Finally a Democrat with some guts

Well it's Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL) who claimed that the Republican health care plan is “don’t get sick,” and if you do get sick, “die quickly.” Naturally the Republicans demanded that he apologize but here's what happened instead:

“I would like to apologize,” he said. “I would like to apologize to the dead.”

Citing a statistic that 44,789 Americans die each year because they don’t have health insurance, Grayson said, “That is more than ten times the number of Americans who died in the war in Iraq, it’s more than ten times the number of Americans who died on 9/11. …It happens every year.”

Grayson added in another apparent dig at the GOP, “We should care about people even after they are born.”

Grayson apologized one last time.

“I apologize to the dead and their families that we haven’t voted sooner,” he said.

Wow. Just wow.

I found it on Think Progress.
~~~

This is encouraging

It's a CNN Quick Vote poll:

Have you ever taken an unpopular stand at work because you thought it was right?

Yes - 91%

No - 9%

Maybe the basic integrity of the person on the street is not completely lost after all.
~~~

We could wish....

Difficult news tonight

Well, I'm sad to say that the public option was shot down in the Senate Finance Commitee.

Also Dan Rather's lawsuit against CBS was dismissed in its entirety.

Both are quite discouraging.
~~~

Outrageous age discrimination

Here's something I got in an email this morning from the Care2 Petition Site:

Did you know that health insurance companies charge Americans aged 50 to 64 as much as 5 times what they charge younger Americans for the same coverage -- just because of age?

You might say it makes some amount of sense to charge older people more for health insurance. But the problem really lies in the 5 to 1 ratio. Federal research data shows that the average annual medical expenses for people 18 to 44 was $2,079, and for those 45 to 64, $4,866.

So if medical expenses are an average of only 2.3 times as much for as those for younger Americans, why are the 50- to 64-year-olds getting charged 5 times as much?

You can sign a petition about this right here.
~~~

A simple question

I found this on Think Progress:

President Obama said that a world leader approached him at the G20 summit last week wondering why his critics are smearing him. The unidentified world leader told Obama, “We don’t understand it. You’re trying to make sure everybody has health care and they’re putting a Hitler mustache on you — I don’t — that doesn’t make sense to me. Explain that to me.”

Hmmm. Wonder what he said.

It doesn't make sense to me either.
~~~

The Trauma of War

Oh, my goodness. This is simply stunning. It is a sand painting performance and it depicts the experience of the Ukranians (or maybe Russians) during World War II.

I read the following in the comments:

In the second world war, 1 in 4 Ukrainians lost their lives and accounted for around 20% of all the deaths in the conflict. No other country suffered losses on that scale.

It portrays the German invasion, air raids and the devestation the country suffered in the war.

The Obelisk is the Ukranian memorial to their Unknown Soldier.

Denise Hunter sent me this. Thanks, Denise!
~~~

Sunday art blogging

"Two Birds"

Margret Hofheinz-Döring/Galerie Brigitte Mauch Göppingen

Image from Wikimedia Commons

All this (ignorant) silliness about socialism

This oft heard charge that President Obama is socialist is not only silly, it's utterly inaccurate. I wonder if these people even know what socialism is:

As with any complex political idea, socialism means different things to different people. But there are core concepts in socialist politics that are easy to identify, including (1) worker control over the nature and conditions of their work; (2) collective ownership of the major capital assets of the society, the means of production; and (3) an egalitarian distribution of the wealth of a society.

Obama has never argued for such principles, and in fact consistently argues against them, as do virtually all politicians who are visible in mainstream U.S. politics. This is hardly surprising, given the degree to which our society is dominated by corporations, the primary institution through which capitalism operates.
...
In short: Obama and some Democrats have argued for a slight expansion of the social safety net, which is generally a good thing in a society with such dramatic wealth inequality and such a depraved disregard for vulnerable people. But that's not socialism.

The above passages are from an article published on Common Dreams called "Is Obama a Socialist? Reflection on the Degradation of Politics and the Ecosystem" by Robert Jensen. Definitely worth reading the whole thing.

UPDATE: I've decided to give you one more excerpt from the article mentioned above:

But capitalism is not only inhuman and anti-democratic; it's also unsustainable, and if we don't come to terms with that one, not much else matters. Capitalism is an economic system based on the concept of unlimited growth, yet we live on a finite planet. Capitalism is, quite literally, crazy.

You know, that was obvious to me decades ago. But I think capitalism is like some diabolical religion to many people in this country. Like the Heaven's Gate cult, they would rather commit group suicide (the group this time meaning the entire planet) than question this "faith".
~~~

Direct, to the point

Take a look:

America is the only country that rations the right to health care to those 65 and older.

Lack of health insurance kills 45,000 American adults a year, according to a new study published in the American Journal of Public Health. One out of three Americans under age 65 had no private or public health insurance for some or all of 2007-2008.

You can't go the emergency room for the screening that will catch cancer or heart disease early, or ongoing treatment to manage chronic kidney disease or asthma. And even emergency care is different for the insured and uninsured. Studies show uninsured car crash victims receive less care in the hospital, for example.

Even with health insurance, many Americans are a medical crisis away from bankruptcy. Research shows 62 percent of all bankruptcies in 2007 were medical, a share up 50 percent since 2001. Most of the medically bankrupt had health insurance - the kind insuring profits, not health care.

It's from an article called Medicare for All: Yes We Can by Holly Sklar.

What is so hard to understand about this?
~~~

New Rule

Here are several quotes from Bill Maher's latest:

New Rule: If America can't get its act together, it must lose the bald eagle as our symbol and replace it with the YouTube video of the puppy that can't get up. As long as we're pathetic, we might as well act like it's cute. I don't care about the president's birth certificate, I do want to know what happened to "Yes we can."
...
Well, I hate to be a nudge, but why has America become a nation that can't make anything bad end, like wars, farm subsidies, our oil addiction, the drug war, useless weapons programs - oh, and there's still 60,000 troops in Germany - and can't make anything good start, like health care reform, immigration reform, rebuilding infrastructure.
...
Barack Obama has said, "If we were starting from scratch, then a single-payer system would probably make sense." So let's start from scratch.
...
Did you know that we eat the same high-fat, high-carb, sugar-laden shit that's served in prisons and in religious cults to keep the subjects in a zombie-like state of lethargic compliance?

You know, there are people in this country who make a whole lot of sense. Trouble is, they're mostly comedians.
~~~

Something to think about

Yes, I know. Just a tad over-simplified. Still, there are a lot of right wing politicians (and "tea-bag" protesters out there) I wish would see this and tape it to their bathroom mirror.
~~~

So we're a free country? Really?

Charles Robert Darwin
Artist: John Collier
Image from Wikimedia Commons

Just look at this:

A British film about Charles Darwin has failed to find a US distributor because his theory of evolution is too controversial for American audiences, according to its producer.

Creation, starring Paul Bettany, details Darwin's "struggle between faith and reason" as he wrote On The Origin of Species. It depicts him as a man who loses faith in God following the death of his beloved 10-year-old daughter, Annie.

The film was chosen to open the Toronto Film Festival and has its British premiere on Sunday. It has been sold in almost every territory around the world, from Australia to Scandinavia.

However, US distributors have resolutely passed on a film which will prove hugely divisive in a country where, according to a Gallup poll conducted in February, only 39 per cent of Americans believe in the theory of evolution.

Okay. I would really like to see this film. Will I have to travel to Canada to do so?

~~~

The failure of capitalism

Michael Moore talked to Larry King recently and here's something he said that is very blunt and to the point:

King: Are you saying capitalism is a failure?

Moore: Yes. Capitalism. Yes. Well, I don't have to say it. Capitalism, in the last year, has proven that it's failed. All the basic tenets of what we've talked about the free market, about free enterprise and competition just completely fell apart. As soon as they lost, essentially, our money, they came running to the federal government for a bailout -- for welfare, for socialism. And I thought the basic principle of capitalism was that it's a sink-or-swim situation. And those who do well, the cream rises to the top and, you know, those who invest their money wrongly or, you know, don't run their business the right way, then they don't do well. And if you run your business the wrong way, where does it say that you or I or anybody watching this has to bail them out?

I understand why everybody seemed to get behind it, because a lot of people were afraid, because these people down on Wall Street had taken our money and made bets with it. I mean, they essentially created this invisible virtual casino with people's money -- people's pension funds, people's 401(k)s. They took this money and they made bets. And then they made bets on the bets. And then they took out insurance policies on the bets. And then they took out insurance against the insurance -- the credit default swaps.

Well, I not only think capitalism fails, I think it is fundamentally immoral. But that's another post altogether, isn't it?
~~~