Democratic Party Abandons Its Base

Since January 20 of this year – which was more than eight months ago – we’ve been handed some rather clever lines of defense for the things Barack Obama is NOT doing with his executive power, with his supermajority in the Senate, or his eminently workable majority in the House. Things we the voters gave him in the first actual electoral mandate of the 21st century last November. We voted for change. We haven’t gotten any.

We’ve been told Obama’s “got this” because he can shoot hoops in the WH basement with skill, and grab flies out of the air like a Kung Fu master. We’ve been told Obama’s playing “multidimensional chess” with his opponents by continuing every single one of the illegal and anti-democratic policies of his Neocon predecessor. And now, with the health insurance reform debate gone all Town Hall during recess, we are told we don’t really need health insurance reform, single payer health care, or even a public option to facilitate the expected mandate we’ll be handed that forces us to pay more money than we’ve got to the murder-by-spreadsheed for-profit industry.

We still have “state secrets” privilege on who’s lobbying in the Oval Office. We still have DADT in the military. We still have two illegal wars going, a new third front opened in Columbia, off-the-books deficits accumulated by the fact that there’s twice as many paid mercenaries in those war zones than U.S. soldiers, we’re still rendering and torturing “detainees” who haven’t been charged with any crimes and haven’t been afforded the status of POWs, and we’re still bailing out Wall Street gamblers to the tune of multiple trillions while not even beginning to address reinstating necessary regulations.

A plethora of Democratic/Progressive activist groups have sprung up to pressure Congress and the White House on these issues as well as health insurance reform, letter-writing campaigns, calls and emails to representatives and senators, mass demonstrations… You name it, it’s being done. And what we get from the WH is insults and dismissals as those of us anywhere to the left of center are repeatedly told to STFU.

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U.S. Medical System’s Iatrogenic Issues

Something insurance reform won’t fix

Iatrogenic, adjective
a medical disorder caused by the diagnosis, manner or treatment of a physician.

Iatros is the Greek word for physician. -genic means induced by. Iatrogenic disease is a disease caused by a physician. Given the sheer complexity and technological wonders of modern Western [allopathic] medicine have led to some stretching of the strict meaning of the term, which is now applied to ANY adverse effect associated with ANY medical practitioner or treatment. Thus it can be used to describe the cancers caused (years down the line) by radiation and radioactive isotopes used to treat initial problems, prescription errors, hospital-contracted infections, problems caused when a surgeon leaves an instrument or two in the patient, a chiropractor who breaks the patient’s neck, etc., etc.

When I was busy educating myself as much as possible when my daughter determined to have her baby at home, I discovered that the nations that have the best statistical outcomes – fewest maternal and infant deaths or injuries – actually encourage home births because hospitals are dangerous places to both mothers and infants. They’re dangerous places for anyone these days, it seems. According to statistics compiled by OurCivilization.com, there are 8.9 million “unnecessary” hospitalizations every year in this country, which lead directly to 1.78 million “Iatrogenic Events.” Of 7.5 million “unnecessary” procedures ordered annually by physicians, another 1.3 million patients suffer direct harm. That adds up to 16.4 million people channeled into a harmful situation by their medical providers every year, and 3.8 million cases of direct harm to those people that they otherwise would not have suffered.

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The GOP “Budget” – Starve the Poor

After having some trouble coming up with an alternative budget with actual numbers in it last week, Republicans managed to offer what amounts to the same old same old on April Fool’s Day. No one was surprised.

House minority whip Eric Cantor explains how he supports Rush Limbaugh as the Republican Party’s leading economist, with some really great “ideas.” Like cutting taxes for corporations and wealthy Americans, while slashing government spending on Medicare and Medicaid. Now, why didn’t Republicans think of this when they had complete control of the government over the last eight years? Oops… they did.

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Oh. My. God.

Janis Joplin once sang someone else’s song very poignantly – “Freedom’s just another word for nothin’ left to lose…” – and that’s semi-true in my experience. We all make choices about what’s important in our lives, and usually become enslaved to that which we choose. At the low end of the scale there’s never enough, just paying the bills is a constant struggle. At the high end of the scale there is also never enough. The thirst for more and more and more rules lives and ruins them too.

As Wall Street melts down we’re suddenly informed we must Spend, Spend, Spend!!! They can never make up their minds. Either we’re not saving enough or we’re not spending enough, it’s always our fault. I call bullshit. Slave wages have not even kept up with the cost of living, they can’t have it both ways.

I read about a 50-something day care worker yesterday who a coworker noticed sitting in the corner crying. When asked what’s wrong, she finally said she couldn’t feel her face. The coworker was alarmed, saw one side of her face drooping as they were talking, speech slurring. She drove her friend to the hospital, but the woman just cried harder and wouldn’t get out of the car. Said yes, she must be having a stroke, but if she walked in the door she’d lose everything – house, car, meager income (job)… she was terrified. Her friend finally talked her into going, she is still in the hospital and her coworkers are trying very hard to raise the tens of thousands she’ll need to pay for the care. There is no insurance at that end of the scale.

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What We Learned in the Last Two Weeks

Okay, I have to make a couple of observations about this whole economic meltdown thing. Before they vote to bail out the system – and they will – just not on Paulson’s terms.

First, despite the desperation that brought Paulson to beg for money right now or the sky will fall tomorrow, the sky didn’t fall tomorrow. Or the next day. Or the next week. Sure the markets are “adjusting” with big swings up and down (obviously someone still has money), banks are continuing to fail, and now the credit market is frozen. But the world is still turning, the billionaires are buying up bargains on their own (infusing ready cash here and there), and the dollar still remains stronger than it will be after we print another trillion of them.

Second, it’s beginning to look like it really was an end game scam, one last big robbery before their power runs out. Paulson isn’t going to get the absolute power he tried to grab, nor is he going to get any waivers on oversight or blanket immunity from judicial review. Which means he can’t just pass out billions to his cronies and benefactors. The robbery didn’t go off as planned.

The “assets” we have already bought – Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac – are riddled with evidence of felonious behavior and the FBI is hot on the case. AIG’s books don’t look to be any less felonious, they’re being investigated as well. People will likely go to jail.

Now, don’t get me wrong. There will be a bailout because the economy must keep going. The rich will get way more than they deserve, the rest of us get stiffed as usual. So don’t believe any of them when they claim to care about We the People. They don’t. One of these days wwe might decide to inform them in no uncertain terms that we don’t care about them either. Until then, best of luck to us!

Moses Meets the Burning Bush

What happened today on Capitol Hill:

Secretary of the Treasury and ex-CEO of Goldman-Sachs Henry Paulson called Congressional leadership for a get-together. He tells them something – no doubt using charts and graphs – so horrifying, so absolutely terrifying that they all come out looking like Moses (er… Charlton Heston) after meeting the burning bush. Hair’s grown a foot and is stark white, their beards fall to their bellies, they’ve all got that far-away look in their red-rimmed eyes, and their hands are shaking. None dare breathe the edict: Set My People Free!

So. What was it, exactly, that Paulson told them? Gee, we dunno. Nor are we allowed to know. Just as if this were top secret intelligence pinpointing WMDs that don’t exist right in Saddam’s palace, we don’t get to find out. Even though it’s supposedly OUR trillion or three or four they MUST have right now to bail themselves out. With a laughable “emergency” plan that, Deputy Admin press secretary Tony Fratto said just today, was drawn up over the course of months.

Months. Not days or even weeks. They sure as shit knew it was coming, and simply waited for just the right moment of panic to spring it on us as if the end of the world is mere hours away. Ah, the lively tune reverberates in my mind…

“It’s the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine!”

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Arrrr! Talk (and Act) Like a Pirate!

Ahoy, mateys! Ye olde Jolly Roger is flying high o’er the poopdeck this blustery Talk Like a Pirate Day, sun’s high atop the meridian and it looks like clear sailing from here to Zanzibar (where we get to meet the Zanzibarbarians)!

Of course, that flag’s been flying off the deck atop the mizzen gib since the Fourth of July, our old Old Glory having been ceremoniously burned on the beach at Tortuga some time ago due to unraveled edges and holey star-field. Roger was the only flag we had left to fly, so we did.

As it looks like those scurvy bilge rats privateering for effete Frenchies have managed to once again rob the Armada blind by stealing the fabled treasure of Wall Street, we of the honorable fellowship of brigands and pirates vow to take it back in the name of Good King Barry-O, our one-eyed Cap’n, in his bid to earn full knight-ship by saving the fleet from mass plank-walking.

Arrrr! Un-pantaloon yer blunderbusses, mates! We be makin’ for those Outer Banks before dawn! Weigh anchor, unfold the sheets – it’s on to glory and booty!

Killing People for Fun and Profit

Stephanie Woolhandler, M.D. of Harvard Medical School testified before the President’s Council on Bioethics this past week about her experiences with [non]health care in Amerika. The council was created in 2001 to ‘advise’ the president on bioethical issues arising from advances in biomedical science and technology. 

Single-payer, “Medicare for All” type reform is drastically needed as the US falls farther and farther away from the so-called ‘Modern World’ in terms of the general health, life expectancy, infant and maternal mortality rates, and the sheer number of hard-working citizens who will die without any medical care at all because they simply have no access and cannot afford it.

“I’ve seen people die because of co-payments and deductibles.”

There are an estimated 47 million Americans with no insurance. And as more and more of them are losing their jobs and their homes as the economy descends into depression, that number will rise dramatically. An estimated 18,000 Americans Die every year because they have no health insurance or money to pay thousands of dollars’ worth of deductibles and co-pays for the junk insurance they do have. Fully one half of personal bankruptcies in this country are the result of getting sick or injured. 76% of those filers HAD insurance when they got sick or injured, but the deductibles and co-pays bankrupted them anyway.

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Health Insurers On The Warpath

As the economy continues to slip deeper into recession and the Presidential race becomes ever more one-sided in favor of real change, America’s Health Insurance Plans [AHIP] are hitting the road to defend their practice of “Murder By Spreadsheet.” Or, as one energetic activist calls the offensive, the Deceive America Tour.

AHIP is the trade and political lobbying association of DC insiders and overpaid executives for the health insurance industry. The industry that has wrecked health care delivery by bankrupting public hospitals, been targeted for racketeering suits under RICO, routinely refuses to pay claims while throwing families into bankruptcy, and continues to cripple American business competition in foreign trade with nations whose businesses do not hold primary responsibility for citizens’ health care costs.

2007 estimates of the number of uninsured Americans reached more than 75 million adults – 42% of all adults age 19 to 64 were uninsured or ‘underinsured’ – and the US has fallen to 47th in the world on life expectancy at birth. This week AHIP launched its Campaign for an American Solution tour in Columbus, Ohio, purporting to have A Plan to cure America’s health care woes without having to pay for any sick people’s actual health care or forego their profit margins, golden parachutes, luxury limousines and multi-million dollar salaries.

AHIP calls it a “listening tour” outreach, which means they’re quite likely to encounter some loud protests wherever they go in this effort to protect their bottom lines from reality. The speculative futures market in human suffering is just far too lucrative to lose, and the insurance hacks illegally practicing medicine these days have no intention of backing down.

Please check out the tour schedule for when these folks will be coming to your area, then you may wish to contact one of the single-payer activist groups listed below to lend your presence to the protests. It’s well past time for America to join the modern world.

National Organizations:

Physicians for National Health Program
Guaranteed Health Care [California Nurses Assn/Nat. Nurses Organizing Committee]
Health Care Now
Everybody In & Nobody Out

Everybody In & Nobody Out supports state organizations working at the grassroots level for universal care, and offers links to those state organizations. You can also find lists of state groups in your state at the other national organization sites.

Limbaugh Does Sit-Down Comedy

For those of us who find Rush Limbaugh more offensive than funny, who have encountered his hoards of dumbass “Ditto-heads” with double-digit IQs, and who have suspected for years that there’s some weird kind of connection between butt-boils, Oxy-induced head cheese and those 4+ hour Viagra erections (what a Rush… hahaha), his graduation into the rarified realm of genuine comedy was a little bit surprising.

I mean, it’s not like his fans are capable of getting the joke, even though it is aimed at their sub-sub-average ‘least common denominator’ and all. But there it is on the June 24th transcript in all its deliberately offensive glory. Which those of us with more than two brain cells to rub together will certainly appreciate in the midst of our grief for George Carlin’s recent death.

It’s sort of a parody of the many talking heads out there on ‘real’ TV who keep race-baiting but aren’t quite sure how to do so without ending up like Imus. About 2/3 down the transcript page you get the full act, Limbaugh and his fictional sidekick character Bo Snerdley (“Official Obama Criticizer) on whether Obama’s got any “slave blood” in his veins. My favorite clip…

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