Tortured Democracy, Torturing Democracy

It seems that too many Americans, many of whom should know better, have bought the Bush administration's line that we had to torture some bad guys to prevent further attacks on the United States in the post 9/11 world. So we should be grateful for such efforts like Sherry Jones' Torturing Democracy or Bill Moyers' series on torture, which remind us that just because "we did it" does not make it right and that to maintain otherwise is to surrender the substance of what should make America different from its enemies.

A Different Take On The Healthcare Debate

Regular readers of this blog (do such individuals even exist?) know that where I stand on the health care debate: quite firmly on the single-payer side. However, I submit to your attention this article, written for the New Yorker magazine by Atul Gawande, himself a surgeon, who offers what amounts to an honest and factual analysis of different examples of quantitative-based and qualitative-based health care. It has been quite an eye-opening read for me in that it underscores the fact that the problems with health care quality, access, and delivery go beyond who writes (or refuses to write) the check for services rendered.

Another article speaks about the troubling exclusion of single-payer advocates from the "the debate to revamp the nation's troubled health system".

Free Trade And Health Care

Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, points out that free marketers are not really interested in preserving a free trade framework for health care, they just want to maintain the power structure that gives industry all the power over patients.

Insurance Companies Lobby To Exclude Single-Payer Discussion On Healthcare

Unfortunately, President Obama seems to have given up on single-payer, non-profit healthcare. That is wrong, and Marcia Angell, a senior lecturer in social medicine at Harvard Medical School and former editor-in-chief of the New England Journal of Medicine, explains why.

On The Media's Subservience To Republican Talking Points

Robert Parry, on the despicable meme of the liberal media, via Alternet.

Teabagging Demagogues

In last night's "Countdown", Olbermann nails the obnoxious hypocrisy of the organizers of the "FNC Tax Day Tea Parties".

As handfuls of sheep [...] are herded into made for TV protests of taxation with representation, the US Public Interest Research Group has now analyzed a Senate report from last year that showed just how much we lose as a nation in tax revenues hidden by corporations in places like the Cayman Islands. The opportunities to do so growing immeasurably under the Bush administration.

The total figure is up to 800 billion dollars a year. But U.S. has now figured it out state by state. Texas would be losing eight billion a year, eight billion its ordinary citizens have to pay in taxes. So is New York State at that amount. Residents of California have to make up 11 billion lost to tax dodge island. The District of Columbia, 713 million. Even Alaska—Alaska, 174 million that Alaskans have to pay because Alaskan corporations do not.

So where are your tea bag protests about that? Where is the Fox out of business network on this corporate piracy? Where is Neil Cavuto explaining to the simpletons in Sacramento that they‘re getting ripped off by international outfits like News Corp? Where is captain tea bag himself, Glenn Beck? Why don‘t you take credit for this idea from someone else? Get up there and weep about U.S. corporations making us, all of us, rich and poor, pay 100 billion dollars of their taxes so we get the privilege of getting to buy their products and bail out their failures?

Get up there and do that, and I‘ll march with you. Until then, you‘re just a bunch of greedy, water carrying corporate slave hypocrites defending the rich against the poor.

Anything to say in your defense, you teabagging morons?

The Light At The End Of My Tunnel

Soon, it seems, I will be coming up for air.

In the meantime, I have found this very useful website about Michele Bachmann, which restores some sense of balance on the web from people like The Constructive Curmudgeon and his blog, where he actually endorsed Michele Bachmann as "A Fresh, Clear Voice". Deconstructing a passage from the Curmudegon's endorsement of Bachmann suffices:

She spoke in clear and cogent terms of the unconstitutionality of Obama's massive and unprecedented governmental power grab [emphasis added; and yes, in the wake of the Bush presidency that is as insane a statement as one could make]

and the dangers of switching to an international currency (something Obama's people are considering). [Once again, emphasis added. And by the way, the Obama people are not considering switching to an international currency; the Chinese, our largest debt-holder, are proposing switching to a new global reserve currency instead of the dollar. All you have to do is google it up.]

I don't know too much about her, but please consult her web page. [Typical Curmudgeon: he will jump on anyone's bandwagon as long as they are willing to thrash President Obama.]

Kooks are like magnets, I guess.

Bill Maher's Defense of Government

I am alive, just incredibly busy and unable to blog. But this caught my eye last night, and it deserves a hearing. Actually, it should be mandatory viewing for all.

When I have more time, in about a month or so, I will blog about the differences between Keith Olbermann and Rush Limbaugh (yes, one's so huge that if you missed it I'd have to doubt your powers of discernment), the need for government driven health-care reform, common sense solutions to the housing and financial crisis (ones I have heard about), reasons to be excited about President Obama's first days 100 days in office (with some due reservations), reasons why Republicans cannot be trusted and examples of how they are knowingly lying to you (for example, the fake earmark controversy, with McCain spewing nonsense on behalf of the party)...

The list is long. As I said, a month or so, so if you would, there's even time for you to suggest topics you'd be interested in reading about...

See you soon.

Third World Scenes

A 34 year-old temporary worker is trampled to death by shoppers as he opened the doors at Wal-Mart--at 5 a.m., in NY.

Seriously. What is wrong with people?

Happy Thanksgiving

A growing number of people are going hungry. Much needed help is on the way, on January 20th.

Bailing Out Killers

Now that I got your attention with that headline, may I draw your attention to this video?

Then, after you have watched it, ask yourself whether you cannot think of several billion ways to waste the money that our government is thinking of giving the three automakers.

This is one case in which, before you meet the enemy, you should prepare a really long list of preconditions so they don't just take the money and run, again. After they kill your hopes, of course.

Free Market Religion

Stephen Colbert's wit is the best antidote for the platitudes that regularly find their way in the mainstream media. It's about time someone took on the myth of the "free market" as the best possible system, requiring no changes, no intervention, and incapable of doing any harm if left to its own devices. Colbert analogizes the free market with religion, calling it "moneytheism." Colbert's satire, as usual, is unassailable. He is a true national treasure.

The juicy part of the segment starts at 2:14 (the rest ain't too bad, either.) Watch.

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
The Word - Mad Men
www.colbertnation.com
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Helloooooo?!?

The recent electoral drubbing suffered by the Republican party at the hands of the party that was a master at snatching defeat out of victory's jaws is starting to open some eyes.

Kathleen Parker, conservative writer, has already been highly critical of McCain's choice of a running (play)mate. Now she's going full bore against the religious extremists in the Republican Party, and against "the base" that turned the party of Lincoln into the anachronistic joke before our eyes.

In The Valley Of Elah

Roger Ebert nails it when he says that "[t]hose who call In the Valley of Elah anti-Iraq war will not have been paying attention." The film does a masterful job to portray the effects, as predictable as they are unintended, that the war has on soldiers and their families, without shoving an anti-war message down your throat. It is a movie about real people, with real human feelings, behaving as you would expect them to behave under the circumstances. It does not overdramatize reality, there is no need to. It makes its points not by shouting about life, but by simply observing it. That is what makes it so compelling.

Perhaps In The Valley Of Elah would not have won a Best Picture award even if it had been nominated, given the strong competition of the ultimate winner, No Country For Old Men, and of the other two excellent movies in the category (the magnificent There Will Be Blood and Michael Clayton). But the fact that it was bypassed in favor of Juno is to the everlasting infamy of the Academy.

With Tommy Lee Jones, once again incomprehensibly snubbed by the Academy for Best Actor, Charlize Theron, Susan Sarandon and Josh Brolin, among others.

Can't Say I'm Sorry

Focus On The Family, our evil neighbor 60 miles or so down the road, is laying people off. The fewer the better. I am sure god will help the laid off employees find gainful employment somewhere not quite as evil.

On The Future Of Same-Sex Marriage

As I already said many times, same-sex marriage will become law in this country sooner rather than later. Certainly in my lifetime, and hopefully fairly soon. The longer this injustice is allowed to rankle, the more damage it does to civil society. The longer we tolerate abuses against human rights--in the name of Christianity, no less--the longer we will be guilty of complicity in the unnecessary and unwarranted unhappiness of many of our brothers and sisters.

It is always heartening to see someone else's optimistic perspective on the subject, so I was happy to find this article on the Seattle PI.

What About Mass Transit?

One of the hardest things to comprehend for Europeans who live in the United States is the sorry state of public transportation, particularly at a time when energy consumption and costs rank as one of the highest concern on the minds of Americans.

Few American cities, NY above all, have mass transit systems worthy of the public's time and money, whereas urban sprawl, with its myopic view that what is good for the individual is good for America, has only made matters worse. 

Not only that. Now that American car manufacturers are suffering financially for their own stupid choices, and for the decades of opportunistic alliance with the oil industry, we are supposed to bail them out? Not so fast, says Harvey Wasserman. Particularly in GM's case, given the instrumental role they played in killing America's mass transit.

Bailing America Out (Of Money)

Reading Naomi Klein's books or articles is almost never uplifting, but then accounts in the "reality-based community" rarely are.

Her latest two articles do not subvert the trend of depressing news, they just give a very stark and faithful account of reality. Do your brain a favor, and read either article, or both: The New Trough, and In Praise Of A Rocky Transition.

Pickens On The Daily Show

The oddly charismatic and amazingly youthful 80 year old T. Boone Pickens made quite an appearance on last night's Daily Show. As Jon Stewart remarked, "I feel as right now I and the rest of my audience would follow you out the building.

Watch.

Pithy Remarks On The Pity Party

When it comes to skewering hypocrites, Colbert has no peers.