Thursday, December 31, 2009

Chris Floyd

The politcal writer Chris Floyd constantly hits home runs on his blog, empire burlesque, mostly about the abuses of the American Empire, this quote from his latest peice;

"I noted the grim irony that this principle of non-personhood had now been reintroduced into the law of the land by our first African-American president. (But this is only to be expected, given the law of opposites that so often governs American politics: only a lifelong Red-baiter like Nixon could make an opening to Communist China; only a supposed liberal like Bill Clinton could gut the federal welfare system. And only an African-American president could reintroduce the principle of slavery and get away with it. No doubt it will be a woman president who finally re-imposes a total ban on abortion."

Saturday, December 26, 2009

Israel

An interesting story i just read, about two women in Israel admitted into a psych ward, who used to be Massad agents (Israeli cia) , they had armed guards in the psych ward to insure that during treatment the ex-Mossad agents would not reveal state secrets, hmmm

http://www.chris-floyd.com/component/content/article/1-latest-news/1888-insanity-offense-even-the-mad-must-not-speak-the-truth.html

Monday, December 21, 2009

The Economy

two people I have talked to lately about the economy said we had to give the money to wall street or else the whole economy would have crashed and that Obama's economy team did a great job saving the economy. Lets break down these myths.

So maybe the first one is partially right, if we let all the wall street banks fold we might be in big trouble right now, all the jobs lost, all the stocks and retirement funds lost. But its the way we saved them that bothers me. A great headline on huffingtonpost.com today mentions how we let the arsonist (Ben Bernanke) put out the fire and we called him a hero. Ok, so the whole house didnt burn down, but there wouldnt be any freakin fire without Bernanke, Geitner, Paulson and the top executives at the big wall street, Goldman, Bank of America, Citi Group, Chase. They should all be in jail.

When rocky returned from Russia in Rocky 5 to learn his accountant was a crook and burned down his economic castle did Rocky rehire the same account to get his economic house back in order? Oh no, thats right, Rocky fired his ass.

Obama Drug Reimporation

David Sirota talks about Obama's stance on drug importation from foreign countries. He campaigned in support of importing drugs for cheapers costs but recently changed his mind only to change his mind again with a speech this weekend from David Axelrod stating that the President supports cheaper drug reimportation from foreign countries.

Sirota points out how that support means nothing when the President has the power to change the law overnight,

"the president has the statutory authority right now to allow it via a
certification by HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius."


So this brings up my favorite quote from John Kerry talking about George W. Bush during the Presidential debates of 2004, just because the President said something, I believe in drug importation from foreign nations, doesnt make is true. Show us through your actions Mr. President.


Oh and a side note, most of our drug manufacturers have their plants overseas, so when you here politicians talking about this issue of posibly allowing the importation of drugs from overseas, number 1 its already happening, "40 percent of medicines on the domestic market right now were manufactured overseas", David Sirota.


And number 2 the drugs Americans want to buy at a cheaper cost from overseas are made by American corporations not third rate pill chop shops. As Americans shouldnt we pay less for drugs made by American corporations and shouldnt the rest of the world pay premium prices?
Like state colleges, if you go to a New York state college but you are from out of state you pay more money in tuition. If that was the opposite and New Yorkers paid more, that would seem silly.


check out sirota;

http://www.openleft.com/diary/16601/white-house-recommits-to-pushing-drug-importation

Friday, December 18, 2009

Texas Pollution

If Texas were a nation it would be in the top ten polluting nations.

Wednesday, December 16, 2009

Inside view of DC Politics

"Defeating liberals, in as public a way as possible, has long been a central pillar of "moderate" Democratic strategy. Blue Dogs, Conservadems, the DLC and others believe that they must do everything possible to distance themselves from liberal Democrats in order to be successful. If they are viewed as regular old Democrats, and not as a new wave of bi-partisan, moderate Democrat, then they honestly believe they are screwed. Lieberman is just an especially spiteful version of this."

Chris Bowers @open left
http://www.openleft.com/diary/16508/if-progressive-want-to-kill-the-bill-they-should-support-it-as-hard-as-possible

Sunday, December 13, 2009

Afghanistan for real

"The US military is in Afghanistan for two reasons. First to restore and control the world’s largest supply of opium for the world heroin markets and to use the drugs as a geopolitical weapon against opponents, especially Russia. That control of the Afghan drug market is essential for the liquidity of the bankrupt and corrupt Wall Street financial mafia."

"More land is now used for opium in Afghanistan, than for coca cultivation in Latin America.”

Thanks war on terror.

http://www.engdahl.oilgeopolitics.net/Geopolitics___Eurasia/Afghanistan/afghanistan.html

Who would dare befriend us

So right now we are allegedly fighting the evil Taliban and their supporters who reside in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Yet we built these terror groups decades ago. We trained Osama and his crew in Afghanistan and we set up networks in Pakistan to sneak in money and weapons to Osama in Afghanistan. And here we are 30 years later fighting and destroying the same networks we once built. So my thought is why would anyone want to help us when there is a good chance you will be our next enemy in 30 years? If Osama only knew than what he knows now, no what i mean.

Saturday, December 12, 2009

Governer Patterson and the Uk

Its crazy to watch the governer of NY on the news as he cuts services to the middle class again and again, schools, transportation, health, government jobs, because times are tough. And than you see the story of how in the UK bankers bonus' are being taxed at 50% because well, they are the reason the rest of the country is suffering. Why should the whole country be asked to give up their jobs, and to sacrifice so the banks can be saved first. That is one thing. But its a slap in the face of this sacrife for these bankers to grant themselves huge bonuses. Really guys. The public has such a short attention span. You couldnt have waited one year to start bonuses again? So lets step it up Patterson. If the Federal Government refuses to tax that banker ass you should. They shit on us all by tanking the economy, they gave us officially 10% national unemployement and unoffiacially 20% unemployment + underemployment, and they shit on us again when they begged us for money to save them only to pay out huge bonuses to their executives, for what i dont know. You know what my bonus was this year, about 1.5% of my yearly salery. Thank you State of New York. I am moving to the colder Dakota eh.

Exemptions

I was just reading some financial shinanigans over at cjr the audit's website about how the too big to fail financial firms broke the law yet were not held accountable. They were given exemptions. So next time I am on the phone with my bank or credit card company or any other company for that matter and I hear the bs line, sorry sir there is nothing we can do, I will ask if i can have an exemption in this case, what is your official and unofficial policy for granted exemptions, what was the last exemption you granted and why.

Thursday, November 5, 2009

Tennessee Coal ash spill

Tennessee Coal Ash Spill-
"Coal is the single greatest threat to civilization and all life on our planet." – James Hansen, NASA's top climate scientist
As Americans we buy things all the time without wondering the true cost. We buy items off the dollar menu from fast food chains yet we don’t ask about the quality of the meat, or about the treatment of the workers at the lower levels of our society producing that food. We buy affordable clothes from the mall without asking about those who made them, in other country with little to no labor laws protecting them. We go to the supermarket to buy the fresh fish on sale this week without knowing that if we continue to fish the oceans the way we do there won’t be any fish left in fifty years.
It seems our nation has a culture that lives with little or no concern of the impact our choices and decisions have on others, and on our future. And it seems the real cost of the things we buy is passed on to someone else or to the future, like the factory worker in china or our digestion systems in 20 years time, so that the American consumer can have what it wants at a reasonable cost right now.
The same is true for electricity. Our lights always turn on. Our computers always have internet. And we see a bill once a month. But do we ever ask ourselves where the electricity comes from? What is used to make it? Are we paying the real cost for it or is that cost being pushed onto someone else? Is someone else suffering so that I can enjoy my electricity, like the abused factory worker in making my new name brand sneakers?
50% of power plants in the United States run on coal. Every step of the process of removing coal from the ground to shipping it to burning it, has an outside cost that is passed on to someone else so that me and you can pay reasonable rates for electricity.
A town in Tennessee felt the true wrath of this “unseen cost” in December of 2008 when a wall containing a pool of waste from a coal burning power plant burst and flooded the town. The waste was just being piled up and piled up in a landfill. No one outside of the town housing the pool of toxins asked what was happening with the waste from the power plant. Out of sight out of mind. But when the retaining wall burst, and the town was swimming in liquid waste, everyone began to see a glimpse of big coals dirty secret.
It seems every step in the process of burning coal; from ground removal to burning it contains an unseen cost.
The most popular way to remove coal these days is known as mountaintop removal mining, where explosives are used to destroy mountaintops to remove the coal. The external unseen cost of this is a devastation of the landscape. On one level the landscape loses its beauty. But on another level without the proper landscape rains now create floods and mud slides, devastating homes and communities.
When the coal is shipped by rail car there is a dust of coal blown in the air which is unsafe to breath. And lastly when the coal is burned the waste was usually blown out of the smoke stacks into the air, polluting the air and lungs of the community. New technology and Federal laws have made it possible to grab some of the pollution before it is sent into the atmosphere. The new question that has not been asked is what to do and what is being done with the new pollution. A small town in Tennessee found out the hard way.
The flood rocked a small town in Tennessee in 2008 a few days before Christmas. A coal burning power plant turned against the town it helped create. While the power plant once supplied jobs and careers allowing a whole town to build up and flourish around it, now it polluted over 300 acres of land, contaminating the river that provides drinking water to the community.
Since the Federal Government has been promising to create regulations since 2000 (fly ash) but has not, and since state regulation is usually less aggressive than federal, power plants have been pretty much left on their own to store or dispose of the fly ash as they see fit. Many have chosen to mix the dry fly ash with water and store them in large walled in landfills. A toxic sludge pool, if you will. There are more than 1,300 of these toxic pools across the US. The dams holding up the pools are deemed a “high hazard” at 44 of the 1,300 locations, by the EPA. And 12 of the 44 most hazardous dams are located in North Carilina. These toxic pools are less regulated than household trash and while a 2007 EPA report learned that many of the pools of waste are contaminating groundwater and wells they have failed to act.
They are called toxic sludge pools because last I checked mercury, cadmium, arsenic, beryllium, and lead are toxic, cancer causing, birth defect producing substances. In fact some of the toxic sludge pools are known to contain radioactive elements.
Yet when the wall broke at the Tennessee power plant that held back a 60 foot pool of around a billion gallons of toxic sludge (40 times more pollution than what was unleashed from the Exxon Valdez spill), the Federal government was still classifying the toxic sludge as non hazardous material. It makes perfect sense, if you live in the twilight zone. Which is where our Federal Government is living these days, and it’s the only way to explain how mercury is toxic and hazardous ordinarily, yet when you mix it with water and other toxic chemicals and rename it sludge, it’s not hazardous. You get it right?
You see by creating a new name the Federal Government can say the item with a new name is safe until it’s tested to find out otherwise. Take carbon monoxide. Its deadly when you lock yourself in the garage and have your car running, yet when you rename it and spray it on beef (which is done in the USA) it’s perfectly safe (until tested), as I learned watching the FDA answering questions on capitol hill a few years back.
Thanks once again to the interests of the powerful in this country and their army of lobbyists we are now able to buy beef sprayed with poison that looks damn fresh even when it isn’t,, and we can officially call mercury non hazardous. These powerful forces have been able to stop the federal government from regulating anything that can cut into company profits. That could explain why the government body that regulates the environment, the EPA, has been on record since the 1980’s saying they have to create guidelines on how to store and dispose of toxic sludge while they have been doing nothing.
Even after a spill like this no one is held accountable. All the members of the board of the TVA still have their jobs, all the regulatory workers at the EPA still have their jobs, and no one has been publicly tarred and feathered. The only action taken has been from the EPA, who now says that by December they will issue their findings on whether to officially label hazardous waste uhh, a hazardous waste or not. I just hope it will be December of this year.
It seems once again, when looking for who is at fault, all signs point to Washington D.C. The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) owns the power plant that had the spill. The TVA is a part public part private company. (We see where that got us with Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac) The TVA boasts the title of the nation’s largest public utility. The board of directors that runs the company is chosen by the President of the United States. Our nation has a history choosing regulators who do not believe in regulation, i.e. appointing a coal executive to regulate air pollution, appointing a chemical company executive who has previously dumped toxic waste into rivers, to become a water regulator, or hiring Wall Street executives who helped crash the system to work at the Treasury Department to help fix the crash.
And while Reports are coming out showing that the retaining wall holding up the sludge pool had many problems in the past that were temporarily fixed, and fixed the cheapest way, or completely ignored , and how the management at the TVA really dropped the ball, it all seems part of a larger problem, that the drive for profits in all big business has lead to corners being cut with little concern for any future repercussions.
The fact that a large corporation cut corners is no surprise but it seems to becoming part of the normal business model. The economic crash we saw on Wall Street was driven by large corporations who were trying to make a quick dollar today while not thinking about or not caring about future consequences of things like making home loans to large numbers of people who have no job and no money in the bank. Wall Street cut corners for the quick buck while someone else was left holding the bag. Health insurance companies deny expensive operations to save money. But the question regarding the Tennessee coal sludge spill, the Wall Street crash, and the Health insurance industry is; where were the federal watch dogs? I think we know.
We all know that in capitalism greed will run wild if not put in check by Government. I think most people will agree that government has a role to play as far as watching over industry to make sure their search for profits does not leave a wake of destruction in its path. But once again it seems the Federal Government has not been playing that role, and does not look like they will be playing it any time soon. For the past hundred years (at least) people have been crying out that our Congress has been bought off to serve the interests of big industry at the expense of everyone.
And right now the town of Kingston Tennessee is worrying about the water they use to drink and shower with (that has been causing rashes and burning), the quality of the air they are breathing (which is causing lung ailments), and the water quality where the fish they eat live.(it might takes years for the chemicals in the water to work its way into the larger fish that humans eat. From the nation’s website,
Meanwhile, a recent survey by Tennessee's state health department said that one third of the residents living near the spill are reporting breathing problems. Some residents have complained of a gray film in their tap water and of a burning sensation on their skin and in their eyes after taking a shower.”
One mother took her asthmatic child to the hospital and was told the toxins are on the ground all over town and you probably tracked toxic dust into your house, until the house is cleaned you should not take your son back there. The TVA gave the mother a hotel room. But the hotel was also housing workers from the cleanup who were tracking toxic dust into the hotel. Once again the TVA stepped up to help by buying the mother and child a home outside of town. But once again, not thinking things through, the house was upwind of the spill, and frequent winds carried toxic particles back into the child’s lungs.
Besides the 1.2 billion dollar estimated costs of cleaning up the toxic spill the TVA has also donated 43 million dollars to the town of Kingston, I suppose as some sort of apology. Yet the move looks disingenuous when word got out that a board would be set up to decide how the money would be spent, where half the board members used to sit on TVA’s board.
Non profit environment groups have also got involved. One environmental organization United Mountain Defense has raised money so they could come to Kingston to test for levels of toxins in people as well as in the environment. In one instance a few volunteers for the United Mountain Defense organization were detained by police for legally installing machines to test for air quality. Greenpeace began calling for a criminal investigation into the spill pretty much right after it occurred. A nonprofit, Southern Alliance for Clean Energy is suing the TVA under the Clean Water Act and the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, for 165 million dollars, making up one of at least four lawsuits against the TVA. And the Sierra club has a movement building to move beyond coal as a form of energy. They recognize the hazards coal has on communities that dig for coal, that have coal shipped through them, that burn coal, and that store coal power plant waste, and they see the great potential green energy has to offer. Their four point plan from their website aims to;
slow and stop the construction of new coal burning power plants
Dramatically accelerate the retirement and/or replacement of existing plants
Reduce coal mining production a little each year, stop mountaintop removal, prevent new mining
Slow and end the use of high carbon fuels in the US
As for the question why wasn’t this a bigger news story considering it was over 40 times larger of a spill than the Exxon Valdez, one writer summed it up best,
“Primarily because it occurred in rural eastern Kentucky — and few people outside of those who live there really care about what happens to the land and people of Appalachia. If the impoundment failure had happened in California or New York, it would have been front page news in The New York Times and the Washington Post. Can you imagine emergency rooms in Los Angeles being shut down because of a lack of clean water? Instead, it was deemed “not really that important” by most of the mainstream media. When wildfires consume beautiful homes in the hills of California, it headlines the CBS evening news. But when creeks are fouled and thousands of people go without water for weeks in Appalachia, somehow it’s not considered “newsworthy.”
For more information check out these sites

Friday, October 16, 2009

Health Care part....

Found a last week, from Dylan Ratigan that the only business in the whole country that is legally exempt from the antitrust laws is the Insurance industry. hmmm.

The same anti trust laws that were passed by congress to stop one company from taking over too much of the market place, effectivly removing competition and granting the one company the ability to raise rates and cut service, exactly what we have right now running rampant in the Health Care Industry. ]

So why are Republicans still going on telivision and arguing that insurance companies are not the problem the real problem is out of control lawsuits. Sure it is.

So while the health inusrance industry basically threatened to raise rates this week if any type of public option was passed, the Democratic Leader in the Senate Harry Ried finally grew a pair, and threatened to cancel the anti trust exemption given to the health insurance industy. How do you like. Dems have somewhat of a spine after all.

Dylan Ratigan

He is a new anchor on MSNBC, a channel you cannot watch if you subscribe to Verizon cable services because their competition have an exclusive contract,blah blah blah. Dylan has been tearing it on his show recently, introducing new ideas and ways to look at the recent economic collapse triggered by Wall Street.

He points that on Wall Street their are two mindsets. One is to gather money for investment in business, to drive business growth and innovation. This was the original idea behind Wall Street. A business begins to sell stock so they have some extra money on hand to build a second factory or buy more machines to increae output.

The second philosophy is to gamble like you do in Vegas. So hedge funds have popped up gathering large sums of money and placing huge bets, not on stocks but on things like risk. With the so called subprime mortgage crash we saw Wall Street gambling on peoples mortgages, would they be able to pay or not, there is also bets on credit card debt.

Dylan does not like the second philosophy because you taking large sums of money away from companies that would use that money to grow, to expand and to innovate.

Makes sense. Especially when you look at all the companies that were short on money when the crash happened. Also makes sense when you try to find our exactly what America makes anymore.

Friday, October 9, 2009

It must be an early april fools joke

President Obama won the nobel peace prize today, yet there is nothing peaceful about him except for his rhetoric. This is a man who has continued two illegal wars on some of the poorest people of the world in Iraq and Afghanistan. This is a man who continues the illegal Bush policies of rendition(shipping suspected terrorists off to countries that are known to torture prisoners). This is a man who continues the illegal Bush policy of keeping suspected terrorists locked up without rights. And to top it all off, we were informed this week that he bombed the moon. The moon people. Who wins a peace prize after they bomb the moon. What could anyone have against the moon. Whats next bombing the sun?

Living in the twilight zone people. Wake up. If this action does not say the whole world is Alice in wonderland than you will never see it.

Update;
Just listened to a Bill O'rielly segment where he told viewers his choice for the Nobel would have been General David Petraues. Thats right a General. The man in charge of the many deaths and abuses that have occured inside Iraq. Bills reasoning was that he did the groundwork for peace. No matter that he killed people and destroyed lives to do it. This way oif thinking is just mind boggling to me. In order to create peace its ok to kill. In order to stop a murderer we must murder. We must all become terrorists to stop the terrorists. Doesnt bill see a problem with this line of reasoning. Eventual the word terrorist just defines what side you are on. To Americans Osama is a terrorist. To the people of Iraq George Bush was the terrorist. Who is right who is wrong? Are both right. Both Osama and George killed people to create peace. Both say they are justified in their killing. I say both are wrong. I say peace cannot be built on top of murdered human. Call me crazy.

Al Franken vs. Rape supporting Republicans

Al Franken passed his first ammendment this week as a Senator that will hold contracters working in war zones like Iraq or Afghanistan responsible for criminal acts, like say if 5 male employees working for haliburten decide to rape a female coworker working for haliburten, and when theh female employee tells her boss they lock her up and tell her if she ever wants to go home she shoudl shut up. Right now the five males who raped and basically kidnapped this women, holding her against her will, in a foreign land, are in a grey zone of the law. Al Franken proposes a law to punish Americans who rape and kidnap other Americans in a war zone, and some Republicans actually voted against this. Fucking amazing. I cant wait to read the spin they try to put on this shit. Links and names to follow

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/15/jon-stewart-takes-on-30-r_n_321985.html

We can do it too;

If you dont support universal health care than tell us why you hate Americans?

Wednesday, October 7, 2009

PR blitz Vs. News

David Sirota has a great column up at http://inthesetimes.com/article/4912/mad_men_2.0
where he discusses how hard it is to find real facts and information about issue in todays world beause for every scientists you have showing actual facts and data you have a team of corporate lawyers and lobbyists deny these facts.

In a related story Rachel Maddow of msnbc (which i cannot get on my cable tv service(verizon in NY) because it seems verizens competition, cablevision, and an exclusive contract), had a segment on the other day where she spoke with an industry expert who owns a well established PR firm, who has websites trying to convince us that transfats are not bad, there is no mercury in fish, sun tanning beds are safe, high fructose corn syrup is safe, and many many more, he does this all with a straight face.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/07/rachel-maddow-confronts-n_n_312334.html

And finally it seems in the face of untruthful corporate dominated cable news a real news castor working for America has snuck through the gates, who is doing real reporting but is beating up anyone who comes on his show who attempts to do an information for whoever they are working for. A sidenote, it seems every pundit, or expert that appears on corporate run cable news acts more like they are doing an informatial for whoever own them, instead of being a true industry expert who goes on the news trying to clarifying a complex issue. One of my favorite authors David Sirota has talked about the lack of transparency on these news shows so that you will rarely be told by say, fox news, that their military expert giving a supposed candid opinion on afghanistan is really a paid pr specialist hired by the pentagon, makes a difference to know this, eh?

Anyway Dylan Ratigan is kicking some major ass at msnbc and anyone interested in real, old school, muckraking journalist should check him out,
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31510813/ns/msnbc_tv-morning_meeting
anyone looking for the same old, canned talking points, with no substance, being yelled back and forth, and lies should check out Fox news, cnn, abc, nbc, and cbs.

Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Dont trust the balance sheets

The FDIC, a branch of the US government responsible for the soundness of the banking industry has been doing internal tests of banks to test their stablility. This past quarter 416 lenders made the list for failing the FDIC's stability test, a 15 year high. Many of these lenders have superb financial statements. Which leads me to my point. Their are millions of ways to make a financial statement look sound when in fact the lender or business is not.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aHU4bso2L2aE

Saturday, October 3, 2009

Tennessee

I am currently writing something on the Tennessee coal power plant that kept a pool of toxic sludge called fly ash in a landfill, and when the wall to the landfill burst open toxic sludge flooded the town, this happened in december of 08' but 1)its still not clean yet and 2) it is the largest pollutiion disaster in the history of the United States.

Just wanted to share with you a highlight of the story so far. The toxic pool of sludge is not regulated by the EPA because it is classified as nto hazerdous, yet the sludge is pollution from the coal burning power plant that previoulsy was pushed into the atmosphere as smoke. So why isnt it still released as smoke you ask? Well the EPA called the smoke hazerdous and didnt want to pollute the air anymore. So bingo, lets grab the smoke and make it ash, add water and create a pool of toxic sludge called fly ash and call it, uhhhhhhh, not hazerdous. Because we both know mercury cadmium, asrsenic and lead dont count as hazerdous when they are in sludge form.

So the toxic non hazerdous sludge burst out of its home (pool next to power plant) and in an effort to be free it covers the town in sludge. So why is the TVA( tennessee valey authority, the owners of the power plant) spending millions buying out all the homes in the area and cleaning up the mess? It makes no sense. Why clean up toxic non hazerdous material. I mean non hazerdous is non hazerdous. If i spill a glass of water in the street I wouldnt clean it up like I would clean up glass, now thats hazerdous.

The other story i wanted to share was a child with asthma who was rushed to the hospital. You see him and his mother walked on non hazerdous toxins in the dirt in town and than walked all over their house. Kid plays on floor with dirt, kid gets really sick. Doctor blames toxins and poisons found in non hazerdous sludge and tells the mom she should not go back to her home until it is cleaned out or child will stay sick. The TVA being nice and understanding and wantin to help the town they have shit on decide to put the mother and child up in a hotel room. But the child is still sick. hmmm. Could it be the TVA got the mother and child a hotel room in the same hotel occupied by those workers cleaning up the spill sit, and who have been tracking in mud and dirt from the spill site all over the hotel? Yes it can.

So in the last brain dead move of the year, the TVA buys mom and child their own home, too bad it was upwind of the spill site, and dust and toxic non hazerdous particles are blowing into the new house. Thanks but no thanks.

Friday, September 18, 2009

Fed up

Have not read in awhile and thus i have little to sum up for you. Politics in the US has reached such a level of elite corruption and the spreading of fear that it is hard to not want to give up. The American public wants health care reform but th elite powers have organized a campaign that makes it seem like we dont. The American public wants accountability on wall street but the corporate sponsored (owned) government refuses to oblige. The corporate media has yet to give the american public an honest debate.

I have not been in the mood to search out real news. my only area has been openleft.com , my only source of sanity. Real people with real ideas, fighting the long, slow struggle against the corrupt that seem to control every lever of power.

Monday, August 31, 2009

Health Care Debate V

So lets say you own a monopolisitc, private, for profit, wall street driven, insurance company and your company makes 5 billion dolalrs last year. This year the President says we are going to pass a health care reform that will make your company obsolete in America. How much would you spend to kill that type of legislatal reform? 1 billion dollars? 4 billion dollars? Would you scare Americans into agreeing with your point of view? Would you by media time to scare them? Would you hire mobs and bus them into town hall meetings to cause a madhouse? Would you buy, i mean lobby congress especially business friendly republicans to support your perspective?

Welcome to the wonderfull world of American politics.

Just imagine if the American public could pool their resources, knowledge, leadership, and join together and actually fight back against the business/political alliance that dominated every aspect of America for the last hundred years, except our SOUL.

Sunday, August 30, 2009

Health Care Debate IV

A major flaw with the current health care model is there is no competition. Competition is key in a captilist system, giving consumers choice and forcing providers to offer the best and cheapest care. Without competition we get monopolies. A few big bullies who do what they like (charge a lot, offer a little) because there is no other choice.

The Democratic Party has mentioned they want a government option to compete with the monoply system currently running to force the monopolies into acting fair. The monopolies are crying foul, saying it would be unfair competition and would not be in the intereste of capitolism.

So lets remember that right now the government is already subsidizing the monopolistic private for profit insurance model. How you ask? Through medicare and medicaid, two government run insurance programs set up to help the poor and elderly have healthcare. The poor and the elderly are usually more unhealthy and costly to insure becuase the poor dont have access to better quality food, and more frequent preventative care, and its no secret that seniors bodies are aging and need more attention.

So right our of the gate, the monopolistic, private, for profit, insurance model does not have to worry about insuring the most costly customers. This is a golden ticket for any business. And yet this is stil not enough. They still find ways in their hearts of hearts to relieve themselves of the burden of the second most costly group to insure, those that use their insurance a lot and need costly procedures.

So quick recap, monopolistic, private, for profit, wall street driven, insurance companies love when the government gets involed in health care when it benefits them, yet they hate when the government gets involved when it benefits the entire country. So remind me again why we are lisening to and believing talking points from a group of people who would do basically anything to keep the stauts quo?

Remember how much money we are talking about here. If we switch to the canadian model of a single government run insurance option with no more private insurance companies, that meens some right now stand to lose billions of dollars, i cant even fathom a number 20 billion dollars a year? In a sense these executives are fighting for their lives. Do you not expect them to do whatever it take, to spend whatever it takes, to use any lie it takes, to convince us that changing the current monopolistic model will be horrible for everyone?

Saturday, August 29, 2009

Health Care Debate III

Big Business should be supporting a government run public option for all, like a medicare for all, where we pay taxes and get free care because this would benefit every company, every corporation, every small businessman.
How?
Right now corporations offer their employees health insurancea and it cuts into the corporate profit. If the government took over this role it would have two benefits. ONe being that corporations would be spending less money on overall pay to their employees because health coverage is a large portion of what employees get paid. And since the goal of any corporation is to make money, i cant see why every corporation is not on board with this idea.

The second reason is competition. Our corporations compete on the world scene with Canadian, European, Chinese and other foreign corporations. Right now since all those nations i just mentioned have their government pay for their citizens healthcare, they have an advantage over our corporations right out of the gate. If our government can take this expense off the books of our corporations we can compete better on the world scene.

Remember earlier this year when the American car makers were in serious trouble and the first thing that was mentioned was the workers pay. Everyone on corporate news agreed that the union would have to make consetions with pay, retirement and healthcare. Now imagine if the government stepped in and said we will pay for all your workers healthcare, maybe Gm doesnt need the governemnt bailout?

So in one sense you have the health care industry made of hospitals, insurance companies, and pharmacuetical companies who want to keep the current system, and then you have every other sector of private business who would beneift from change, yet for some reason the powers of this nation seem to have alighned against any fundamental change. I am confused.

Friday, August 28, 2009

Health care debate II

A story in the new york times pointed out by a writer i read quite often David Sirota, sheds some new light on a myth used commonly when argueing against government run health care.

The myth is that the governmnet will ration your care, deciding for your and over your doctors decision what kind of procedure you can have.

As I pointed out in my long entry before this one, government run does not have to mean rationing care. The Canadian government currently uses a government run model that does not ration care. The rationing that will be done here has to do with unneccesary testing that is done so doctors can overcharge insurance companies to make some extra money. But if you trying to scare the nation about any changes to the current system so they would not support any changes you can talk about rationing emergency life saving care, because its scary.

So, in the new times article, an insurance company executive admits that they currently practice rationing care. So America, wake up. You dont want to reform healthcare and get the government involved because there is slim to none chance they will ration care that could cause you bodily harm, and you are furious over this idea of rationing care. But you do want to stick with the current system that currently rations care. America, you are schizophrenic.

Thursday, August 27, 2009

health care debate

Just like every political debate that goes on today in the United States the one for health care is less than honest. It would be nice to live in a world where politicians and the media held honesty and openness as their highest priority. Instead we live in a world of spin, lies, half truths, missing informations, skewed data, kindergarten arguments aimed at stirring up irrational emotional behavior.

For some healthcare in the United States is a problem. 47 million are uninsured and 25% of those with insurance are denied coverage or their insurance is cancelled when they go to use it. That is a fact. Another fact is the model for insurance in the States is private for profit insurance companies are the gatekeepers for getting care. These gatekeepers are driven by profit motives. The more they spend healing people the less they earn, dropping the stock value, making wall street mad. Wall street is king in the States. You do not make them mad.

An honest debate has to talk about this. Is this the model that most Americans like. Does it seem fair that to make money insurance companies have to deny care? As i quoted from Bill Maher, why does a health insurance model have to make money? Other countries run not for profit insurance programs why cant we.

19 or 20 of the richest nations on earth give their country free public health insurance, run by the government, without the need to make a profit, except the USA. But when we find out about this the opposition who would do anything to keep the current system has begin a dishonest dialogue, because they would lose everything if an honest dialogue was allowed.

And the scary part is, that its so hard to know who is having an honest dialogue. All sides look at their opposition and think how can they be so misinformed, how can they be so dumb, i can believe they are buying those bs arguments. And that is exactly what they want.

If we continue to yell, and scream at each other, and name call, if we continue to have a dishonest debate guess what happens? Nothing. Guess who wins? Those who want to keep the current system. Who benefits from the current system? The for profit insurance companies raking in billions every year.

Its a simple debate. The rest of the rich world does it. Citizens in other countries are not losing their homes because of large medical bills. Citizens in other nations are not going bankrupt because of large medical bills. Citizens in other countries are not getting charged outrageous bills for the medication they take and for their hospital visits.

The voices against a government administered option have very small basis for their beliefs. Lets take their reasons one by one.

They dont want the government running healthcare telling people what they can do and what they cant do as far as medical procedures. But in Canada right now, the Canadian government has rarely if ever become involved in medical decisions, the doctors are the one's that deny and approve care. Isnt that what we want? But right now we dont have that. In the States today we have doctors who ask private for profit insurance companies to approve procedures. So ask yourself who do you want to approve procedures. If you say doctors than you must want change because that might not be happening right now. If you say you want government to approve your medical decisions your crazy, no one wants this. Its such a false argument. Americans, do you really think the democratic party wants the government involved in deciding what care you are allowed to have?

One analogy i read is that the government run public option would run much like the fire department. The government foots the bill yet they don't decide what calls the fireman go on. They only foot the bill. The firehouse acts the way it sees fit. Just in case this is not sinking in, right now if their is a fire in your house and you call for a fire-truck the fire house does not call the government to get approval to put out your fire, they just put it out and send the government a bill. So, is everyone happy with the way the fire department is set up? Do you sit around questioning the government run fire-department, wondering whats the deal with that socialist,russian-esque institution? And if so do you wish we had a capitalist, for profit, fire department?

Think about it. The fire department would have a public stock that you could invest in, they would have a ceo with a 10 million dollar a year salary, because thats what ceo's make, and every-time they got a call of a fire in town they would have to decide the cost benefit analysis just like every other for profit corporation.

The more i write about this analogy the more it makes sense. The goal of both the fire department and the health industry is to save lives. So why set up one as a public service to the community paid for by the government, through tax dollars, and no matter how much or little we use the service we all pay basically the same % of our income to fund it, and with the other, health care, we refuse to leave the capitalist model of a profit driven, wall street driven, with a multi millionaire ceo salary.

People in the streets are saying we dont want government run anything. But is anyone complaining about the government managed interstate highway system? Do you wish you have a for profit corporation fixing up only the profitable roads? What about government run safety standards like home electrical codes or automobile safety standards to make sure your car doesnt burst into flames when you use the break, or safety standards at work so there is not a 50% chance of you dying on the job everyday.

What I am basically trying to argue is that every day we take for granted massive amounts of government run things that we use and that kept safe since we have been alive. It might not be so bad. The rest of the rich free world does it.

The "we don't want socialized medicine" argument is pretty much the same as the "we don't want government run healthcare. Since when did supplying healthcare for everyone become a socialist institution? Canada has a government run, so called socialist plan yet they boast more private doctors than we have under a free capitalist system. How can that be? Because our doctors here cannot afford to own their own practice anymore instead they are joining large corporate health corporations.

And what is the deal with seniors who all have healthcare, GOVERNMENT RUN no less, and government run social security, coming out in massive amounts against a government run option. The misinformation has been so strong that some on medicare, a government run program, are fearful their medicare will be taken over by the government?@?#!?#?

The last part of the misinformation campaign is to talk about how long the wait is for government run care in europe and canada. I am sure there are some waits, but the bottom line is people are not dying because of wait times. Those happy with the status quo will tell you about all the canadians and europeans that come here every year for healthcare and argue if its so good their why come here. And the answer is because of the wait time and because of money. Most foreigners that come here for care are wealthy individuals, and our system does work very well for the wealthy. And people that come here might not have a long wait in another country, but any wait at all could be cramping their style. With this point i am trying to point out that if you tried to change european or canadian healthcare from not for profit to for profit they would flip out.

The huffington post website has a great flow chart that showing the dynamic behind the push to drown out the real debate with misinformation and half truths. Most of the misinformation is coming from those with the most to lose, the private for profit insurance industry, hospitals, and pharmaceutical companies. They have been bribing, i mean making campaign contributions to business friendly congressman and senators for years to buy their support in times of change like today.

Also ask yourself where are you getting your news? Do you watch corporate funded cable news programs who's interests are aligned with the current model of healthcare, or are you reading stories from people of all walks of life who have seen the horror stories of our current system, or have you watched congressional testimony of insurance executives who quit because they could no longer stand to kill patients by denying coverage to them, or where a mid level insurance administrator who told her story of being promoted after denying a very large claim for surgery.

Its not easy to find a balanced honest debate these days. Our congress is made up of millionaires, our president is a millionaire, most news anchors on corporate run cable news every night are millionaires. Who is out there working for me and you, the middle class and the poor class.

If 47 million million people dont have health care why are they being so quiet and letting those with health care control the framing of the debate.

There are many things wrong with this country and the world. Why is it that anyone who cares and would like to talk about these things is labeled a communist or socialist? I thought the roots of those words come from community and society? If you are a party working to better community and society why is that made to seem evil and wrong? Why is it the corporate media hate people who try to discuss problems in this country. We can never grow if we only focus on our best attributes

Friday, July 24, 2009

Bill Maher;When did everything become about profit

Bill Maher has a great column up on huffingtonpost.com asking the question when did everything become about making a profit.

He argues there was a time in America where things like hospitals were run by nuns, who were not in it for the profit, while today "In the U.S. today, three giant for-profit conglomerates own close to 600 hospitals and other health care facilities. They're not hospitals anymore; they're Jiffy Lubes with bedpans." These conglomorates now have publicly trades stock. So when they deny you care the stock goes up and someone makes a profit.

Prisons used to be run by the governemnt, not for a profit, not anymore."A company called the Corrections Corporation of America is on the New York Stock Exchange, which is convenient since that's where all the real crime is happening anyway."

Every aspect of war used to be handled by the soldiers. Today there are more private contracters in our war zones than soldiers.

"Television news is another area that used to be roped off from the profit motive. When Walter Cronkite died last week, it was odd to see news anchor after news anchor talking about how much better the news coverage was back in Cronkite's day. I thought, "Gee, if only you were in a position to do something about it." "

"If conservatives get to call universal health care "socialized medicine," I get to call private health care "soulless vampires making money off human pain.""

"And if medicine is for profit, and war, and the news, and the penal system, my question is: what's wrong with firemen? Why don't they charge? They must be commies. Oh my God! That explains the red trucks!"

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bill-maher/new-rule-not-everything-i_b_244050.html

Sunday, July 19, 2009

cheney Assissination Squads

This past week in the news had stories about the previous Vice President Dick Cheney running an assassination ring out of his office. Jeremy Scahill writes a nice piece discussing how the W. Bush Presidencey was not the first nor the last to target people around the world for assassination.

http://original.antiwar.com/scahill/2009/07/15/the-democrats-selective-amnesia-on-assassination/

Friday, July 17, 2009

California nurses still on job after years of misconduct

Doing some research this week for an article about the health care reform comming up in congress when I came across this article at propublica, a great research website.

The article talks about the problems facing California States Nursing Board, where a few board members were fired this week by the Governator.

The problem was;

" board charged with overseeing California's 350,000 registered nurses often takes years to act on complaints of egregious misconduct, leaving nurses accused of wrongdoing free to practice without restrictions, an investigation by The Times and the nonprofit news organization ProPublica found.

It's a high-stakes gamble that no one will be hurt as nurses with histories of drug abuse, negligence, violence and incompetence continue to provide care across the state. While the inquiries drag on, many nurses maintain spotless records. New employers and patients have no way of knowing the risks."

"Among the findings:

* The board took more than three years, on average, to investigate and discipline errant nurses, according to its own statistics. In at least six other large states, the process typically takes a year or less.

* The board failed to act against nurses whose misconduct already had been thoroughly documented and sanctioned by others. Reporters identified more than 120 nurses who were suspended or fired by employers, disciplined by another California licensing board or restricted from practice by other states – yet have blemish-free records with the nursing board.

* The board failed to use its authority to immediately stop potentially dangerous nurses from practicing. It obtained emergency suspensions of nurses' licenses just 29 times from 2002 to 2007. In contrast, Florida's nursing regulators, who oversee 40% fewer nurses, take such action more than 70 times each year"

I suggest you check out the full story. Scary Scary stuff.

http://www.propublica.org/feature/when-caregivers-harm-california-problem-nurses-stay-on-job-710

Monday, July 13, 2009

Inside look at Wall street

Matt Taibbi is getting a lot of press over his new article in rolling stone about how Goldman Sachs has created every bubble in the stock market since the great depression. In an interview with Sam Ceder he talks about the recent housing bubble and tech bubble of the 90's.

One major issue that Matt touches on is a change in the culture of Wall Street beginning in the early 90's. He argues that that is the time when most investment banks went public with stocks. So the investment banks began to gamble with other peoples money and not so much of their own, as had been the case in the past.

With the tech bubble of the 90's, Matt argues the standard for taking companies public and selling their stock to the World was dropped. So that in the past when companies were taken public they had to meet certain criteria, you had to be around for 5 years, you had to be profitable for 3 years, and you must have great potential to be profitable in the future. In the 90's companies were created the day their stock went public. The world bought these stocks trusting in the investment banks that took them public. Who was the largest undewriter(who took them public), for these tech companies, Goldman Sachs.

Saturday, July 11, 2009

Goldman's unfair market play

A story came out this week that a worker at Goldman Sachs bank left for a new job but stole some code before leaving. The computer code that was stolen was for a computer program full of math algorithms that was used by Goldman to trade stocks. Two things are very interesting about this story.
The first is that Goldman called up the Justice Department to have the theif arrested because he would have an unfair advantage in the stock market by having this computer program. Yet Bloomberg news' Jonathan Weil asks, why is Goldman not getting any flack for having this unfair advantage to begin with? So only investment banks are legally allowed to have unfair market advantage.

Second is that this man was arrested within 48 hours of Goldman Sachs calling in the crime to the Justice Department. Talk about pull in the government. How long would it take for our calls to no even be acted on but just listened to?

Monday, July 6, 2009

Hondorus Coup

Last week the Military in Hondorus walked into the presidents home, put him on a plane at gun point and flew him to Costa Rica with a warning, if you return to Hondorus you will be arrested. The military is making the claim that they are restoring Democracy, but that does not seem to be the case.

Their is war in Iraq, war in Afghanistan, trouble brewing in Pakistan, a revolution in Iran. Over the past few years we saw Coup like shananigans in Georgia, Ukraine, and Venzuala, and Haiti. Do we still have to pay attention to all these coups? Is Hondorus any different. Im not sure yet.

But the one difference that I have seen in Venezuala lead by Hugo Chavez, and Hondorus lead by the former President Manuel Zelaya is the way they have actually delivered on their promise to give back to the poor everyday man and women in their nation. For example Zelaya of Hondorus increased minimum wage by 60%. And Venezuala's Chavez created such a good economic model that 60% of the population, the poorest members of society, saw their income grow by 130%.

This of course has the effect of taking away from someone. In Venezuala and Hondorus the losers were the rich, elite, businessmen. The elite of Hondorus owns 45% of the countries wealth. Does that seem fair?

I believe this is a problem for the American elite. They cannot sit by and watch the poor of Venezuala democratically elect leaders that will roll back centuries woth of Western elite philosophy, being that the rich should take a larger and larger share of the pie. Venezualians and Hondorans and Iranians are standing up and saying we are fed up with having small sections of our nation own almost everything, and who are able to have laws passed to legally make the rich a more important class. The elite in the US better wise up or they will be next to be chewed up by the working poor of America.

FDR gave back to the poor not because he was a kind hearted man but because he had to throw some scraps to the poor or else the whole scam being run by the American elite could have came tumpling down.

In the United States for example the richest 1% own more than the poorest 90%. This is not fair, this is not right, and this is not what the United States is all about. A cool teacher i had at Nassua Community said you cannot have vastly wealthy nations like the United States without having poor nations in her wake. Well the same goes for inside the United States. You cannot have the extremely rich owning it all without the extremely poor owning nothing.

This becomes a philisophical debate. Do you take away the wealth and redistribute it? How do you do that without sending a message that says, if you work too hard and become too much of a success the government will take away your shit. How do you also deal with the opposite message being sent, you can sit on your ass and do nothing and the government will provide.

Maybe Communism is best. Everyone gets the same. Im not so worried about the argument that says where is the incentive to work hard and innovate. For one, we can give bonuses, or set up some kind of system that turns innocators and hard workers into superstars, using the same system we have that makes movies stars and professional athletes the bees knees.

But what is the deal with working only for money. What happened to good old pride and work ethics. A coworker of mine is constantly saying, "well i wouldnt worry about it we dont get paid that much to go overboard". I just cant wrap my head around that line of reasoning. I work hard no matter what job or how little the pay. I do it for personal pride and ethics. I believe if you slack off in one area of life it will spread to others areas of your life.

And what about reputation. Would you like to be known as the worker people can call on to get things done or the worker that does just enough to get by who is rarely in his office, cannot be gotten on the phone and does not return emails.

What happened to the guy who goes to work to kick ass to make American and his neihborhood better. Am I the last one? I hope not.

Sunday, July 5, 2009

Virginity Surgery in Iran

I read an interesting article that i wanted to pass on about a surgery becoming very popular in Iran. The surgery is called Hymen repair. The purpose is for women who have had sex before marriage to have an operation that will repair a torn hymen. Googling hymen repair i found a site that says the hymen in that womens vagina is torn during their first sexual experience. The surgery repairs this tear, and will even insert red dye packets to simulate the women bleeding during her first time.

The author of the article quotes some young men in Tehran who dont mind sleeping around before marriage but would only marry a virgin. They also admit the surgery is so popular and sex so prevelant that their are no more virgins left in Tehran.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/may/12/virgin-hymen-repair-iran

Friday, July 3, 2009

how the US government works III

The US Govnernment sets policy. Groups lobby the Government to get their policy ideas adoptoed by the Government. The more money and power you have the more pull you have when it comes to lobbying. Most groups, like say a health insurance company who wants to lobby will follow a few protocals. They will donate money to political campains. They will establish front groups to act like independent research outfits spewing out facts that support the health insurance companies stance. And the most imporant piece is for the insurance company to hire Grade A lobbyists, who are very powerful, retired politicians, who a) understand how policy is made, and b) have friends still making policy. Oh yea i forgot the other way is for the insurance company to promise to hire the politicians who help them put the policy into law, with very large salaries, after said law is made. Some call this a bribe.

Some companies, ahem ahem, Goldman Sachs, Ahem, have so much power that they skip to the head of the line. Matt Taibbi, a reporter with the Rolling Stones Magazine has a great peice coming out about the power of Goldman Sachs, over the past hundred years. But more importantly, Goldman has slowly been placing its loyal worker bees throughout the halls of power, so that when Goldman wants policy made they just ask the Treasury and its done, no congress, no vote, no democracy.

Matt tells the story that in 2004 Goldman asked the Treasury Department (which was run by ex Goldman CEO Paulson), to allow them a loophole so they dont have to follow the regulations requiring 1 dollar to physically be in your bak for every 12 dollars the bank lends out. Paulson simply walked over the SCC, the bank regulaters, asked for an exemption for four banks and was granted it. The end result being that now these four banks were able to lend out money without having any money physically in their bank.

Some gig huh. Well at least for two of the banks. Because the other two are no longer operating, Lehman Brothers, and Bear Sterns. As Bruno would say, "Coincidence, I think not."

Must be sweet to have that much pull. What would you ask for with that much pull? I would ask for all these banking shmoes, all the oil company execs, all the health insurance deniers (of claims, not those who deny the existance of health insurance, that would be an interested Dave Chappelle skit), to be investigated and arrested along with all the government officials who act in a manner unbecoming of a US representative.

That would be a good idea for a movie. A few regular guys that have more pull with the government than anyone else. And anything they ask for they get.

What would you ask for?

Wednesday, July 1, 2009

Inside peak into how the US Government works

The Republican party has a major philosophy that the government cannot run things, that private industry would do much better. So right now when President Obama is trying to sell his idea of universal healthcare to the American public that would be run by the government the Republican opposition has an easy sell to their supporters,"its a bad idea because the government cant run anything, they would just mess it up."

But an article by Thomas Frank highlights and idea that Democrats have been trying to discuss for years, that maybe when Republicans have control of the Legislative and Executive branches of the government they make sure the government fails to prove their point. Thomas Frank points out that all the time periods the Republicans point to and say look we told you so, the government failed, is a time period when Republicans controlled the branches of government.

As a response to the budget crisis going on now in California, the state had public meetings where any citizen could walk up to the microphone and talk to their local representatives, to tell them how the budget cuts are effecting them and their town. One lady stood up and yelled at the representatives, "if you dont believe in government step aside and let some one who does believe in government to step up and try to fix the problem.

When President Bush spent the nation into the largest deficit in the history of our country, many on the left argued it was part of a grande Republican strategy to spend all the money so when Democrats take back the reign of power they will have no money to impliment any of their ideas.

And when the Democrats are trying to spend their way out of this economic crisis as FDR did to save this country, what is the Republican response? How dare you spend so much money, the country can't handle it. It's hysterical, yet i know people who walk around repeating this mantra, "Barrack Obama is spending too much money, he is ruining this country."

check out Thomas Frank is a rare bread among political writers.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124640443679876503.html#mod=rss_opinion_main

Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Inside peak into how congress works

The House of Representatives just passed an envirnmentally friendly energy bill that some are calling a huge step in combatting global warming. The vote was 219 for and 212 against, with 8 republicans voting for the democratic bill. The right wing media has been attacking the 8 Republicans arguing that if it weren't for them the Democratic legislation would never have passed. But that is not the case according to the Democratic party.

Democrats in washington are claiming (according to sam stein) that Nancy Pelosi allowed 44 Democrats to vote aganst the bill because she knew the bill would pass, making their votes not vital. And that if she did not have the votes to pass the bill these 44 would have supported the bill to get it passed.

The reason they voted against something they wanted to pass is classic Washington strategy. These 44 Democrats hail from conservative leaning districts. And in thinking of the next election, they want to show their constituents their conservative street credability. And in a a few years when we have the next election no one will remember this little strategy and these 44 Dems will look like they stood up to the envirnmental rights bill.

This also works the opposite way. Republicans that voted for the bill are hoping it won't pass the senate and become law. This way they get some street credablity for standing up yet they did not actually change anything and so cannot be held too accountable.

So once again America, we are last on our elected representatives priority list.

Thursday, June 25, 2009

Equal right for the non rich

Our country was founded on the principle that all men are created equal. The definition of all men has changed over time here in the US. When our nation was founded it really meant all white, educated, land owning men. Slowly over time other groups had to fight for their rights even though our laws supposedly guaranteed them.

In the early 1900's we saw women protest en mass for their equal rights. In the 1960's we saw black protest as well lead by the famous Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Preacher Malcolm X amongst others. Today we see gay people fighting for their right to legally wed.

For whatever reason, fear, hate, not wanting to give up power, the leaders of our nation did not want to give these equal rights away without putting up a fight. Right now I think its time for a new group to begin its march for equal rights. The poor and the middle class.

This group is constantly being stepped on by the leaders of the country. The uneducated. The immigrants. The home with two working parents just making ends meet. The person who is just barely staying afloat and gets sick and loses their job and home. The guy who retired ten years ago thinking he would be comfortable with his small retirement package from GM until they went bankrupt and decided to cancel all health insurance for those already retired.

Those people from the Michael Moore documentary Sicko who have health insurance but are getting squeezed by their Health Insurance Company who wanted to save money, so they had to decide, between which fingers to save after a machine accident, or having to decide between food or surgery.

Or the family's in one of the Carolina's who can't leave their home because they happen to live next to one of the world largest pig farms that is producing so much pig feces waste and not properly removing it, resulting in poisonous fumes that make it too toxic to go outside. Or those who chose to gamble on the stock market, who thought the game wasn't rigged, and found out it was and they lost a lot.

Or the poor in Californian who have no health insurance and use free clinics but will soon be told sorry we cannot help you anymore because of the crisis going on right now with the California budget. One Californian activist predicts people will begin to die on the streets of LA because there wont be enough free clinics and supplies to treat everyone. Or the teachers in California have to worry about their jobs after the Governator approved the firing of 1/3 of all California state teachers.

Millions and millions of us are falling through the cracks with out anyone coming to the rescue. Yet we see the richest of us being saved by the same government that is failing the poor. As a wrote in a previous blog after hurricane Katrina it tooks days to get water into Louisiana. Which was more time than it took for Congress to pass a bill to make trillions of dollars available to wall street thieves who stole it all to begin with, almost crashing the entire economy of United States in their wake.

To me, it may not be as obvious as having separate bathrooms for two people with different skin colors. But the size of my bank account definitely determines what laws I am asked to follow . Just ask OJ Simpson, and every corporation that ever dumped toxic waste into the environment who destroyed peoples health and were not responsible under the law. Just ask the people in Michael Moore's Sicko who lost a loved one because the insurance company refused treatment that would cost a lot of money, legally killing people. Just ask the government lawyers who sued Microsoft for monopolistic practices and who won while Bill Clinton was still in office and than when Bush took over he threw out the case, after the government won the case!?!?!?

The size of my bank account also determines what laws are passed. Rich banks too big to fail get trillions in cash to shore up their bankrupt tyrannosaurus rex size companies. The rich lobby of the health insurance gets laws written that favor their profit margin over the public interest. Just now being talked about in congress is a clean air act that will prohibit the regulating of power plants if they are related to global warming, because the regulation would effect the companies bottom line.

When did the bottom line become the new mantra of the nation. The bottom line is the rich in the country get laws passed, everyone else doesn't. Everyone in Congress as well as the past dozen presidents have been millionaires. If we having millionaires running the country are we surprised that laws are passed to benefit only millionaires.

I am merely saying it seems those laws are discriminatory in nature. If a jury is not made up of peers it is not a legal jury. If our government does not represent the people it might not be legal.

Any time someone on the corporate run news brings up any of these points they are jumped on for using class warfare. But i cant think of anything else to call it. If it walks like a duck, well you know.

If you begin to slowly crush me under you boot for over a hundred years than i quickly trip you to get you off of me how can anyone of reason believe i am the trouble maker.

So who is with me? Any lawyers in the house? Any ACLUers up in here? Could this be my calling in life?

Governor Sanford in Argentina

Governor Sandford admits to having cheated on his wife by having an affair with a women in Argentina and the Republican establshment tells everyone to back off, its a private issue, they said we are all human and make mistakes, "he is in our prayors", "our heart goes out to the family".

So why weren't the Republicans this sympathetic when Bill Clinton cheated, they tried to impeach him right?
Thanks washington for being a model of true leadership.

Iran-summary

So after a week of protesting after the election the Mousavi camp asked for a recount and was granted a 10% recount by the Guardian Council. The Council has determined some fraud in 50 cities where up to 140% of the registered voters voted. But since the extra votes amount to only 3 million in an election where Ahmadinejad won by 11 million some are saying nothing can be done. But Mousavi has powerful allies.

After the week of protests the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khomenei gave his Friday sermon basically warning protesters that he has been reasonable and if the protesters are not reasonable the full strength of the law will be felt.

The next day Mousavi held huge rallies. The biggest since the Revolution and the army cracked down. Up to 20 dead, hundreds arrested.

But the most important part of the battle was being fought behind the scenes in Qom, the religious headquarters of Iran and the Shia world. A Mousavi ally, Rasfanjani took the battle to Qom to fight for the support of the powerful clerics. And it looks as if he succeeding according to the daily beast writer Reza Aslan, where some kind of power sharing agreement might be arranged.

Rasfanjani is one of the most powerful figures inside Iran. He was a close friend of the first Supreme leaders, and was crucial in the selection of the current one. He also leads a committee that has the power to oust the Supreme Leader if he fails to do his duty, the Council of Experts.

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Palestine vs. Iran

It's so odd that the American elites have so much concern for the freedom of the Iranian people who are living under a brutal regime. But when it comes to the Palestinian living in Israel, also under a brutal regime their seems to be no loved lost. Just one more picture of the hypocracy of the American ruling elite. Two groups of people in two different countries both throwing rocks, being arrested, lives being taken from them but an oppressive regime. One the American corporate media tells us to sympathize with. The other we are told deserve it.

I mean we just had an 8 year term of elites running an operation in the white house who overthrew a brutal middle eastern regime. We were told that America fights for freedom and democracy all across the planet. I am confused (sarcasm)

As my dad would say, " whats that old armenian saying, (the country of origin changes each time) your mama"

Arab world happy and not so happy about Iran

RAMI G. KHOURI has an interesting piece up at;
http://tehranbureau.com/arabs-forlorn-envy-iranians/

The discussion is about how the middle east feels about the events in Iran. The findings are split. Many are happy that the people have the fight and will to stand up and fight the regime. Yet the leaders of the Middle Eastern Nations are worried. Could it happen here they think. Most Middle Eastern Nations are not ruled democracy and many fear the spread of grassroots uprisings taking their power.

And while many would like to see the the regime topple because of Iran's goals of exporting the revolution to places like Lebanon and Iraq, they also enjoy the way Iran stand up to the west, the US, Israel, and the UN.

You broke it you buy it

Credit ­Suisse bank has chosen to reward its executives with bonuses. Not cash, not stock, but the toxic assets that are bringing down wall street and the economy. Its a great idea. While most banks have decided not to punish those who dealt in toxic assets many instead, have been rewarded with the usual bonuses. Thus sending the message what you do has no effect on your salary or your future here. On the other hand Credit Suisse, acting like a responsible leader is telling their workers you broke it you buy, teaching them in the process that they have responsiblities to shareholders, executives and the world.

http://www.portfolio.com/views/columns/wall-street/2009/04/22/Banks-Buy-Toxic-Assets

Saudi Arabia blood money

I just found this interesting blog from an American who live in Saudi Arabia. She wrote one entry about blood money, which is money one family pays to another when someone has been killed and the blame can be placed on someone, as an apology. The idea is based on Muslim law, and eye for an eye. The family who has lost someone has the right to have the killer publicly executed, but most times mercy is granted and payment is made.

According to the blog, http://americanbedu.com/2009/06/05/saudi-arabia-payment-of-diyyah/,the going rates for mercy is the following;
* 100,000 riyals if the victim is a Muslim man
* 50,000 riyals if a Muslim woman
* 50,000 riyals if a Christian man
* 25,000 riyals if a Christian woman
* 6,666 riyals if a Hindu man
* 3,333 riyals if a Hindu woman.

Thursday, June 18, 2009

Wednesday/Thursday Iran


As I have been reading more into the power structure of Iran the Revolutionary Guard has a very interesting story. At first they were charged with being a personal security force of the Supreme Leader they have morphed into an economical/political power player with operations in 20 countries, in an attempt to export the Iranian style revolution.


Ahmadinejad, the incumbant president, a former commander in the revolutionary guard has been slowly helping revolutionary guard commanders take over high levers of power in the government. Under Ahmadinejads, Revolutionary Guard commanders have been appointed to 14 of the 21 cabinet positions, and have taken over as mayors of 30 cities, as well as wining 80 of the 290 seats on the Iranian Congress(Majlis).


This growing power in the politcal halls has meant increasing advantages when the Revolutionary Guard's many front companies bid for government contracts. With their advantage the Guard has built one of the wealthiest empires in Iran with ties to more than 100 companies and control of more than 12 billion dollars in contracts.


The Guard has its hands in such industry as dentistry, travel, oil, and construction. But the pride of the Guard is their controversial uranium enrichment facility at Natanz which is not subject to the parliamentary budget process.(Kim Murphy la times)


As far as the protests go Rez Aslan of the daily beast.com has much hope for the protesters. Paraphrasing a Aslan interview on msnbc he said the last heavy protests of 99' by the students were brutally repressed by the state because the protesters were one group of society. Today they cannot happen because everyone is protesters.


He continues, “What's really fascinating about what's happening right now in 2009 is that it looks a lot like what was happening in 1979. And there's a very simple reason for that. The same people are in charge -- I mean, Mousavi, Rafsanjani, Khatami, Medhi Karroubi, the other reformist candidate -- these were all the original revolutionaries who brought down the Shah to begin with, so they know how to do this right."


Its very powerful to hear that the same strategy that caused the revolution in 1979 is being used today by the same men who organized the revolution in 1979, to put pressure on the current power structure. Under these conditions it seems the Supreme leader and his power base are in trouble and might have to flee the country, which leades to another irony. In 1979 right before the Shah was overthrown he also left the country, today the current president Ahmadinejad is in Russia. It seems to easy to say that he will never come back to Iran.


some of the most blatent abuse on video to date.

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Tuesday In Iran


More protests rock Iran today, after a night of Basiji security forces breaking into houses and terrorising the public. So if the election wasnt rigged why such force? If the election wasnt rigged why are you shutting down communication networks like internet, cell phones, and banning foreign media from reporting.

Reports during the day were that the police were watching the protests without interference and that only the basiji security forces and the Revolutionary Guard was still beating people up and shooting at them.

Monday night security forces ransacked Tehran Universtiy, destroying computers, killing many, and arresting hundreds maybe. Faculty have cancelled finals and resigned in masses.

On the twitter front government forces have set up fake accounts to spread false information. Twitter also pushed off their scheduled maintenance when they were asked by the State Department. Iranian users of twitter have also asked twitters users from arount the world to change their location to Tehran and time zone to gmt +3:30, this will help confuse the Iranina intelligence services who are looking for Iraninas twitters users so the accounts can be shut down.

The Guardian Counil, upon reviewing the election have decided to recount part of the votes, not making many protesters to0 satisfied.

The most influencial cleric in the nation Montazeri has declared the election results a fraud. Montazeri was once the chosen cleric to take the reigns from the first Surpeme Leader of IranGrand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini before he became pulblicy outspoken about the governement.

Articles around the web starting to break down the power structure in Iran, and they are saying the battle in the streets is just a proxy fight between the two powers that run the nation.

One power is the Supreme Leader, and Ahmadinejad, and the military and security forces like the basiji and the Revolutionary Guard. During Ahmadinejad's first time he put many Rev. Guard offices in charge of many levels of power, the first time in Iranian history where military figures held political posts.

The other power structure represented by Mousavi, is made up of the clerics, the university's the students, and it is lead by the ex president/billionaire Rafsanjani.
#IranElection