Video: Protesters Triumph
Two minutes into this video a mass of protesters in Iran drive back a police unit. Actually, “drive back” is a pretty weak description of the situation. The cops turn tail and run.
The fact that the police are throwing stones at protesters at the beginning of this video is a little troubling, though. It’s fairly obvious that despite the violence and deaths (mostly brought on by the Basij) that the government is still holding back. Are we simply witnessing the first chapter? Will this become an Iranian Tianamen Square?
Obama, Health Care and American “Traditions”
I’ll be honest. There are countries where a single-payer system may be working. But I believe — and I’ve even taken some flak from members of my own party for this belief — that it is important for us to build on our traditions here in the United States.
Our traditions? What kind of faulty logic is that? America once had a tradition of lynchmobs and slavery. Should we have built upon that tradition? It seems the only American tradition that Obama wants to build upon is that of corporate control of policy. Oh and the American tradition of poor coverage for its citizens.
America has one of the worst track records for infant mortality. Are we going to continue that tradition?
How about the American tradition of 18,000 – 22,000 deaths annually as a direct result of lack of coverage?
What about our tradition of over 40,000,000 Americans being uninsured?
The bankruptcy tradition, too! Nearly 50% of all bankruptcies are related to medical costs!
These are all traditions that will continue under a “public” option.
We need single payer and we need it now.
Iranian Workers Unite
Workers at the Khodro automobile company have announced a production slow-down in solidarity with Iranian protesters. Twice a day the workers will cease production for a half hour.
The Autobus Workers Union of Iran has also made a statement declaring their alignment with protesters.
This is where it begins.
As more and more unions attach themselves to the movement the picture will appear clearer to Khamenei: government receives its power from the people. A national strike is the leverage the people need to exact their will upon the corrupt theocratic rule that’s tried to lower its boot upon them.
Tanks may enter the picture. Thousands may die. Silence may flood the streets of Tehran following the violence but that will only conclude part one of the resistance.
Khamenei, do you truly believe that by chasing them from the streets you can chase away dissent and revolution? Do you think you can lock their doors with faith in corruption and board their windows with fear and lies? Bring the tanks. You’ll find yourself fighting a new kind of enemy. Not green and peaceful but armed and dangerous. Not out in the open with signs and banners but in basements with maps and communiques.
The Public Option Will Fail
Nick Skala was asked to give a presentation on health care to congressional progressives.
Nick Skala supports single payer health care and worked with Physicians for a National Health Program for four years.
Needless to say: congressional progressives met Skala abrasively with closed eyes and covered ears.
They don’t want to know the facts. They don’t want to do the research. They don’t want to fight for principle, they want to concede for campaign contributions.
There is only one answer: single payer.
Democrats Inherit The War
What was originally Democrats dealing with George W. Bush’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is now Democrats actively waging war. Yesterday 221 Democrats and 5 Republicans voted for an enormous supplemental appropriation ($106 Billion) for the wars. Included in the supplement was money for IMF programs and fighting pandemic flu.
When progressive Dems (32 of them) saw that nearly all Republicans would be voting against this supplement (they were being “fiscally conservative” not “unpatriotic”, of course) they began rallying opposition to the bill in order to bring an end to the wars.
Progressive Democrats were just 13 votes shy of success.
In the Bush Era Democrats were accessories to the crime. They voted for war, funded the war and even adopted all the beautiful right-wing doublespeak about the war. Now: with full control of Congress and what could have amounted to bipartisan opposition to war funding the Democrats have dropped the ball.
It’s time for lower case democrats (probably you) to tell party officials that you don’t want to belong to the pro-war party. That you voted for change. That you voted for peace. Below is a list of those who voted against the supplement. If your congressperson isn’t on that list you should call them and give them a piece of your mind.
It’s important to note that many of the Dems below are freshmen who were receiving enormous amount of pressure and scrutiny from party officials. They put their careers on the line for this.
Raul Grijalva, Sam Farr, Bob Filner, Barbara Lee, Zoe Lofgren, Brad Sherman, Jackie Speier, Pete Stark, Maxine Waters, Diane Watson, Lynn Woolsey, Jared Polis, Alan Grayson, Mike Michaud, Chellie Pingree, Donna Edwards, Michael Capuano, Jim McGovern, John Tierney, Nikki Tsongas, John Conyers, Keith Ellison, Carol Shea-Porter, Donald Payne, Eric Massa, Jose Serrano, Marcy Kaptur, Dennis Kucinich, Lloyd Doggett, Peter Welch and Tammy Baldwin.
Health Care 101
Understanding health care policy seems like a pretty daunting task. For an outsider looking in it’s easy to get swept away in rhetoric and talking points and to lose sight of the big picture. Obama has continually asked Americans to come together and talk about health care reform. Today he sent out an e-mail asking for donations for his health care campaign. This begs the question: can meaningful and effective health care reform be hashed out a table of sheep with only one shepherd? My point being: how can we ask Americans to come forward and discuss health care reform without providing them with the resources to make sound conclusions?
What We Have Now:
Currently we have what is called a “patchwork” system. We have private insurance companies, Medicare, Medicaid and HMO’s all covering different portions of our population and all not covering millions of Americans. Medicare and Medicaid are government issued insurance for target groups (the elderly and the financially less-able respectively). HMO’s are coalitions of private insurance companies that come together to form what’s called a managed care organization. They follow certain guidelines to control prices and work with employers, hospitals and physicians.
So what’s the problem? I’ll do this in bullet form so as to keep your interest:
- Between 18,000 and 22,000 Americans die each year due to lack of insurance.
- Unnecessary, profit-driven middlemen (insurance companies) limit your access to care and bloat costs.
- The US spends more than any other nation on health care without extending care to every citizen. Many citizens are insecurely covered and rely on employment for their care. Hinging health care on employment is precarious to say the least.
- Between 15 and 30 percent of insurance premiums are wasted on marketing, CEO salaries and bureaucracy rather than actual care.
- Roughly 1,000,000 Americans file for bankruptcy every year due to medical bills. Around 50% of all bankruptcies are related to health care costs.
- Health care costs are rising at an annual rate of 10% while real wages for middle and working class Americans depreciate.
- Americans pay between 33 and 50 percent more for prescription drugs than countries with a national health insurance plan.
- Around 48,000,000 Americans are uninsured.
- Around 25,000,000 are under-insured.
- Our current system covers the healthy and drops the sick. Those who need coverage most are often dropped from coverage because they are a costly liability.
Obamacare:
Obama is seeking a hybrid system which would allow private insurance companies to compete with a “public option”. He advocates universal coverage and government assistance for those who cannot afford it.
The public option is like a gateway drug that may, potentially, pave the way for single payer health care. If enough Americans buy into the government plan over private insurance plans then it could crowd out all competition and evolve into a single payer plan. Maybe.
On the other hand: big Pharma and the wealthy insurance companies might come together against a common enemy and make mince meat of it. They’ve shown their effectiveness at stifling health care reform twice before. They’ve also shown their uncanny ability to lobby the shit out of Congress.
Obamacare will also be unimaginably expensive and will continue to allow private insurance companies to deny coverage, bloat costs and limit accessibility for patients. Certainly: Americans could jump over to the “public option” but what about those who don’t meet the requirements for government aid but don’t make enough to afford the public option? The lower middle class who receive health care through their employers? They’re wedged until the end of the private/public battle which could go on for years.
My opinion? Obamacare is a risk we cannot take. Health care reform is too important. Obamacare is an expensive, ineffective gamble and half-measure. Certainly: it’s a little more politically feasible than single payer health care but that begs the question: do you want meaningless reform that solves nothing and is passed with ease? Or do you want meaningful reform that effectively targets the problem that takes a little more elbow grease to pass?
The Single Payer Solution:
Roughly %60 of Americans support a national health insurance program. So what is a national health insurance program?
- Replace all private, profit-driven insurance companies with one public, non-profit insurance provider.
- All citizens are automatically enrolled.
- Citizens can see any physician from coast to coast with no limitations or restrictions based on provider.
- No premiums. Low or no co-pays on prescription drugs.
- Employers pay a fair share towards health care based on payroll. Most would save money under a single payer plan because they would no longer be paying for the under and uninsured.
- Americans are already paying for uninsured who arrive at the emergency room. These costs are pushed off onto taxpayers through tax hikes. In a single payer system we can fully cover the uninsured for significantly less than the current cost.
- We would save hundreds of billions of dollars on health care under a single payer system. All of the administrative/bureaucratic waste that goes in our current private system would go towards providing actual care and is more than enough to cover the current uninsured.
There are plenty of sites for more information:
Physicians for a National Health Plan
Call Your Rep. And Tell Them To Support
HR 676 For Single Payer Health Care
(202) 224-3121
Tehran It Down
I haven’t met a single person opposed to the current demonstrations in Iran. It seems that this is a movement that both liberals and conservatives can get behind. The corrupt government of Iran has to go.
Despite preliminary polling which showed reform candidate Mousavi leading, the results of the Iranian election showed a landslide victory for Ahmadinejad. The people are disillusioned and have taken to the streets. The protests began peacefully and soon escalated fairly rapidly. Shots have been fired.
While I certainly hope that this is all settled with as little bloodshed as possible, I also hope that it does not end prematurely. The Iranian people don’t need compromise with their government. They need a revolution. Theocracy and democracy don’t mix. The people have taken it into their own hands to insure representative governance and free and fair elections. If establishing a new, transparent and democratic government means years of strife: so be it.
We can only hope that Ahmadinejad does not find a way to placate the outraged masses.
The people of Iran need to know that they have support. What they want is a democratic Iran. What they want is representative government. If the United States can drop freedom in the form of bombs onto Iraq and Afghanistan can we not spare the breath to speak encouraging words to dissenters in Iran?
The Color of Terrorism
Terrorist.
Time ran this piece discussing the use of the word “terrorist” and the selective way in which the corporate media decides what is considered an act of terrorism. Disgusted as I am that white, right-wing terrorists such as Roeder and von Brunn are slipping through the cracks, I’m not surprised.
Despite being so “liberal” the media has a habit of apologizing for corporate hot-shots, co-opting right-wing talking points, glossing over white/right terrorism, ignoring civilian deathtolls in Afghanistan and Iraq et al. Funny.
The Grassroots
Some democrats haven’t given up. Unlike the DNC following party-hacks, these democrats are fighting for their principles even when it means challenging their own party.
I received an e-mail today urging me to call House Dems asking them to vote against the war funding bill. I expected a message like this from UFPJ or WCW but it was actually from democrats.com. The site bolsters an impressive list of truly progressive causes which Congressional Dems have been lax or even outright hostile towards such as single payer health care and prosecuting Bush for war crimes.
This is what the Obama administration and the American people need most right now. The squeaky wheel gets the grease and as long as the hard-right are the only ones squeaking even moderate dems are going to lose out.
If the Democratic party were principled they would be established in such a way as to directly respond to citizen pressure. Party unity/loyalty would not be held in higher esteem than loyalty to the principles the party is meant to uphold. Instead of encouraging rank and file support using star-status Dems such as Howard Dean in e-mails to party members, they’d advocate a community of constituent ideas and opinions and harvest from it a strong sense of the needs of American democrats.
With Obama’s inauguration, much of the left put down their signs and turned off their minds. Mission accomplished. If the mission were to increase funding for the war on terror, advocate raids across the Pakistan/Afghanistan border, perpetuate the military industrial complex, continue to fund imperialism/apartheid in Israel, pretend that America will stop torturing without effectively changing the rules, pretend that the past administration’s war crimes aren’t important enough to investigate, bailout large corporations at the expense of taxpayers without comprehensively providing a system of assistance for debtors and defaulting mortgage holders among countless other “status quo” policies and agendas that have been perpetrated by this administration then certainly: mission accomplished. Otherwise true, principled democrats should be gearing up for an even more difficult fight than that of the general election.
What democrats need to realize is that they are the party once they take the reins. Until then what we’ve got is a runaway carriage chasing after campaign contributions (corporate interests) rather than constituencies.
