Liberal Values Defending Liberty and Enlightened Thought
Recent PostsFree RSS News Feeds - Combining FeedsPAT ROBERTSON, NEIL CAVUTO, FOX ANTICHRISTS: WOE UNTO YOU THAT ARE RICH!
( Tom and I do not agree on sex and politics, where I consider the state has no business varying civil law for reasons of private sexual practice - how does that work anyway? - but there are times I love to read him regardless.And no, 'Private' is not the same as 'Secret'; nor is 'Sexual Activity' a synonym for 'Child Abuse' or 'Rape' - an equal opportunity depravity - unless a child is the object of it. )
Last Left Turn B4 Hooterville
trying to make sense out of insanity after the 2004 election
Friday, July 24, 2009
So Beautiful It Made Me Cry
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
In Which My Virtual Self and Real Self Meet: Netroots Nation In Second Life - August 13-16, 2009
Is this a social blog? No. Do I post YouTube stuff here? No. Is this I Can Haz Cheezburger? No. I don't do LOLcats here. But this wedding video was so beautiful it made me cry. What an original and joyous way to start your married life.
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
In Which My Virtual Self and Real Self Meet: Netroots Nation In Second Life - August 13-16, 2009
For the past few months I have been leading a Second Life. SL is an avatar-based virtual world - sort of a 3-D video chat room, if you will - where people with common interests can get together and create a virtual environment, complete with tools for integrating streaming audio, video, chat, IM, some web, and various sorts of social media. I joined because of my friend General JC Christian, who started a progressive group there called Cafe Wellstone, and did a virtual book signing there at Jackson Street Books, but soon found out that there was music in Second Life also. I began doing live gigs there singing and playing keyboards, streaming audio in real time for a real audience that I could see and interact with - albeit with a 7-second delay!
I wrote about my Second Life gigs as the lovely Idella Quandry a little while ago, so I won't belabor them, other than to let you know that I am now doing a regular Thursday night online from 8-10 PST (which, fortunately for me, is Second Life time as well) and that you can tune in on the web as well as in Second Life. I'll put the info to hear it at the bottom of the post.
Jimmy Carter: Losing His Religion, Keeping His Faith
Jimmy Carter, once again, proves that he knows - and lives - the true meaning of Christianity. A couple of days ago he wrote an article called "Losing My Religion For Equality". The lede is "Women and girls have been discriminated against for too long in a twisted interpretation of the word of God." In the article, he lays out the reasons that he is severing his ties with the Southern Baptist Convention after 60 years of membership.My heart goes out to him. I can only imagine how difficult that must have been. As a former Catholic and present liberal Christian (who is not quite smart enough to be an atheist) I have eschewed any formal denomination, because of the actions of many who call themselves Christians. I am a Christian because I believe the teachings of Jesus show the way to the highest, most moral and sane way to live. I also know that many who call themselves Christian will say that I'm not one. But they're right - hopefully, I'm not the same kind of Christian that they are.
( When father took services at Fundy National Park in New Brunswick { Canada } one summer, he would be bemused by the number of Roman Catholics who would be 15 minutes into the service - Holy Catholic { England} instead of Roman Catholic - before they realized they were in the 'wrong' church!
And when it comes to Xians - I've started calling them by what I believe they must be in actuality : Satanists. What else would you call people who teach hate and call it peace? )
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Thanks, Governator - No Taxes for Corps, No CSUN For Sam
I picked up my son last night from a jazz jam session at Cal State Northridge, the college that he was planning on attending, and that the director of the jazz band was helping him get in to."How did it go?" I asked him, noticing that his body language was not what it usually was after playing music. He was slumped, silent, as he got into the car.
"Not so good," he replied. Not so good? How could a jam not be good?
"I'm not getting into CSUN," he said. "The director said that the budget cuts had eliminated the place he was getting me into." He was afraid I'd be mad at him. I just hugged him, speechless.
I've been meaning for a while to post about the real-life effects of the implementation of 'conservative values', which is the basic premise of my book The Price of Right. Since the systematic dismantling of the New Deal beginning with Reagan, wages have not kept pace with prices, and the idea that the government is the enemy and Big Business is your friend has replaced the idea of government as a mechanism of the people to "promote the general welfare" of the country as a whole - in other words, to do collectively what is not possible to do individually, such as police, fire departments, defense, national infrastructure. If profit is the only motivator, why provide these things to less-than-profitable markets? This is the whole point of 'insurance' - to pool resources so that all may benefit. (Or does it only work when a company stands to make a profit from it?) But the myth of the invincibility of the 'free market' (which is not at all free or fair) has superseded the idea that we as a nation can meet our own needs. The idea that private is always better and more efficient than public has turned out disastrously for all but those who 'corner the market'. Collective bargaining has been replaced by paternalism and 'hoping for the best'. The balance between public and private has become completely lopsided, and the casualties have been those who can least afford it.
Case in point - in California, the UC system, once the crown jewel of America's higher education - a state which once pledged to make college free and available to all Californians, and succeeded - has now been slashed to the bone by the Governator, along with health and human services, so as not to offend corporations by (Heaven forbid) raising taxes. And the fed refuses to help California, while it bails out private marauders. And the marauders themselves, fat with the largess of the American taxpayer? Ellen Brown says:
I am sick to death of the idea of "what's good for business is good for America".Four Wall Street banks, which received $15-25 billion each from the taxpayers, have rejected California's IOUs because the State is supposedly a bad credit risk. The bailed out banks would seem to have a duty to lend a helping hand, but they say they don't want to delay an agreement on further austerity measures. State legislators are not bowing quickly to the pressure, but what is the alternative?
In the latest twist to the California budget saga, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, and JPMorgan Chase (which each got $25 billion in bailout money from the taxpayers) and Bank of America (which got $15 billion) have refused California's request for a loan to tide it over until October. Until the State can get things sorted out, it has started paying its creditors in IOUs ("I Owe You's" or promises to pay bearing interest, technically called registered warrants). Its Wall Street creditors, however, have refused to take them. Why? The pot says the kettle is a poor credit risk!
California expects to need to issue only about $13 billion in IOUs through September, and all its Governor has asked for in the way of a loan from the federal government is a guarantee for $6 billion. Total loans, commitments and guarantees to rescue the financial sector and stem the credit crisis have been estimated at $12.8 trillion. But California has not been invited to the banquet. The total sum California needs to balance its budget is $26.3 billion. That is about the same sum given to Citigroup, Wells Fargo and JPMorgan in bailout money; and it is only about one-tenth the sum given to AIG, a mere insurance company. Corporations evidently trump States and their citizens in the eyes of the powers controlling the purse strings. California has a gross domestic product of $1.7 trillion annually and has been rated the world's eighth largest economy. Its 38.3 million people are one-eighth of the nation's population and a key catalyst for U.S. retail sales. When the California consumer base falters, businesses are shaken nationwide. If AIG and the other Wall Street welfare recipients are too big to fail, California is way too big to fail.
Guess what? It's not!
Greed is not good. Greed has put us where we are today. And greed continues to take us down - greed disguised as 'personal responsibility', greed disguised as the 'invisible hand of the free market', greed disguised as the metaphor 'wealth=morality'.
And the Governator is following obediently in Reagan's footsteps; first, destroy California's university system, then prop up the corporations on the backs of the poor and the sick.
St. Ronnie must be so proud of how you're Terminating Cali, Mr. Governator! I'm sure he's smiling down on you from his fluffy cloud in the sky.
Wait - no; it's only gas.
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Single Payer - Marcy Winograd's Excellent Article!
The insurance companies are fighting for their lives - they are cornered and therefore the most dangerous. They (and their cronies) are trying to paint Single Payer advocates (i.e. most Americans!) as some kind of marginal, fringe loonies. And the concept of the 'public/private partnership' is a recipe for failure.There are no federal government cost projections for single payer. If there were, we would see that the beneficiaries would be the public. But we do have the projections for public/private.
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Single-Payer Health Care - Can We 'Fight the Power'?
The problem with health care has nothing to do with health care.The problem is the same problem we have with every issue of importance in this country - corporate money, which equals corporate influence.
Any legislator who wants what's best for the American people instead of what will further enrich the corporations - who have inserted the necessity for a 'profit margin' for people who do not themselves provide health care, but who profit through denying it - is quickly reminded that supporting single-payer health insurance will lead, not only to the loss of campaign money, but to the supporting of the candidacy of an opponent more amenable to the corporate point of view.
Make no mistake, friends - once you reach the hallowed halls of public office, the principles that impelled you to seek that office come smack up against the power structure in Washington. It's easy to make impassioned campaign promises based on your convictions, but not so easy to implement them once you get there. Too much money and power is at stake in the lucrative fields of private insurance, for-profit hospitals and Big Pharma.
Single-Payer is not "government-run medicine". We already have that in the VA system, where the providers work directly for and are paid by the government. Single-Payer is simply having one administrative body that pays health providers. Here's the Wikipedia definition of single-payer:
Single-payer health care is a term used in the United States to describe the payment of doctors, hospitals, and other health care providers from a single fund. It differs from typical private health insurance where, through pricing and other measures taken by the insurer, the level of risks carried by multiple insurance pools as well as the coverage can vary and the pricing has to be varied according to the contribution of risk added to the pool. It is often mentioned as one way to deliver universal health care. The administrator of the fund could be the government but it could also be a publicly owned agency regulated by law.Here's more about single-payer from Physicians for a National Health Program.
Insurance works by pooling risk. The larger the pool, the less each participant has to pay. But private, for-profit insurance companies game the system and boost their profits by excluding those who actually need medical care from their pools. Having a 'pre-existing condition' automatically disqualifies you from most private insurers. The result is that most Americans - even comfortably middle-class Americans - are one major illness away from bankruptcy.
This is absolutely criminal. Physicians for a National Health Program's tagline is "Health Care is a Human Right", and I believe that. Not only is it a human right, but it is beneficial for our country to have a healthy populace. The money saved by people being able to have access to preventive care, and comprehensive care when they need it would be staggering. If you are able to catch an illness such as cancer by a regular screening and early detection, instead of in a late stage which requires millions of dollars in treatment - do the math! If you are able to be treated by a doctor when you need it instead of ending up with a $100,000 emergency room bill because you don't have insurance - do the math! If you are able to get stay healthy, you won't be spreading disease to other healthy people. And don't forget about productivity; healthy people contribute a lot more to the economy than sick people - do the math!
How Social Discourse Keeps Bottoming Out
Brits Launch Iraq Inquiry - Yanks Should TooConsciousness Capitalism: Corporations Are Now After Our Very Beings
By Joe Bageant | AlterNet
Capitalism has raped the resources of the world. Now corporations are left to strip human experience from life, then rent it back to us.
A few years ago, compliments of the George W. Bush administration, I got an education in political reality. The kind of education that makes you get drunk at night and scream and bitch at every shred of national news:
“Do you see how these capitalist bastards have made so much money killing babies in Iraq? And how they are have brainwashed us and gouged us for every human need, from health care to drinking water?” I’d rage to my wife.
“It’s just the way things are,” she said. “It’s only a system.”
My good wife often thinks I have slipped my moorings. But she never says right out loud that I’m crazy because, let’s face it, honesty in marriage only goes so far. Furthermore, I’d be the first to proclaim that she’s right.
I have slipped my moorings, and am downright ecstatic about it, given what the collective American consciousness is moored to these days. Anyway, I am, as I said, ecstatic. When I am not utterly depressed. Which is often. And always, always, always, it is because of the latest outrage pulled off by government/corporations — the terms have been interchangeable for at least 50 years in this country, maybe longer.
Good Ideas Deaf Ears
Kabul Traffic Circle
By Arthur Dent | href="http://fubarnation.blogspot.com/2009/07/good-ideas-deaf-ears.html">FUBAR NationIt’s not too difficult to find really good ideas in this country. All you need do is listen to the people around you. I have heard some fantastic ideas from Afghans as well as several from collation force members. I’ll bring up a few here just to give them some air. I don’t pretend to think anyone in a position to implement would pay any attention. Such is life.
An Afghan who has worked with both NGO’s and the military pointed out the fatal flaw in using local Afghan’s for advisors. All too often they have local allegiances that overshadow their role. Many of the attacks on villages that have resulted in high civilian casualty counts were the result of intentionally poor advice. What better way to settle a score in a war zone? His solution: use Afghan nationals but move them to unfamiliar parts of the country. They will still be effective at communicating but will have a more objective view without any local ties to color their loyalties. A former Special Forces member had another take on this point. Apparently we don’t keep translators for very long. Odd given all the clearance they have to get to qualify for the job. He recommended we pay them more and guarantee them longer contracts or favored immigration/work visa status.
A former Mujahideen Commander had several suggestions. He pointed out that Night Vision Goggles and other high tech gear including MilSpec GPS systems are openly available in several local bazaars. He bought one and tried to get the US Forces to take action but got nowhere. I’ve seen this same claim about Pakistani bazaars. Makes sense to me, where else would a thief sell all the items stolen in transit to coalition forces? This same gentleman told me how he had been negotiating with Egyptian Clerics to declare that the fight in Afghanistan is not a jihad. This is significant because Egypt is still a key center of religious authority. If they declared that Afghanistan was not a jihad the Taliban would loose a significant number of their foreign fighters as well as local fighters. President Karzai replaced this man on the project and it fizzled. Karzai is a Pashtun, the Commander is a Tajik.( Doesn't make much sense, does it? Of course, if Turkey was running secret ops for NATO/CIA-USA using their traditional forces - al Qaeda - that would really blow the minds of the bamboozled. )
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