Just in case you haven't seen Pat Buchanan's latest diatribe, you should check it out (among other places it's on the Creators Syndicate website at http://www.creators.com/opinion/pat-buchanan/tribal-politics.html.) It's titled "Tribal Politics", which should tell you a lot about how Buchanan views Powell, Obama, and all other African Americans (even Jamaican Americans like Powell, but what the hell, he's still a Negro): that they are a "tribe," perhaps the most primitive and least sophisticated terms for a group of human groupings other than the family and clan. Not a people, or an ethnic group, or a race, or a community, or any of the words used to describe white peoples' groups, but a "tribe," as reserved for Injuns, Nigras, aborigines, pygmies and all those other lost, benighted clans in the rain forest jungles and the deserts south of the equator.
Buchanan uses his column to rant about how Powell was "rendered extraordinary honors" by three Republican presidents who "raised him from Army colonel to national security advisor," "named him chairman of the Joint Chiefs", and "made him the first African-American secretary of state." At the time these appointments were called well-earned votes of confidence in an extraordinary military and civilian leader -- from three extremely very ordinary men, two of whom became president for no other reason than the color of their skin and the last name on their birth certificate, and third of whom confused making films about World War II with actual service in the armed forces.
Maybe, just maybe, Powell's success had as much to do with his own intelligence, hard work, determination, competence, and talent as it did with being helped up by wealthy white guys. But really, what an ingrate the General must be not to say "Yawsuh" and "thankyou massah" for those extraordinary honors. How dare he decide for himself whom to support, endorse, and vote for!
Yes, Pat, we understand exactly where you're coming from. What we don't understand is how anyone in the mainstream media can continue giving you a public platform for your voice, which has not had anything of value to add to the conversation for at least twenty years.
Sorry for the short posting; I have to go be sick.
Friday, October 24, 2008
DivineCaroline.com has written a piece that everyone should read. It sums up the rags and tatters of the Constitution that the Bushies have left to us and demands them back. I hope you'll visit her at: http://www.divinecaroline.com/article/37963/58101-dear-right-wing-republicans
Thursday, October 23, 2008
Latest wingnut idiocies
Among the latest idiocies from the right wing here in Asheville are these, as reported by the Citizen-Times:
1) Cal Thomas spoke at a luncheon sponsored by the John Locke Foundation, our state’s home-grown think-tank that, in fact, comprises some very intelligent, thoughtful ideologues of a libertarian bent (intelligent and thoughtful as compared to most wingnut ideologues). Like many of his colleagues, Thomas seems to have written off the McCain candidacy and anticipates “the most socialist government in the history of America” if Obama is elected. “It will be bad for America,” he continues, according to the Citizen-Times.
I have to wonder what would be good for America in Thomas’s eyes. More bailouts of Wall Street crooks? A Treasury Secretary who wants to help the biggest banks take over smaller banks? More socialism for the rich but not for the poor and middle-class?
No, Thomas disapproves of the bailout. But he says the right does want “to help people out of poverty so they can help themselves.” He wants the poor to live within their means. And for those who have no means to live within? They should get over their expectations of entitlement. After all, “We’ve got to take care of ourselves first.” We, as in the wealthy rightwing idiots who can afford luncheon at the Renaissance Hotel.
Thomas is all for education, too, though he doesn’t like it to be public. “Well, you can’t expect government schools to teach the values and principles of our country.” Excuse me? What does Thomas think the public schools are teaching – the values and principles of Venezuela or Pakistan? Or is it that he can’t tolerate the fact that many teachers, like college professors and writers and non-academics who value education, tend to think for themselves and ask questions and open their minds and learn new information – all of which puts them squarely within dictionary definitions of “liberal.” Oh, NO!
I have read Thomas’s columns for years (they appear quite frequently in the Citizen-Times editorial pages). What he is looking for is not education, as provided (against long odds) by public schools. He’s seeking indoctrination in private schools, be they secular or religious, in which the values and principles of the Republican party, not those “of our country,” are instilled in the students. No sex, no sex education, no abortion, no rights for gay people, repeal of the First Amendment and gutting of the Fourth . . . It’s too long a list to enumerate here.
Really, Cal, give us a break.
The good news is that Thomas was able to generate a right-wing crowd of about 130 people in a warm, cozy, comfortable restaurant in the middle of the day. A few nights before, James Taylor sang at an Obama rally, held outdoors in 40-degree weather, that attracted 5,000. That followed by a few weeks the Obama appearance that brought 28,000 (in a city of 74,000) to the Asheville High School stadium. Not bad for a little old mountain town in Western North Carolina.
2) A letter-to-the-editor writer twists reality in and on itself by ascribing all the factual wrongs of the Bush-Cheney regime to the Democrats. He considers these “the most corrupt stories since Watergate . . . Rezko, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, voter (registration) fraud by ACORN and other questions of radical ties, each directly linked to Barack Obama.”
He goes on: “Liberal elites gaining the election by presenting one view, hiding truths. . . .” “ACORN can stuff the box.” “Liberty and democracy cast to the curb in pursuit of power.” “Our nation is about to abdicate personal liberty to an unelected . . . federal regulatory system,” directed by “elites who seize power through buying our vote with our money and then secure it by changing the rules to keep it.”
Where to begin?!? I guess Iran-Contra, Enron, the Iraq war lies, Halliburton, Blackwater, Valerie Plame, Jack Abramoff, Robert Ney, Tom DeLay, Duncan Hunter, Ted Stevens, to name a few, aren’t worthy of notice in the annals of corruption. And each is directly linked to the Bush family and/or Dick Cheney.
ACORN can’t stuff the [ballot] box. Maybe the letter-writer doesn’t quite understand the difference between filling out a voter registration form and filling out a ballot. That wouldn’t be surprising, since the Republicans have tried to eliminate millions of Democratic registrations over the past few years, so that only Republicans get to vote. But the fact is that, according to every news report by every media I’ve seen, it’s only the Republican operatives behind the electronic voting machine systems who can actually “stuff the box” and flip votes from the Democratic candidate to the Republican one, as they proved in Ohio in 2004 and are already doing again in several states this year, when early voting is already underway. Scores (maybe hundreds or thousands by now) of complaints of pushing the button for Obama and seeing the McCain light go on; not a single report from any state of the opposite happening.
Oh, these pathetic, flailing, frightened wingnuts, looking in the mirror and seeing their most hated enemy. And instead of saying, “OMG, that’s me!” they write letters full of crap that say, “Look how horrible the other side is!” It would be funny if it weren’t so sad.
3) NC Congressman Robin Hayes doesn’t remember saying to Palin/McCain supporters at a NASCAR racetrack that “Liberals hate real Americans that work and accomplish and achieve and believe in God.” First he denied saying it, accusing reporters of “irresponsible journalism,” which is wingnut code for “lying liberal media.” Then, forced to listen to an audiotape of his remarks, he excused himself by claiming “there is no doubt that it came out completely the wrong way.”
What would be the right way, Robin? “Liberals don’t admire real Americans . . . ?” “Liberals envy real Americans . . . ?” “Liberals feel a little icky about real Americans . . . ?” Liberals are just not real Americans, are they?
For those who don’t know it, Mr. Hayes is the heir to the Cannon Mills textile fortune. Apparently that makes him a real expert on “real Americans that work and accomplish and achieve.” Clearly, Hayes really had to work and accomplish to achieve the remarkable feat of turning most of his inherited textile millions into a variety of other assets. For example:
The assets and other sources of income on his Personal Financial Disclosure forms (available on the Legistorm web site at www.legistorm.com/memberdisclosure/271/Rep_Robin_Hayes.html) include between $37 million and $133.9 million worth of stocks, bonds, and his personal airplane, plus numerous rental properties. Well done, you hard working NASCAR guy, you!
Now, as someone who wasn’t born to wealth, I think of Hayes as someone who’s actually never had to work a day in his life, or worry about bills or health care coverage or college tuition for his family. So from the viewpoint of this liberal, maybe what Robin Hayes meant to say was, “Liberals really loathe self-important idiots that inherit millions of dollars from daddy and mommy, buy themselves congressional seats, load up on rental real estate, and then dare to try to present themselves as just good ol’ boys who are acting in the interests of their struggling, hard-working tenants.”
1) Cal Thomas spoke at a luncheon sponsored by the John Locke Foundation, our state’s home-grown think-tank that, in fact, comprises some very intelligent, thoughtful ideologues of a libertarian bent (intelligent and thoughtful as compared to most wingnut ideologues). Like many of his colleagues, Thomas seems to have written off the McCain candidacy and anticipates “the most socialist government in the history of America” if Obama is elected. “It will be bad for America,” he continues, according to the Citizen-Times.
I have to wonder what would be good for America in Thomas’s eyes. More bailouts of Wall Street crooks? A Treasury Secretary who wants to help the biggest banks take over smaller banks? More socialism for the rich but not for the poor and middle-class?
No, Thomas disapproves of the bailout. But he says the right does want “to help people out of poverty so they can help themselves.” He wants the poor to live within their means. And for those who have no means to live within? They should get over their expectations of entitlement. After all, “We’ve got to take care of ourselves first.” We, as in the wealthy rightwing idiots who can afford luncheon at the Renaissance Hotel.
Thomas is all for education, too, though he doesn’t like it to be public. “Well, you can’t expect government schools to teach the values and principles of our country.” Excuse me? What does Thomas think the public schools are teaching – the values and principles of Venezuela or Pakistan? Or is it that he can’t tolerate the fact that many teachers, like college professors and writers and non-academics who value education, tend to think for themselves and ask questions and open their minds and learn new information – all of which puts them squarely within dictionary definitions of “liberal.” Oh, NO!
I have read Thomas’s columns for years (they appear quite frequently in the Citizen-Times editorial pages). What he is looking for is not education, as provided (against long odds) by public schools. He’s seeking indoctrination in private schools, be they secular or religious, in which the values and principles of the Republican party, not those “of our country,” are instilled in the students. No sex, no sex education, no abortion, no rights for gay people, repeal of the First Amendment and gutting of the Fourth . . . It’s too long a list to enumerate here.
Really, Cal, give us a break.
The good news is that Thomas was able to generate a right-wing crowd of about 130 people in a warm, cozy, comfortable restaurant in the middle of the day. A few nights before, James Taylor sang at an Obama rally, held outdoors in 40-degree weather, that attracted 5,000. That followed by a few weeks the Obama appearance that brought 28,000 (in a city of 74,000) to the Asheville High School stadium. Not bad for a little old mountain town in Western North Carolina.
2) A letter-to-the-editor writer twists reality in and on itself by ascribing all the factual wrongs of the Bush-Cheney regime to the Democrats. He considers these “the most corrupt stories since Watergate . . . Rezko, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, voter (registration) fraud by ACORN and other questions of radical ties, each directly linked to Barack Obama.”
He goes on: “Liberal elites gaining the election by presenting one view, hiding truths. . . .” “ACORN can stuff the box.” “Liberty and democracy cast to the curb in pursuit of power.” “Our nation is about to abdicate personal liberty to an unelected . . . federal regulatory system,” directed by “elites who seize power through buying our vote with our money and then secure it by changing the rules to keep it.”
Where to begin?!? I guess Iran-Contra, Enron, the Iraq war lies, Halliburton, Blackwater, Valerie Plame, Jack Abramoff, Robert Ney, Tom DeLay, Duncan Hunter, Ted Stevens, to name a few, aren’t worthy of notice in the annals of corruption. And each is directly linked to the Bush family and/or Dick Cheney.
ACORN can’t stuff the [ballot] box. Maybe the letter-writer doesn’t quite understand the difference between filling out a voter registration form and filling out a ballot. That wouldn’t be surprising, since the Republicans have tried to eliminate millions of Democratic registrations over the past few years, so that only Republicans get to vote. But the fact is that, according to every news report by every media I’ve seen, it’s only the Republican operatives behind the electronic voting machine systems who can actually “stuff the box” and flip votes from the Democratic candidate to the Republican one, as they proved in Ohio in 2004 and are already doing again in several states this year, when early voting is already underway. Scores (maybe hundreds or thousands by now) of complaints of pushing the button for Obama and seeing the McCain light go on; not a single report from any state of the opposite happening.
Oh, these pathetic, flailing, frightened wingnuts, looking in the mirror and seeing their most hated enemy. And instead of saying, “OMG, that’s me!” they write letters full of crap that say, “Look how horrible the other side is!” It would be funny if it weren’t so sad.
3) NC Congressman Robin Hayes doesn’t remember saying to Palin/McCain supporters at a NASCAR racetrack that “Liberals hate real Americans that work and accomplish and achieve and believe in God.” First he denied saying it, accusing reporters of “irresponsible journalism,” which is wingnut code for “lying liberal media.” Then, forced to listen to an audiotape of his remarks, he excused himself by claiming “there is no doubt that it came out completely the wrong way.”
What would be the right way, Robin? “Liberals don’t admire real Americans . . . ?” “Liberals envy real Americans . . . ?” “Liberals feel a little icky about real Americans . . . ?” Liberals are just not real Americans, are they?
For those who don’t know it, Mr. Hayes is the heir to the Cannon Mills textile fortune. Apparently that makes him a real expert on “real Americans that work and accomplish and achieve.” Clearly, Hayes really had to work and accomplish to achieve the remarkable feat of turning most of his inherited textile millions into a variety of other assets. For example:
The assets and other sources of income on his Personal Financial Disclosure forms (available on the Legistorm web site at www.legistorm.com/memberdisclosure/271/Rep_Robin_Hayes.html) include between $37 million and $133.9 million worth of stocks, bonds, and his personal airplane, plus numerous rental properties. Well done, you hard working NASCAR guy, you!
Now, as someone who wasn’t born to wealth, I think of Hayes as someone who’s actually never had to work a day in his life, or worry about bills or health care coverage or college tuition for his family. So from the viewpoint of this liberal, maybe what Robin Hayes meant to say was, “Liberals really loathe self-important idiots that inherit millions of dollars from daddy and mommy, buy themselves congressional seats, load up on rental real estate, and then dare to try to present themselves as just good ol’ boys who are acting in the interests of their struggling, hard-working tenants.”
Monday, October 20, 2008
Fish out of water
One of our western North Carolina wingnuts, Susan Boyer of Brevard, has taken up this month’s Republican squeal that the media are to blame for the McPain campaign’s utter collapse. As I read Boyer’s Oct. 20 guest commentary( http://www.citizen-times.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=200881017051) in the Asheville Citizen-Times, an image kept flashing into my brain: a fish caught on a line, leaping and flailing as it’s pulled out of the polluted water in which it’s spent its entire life and into the fresh, brisk air of reality.
“Don’t wanna go there!” “Lemme go.” “Obama’s a terrorist.” “It’s the media’s fault!” “You’ll skin me and gut me and sauté me and then throw my bones back into the muck!” “I don’t want to end up on the dust heap of history.” “EEEEEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeeeeekkkkkkkkk.”
Here’s how Boyer actually opens her column:
“Pundits and polls indicate that the biggest concern of voters this election cycle is the economy.” Hello, Susan. It’s more than pundits and polls; it’s actual people indicating that concern. Does the collapse of Wall Street ring any bells? Merrill Lynch? Ding-dong! Goldman Sachs? Ding-dong! Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac? Ding! A $700 billion-dollar bailout? Dong! Recession? Gas lines? Unemployment? Ding-a-ling! I guess it’s the pundits’ fault, and those darn liberal media polls. Hmmph.
“Apparently only a small percentage cares about Barack Obama’s radical, anti-American associations and whether he’s lying about them.”
You’re right, Susan. Nobody cares, because there are no such “associations” or lies about them. The entire story is out; it’s been out for weeks and weeks; the “radical” is Chicago’s Citizen of the Year and a highly regarded professor and a board member of a Walter Annenberg-funded foundation. No matter how much you and your wingnut friends try to pump up this flat tire, it just won’t roll.
“We’re also told that the economy trumps social issues. I guess most of us submerge our reservations about a stacked leftward Supreme Court.”
Yes, believe it or not, for most of us, feeding our families TRUMPS worrying about whether somebody else, far away, might actually be considering whether or not to abort a fetus conceived as the result of being raped by an incestuous uncle – and having the right to make that decision – that choice – for herself.
And making the mortgage or rent payment TRUMPS most peoples’ concern that a gay man in California might want his partner to determine his end-of-life medical treatment rather than letting his parents, who disowned him twenty years ago when he first came out of the closet and have never spoken to him since, now decide THEY should be the ones to make life-or-death decisions for their estranged, hated son – and incidentally inherit his estate.
Yes Susan, keeping up with the car payment and helping with Grandma’s prescriptions and buying school supplies and heating the house this winter, and all those tedious, mundane, boring, non-issues that you dismiss (“the threat of Islamic terrorism is more important than a few extra bucks in my pocket”), actually TRUMP people’s nervousness that the Supreme Court might move slightly closer to the middle of the jurisprudential road – and actually apply the Constitution instead of using it to prop up wobbly justifications for its anti-citizen, anti-Bill of Rights, pro-corporatist tilt of the past dozen years.
After lamenting all this economic selfishness on the part of a whining public, Boyer really hits her stride when she dismisses Obama’s plans to make the tax structure more equitable and to take on corporate corruption. “Do you really think the wealthy will open their wallets and say, ‘Take more, please?’. . . . Do you really think the CEOs will let stockholders take the hit or do you think we’ll all end up with higher gasoline and prescription prices as a result?”
YES! The rich really are different, says Susan. She proudly admits – no, proclaims, that the crooks and liars who have been running things for the past 12 years ARE crooks and liars and that they are NOT going to change. They’re not about to follow the law! “That’s why they pay for high-priced accountants and lawyers” – to evade federal taxes by “pursu[ing] financial transactions which will shelter and protect their big bucks.” Corporations will pass on costs to consumers while maintaining payouts to shareholders and executives, no matter what laws the Congress and President pass. In other words, watch out, Obama, because they are going to fight you all the way, and even if you win, they’ll find new ways to cheat.
Boyer has given you fair warning, because she clearly understands how corporations keep all the money they “earn.” But apparently she has yet to grasp one of the fundamentals of capitalism: how they make all that money in the first place. As Dr. Alan Inglis writes on his web site, www.healthrevelations.com, “Drug companies aren’t in the business of making you healthier. Their goal is to sell pills!”
But Boyer’s terrible fear is that “big government” will do something for America in spite of big business, especially big pharma. “Personally, I don’t think it’s a good idea to turn control of our health care system over to the same folks who run the U.S. Postal Service.”
No, she would keep control in the hands of the health insurers that staff entire departments with people whose entire job is to figure out how to deny claims, and the pharmaceutical giants that brought us Zelnorm, Permax, Rezulin, and various forms of pemoline (see links below) – wonder drugs that were finally taken off the market after scores of patients died from side effects like heart and kidney failure. The people Boyer trusts with our health care are cut from the same cloth as the men who brought us Enron, Washington Mutual, Lincoln Savings & Loan, and the rest of the financial fiascos our “nation of whiners” are whining about.
Now, I’ve lived in the U.S. all of my 50+ years, and I’m pretty happy with my postal service. When I mail a local letter for 42 cents, it gets to the recipient the next day. Same with bulk mailings from nonprofits I’ve worked with: overnight, every time. Letters to and from my brother across the country in New Mexico arrive within two or three days, for the same price of 42 cents. If I’m in a big hurry I could pay from $12.60 to $19.50 (depending on weight and zone) to mail him a letter overnight.
Alternatively, I could support private enterprise and send the same letter to the same place using UPS ($29.85 to $68.52) or FedEx ($42.86 to $79.76). At under $20 bucks, I think I’m getting a pretty good deal with the US Postal Service.
Note also that UPS and FedEx get to cherry-pick the most lucrative parts of parcel delivery while not dealing with anything less profitable, like magazines and newspapers. Those, the Post Office has to deliver at the lowest possible price, because of that darned ol’ Constitution and its not-very-cost-effective guarantee of freedom of the press. Yep, that same dang media, which says the economy matters to people more than Susan Boyer’s fright-night social issues, gets a subsidized ride with the Postal Service, courtesy of the public, while competing head-to-head with big business, which gets to skim off the cream. And the public service STILL comes out ahead. I think I’d be happy as a clam with comparable health care and insurance.
The good news from Susan Boyer is that she has apparently given up hope of a McCain victory. “I’ll just sit back and wait for this center-right country to realize that a slick talker and the left-wing media persuaded it to embrace ‘change’ that was never honestly defined.”
Assuming the Democrats win this November, and take a veto-proof majority in the Senate, Republican wingnuts will truly be fish out of water for the first time in a generation. And then maybe, just maybe, the rest of us can sit back and wait for all of them, from Puppetmaster Rush Limbaugh to little local Susan Boyer, to realize that the nation isn’t quite as “center-right” as they hope; nor is the media nearly as “left-wing” as they pretend; nor is the emergence of an informed, determined, knowledgeable, progressive – yes, even “liberal” – electorate half as frightening as they want us to imagine.
(www.webmd.com/ibs/news/20070330/ibs-drug-zelnorm-taken-off-us-market) (www.webmd.com/parkinsons-disease/news/20070329/parkinsons-drug-taken-off-market)
(http://archives.cnn.com/2000/HEALTH/03/22/diabetes.drug.01/)
(www.nytimes.com/2005/03/25/business/25warning.html)
“Don’t wanna go there!” “Lemme go.” “Obama’s a terrorist.” “It’s the media’s fault!” “You’ll skin me and gut me and sauté me and then throw my bones back into the muck!” “I don’t want to end up on the dust heap of history.” “EEEEEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeeeeekkkkkkkkk.”
Here’s how Boyer actually opens her column:
“Pundits and polls indicate that the biggest concern of voters this election cycle is the economy.” Hello, Susan. It’s more than pundits and polls; it’s actual people indicating that concern. Does the collapse of Wall Street ring any bells? Merrill Lynch? Ding-dong! Goldman Sachs? Ding-dong! Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac? Ding! A $700 billion-dollar bailout? Dong! Recession? Gas lines? Unemployment? Ding-a-ling! I guess it’s the pundits’ fault, and those darn liberal media polls. Hmmph.
“Apparently only a small percentage cares about Barack Obama’s radical, anti-American associations and whether he’s lying about them.”
You’re right, Susan. Nobody cares, because there are no such “associations” or lies about them. The entire story is out; it’s been out for weeks and weeks; the “radical” is Chicago’s Citizen of the Year and a highly regarded professor and a board member of a Walter Annenberg-funded foundation. No matter how much you and your wingnut friends try to pump up this flat tire, it just won’t roll.
“We’re also told that the economy trumps social issues. I guess most of us submerge our reservations about a stacked leftward Supreme Court.”
Yes, believe it or not, for most of us, feeding our families TRUMPS worrying about whether somebody else, far away, might actually be considering whether or not to abort a fetus conceived as the result of being raped by an incestuous uncle – and having the right to make that decision – that choice – for herself.
And making the mortgage or rent payment TRUMPS most peoples’ concern that a gay man in California might want his partner to determine his end-of-life medical treatment rather than letting his parents, who disowned him twenty years ago when he first came out of the closet and have never spoken to him since, now decide THEY should be the ones to make life-or-death decisions for their estranged, hated son – and incidentally inherit his estate.
Yes Susan, keeping up with the car payment and helping with Grandma’s prescriptions and buying school supplies and heating the house this winter, and all those tedious, mundane, boring, non-issues that you dismiss (“the threat of Islamic terrorism is more important than a few extra bucks in my pocket”), actually TRUMP people’s nervousness that the Supreme Court might move slightly closer to the middle of the jurisprudential road – and actually apply the Constitution instead of using it to prop up wobbly justifications for its anti-citizen, anti-Bill of Rights, pro-corporatist tilt of the past dozen years.
After lamenting all this economic selfishness on the part of a whining public, Boyer really hits her stride when she dismisses Obama’s plans to make the tax structure more equitable and to take on corporate corruption. “Do you really think the wealthy will open their wallets and say, ‘Take more, please?’. . . . Do you really think the CEOs will let stockholders take the hit or do you think we’ll all end up with higher gasoline and prescription prices as a result?”
YES! The rich really are different, says Susan. She proudly admits – no, proclaims, that the crooks and liars who have been running things for the past 12 years ARE crooks and liars and that they are NOT going to change. They’re not about to follow the law! “That’s why they pay for high-priced accountants and lawyers” – to evade federal taxes by “pursu[ing] financial transactions which will shelter and protect their big bucks.” Corporations will pass on costs to consumers while maintaining payouts to shareholders and executives, no matter what laws the Congress and President pass. In other words, watch out, Obama, because they are going to fight you all the way, and even if you win, they’ll find new ways to cheat.
Boyer has given you fair warning, because she clearly understands how corporations keep all the money they “earn.” But apparently she has yet to grasp one of the fundamentals of capitalism: how they make all that money in the first place. As Dr. Alan Inglis writes on his web site, www.healthrevelations.com, “Drug companies aren’t in the business of making you healthier. Their goal is to sell pills!”
But Boyer’s terrible fear is that “big government” will do something for America in spite of big business, especially big pharma. “Personally, I don’t think it’s a good idea to turn control of our health care system over to the same folks who run the U.S. Postal Service.”
No, she would keep control in the hands of the health insurers that staff entire departments with people whose entire job is to figure out how to deny claims, and the pharmaceutical giants that brought us Zelnorm, Permax, Rezulin, and various forms of pemoline (see links below) – wonder drugs that were finally taken off the market after scores of patients died from side effects like heart and kidney failure. The people Boyer trusts with our health care are cut from the same cloth as the men who brought us Enron, Washington Mutual, Lincoln Savings & Loan, and the rest of the financial fiascos our “nation of whiners” are whining about.
Now, I’ve lived in the U.S. all of my 50+ years, and I’m pretty happy with my postal service. When I mail a local letter for 42 cents, it gets to the recipient the next day. Same with bulk mailings from nonprofits I’ve worked with: overnight, every time. Letters to and from my brother across the country in New Mexico arrive within two or three days, for the same price of 42 cents. If I’m in a big hurry I could pay from $12.60 to $19.50 (depending on weight and zone) to mail him a letter overnight.
Alternatively, I could support private enterprise and send the same letter to the same place using UPS ($29.85 to $68.52) or FedEx ($42.86 to $79.76). At under $20 bucks, I think I’m getting a pretty good deal with the US Postal Service.
Note also that UPS and FedEx get to cherry-pick the most lucrative parts of parcel delivery while not dealing with anything less profitable, like magazines and newspapers. Those, the Post Office has to deliver at the lowest possible price, because of that darned ol’ Constitution and its not-very-cost-effective guarantee of freedom of the press. Yep, that same dang media, which says the economy matters to people more than Susan Boyer’s fright-night social issues, gets a subsidized ride with the Postal Service, courtesy of the public, while competing head-to-head with big business, which gets to skim off the cream. And the public service STILL comes out ahead. I think I’d be happy as a clam with comparable health care and insurance.
The good news from Susan Boyer is that she has apparently given up hope of a McCain victory. “I’ll just sit back and wait for this center-right country to realize that a slick talker and the left-wing media persuaded it to embrace ‘change’ that was never honestly defined.”
Assuming the Democrats win this November, and take a veto-proof majority in the Senate, Republican wingnuts will truly be fish out of water for the first time in a generation. And then maybe, just maybe, the rest of us can sit back and wait for all of them, from Puppetmaster Rush Limbaugh to little local Susan Boyer, to realize that the nation isn’t quite as “center-right” as they hope; nor is the media nearly as “left-wing” as they pretend; nor is the emergence of an informed, determined, knowledgeable, progressive – yes, even “liberal” – electorate half as frightening as they want us to imagine.
(www.webmd.com/ibs/news/20070330/ibs-drug-zelnorm-taken-off-us-market) (www.webmd.com/parkinsons-disease/news/20070329/parkinsons-drug-taken-off-market)
(http://archives.cnn.com/2000/HEALTH/03/22/diabetes.drug.01/)
(www.nytimes.com/2005/03/25/business/25warning.html)
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