Another ill-informed conservative argument on health care reform

Caroline Baum, a columnist for Bloomberg News, had this to say in an August 12 column about health care reform:

Take the issue of a public option. How can the private insurance industry survive with a not-for-profit government plan charging a pittance?
Ms. Baum has overlooked some basic facts that would undermine this claim. Namely, in America, there are public universities competing with private universities, public hospitals competing with private hospitals, public libraries competing with private bookstores, and a public post office competing with private package delivery companies. To cite an even more obvious example, there are already public, not-for-profit government plans like Medicare competing with private insurers. Even in Europe, where most countries already offer universal public health coverage, private insurers still operate. In none of these instances has the public alternative put private competitors out of business. Why on earth would this suddenly change if the U.S. Congress created a public health insurance option?

Continue ReadingAnother ill-informed conservative argument on health care reform

Brownshirt guards prevent free-wheeling discussion at the Creation Museum

It's almost unbelievable. I suppose that too many thinking people were wandering in and criticizing the faux-science exhibits at the "evolution science" museum in Kentucky. Apparently, Ken Ham and his Creation Museum team simply can't stand it when people talk real science in their "museum." They'll shut you up and kick you out. PZ Myers gives a detailed description of his visit, and it's well worth reading the entire thing. It's pretty amazing that a "museum" would so unabashedly attempt to stifle all thinking. Myers almost can't believe his own eyes and ears. Stifling thinking? But that's how it is in most fundamentalist churches too. Fall in line or else. Pretend you know things you don't really know. Pretend that you don't know things that you do know. This is the foundation for an incredibly screwed up community, and the fundamentalists want to export it to the public schools too.

Continue ReadingBrownshirt guards prevent free-wheeling discussion at the Creation Museum

More reasons to be pessimistic

I wish I could be more upbeat today, but I feel great danger all around us and what makes this danger real and pressing is our complacency. We Americans could meaningfully address many of our biggest issues, if only we took the time to inform ourselves and then focused our energy. But too many Americans don't take the time to inform themselves and can't bear the thought of prying themselves from their HD TVs. The result is that the social and corporate forces that are smart and organized will continue to quietly slink around picking our pockets on a massive scale; in the process, they will continue to insidiously demoralize us. Consider this: We have never before seen such income inequity in the United States. It is now even greater than it was during the Great Depression. Paul Krugman indicates that as of 2007, the top decile of American earners . . . pulled in 49.7 percent of total wages. He further indicates that "as a result, in the economic expansion of 2002-2007, the top 1 percent captured two thirds of income growth." These aren't just numbers. This disparity means real-life lost opportunities for real people, and I'm not just referring to the opportunity to buy an even bigger TV set. It means that month by month, this country belongs less and less to you and more and more to someone who doesn't give a rat's ass about you. I'm sorry to be so blunt, but there is no evidence for thinking otherwise. Which leads me to a stunning article written by Chris Hedges: "It's Not Going to Be OK." He starts by characterizing Barack Obama as "a mortal waving a sword at a tidal wave." What is the concern?

At no period in American history has our democracy been in such peril or has the possibility of totalitarianism been as real. Our way of life is over. Our profligate consumption is finished. Our children will never have the standard of living we had. And poverty and despair will sweep across the landscape like a plague. This is the bleak future. There is nothing President Obama can do to stop it. It has been decades in the making. It cannot be undone with a trillion or two trillion dollars in bailout money. Our empire is dying. Our economy has collapsed.

How will we cope with our decline? Will we cling to the absurd dreams of a superpower and a glorious tomorrow or will we responsibly face our stark new limitations? Will we heed those who are sober and rational, those who speak of a new simplicity and humility, or will we follow the demagogues and charlatans who rise up out of the slime in moments of crisis to offer fantastic visions? Will we radically transform our system to one that protects the ordinary citizen and fosters the common good, that defies the corporate state, or will we employ the brutality and technology of our internal security and surveillance apparatus to crush all dissent? We won’t have to wait long to find out.

The great danger is our massively widespread passivity at a time when we desperately need informed and focused action. Our passivity and our ubiquitous proud ignorance make us susceptible to the next demagogue to come around. And we'll probably be sitting around watching it happen on TV and convincing ourselves that it's not so bad and that it was all inevitable and who cares about those olden days when the rest of the world actually looked up to the United States? [Thanks to BJ for his link to the Hedges article.]

Continue ReadingMore reasons to be pessimistic

The Wagons are circling!

While reading the Wall Street Journal this morning (courtesy of my hotel) I was appalled, but unsurprised, to read two extremely partisan opinion pieces on Obama's healthcare proposals and the 'reaction' to them. In a piece entitled "The Health Care Grail", William McGurk clearly criticizes the White House, who "yesterday unveiled a new White House Web site accusing critics of scaring Americans 'with half truths and outright lies'". Unsurprisingly, Mr McGurk makes no mention that this is indeed a valid, and independently substantiated, criticism of the astroturf campaign against healthcare reform. Instead he attempts to make the case that this administration's healthcare reform proposals are a "Doctrine" and that "the president and his allies see disagreement over health care as less a political dispute than the trampling of sacred doctrine"

Continue ReadingThe Wagons are circling!

When language fails

"War is what happens when language fails." --Margaret Atwood Yesterday the New York Times ran a piece by Sheryl Gay Stolberg about the recent disruptions to town hall meetings that were convened to discuss health care reform. Stolberg points out that this sort of "activism" subverts the democratic process. It is aimed not at furthering, but at overwhelming public discourse:

The traditional town hall meeting, a staple of Congressional constituent relations, had been hijacked, overrun by sophisticated social-networking campaigns — those on the right protesting so loudly as to shut down public discourse and those on the left springing into action to shut down the shutdowns.
(I once tried to discuss the first Gulf War with a dittohead, back in the day. He shouted at me for fifteen minutes; every now and then he yelled, "What do you say to that?" I couldn't say anything, it would've been like shouting into a full force gale.) Meanwhile, Snopes has an email making the rounds that claims that Obama's proposed health care reform bill mandates "euthanasia counseling" for seniors. Another pleads, "Please do not let Obama sign senior death warrants." Health care reform is just one front on a larger American skirmish, of course; one that's been going on for most of my lifetime. I was a child of the 60's, when social upheaval was just as marked as it is now. But in the 60's, the country was in good economic shape. And the outrage then really did originate at the grassroots. Today, tough economic times and the specter of America's gradually waning superpowers have intensified the culture wars. So have the right-wing media, which love to whip up hysteria, religious fanaticism, and paranoia--anything to further their political agenda. The town hall shoutfests, like the teabag protests earlier this year, may be Astroturf, but they tap into real, and fairly widespread, fear and rage. Lies, misinformation, and attempts to obstruct civil discourse make good-faith dialogue difficult if not impossible. How far will they go, and how do we overcome them? And if we can't, could the U.S. descend into another civil war? (Surely not. That's my imagination working overtime, fueled by my own paranoia. Isn't it?)

Continue ReadingWhen language fails