Friday, September 25, 2009

Information that came with video below.

Back in June a NYT/CBS News poll found that the majority of Americans support a public option, a government run insurance plan to compete with private insurers. More than 500,000 doctors support a public option. It hardly seems controversial. But many fear, and with good reason, that it won't be part of whatever kind of bill ends up on the president's desk. So where does the public option stand? Maggie Mahar, author of Money-Driven Medicine and a Fellow at The Century Foundation, Lester Feder, a contributor to the Columbia Journalism Review's Campaign Desk, and Dr. Manisha Sharma, Director of Media Relations at the National Physicians Alliance in NY on the Baucus bill and whether it will be improved.

What's left of Public Opinion

Sunday, September 13, 2009

Feeling like a foreigner at home, in the USA.

Following was posted on Mother Jones, Glenn Beck watch. It is a response to the hysterical dialouge happening around Obama.

So why do you care so much now?
Submitted by FreeThinker on September 13, 2009 - 12:12am.

Anonymous, you care so much about the honesty and integrity of administration people - where were you when the most corrupt and autocratic admin in history was in for the past 8 years? We've probably never come so close to seeing the loss of liberty (such as it is anyway in this Corporatocracy which owns the media & most of the "elelcted" officials) in the US as during that time. Lies, lies and more lies and coming in with a big surplus (after another Conservative, Reagan, nearly spent the country into bandruptcy) and leaving with $1trillion debt, all to enrich (w/o competetive bidding) the Robber Barons/War Profiteers who are the real employers of the Bush Gang - Haliburton, Bechtel, Lockheed Martin, Blackwater, The Carlyle Group. And you talk about doing the research? Google PNAC - Project for a New American Century. The invasion and occupation of Iraq/Afghanistan, in fact the whole Middle East eventually, was planned in advance by the Conservatives. They just had to find a way to make it happen - 9/11, how convenient! Follow the money....

The most corrupt administrations in the past 100 years have all been Conservative - Harding (who even overtly placed organized crime bosses in his admin), Nixon, Reagan, Old Bush and Bush the Idiot. So much for talk - we've seen the walk.

I used to be a Repug and nothing in my whole life brings me more shame than that. What a brainwashed dork I was - and you too. They are the biggest puppets of the Corporatocracy which owns the "news" media and has brainwashed us all for years about "Socialism". What a crock. Socialism is a powerful political/social movement in Europe that was the force behind democracy (as opposed to the Conservatives who backed the aristocracy and sneered at the unwashed masses). Socialism is the reason Europe is more advanced than the US, has healthcare for all, has only military for defense (so has the money to spend for the people like healthcare and parks and highspeed trains, for ex), has a lower crime rate, lower poverty rate, smaller gap between the rich and poor, almost no trailer houses & much lower infant mortality etc. I am now a European and wouldn't go back to the US for anything - what a hick place.

The Socialized countries of Europe are the most advanced in the world - and the happiest, with the happiest country in the world as Socialist Denmark, along with Sweden, The Netherlands, Belgium, Spain (my own new homeland where our Socialist government has given full & complete Human/Civil rights to LGBT people, something that won't happen in my lifetime in puritanical, fundamentalist USAmerica) et al.

You have been brainwashed into equating Socialism with the Soviet Union, which was not, but that is like equating Democracy with the "Democratic" Republic of Zimbabwe or True Christianity with the Catholic Inquisition or Focus on the Family.

Do you oppose all the other "Socialist" benefits in US society: the police, the fire dept., the army, the navy, the coast guard, the air force, public libraries, street sweeping, public parks, schools, unemployment insurance, social security, workmens' compensaton insurance, 5 day work week, the end of child labor, the 40 hour work week (it's lower in most Socialist EU countries), paid vacations, minimum wage or medicare/medicaid, to mention a few? Most of these last 9 or 10 civilized benefits were opposed just as bitterly by you Conservatives/Repugs as is universal health care is now. Hopefully, history will show you and your selfishness will fail here too.

Beck smears and raises fear in people. He doesn't challenge or question issues with clear, intelligent, civilized logic, facts and reason. He and the rest of the Conservative Shock Jocks spread hate, fear and confusion - not a good thing to have in a civilized republic. We'd all be far better off with reasoned, calm, respectful debate, don't you think? I supported Nader, not Obama, but Obama has handled himself like a President, a statesman, and has not stooped to the third grade antics of the Conservative Shock Jocks or members of congress like Wilson. He's certainly more capable, knowledable and dignified than that Dubya Jackass and his evil coven. He was left with the highest debt and the most ruined economy with crumbling infrastructure and 2 immoral/illegal wars by the Conservatives/Repugs and he's gotten down to work in an amazing way with the Conservatives/Repugs opposing everything he's tried to do and he's tried to do things as bipartisanly as possible (something Conservatives never do). Do the reading and research yourself and not just on rightwingnut sites, you're way out of the reality zone.

Time to split the Blue States from the Red as should have been allowed to do at the time of the Civil War and saved a lot of bloodshed. What a difference that would have made - the Union would have been such a much more advanced country than it is now and the Red States would be aligned with the developing world and military dictatorships which much of it would be if independent countries (Mississippi, Lousiana, Idaho et al). Of course, then the Union would have an illegal immigration problem with people trying to escape to a more advanced and civilized place from the Confederacy. Oh well, so be it.

* recommend this (2)