediatrician and the Congressional Fellow for Physicians for a National Health Program. I also serve on the steering committee of the Leadership Conference for Guaranteed Health Care and on the board of Healthcare-Now, a national single payer grassroots organization.

Members of Physicians for a National Health Program (known as PNHP) educate and advocate for a single payer national health system, also known as Medicare for All. PNHP performs ground breaking research on the health crisis and the need for fundamental reform and contributes scholarly articles to peer-reviewed medical journals. PNHP takes pride in providing information that can inform legislators and the public about the reasons why Medicare for All is the optimal solution to provide necessary medical treatment to everyone in a way that controls health care costs. PNHP does not take a position on how congress members should vote on the legislation that is currently proceeding through congress. We do provide information to members about whether the legislation is likely to be effective and how it compares to a national single payer health system.
We share the growing sense of desperation among patients and providers across the nation, desperation which has been heightened by the economic crisis. Like you, we are hungry for change. We believe that we should act based on the evidence of what types of health reform have been most effective in the United States. Review of the current health insurance reform legislation reveals that it resembles health reforms that have recently been tried and have failed at the state level.

It is for the reasons listed below that we ask our legislators to start from scratch in order to create health reform that addresses the fundamental problems with health care in this nation and creates a health system that is of similar quality to those in the top industrialized nations.
1. During the time that it will take for the health insurance legislation to begin (2013 in the House version and 2014 in the Senate version), tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of Americans will die.

2. Once the insurance reform takes effect, people will still be left without health insurance. Whether it is the 17 million left out of the House version or the 24 million left out of the Senate version, we find this unacceptable. We know that the actual number of uninsured people is likely to be higher than these estimates and we know that people without insurance have a 40% higher risk of death than those who have insurance.
3. Medical bankruptcies will continue to occur as families will face out-of-pocket costs on covered services of up to $10,000 in addition to the cost of premiums and the cost of uncovered services. The average medical debt that causes insured families to become bankrupt is $18,000.
4. People who are uninsured will suffer the further indignity of being forced to pay a fine which may be as high as 2.5% of their income (House version).

5. The number of people who are underinsured will increase with this legislation. People will be required to purchase health insurance or face a penalty. There is no guarantee that premiums will be affordable even for those who qualify for federal subsidies. Health insurers have already predicted that the cost of premiums will rise because they are being required to stop the practices of excluding pre-existing conditions and rescissions. The public insurance is estimated to be more expensive than private insurance plans. A similar reform in Massachusetts has resulted in a rise of patients who forego needed care because they cannot afford the co-pays and deductibles once they have paid for their premiums.

6. People will continue to be consigned to only receiving the quality of care that they can afford. Instead of a standardized benefit plan that covers all necessary care, people will have to choose from a tiered set of plans. The least expensive plans will cover only 60% of necessary care and patients will be required to pay the balance.

7. The legislation will not control health care costs and will in fact increase the waste in health care spending. The regulation of insurance companies, which has failed to date and is predicted to fail again by industry whistleblowers, will be expensive to enforce. And the “exchanges” will have to be created from scratch. The exchange will add another level of bureaucracy which in Massachusetts has added a 4% charge to each insurance premium. Unfortunately, this legislation does nothing to reclaim the hundreds of billions of dollars that are currently wasted on administration, paperwork and marketing for the hundreds of health plans in existence.

8. The legislation transfers hundreds of billions of public dollars to private insurance companies. People will be mandated to purchase health insurance whether they can afford it or not, so the insurance companies benefit by having millions of new enrollees. In addition, between $447 and $605 billion in public dollars (depending on the senate or house version) will be given to the private insurers in the forms of subsidies to help people purchase their defective product.

9. The legislation protects the outrageous profits of the pharmaceutical corporations. The majority of Americans will not see any improvement in the costs of medications and the pharmaceutical corporations have already raised prices on brand name prescriptions by 9% this year. Biotech firms receive a windfall 12 year patent on new pharmaceuticals.

10. The legislation continues to allow discrimination based on age and immigration status. Older enrollees can be charged up to twice as much as younger enrollees. And enrollees will be required to prove citizenship in order to receive subsidies. Non-citizens will be required to bear the full cost of purchasing insurance.

The current health insurance reform legislation passing through Congress amounts to a massive bailout of the profit-making health industries, which will enrich them and increase their ability to lobby and otherwise influence legislators in the future. At the same time, patients will receive little in the way of long-lasting protection or ability to afford needed health care. The legislation is designed to fail and in the meantime, will waste billions of dollars and delay the process of creating effective health reform.

We call on Congress to start from scratch. We believe that we have the resources in the United States to create a national health system that will improve the health of the people of our nation. We believe that being ranked 37th in the world for health outcomes is unacceptable and that we, as a nation, can do much better than this. We believe that improving and expanding Medicare to all people is the simplest and quickest way to achieve our goal of universal and financially-sustainable health care.

As far as the health insurance legislation in congress goes, we support Senator Sanders’ substitution amendment which will substitute public financing for the current complicated and wasteful patchwork of financing. We urge our senators to vote “yes” on the Sanders’ amendment.

No matter what happens in Congress this year, we will continue to build the Medicare for all movement until we reach the day when all who live in the United States receive the same health security that is a right in other industrialized nations. We look forward to the day when doctors are free to focus on the needs of their patients without interference by health insurance administrators. We welcome all people who support health care reform to join with us in this movement. Together, we will succeed.

Net Neutrality (and Your Gonads) Explained

I never thought I would need to write about this, because I kind of assumed that in general, people know what net neutrality means. Of course, if everybody knew everything, then I wouldn't be teaching in a university now, would I? (I'm still shocked when I watch my students write down everything I say. "Wow," I think, "you didn't know that?" I guess they didn't. Actually, what I really think is, "Wow. You think what I'm saying is important? My mother never did." But I digress.)

I just finished my routine of catching up on Jon Stewart's Daily Show and Stephen Colbert's Whatever Show. On Stewart's show, he revealed what I did not know (because I try not to listen to Republican mouth pieces if I can avoid it), and that is that Republicans are lying through their teeth AGAIN. I really should not be shocked at this, because whereever money flows into a Republican's pocket, there shall be his or her platform. And so, all the corporate media behemouths are bound and determined to block net neutrality in order to secure enough money so they can pay off more Republicans (oh, and to be fair, several Democrats, I'm sure) to make sure the media conglomerates can continue to make ludicrous amounts of money off of us.

The lies are typical - spreading enough fear to shrink the gonads of regular gullible Americans so that they run to their elected representatives and scream at them to save them from socialism, gayness, government control and terrorists against marriage, oh and tea bags too, just for good measure.

So, let me try and explain net neutrality to you, in case your gonads have climbed up into your asshole and you're busy building an underground fallout shelter just in case Obama's Socialist Secret Soldiers come knocking on your door demanding your soul and push their way into your very own living room so that they can turn your children into gays.

In a perfect world, net neutrality means that the Internet is neutral to the content that travels upon its "tubes." The Internet is just a vehicle or conduit for content. It passes no judgment nor imposes restrictions on that content. It sends your porn video bytes (Not bites folks. Settle down.) to you the same way it sends that video of Sarah Palin getting exorcised by her crazy-ass preacher. The internet doesn't look at Sarah Palin and decide to download her faster than your porn (Thank The Lourd). No. It sends both videos to you (because there are people out there that watch BOTH Sarah Palin AND porn videos, and you know who you are) at the same speed.

Here's another example. Your car is also a neutral vehicle. If you buy a Ford, you aren't restricted to buy only Exxon gas. Your Ford is neutral when it comes to the fuel it uses to get from one place to the other. Both your fuel and your car are neutral. Neither one gives a rat's ass if you drive home to your wife or across town to your Mistress. The car doesn't go any faster or slower based on which person you will be visiting. The fuel doesn't spark more or less based on where you go either. Your Ford passes no judgment on you. Only we pass judgment on you for driving one.

Your computer is mostly neutral (I say mostly because Bill Gates tried to control how you used your computer through limitations in your browser and Microsoft applications). No matter where you go, you can plug it in to an electrical socket and charge it. The electrical socket doesn't give a shit what you do on your computer. It just sends electricity to your computer to keep it running. It won't DENY electricity because you are using your computer TOO MUCH, or looking at the WRONG things.

Your computer is neutral in another way. You can get the Internet on your computer from any Internet Service Provider (ISP) out there. Your computer doesn't slow down or speed up based on which ISP you're using. You can go online via cellular, wireless, wired, satellite, cable, T1, dialup or DSL. Your computer couldn't care less which one you choose. These different providers are inherently slower (Dialup) or faster (T1) based on their physical limitations, but not based on some human deciding to fuck with you and make your internet slower.

That's what the people against net neutrality want to do. They want to fuck with you based on how you use the internet and what content you choose to access over the internet. They want to make judgments about what you do on the internet and punish your ass because of it. If you're a superuser, you get slowed down, unless you pay a premium to get faster speed. If you're a superuser AND a schlub with no money (like me), you won't be able to pay the premium, so you're stuck with slower access.

Without net neutrality, if you watch lots of video online or play massive-multi-player games online, your ISP can detect that, and slow your ass down. Or, if your ISP gets PAID by some content provider to FAVOR their content over somebody else's, then when you access the other content, it'll be as slow as molasses. If you go and pay a premium to download the favored content, it'll be faster than a speeding bullet (to the brain).

In other words, your ISP, like Comcast for instance, will have (and in the case of Comcast, already has) you by the gonads.

Here's an example of something that is NOT neutral: your cell phone. Your cell phone should be like your computer, but it isn't. You buy an iPhone from Apple and in the US they force you to use AT&T as your carrier. Apple locks the phone (that you paid a fortune for - isn't that nice?) and you can't use any other provider. In Europe, that's against the law. That's because in Europe, they are more consumer-centric, versus corporate-centric. They actually care about the consumer. So, when I bought my iPhone here, I had a choice between three carriers: Orange, SFR and Bouygues. Of course, if I go back to the states, I can't just slip a SIM card from an American carrier into my iPhone. Because Apple made sure I couldn't do that. Steve Jobs sold his soul to the devil on this one.

Your ISP, like Comcast, and their partners who wish to make more money off of you, are the ones trying to destroy net neutrality. It's THEM that you should be afraid of. It's THEM that wish to control you. It's them that want to stick their noses into your private life and regulate you and based on what you do online, punish you with higher fees. It's THEM that can be bribed by anybody to make sure that you only see THEIR content, versus the content you want to see.

It is NOT our government who wants to control your life in this situation, OK?

Yell loudly at your representatives to VOTE FOR net neutrality, or Big Brother (in the form of your ISP) actually will be looking over your shoulder, very, very soon (If they aren't already). (Your gonads should be tiny little rocks right now, but for the right reasons this time.) Learn more at wearetheweb.org and/or savetheinternet.com. And take all the actions suggested on those sites (email your representative, sign petitions, etc.). If you want to read what the guy who invented the internet thinks about net neutrality, go here.

My apologees to anyone who has only one gonad, or no gonads at all. You know who you are.

Healthcare: Listening For What's Not Being Said

I haven't heard anyone say that Medicare is broke(n).

I haven't heard my mother or father bitch about "that godamned Medicare." Ever. And they call everything else godamned at least 20 times a day. My mother has Fox news on mute, all day long, so she can hear herself yell, "Oh shut your godamned mouth!" to any liberal that has the gonads to step foot upon the sacred ground of O'Reilly's Christian (and Christmas!) Vibratorlandia. She doesn't turn the sound back on to hear what the guest commie has to say. She already knows that he/she is a hippie ass and all he/she is saying is crap! and he/she needs to get his/her ass kicked.

So if my mother doesn't bitch about Medicare? That's something.

My dad figures out how to get his catheters cheaper. And conspires with his doctor's nurse to get them covered by Medicare, along with the cute little alcohol towelettes that come in boxes of 300 and something. So he's kinda sorta workin' the system. Kinda sorta like those welfare whores that he and my mother hate so much. Kinda sorta sucking off the government tit. So, why would he bitch about Medicare?

I guess because it works for him.

I haven't heard anyone say that Medicare is on the brink of running out of money. But they sure do say it all the time about the Socialist Security Program started by that New Deal bastard Roosevelt in 1935. They've been telling us that Social Security will run out of money - tomorrow! - for about 20 years, or as long as I can remember, which lately, is 5 minutes ago.

It's like that promise I used to see behind the bar in Cave Creek, Arizona - "Free beer. Tomorrow." I kept going back to that bar, every day, and for some godamned reason, it was never tomorrow.

I haven't heard anyone say that Medicare has single-handedly pushed this country down the slippery slope of socialism on the way to the Siberian gulags of communism and sooner than anyone of us dare to even think, straight into the everlasting, singeing, smoking fires of Hades. Medicare is taking us straight to hell. We will not pass go. We will not collect any insurance redemption. We certainly will have no fucking virgins. I haven't heard anyone say any of that.

I also haven't heard that Medicare will lead us to corpse fucking. I'm actually surprised at that. But the guy that was obsessing about gay marriage leading to corpse fucking on the Senate floor (well, actually, he was just talking about gay marriage leading to corpse fucking - I can't get enough of that phrase, frankly - he wasn't talking about actually DOING it on the Senate floor, he was just talking ABOUT IT on the Senate floor - phew! Glad I clarified that!) is on a government-paid healthcare plan, much like...er...Medicare. He's also conspiring with his doctor's nurse, to get free shit through his godamned socialized medicine plan, and probably asks her some pretty pointed questions about corpses while he's at it.

I HAVE heard some people say that Medicare costs less to maintain than private health insurance. Maybe once. On some late, late, late, late night blogger radio show.

So....why is a public health care option, a single payer option, something just like, um, Medicare, such a freaking problem?

I think it's always a good exercise to cut through all the hysteria and chatter and try to hear what isn't being said. It can be quite illuminating.


And, by the way, I haven't lost interest in starting our own Progressive Country. I'm just cranking out content for work right now and experimenting with creating a Facebook page for one of my classes. Once I'm done with that, I'll know how to create a page for our new country. Then maybe we can discuss whether or not people can marry corpses. Or marry more than one corpse. As the first Queen of the Progressive Lands (we'll probably have Rotating Royalty), I will decree that you can marry as many corpses as you like. That would be big-o'-me, now wouldn't it?

Let's Start A New Country

I'm pretty fed up. The Republicans actually cheered when America lost the Olympics bid. Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) just said that the Hate Crimes Bill Will Legalize Bestiality, Corpse-Fucking, Pedophilia, Lead To Nazism. Obama decided to continue illegal rendition. Obama continues to let the GLBT community down by not ridding us of the childishly ridiculous and shameful Don't Ask Don't Tell. That goofball dentist lawyer birther babe Orly Taitz is actually still getting press coverage. And healthcare? Don't get me started. These issues aren't just "Oh, darn, we lost that vote. Maybe next time!" These issues and events are disgusting! Ludicrous! And they are stuck in my craw and just won't go down, no matter how much Russian vodka I drink. (Thanks Anna!)

I woke up the other morning thinking that surely, surely, there's an island we can buy somewhere and start our own country? Even though it's just a fantasy, I'd rather start drafting my fantasy country's bill o' rights and constitution than continue to rant and rave at my newsfeeder about the insanity of my own country. It would be an interesting conversation, at least. Hell, I put way too much time into building my virtual farm in FarmVille on FaceBook. At least engaging with my other Progressive friends on a virtual country would be productive. Maybe we should just invent a game and stick it in FaceBook and see what ensues.

Perhaps, as Freud came to believe before he died, that humankind was just an uncontrollable mob, driven by deep-seated, unconscious evil tendencies and doomed to destruction unless they are controlled by a more intelligent elite, we might fail to get along too. But, call me Pollyanna, I just don't agree. Maybe that's why I spent all my time studying Jung and ignoring Freud.

Can we create a hierarchy-free country? I've witnessed 12-step programs working quite well all over the world, completely managed by volunteers with absolutely no hierarchy. It can be done.

How 'bout it, Arvan, Katharine, NewsWriter, Lori, Kim, Dana, Lisa - and any other interested party (I couldn't list you all, so don't feel left out) - wanna play? Should we start a FaceBook page and start drafting and voting on our own laws? Do you think we could get along better than our not-so-esteemed elected officials? At least we wouldn't have pockets full of cash from industry lobbies to distract us.

The Devolution of Mankind

I don't know why I'm so disheartened.

I guess it's obvious that right-wing politicians are acting like children - making shit up (even though Sarah Palin told us not to, in support of the troops, dontcha know - and even though I have no freaking idea what the connection is between her lying ass, the press, and soldiers, but ya know, that's just Sarah!), obfuscating, obstructing just for the sake of obstructing and just plain forgetting about their constituents until they need to stir them up into salivating, gun-toting, town-hall-shouting frenzies in order to get the brain-dead main stream media aroused and off their sweltering summertime DC bar stools.

But what's new about all that?

And then these Republican bastards are joining with their Democratic bastard pals to lick the stinking buttholes of the health and insurance lobby so that the steady flow of money, and the high-end Congressional and Senatorial lifestyles, power and influence funded by such a flow, won't be interrupted.

There are no death threats from public healthcare. Just a death knell to profit-bloated insurance companies who will spend every fucking cent of your premiums to whip the slaves into a final oar push of their gold-laden pirate ships through these tumultuous waters of late. Oh, and the bell also tolls for the silent people who die every fucking day because they either are not insured or are underinsured or are insured but afraid to go to the doctor because their premiums will go up or they'll be diagnosed with a pre-existing condition and be fucked for life. These evil insurance companies will do anything, anything at all, to convince an enormously gullible and reactionary and childish American public that the very same companies who deny Americans health coverage and spend every waking hour thinking of ways to deny their claims, are their fucking SAVIORS.

Well, it's just...stunning.

And then, after 8 years of the BushCo ass-kissing press minions running images of Kalashnikov-wielding Middle Eastern "terrorists" on the front page of once-glorious and now laughable daily newspapers, and Americans looking at those pictures with sneers and horror and saying, "What a bunch of ragheads! Look at 'em! Running around with automatic weapons in the street for God's sake! BARBARIANS!" we now have people showing up at Obama's town hall meetings toting automatic weapons. But that? Why, that's just fucking dandy. We're UHMERICUH after all. Not barbarians!

And then that amped-up (was she doing coke OR WHAT?) Betsy McCaughey on Jon Stewart slapping the giant healthcare bill on Jon's desk for no reason whatsoever that I could discern, since every time she did it she said, with her own flavor of repulsive gusto, "I'll READ it to you!", then she never would fucking find the particular paragraph and read it. I kept yelling at the teevee, "Just READ the fucking thing! Will you just read it? OH MY GOD just REEEEEEEED IIIIIIT!" Then she insisted on playing to the jury (audience) as if she'd been prepped by OJ's trial lawyer, instead of actually having a reasonable discussion with Jon. She's the self-declared expert but Jon sat there calmly with all the knowledge of the bill in his head while she scrambled from page to page never finding anything she was looking for, but when he finally had to grab it from her and read it, she had to keep looking out at the jury and nodding and smiling and frowning and then back at Jon where she'd lunge into his face and point at some general point on the page. I bet you a million dollars that she was grinding her teeth at the same time. That girl snorted a big fat line right before she came on stage. She did a big-ass bump. I know she did.

Maybe McCaughey should have done what D'Amato told her to do in the first place and blown ol' Giuliani, after all.

I'm just exhausted by all the ignorance and tomfoolery. These are grown men and women, but you could have fooled me. And I think that countering all this shit, in writing or in conversation, is an enormous waste of breath. And don't fucking get me started on Obama and the Democrats who actually have allowed this three-ring circus on healthcare to devolve into pandemonium, WHEN WE HAVE A FILIBUSTER-PROOF MAJORITY! What the FUCK? What the FUCK! is all I can say.

For those of you who think this is a fun game where politicians make things up all day long because 'That's politics!" and get your rocks off on arguing and fussin' and fightin' and fueling the fire...I think, no matter what side you're on, that you need psychological help. The current state of American affairs is not amusing at all. It's a despicable and shameful part of our history that is sure to be laughed at (I hope, I hope!) by a more evolved human race 20-50 years from now, if the planet hasn't been blown up by a toothless gun-totin' anti-immigrant pro-life pro-gun gay-hatin' Krishtian fundamentalist nutcase Republican next week.

And...just after I hit the post button and shuffled back sadly to my feed reader, I got to have a big laugh at this. My mostest, mostest favorite? We Are All Nazis in the Eyes of the Lord!

Ahh, perhaps we're not so lost, after all.

Obama's Upcoming Presser Notes Leaked

(Note from speech writer: President Obama, take a look at this and let me know if it works for you, so I can get it to the teleprompter guy before the presser.)

Good morning. I come to you today with good news. Last night, Jesus, Moses and Sarah Palin came to me in a dream, and I have finally seen the light. They revealed to me that my socialistic ways will lead to communism, and even though the United States likes to do business with and borrow billions of dollars from communists in China (so we can fund our wars and keep American military contractors wealthy), we don't want to BE like those commies, we just want to USE them.

So, it is my sincere hope that my actions today will finally put an end to your anger and fear (and hopefully you'll stop bringing guns and rocket launchers to my parties). Today I plan to take unilateral actions, with the executive order capability that my friend George W. Bush gave to me, in order to end all socialist programs in the United States. As of midnight tonight, all socialist programs will be discontinued, all employees of those programs will no longer have jobs and all recipients of those services will no longer be able to obtain services.

But please, don't worry. I have been assured by Jesus himself (even though he had a hard time getting a word in edgewise with Sarah Palin yapping incoherantly) that The God Of The Free Market will take care of all of you in no time at all. You can send your prayers to this God (not to be confused with that God, Jesus's dad) to your local Republican party offices, your friendly corporate insurance lobby and all of the other "grassroots" organizations who have been encouraging you to disrupt Democracy with shout-down tactics, believe all kinds of horse pucky that isn't true, and who will desert you as soon as they don't need you any more. Good luck with all that.

Here are the programs I will be stopping at midnight tonight:

• Medicare
• Police
• Fire dept
• Highways maintenance
• Military
• Sewers
• FEMA
• National Institute of Health
• Your free Swine Flu shots

This list is incomplete, of course. (Writer's note: Mr. President, I'm lurking on the Distributor Cap NY blog to see if he reveals any more of those dasterdly socialist programs and will add to the list as they come in.) Because I now know that socialism lurks in the dark corners of our society in many scary ways. So, I will be spending the last years of my term finding those socialst programs everywhere, and killing them where they stand.

Oh, and don't worry about socialised medicine anymore, or even health care reform. I got the message loud and clear that health care WORKS in America. So, as my granny (whom I actually killed in a regretful fit of sinful health care reformism) used to say, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it!" You can keep your private health insurance and let them continue to charge you outrageous premiums and fight any claims you make. If you are denied coverage from an insurer, well, just do something. I don't know what. I'm sure The God Of Free Markets will let you know.

Thank you, and God Bless America.

Blah Blah Blah Health Care Blah Blah Blah

I read a post over at BayouRenaissanceMan about "socialized" health care and had so many thoughts about his post that his comment box laughed at me when I tried to publish. So....I will post my thoughts here:

I didn't read the original article or Roberta's rant yet (see bayou's post for links to both), but I wanted to make a few comments while they're in my head...

If I read Bayou's post correctly, he states that there are some people who have health issues because of their lifestyle (smokers get cancer, etc.) and not just because of chance, and he asks how much care should be given to these people and for how long? Here's what came to mind for me:

If I get sick and need care and the care provider can make a decision as to the amount or quality of care I receive based on his/her own judgment of my morals or the circumstances of my illness, then my health care turns into a crap shoot. Who knows what mood the care giver is in, or what their belief system is or what their prejudices are (we are all prejudiced to some degree, if we are honest) at what might be a critical time for me. I think it's problematic to base the availability, quality or duration of care on the subjective judgment of individual humans or institutions. Because, it inevitably ends up with somebody playing God, if the decisions can impact whether a person lives or dies or they rebound to full productivity or just drool in a chair the rest of their life.

So I think it is best if health care (whether public or private) treats the illness objectively - such-and-such symptom requires such-and-such treatment - without the invasion of moralistic or other subjective judgment criteria.

Discarding, dismissing or withholding care from people because of their waywardness is not a very, um, Christian thing to do. There are some very brave people out there who work with rapists and murderers (i.e. "bad" people) to try and help them, because these care givers or religious people have compassion for all living beings, and because they know that many victimizers were victims of violence themselves. If one of those criminals can be helped, it is a good thing. I think it's problematic to say that because so-and-so did these bad things, that they deserve less care, or no care at all. If I was a foolish American who got caught protesting the regime in Iran (or was just hiking in the wrong place or stepped over the border into North Korea) and got injured while being arrested or in jail, I wouldn't want my health care determined by the judgments of Iranian doctors or jailers as to whether or not this infidel deserves care. I know this seems like an extreme example, but we have just recently seen two reporters arrested in North Korea and hikers arrested in Iran, so this is a very real possibility.

If Mary Magdalen got syphilis and was dying, I don't know if Jesus would have patted her on the head and said, "Well Mary, now you know the consequences of your sinful whore life! I'll pray while you suffer and die, that you might be lucky enough to be forgiven by my father and allowed to enter the gates of heaven. Other than that, see ya!"

I live in France where there is a combination of public and private health care, and there is nobody making a decision about my worthiness for care. You just get sick and then you get care, whether you can afford it or not. I just read recently over at TPMCafe from another American girl who lives in France and just got diagnosed with breast cancer, that the French have a review board who will review more complex cases (long-term diabetes or cancer care) and determine if the patient receives 100% state coverage or the regular 70% that all citizens get. Most long-term care cases receive the 100% coverage. You don't have to wait for care during this review. You just pay the 30% you normally pay and if you receive the 100% coverage, it's retroactive and covers past bills.

So, I'm not sure that providing care for anyone who needs it, through objective medical decision making, versus subjective judgment about a patient's worthiness is what Bayou man would call "one size fits all" "socialized" medicine. But it's what I prefer. And I believe a public, government-funded health program (with all its inherant beurocratic bullshit) has more of a chance of delivering objective care, than a profit-motivated insurance company who WILL and constantly DOES make decisions about whether or not you qualify for coverage.

Another thought before I go - There will always be people who are not so much unfortunate as they are manipulative, cunning and who take advantage of anything and anybody. There will always be people who figure out how to "game" the system and get stuff without working for it. I believe (and have no facts to back it up) that the percentage of those types of people is low and I also believe that we can't make a decision to implement or not implement something, based on those people. We just have to figure them into the overall cost, just like restaurant owners figure in a general cost for employee theft and dishware breakage.

I've paid into the US tax and Social Security system for more than 30 years, and although I've lost several jobs during the dot bomb, I only collected unemployment once for a few weeks until I got pissed off at what a big hassle it was. I realized that if I accepted my $750 a month from unemployment, if I got three little jobs (which is what I eventually did) that added another $2000 a month to that $750, I would come closer to the $3500 per month overhead I had created when I had those high-paying corporate jobs. But I wasn't allowed to do that. I had to only accept the $750 and make no extra money, or not take the $750 at all. So I either had to game the system and collect unemployment and do the little jobs under the table, or not take the unemployment. I'm a lousy liar, so I chose to not take the unemployment, and take my chances with waitressing, driving a van for a trail riding company and babysitting an art gallery.

But the thing about unemployment is that they told me I had paid so much into the system that I had hundreds of weeks available to me. I could have just surfed on those many weeks until I used them all up. After all, It's MY money. But, I don't mind if somebody else less fortunate, whether they are gaming the system or not, gets that money instead of me. At the same time, me and my various employers have paid thousands and thousands of dollars into the coffers of private insurance companies, and I have rarely gone to the doctor and have had no major or lingering health care needs during the last 30 years of employment. It DOES piss me off that all that money went into the pockets of insurance company executives. I would MUCH RATHER know that the money I paid in for health care but didn't use, went towards helping somebody else in need.

You So Sensitive!

Yesterday afternoon I was on my way back to my temporary-temporary Paris apartment from my temporary apartment (too hard to explain) and there on the sidewalk was a woman with a 4-5' tall by about 3' wide hand-made sign with "Obamanator" written on the top, above an image of Obama with the right half of his face replaced with steel robotics and his right eye painted red like a laser. Under the image, in French, the sign read, "He is terrorizing the elderly and the children." There was more shit on the sign, but after hesitating, I just kept going. The sign woman was deep in conversation with two guys, and I figured I'd let it go. As Dorothy (sans braids and ruby slippers), I was so glad to be out of fucking Kansas, but I soon realized that Kansas followed me over to Paris somehow or another.

Fuck.

I've mostly been reeling in silent horror about the bullshit I saw and heard while in America. I know people felt constrained around me, because they couldn't say all the nasty things that they think and feel about Obama and the current administration. But at the same time, some of them kind of enjoyed taunting me with their opinions, just to see if I'd react. It reminded me of the manicurist I used to go to across the street from my condo in Arizona. She'd cut my hands while filing my nails, and blood would be balling up in my cuticles. But if I said, "Ow!" or pulled my hand back from the pain, she'd look at me with feigned surprise and say, "Oh lookee you! You so sensitive!"

Well...when somebody calls Obama a nigger, or says "I hate gay people. They should all be killed." I can definitely, definitely, definitely agree with my former manicurist: Lookee me! I so sensitive!

One morning at breakfast at an American golf course, after somebody said they loved Rush Limbaugh and somebody else said, "You love Rush? That's great! I think Rush Limbaugh is a True Patriot!", some sane person at the table said, "We shouldn't talk politics at breakfast." I said, "Yes, that would be really, really nice if we didn't talk politics." Someone who I love very much, leaned in to me and quietly said very, very sweetly because I know he loves me too, "If you want to talk politics, you have to hear the other side." And he's so right. But my response was, "I'll talk policy all night long, but I won't talk personal attacks."

I don't consider any conversation about Rush Limbaugh worth having. He's a radio personality who (like his TV cohort Glenn Beck) makes money in direct proportion to how much shit he can stir up. The more nutty and over-the-top his rhetoric, the more attention he gets from the press, and the more false power (through superiority and aggression) his fans proudly claim by association. If somebody wants to repeat something specific and real that Rush said about policy, then it would be a great conversation to discuss that policy aspect, or the pros and cons of that policy. But if somebody wants to talk about Limbaugh's patriotism (or mine, for that matter), which is a completely vague concept to begin with, and something that is supercharged with irrational, nationalistic, propped-up bullshit emotion, I won't do it. Fuck patriotism and nationalism and everything that comes with it. Let's talk about what works, and doesn't work or what might work better, in existing and proposed policy.

There are many things that me and conservatives agree with politically right now. Neither of us likes the fact that Geithner gave all that money to his banking and insurance buddies so that they could reap huge profits while individual Americans and small businesses are suffering with no solution in sight. If the government had given relief to the toxic mortgage holders themselves - temporarily lowering payments or allowing an interest moratorium, etc. - then maybe the whole mortgage and real estate industry wouldn't have collapsed. People could have stayed in their homes and after the economy recovered, they could take back the slack and repay the moratoriums.

I also had a conversation with a conservative who agreed with me that the problem with health care in America is the insurance companies acting as middle men and the pharmaceutical companies robbing us blind. We both agreed that the chances of getting rid of the REAL health care problem - the corporate insurance middle men - would never happen while millions of dollars in insurance industry lobby money is flowing into Capital Hill pockets on both sides of the aisle.

My Republican politician friend made the mistake of saying in the car when we were driving from Vegas to San Diego, "Obama said he'd stop the war, but all he's done is expand it." I had seen and heard this Republican talking point before she said it, so I knew she was just thoughtlessly mouthing off the party line. I lost my voice yelling at her. I'm one of those people that want us OUT of Iraq and Afghanistan NOW. But I knew Obama wouldn't do that. I knew that before he was elected. I also know that the supposed withdrawal from Iraq that supposedly happened is bullshit. I also know Obama is going to add more troops in Afghanistan. So, her talking point is right. What fucking pissed me off until my head started spinning and green slime started spewing out of my mouth, was my Republican friend's nonchalant, wide-eyed-innocent complaint about Obama expanding the war. That took balls. After she and her Republican cohorts voted to START that motherfucking war to begin with, based on a LIE, to illegally invade a country that had NOTHING to do with 9/11. And then continue the war. And then torture people. And then disappear people. And then use illegal rendition and kidnap people. And then deny human beings habeas corpus and keep people in prison without a trial. And then set up kangaroo courts with no intention of letting anybody end up being innocent. Now, after tossing this huge Republican-created pile o' shit into the lap of the incoming president and administration, she plays innocent. What? Why are you so upset?

You hands bleed? Aw. You house blown up? Aw. You whole family die in war? Aw. You teenage brother in prison in Guantanamo? Aw. You country destroyed? Aw. Wall Street take you money? Aw. You lose you house, you job? Aw. Lookee here! You crying? Awww. You so sensitive!

Molten Bolton

I'm back in Paris (Yay!) and recently caught up on a bunch of Jon Stewart's Daily Shows. One of the things I like about Stewart is that he has people on the show that I don't like, but he treats them with respect, when I would have done something different, like... not have them on the show at all. When I saw that John Bolton would be on one of the segments as the guest, I almost didn't watch it. But curiosity won out.

I've been railing against the Project for a New American Century (PNAC) and all of its n'er-do-wells like Bolton, Cheney, Abrams, Yoo, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Jeb Bush (G must have been out getting drunk), Scooter Libby, Steve Forbes, Bill Kristol, Kagan, Podhoretz, Dan Quayle, etc. for, well, a New American Century (at least that's what it feels like). But since I'm a Z-list blogger (I stole that from some other Z-lister who is so unknown, just like me, that he'll never know I stole it), somehow my PNAC rants have never made it to MSNBC. Darn. Last night I mentioned PNAC to an Irish writer friend and I watched that "oh, you believe in that conspiracy theory" smile flash across his face. I was just stunned that he even knew who/what PNAC was. He said, "Did you know that the origin of those guys was liberal?" Yup. Bill Kristol's dad started the whole mess. And I understand how that kind of evolution happens...people's pendulums can swing from one extreme to the other. But, in this case, I think it's beside the point.

In the PNAC statement of principles, they state very, very clearly:  We aim to make the case and rally support for American global leadership. ... Such a Reaganite policy of military strength and moral clarity may not be fashionable today. But it is necessary if the United States is to build on the successes of this past century and to ensure our security and our greatness in the next.

This isn't, "We lead through diplomacy and right thinking and cooperation and mutual respect and benefit." This is, "We lead by force. If you don't follow, we'll nuke your ass."

Hell, they urged Clinton to get rid of Saddam Hussein all the way back in 1998.  And since Clinton was too busy smoking cigars and getting blow jobs, he kind of failed in that one area. We had to wait for the PNAC shadow government to prop up nincompoop GW Bush to pretend that 911 was perpetrated by Saddam so we culd invade Iraq and git 'er done! Somehow, I prefer blow jobs to bombs. I'm just sayin'.

If you read PNAC's project paper, Rebuilding America's Defenses (PDF), written in 2000, which they famously still have online, because they famously believe in it, you can see, from the final signature page, how a bunch of politicos got together with some military guys and some captains of industry (that would be the war industry), and came up with a compelling (?) analysis that supports a theory that the US has no choice but to become the bad ass of the Middle East, and subsequently, of the world. Otherwise, those rag heads will have us by our oil-consuming hairy balls and this gonad-snatching could threaten the national security of the US of A.

I guess it's the Big Dick Stick Theory.

There are two (or probably more, but these are the only ones I can come up with on a Monday morning) problems with this:

1. If we had spent some money on developing alternative energy instead of pouring billions of dollars (borrowed from China) down the toilet trying to conquer the Middle East, nobody would have us by the short hairs. (But then, the PNAC guys couldn't feel like bad asses.) 
2. Their whole theory is based on the assumption that being scary is the only way you can control people. It discounts the huge leaps forward, in consciousness and sociopolitical evolution, that have been made by peaceful people like Mandela and Ghandi and Martin Luther King (before the right-wing mob killed him). 

"Eh!" Cheney would say. "So what?"

But, I've always been curious about ivy-league-educated guys like Bolton who espouse these theories. I mean, is he a dick at home too? Or a loving husband and father who simply believes that you have to threaten and kick the shit out of people (and dogs) in order to keep them "in line." So, I watched him on the Daily Show. He wasn't a dick (well, not much of one). He was well-spoken. And... he's still full of shit. But the most telling thing he said, the thing that answered so many questions I've had for such a long time, was what he said before Jon closed the interview:

"There's not much difference between me and the people who want a world where no government has nuclear weapons...I only want one government to have nuclear weapons...You're sitting in it."

I guess he assumes that American leaders are the only ones capable, in the whole wide world, of controlling nuclear weapons and deciding who to threaten them with and when to drop them (think Sarah Palin. mmm hmmm). I can see French faces getting rouge right now. Putain!

I also guess he assumes that all the "good" countries will go, "Whew! I'm sure glad America is handling all this for us!" And all the "bad" countries will go, "UH-OH! We better be good now! Or America will nuke us off the face of the earth! Hurry up! Tell me where I can go and become a Christian. Quick! Oh, and where can I find enough K-Y to make it easier to accept Democracy as it's being shoved up my ass? (soto voce: And call North Korea and have them ship us all that nuclear shit toute suite!)"

So, forget the walk softly part, let's just make sure we super-elite Americanos are the only ones carrying the biggest stick. Talking? Diplomacy? Waste o' time. That's for pussies. Unless the talking is about how big our stick is. Then, we'll talk and talk and talk about that. Because we love our big stick. We're proud of our big stick. We want to drop our pants and show you our big stick...all the time. And by the way, we really are very nice. We'll "engage" any time. We'll play with you! As long as we always get to win. K?

Green Revolution: Power Of Love

This video made me very happy, in a time when some people might give up on Iran. It's time for the rest of the world to show our support, while Iranians struggle for their vote.