America's health care system is second only to Japan ... Canada, Sweden, Great Britain ... well, all of Europe. But you can thank your lucky stars we don't live in Paraguay! Homer Simpson
Healthcare is a right. It is not a privilege. If we are so unlucky as to be mauled in a car accident, one hopes they are not to be asked who they are before they receive any sort of medical attention. Can you imagine an ambulance driving away without you because you were not the correct member of society? As a society, we believe that we must help each and every one of us. We know this is true because we would expect the help if we were the one mauled in that car accident. If this premise is accepted, (and frankly it is only a recently perceived right compared to the ancient rights of speech, public assembly, habeus corpus, etc…), then one must demand that our self-elected gov’t guarantees that right. For is that not what our gov’t must do? to protect our rights? is not that what our Founding Fathers fought for? that the great ideals of freedom, liberty and democracy would guarantee these rights?
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”
Thomas Jefferson The Declaration of Independence 1776
The idea that someone is making enormous amounts of fat money off of my sick and dying family and neighbors is intolerable. It is immoral. And it really angers me. While people scream about keeping gov’t out of our healthcare, gov’t programs are quietly working for us everyday: Medicare, Medicaid, the VA system and here in Vermont we have Dr. Dynosaur which keeps 98% of children insured. Gov’t programs work. Private industry has failed to guarantee health care for every citizen. They have proven to be notoriously unreliable, intrusive and self-interested. Our healthcare model is horrible. According to the CIA World Factbook, we rank 47th in infant mortality. Why does Iceland have a three times better rate than we do? Almost any reform is good reform.
The persistent difficulty is how do we afford it? This is only going to become more difficult as the baby boomer generation continues to age. Once we realize that public health care is a basic human right (why do we guarantee education but not health care?) we then will figure it out. Our society is not going to abandon healthcare because we are going to add another trillion over ten years to our national debt. It will not make our national gov’t go bankrupt (see chrismartenson.com’s crash course to see why we are going to go bankrupt!). There are many better models around the world from Switzerland to Singapore where the average citizen is getting better health care than here in the USA.
I believe that Washington DC will fail to bring meaningful reform to our healthcare system. They will not be able to recognize that healthcare is a basic human right. The rich will continue to get richer and the poor will be saddled with overworked primary care staff or emergency room-only visits (which, by the way, was George W. Bush’s version of universal healthcare). Insurers will continue to drop clients and they will continue to heavily influence the decisions made in the doctors office. Truly it is time we stop looking to Washington DC for the answers but begin to look to ourselves for the solution. As climate change and global restructuring takes place, it is only ourselves that will be able to create the answers. This is why I believe we must separate from the cancer that is the home to our global empire, Washington DC. This is why I believe we must secede and once again become independent.
I will close with the very next sentence after the above quote from the Declaration of Independence:
"That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness".
thevermontpatriot
Sunday, August 23, 2009
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Welcome/Introduction:
Thank you for taking the time to visit and participate in this blog. This is an experiment for me and I hope you can excuse any gross errors, wild rants and other various vulgarities. Especially beware any blog posted after 2 AM. Consider yourself forewarned.
In this blog I hope to provide a steady commentary on our society as it transitions from the 20th century version of industrialization and globalization into the 21st century unknown. I hope to use historical context to help understand current situations which will then help us understand possible future outcomes. What is causing our global crisis and why? What are the actions and motivations that are being expressed on the global stage? What can you and I do that will make a difference? How can we prepare ourselves for the unknown future?
My basic premise is that when (not if, but when) global systems fail due to the perfect storm of peak oil, overpopulation and environmental degradation, it is you and me that will be responsible for the continuing survival of our progeny and our communities. Always, we must ask: what skills do I have that will help me survive when our global transportation system breaks down and our supermarket shelves become empty? What will you do when the sea levels rise a couple of feet and our coastal cities will have to evacuate? What will happen when the world’s 5th largest economy (California) experiences “the big one” and fails to function? Do you think our gov’t in Washington DC can effectively handle that crisis? Do you think the mass starvation of billions of people worldwide will affect your life?
We are on the edge of a re-awakening as our current global social system begins to disintegrate; we see the evidence everyday in the news and at the gas station. I believe that a localized communitarian based democracy is the only form of gov’t that will lead us through the looming crisis. Sustainability in every action is the key to our survival. It is my hope, through this blog, to educate, influence and inspire both common thought and common action towards a more egalitarian, communal and peaceful society.
Congratulations, by completing this post, you have passed the ADHD test. Make sure you take the poll and check out the links for lots more information.
Peace,
the vermont patriot
In this blog I hope to provide a steady commentary on our society as it transitions from the 20th century version of industrialization and globalization into the 21st century unknown. I hope to use historical context to help understand current situations which will then help us understand possible future outcomes. What is causing our global crisis and why? What are the actions and motivations that are being expressed on the global stage? What can you and I do that will make a difference? How can we prepare ourselves for the unknown future?
My basic premise is that when (not if, but when) global systems fail due to the perfect storm of peak oil, overpopulation and environmental degradation, it is you and me that will be responsible for the continuing survival of our progeny and our communities. Always, we must ask: what skills do I have that will help me survive when our global transportation system breaks down and our supermarket shelves become empty? What will you do when the sea levels rise a couple of feet and our coastal cities will have to evacuate? What will happen when the world’s 5th largest economy (California) experiences “the big one” and fails to function? Do you think our gov’t in Washington DC can effectively handle that crisis? Do you think the mass starvation of billions of people worldwide will affect your life?
We are on the edge of a re-awakening as our current global social system begins to disintegrate; we see the evidence everyday in the news and at the gas station. I believe that a localized communitarian based democracy is the only form of gov’t that will lead us through the looming crisis. Sustainability in every action is the key to our survival. It is my hope, through this blog, to educate, influence and inspire both common thought and common action towards a more egalitarian, communal and peaceful society.
Congratulations, by completing this post, you have passed the ADHD test. Make sure you take the poll and check out the links for lots more information.
Peace,
the vermont patriot
Thursday, August 13, 2009
Fear, Fascism and Healthcare
Into the depths of our future unknown, we turn to our inner primal fears. We lash and claw and bite at the very mechanism of our solutions. We live in an unsustainable culture: peak oil, over-population and massive worldwide environmental degradation guarantee the collapse of our society as we know it. There is no avoiding it, there is only delay.
Our current national health care debate is turning into a spectacle of ignorance, fear and brimming violence as the extreme right grows into the bullying fascism perfected by Hitler. One of the keys to understand contemporary American fascism (see Naomi Wolf’s “The End of America” for a good outline) is the insipid relationship between corporations and the American government. Hitler groveled to the German steel industry for their support and their money and the Krupps, etc. quite happily supported his visionary militarism. More guns mean more sales mean more money for the corporate execs. This intertwining of private interests and public policy is a constant throughout American history ever since Shay’s Rebellion taught the framers of the US constitution that government had an important role in protecting corporate interests.
So when we see Democratic Senator Max Baucus of Montana holding up the health care bill, one must consider the fact that he is the leading recipient of campaign money from the ”health care” industry. Could it be that the $3 million dollars that he has received will influence how he behaves in the backrooms of the Senate? Could it be that his sponsors would use their influence to change his behavior? Does Max Baucus act in the interests of his constituents as well as the rest of America or is he more interested in currying the favors of his corporate donors?
It is true that gov’t programs such as Medicare, Medicaid and the VA run much lower administration costs than do private industry. For one, they cannot payout the massive compensation that private industry executives receive. Private industry is designed to do only one thing: make money. Giving healthcare to people is antithetical to their bottom line. They give out only what they have to and they take whatever they can. So while healthcare executives fly around the world in their corporate jets dining on gold encrusted silverware, people are dying from lack of adequate healthcare (see DemocracyNow’s interview with Wendell Potter [http://www.democracynow.org/2009/7/16/former_insurance_exec_wendell_porter]). It is also true that private insurers have a huge influence on what decisions doctors make for their patients, in fact, much more than any gov’t program. We are seeing Republicans and their far right conservative base using misinformation to reach into the depths of our collective primal fears to preserve the status quo of private industry controlling our health care solutions. Which everyone agrees is inefficient and failing. People are screaming to keep the gov’t out of the doctor’s office, but, by God, don’t touch their Medicare. Go figure.
What is their solution? You can only trust a corporate executive to do what corporate executives do: whatever it takes to preserve their wealth and their privileged way of life. The results of their actions among us commoners are not of their concern.
The question for the independent minded is: Do you believe that the powers in Washington DC can craft a moral and sustainable solution that will provide a benefit to the collective group of citizens we call Americans? A greater question then arises: Do you believe that the powers of Washington DC will be able to respond in a moral and sustainable manner while the world as we know it crumbles due to peak oil, over-population and environmental degradation? The answers are obvious. Look at New Orleans, look at the multi-trillion dollar bailout of the thieves who created the economic crisis, look at the oil/automobile industry, look at Honduras, look anywhere. The answers to our solution do not lie with the money lust greed of Washington DC and the global empire it represents. The solution lies with us, it lies with our neighbors and it lies in the skills of basic survival we must learn. FreeVermont. FreeYourself. Now.
Our current national health care debate is turning into a spectacle of ignorance, fear and brimming violence as the extreme right grows into the bullying fascism perfected by Hitler. One of the keys to understand contemporary American fascism (see Naomi Wolf’s “The End of America” for a good outline) is the insipid relationship between corporations and the American government. Hitler groveled to the German steel industry for their support and their money and the Krupps, etc. quite happily supported his visionary militarism. More guns mean more sales mean more money for the corporate execs. This intertwining of private interests and public policy is a constant throughout American history ever since Shay’s Rebellion taught the framers of the US constitution that government had an important role in protecting corporate interests.
So when we see Democratic Senator Max Baucus of Montana holding up the health care bill, one must consider the fact that he is the leading recipient of campaign money from the ”health care” industry. Could it be that the $3 million dollars that he has received will influence how he behaves in the backrooms of the Senate? Could it be that his sponsors would use their influence to change his behavior? Does Max Baucus act in the interests of his constituents as well as the rest of America or is he more interested in currying the favors of his corporate donors?
It is true that gov’t programs such as Medicare, Medicaid and the VA run much lower administration costs than do private industry. For one, they cannot payout the massive compensation that private industry executives receive. Private industry is designed to do only one thing: make money. Giving healthcare to people is antithetical to their bottom line. They give out only what they have to and they take whatever they can. So while healthcare executives fly around the world in their corporate jets dining on gold encrusted silverware, people are dying from lack of adequate healthcare (see DemocracyNow’s interview with Wendell Potter [http://www.democracynow.org/2009/7/16/former_insurance_exec_wendell_porter]). It is also true that private insurers have a huge influence on what decisions doctors make for their patients, in fact, much more than any gov’t program. We are seeing Republicans and their far right conservative base using misinformation to reach into the depths of our collective primal fears to preserve the status quo of private industry controlling our health care solutions. Which everyone agrees is inefficient and failing. People are screaming to keep the gov’t out of the doctor’s office, but, by God, don’t touch their Medicare. Go figure.
What is their solution? You can only trust a corporate executive to do what corporate executives do: whatever it takes to preserve their wealth and their privileged way of life. The results of their actions among us commoners are not of their concern.
The question for the independent minded is: Do you believe that the powers in Washington DC can craft a moral and sustainable solution that will provide a benefit to the collective group of citizens we call Americans? A greater question then arises: Do you believe that the powers of Washington DC will be able to respond in a moral and sustainable manner while the world as we know it crumbles due to peak oil, over-population and environmental degradation? The answers are obvious. Look at New Orleans, look at the multi-trillion dollar bailout of the thieves who created the economic crisis, look at the oil/automobile industry, look at Honduras, look anywhere. The answers to our solution do not lie with the money lust greed of Washington DC and the global empire it represents. The solution lies with us, it lies with our neighbors and it lies in the skills of basic survival we must learn. FreeVermont. FreeYourself. Now.
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