Your life and death vs. the Republican nonsense game

Drug and Insurance companies make life and death decisions about you based on whether or not it's worth it to them for you to live or die.

These are companies that take your money but don't promise you anything in return. That's right. Insurance companies can deny your claims--based on their profits. Drug companies make persuasive claims such as:

"The benefits may outweigh the risks!" (Cymbalta anti-depressant, though a statement like that could make anyone depressed). How effective does that sound?

Wow--that's a great selling feature, since the risks include death!

Also, their site says, "The exact way Cymbalta works in people is unknown. More confidence inspiring copy! They make it and sell it but they aren't quite sure how or why it works... or if it works (since clearly, often the risks outweigh the benefits!

I find it sickening (no pun intended) to hear this "debate" about national health care--the old lying excuses as to why it's bad for all Americans to have health care, because it might not be great.

Let's also remember it was Republicans who were against Social Security and Medicare--that's right, those two vital programs for aging Americans--those two social safety nets, backbones of our system--Republicans were against them--remember that, because this is the same thing.

Well, look around folks, what we have isn't great. If you have money you can get more health care--not necessarily better, but more. Doctors are afraid to do anything other than what insurance and drug companies tell them to do--medicine by the numbers--because that way they're "safe" in terms of liability.

And even if you have health insurance now, you may not in the future. You might lose your job with tens of millions of other hard-working Americans. Your employer might not be able to afford health insurance benefits and drop them. Or your insurance company may simply drop you (or your company).

So don't feel safe even if you think you're covered now.

What will change? You will be able to feel safe that you'll get health care, no matter what happens to your job, your income, or your health.

If you have more money, you'll still get more health care--that won't change. All that will change is that you will always get health care--even if if profit-mad insurance companies won't cover you because you've ever been sick, or drop you for any reason (they don't need one--you just pay them $500 a month until they decide you might want some of it back), or you don't have $100,000 for a hospital visit you'll always get health care. Or that if you need a procedure you won't have a profit-based company saying, "No, your life doesn't make business sense for us."

The Republicans cry, "You don't want bureaucrats be making life and death decisions for you!"

Well, guess what folks, "bureaucrats" always do--that whole war on terror thing Republicans love so much is totally bureaucrats making life and death decisions for us.

And yes, I'd rather have bureaucrats who don't make a profit from my health care, deciding if I can have a procedure, than purely profit-driven businesspeople saying, "It doesn't make financial sense for him to have the medical care necessary to save his life."

That decision is made every single day by insurance companies who don't want to risk their already obscenely huge profits. I'm all for them making a profit, but not outrageously huge profits built on the backs of people they then reject for care.

So called "Socialized medicine" isn't perfect--but it is DEMOCRATIC.

True security comes not from starting wars that bankrupt the nation financially and morally. It comes from a government that takes care of its citizens--that's what government is meant to do--that's why we have it. Not to lie to us, abuse our civil rights, throw our money away on unnecessary wars that create more trouble for us--no, but to create a social network to support and care for individuals.

The 8 years of Bush were exactly the kind of bureaucracy that Republicans say they're against, and the kind we all should fear. But Republicans were fine with the horrible, lying, cheating, stealing, fascist regime that was bureaucrats at their worst.

Now that civil servants (that's right, they work for us!) are trying to do something for the people, instead of for corporations and profit--oh, that's bad. And God forbid we also raise taxes back to what they were under the Republican God Reagan. That would be horrible--except somehow it wasn't when he was in office.

How does that possibly make sense? It doesn't.

Which takes me back to one of the things my father always said to me, "You can't argue with an idiot."

So you can't argue with the Republican arguments against national health care. Because if you do, all you do is play into their nonsense game, and in the world of Republican nonsense, nobody can win, except insurance and drug companies.

OPEN LETTER TO DICK CHENEY - Everything you have EVER said was either a LIE or WRONG. So Shut the fuck up.

It's worth repeating:

Dick Cheney: Everything you have EVER said was either a LIE or WRONG. So Shut the fuck up.

Slink back to your hidden bunker and entomb yourself there.

The Republikan Fascist Federation (Aka, "The party of NO"

Why is it that Republicans always resort to childish name-calling
--and get away with it?

Now they're trying to rename the Democratic party to something so ludicrous I won't even repeat it here. Yes, Republicans are masters at propaganda and distorting language. They already undermined the term "liberal," and now that the Republican party itself is shrinking and dying after eight years of not being at all "conservative" they're trying to destroy the Democratic name.

And we live in a Democracy!

So, OK, if the Republicans say they're allowed to rename somebody else's political party, then so are Democrats.

So I dub the GOP (rather than merely the "Grumpy Old Party") "The Republikan Fascist Federation." This replaces my earlier name for them, which was simply "The Nazi Party."

In this case, it's entirely true. the Bush/Cheney years were one long exercise in turning democracy into Fascism--a government run by and for corporations. And we see where that lead--to the collapse of the world economy, to the undermining of the constitution (something Fascists now try to pin on Democrats--because they're from the"I'm rubber, you're glue" school of projecting their own vices out on everyone else).

The "Republican Party of No" once again has NO new ideas, NO positive plans, NOTHING to offer other than fear, anger, hatred--all Nazi tactics. They're still the GOP, only now they're the Grotesque Old Party.

Health Recovery plan

If you're self-employed and have a pre-existing condition, then you simply cannot get individual health insurance, companies don't give it to people with pre-existing conditions, plain and simple. You're out of luck (I mean, it was kind of thoughtless of you to get sick, wasn't it?)

In some states, such as California, you might be able to get state backed high-risk insurance, for $1,500 a month... but you will have to wait for someone else on the plan to die. Honestly.

If you happened to work for a company with insurance in the past, you can keep it, for a while, because of legislation like COBRA or HIPAA. But both of those programs have set limits as to how long the insurance company must cover you. And even these plans can cost $600 a month for an individual. After that, they can cancel you at any time--even after you've given them tens of thousands of dollars and never made a claim. Fair? No. Scary? Yes.

There's no other major industrialized country where citizens have to worry about health and insurance and costs like this every month. My friends in Canada, England, Germany and Australia think it's insane--and so do I.

The USA needs REAL "national security" where American Citizens are not at the sole mercy of companies who make their life and death decisions based on profits.

How can we have a real "recovery" plan without helping individual American citizens recover when they are ill? "We the people" are people, not banks or corporations.

WE NEED A HEALTH RECOVERY PLAN FOR ALL AMERICANS AT LONG LAST.

The only thing to fear...

So, Republicans have decided they are once again the only "real" patriots and must have "tea parties" to protest the new adminsitration's spending to try to keep the country moving and growing, rather than stagnating and falling into depression.

I understand that "the party of 'no'" has NO positive ideas, but this is ridiculous.

If these patriots were concerned about too much government and out of control spending, then where were they when the problem was being created--so blatently during eight years of W and Cheney?

And why is rolling back Bush's cuts to the most wealthy, a hideous form of Socialism, when they were even higher under the Republican God Reagan. They don't seem to like real history, only history invented by Fox.

All this spending and bailout was OK when Bush did it--did it once again without restrictions or oversight. Now that Obama is doing it, it's Socialism. How exactly does that work in their brains?

I'll tell you what I try to remember now when talking to people with a limited world view like this-- REPUBLICANS ARE AFRAID.

(FDR: The only thing to fear is fear itself. That still applies.)

I don't know why they weren't afraid under Bush, which, if they weren't blinded by their limited world view they would have been, but they weren't.

Now that they don't feel like "they" are in power, they are afraid, that's the root of it all, the anger, the greed, it's all fear that they might not get their little slice of the pie because big government is going to take it away from them.

Never mind that Bush's big government was the most intrusive and that it really DID take it away from them in the form of out of control spending and deficit.

But now that the government actually NEEDS to spend money ON Americans (rather than on wars and a few corporations), these same people are crying "tea" and acting as it we should just stop. Suddenly they're born-against libertarians instead of war-crazed, money-is-no-object spend spend spend just as long as you don't tax (oh, nevermind the deficit, it's good when we do it) neo-cons.

We wouldn't want them to tax their brains by thinking about the consequences of this--by making them look around and see the stores shuttered all over, the people out of work and without health care, and at the confusing mobius strip that is our world economy and how it's all interrelated and that if you just let a lot of things fall apart we can be plunged into a deep and long depression the likes of which they can't even imagine with their fearful little brains.

But those of who we CAN see the world as it is, who see how it got here, know we can no longer afford to listen to those same voices that
got us into this mess.

My hope is that the fear and anger that's blinding them can be let down long enough for them to remember that if they are really patriots, then they need to get behind our president (as even liberals did after 9/11), and work together to help our nation rebuild.

Rebuilding takes planning and effort, sacrifice, and money.

Yet these part-time-patriots have gone for eight years without planning, effort or sacrifice, and only want to spend other people's money (in the case of a deficit, their own children's)

We cannot rebuild by doing nothing or waiting for someone else to do it.

It's too late for that.

Now we have to work together.

As the great patriot Benjamin Franklin said to Americans before the signing of the Declaration of Independence, "We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately."

Socialism new "red menace" in Repubican fear mongering

Socialism. Socialism! SOCIALISM!

"Socialism" is the new "communism" and for the Republicans it's still all about negativity--fear, greed, and mistrust if not outright hate of others who aren't "like us" (hence also repeating "Hussein" as part of Obama's name as often as possible--as if that bothered people in the election or should bother them now).

And, as always the Republicans "logic" makes no real logical sense. When Bushco had their stimulus bill, which was in essence an uncontrolled giveaway to Wall Street ($20 billion dollars in bonuses--how many teachers and firefighters would that pay for--over 3,000 jobs that actually help people)--no checks or balances--no time for that (like no time t count votes for president in 2000!), the Republicans were all for it--it was saving the country, it was patriotic.

When Obama does something similar--only with reasonable transparency and checks and balances, and with money for creating real jobs and real infrastructure, then it's terrible, it's socialism, and every single one of them votes no--because Republicans have no positive ideas, no positive plans.

Republicans are all about NO. No taxes. No services. No oversight (which is how we got into this). No control. No protection of citizens. Basically no government, except the parts they want, like the ones that tell individuals what they can and cannot do, while at the same time giving corporations free reign to use and abuse people.

This is the very definition of FASCISM. And, given that's what the Bush administration was--run by corporations, especially oil companies happy to charge $5 a gallon for gas which is now selling for half that--Republicans like Fasicism, but then this same group was often referred to as Nazi's by people all over the world--including in the USA. Because that's what their tactics were most like--starting wars, killing without compunction, a dictatorship without representation, and ruling by fear.

So Republicans still don't get it. Running a country by fear and greed doesn't work. It doesn't lead to expansion and growth, it leads to people holding tight onto what they have and being unwilling to share it--even to the point where they stop buying things, which helps set a depression in motion.

Then Republicans cry "Socialism!" when they never had a problem with the fascism they created and ran.

It's all semantics and the worst kind of "playing politics."

And then it's just what they then say the Democrats have done or are doing--because the other thing Republicans do--say others are doing precisely what they are.

Bob Cesca writes, "Hannity is once again joined in this crusade by very serious pundits like Rush Limbaugh, Steve Doocy, Alex Castellanos, Joe Scarborough, Laura Ingraham and Glenn Beck who, at one point, claimed that President Obama is both a socialist and a fascist..."

See--perfect example. After Bush allowed corporations to RUN the government, he then started socializing banks and corporations--which had been running the country into the ground--bringing them into the government--making the government bigger than ever. That was the synthesis of FASCISM.

Now the Republicans say this is what Obama is doing, when, in fact, it may be a form of Socialism, it's not Fasism--but remember--Bushco talked about Islamic Fascism. There's no such thing. There is Islamic Fundamentalism. But corporations don't run Islamic nations--and Fascism has to do with corporate control, not religious.

In fact, Bush ran Fundamentally Fascist Regime.

Socialism is GOOD for citizens who still have a true representative democracy because we need so many of the things that a government can and should provide.

Cesca says this to Socialism-hating Republicans:

"Refuse to send your kids to socialized public schools and universities; refuse to use socialized roads and highways; refuse to call upon socialized police and fire departments; shut down the socialized air traffic control; refuse to visit socialized national parks; tell grandma that her Social Security and Medicare will have to be sent back to the government; demand the immediate dismantling of our socialized American military. Sarah Palin and her supporters in Alaska should refuse all forms of "redistributed wealth" by sending back their checks from the socialized oil program there."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bob-cesca/sean-hannitys-ridiculous_b_168033.html?view=print

So Republicans--stop the word play and politics. Do something positive for the country for a change. I wonder if they even remember how.

In the mean time, the rest of us will actually put our money where our mouths are, we will do what we can.

Don't "penalize the successful" so everyone can be taken care of. What utter rot.

My Republican friend emailed me this:

I will continue to call the socialist policies socialist if the shoe fits... no matter what version of it it is. There is a HUGE difference between providing services for the citizens, such as schools, libraries, the military and 'spreading the wealth'. Equalizing the citizens by penalizing success is just wrong no matter what you call it. I call that socialism.

I call it corporate socialism when the US government, for the past eight years, funneled billions to corporate interests though war profiteering, through tax breaks to oil companies (what good did those do? They had record profits, they could have paid tax). To me that's a "spreading the wealth" wealth from the middle-class to the upper class.

Helping people who are sick or injured is not what I call "spreading the wealth" or penalizing the successful. I call it not punishing the families of those who were as prepared as they could possibly be, yet were not well enough prepared.

Here's a quote from another friend:

What is a person like myself to do if my insurance company cancels me? I only have insurance because I was a member of a group, then the group was canceled, and I kept insurance through a government program, HIPAA. I pay almost $600 a month, I can only see a doctor twice a year, and if I'm canceled, which I can be at any time, all the money I've put it into it is lost (since I haven't made a claim). And it will literally be IMPOSSIBLE for me to get individual health insurance again. I might not even be able to get group insurance though an employer.

Then what am I supposed to do when I need a colonoscopy, which everybody over 50 should have. The last time I had one without insurance it was $5,000. For 2.5 hours in the hospital.

If, God forbid, I had a serious illness or heart trouble, that would be hundreds of thousands of dollars without insurance. Even with insurance it can be tens of thousands.

Now--if they cancel me, which, as I said, they could do once I made a claim--what happens? Do I sell my house? Do I lose my life savings?

DO YOU THINK THIS IS RIGHT?

Should I be penalized because I was sick--though no fault of my own?

Or, do we all pitch in to pay for universal health coverage that protects ALL OF US--everyone who is in a precarious position even when they do manage to get and afford health insurance?

You cannot possible tell me that the health insurance and healthcare system in this country is working, that it is even equitable or fair.

Can you? Can you tell me that I should lose my house if I get sick?

Can you tell me that I shouldn't get health care because for-profit companies say I'm a bad risk--even though I've already paid them $50,000 and claimed nothing?

The healthcare and insurance situation in this country is horrifying--it can literally worry you sick. If I'm lucky enough to make it to 65 then I'll get medicare--which is socialism. Is Medicare bad? It's socialism pure and simple and has been derided by the right since it was created. It's also saved the lives and property of millions of families. Is that bad?

Even if you work for a big corporation and think your health insurance is secure, it's not. You could be laid off, as almost 400,000 Americans have been in the last six months. There's no guarantee once you stop working your insurance will continue--or that you'll be able to afford it.

And if the company you worked for goes into chapter 11 then all bets are off for retirees or those who were laid off. The Republicans in the senate wanted automaker retirees to no longer be funded.

My Republican friend then goes on to explain to me how for-profit corporations should be running hospitals (if not schools and everything else) because they're so much more efficient.

I had a interesting conversation with an ER Doctor. She used to work at the new hospital here in Durango. She quit last year to pursue another interest. She spoke about the difference between the non-for-profit hospital and a new surgical center run by Doctors for profit. She said the non-for-profit was run by a board with no concept of how to keep employees happy and how to just plain keep employees! The turnover is huge. Therefore the quality of care drops. Her words, not mine. On the other hand, this new surgical center desires to make a profit so it strives to keep good employees by treating them well and paying them well. They require good customer service to stay in business competing against the nfp hospital.

Just because a non-profit board doesn't run a medical companies as effectively as a for profit-one isn't an idicator of what the government would do. In fact, the most efficiently run health insurance company in the country is Medicare, which by some accounts is 10 times more efficient than any private health insurance company.

And also note, that the doctor stopped being a doctor, something that took her almost a decade and several hundred thousands of dollars to learn. why is that? Because the current private insurance run medical system is just so good? No, it's just the opposite.

My personal doctor quit, too.

Why, because insurance companies were telling her what care she could give her patients--and not just in the way you think, meaning that insurance companies were pushing drugs as the ultimate care (which many of them do--"medicine by the numbers" they call it). No, it was a combination of insurance companies deciding what doctors should be paid (which was less than their costs, unless they turned themselves into a people mill), and their other insurance companies, for malpractice, that were bleeding them dry. She couldn't make a living.

Now, I'm sure I'll hear the whole "lawyers are evil and are just ambulance chasers" but there are legitimate claims. Some people die--or are killed because of true malpractice. People who a husband or father or mother who supported them and then are left out in the cold because of not just mistakes, but malpractice.

I guess those people should be penalized because the successful can't afford to pay into a national health care plan that will even protect them should they be stupid enough to end up unsuccessful at some point in the future.

And what about people who's health insurance now is precarious, because they had the bad sense to get sick?

Another friend writes me,

I lost three units of blood, yet my doctor wouldn't return my calls because I didn't have insurance. My blood pressure was so low I couldn't stand without blacking out and so low that doctors couldn't even draw blood, it wouldn't come out.

We went to a local doctor, who saw me without insurance, who arranged for a hospital to give me a transfusion (without insurance--which was hard) and required them to let me do it without spending the night so it only cost $1,500 for a transfusion, instead of $6,500 if I'd spent the night. All that took a lot of convincing on the doctor's part, because the hospital--a for-profit one, didn't want to bother with me.

So, again I have to ask--do you think this is right?

If you think the medical system doesn't need to fixed.

If you think that people (like yourself) don't deserve medical treatment.

If people should have simply die if they can't afford the $6,500 the hospital wanted for a life-saving transfusion.

That's why I'm angry.

We have a government which gave BILLIONS in tax breaks to Oil companies that are already making the biggest profits in the history of the world, but they can't afford to help law-abiding, tax-paying American citiens with health care--because that would be "Socialism."

This country was not born on socialist principles. More government is not the answer. Oversight is ok. But mostly government needs to stay out of my business!

Hmm--the so-called Patriot act allowed the government to be in your business your most personal business, more than any time in history. You're not a terrorist. You don't fit the profile at all. It's ludicrous to even waste their time listen to your phone calls and reading your emails and looking at your bank balances and credit card payments--and the books you checked out from the library.

Yet they did all that. They were not just in your business, they were up your ass.

Yet, meanwhile, when my friend needed help with a colonoscopy, this intrusive government was nowhere to be seen. They can't bothered withg you ass--unless they thought perhaps it was harboring terrorists.

So bring on socialized medicine. And tell me about how people have to wait for health care in the UK-but they do get it.

And don't use them as the be-all end all. Use a country like Australia where people get great timely care without supplemental insurance.

So let's stop with this preposterous propagandistic linguistic game of calling it "penalizing" anyone, when, in fact, we are protecting everyone.

It's all how you look at it. If you're so greedy you can't even pay to protect yourself, then of course you don't see why you should have to pay to protect someone else. Let's just hope that those people never need help. And oddly, it often turns out they do. And then they're not adverse to the government stepping in and giving them billions in bailouts, which they then give to themselves as bonuses.

Hmm. Interesting how that works. No, don't penalize them for goodness sake.

Penalize everyone else. That makes more sense.

America the FREE--as long as you can PAY for it

A friend of mine wrote me a heartfelt email about his mother, who is in assisted living. He writes,

My brothers and I are a bit wide-eyed right now in we thought our parents would do okay until they died, and now my mother and stepfather are each in assisted living. My mother's breathing is so bad, her care costs $14,000 a MONTH. She'll run out of easy cash in a few months, so we're trying to sell her house. None of us expected this, and my mother always said, "Don't worry about me. I have long-term disability insurance that will pay for 24-hour nursing at my house, if necessary. She's been paying on it for years. It turns out it'll pay up to $80 a day. You can't get hotels for that anymore. $2400 a month is not close to $14,000.

People like to think they're prepared for the future. We also liked to think we couldn't have another depression but that looks like a possibility now, too, due to the massive fraud, greed, governmental debt, lack of oversight, and just all around corruption.

In Australia all her needs would be taken care of--at home if she wanted. If you're sick or in an accident in Australia, they not only take care of you, they clean your house, cook your meals, take care of your kids.

But, according to my Republican friend, this is the terrible socialist big government we must avoid at all costs (let's not get into the reality of how Republicans create the biggest, most expensive governments, while cutting taxes to also create the biggest, most dangerous deficits--they like to have their cake and eat it too--while sending the bill to their children and grandchildren).

My Republican friend and I are having email debates, yet we're not convincing each other, because he's sure he's right.

Of course, I'm sure I'm right, too, which only makes me doubt myself--but I don't know if he ever doubts himself. He's SO sure, which is nice for him.

To him, socialism is bad. Bad. Bad. so bad you must repeat the word three times at least. Don't get into details of the difference between a socialist regime and democratic socialism, the whole idea of government helping people is a "nanny state' and is bad, unless they're spending trillions on defense, in which case it's a "daddy state" and it's good. This doesn't make sense to me--but then, I don't have all the answers and I'm not always right. Even so, it does seem hypocritical, doesn't it?

I chalk up a lot of this kind of "total assurance of the truth" to many religions, which teachers people from an early age that they are in the "right" religion, that God is on "their" side if they just follow the rules set up by the very political money and power bureaucracy that is the church. It's not just destructive, it causes many people to stop thinking for themselves--they don't have to, they've ceded their power to someone else ("a higher power" which is all fine and good if you're talking about true spirituality, but sad and empty if you're talking about organized religion, which, after all, is just a bunch of people.)

So here, in our "free country" it's free as long as you can pay for it. And my friend's mother worked all her life and paid for it--or thought she did.

Now she and her children find out now that the coverage she's paid for has profited the insurance company rather than her. And multiple families loses because of it--through worry about how to pay for it, and though the actual loss of the accrued work of their forebears.

The Republicans spout off about inheritance tax, calling it the "death tax." In reality, an estate of less than $3.5 million doesn't have this tax, so only few people pay it.

In the mean time, this shattering REAL "death tax" is that each generation is losing what the previous one built so they can pay for their care and death. That's so deeply wrong.

So don't let your fear of a word like "socialism" cloud the issue, that Americans are being bled dry by a government that does NOT help them, and would be far better off paying higher taxes to support a government that DID. A government that would help them even when they couldn't afford to help themselves.

That's the dirty little secret of socialism--it helps everyone, even when they can't pay for it. Geez, that's clearly not the way in the home of the free, is it? If you can't pay, it must be your fault and you must suffer. Right? You don't want to help no stinking loser who hasn't helped themselves.

And all that's OK, because it'll never happen to you, because you're prepared. You've paid all your life to make sure you're prepared. Right?

Except, as in the case of my friend's mother, who was a church-going, hard-working, well-compensated successful woman. She was as prepared as she could be--just as you may be. And when circumstances change, and all your work and investment and preparation isn't what you thought, isn't what all the experts told you it would be, then do you want to suffer, to have your family lose everything? Or do you want a government of good socialism to help?

That is your choice, after all. Because we still live in a democracy. Where you talk to your representatives and tell them what's important to you, whether it's "lower taxes no matter what," or "let's do what we can to help make people really taken care of."

Because, in the end, you may be the one who needs taking care of. You don't know. So it's good to have a social safety net, even if it's called socialism.

The Republican NAME GAME - it's not a serious debate

If you read the comments of my previous post, you'll see a response from my "Republican friend." He asked for an open dialog of ideas, and presented his, which included calling Obama the Messiah, and repeating the word "Sociamism" as if it was some horrifying specter that was casting a dark cloud over democracy, as if eight years of Fascism and true undermining of the constitution hadn't been the real culprit.

I'm fine with an open dialog of ideas, which is why I posted his reply, and am now debating his points.

---

Why is it, that when Republicans let corporations control the country, give them massive tax breaks and also funnel billions to them--the very definition of FASCISM, this is somehow OK.

But when Democrats advance a stimulus package which is not all that different, except it includes more support for individuals, and government oversight to prevent 20 billion from being given away to a few in Bonuses--TWENTY BILLION--that money could build countless schools, bridges, homes... suddenly, that's "socialism." ?

I'd rather have socialism than fascism any day, because at least in socialism it's the citizens in control, not the corporations, and the citizens who benefit, not just a few high up in the corporate and financial food chain--like royalty--while most of the people in the country suffer the greatest depression since 1929.

Socialism is, in fact, far more democratic than Fascism--which by definition strips the people of their power and rights.

Why is there such a complete double-standard based on who is doing the giving and who it goes to?

When it comes from a Republican president and goes to the same Wall Street wizards who got us into this mess--without oversight--and billions go to a few, that's OK.

But when Detroit automakers want money then the unions and workers are blamed and all asked to take pay CUTS. Pay cuts that amount to less than the money that the Wall Street wizards just stole in unwarranted bonuses taken directly from Federal aid. Or when the money is going to actual infrastructure, the way FDR did SO SUCCESSFULLY in the past, that's socialism--as if it's a dirty word.

Explain to that to me, if you can.

As for this whole "Obama Messiah" NONSENSE, it's absurd, ridiculous, and even insulting. Did anyone call the previous president (who's name I won't mention at your request, but his initial was "W") that after 9/11 when he was going to be our big savior from the rest of the world?

When he was standing for his photo ops aboard aircraft carriers announcing "mission accomplished" and he was our great white hope?

No, you know why? Because Democrats may sometimes be lame, but they aren't childish name-callers. Yet Republicans have, consistently over the years, made personal attacks and resorted to name-calling to Democrats.

As for the so-called Liberal media--they were 100% behind bush, from the time they allowed him to take office without being duly elected to not offering ANY criticism of him for years. Yet did anyone every call him "our fearless leader" or "el Capitan" or any other made up stupid insulting name? No.

When he started a war without probably cause--STARTED a war, a "holy" war, in fact, did anyone call him a savior or messiah, even though his ACTIONS were, in fact, messianic?

We called his words and actions stupid--which they clearly were. That was an actual criticism of his words and actions--not some cutesy slander, or quasi-religious smear, as if anyone thought Obama was greater than God.

To even suggest that is merely playing into the hands of those who want to create fear and hate.

NAME CALLING IS NOT adding to a "serious dialog" as you call it.

And yes, once again, somehow the magical double standard comes into play and if people are merely HOPEFUL that Obama will help--that he is actually TRYING to help, after years of a Government that did nothing but PILLAGING the resources of the country--the treasury and the people, somehow it's not OK to hope and be positive without being mocked as being mindless messiahs.

I take offense at that and don't see it as at all constructive in a serious dialog.

Now--I agree that the Democrats could have TRIED harder, during the previous administration--but, if you will remember, during the "one party" years, Republicans simply shut them out--they weren't even allowed to see legislation before votes, and the Republican majority was such that it didn't matter if all the Democrats banded together to vote against it...

And so, the "blame game" as Republicans LOVE to call it, is apt in this case, because at some point our so-called representatives must take responsibility for their actions, and we are suffering for their actions right now.

Should the Democrats have grown a set and made a fuss--yes, they should have. Should they have tried to use the press as ruthlessly (and effectively!) as the Republicans to get their message across? Yes.

But does that make the Democratic minority, which did not set the agenda or create the rules, into the people to blame? No, and yet now YOU are playing the blame game against them.

Once again, it's a double standard, my friend. Where Republican buzz-words mask the truth behind a wall of words. And they claim the Democrats are "elite" while attending the same schools and using far more sophisticated and utterly calculated linguistics to distort and manipulate. Republicans have been geniuses at manipulating the language in their favor, to the point where they made "liberal," a word our founding fathers found a powerful force for good, into a "dirty word" they sneered at.

As for the individual actions of members of Obama's cabinet--let he who has never had a tax problem throw the first stone. Maybe it's you, in which case, fire away. If we want to start counting the number of scandals among people in the Bush administration then we're going to waste a long time arguing about this. Nobody is perfect--not even Obama, and nobody should expect them to be.

There are real crimes (Blagojevich, Cheney--yes, I must mention him for his war crimes and organized rape of the treasury), and then there are trivial personal ones.

It's time to put things in perspective, stop wasting time on the trivial and start looking at the big stuff.

As for the lobbyists, they are experienced people who worked in previous administrations (from both parties, mind you), and now they've had to sign an agreement that says they won't lobby this administration if they leave--that's the difference between this and previous administrations (of both parties).

You don't not use experienced people simply because they've been a lobbyist, which is the job of choice for former officials. But you do ensure that there is no current conflict of interest, and that in the future they don't use their pull in the same area.

---

Socialism. Socialism. Socialism. Sigh. Is that all you've got? You keep clinging to that as if it's the most horrible thing you can think of.

By your definition--there are plenty of happily democratic socialistic countries in the world. Let's include Australia in that--where if you are sick or hurt for any reason your medical bills are taken care of, someone will take care of your kids in your house if you can't do it, and you don't have to worry about going bankrupt because you were injured or sick.

That's GOOD socialism.

Compare that to here, where for-profit insurance companies tell you what medical procedures you can and can't have, where they can reject valid claims for care, and where, often, you simply can't get insurance, so you can lose your house and life savings trying to pay for care that is simply a "right" in every other industrialized nation on the planet. Every one. But ours.

Again--good Socialism.

So stop trying to turn it into a dirty word--it's not.

And, like I said, I'll take socialism over fascism any day. We've had eight years of fascism (much of it out and out unconstitutional), so democratic socialism offer a HUGE IMPROVEMENT to the lives of citizens, and the health and well being of our constitution.

Stop playing the name game, my friend, and start recognizing that at a time like this, when the country and world have been thrown into such serious trouble by the uncontrolled fascist power of a few, the hope and hard work of the many is what's needed. Everybody working together for the common good is good! That's not blind faith or any of the names you're calling it.

It's the American Dream, hard at work again, after 8 years of suffocation.

Bipartisanship - REPUBICANS ARE THE PARTY OF "NO"

A recent piece in the WSJ by that bastion of Truth Justice and the Pharmaceutical way, Rush Limbaugh, suggested that to be truly bipartisan, 46% of the stimulus package should be controlled by him (as if anybody elected him) to give away as tax cuts--starting with corporations.

A Republican friend sent this to me and said "This is funny!" and I replied, "this would be funny if by you mean funny as "something smells funny."

If tax cuts could prevent the current problem, then we wouldn't have it, as Bush did a lot of tax cutting to a lot of people who could well afford the taxes. Didn't help anything but the income of the upper 2%.

If this kind of stimulus bill is so bad, then why is it what Bush and his financial people started-only in their case they started it without any kind of oversight, which has already lead to top CEOs giving themselves millions of dollars while they lay off thousands of people. At least this new bill has some oversight to make sure the money isn't being wasted.

"Supply side" economics has never actually stimulated the economy, it has only taken money from the future and moved it to the present via deficits, which is what Regan created the largest of, until Bush came along.

FDR's plans DID take the country out of the depression by creating work--and creating infrastructure that's still used in this country today. The WPA and CCC and other programs were extremely effective at creating jobs that actually created things the country needed, schools, roads, bridges. Tax cuts build nothing. Create no lasting legacy. If they did, then the Bush years would have been years of growth, rather than recession.

As for corporate tax, that's the joke. In 1960 corporations paid 80% of all the tax in this country--and yet, somehow, they made profits, they hired new workers, and business grew and grew. All that with high corporate taxes.

Now individuals pay 80% of the tax and corporations pay 20%, and corporations complain they can't make a go of it, and their way out is to give millions to the CEOs who ran them into the ground, while firing tens of thousands of employees. That's not about taxes, that's about greed and mismanagement, and, in some cases, the massive corporate burden of a health care system designed for insurance and pharma companies, rather than patients and doctors.

As for bipartisanship--Obama made concessions about tax cuts for the Republicans. And NOT A SINGLE ONE VOTED FOR THE PLAN, WITH THE FEATURES THEY DEMANDED. Not one. That's no bipartisanship. That's counter-productive, playing politics, without a care for their country or constituents. They voted for it when Bush proposed it, but not when Obama did it--with more input from them. That's childish, like little children crying when they don't get their way.

Well, guess what Republican party, you didn't get your way because you made such a horrible mess of things when you got your way--with the one-party system you had for almost eight years.

You messed up as badly as any other president and congress in the history of this country and because we somehow still managed to be a democracy, the citizens, your employers, FIRED YOU.

They voted AGAINST YOU. YOU LOST, REPUBLICANS.

And if you keep up this nonsense of not even voting to help give your employers more time to switch their TVs to digital signals (who votes against that--um, Republicans!), then you are going to lose even more jobs to the point where you're going to have to come up with a whole new name for your party, and a new logo, too.

Because now--the Republican party as become THE PARTY OF "NO."

That's fine if you're consistent about no new taxes and no bigger government. But after eight years of "NO to helping citizens" and YES to helping corporations and billions in handouts to oil companies and trillions in wars, well, you can't have it both ways, my friend. At least not without what's happening now.

So when the Republicans want to be responsible again, and be consistent about smaller government and less spending and balancing the budget, then I'll first say, "Um, where were you for the eight years you ran the country?" and then I'll say, "Great idea, but first don't you think the government has some responsibility for cleaning up the mess it made in the previous 8 years?"

A Letter to a Limbaugh listening, Drudge reading friend

Your home page is the Drudge report. Your car radio is tuned to Limbaugh.

I love you too much to let you know exposing yourself to this kind of misinformation, propaganda, and outright hate speech.

One of my degrees is in journalism, so I have the background and experience to help you learn how to get the real facts, not those hand-picked by any individual or corporation.

I am not pleased with the state of all journalism myself now. It used to require two different sources to state something as fact, but somewhere along the way, someone merely spouting a "rumor of the day" (their actual term for it during an election), got reported as fact, not rumor. The corporate influence on news has been destructive, too, with corporate interests guiding news reporting. From major corporations such as GE owning NBC, to self-avowed right-wing Australian media magnate Rupert Murdoch owning Fox news--and now the Wall Street Journal, when corporations skew the news it's part of fascism.

My friend, I know you that you think most major sources are part of the "liberal media" but the facts show no such thing. If they were really liberal they would not have been complicit with Bush during the first 6 years of his presidency--or even the initial election.

If you look at the coverage you will see, in fact, that the so called "media elite" were highly supportive of GWBush until his poll ratings fell so low that the media felt safe pointing out his errors.

Obviously, anchormen like Keith Obermann are overtly liberal in their views--but they are vastly in the minority, given the rise of Australian Rupert Murdoch's empire, including Fox and the WSJ, which has a corporate mandate to be right-wing propaganda tools (I know you will argue with me on this, but you can save your breathe--I know journalism, and Fox is not journalism, it's propaganda).

Murdoch's stated goal is not news, but to forward his personal viewpoints and those that will make him the most money. That is the definition of propaganda.

You're right in saying that Drudge points to a lot of sources. But given that he has a specific political slant, he picks and chooses his stories, which is fine, but you don't get the full picture this way--or by viewing the news through any other single person or corporation's point of view.

With the internet there's no longer any excuse to get your news exclusively from either US or corporate media outlets.

By reading sources across the net I knew before the US invaded Iraq that the WMD documents were forged. The absolute proof of this was available online. Because of my experience in typography I could tell they were obvious fakes. so I'm sure someone in the CIA must have figured it out, too (I would hope they're smarter than I am). But somehow the major media outlets--in the US--didn't. They did in the UK, very clearly and specifically.

So I get my news from around the world and it's fascinating to see what news outlets that don't have a vested interest in a story say, because they are obviously less biased.

====

the bottom line is that to get a real view of "facts" rather than opinion (which has masqueraded as news since the start of newswriting, because reporters are people and their opinions get mixed in--much more so in recent years than in the past), you need to look at a variety of sources from around the world, including non-corporate ones.

====

Finally, I want to say that I respect and uphold your right to your political opinions.

You have firm beliefs as I have mine--and that's good.

I just don't think it's good for anyone to regularly expose themselves to people with messages of intolerance or even hate.

You're a loving person, and Limbaugh is not a healthy influence on you, or your family. It's not funny, it's hate. All Coulter is another negative influence--not funny, just hate.

Yes, there are liberal hate-mongers, too (they don't get much air time but they're there). I don't listen to them. I never have.

I did not hate Bush or Cheney personally. I hated some of their actions. Yet when I listen to right wing talk radio it's so often personal attacks on people they don't like, rather than on their actions. And one of the reasons I don't listen to it that often is because I so rarely hear positive plans of action of what they feel would better the situation and the world. "Everybody's a critic," the old line goes, but if you don't work on positive plans, you don't move in positive directions.

I just hope that you will try, whenever possible, to listen to Republicans who have POSITIVE messages. The positive messages may be "we don't think this is good because..." or "someone is wrong because" but they HAVE A REAL PLAN, not just an attack, and they deliver it way that's NOT personal, nasty, destructive, mean-spirited, or negative.

You deserve better than that, because you are better than that.

Give Civil Unions ALL THE SAME RIGHTS as Marriage

It's almost 2009--and it's just plain wrong that all men (and women) still aren't created equal.

I support gay marriage and gay rights and I don't understand how so many people can vote to take rights away from other people. Or how a simple majority can remove those rights. What's next--blonds can't marry brunettes?

If your religious beliefs tell you that gays shouldn't get married--then don't get married if you are gay. But don't oppress other people. That's NOT what Jesus would do.

But let's stop fighting over semantics and get to the heart of the matter--restoring basic civil rights to at least 10% of Americans!

I HAVE A SIMPLE SOLUTION: GIVE CIVIL UNIONS ALL THE SAME RIGHTS AS MARRIAGE.

Let's stop fighting over the word "marriage." Not separate, just EQUAL.

In fact, the government shouldn't be in the marriage business at all. Anybody joined in union in a courthouse, straight or gay, gets a civil union. Anyone joined in union in a church is "married." Same thing, different names.

That's just the first step. But it can be done quickly and with less backlash from the unenlightened.

The next step is to make sure everybody can also get married--but in the mean time, the point is to ensure that everybody has the same RIGHTS, if not the same words.

Country First... California's Secession

I know Palin is long, at least for a while, but I'm still fuming over the fact that she and her "Country First!" campaign were such utter hypocrisy. Until Palin was tapped, she was a secessionist who wanted Alaska to break off from the Country she was now supposedly putting first.

Why was this not an issue? Can you really be expected to put Country First, when just weeks previous you'd put country last, and were part of a group of outright haters of America?

I don't hate America--I love it. I was taught to love it, and there's much to love.

But I can love America and still hate the way it's been run for eight years, and still, at times, think the best plan for California would be to secede. I mean, it was good enough for the Republican running-mate, why can't it be good enough for our Republican Governator?

I think about this scenario when I'm angry about the way the country is being run--into the ground.

And the latest bonehead move is by Southern Senators who have blocked any loans to struggling US automakers--at least the automakers who aren't in their states!

How dare these soon-to-be-out-on-their-asses asshole Senators use their last few minutes in power to try to break the unions? Who are they to tell union workers that they need to make less money--at a time when it's not the unions who are at fault, it's management--and it's senators themselves for not following Europe's lead in terms of energy efficiency for cars.

So, while they still clung to power, these senators, mostly from the south, have screwed Detroit--and the rest of the country--including themselves.

The senators who kept the auto loans from happening just happen to be the senators of states where there are auto factories from foreign companies with non-union jobs: VW, Mercedes, Hyundai and Toyota.

These senators through it was within their power to insist that United Auto workers would agree to work for non-union wages, as if this had all been their fault. Let's not talk about the $700 billion given to money men who perpetrated fraudulent if not criminal financial schemes--they're OK, throw money at them.

Meanwhile, these senators are too stupid to realize that their auto workers would suffer, too. Because if GM or Chrysler goes bankrupt, all the major auto suppliers will be hit hard, if not into bankruptcy themselves, and since all major automakers use basically the same suppliers for dashboards, seats, airbags, brakes, even transmissions, all those German and Japanese automakers wouldn't be able to get parts to build cars!

What's more, the North's answer to the Southern union breaking should have been, "Sure, we'll work for non-union wages like your foreign automakers, just as soon as you give us nationalized health care, like the foreign auto companies give employees in their native countries so we don't have to spend a huge chunk of the cost of our cars and health care for current and retired workers."

Assholes. I'm sick of the politics of backwater states taking priority over truly national matters, and their spiteful little political moves that will even hurt themselves but they're too dumb to realize it.

So I'm once again back to wanting California to secede from the Union. We pay more federal taxes and get less back from the feds, while we're subsidizing the south. And to what end?

California doesn't need the rest of the USA. We're the 7th largest economy on the planet. We build computers and cars and planes and all things internet. We even produce more food than any other US state. So we'd have lots of exports to the US of A, even more than Canada!

Of course, Oregon and Washington should also secede and join California, because it would make sense to have the whole coast.

Of course, now that we will soon have a REAL president again, rather than a brain-dead puppet of fascist corporations, the US is going to need California to help rebuild and get through this depression. So we'd better stick around for a while, at least until the next fascist Republican president.

Why the US auto industry deserves to be saved

I'm sick of hearing how the US Automakers somehow don't deserve a bailout, while banks and insurance companies, that were so poorly run they literally self-destructed, have been bailed out, paid off, propped up, despite the poor management, and without berating them or asking them for a plan to make it all better.

The government simply threw money at the white collar companies that produce nothing. Yes, it's important to have banks and insurance companies, it's vital that the money continues to flow.

But the US economy is built on more than shuffling money around--it's built on making things--or at least it used to be. There are fewer and fewer companies that actually make things now, and more that are either about ideas (that's fine), or just making money from money (is that really productive, or just exploitative?)

GM and Ford are building better cars today than they ever have--even in their golden age of tail fins.

US car quality is every bit as good as rivals from Japan and Germany.

And yet they're being treated as if "nobody buys them" and "everything they make it crap." Yet they sell over half the cars in this country. That's a majority of the market share, and a larger percentage than Presidents have gotten in elections in years.

What the automakers have yet to do is change the PERCEPTION of their brands and vehicles.

True, the Big Three put out some bad cars for a number of years, they wrecked their own brands and reputations--but now they have fixed their products--it takes longer to repair their images.

I went to the San Francisco auto show and in looking at car designs and interior quality, GM absolutely had some of the best looking, most well-designed and put together cars. The Chevy Malibu's interior is beautiful and more customizable than just about anything under $150K--I thought it was better designed and built than the Maserati Quattroporte, which cost five times as much.

The Cadillac interiors with their leather-wrapped everything, including dash, are more attractive and better made than more expensive European cars, including Mercedes (and head and shoulders above Lexus, which somehow manages to create truly ugly car interiors with atrocious Maraschino cherry red "wood" accents).

At the low end--the Chevy HHR is less expensive than the Scion xB, gets better gas mileage, is more attractive, and clearly has a better interior design and quality. The Scion's interior is hideous, it looks like a cheap boombox made of hard black plastic.

As for Ford, the Edge is thoroughly and thoughtfully designed inside and out. The Mustang is cool and desirable, even to my European friends. The new Flex, a "mini on steroids" is a wonderful design, practical and attractive. And while I feel the entire Lincoln and Mercury lines could go and not be missed, the main Ford product line is strong. Except for Jeep and the mini-vans, Chrysler is weak, but it still sells a lot of cars and employs a lot of people. It could be pared down to its strongest assets and continue--even as Jeep alone. Jeep minivans anyone?

As for the bailout--Washington was happy to give 120 BILLION to AIG, a company that did so much wrong, and literally played with money. Yet somehow they could be trusted "without a plan."

Yet when it comes to automakers who actually CREATE and PRODUCE something, who actually CREATE JOBS, they are scolded like bad children and told to go home and do their homework before they can be given 1/10th of what went to profligate AIG, a mere 12 billion. It makes no sense.

It's time for the feds to help bail out companies that actually create jobs, rather than just playing with money.

---

Here's a great article that compares the US automakers market share with Apple's. Apple's is much smaller, yet is considered more successful. This piece helps put things in perspective.
http://www.motorobilia.com/2008/11/of-apples-and-automobiles.html

And this is another excellent piece about the bailout by the same author.

Republicans: "We're rubber, you're glue..."

CONCORD, North Carolina (CNN) – John McCain stepped up his rhetoric against Barack Obama on taxes in his weekly radio address, comparing his plan to 'socialist' programs that would “convert the IRS into a giant welfare agency, redistributing massive amounts of wealth.”

What's so astounding about the current Republican propaganda machine is that they're eager to take whatever criticism can factually be applied to them, and throw it at their opponents.

You say Obama doesn't have enough experience? Introduce Palin!

The head of McCain's transition team worked on Saddam Hussein's behalf? Say Obama pals around with terrorists! Your biggest weaknesses? Say they're the other guy's! Works like magic!

McCain has been in the forefront of two major US bank meltdowns (Keating, then now with his friend Phil). So Bush has to literally socialize the banks. So what do you do--call Obama a socialist!

Of course, Bush's plan is not really socialism, which would mean health care and social services. It's fascism, which means taking care of businesses, not people. I wrote about this a few weeks ago.

"redistributing massive amounts of wealth" that's been the main goal of the Bush administration from day one--but it's been a reverse Robin Hood scheme, robbing the poor and middle class and giving it to the rich.

We have had, in the past eight years, the most massive redistribution of wealth in US history, much of it going outside the country to Iraq--and foreign corporations (of which Cheney's Halliburton is now one--they moved to Dubai to escape potential prosecution from war profiteering).

And so, since they've done it themselves, they are now pinning it on someone else.

What I don't get is why the so-called liberal media never stops to say, "Hey, wait a second, you're calling him a socialist but YOU are the ones socializing major corporations, he's just for programs to protect people."

Why does nobody say that?

A POSITIVE PATH (real American Freedom from fear, lies, greed)

The Cheney /Bush administration has left this country (and world) in a crisis.

Their policies of lying, cheating, stealing, killing, destroying--somehow sold as "Family Values" have done nothing but undermined everything that Americans grow up holding sacred--freedom and democracy.

In the guise of "protectors" Cheney/Bush have turned this country from a democracy into a Fascist state--where the corporations and government tag-team to tell average citizens what we can and can't do.

Bush/Cheney have turned the government against us. Against you. Against me. They lie to us. They steal from us. They spy on us.

They say they're for "less government interference" but in reality they've created the biggest, most dangerous government this country has ever had.

And now that we're on the brink of disaster--they don't know what to do. So they just do what they got away with before, they lie, they cheat, they steal, they kill, and they tell you it's good for you.

But the neo-CON-MEN don't want to be responsible the shit they themselves shat. They don't know what to do with it, because neo-cons have no positive ideas--only fear-mongering and attacks. Propaganda is all they can do.

You can't get out of this massive mess, now financial as well as military, with propaganda.

So they need a Democrat for at least four years (it took Clinton 8 to remove the Reagan/Bush1 deficit and turn it into a surplus) to clean it up for them.

This mess can be cleaned up, but it'll take intelligence (something we know is lacking in the neo-cons, who can't think more than a few days ahead, hence the financial crisis that anyone with a brain would have seen coming and could have avoided), dedication and time.

And, sadly, while paying for all this unnecessary war, financial gambling and the ultimate redistribution o wealth, there won't be much left for little things like health care, infrastructure and preparing for the future by developing green energy, three things that are essential for real national security.

Sadly, the fascism of the Cheney, a group of people so sad and devoid of even basic human compassion, could only imagine spending that money killing and destroying--not to mention stealing--stealing from the taxes most of us pay, and stealing from the investments people made for their future.

They could have spent the far less money on health care (for life!), and rebuilding bridges, roads, water systems, sustainable energy and other vital infrastructure.

They could have created rather then destroyed. And in creating--they could have made friends instead of enemies, and they would have been improving the world, rather than literally tearing it apart.

And that, in a nutshell, is the choice. The Bush/Cheney/McCain neo-CON path of bankrupting the country on a rampage of greed, death and self-destruction.

Or the Obama/Binden POSITIVE path of REBUILDING the country in the true American way.

Some people who know nothing but fear and hate will vote for the only candidate they can see--because he's selling fear and hate--McCain.

I truly believe that the American people are weary to the bone of 8 years of fear, hate, and destruction.

That we long for real American values of working WITH our fellow man--not against him. Of buildig a better world. Of freedom (freedom from want and fear and greedy financial criminals--freedom from our own government who has been spying on us, lying to us, and stealing from us).

The people who want a better world for themselves and their children must vote for the candidate who has a positive message, and a postive path--Obama.

Obama Wins. Country Wins. YOU: REGISTER & VOTE

The good news is that internal Republican pollsters have basically said McCain has lost.

Palin's performances give her LESS credibility, only 25% say she's ready and those are the die hard brain dead Republicans (we might possibly know one or two personally--oh, sorry).

So, I'm convinced Obama will win the votes.

Now the question is--will they be counted? And will the Republicans do electoral college shenanigans.

I actually think Republicans will be relieved to have this mess they created in somebody else's hands. That's their pattern. Look at Reagan/Bush1, they screwed things up royal, then gave it to Clinton to clean up. They attacked him mercilessly for eight years but he cleaned it up and gave us a surplus.

Then Bush2 takes over (face it, folks, he didn't win, the Supreme Court unconstitutionally gave it to him), messes up the economy and world worse than any president in history--and now Daddy Democrat has to come in and be the adult and clean it up--while Republicans throw tantrums the entire time and try to undermine him.

Clearly Republicans are very spoiled children (if not "the bad seeds" :)

Of course, I will be surprised if Cheney allows there to be an election at all--I am still waiting for him to pull something, like another terrorist attack.

Then again, he may take his freshly printed billions and go to Dubai, like his company, Halliburton, where he can't be extradited to the world war tribunal and held up as the war criminal he is.

I live in hope :)

Better ways to spend 700 BILLION DOLLARS!

The people who need to be protected are AMERICAN CITIZENS, not Corporations who knowingly and willfully took actions for temporary profit that they had to know would lead to long-term disaster. Giving them money produces nothing.

We need to get back to making things -- that's what made this country great.

We've had too many years of "trickle down" economics where the people in the middle and bottom basically just get pissed on.

It's time to try "Bubble Up" economics--where money is spread out among the people so it can rise up. JFK said, "A rising tide lifts all boats."

The perfect example of this is FDR's public works programs which created jobs, pumped money into the economy--and resulted in building huge public works we still use today!

YOU and I deserve to be protected from greedy criminals on this huge of a scale.

Here's how we need to use the money:

1. Fund the FDIC to make sure our bank accounts are safe. If you're worked hard and saved money, then you expect it to be there. We've been told the FDIC insures our money so it's safe. But the truth is that the FDIC doesn't have enough money to cover all our bank accounts--and it should.
   
   It's one thing to lose money on stocks--stocks are not insured, they are risk. But "money in the bank" is supposed to be safe, protected, insured by the government!
   
   
2. Rewrite mortgages. The only people who can possibly blame homeowners for the crisis are the same greedy ones who gave the loans. Anyone who's had a home loan knows that normal people cannot figure out the hundreds of pages of small print. That's not our job. If someone wasn't qualified to get a loan, then WaMu and the others shouldn't have given them.
   
   Now the government could come in, rewrite mortgages, let people keep their homes, and that alone would help stabilize the housing market which is a key to this crisis.
   
   
3. Fund national health insurance so people don't have to go bankrupt if they get sick. Most home foreclosures come from people going bankrupt from their medical expenses. That's absolutely insane. My Australian and Danish friends think this is unbelievable since it's so alien to them. Nobody should lose everything trying to pay for their health care. And nobody else in the industrialized world has to--just us. Meanwhile, insurance companies won't insure people with pre-existing conditions, and often cancel people when they get sick. We can stop this insanity now with some of this money!
   
   
4. Create a new WPA to create jobs and rebuild our infrastructure. Roads. Bridges. Schools. Water systems. Our country is literally falling apart--and this money would both create jobs and rebuild the nation. This money would make something!
5. Pay off McCain/Palin to get out of the race. Instead of electing McCain/Palin, I say just pay them off to go away. I think Palin would take 100 million, and McCain doesn't really need the money so he'd take half that. Just as we could have paid off people to get rid of Saddam for a few hundred million, (thereby saving trillions of dollars and tens of thousands of lives!) we can save the country by paying off these people to just go away!
   

We already are so massively in debt we can't afford 700 billion loaned from more foreign banks--imagine the interest on the debt alone. But if we're going to spend money we don't have there are GOOD ways to spend it :)

Say Hello to SOCIALISM... really FASCISM!

Since the takeover of major banks, brokerages and insurance companies, the USA has just changed from Democracy to what some people think is Socialism. The change is really to fascism, as true socialism, in the Scandinavian manner, would also have socialized health care and made sure people are taken care of.

They should be bailing out the FDIC to protect YOUR money in the bank. They should be protecting legitimate homeowners (not speculators), funding universal health care (since so many mortgage defaults come from bankruptcy caused by paying medical bills), and creating a WPA-like group (if you're going to go socialist, that's the way to go) to create jobs and rebuild our infrastructure.

But this isn't about protecting people or rebuilding the country.

This is about completing our move to Fascism, where we must bail out the greedy corporations that screwed us in the first place, and hand more money than the bloated Pentagon gets, to one person with no oversight or control--and judicial immunity.

That's not democracy. That is the very definition of a Fascist dictatorship, only in this case even our El Presidente would be overridden by this new financial wizard who was so smart he didn't see all this coming.

That's where we've been moving for eight years under Bush and the neo-cons--to a state where we had a government by corporations, for corporations and of corporations, rather than our traditional democratic rule of "of the people, for the people, and by the people."

I have said since the start of the Neo-Con administration (since this is wider than just Bush and Cheney, though they have been the leaders), that their goal was nothing less than to destroy our economy.

WHY?

Because that was the only way they could fundamentally change the government from representative democracy, to corporate fascism.

This administration may not have been competent at much of anything--not at preparing for or dealing with national disasters like Katrina, or preparing for or running a war, but they have been brilliant at things always associated with fascists:

• Propaganda
  
• Seizing control of the government away from the people (secret meetings with oil companies to create an "energy plan" that's only in their interest)
  
• Taking property away from the people (nationalizing formerly private owned companies, leaving the stockholders with nothing--Lehman Brothers stock went from around $70 to seventeen CENTS! Meanwhile--YOUR money is being used to bail out these corporations)

Done.

And--while YOUR MONEY is used to pay for this RISK, any profits from these corporations will be private. That's right--YOU PAY THE RISK, THEY REAP THE PROFITS. Is that fair?

They have basically bankrupted the country with tax cuts to ONLY the rich and corporations, then spending trillions on the war (which funnels money back to corporations.

Look at the national debt--right now we have no means of paying it off. Each citizen--THIS MEANS YOU--owes more than $31,000

Then, without really the money to do so, the government has NATIONALIZED the corporations that were the backbone of our economy--controlling money, stocks, mortgages. (And "nationalized" means they bought these companies with YOUR money, which, in a democracy, would mean you owned part of them--but that's now how Fascism works--here you have no ownership or control).

So, in a mere eight years, the Neo-cons have managed to take us from the Democracy of our Founding fathers, and, with little complaining from the press (also corporately controlled), turned the USA into a FASCIST STATE.

Some would call this a bloodless coup--but it required the deaths and mutilation of tens of thousands of Americans, and countless people of other nationalities.

What's so ironic is that Republicans have always tried to scare Americans with communism and the "Red menace" for years. Yet now, the "Neo-cons" (who only pretend to be conservative--they are radicals who only call themselves Republicans but don't reflect true Republican values, they are and have always been Fascists), have turned this country into exactly what they warned people away from--a totalitarian state that smothers the individual.

Meanwhile, the rich have fewer taxes, more money, and can now more easily buy your house at fire sale prices.

And you? YOU ARE WORTH LESS, if not WORTHLESS. Everything you own is worth less--except the gasoline in your car. If you owned a house, it was your biggest asset--and now it's worth 25-50% less than it was two years ago. That's less money for you, less security.

YOU ARE NOT PROTECTED. The government won't help you keep your house if you have a bad mortgage, one that lenders understood but you didn't. They have only bought up the lenders to control them. You can lose your house.

Traditionally socialist countries have nationalized health care. And some Socialism has worked in this country--Social Security and Medicare.

But in Fascism we won't get health care or any other form of protection--because Fascism is run for the corporations--and insurance and oil companies are making huge profits the way things are--they are both bleeding you dry.

YOU ARE ONLY A CONSUMER. Your only job is to shop, to spread your money around. That's your job in this new fascist state.

Now--you may be saying, "Hey, it's still a democracy, and we'll prove it in November with a presidential election."

Really? Like we proved it in 2000 when the Supreme Court took the unconstitutional step of selecting, instead of electing a president?

Like in 2004 where in Ohio and Florida there was widespread electronic voting machine fraud?

"Yes, I still get to vote," you cry. Well, you can vote all you want, but if your votes aren't counted correctly, then it doesn't matter--it's a sham, all for show. And with the takeover of electronic voting machines, with no paper trail, there's NO WAY TO TELL IF YOUR VOTE IS COUNTED. NONE.

And the company behind these machines, Diebold, is run by neo-cons, who can now decide who wins elections.

How do we stop the race to Fascism and move back to Democracy?

The only way is to make the election so obviously in favor of someone who is NOT part of the fascist plan. In this case that choice is Obama. Whether you like him or not--he is the only AMERICAN FOR DEMOCRACY on the ticket.

McCAIN FLIP FLOPPED so much he's pointing in the totally opposite direction of where he used to be. Palin is nothing more than a tool of the fascists, with the perfect smiling facade.

But don't be fooled--this Fascist takeover cannot be stopped by the very people who created it. Their goal, and the goal of the political machine behind them, is to continue the transformation to Fascism.

But--if the election is NOT close, if Obama has an 8 point lead, then hacking voting machines in a few states won't be the deciding factor as it was in the past.

IF YOU LOVE THE DEMOCRACY OF OUR FOUNDING FATHERS, AND YOUR FOREFATHERS, THEN YOU MUST VOTE FOR OBAMA.

Because the only way to stop the march of Fascism is to put people who love democracy in the white house. That's the only way to stop it now.

So the choice is clear.

McCAIN=FASCISM
(corporations rule)

OBAMA=DEMOCRACY
(of the people, by the people, for the people)

Which do you want? Which one will work for you--the people?

CHOOSE DEMOCRACY

McCain's tie and ties--who is he, a USED CAR SALESMAN?

McCain's odd candy-striped tie was NOT presidential.

In fact, his tie and ill-fitting suit both made him look like a used car salesman.

But a mere fashion faux paux is trivial--what's important is that McCain isa used policy salesman--Selling old, worn out, tired. FAILED.

And let's talk about McCains TIES to the people behind the failure of the savings and loans, behind the deregulation and current failure of banks. Those are the ties that bind.

And what about McCain's ties to lobbyists? He had an affair with one and then gave her lobby special treatment!

• Would you buy a country from a man like this?
  
  
• A man who lies even when it would be simple to tell the truth?
  
  
• A man who was in the middle of the failure of savings and loan failure, and is now in the middle of the biggest financial crisis since the great depression?
  
  
• A man who's best friend and financial advisor is Phil Gramm, who wrote the laws that deregulated the market--which caused this current crisis?

Why would we want to buy used failed policy from McCain?

We need a NEW model, new policy, new ideas--WE NEED CHANGE. We need OBAMA.

Palin - A RUSSIAN SPY TRYING TO TAKE OVER THE USA?

I AM AFRAID TO VOTE FOR SARAH PALIN, BECAUSE SHE COULD BE A RUSSIAN SPY!!!

SHE'S NOT A MOM, SHE'S A POLITICIAN--and maybe a SPY!

SHE NEVER HAD AN F.B.I. BACKGROUND check!!! For all we know, she could be a Russian spy. She lives close enough to Russia as Cindy McCain reminded us.

LAST YEAR SHE WANTED ALASKA TO LEAVE THE UNION, to stop being part of the USA.

She is so AGAINST OUR GREAT NATION that she was working to separate oil-rich Alaska from the rest of the U-S of A!!! She's not what anyone would call a patriot.

And why did she want to take Alaska and all it's oil? Did she want to give it to Russia?

And why would anyone want our next VP or president to have recently wanted to be no part of this country? She was Alaska first, NOT country first.

We don't know who she really is? Maybe she's going to kill McCain, take over the country, and then, at last, the Reds will have control over the USA.

We don't know, because McCain, in one of the hasty decisions even he has said he regrets, didn't leave enough time for a thorough background search.

Because McCain didn't care enough about this country to spend enough time looking for the person who would be president if he died.

McCAIN DOESN'T CARE ENOUGH TO SEND THE VERY BEST, and PALIN COULD BE A SPY. THAT'S UNAMERICAN.

Don't let the Red's take over the Red White and Blue!

DON'T VOTE FOR PALIN--IT COULD BE A SOVIET PLOT!!!

ARE YOU BETTER OFF NOW? No? Don't be DISTRACTED!!!

Palin's main job, which she is doing like a smart politician, whose main job is to be a DISTRACTION.

That's pure Karl Rove strategy. He ran the white house (into the ground) for 7 years. He started a war as pure politics! He traitorously exposed a CIA operative (doing that really is treason and there's proof he did it).

And his ploy is simple, yet effective"

Let's not talk about war, or the economy, or home foreclosures or gas prices.

No, let's talk about VP Barbie.

And, of course, it works, because the media is so shocking shallow, superficial and stupid. It used to be called the "fourth estate" like it was part of the US government Judicial/Legislative/Executive.

But it long ago shirked its responsibility in exchange for ratings. And for some reason, that has generally mean, "Pick Democrats to death while repeating Republican lies as truths and giving them a free pass."

I don't understand why Republicans get to lie and not be challenged on it, whereas if a Democrat does one little thing it's the end of the world (lipstick on a pig, anyone--another distraction). I don't get it. I don't see how the press benefits from attacking democrats and kissing Repugnantcan ass, but they do.

Maybe it's their corporate parents--but even then, Republicans are BAD for the economy. They have been for over 100 years. A recent study shows that the country and individuals do TWICE as well under a Democrat president than under a Republican.

It's not hard to figure out why. The Republican party is the party for the rich, greedy or stupid (and "no child left behind" was designed to keep people stupid by not really teaching, just forcing kids to remember--and believe--what they're told!). No wonder Republicans don't help. They don't have positive ideas, they just have negative attacks.

Not one major government project that really helps people--we're talking about Social Security, Medicare, things like that, has been created by Republicans--in fact, they always fight them, and then try to dismantle them (as Bush tried to do with Social Security--he would have put all our money into the sub-prime mortgages and the if Bush has his way--Social Security would have been wiped out. Maybe that was the plan, yet another way to suck all the money from the middle class and give it to the rich).

But it stinks. STINKS. And people are too stupid to smell it deserve to be lied to and cheated, as they have been for eight years.

But the 49% (or probably more) that does smell it--we don't deserve to be dropped into the dump because of the stupid people.

That's why we have to fight stupidity.

NOW, before it's too late.

Start by ignoring Sarah Palin (or admitting she could be a Russian spy!). Focus on the real problems of this country.

ARE YOU BETTER OFF NOW THAN YOU WERE EIGHT YEARS AGO?

OF COURSE NOT.

DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT.

Morning in America - SELL THE SUNSHINE!

Republicans are good at one thing--propaganda. They have no positive ideas at all, it's really sick and sad.

As for what to do:

1) McCAIN=BUSH - "the country can't afford four more years."

2) OBAMA=HOPE (he's kind of lost that message)

There's a great piece about the old "morning in america" ad Reagan ran. It was nauseating, but it was totally effective.

You have to sell people the dream, not the reality. You can't "convince" voters for president. You have to either promise them a sunny day, or make them afraid of the approaching storm.

Sunny is better.

Obama: It's NOT strategy, it's PERSONALITY!

I am seriously worried about Obama.

He's clearly being run into the ground by the same group of political hacks who undermined Gore. The giant "triangulation" brain idiots who don't realize that wasn't the thing that got Bill elected--it was Bill's personality. He could have said anything. Yet they're sure it was strategy, when it was just personality.

Now Obama's talking about drilling. What's next?

This is the most basic marketing mistake. You don't try to sell your product to people you know don't want it--yet that's what they're trying to do, and in doing so, they're making people who did want what he was selling less sure they want it.

So in the end, they're not persuading the non-believers and losing the believers. It's dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb.

Obama needs to stop listening to these political hacks, be himself again, and remember his most important job is to inspire! That it's not about strategy, it's about personality (stupid!)

I still do not understand how McCain can have 44% in polls--I know 25% of the public is either ignorant, insane or both. But what's wrong with that other 19%? Have they been in a coma for the past eight years? Have they not seen the country go to hell in a hand basket (I love this line, "Why am I in this hand basket and where are we going?"

If nothing else, have they not noticed the price of gas and wondered why Exxon made more profits than any corporation in US history and realized it's at their expense!

How can they be SO oblivious (or ignorant/insane).

So unless Obama gets back on track as "the Man from Hope" (hmm, I remember someone else named that, and he won!), then he's just going to be someone who's kind of like McCain, except more wishy-washy, and we know how the ignorant swing voters love wishy-washy (and how they won't remember that McCain has changed his stance on so many things since selling his soul to the GOP).

Sigh.

So, for the moment, I'm left not wanting to have too much hope because I'm afraid of being disappointed.

YOU OWE $31,302.33 - Thank Bush and Republicans

DO THE MATH! You CAN'T "Lower Taxes. Raise Spending. Balance the Budget."

"I'll lower taxes, raise spending on the war, and balance the budget." John McCain.

It started with Ronald Reagan and his famous "Reagonomics," which was code for, "I'm going to tell you I can do the impossible, because that sounds so much better than telling you the truth, and that's what you want to hear anyway."

That's like me saying, "I'm not going to earn as much money, I'm going to spend more, and yet somehow I am going to magically make my budget balance at the end of the month.

How? HOW?

DO THE FREAKING MATH, PEOPLE!

Amazingly, no one bothered to ask how Reagan would do it. The press simply never asked the question so he didn't have to answer.

And the result--the largest deficit in history--until now, of course.

Then President Clinton managed to not only pay off this deficit in record time, but turn it into a surplus.

Then along comes yet another Republican who, in nearly the blink of an eye, not only burns through the surplus but plunges the country into a unprecedented, huge deficit that, as of July 2008, is approximately $31,000 PER PERSON. That's right -- because of George W. Bush and Dick W. Cheney and the Republican W. Pimps in the congress and senate, you and your children owe over $31,000--and that's just for the deficit!

Um, let's see, WHEN ARE YOU GOING TO PAY IT OFF?

Huh?

It WILL come out of your pocket eventually.

The war debt alone is more than $10,000 PER PERSON!

Where will this money come from? Well, not from corporations, oh no, we can't tax them, that's bad for the economy! Gas companies, no, they're only making billions, that's not enough.

WTF?

By the way, the current national deficit is
9,528,997,575,696.25

I think that's a quadrillion, but it's so big I don't know, and so big none of us can envision that much. I can't even really envision a billion (a thousand million). But I can envision $31,000, I know what that will buy, and what you and I won't be able to buy as we have to spent it paying off George W. Bush's debt.

(See the National Debt Clock)

Drugs and Oil

I think medicine has been in decline ever since insurance and drug companies took over.

Now they're talking about giving cholesterol lowering drugs to kids as young as 8. That's really, really sick. They have no idea of the long term implications on kids, yet they are happy to risk the lives of millions of children (who will become millions of adults with as now unknown ailments because of it).

Why? So they can sell more drugs. The insurance companies will pay the pharma companies and it ensures that we all need MORE insurance and drugs. I'm suspicious of all those drugs, since you can get Red Yeast Rice at any health food store, it has the same NATURAL chemicals in very low dose, which works fine. Even then, don't give it to kids. Jesus F. Christ on a cracker.

What's amazing is that we have managed to grow into reasonably healthy human beings without it, and wow, our parents did and they ate eggs and bacon every day. How is that possible?

Pixar's Wall-E presents a wonderful and sad vision of humans in the future--a vision that "nanny corporations" are working tirelessly to achieve. They want to turn us into Matrix-like beings that do nothing but consume and spend.

And they're doing a great job of preparing us for this future, one news bite at a time.

Yesterday regular gas cost $4.45 a gallon in Northern California.

And yet I found myself being grateful it wasn't $6. Why? Because in that one day I'd I heard three different people say they'd heard gas was going to $8 a gallon! This after the "gas is going to $7 a gallon" a month or so ago.

This is clearly all designed to make us grateful to pay $4.45 now, and $6 (or $7!) in a year, because at least it's not $8. How adaptable we are! How stupid we are!

And the citizens of this country, most of whom are more like farm animals than people, are just going, "Oh, well," instead of getting furious and screaming, "Those f-ing fascists Bush and Cheney are screwing the entire economy so their friends can suck up all our money!"

Do they not remember that gas was under $1.50 a gallon in 2000? That even after 9/11 when it jumped to $1.70, it went back down?

It's only after the concerted efforts of the Bush Fascists (and they are fascists--because fascists are corporate-run governments), starting a war on the oilfields *partly out of the insane stupidity of thinking they could take over Iraq's oil, and partly because it was their way to getting total power--look people, we're in a war!) that gas is the price it is.

And when it's $7 or $8 this country's lifestyle is going to change drastically. No more WalMart "Buy it cheap while we screw everyone!" (which is a little like those psychological tests where normally people off the street would give apparently lethal shocks to other people because they were told to--not caring who they hurt because they were following orders and getting theirs).

No more relatively cheap food (yes, a loaf of bread is now an amazing $4, but our parents complained about bread when it was a quarter, and overall I'd say food is cheaper based on the value of the dollar). No more cheap clothes and cheap everything from China--too expensive to process and ship.

A LOT of jobs lost, as people can't pay for luxuries and entertainment (except people at the top end). I've read that the first thing people cut out are restaurants, movies, clothes. We are now mostly a service economy and people will cut out the services. Great.

But gas companies will still be making billions--and getting billions in tax breaks at a time when we have McCain going the Reaganomics route of saying, "I'll lower taxes and keep the war going and balance the budget."

How? HOW? Do the freaking math people! No one bothered to ask how Reagan would do it and he created what was, at the time, a gigantic deficit. Now we have one so huge (the war debt alone is more than $10,000 PER PERSON), where will this money come from? Well, not from corporations, oh no, we can't tax them, that's bad for the economy! Gas companies, no, they're only making billions, that's not enough.

WTF?

OK, enough of all that. I know that China and India's increasing need for gas has a little something to do with, and that mostly, we're over peak oil and we can't continue on this way forever, so rising prices and lower consumption can be a very good thing.

But there were smart ways to do all this and literally insane and stupid ways of doing this, and we have allowed the insane and stupid to chart our course. Sigh

More Republican lies about health care

Dick Armey is aptly named. This Republican corporate shill is once again attacking the idea of health care for all Americas by pulling out the same tired arguments.

And yet his argument now not only sounds tired, it sounds outright absurd, like something from a political bizarro world, where lies are truth and truth is irrelevant.

EVERYONE knows the American health care system is broken. Patients know it. Doctors know it. Employers and employees know it. The self-employed know it (they often can't get it).

EVERYONE knows that it's increasingly difficult (not to mention expensive) to get health insurance, and without it, we can either go bankrupt, or go without life saving medical care.

Everyone knows that every other industrialized country in the world has government run health care for all--care that works. My friends in Australia and Denmark simply can't believe that in the USA, the richest country in the world, our citizens are left to fend for themselves in an insanely expensive system, when they have no financial worries about health care. They need it, they get it.

So why, at a time when everybody knows this common obvious problem, does someone write an editorial, and Murdoch's WSJ print it, trying to say that a there's no problem, and a national health care system isn't an improvement.

This is a total throw-back to the ignorant and fact-deprived arguments of the past.

How long will Americans have to endure this kind of corporate pandering nonsense?

How long will some Republicans claim we can't afford health care for all Americans--when that is the SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT PART OF "NATIONAL SECURITY." Why is it Republicans have no problem throwing almost a TRILLION dollars at Iraq, which has only proven you can throw away a trillion dollars and end up with less security, but they can't spend one month's budget in Iraq to protect the health of all Americans?

How can you argue against truly protecting Americans like this? The townspeople should be chasing this monster with torches.

When's the last time we needed another nuclear missile? When's the last time you got sick? Everyone gets sick. We haven't used a nuclear weapon in over 50 years (nor should we).

This argument is the very definition of insanity, and it's repulsive that the WSJ is following the sick path of neo-cons who think that just because they say something it's true, even when everybody else knows they're false.

The day when they can simply repeat the same lies over and over and over are--over.

VOTE DEMOCRAT

First--I don't care who you vote for as long as they're a Democrat, or even a true conservative, such as Ron Paul.

Just don't vote for yet another hypocritical liar who says one thing and does another, who steals from the poor to give to the rich, who starts wars and kills hundreds of thousands with no good reason, and who is trying to undermine democracy and personal freedom at every turn.

OK?

That's not much to ask.

Next--While John Edwards was my first choice, since he's out of the race, I urge you to vote for either Hillary or Obama. Either one. Take your pick.

Either will seem like the height of competence and honor after eight years of total incompetence and dishonor.

Nobody knows how long it will take to undo all the damage the Cheney/Bush Regime has done to this country--and they've make it their priority destroy democracy and freedom as we've known it, and that's the only thing they've been successful doing!

But we all know that we have to change direction, that we have to try to repair the damage and move on.

As much as I used to respect McCain, he's shown in the past four years that he is willing to sell his integrity to the GOP, which is very sad. I'm sure he's fine man, but he hasn't demonstrated backbone, integrity and honor the past four years.

So--whether you want Obama's slick if calculated Kennedy-esque brand of Change, or Hillary's slick if calculated newfound warmth brand of Change--just choose one and vote.

Vote with your money, vote with your voice, vote with your vote.

The Reagan Playbook of Presidential Platitudes

There's a candidate out there, I'm not going to name names, who others find inspiring and personally I have so far found unconvincing.

Why? Because this candidate is a Democrat who's selling a 21st century "Morning in America" shtick straight from the Reagan Playbook of Presidential Platitudes.

I remember hearing this all before.

Then again, I think it's meant for a young audience who will find it all very new and inspiring.

While it doesn't make me think less of this candidate, it makes it difficult to see who they really are beneath the rhetoric.

The good news is that there are still two liberal candidates in the race, and it's still a race, so the media hasn't been able to declare a winner without even an election.

So Vote.

Why I'm for John Edwards

(Postscript: Edwards exits with honor) Salon Magazine's Walter Shapiro wrote a great piece about Edwards's exit:

"Edwards ran boldly as a unabashed heart-on-his-sleeve, union-windbreaker-on-his-back old-fashioned populist. As the most liberal (whoops, progressive) major Democratic presidential contender in more than two decades, Edwards walked the picket lines and spoke passionately of poverty and injustice.

What Edwards offered -- through all the debilitating and often irrelevant flaps over haircuts, hedge funds and humongous houses -- was an opportunity to return the Democratic Party to its blue-collar roots. As he put it with characteristic fervor Wednesday, "I don't know when our party began to turn away from the cause of working people, from the fathers who were working three jobs literally just to pay the rent, mothers sending their kids to bed wrapped up in their clothes and in coats because they couldn't afford to pay for heat."

...Edwards requested only one thing when he telephoned Obama and Hillary Clinton Tuesday night to confide that he was considering withdrawing before the Feb. 5 primaries.

What Edwards asked for and received was a commitment from his erstwhile rivals that they make the eradication of poverty a central theme in their campaigns."

This is the kind of man who would have made a president for the people, and will, I imagine, continue to make a positive difference in this country and world.

--------------------------------------------------------------

A president is elected, because people like them, even trust them, to do the right thing.

John Edwards has the charisma, warmth--and experience it takes to be win the election and make a good president. While the president is perhaps the most difficult and important job in the world (I say that from the POV of an American!), it's also one where intelligence and even their stated goals aren't the most important thing--their personality is.

When I see John Edwards speak I trust him to do the right thing. He'll stand up for what's right, rather than just what's politically convenient. Here's a strong statement he makes about giving all Americans health care (rather than the ones who can afford whatever the insurance companies may demand, and are then lucky if they're not canceled if they get sick).

Here's Edwards talking about his Patients Bill of Rights--he's fighting for you and me, not insurance companies, or pharmaceutical firms:

“When I’m president I’m going to say to members of Congress and members of my administration, including my cabinet: I’m glad that you have health care coverage and your family has health care coverage. But if you don’t pass universal health care by July of 2009 – in six months – I’m going to use my power as president to take your health care away from you. There’s no excuse for politicians in Washington having health care when you don’t have health care.

Why do I support Edwards? Because I think he's the most "real" honest and connected of the candidates. Hillary is brilliant and would make a fine president, but she's a political animal, and so while things may get passed, they will get watered down along the way. Obama is a fine man,
but he speaks in political platitudes. I've listened to his Iowa speech and he speaks as if he's a presidential hallmark card. All very nice and grand, Regan-esque in its lack of specifics.

John Edward talks like a smart, caring man.

Hillary and Obama are playing political games, waiting to vote on issues regarding the war until they see how the other votes. We don't have time for games, we need action.

Watch Edwards' speech after Iowa--he talks about people, about health, about jobs. Unlike the others, Barak and Clinton, he speaks in specifics--what needs to be done for the people of this country.


And here's an American who lost his job talking about what Edwards said to his son:

Go to Edwards' site and see more.

Let's hope true conservatives make a comeback

I'm a democrat, but I'm hoping true conservatives make a come back? Why? Because real conservatives who want less government interference (along with lower taxes) are libertarians. They support freedom and the constitution. They are, in short, everything current so-called Republicans aren't. And currently, the only true conservative I know is Ron Paul.

They're what Republicans used to be about before they turned into neo-CONS, con-men and out-and-out liars who sell the idea you can lower taxes, raise spending and eliminate the deficit at the same time. That all started with Reagan. It was "tell people what they want to hear and they'll buy it," which they did.

That was bad enough, but then it degraded into "Tell people what we want them to believe, and they will," and they did.

The same Republicans who said they were against big government have created the biggest, most intrusive governments in US history (this also started with Reagan) with the biggest deficits to match.

They worked to build the Federal government into a frightening power that steals control from the states (and individual citizens!), defeating one of the most basic protections the founding fathers fought for--keeping federal powers in check.

They systematically remove oversight from corporations while making the government more intrusive in personal lives. That means they have, in a few (but seemingly endless) years, turned our democracy into something not far from a true regime (one where corporations control government).

The Feds are now run in great part by corporations. This is especially true of energy companies , one reason the US went to war--oil (argue all you want, but it's painfully true).

Energy companies also crafted the governments still mostly energy policy--Cheney's still never had to say who he met with or how they formed the policy--much less what the policy really is.

Meanwhile, gas prices have more than doubled since Bush took office. Why aren't Americans outraged? Especially when oil company profits reach new levels of greed. I believe companies should make a profit, but making more of a profit when the country is bleeding money into oil companies coffers is outrageous un-American price-gouging. Yet it's precisely what the neo-CONs are doing--redistributing the wealth of the country from individuals to a select group of corporations.

The "Republicans" in control now are not Republicans in the classic sense, hence the "neo-CON." They are, in fact, radicals who are working tirelessly to undermine the very roots of democracy.

They got a president in office who wasn't elected, through the Supreme Court, which was itself unconstitutional and a radical violation of constitutional law.

They have given the president unprecedented powers, while idiotically limited their own in the house and senate. And we've seen now how hard the Executive branch has been working to turn the Justice department, one of the balances of their power, into a tool for their power.

In the mean time, Democrats have been turned into "conservatives," trying to protect the constitution and protect individuals from the ever-escalating and out of control federal government. That used to be what Republicans said they were doing to protect us from Democratic socialist ideas--like Medicare!

There are still true conservatives in the Republican party, and they've been disgusted by what "their" party has foisted on America--and the world.

The trouble is, the neo-cons are good at really only one thing--propaganda. They're brilliant at it, just like all fascists must be in order to control citizens.

Fear is the big motivator. Greed is #2. They play on people's most base emotions and fears to control them--and make people want to be controlled.

They're also masters of language. Recently the escalation of the was was called a "surge" and the Democrats stupidly bought into it.

You cannot win using their language. Democrats needed to call it an escalation, and they need to start saying that the current administration is immoral--which it is. Lying. Stealing. Killing. All immoral. All Bush administration highlights.

Paul uses this word several times, including "an immoral monetary system," and "Though opposition to totally unnecessary war should be the only moral position"

Words like Morality and Immoral have been warped and perverted by the Neo-cons, but when people stop and think what those words really mean to them, then they start to see that they don't mean starting wars, killing and maiming people, and allowing corporations to rape our treasury and plunge us into debt (some of the worst corporate offenders, like Halliburton are actually leaving the US for the protection of the middle east, while others simply have offshore money laundering operations as efficient as those of the drug cartels!)

I have no beef with true conservatives. People who truly want to defend freedom and civil rights. Those who are against big government interference in our lives.

That said, I hope that those same people will also realize that a national health system, or an affordable insurance guarantee system is not big government, but good government, one that's really working for the security of the people.

Meanwhile, let's hope that Republicans stop being radical fascists and go back to being true Republicans again.

It's called the DEFENSE DEPARTMENT and NOT the OFFENSE DEPARTMENT

Republicans keep trying to act as if they're heros because of 9/11.

The truth is the Bush administration and Republican majority needs to take responsibility for 9/11 happening in the first place!

Of course, they don't take responsibility for anything. Not for starting a war. Not for the massive deficit. Not for unemployment and a weak economy. Not for the loss of American jobs. They preach "personal responsibility" merely as a way of trying to avoid their own responsibility.

Sep 11 happened under the watch of A REPUBLICAN PRESIDENT AND MAJORITY.

That's unarguable. They might try to say that Clinton's years in office allowed it to happen, but in truth, the Clinton administration met daily--with the president, to counter-terrorism.

Did we have a terrorist attack during the Clinton administration? No.

Did we have a terrorist attack during the Bush administration? Yes. The Bush administration ignored the situation, ignored memos reading, "Bin Laden Determined to Strike United States." That's not Clinton's fault, that's clearly Bush's fault.

Now some candidates, including the formerly centrist and only recently right-wing Romney (and of course Mr. Cheney, with his massive public support of a 9%, probably the lowest of any politician in US history!) is claiming the Democrats want the US to go back on the "defensive."

That's right. We do.

Our military is called The DEFENSE DEPARTMENT and not The OFFENSE DEPARTMENT. It's called that for good reason--the US is not supposed to start wars. We are supposed to finish them. Prevent them if possible.

But the Bush administration didn't allow the defense department to plan the offense, Rumsfeld and Rove and Wolfowitz and their political cronies planned it (if you can call what they did planning), over the heads and the objections of the trained military generals.

Yet have men take responsibility for their mistakes? No. Have they taken responsibility for 9/11 and the attacks on American soil in the first place? No.

Finally, virtually everything the Bush administration has said or done regarding this offensive and unnecessary war has been wrong since the start. And yet they keep acting as if doing more of the same will make it better.

The very definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting different results. What does that say about the Bush administration and their "plans" for the future?

Think about it. Yes, THINK. They don't want you to, but you can. It even feels good. You'll be so proud of yourself. Give it a try.

Health insurance – unattainable or unaffordable

I’m mad as hell, and it’s not good for my health, which is a problem, because in a few months I may not have health insurance.

I was careless enough to have been sick in the past, which, in insurance parlance means I have a pre-existing condition which means that no insurance company in the US will sell me an individual health insurance policy. Not one.

What’s worse is that without insurance, I pay five to ten times more for healthcare than insurance companies. That’s right. I had a colonoscopy without insurance and it cost $5,000. And insurance company would pay around $1,200 for the same procedure with the same doctors and facilities.

That’s the exact opposite of how it should be. If you can’t afford insurance, you certainly can’t afford to pay five times more than insurance companies do. And yet, if you’re “self-insured” (meaning it all comes out of your pocket), doctors and hospitals charge you much, much more.

The only way I might possibly get individual health insurance is through a special “high-risk” group in California, but the cost is almost $1,500 a month, and I literally have to wait for other people in that group to die before there’s space for me to join.

That makes health insurance unattainable.

Anyone who’s ever been really sick knows that without your health you have nothing. Yet this most basic need of its citizens is not only ignored by the government of the United States of America.

This government is more concerned about the corporate well being of insurance and drug companies, than the individual well being of American citizens. That’s the very definition of fascism, which a most famous fascist, Mussolini, called “Corporatism.”

Why haven’t the Republicans, who have been in total power for the past six years, bothered with health care? Because they’re in the pockets of insurance companies, and pharmaceutical companies, all of who are making billions with the current system. Why would they want to change?

Proof positive of this is the prescription drug plan for seniors, a plan so needlessly complex and convoluted that a majority of seniors aren’t taking advantage of it because they can’t understand it. As an example, a senior could accidentally sign up for a certain type of plan that might not even cover their specific prescriptions! Plans cover seniors for a few thousand dollars, then inexplicably leaves them without coverage for a few thousand dollars more, than covers them again. Huh? What kind of insanity is that?

The same kind of insanity that leads lawmakers to write into the law a clause that prevents the government from negotiating with drug makers on drug prices. Medicare can do this. Private insurance companies can do this. But wait, the US government plan for seniors can’t. Who profits? Only the drug companies.

The Republican politicians in power, from the President on down through the Congress and Senate, already all get the best Federal Health insurance. Why can’t these politicians give their constituents the same health coverage they get?

They say, “It’s too expensive.” Really? You could pay for this system simply by raising income tax on the top 2% of taxpayers to the pre-Bush levels. Just 2% of the population. That means people earning over $200,000 a year. That’s probably not you and me, and if it is you, you can afford it.

I’m lucky to have insurance now, and only do because of a government law called HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) that forces insurance companies to allow me to buy a policy because my previous group policy was canceled. HIPAA protects health insurance coverage for workers and their families when they change or lose their jobs, or when policies are canceled.

In my case, I had a group insurance policy through a group called the Media Alliance. They offered insurance to their members for 30 years, until last year when insurance companies claimed they weren’t a legitimate group, even though they had been for the 30 previous years. Bunk.

My current insurance company offered me a choice: I could go from paying $400 a month, to paying $1,400 a month. I guess I was supposed to be grateful to be offered this by the same insurance company I’d paid for three years to the tune of almost $15,000. In return, I’d received maybe $3,000 in benefits. So they’d made $12,000 profit from me, and now would reward me by only charging me $1,400 a month. I declined their offer to earn more profit from me in a single year than they’d made in the previous three.

Or I could take advantage of HIPAA to find another policy for $500 a month, which I did. But HIPAA only protects you for 12 months after which, you’re out in the cold.

What do I do then? There are still some “Professional Associations, Guilds and Societies (groups you can join if you meet certain professional criteria) that offer group insurance. This insurance costs $600 a month, at least until the end of the year, but they’ve announced “major rate increases” that suggest it will cover $1,000 a month.

That’s unaffordable.

So far, after months of research, I’ve yet to find one high-deductible plan in California that basically only covers major medical or hospitalization (and allow me to pay the same “negotiated rates” as insurance companies, not 5 to 10 times more as individuals, as they do now).

I’ve yet to find any group insurance that offers access to a “Health Savings Account,” yet another government law that’s so complex it manages to exclude most of the people who could use it. Why can’t anyone just have a Tax-exempt Health Savings Account without first having to find an insurance company that will accept them? Clearly because the insurance company is more important than you are.

I just want a policy that protects me in case of something major, not everyday stuff. And yet, that’s not an option (or at least not one I’ve found and I’ve been researching this for over two years).

US only industrialized nation not to protect its citizens

You surely already know that the United States it the only industrialized nation that doesn’t offer national health insurance. It is truly, deeply sad (and pathetic) that this country can spend hundreds of billions on a war that was based on lies, but we can’t afford to take care of our own people. In the US, we spend more money on health care than any other country. Yet we do not receive the best health care. What’s worse, almost 50 million Americans can either not get, or afford health care.

According to The World Health Organization “The U. S. health system spends a higher portion of its gross domestic product than any other country but ranks 37 out of 191 countries according to its performance,” The United Kingdom, which spends just six percent of gross domestic product (GDP) on health services, ranks 18th .”

The US needs a national healthcare system—and already has a good one—Medicare. But you can only get it of you’re over 65 years old.

Medicare operates with administrative costs of just 2.6%.
The average HMO operate with administrative costs of 25.2%.

That means Government health insurance is 10 times more efficient than private health insurance. That’s good sense and good business.

If the government can provide good, efficient care for 1/10^th the cost of private insurance, shouldn’t they be doing it?

It would save the entire country billions, which would, in turn, increase the GNP for business (and, as a nice side effect, help all American citizens with their health care...)

I’ve heard the arguments against a national health system, but my many friends in countries such as the UK, Denmark and Australia, are all happy with their health care systems. They don’t have to worry about it. It’s there.

In Australia, if you’re in an auto accident, not only are all your medical expenses covered, but so is your physical therapy, so is any home care you require (including child care, cooking and house cleaning).

In Australia, if you are in an auto accident, the government makes sure you are properly taken care of. In the US, if you are in an auto accident, you are on your own. Even if you have expensive insurance it may not cover home care and most certainly won’t cover child care, cooking or cleaning.

Based on that—where would you rather get sick or injured?

The US system is most expensive, but not best.

Medicine here is now controlled by insurance companies who tell doctors what they can and can’t do. And by malpractice insurance companies who tells doctors what they should and shouldn’t do. And by pharmaceutical companies that push drugs because they are easy.

I went to an expensive doctor in one of the richest counties in the country. He looked at my blood tests, not at me, and he gave me what I call “medicine by the numbers.” If your blood number is this, we do that.

He didn’t bother to see what other health issues I had or other medications I was taking. He treated me as if I was a machine rather than a human being who might be even slightly different from other human beings.

So we’re in a system where even expensive doctors can be bad doctors, because they are working under so many constraints that they choose the simplest route that will cause them the fewer liability problems.

And a recent study even showed that there are many doctors in this country who still don’t wash their hands regularly between patients!

Doctors aren’t happy with this system that controls and often prevents them from providing the best health care options to their patients. A system that can even prevent patients from being treated as individual human beings. A system where insurance companies pay them too little, while simultaneously charge them so much for malpractice insurance that it can put them out of business.

As for choice of doctors, if you have insurance, your choice is already limited. You can use a doctor who’s in the program and the insurance will pay a higher percentage, or one who isn’t, and if you’re in an HMO your insurance won’t cover it, if you’re in a PPO they’ll pay a much lower percentage (sometimes as low as 20%).

So a national program would actually give you more choice.

It would also give you more protection.

Right now your private health insurance company can stop you from getting treatment. If they don’t think the treatment is valid or cost-effective, they can deny it, which means they don’t pay for it. Every day valid treatment is denied and people have to sue their own health insurance companies to get the coverage they’ve been paying for. This doesn’t happen with national health care systems.

What this country needs:

The right to be able to buy health insurance you can afford, that will protect your home if you get sick. Right now you can go bankrupt paying medical bills.

Every other industrialized nation already does this, so the health of their citizens is taken care of. It’s clearly possible. All it takes is for politicians to put their constituents ahead of corporations. Will that happen? I will if you make it an issue, tell your elected representatives it’s important to you—and most importantly—vote them out of office if they fail to put citizens health before corporate profit.