Two Ways to Change US Politics far to the Better

It is kind of backwards to think you can change a party that has become right wing with endless "primary challenges". How often is it that a challenger has actually won over an incumbent? It's virtually unheard of. So no, that is extremely unlikely to be an effective solution.

But due to the size of the country, due to regulations that heavily favor the two party system, and due to fragmentation of political culture in the US, building a third party from the ground up is also nothing more than a long shot, even with a partially collapsed economy! To say that real democracy is feeble in the US would be an understatement.

So, what has to happen is that the existing progressive representatives (about 60 of them) need to break off and become a new party. From that real life base of real, actual seats, that new party would almost automatically grow rapidly, and would more so and more so put a lot of pressure on both of the existing right wing parties.

Dennis Kucinich and so forth absolutely need to do this, if not now, at least in a few years from now if the economy fails to recover to any extent. (I mean the real economy: jobs, number of new small businesses, etc., not the rich man's economy: the stock market, executive salaries, etc.).

A more creative but possibly pie in the sky plan would be to beg for assistance from the Canadian NDP party to form a "US Division". The idea would be that the US NDP could develop with start-up assistance from the Canada NDP.

After awhile, a synergistic feedback loop from the US NDP back to Canada would improve the prospects of the Canadian NDP. The potential benefits for the Canadian NDP are very large; remember that the US has roughly ten times as many people (and what, seven times as much potential "political money"?) as does Canada. The main point is, both countries' NDP would be strengthened from combining resources.

If goods and services can be transacted across international boundaries, why not political organizations? Political parties have developed and been maintained partly with international assistance throughout history, though never to any big extent to date in what has been an insular political culture in the US.

For the most rapid improvement in the dismal US situation, combine the two ideas I have outlined together. At least some of the US progressives in the House (and Bernie Sanders in the Senate) would nicely fit in with the Canadian NDP.

A RESPONSE:

Mark Dalessio August 28th, 2009 4:27 pm
Those 60 or so, mostly long-sitting House progressives aren't all that bravely 'progressive' much of the time, which is partly why their formation of a new progressive party, from among their ranks (including 1 or 2 progressives from the Senate), has never happened and, to date, remains a kind of semi-Catch-22 possibility.

But it is still a solid idea and, I think, a viable possibility -- a Catch-11 if you will, especially as national policy keeps steadily glued to the right, under the Duopoly.

Perhaps one thing that could help a national progressive party form in Congress without unduly risking members' seats, and begin to draw voter allegiance, is how its initial Congress members insisted on defining themselves its (the new party's) orientation a more accurate political spectrum.

No terminological concession should be made to it being called a 'far left' party, since US progressives are NOT far left by any other western democracy's center line, but in fact decidedly centrist.

This more realistic naming of spectrum orientation would immediately become a challenge to the MSM, sure, but from the outset, if fought back against fiercely, it could begin to instruct US voters that what they've been told to see and believe in, as right and left, is a lie -- a misplaced center line that bears no relation to any other western democracy's reality.

US voters at present only dimly perceive this fact, if at all. If more voters became clearer about it, the US right's ability to call domestic progressive's policies extremist would not only be crucially undercut, it would also begin to boomerang back against the far deeper extremism of the US right itself.

An obvious point, maybe, but I think a important one for the viability of any future progressive party in the US.

That is why I said this new party could grow rapidly: because it would actually be a centrist party in a country that has two right wing parties. I mean, there are numerous political operatives in other countries who would give their first born for that kind of high potential political opportunity.

The fact is, if the jobs never come back, if health insurance doubles in cost (again) and so now 100 million don't have any coverage, etc. etc., the progressives will HAVE to break off and form a new party, or the demise of the country will be partly their fault. All politicians must take appropriate actions (ones they would not normally take) in historical emergencies and collapses. If they don't do anything, they are partly to blame for the disastrous results of their inaction.

[All of the above was in response to this article.]

The New Right-Wing New Orleans

It's interesting to note that since New Orleans was partly abandoned, Louisiana has become one of the very most right wing, fascist oriented states in the country, right up there with Oklahoma and Utah. If the South were to break off from the rest of the US again (which I highly doubt will happen) this time they would have a more politically reliable port on the Gulf.

Insurance Contracts are Often Worth the Paper they are Printed on

A GUEST COMMENT:
AGG August 27th, 2009 11:59 pm

"Just how gullible are we when we trust that any private company will be forced to keep any benefit plan it chooses not to keep?"

Good question. What makes corporations honor promises (i.e. labor-management contracts)? The courts.

Who has the money to fight all the way to the Supreme Court? The corporations.

Is our current Supreme Court corporate friendly? (Does a wild bear go poo in the woods?)

If a corporation can get away with reneging on a promise in order to make a bigger profit, will they do it? (Does a wild bear go poo in the woods?)

Try this iteration of the same question:

Just how gullible are we when we trust that any private company will be forced to keep any labor-management contract it chooses not to keep?

And don't forget that corporate bankruptcies are games played in courts simply to avoid labor-management contract obligations in everything from pensions to fringe benefits. The judges are "influenced" to rule reduced pensions and benefits. Of course the top execs have long since cashed in.

Believe NOTHING from a corporation in the current judicial system except cash compensation NOW. That's the way the execs operate. The CEOs behave like they can't be trusted. So don't trust them. That big factory or office building with thousands or hundreds of cubicles with computers in them means NOTHING. Wake up!

True, many insurance contracts are not worth the paper they are printed on.

[The above exchange was based on this article.]

They Worked Hard for the Money they got for Nothing

"The president praising them for being "profitable in a free market system" is like him signing legislation transferring $1 million from the U.S. Treasury into my bank account, and then a month later, sending me a letter of commendation for having mustered the brilliance and hard work to earn $1 million."

Laugh out loud, and how true.

Obama is disturbing regardless of exactly what the percentage breakdown is between his ignorance and his subservience to the rich.

US Legislation Known to be Doomed to Fail, but Passed Anyway

The USA is fairly rapidly devolving into a political and economic system that privately understands that it is not competitive with nor as legitimate as other countries that are supposedly in its class.

One sign of the devolution is that nowadays, it is becoming increasingly obvious that legislation can be passed when it is known full well that the government finances can not afford it, and/or when it is known that a substantial number of people will not be able to comply with the requirements.

Look for example at one of the specific certain failures of the fake health reform that has been proposed. It has been a fact of life for decades that low income people in high cost areas drive vehicles without auto insurance, which is against the law, but they get away with it, provided that they don't have any accidents and that they are not pulled over by the police.

If the health insurance "mandate" passes and there is no substantial reduction of the cost of premiums, which is exactly the most likely future as we speak, then clearly, the same kind of thing will happen with "required" health insurance. There will be millions who can not buy it, regardless of any subsidy levels that are realistically plausible. There will be millions more who can technically afford it, but who will hold on to their money for fear of homelessness due to unemployment that is already in excess of 20% and is rising.

Subsidies will definitely not be adequate given the massive unemployment threat, and subsidies will certainly not be adequate in the high cost of living areas for lower income people.

For most people, health insurance is many multiples of what auto insurance costs. The auto insurance market, although far from perfectly "free market" is more competitive than is the health insurance market.

Interestingly, whereas uninsured drivers have been strongly associated with minority and immigrant populations, individuals with no health insurance will racially at least constitute a much more representative, average sample of the population.

Up until recently, US laws were designed so that only the very poorest would not be able to comply, which frequently has meant that mostly minorities would not be able to comply. But the proposed “health insurance reform” threatens to introduce a new, much larger, more reckless scale of lawmaking malpractice. A much larger percentage of the population will not be in a position to comply with the current proposals as compared with prior laws.

Notably, many more relatively poor white people (who are not as prevalent in the lowest income categories) will now be just as subject to involuntary noncompliance as poor minorities have been in the past. You could say that poor white people are now becoming ghettoized. Of course, there are many other reasons besides being "forced" to buy something unaffordable that are involved in the ghettoization.

Increasing and/or large scale ghettoization of the population is one of the most reliable indicators of the existence of a third world type of economy and society.

A RESPONSE:

Egalitare August 27th, 2009 6:05 am
Is there a point where the rest of the Private Sector digs their collective heels in and decides that the "Medical Industrial Complex" is capturing far too much of their share of the pie.

It would appear the answer is NO.

The rest of the Chamber of Commerce seemed indifferent to the Big Three's demise, in no small part due to the weight of increasing health care costs. How many other economic sectors will need to bite the dust before the Chamber realize that Big Health Insurance, while they can create a great deal of profit, really doesn't create leverage to spur real growth in other sectors of the economy?

The Chamber of Commerce types appear to be dumber than rocks, but of course they may be suffering from an image problem due to having only bad propaganda at their disposal, laugh out loud.

Seriously, the US private sector will apparently never rebel against the health industry taking everything and causing further and further collapse of the former US middle class, which is strong evidence for the theory that "national private sectors" as independent entities don't really exist anymore in a world economy dominated by massive multi-national corporations.

But won't the US national private sector spring back into existence if the world economy in general and world trade in particular collapses substantially? Or when China can no longer make a profit by dumping cheap goods in America? I would assume so.

But of course by that point the US private sector (creator of zero jobs in the last ten years and counting) will be devastated even worse than now.

The Health Reform Dog and Pony Show has Shakespeare Turning in his Grave

The "health insurance reform debate" has been one heck of a dog and pony show. Solid Off-Broadway theater. Whoever supposed that the executives and directors of large corporations and their lobbyist employees could not succeed at theater were wrong! And yes!, purely fictional plays packed with lies can be successful to some extent!

William Shakespeare, who would not have dreamed of writing a play so packed with lies, may be turning in his grave right about now.

What Exactly is a Mandate?

A GUEST QUERY:

hamster August 27th, 2009 1:20 am
A lot of people on the left and the right complain about the possibility of a "mandate" whereby everybody would have to have insurance. That's not really very important. What's important is how the whole thing is set up. Profit taking and insurance company meddling in health care must be minimized (to the point you could drown them in a bathtub?).

Don't forget, HR676 is a mandate. So is Medicare.

No, HR 676 is NOT a mandate, and nor is Medicare.

A mandate is where a government uses it's power to command a lower level government or even individuals to pay for something or to perform an action. The concept is inherently very regressive and backward due to inherent inefficiency of downward commands where economies of scale are lost, and also because, in most mandates, the government in question is trying to accomplish something it is responsible for by using the resources of others.

Further, the mandating government is almost invariably, at least partly and usually largely, making financial demands irrespective of the true ability to pay of the ones ordered to pay. (Whereas by contrast a progressive tax system rates high by definition with respect to honoring the ability to pay principle.)

In other words, it's a cheap and anti-progressive shortcut move by the Government. It is also an implicit up front admission by the government that it is not economically and/or not politically competent to achieve the objective, even though it is ultimately responsible for the objective. This is obviously a disturbing revelation.

Here is an analogy. A mandate would be like I as a parent telling my 15 year old teenager "I order you to buy a basketball and a backboard/net so that you will spend more time on basketball and less time hanging around low lifes in the neighborhood. If you don't do so, you are grounded for three months." Versus if I buy the basketball and the backboard myself and then deduct some or all of the cost from the allowance. The latter way (me as the "government" buying it and setting it up) is the progressive way and the former way (the mandate) is the right wing or backward way.

Note that with mandates, there is no guarantee that the action wanted ever happens. Rather, the penalty scenario can easily occur.

[The above conversation was in response to this article.]

The Two Requirements for a Successful Health Care System

On the one hand this article is on point when it emphasizes the power and control held by the large private Corporations. And the details about WellPoint’s rich powers that be are nice because, for one thing, it is unusual to see it.

But on the other hand, this article is unrealistic when it claims that corporate power to dictate the law could be curtailed through the existing political channels. Unfortunately, the power of the large corporations has so far surpassed that of the government that, these days, the corporate executives and boards ARE the government, for all practical purposes. Obama is really just an executive/director "at large" of the large corporations, and a vestige of the previous and now defunct democracy of the US.

With regard to the health care system, several dozen countries have shown anyone with half a brain that there are two minimal requirements for any system that can work. As you will see immediately, the executives and directors in control of the US will not agree with either one of them.

There are two completely required beginning building blocks for a successful health care system and, for that matter, a successful economy. If you don't start with these, you won't be finishing with a successful system:

(1) Profit for all basic, fundamental and standard health insurance is strictly disallowed for any private companies that are allowed to provide that insurance. What basic, standard coverage is has to be carefully and in detail defined by health experts under Government supervision.

(2)The Government must provide a workable set of regulations, subsidies, and/or direct investment that prevent the cost of the health care itself from rising at rates substantially above the overall rate of inflation. This can be done in many, many different ways, including, for example, paying for the education of doctors and other health industry employees.

Again for emphasis, you either do BOTH (1) and (2) or else your health care system AND your economy are destined for severe underachievement and eventual collapse.

Despite the fact that the US economy is already partially collapsed, when the US economy will be completely collapsed can not be known. It could be in 20 years or it could possibly take as long as 120 years. If someone forced me to say, I'd make an educated guess that the US economic system will be defunct (with the dollar next to worthless and no longer the primary reserve and international settlement currency) in roughly 50 years.

At this point, the timing depends on how things develop in other countries. What is going to happen and when in other countries is obviously less predictable than what is going to happen in the country you are immersed in. China in particular is notorious for lack of transparency and relative unpredictability.

But if I am still alive when the US economy is completely collapsed, you can bet that I will not be shy about saying "I told you so, and you can check the Common Dreams archive to verify that I did!"

Is Obama a Chicago Gangsta?

GUEST COMMENT:

raydelcamino August 25th, 2009 11:04 am
Obama is carrying on the Chicago tradition of staying close to the organized criminals that own him.

Laugh out loud, Obama is apparently a gangsta in a suit.

Judging from the movies, in the old days, most of the top gangstas wore suits. That's understandable because for one thing, back then, neither hip hop music nor hip hop clothing was yet thought of.

Maybe we need progressive gangstas to capture hearts and minds in the US culture?

For example, we need progressive doctors to set aside 10-20% of their time for providing care for the struggling masses on a sliding scale based on income, down to $10 per hour for the poorest. A doctor would be a bona fide progressive gangsta if he did that, laugh out loud.

Jerry D Rose August 25th, 2009 2:44 pm
tremaine: Well, we do have some medical progressive gangstas of a sort like the Remote Areas Medical group, founded to give free medical care in "remote areas" of the Third World but who set up shop in Inglewood CA in August and were inundated with people from America's own third world of south Los Angeles. This and other spectacular "free clinics" have done yeoman work, in my opinion. While their efforts are of the "drop in the bucket" variety in relation to the overall medical needs of the country, they do dramatize for Americans just how desperate are people for medical care. And they do get publicity: I saw a feature story on the Inglewood clinic two or three times on ABC News. And you are right to suggest that the same could be done on a smaller scale by any medical practitioners in any community who wanted to brave the condemnation of their professional peers and open up free clinics "right here in River City." (And there are still a few local TV stations and newspapers that would report them.)

[The above conversation was based on this article.]

All Americans, not just some of them, are Disadvantaged by the US Health Care System

The writer mentions the most important difference just in passing, and he leaves the false impression that, at least for certain groups of Americans, the US system is similar to this or that country's system. I beg to differ.

By far the most important difference is the fact that in the US, private insurance companies are allowed to extract huge profits (and to pay huge executive salaries) from a captive market's premium payments. Incidentally, in a bizarre and very obnoxious irony, current US proposals call for making the already captive market even more captive, via the so-called “mandate,” which intelligent people and most well educated economists know is actually a tax pig with lipstick on it.

The big profits and obscene executive compensation of private health insurance companies are the head of the snake, if you will. If you, as all reputable countries have done, strictly enforce a non-profit status for private health insurance companies, you can then go on to choose amongst a wide variety of health delivery configurations, which might include, if you insist, private (non-profit) health insurance companies.

If on the other hand you insist on allowing profit for private health insurance companies, you are doomed to have a failed health system and eventually a failed economy regardless of other choices you make. There is no in-between position regarding allowing profits for the “third party” health insurance companies. You either allow them or you don't. And then your system is either an automatic failure or a likely success based on that decision.

So let's be clear: there is not even one group of Americans who have a system quite similar to a reputable system existing elsewhere.

Even Americans who avoid direct exposure to the damage caused by private insurance company greed get hammered indirectly. For example, even veterans (who use the completely government-run veteran's administration health care system) are stuck with care limitations such as excessive waiting and denials of needed care via, for example, mistaken rulings that the problem is not “service-related”. These health care shortcomings and limitations are caused by a too high cost structure for the care itself. Because along with the sky high health insurance cost, the cost of the care itself is also far higher in the US than it is in the other countries.

This is so for several reasons, most notably the fact that there is no government regulation to contain costs as there is everywhere else, and also due to the overall grossly greater inequality of incomes in the US as compared with the inequality levels in the other countries.

Specifically for example, specialty doctors in the US make incomes that can easily be double, triple, maybe even quadruple or quintuple what the very same doctors are payed in all of the reputable countries. Hell, the "star surgeons" at the top of the heap might get 10 times what a similar European doctor would be payed, for all we know. (And we don't exactly know, do we, but we do know that US pay is ridiculously high at the high end, and ridiculously low for the masses.) Doctors should not be payed the way top NBA basketball players are.

In summary, there are two completely required beginning building blocks for a successful health care system. If you don't start with these, you won't be finishing with a successful system:

(1) Profit for all basic, fundamental and standard health insurance is strictly disallowed for any private companies that are allowed to provide that insurance. What basic, standard coverage is has to be carefully and in detail defined by health experts under Government supervision.

(2)The Government MUST provide a workable set of regulations that prevent the cost of the health care itself from rising at rates substantially above the overall rate of inflation.

[The above is in response to this article.]

Rahm Emanuel and Apparently Obama Want Romney's Health System, but they don't want to give Romney the Presidency in 2012

A GUEST COMMENT:

OleManRiver August 24th, 2009 12:01 am
The more I think about and read about all this health insurance stuff going on in Washington, the more I think it is a distraction and a diversion of our attention from the more immediate rape and pillage going on.

A few years ago, seemingly anticipating the collapse of the Housing Bubble, our esteemed Congress, including then Sen. Joe Biden, rewrote the bankruptcy laws, making it easier for the wealthy to collect from the devastated, including those devastated by health-care costs.

Then, recognizing that interest and other charges on credit cards had become utterly usurious due to deregulation of the banking sector, our esteemed Congress imposed some limits, but with the caveat that the law would not go into effect until 2010 or later, leaving the banksters able to jack up rates and penalties in the interval.

Now, we learn that whatever is being carved out regarding health insurance (care) reform will not go into effect until 2013---after the next Presidential election. Howard Dean was interviewed over the weekend and said he thought this was a Big Mistake---that if people had nothing to show from the "reform," it would hurt the Democrats in 2012.

If what is contemplated were real reform, Dr. Dean might be correct. OTOH, if this "reform" is based on the Mitt Romney/Massachusetts model, which is a disaster, it were better that people not discover how they will be harmed before 2012.

Meanwhile, we are still occupying Iraq and Afghanistan and killing innocents, trillions of our future dollars are still flooding the banking and insurance and real estate markets to prevent an immediate collapse of the economy with almost ZERO help to those facing foreclosure, unemployment is still creeping up despite the false statistics, and there is NO END IN SIGHT to these depredations.

Cash for Clunkers? Really, a metaphor. No wonder it is being shut down. It worked.

Any real "reform" of the health-care system in this country is impossible in the existing political context. Meanwhile, your attention has been diverted away from the criminal conduct of your government on a daily basis, right now.

Personal solution. Eat healthy if you can afford it, exercise, and Don't Get Sick.

"Jack Nicholson: "You want Health Care? I'll give you Health Care. You can't stand REAL Health Care.""

Suckered again.
Your body is the Holy Vessel for Your Mind. Be one unto yourself and respect the Many. They may not know what they are doing.

Come to think on it, here's a thought: Anyone left of Senator Charles Grassley of Iowa ought to just step back and say, Okay, Senator, YOU write the health (insurance) reform bill, and give us three more years to decide whether we agree with it. See ya.

***
I could come at this from an entirely different angle, while the fact remains that, statistically, most of us do not need "health care," thank you, until we start to grow really old, with a few exceptions like the usual childhood diseases that prime our immune system. I have read that end-of-life Care uses the great bulk of Medicare funding. (Big Pharma, meanwhile, would appreciate it if you become diabetic...!)

Maybe it really is time to reconsider the nature of End-of-Life Care in this country, and to do a comparative study at this level with other Western and Eastern commodified economies. "Death Panels"? They exist now, via all health-care systems. Suck it up, Folks, you're gonna die! Do you wanna spend your last 6 months plugged into DRIPS or will you choose to walk into the Wilderness and collapse back into the Earth who provided your sustenance?

The choice is yours.

Thanks for the reminder of the peculiar and revealing proposed implementation delay until 2013.

It seems that the insurance executives who indirectly wrote the proposed laws agreed with (I'm thinking Rahm Emanuel's) proposal that this Mitt Romney thing not go into effect until 2013. Emanuel (or someone similar) is apparently concerned about the amount of confusion, misery and anger that will come forth from numerous segments of the population when the rubber hits the road for this dead on arrival legislation.

From Emanuel's and Obama's perspective, it's best to make sure that the outcries of anguish and anger don't happen until after the 2012 election. Because ironically, Emanuel and Obama don't want Romney to win in 2012, even though they are putting his health care system into effect, laugh out loud.

[The above conversation is in response to this article.]