You are currently browsing the monthly archive for April 2017.
I’m wondering when (if)
the US will join the rest of the industrialized world in offering Universal Health Care for the American people. It seems like such a basic need, even a human right, depending on who you ask. Not having the stress and anxiety over having to constantly navigate a hurly-burly bureaucratic maze just to access healthcare would improve the lives of so many people in the US.
Why isn’t this a slam-dunk.
Because the wrong people would benefit from a single payer, universal healthcare system. And we certainly cannot have that.
“Already federal, state and local governments pay for about half of this gigantic sum through Medicare, Medicaid, the Pentagon, VA, and insuring their public employees. But the system is complexly corrupted by the greed, oft-documented waste, and over-selling of the immensely-profitable, bureaucratic insurance and drug industry.
To those self-described conservatives out there, consider that major conservative philosophers such as Friedrich Hayek, a leader of the Austrian School of Economics, so revered by Ron Paul, supported “a comprehensive system of social insurance” to protect the people from “the common hazards of life,” including illness. He wanted a publically funded system for everyone, not just Medicare and Medicaid patients, with a private delivery of medical/health services. That is what HR 676 would establish (ask your member of Congress for a copy or find the full text here. (Conservatives may wish to read for greater elaboration of this conservative basis, my book, Unstoppable: The Emerging Left-Right Alliance to Dismantle the Corporate State.)
Maybe some of this conservative tradition is beginning to seep into the minds of the corporatist editorial writers of the Wall Street Journal. Seeing the writing on the wall, so to speak, a recent editorial, before the Ryan/Trump crash, concluded with these remarkable words:
“The Healthcare Market is at a crossroads. Either it heads in a more market-based direction step by step or it moves toward single payer step by step. If Republicans blow this chance and default to Democrats, they might as well endorse single-payer because that is where the politics will end up.”
Hooray!”
Hooray indeed Mr.Nader. Let us hope that the failure to pass Trumpcare is the crack in policy needed to advance the single payer agenda.
“Oxfam hailed today’s passing of a law banning metallic mining by the Salvadoran government. The law comes after years of violence and social tensions around mining in the country and strong opposition to mining from local communities, civil society organizations, the Catholic Church and more than 77% of the country’s population, according to a recent poll.”
Wait, what?
Did El Salvador just tell transnational mining corporations to take a hike?
“This is an historic day for El Salvador and our right to decide our future,” said Oxfam’s El Salvador Country Director Ivan Morales. “The voice of the people has been heard. Mining is not an appropriate way to reduce poverty and inequality in this country. It would only exacerbate the social conflict and level of water contamination we already have.”
Wow, they just did, and in spades, placing the welfare of the people and the environment ahead of profit and corporate interests.
“El Salvador is Central America’s smallest and most densely populated country. Ninety percent of its surface water is polluted, according to the country’s Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources. For these reasons local activists called on the government to ban mining as it can further intensify water and land pollution.
In October 2016, the government won a favorable ruling after seven years of litigation over a claim against it by Australian mining company OceanaGold, which sought over $300 million for the government’s refusal to approve the company’s mining permit because it failed to meet all requirements. That ruling validated the government’s decision to withhold a mining permit and paved the way for today’s action by the Salvadoran congress, so that El Salvador never again has to face such lawsuits for exercising its right to protect its population from adverse impacts of mining.
Tensions around the development of mining in the country have resulted in threats, violence and even murder, with three anti-mining activists killed in recent years.”
We here in the West rarely see the sharp pointy side of global capitalism. Despite the threats, violence, and murder El Salvador has set a brave precedent for the world to follow.
Hurrah El Salvador! May other nations be so courageous and be brave enough to challenge corporate hegemony.
Powerful writing on the ills of prostitution, please go view the entire post.
Good Sunday morning to ye all. Have you ever wondered why the religiously addled are the way they are? Or how someone who has demonstrated intelligence can believe the mouldering sack of monkey-muffins that is religious belief? DarkMatter2525 opines on what makes the religious mind tick.
I appreciate all the fine work my atheist friends do, attempting to quell the various (religious) Ridiculous Claims that are out there. I admire their tenacity and willingness to dialogue with those so very deeply lost to reason and rationality.
Kudos, and cheers to you for the willingness to continue to fight for and engage in struggle against one of the many regressive forces facing our societies. :)
Well it is most comforting to watch someone take a stand against the doublespeak that seems to permeate most of transactivst rhetoric.
bleatmop
Mystro
The Arbourist
Dead Wild Roses 
Your opinions…