Political Reform: Let's Get Organized

It's not Obama's fault. Blame yourself.

More than a year back, I wrote that Barack Obama "has never made a secret of who he is. Beyond the rhetoric of change and his campaign's grasp of the Internet's organizing and fund-raising capacities, he has presented himself throughout the primaries as dependably moderate -- pro-military, pro-death penalty, anti-gun control, ready to reach across the aisle -- when he has shown any interest in policy at all."

I only bring this up to demonstrate that it was obvious even last summer that liberal Democrats were taking a big risk in supporting the nomination of the cautious and inexperienced junior senator from Illinois.

Obama inspired fervent support by promising to change the old ways of doing business in Washington. But, as I wrote then, this was almost entirely a matter of speechifying. In fact (and ironically so when you consider the ardor with which the anti-Clinton forces hugged him to their bosoms), throughout the campaign Obama sounded remarkably like the Bill Clinton of 1992. He did indeed speak, as a New York Times editorial put it, "with passion about breaking out of the partisan mold of bickering and catering to special pleaders," but even at the time it seemed likely that, as it had been with Bill Clinton, the outcome of Barack Obama's brand of bipartisanship would be the triumph of the conservative agenda.

Although in his rhetoric Obama pledged to liberate Washington from the big-money power brokers that corrupt American politics, in practice he continued to rake in huge mounds of cash, especially from Wall Street and from health care-related industries, the very groups he was saying he would take on if he won. Once he secured the nomination, he broke his pledge to challenge both major parties' business-as-usual by staying within public-financing limits for the general election. And though his campaign pretended he refused public money so he could pursue a grass-roots-based model of small donations from average folks, in practice it led to a frenzy of big-ticket events at which the target price for quality time with the candidate was more like $30,000 per person than the $30 or less of the average internet contribution.

How hard was it to see a warning signal in what was a switcheroo worthy of a three-card monte hustler in Times Square? If there is surprise it should be about how easily he got away with it; imagine the howls that would have emanated from progressive circles had John McCain or Hillary Clinton pulled the same stunt, but Obama's supporters were so hungry for change, they gave their champion a pass on a major sellout of reform politics.

Today, many Democrats and progressives are dismayed that in foreign and intelligence policy President Obama has been unwilling to challenge the practices of the Bush administration. According to the Washington Post, David Corn noted on Politics Daily that, despite a reservoir of support for the president, some of his policies "have caused concern, if not outright anger, among certain liberal commentators and bloggers. It's been a more conventional White House than many people expected or desired.... He's made compromises that have some people concerned about his adherence to principle." But the conservatism of the Obama White House shouldn't come as a surprise:

In January 2008, when he was battling for Super Tuesday votes, Obama said that the 1978 law requiring warrants for wiretapping, and the special court it created, had worked. “We can trace, track down and take out terrorists while ensuring that our actions are subject to vigorous oversight and do not undermine the very laws and freedom that we are fighting to defend,” he declared.

By last summer, with the evil Clintons safely dispatched, a new Barack Obama had abandoned his vow to filibuster an electronic wiretapping bill if it included an immunity clause for warrantless spying by telecommunications companies, a shift that amounted to sanctioning a cover-up of the Bush administration’s unlawful eavesdropping after 9/11. Obama called his support for the immunity clause a compromise, but actually it was a classically cynical Washington copout that eroded the power of the special court, virtually eliminated “vigorous oversight” and allowed more criminal behavior than ever by government operatives.

It would be wrong, though, to overemphasize policy shifts; politicians have to have room to change their minds. Obama's changes in position were actually relatively minor and few; most of the time, the candidate was the very model of consistency.

Throughout the campaign, for example, Obama unwaveringly backed the Patriot Act and military spending. There was not an iota of difference between McCain, Clinton and Obama on Iraq. Only Obama, however, felt it necessary to make it absolutely clear that he presented no threat to the entitlements of the military state by calling for missile attacks on Iran and military action in Pakistan.

There was more:

‣ Obama told evangelical Christians that he would expand on President Bush’s policy of funneling public money for social spending to religious-based organizations — a policy that violates the separation of church and state and turns a government function into a charitable donation.

‣ He endorsed the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn the District of Columbia’s gun-control law. Even after you knew he subscribed to the anti-gun-control groups’ misreading of the Constitution as permitting an individual right to bear arms, it was distressing to see him declare that the court provided a guide to “reasonable regulations enacted by local communities to keep their streets safe.” What could be more reasonable than a city restricting handguns, or requiring that firearms be stored in ways that do not present a mortal threat to children?

‣ He criticized the Supreme Court’s barring of the death penalty for crimes that do not involve murder.

Since Mike Dukakis was "Willie Horton-ed" by George H.W. Bush, Democrats have been terrified of appearing soft on crime. In 1992, Bill Clinton went so far as to suspend his presidential campaign and return to Arkansas to preside as governor over the execution of a retarded man. When someone like George Bush or John McCain favors the death penalty, you think they know not what they do. But Bill Clinton is a policy wonk and Barack Obama is a constitutional scholar. It is disheartening to see leaders of their caliber quakingly assuming positions contrary to their stated values in order to fulfill their personal ambitions. It should raise a question, too: Doesn't your willingness to kill someone in order to become president automatically disqualify you from the job?

Just as an aside, in the U.S., there are on average around 30,000 deaths annually from firearms and over 200,000 non-fatal gun injuries. If, as Obama wishes, handguns are easier to acquire, there will be more fatalities and more traumas. If additional crimes are made capital offenses, there will be more people executed, some of them -- in the nature of things -- innocent. But no one will be able to say Barack Obama is soft on crime. As president, he has already signed legislation that makes it easier to acquire guns. But it was clear last summer: there would be no Willie Horton for Obama, not if he could help it.

If you think back to the Clinton presidency, you will remember that he, too, succeeded a failed Republican president. If George the Elder had been reelected, would the Congress have funded expansion of the military? Would we have had NAFTA and trade reform, welfare reform, banking reform, telecom reform? Okay, probably so, but at least the liberal wing of the party would have put up a fight. Would the Democratic Party have abandoned its six-decade-old commitment to achieving single-payer health insurance? Doubtful. It required no stretch of imagination to recognize that an Obama administration would be inclined -- like Clinton's -- to bridle any liberal excesses by a Democratic Congress.

No one is shocked to see a primary winner move to the center for the general election. What was striking was that Mr. Obama’s conservatism didn't cost him support among voters who were looking for a candidate who would change the face of politics, a leader of passionate conviction who would not play old political games. Instead of fighting for change, Obama's supporters settled for something akin to a religious conversion to a faith in change. Barack Obama's saintly virtues would miraculously heal our riven polity.

Obama partisans who were challenged before the election about their support for a pro-business, pro-war, pro-death penalty candidate offered the reassurance that he didn't mean what he said. He was only saying what he had to to get elected. Aside from the questionable wisdom of this as practical politics (viz., the candidacies of Al Gore and John Kerry), it was a little disheartening to be asked to vote up a candidate on the hope he was a prevaricator.

I held Barack Obama in higher regard than many of his supporters did. I didn't think he was lying. To me, his campaign only made sense if you took him at his word that he was never more than an ambitious moderate with little interest in policy, that he was just another Democratic presidential candidate whose most attractive attribute was that he was not the other guy. There is no question that there were reasons to prefer Barack Obama to John McCain, those pesky Supreme Court appointments among them. But keeping in mind the outcome of the Clinton years, it probably wasn't to their advantage that so many progressives allowed themselves to become emotionally invested in his success.

Many on the left, recognizing that Lyndon Johnson shared their view of the role of government in domestic affairs, supported the president without giving up their independence of action against policies, like the escalating war in Vietnam, that they opposed. In 1964, "Part of the Way with LBJ" was a far as they were willing to go in favoring the president over his opponent, reactionary Barry Goldwater. Similarly, in 2008, the left should have made it clear before the election that they were with BHO only so long as he was headed down the same road they were, toward peace in the Middle East and Medicare for all. Since they extracted no commitments from him, they have no standing to be disappointed that he is failing to meet their expectations.

Politically, as we approach 2010, we are confronted by the same political mare's nest that we faced in 2008 (or for that matter in every year back at least to the early 1970s). Our democracy is drastically in need of reform. Every day, we become less democratic; our infrastructure becomes more decrepit; we fall further behind our economic rivals; we spill our blood and wealth around the world in a desperate attempt to keep a declining civilization afloat. We need urgently to build or rebuild organizations -- labor unions, for example -- that can effectively be held accountable to act on behalf of their constituents. As a first small step, we ought to settle on a few reforms -- controls on campaign finance, direct election of the president, instant runoffs, proportional representation -- that will tend to make the system more responsive to voters. In the health care debacle, we see the outcome of trying to get meaningful reform in a system that has been corrupted by the corporate class. No reform is possible that doesn't begin with making a more responsive democracy.

It's a waste of time to be mad at Barack Obama. In fact, we should be glad to have a president who is capable of carrying on a serious dialogue about goals and purposes. But it's time to recognize that he will be no more than a sometime ally. And it is past time to draw the line on health care, to accept whatever half-hearted reforms the Democratic majority can muster this time with the understanding that we will be back fighting for "Medicare for all" in 2010 and 2012. And it is way past time to take on the military-industrial complex.

As enticing as the idea seemed to many last November, it's going to take more than a man on a white horse to turn this country around. It's going to take decades of hard work by millions of citizens. There is no easy way.

“Well, Doctor," Benjamin Franklin was asked as he exited Independence Hall on the final day of deliberation, "what have we got, a Republic or a Monarchy?”

“A Republic," Franklin replied, "if you can keep it.”

Since the early 1970s, the realm in which Americans have been permitted to pursue life, liberty and happiness has been diminished. The republican experiment is in jeopardy. It remains to be seen if we can keep it.

Take action:
Politics
National: The Green Party of the United States
California: The Peace and Freedom Party
Democratic Party: Progressive Democrats of America
Health care
California Nurses Association
Guaranteed Healthcare
Medicare for All
Physicians for a National Health Program
Single Payer Action
Peace and War
Wage Peace Campaign of the American Friends Service Committee
Pax Christi
Peace Action
Veterans for Peace
Community Organizing
ACORN (the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now)

Clip File: FDIC Offers Billions In Guarantees For Buyers Of Failed Banks

Here's a must-read from today's HuffPost:

As the Wall Street Journal reports this morning, in what are called a "loss-share" agreements, buyers of failed banks are getting billions of dollars in government guarantees to snatch up the bank's bad assets. To entice buyers, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation is offering to cover around 80 percent of the losses associated with buying a bank. The result, the WSJ points out, is a massive subsidy to the private equity industry, and a huge risk to the American taxpayer.

The rest of the story: "Loss-Share": FDIC Offers Billions In Guarantees For Buyers Of Failed Banks (Huffington Post 2009-08-31)

The Long War: Pentagon worried about Obama's commitment to Afghanistan

"I think [the Obama administration] thought this would be more popular and easier," a senior Pentagon official said. "We are not getting a Bush-like commitment to this war."

by Nancy A. Youssef (McClatchy Newspapers 2009-08-31)

WASHINGTON — The prospect that U.S. Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal may ask for as many as 45,000 additional American troops in Afghanistan is fueling growing tension within President Barack Obama's administration over the U.S. commitment to the war there.

On Monday, McChrystal sent his assessment of the situation in Afghanistan to the Pentagon, the U.S. Central Command, the Joint Chiefs of Staff and NATO. Although the assessment didn't include any request for more troops, senior military officials said they expect McChrystal later in September to seek between 21,000 and 45,000 more troops. There currently are 62,000 American troops in Afghanistan....

Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said any discussion about what the Pentagon is proposing and the White House response is premature.

"We are not there yet," Morrell said. "Let's see what Gen. McChrystal comes back and asks for."

If this story is accurate and the White House, including hawkish Joe Biden, is indeed worried about declining public support for the war in Afghanistan and attacks on Pakistan, this is the moment for the peace movement to ratchet up resistance.

The rest of the story: Pentagon worried about Obama's commitment to Afghanistan by Nancy A. Youssef (McClatchy Newspapers 2009-08-31)

See, also: CNN Poll: Afghanistan War opposition at all-time high
American Antiwar Movement Plans an Autumn Campaign Against Policies on Afghanistan
Needed - A Left Antiwar Opposition To Obama

Take action: Peace Action

Politics: Bill Moyers disses Democrats as 'spineless'

"The problem is the Democratic Party," Politico quotes Bill Moyers as saying. "This is a party that has told its progressives — who are the most outspoken champions of health care reform — to sit down and shut up. That's what Rahm Emanuel, in effect, the chief of staff of the White House, told progressives when they stood up as a unit in Congress and said, no public insurance option, no health care reforms." (Politico 2009-08-30)

Change Watch: Bush's Search Policy For Travelers Is Kept

Obama Officials Say Oversight Will Grow

"Under the policy begun by Bush and now continued by Obama, the government can open your laptop and read your medical records, financial records, e-mails, work product and personal correspondence -- all without any suspicion of illegal activity." -- Elizabeth Goitein, liberty and national security project, Brennan Center for Justice.

The Obama administration will largely preserve Bush-era procedures allowing the government to search -- without suspicion of wrongdoing -- the contents of a traveler's laptop computer, cellphone or other electronic device, although officials said new policies would expand oversight of such inspections.

The rest of the story: Bush's Search Policy For Travelers Is Kept by Ellen Nakashima (Washington Post 2009-08-29)

Health Care: Medicare-for-All Would Be Major Stimulus for Economy

Single-payer health insurance would generate 2.6 million new jobs, $317 billion in business revenues, $100 billion in wages. The number of jobs created by a single-payer system, expanding and upgrading Medicare to cover everyone, parallels almost exactly the total job loss in 2008, according to the findings of a study by the California Nurses Association.

The complete study (pdf): Single-Payer/Medicare for All -- An Economic Stimulus Plan for the Nation
View study's charts (pdf)
Press release

Clip File: President Obama -- Healthcare; you promised.

In an open letter, Anne Lamott reminds the president of the major campaign vow that got him into the White House.

...Of the total votes cast that long-ago November day, I'm guessing that about 1,575 people wanted you to try to reconcile the toxic bipartisanship that culminated in those Sarah Palin rallies.

The other 66,880,655 of us wanted universal healthcare.

You inherited a country that was in the most desperate shape since the Civil War, or the Depression, and we voted for you to heal the catastrophic wounds Bush inflicted on our country and our world. You said that you were up to that challenge.

We did not vote for you to see if you could get Chuck Grassley or Michael Enzi to date you. The spectacle of you wooing them fills us with horror and even disgust. We recoil as from hot flame at each mention of your new friends. Believe me, I know exactly how painful this can be, how reminiscent of 7th-grade yearning to be popular, because I went through it myself this summer. I did not lower my bar quite as low as you have, but I was sitting on the couch one afternoon, thinking that this adorable guy and I were totally on the same sheet of music -- he had given me absolutely every indication that we were -- and were moving into the kissing stage. Out of nowhere, I thought to ask him if he liked me in the same way I liked him.

He said, in so many words, no.

And Mr. President, that is what the Republicans are saying to you: They are just not that into you, sir.

The rest of the story: President Obama: Healthcare; you promised. by Anne Lamott (Los Angeles Times 2009-08-27)

Reform: A health care plan so simple even a Republican senator can understand it

Republican leaders Mitch McConnell, Jim Inhofe, et al admit they haven't actually read the health insurance reform bill they oppose. But, really, who can blame them?: over 1,000 pages of complex compromises, obfuscations and evasions only a lawyer or insurance company executive could love. Maybe they can find time to read House Resolution 676, though. It's only 13 pages long and would provide Americans with the health care relief even the conservatives assert they support. Health care as a guaranteed human right -- that's pretty easy to grasp, no?

Text of H.R. 676: United States National Health Care Act or the Expanded and Improved Medicare for All Act

Health Care Reform: Medicare Truth Squad

From National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare:

America’s seniors have a huge stake in the national health care reform debate. Unfortunately, well-financed misinformation campaigns have led many to believe health care reform will destroy Medicare. Nothing could be further from the truth!

The National Committee’s Truth Squad is mobilized to arm seniors with the facts about health care reform’s impact on Medicare.Without health care reform, Medicare will continue to suffer from skyrocketing costs associated with general health care costs, until neither seniors nor the government will be able to afford the program. This inevitably will lead to unprecedented cuts in Medicare-cuts that unlike current health care reform proposals-will directly target Medicare beneficiaries.

National health care reform provides an historic opportunity for us to improve Medicare by closing the Part D doughnut hole, allowing government negotiation of drug prices in Part D and eliminating billions of dollars of wasteful subsidies to private insurers in Medicare Advantage. Ignoring Health Care Reform is not an option.

The Truth Squad tool kit is available on our website to anyone who’s tired of the misinformation and wants the truth about health care reform and seniors. It includes: links to Health care reform policy analysis, “EntitledtoKnow” health care blog posts, a link where you can download your own myth busters badge and our Truth Squad video series.

We hope you’ll share the Myth Busters badge with friends and wear it proudly to town halls and meetings with your members of Congress. Because as President Franklin Roosevelt said: “Repetition does not transform a lie into truth”.

The National Committee is mobilized to fight health care reform fiction with fact…we hope you’ll join us.

Get the Facts

Health Care Reform Q & A

The Future Cost of Medicare: Why Seniors have a Stake in Health Care Reform

The Need for Comprehensive Health Care Reform

There Are No Death Panels.
Voluntary Advance Care Planning Consultations for Medicare Beneficiaries

Health Care Reform: What It Means for Seniors

National Committee Blog Posts on Health Care Reform

Sick to death of Medicare "Death Panel" Propaganda

Facts Matter
Town Hells and Medicare
House Health Care Reform and Medicare
When Fiction Replaces Facts in the Health care/Medicare Debate
"MedPac on Steroids" or Permanent Entitlement Commission?
Medicare Reforms play Critical Role in Congressional Health Care Proposal
Head of GOP Health Care Group Says We'd Be Better Off Without Medicare..

Recommended Links

Health Care Town Hall : CSPAN 1 .  Rep. Gerry Connolly and National Committee President/CEO, Barbara B. Kennelly
HHS Report:  America 's Seniors and Health Insurance Reform
U.S. Senate Special Committee on Aging Report: Health Care Reform: FACT vs. FICTION
Countering Health Reform Misinformation:
Center for Medicare Advocacy
Seven Falsehoods about Health Care: FactCheck.org
The House Version of the Health-Care Legislation: Washington Post

Clip File: Last Chance for the Public Option?

Reports of its demise could be premature.

Writing in The American Prospect, Paul Waldman suggests that when push comes to shove conservative Democrats may prefer to side with a Democratic president than with the political opportunists who are trying to bring him down.

If it could turn back the clock, the Obama administration would probably go back to late November and undertake an elaborate war game on health-care reform. It would lock its smartest people away in a secure location for a week or so and have them play out every conceivable scenario and subplot, detailing plans for all eventualities. Then, when the time came, it would be prepared for anything.

Administration officials don't appear to have done that. But if nothing else, they should have been able to predict that the public option -- a Medicare-like program from which Americans could chose to get their health insurance -- would eventually become the ideological flashpoint of the entire debate. You didn't have to be a genius to see that coming.

Though it took a while, the public option is now at the center of the discussion. Among other things, this means that progressives are finally getting to participate, beyond defending the administration against the ridiculous claims of critics. People who don't like the public option are hurrying to declare it dead, but it may yet have a chance.

I think the mistake was more profound than a bad sales job on the public option. The public option is a flawed idea, made worse by being difficult to explain. The decision to open with the public option also had the effect of skewing the debate to the right. "Medicare for All" would have been easy to understand and much harder to oppose. The public option is all we have. If Waldman is right, we have one more chance to get it passed.

The rest of the story: Last Chance for the Public Option? by Paul Waldman (The American Prospect 2009-08-25)

Clip File: Afghanistan Apocalypse

Although understandable in the wake of 9/11, military action in Afghanistan was from the beginning a mistake, among other things serving to raise a band of criminal whack jobs to the stature of "warriors." Because of chronic failure of leadership by the foreign policy professionals, what should have been a police matter escalated into a tragic, pointless and apparently endless war. Although the occupation of Iraq distracted us for a while, our government is determined now to turn a bad policy decision into an intractable catastrophe, for us and for the region. A punitive expedition that lasts nine years is already a failure. Now is the time to stop it; we don't need to wait until we have to slice into The National Mall for an Afghanistan War Memorial.

Yesterday afternoon at the Brookings Institution, four analysts portrayed a bleak and terrifying vision of the current state of affairs in Afghanistan in the wake of the presidential election. All four were hawkish, reflecting a growing consensus in the Washington establishment that the Afghanistan war is only just beginning.

Their conclusions: (1) A significant escalation of the war will be necessary to avoid utter defeat. (2) Even if tens of thousands of troops are added to the US occupation, it won't be possible to determine if the US/NATO effort is succeeding until eighteen months later. (3) Even if the United States turns the tide in Afghanistan, no significant drawdown of US forces will take place until five years have passed.
....
Not a single panelist questioned the goals, purpose or objectives of the Afghan war. Not one said anything about a political solution to the war, about negotiations, or about diplomacy. Not one questioned the viability of an open-ended commitment to the war. And none of them had any doubts about the strategic necessity of defeating the Taliban and its allies.

The rest of the story: Afghanistan Apocalypse by Robert Dreyfuss (The Nation 2009-08-26)

See, also: Bill Moyers on Afghanistan (interview with Bill Maher2009-08-30)

Take action:
Call Congress at 202-225-3121 and the White House at 202-456-111. You can also email the White House here.
Chelsea Uniting Against the War BBQ this Sunday
Organizing committee for Boston antiwar action October 17
Antiwar.com's links to local, national and international antiwar organizations.

Heroes: Sen. Ted Kennedy

"To Strive, To Seek, To Find, And Not To Yield." R.I.P.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Moment of Zen - The Kennedy Shrug
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Healthcare Protests

See also, Michael Scherer, Jack Newfield, John Cory.

Change Watch: U.S. Says Rendition to Continue, but With More Oversight -- Times Headline

As I wrote during the late campaign, in foreign and military affairs, the Democrats' promise is not really to do things differently, just to do them better.

The Obama administration will continue the Bush administration’s practice of sending terrorism suspects to third countries for detention and interrogation, but pledges to closely monitor their treatment to ensure that they are not tortured, administration officials said Monday.

Human rights advocates condemned the decision, saying that continuing the practice, known as rendition, would still allow the transfer of prisoners to countries with a history of torture. They said that promises from other countries of humane treatment, called “diplomatic assurances,” were no protection against abuse.

The rest of the story: U.S. Says Rendition to Continue, but With More Oversight by David Johnston (New York Times 2009-08-24)

Reform: Why We Need Government-Run Universal Socialized Health Insurance

The drug companies resort to childish cartoons when they want to market complex ideas. Maybe they're on to something.
And for more fun with health care insurance reform, see the commercial for the drug single-payer supporters really need, Rage-Ex, plus a spoof on that all-time tv classic, You Bet Your Health.

Clip File: 5 Myths About Health Care Around the World

The estimable T.R. Reid, formerly of WaPo and NPR, sheds some light on the debate over what to do about America's health insurance crisis. I think the most salient facts are that, no matter whether coverage is provided by governments or by private companies, in every other civilized country the provision of health insurance is universal and no one is permitted to abscond with a third of its costs.

The key difference is that foreign health insurance plans exist only to pay people's medical bills, not to make a profit. The United States is the only developed country that lets insurance companies profit from basic health coverage.

In many ways, foreign health-care models are not really "foreign" to America, because our crazy-quilt health-care system uses elements of all of them. For Native Americans or veterans, we're Britain: The government provides health care, funding it through general taxes, and patients get no bills. For people who get insurance through their jobs, we're Germany: Premiums are split between workers and employers, and private insurance plans pay private doctors and hospitals. For people over 65, we're Canada: Everyone pays premiums for an insurance plan run by the government, and the public plan pays private doctors and hospitals according to a set fee schedule. And for the tens of millions without insurance coverage, we're Burundi or Burma: In the world's poor nations, sick people pay out of pocket for medical care; those who can't pay stay sick or die.

This fragmentation is another reason that we spend more than anybody else and still leave millions without coverage. All the other developed countries have settled on one model for health-care delivery and finance; we've blended them all into a costly, confusing bureaucratic mess.

Which, in turn, punctures the most persistent myth of all: that America has "the finest health care" in the world. We don't. In terms of results, almost all advanced countries have better national health statistics than the United States does. In terms of finance, we force 700,000 Americans into bankruptcy each year because of medical bills. In France, the number of medical bankruptcies is zero. Britain: zero. Japan: zero. Germany: zero.

The rest of the story: 5 Myths About Health Care Around the World by T.R. Reid (Washington Post 2009-08-23)

Resource: Online Tools

"Radical Designs is a full service web development group focused exclusively on the needs of non-profit and grassroots social change organizations. We provide strategic online campaign consulting, website planning and development and custom application programming and support. Over the last seven years we have worked on hundreds of projects in almost all sectors of the progressive movement." -- from the website.

Health Care: Rep. Anthony Weiner argues for "Medicare for all"

Weiner Leaves Scarborough "Speechless" Part 1
Weiner Leaves Scarborough "Speechless" Part 2
G'night, Joe.

For more health care reform fun, watch as Weiner Blasts the Critics of Health Reform on the floor of the House.

Clip File: A Health Care Public Option That Works

"Two burning questions are at the center of America’s health care debate. First, should employers be required to pay for their employees’ health insurance? And second, should there be a “public option” that competes with private insurance?

"Answers might be found in San Francisco, where ambitious health care legislation went into effect early last year....

"The early results are in. Today, almost all residents in the city have affordable access to a comprehensive health care delivery system through the Healthy San Francisco program. Covered services include the use of a so-called “medical home” that coordinates care at approved clinics and hospitals within San Francisco, with both public and private facilities. Although not formally insurance, the program is tantamount to a public option of comprehensive health insurance, with the caveat that services are covered only in the city of San Francisco. Enrollees with incomes under 300 percent of the federal poverty level have heavily subsidized access, and those with higher incomes may buy into the public program at rates substantially lower than what they would pay for an individual policy in the private-insurance market." -- A Public Option That Works by William H. Dow, Arindrajit Dube and Carrie Hoverman Colla (New York Times 2009-08-21)

Resource: The Transport Index 2009

While a majority of Senate members voice their support for transportation spending, a significant minority may stand in the way of big advances.

Health insurance reform is not the only promise made by Barack Obama during the late campaign. If he is not so cowed by his health care reform experience that he abandons other parts of his agenda, Obama will try to overhaul the transportation infrastructure of the nation, including by upgrading antiquated freight and passenger rail with high-speed alternatives. It's possible though hardly a given that "bipartisanship" will be set aside and the Senate majority will proceed to get something done.

The Transport Politic reminds us that the same reactionary forces that have lined up to thwart health care reform are likely to conspire to prevent improvements to our transportation system (although an inducement to fixing transportation from the point of view of an incumbent -- left or right -- is that doing so will require laying out lots of cash in virtually every state, a circumstance certain to melt the stone heart of even the most illiberal officeholder in recipient precincts). The Transport Politic has produced an invaluable chart showing where things might stand in the U.S. Senate functioned democratically. Here's their take on the administration's likelihood of success:

In response to the President’s State of the Union Address in February, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal (R) criticized the stimulus, arguing that it was “larded with wasteful spending.” He pointed to the $8 billion devoted to high-speed rail as a specifically unnecessary expenditure. It became clear at that moment that the road to an improved American transportation system would not be a straight shot. How will the members of the Senate react when they are forced to consider expanding the federal commitment to transportation? That’s what this Transport Index is intended to anticipate.

The health reform debate of the last several weeks has made evident the fact that Republicans in Congress will be able to rile up an intimidating opposition to legislation proposed by the Democratic Party. Though Democrats have 60 seats in the Senate — a number that is large enough to vote down a potentially fatal filibuster — the sudden arrival of thousands of right-wing demonstrators on scene at town hall meetings has slowed down and problematized the passage of any legislation. The tacit support of Republican Congressmen for the lies being spewed by these protesters indicates that if the GOP wants to prevent something from passing, it will do whatever is necessary. “Moderate” Democrats, especially in the Senate, have made clear that they’re willing to compromise their goals in the face of this reactionary force.

Would Republicans stage a similar temper tantrum if the Congress embarked on a massive transportation program? It’s unclear, but Mr. Jindal’s reaction in February indicates that it’s a distinct possibility. Congressman Jim Oberstar (D-MN) may be excited about appropriating $50 billion to high-speed rail and significantly expanding transit subsidies in the coming transportation legislation, but he will face a roadblock in the form of a skeptical Senate if the GOP decides to mount opposition. It’s necessary, then, to see where we stand.

Thus, the Transport Index 2009.

In evaluating the votes of all 100 current senators on ten significant bills, motions, and amendments considered by the full body over the past two years, the makeup of the Senate becomes quite clear, as illustrated in the chart and map at the top of the article. Below are the specific rankings of each senator. The votes, each of which considers transportation funding, are described at the bottom of this article; they considered matters as varied as the stimulus, high-speed rail, transit, and maintenance of infrastructure.

What is obvious is a significant partisan split, with Democrats generally voting for expansions in transportation appropriations and Republicans likely to vote against. 56 senators, including 54 Democrats and the two Independents who caucus with them, Bernie Sanders (VT) and Joseph Lieberman (CT), voted in the “good” way every time they went up to vote. The 4 other Democrats voted correctly 9/10 times (including newly Democratic Senator Arlen Specter (R-PA). There have been no motions, amendments, or bills considered over the past two years that have significantly disturbed the integrity of the Democratic caucus.

However, other than Susan Collins (ME), Olympia Snowe (ME), Lisa Murkowski (AK), and Kay Bailey Hutchison (TX), Republicans were just as likely to vote against transportation funding as they were to vote for it. The GOP caucus, in other words, is primarily an anti-investment group.

The worst offenders are Jon Kyl (AZ), John McCain (AZ), Mike Johanns (NE), Tom Coburn (OK), Jim DeMint (SC), John Barrasso (WY), and Mike Enzi (WY), who voted the “good” way on none of the legislation, motions, or amendments considered here. They are the declared enemies of improved federal funding for transportation.
Where do we stand, then? What are the chances of moving ahead with progressive legislation that would expand the federal commitment to alternative transportation? The Senate has 56 steadfast supporters of potential bills and roughly 6 moderates who would be likely to consider coming in line. It wouldn’t be too difficult to assemble a 60-vote majority, in other words — unless the moderates get scared off by intense right-wing opposition.

All this is speculative, of course: these rankings by no means pre-determine actual votes in the future. More importantly, perhaps, the Senate needs to actually get around to considering any more investments, something it has been reluctant to do over the past few months. The stimulus’ massive expansion of federal government outlays seems, for the moment, to have made new commitments to transportation less than a priority.

The Transport Politic guesses that there are "56 steadfast supporters of potential bills and roughly 6 moderates who would be likely to consider coming in line," especially, one imagines, those that think significant dollars are headed down the track to their particular districts.  The Transport Index 2009 by The Transit Polity is a useful resource and, since we live in a democracy, one that suggests we will soon see high speed trains whizzing up and down the coasts and spiriting freight at blinding speeds across the continent. Or will the majority cave again?

Clip File: Also, see Stranded at the Station: The Impact of the Financial Crisis in Public Transportation, a new report from Transportation for America and the Transportation Equity Network: "Many transit agencies across the country have cut service, raised fares or laid off workers to deal with shrinking budgets, severely affecting the people who depend on regular, reliable service in order to access jobs, social services and education everyday. Nearly 90 percent of transit systems have had to raise fares or cut service in the past year and among the 25 largest transit operators, 10 agencies are raising fares more than 13 percent." Download the report (pdf).

Health Care Reform: The real "captains" of capitalism

Health Care: Paging Dr. Reform

WaPo columnist David Ingnatius thinks that health insurance reform will "only make things worse" without health system reform.

Forgive the analogy between war and health care, but maybe Obama needs the medical equivalent of a Gen. David Petraeus -- that is, a professional who can break through the political chaff and describe a strategy for reform that can unite the country.

I have a nomination for the medical commander role, and it won't surprise anyone who follows this issue: Dr. Denis Cortese, the chief executive of the Mayo Clinic. He's already doing what the nation needs -- that is, providing high-quality health care at relatively low cost. Every time I listen to Cortese explain what's wrong with the system, I have the same reaction: Let him and other smart health professionals lead us out of the political morass.

Talking to Cortese this week, I heard two themes that cut to the heart of the debate. First, he thinks Obama has made a mistake in moving toward the narrower goal of "health insurance reform" when what the country truly needs is health system reform. Imposing a mandate for universal insurance will only make things worse if we don't change the process so that it becomes more efficient and less costly. The system we have is gradually bankrupting the country; expanding that system without changing the internal dynamics is folly.

Second, Cortese argues that reformers should stop obsessing over whether there's a "public option" in the plan. Yes, we need a yardstick for measuring costs and effectiveness. But we should start by fixing the public options we already have.

The rest of the story: Paging Dr. Reform by David Ignatius (Washington Post 2009-08-20)

Clip File: For the Left, war without Bush is not war at all

For the Left, war without Bush is not war at all by Byron York:

Remember the anti-war movement? Not too long ago, the Democratic party's most loyal voters passionately opposed the war in Iraq. Democratic presidential candidates argued over who would withdraw American troops the quickest. Netroots activists regularly denounced President George W. Bush, and sometimes the U.S. military ("General Betray Us"). Cindy Sheehan, the woman whose soldier son was killed in Iraq, became a heroine when she led protests at Bush's Texas ranch.

That was then. Now, even though the United States still has roughly 130,000 troops in Iraq, and is quickly escalating the war in Afghanistan -- 68,000 troops there by the end of this year, and possibly more in 2010 -- anti-war voices on the Left have fallen silent.

Alas, he has a point.

The rest of the story: Washington Examiner 2009-08-19

Health Care: "I want pizza"

Two important arguments about health care reform made on the Rachel Maddow show on MSNBC: Rachel editorializes that it is time for the Democrats to stop negotiating with the reactionaries in Congress and instead to put together the best possible reform bill based purely on what's good for the country; and AFL-CIO secretary-treasurer Richard Trumka offers labor's support to the 60 House members who promise not vote for health care reform if it does not include (at least) a public option.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Clip File: A Conservative’s Road to Same-Sex Marriage Advocacy

"Theodore B. Olson’s office is a testament to his iconic status in the conservative legal movement. A framed photograph of Ronald Reagan, the first of two Republican presidents Mr. Olson served, is warmly inscribed with 'heartfelt thanks.' Fifty-five white quills commemorate each of his appearances before the Supreme Court, where he most famously argued the 2000 election case that put George W. Bush in the White House. On the bookshelf sits a Defense Department medal honoring his legal defense of Mr. Bush’s counterterrorism policies after Sept. 11.

"But in a war room down the hall, where Mr. Olson is preparing for what he believes could be the most important case of his career, the binders stuffed with briefs, case law and notes offer a different take on a man many liberals love to hate. They are filled with arguments Mr. Olson hopes will lead to a Supreme Court decision with the potential to reshape the legal and social landscape along the lines of cases like Brown v. Board of Education and Roe v. Wade: the legalization of same-sex marriage nationwide."

The rest of the story by Jo Becker (New York Times 2009-08-18).

Corporatism: We can't say Ike didn't warn us

Dwight D. Eisenhower's exit speech on Jan.17,1961 warning us of the military industrial complex.

Clip File: Is This the Start of the Big One?

"...most savvy people I know have been skeptical of this rally, beyond the initial strong bounce off the bottom. It has not had the characteristics of a bull market. Volumes have been underwhelming, no new leadership group has emerged, and as greybeards like to point out, comparatively short, large amplitude rallies are a bear market speciality....almost insistent media cheerleading, particularly from atypical venues for that sort of thing, like Bloomberg....More bank woes....Consumers tapped out....Foreclosures set to rise....Fed in a box....More AIG losses....Lack of political leadership...." Is This the Start of the Big One by Yves Smith (naked capitalism 2009-08-17)

Clip File: The brutal truth about America’s healthcare

An extraordinary report from Guy Adams in Los Angeles at the music arena that has been turned into a makeshift medical centre from The Independent

They came in their thousands, queuing through the night to secure one of the coveted wristbands offering entry into a strange parallel universe where medical care is a free and basic right and not an expensive luxury. Some of these Americans had walked miles simply to have their blood pressure checked, some had slept in their cars in the hope of getting an eye-test or a mammogram, others had brought their children for immunisations that could end up saving their life.

In the week that Britain's National Health Service was held aloft by Republicans as an 'evil and Orwellian' example of everything that is wrong with free healthcare, these extraordinary scenes in Inglewood, California...provided a sobering reminder of exactly why President Barack Obama is trying to reform the US system.

The LA Forum, the arena that once hosted sell-out Madonna concerts, has been transformed – for eight days only – into a vast field hospital. In America, the offer of free healthcare is so rare, that news of the magical medical kingdom spread rapidly and long lines of prospective patients snaked around the venue for the chance of getting everyday treatments that many British people take for granted.

In the first two days, more than 1,500 men, women and children received free treatments worth $503,000 (£304,000). Thirty dentists pulled 471 teeth; 320 people were given standard issue spectacles; 80 had mammograms; dozens more had acupuncture, or saw kidney specialists. By the time the makeshift medical centre leaves town on Tuesday, staff expect to have dispensed $2m worth of treatments to 10,000 patients.

The gritty district of Inglewood lies just a few miles from the palm-lined streets of Beverly Hills and the bright lights of Hollywood, but is a world away. And the residents who had flocked for the free medical care, courtesy of mobile charity Remote Area Medical, bore testament to the human cost of the healthcare mess that President Obama is attempting to fix.

The rest of the story: The brutal truth about America’s healthcare (The Independent 2009-08-15)

Heroes: Legendary Lawyer Doris Brin Walker Dies

Represented Angela Davis, Smith Act Defendants -- Marjorie Cohn's ZSpace Page (ZSpace 2009-08-16)

Hey, hey, ho, ho, Affordable Care Act has got to go!

"Give me liberty and give me death!

                         -- Slogan of protesters against affordable universal health care, according to Wait Wait....Don't Tell Me's Peter Sagal.

quote unquote: Ramsay MacDonald on War

We hear war called murder.
It is not: it is suicide.

-- British prime minister Ramsay MacDonald

Clip File: Row over Afghan wife-starving legislation

The Beeb News reports that critics think President Hamid Karzai is betraying Afghan women.

An Afghan bill allowing a husband to starve his wife if she refuses to have sex has been published in the official gazette and become law.

Maybe we would have an easier time understanding what our late entry in The Great Game will get us if we stopped calling our client "Afghanistan" and started using its real name, The Islamic Republic of Afghanistan.

The rest of the story: Row over Afghan wife-starving law by Sarah Rainsford (BBC News 2009-08-15)

Cost of Empire: Seven killed in bombing near NATO headquarters in Kabul

Almost 100 more are injured in the blast in one of the most tightly secured areas in the city. The strike on the Afghan capital comes five days before nationwide elections. McCain Administration "undeterred."

(Loosely based on a report from Kabul, Afghanistan, that appeared in today's Los Angeles Times)

Insurgents struck at the main symbol of the Western military presence in Afghanistan today, killing at least seven people and injuring nearly 100 others in a massive car bombing five days before nationwide elections.

The blast, just outside the front gate of the headquarters of the NATO force, was likely aimed at deterring Afghans from voting in Thursday's presidential and provincial assembly balloting, Afghan and Western officials said. The Interior Ministry blamed "enemies of peace and stability in Afghanistan."

At the summer White House in Sedona, Arizona, U.S. President John McCain expressed regret over the loss of Afghan lives. "We knew there'd be setbacks, but this doesn't mean our plan isn't working," he told reporters. "The Afghans are showing enormous courage in the face of threats and intimidations by the Taliban. We expect the elections to be a rousing affirmation of democracy."

The attack, which took place about 30 yards from the main entrance to the base, also appeared designed to signal that insurgents can strike at will even in the capital's most heavily guarded districts. The attacker or attackers, carrying a payload of about 600 pounds of high explosives, would have had to pass through several rings of security -- checkpoints, rolls of barbed wire, red-and-white-striped safety gates and concrete barriers -- to get this close to the Western military headquarters.

The street is one of the most tightly secured in all Kabul; the U.S. Embassy is next door, and the presidential palace is nearby.

In Washington, organizers of the "Stop McCain's War" march next month also expressed regret about the loss of life in Kabul. "The senseless slaughter will continue," a spokesman said, "until American troops come home." The hrefdemonstration, to take place on Sept. 21, annually designated as the International Day of Peace by the United Nations, is supported by a coalition of labor, peace and human rights groups. A number of Democratic leaders, including U.S. Senator Barack Obama (D-IL), who labeled the war "a dangerous distraction," have promised to participate. Organizers say two million people will gather on the Washington Mall to hear speeches and protest the war.

Meanwhile on Capitol Hill, Rep. Ike Skelton (D-MO), the chair of the House Armed Services committee continues to block consideration of a motion advanced by a majority of the Strategic Forces subcommittee calling for hearings on whether drones being used in Afghanistan and Pakistan, which are alleged to have caused numerous civilian deaths, violate international rules of war. "We won't second guess commanders on the ground," he said. Replied Rep. Jim Langevin (D-RI), the subcommittee chair, "At the very least, the use of drones seems contrary to our effort to win the hearts and minds of people in the region."

In Kabul, NATO's International Security Assistance force said in a statement that several soldiers had been hurt in the bombing, but did not give their nationalities or say where they were stationed at the time. However, the gate is usually guarded by a small contingent of Macedonian soldiers who are relatively exposed to the street.

Police initially said the vehicle into which the explosives were packed was a sport-utility vehicle of the type commonly driven by civilian contractors who frequent the base, but determined later the bomb was in a Toyota station wagon, and the SUV had been close by.

The main part of the base, which is headquarters to Gen. Stanley McChrystal, commander of all U.S. and Western forces in Afghanistan, lies a considerable distance from the front gate, beyond more concrete barriers and a maze-like pedestrian entrance. Aides did not immediately confirm whether the general was on base at the time.

As with many such attacks on official installations, the brunt of the explosion was taken by Afghan civilians: employees at the nearby Ministry of Transportation, who were just beginning their workweek, and shopkeepers in a row of nearby small establishments. A small group of Afghan street boys usually congregates at the gate, begging for change from foreigners coming and going on foot.

"I always felt safe here, with so much security -- checkpoints everywhere," said 25-year-old Ahmad, who works at the offices of a charity about 100 yards from the blast site and did not want his last name used. He and other workers were eating breakfast when the blast blew out the heavy plate-glass windows.

The attack was the worst in the capital since February, when insurgents staged near-simultaneous attacks on three government buildings. Those gun-and-bomb strikes left more than two dozen people dead, including passersby and eight assailants.

Afghanistan's Defense Ministry put the toll in today's attack at seven dead and 91 wounded, and said 16 Afghan soldiers and a female member of Parliament, Hawa Alam Nuristani, were among those injured.

Afghan officials for weeks have been urging people to defy Taliban threats and go to the polls on Thursday. President Hamid Karzai told supporters at a rally last week they should vote "even if a hundred bombs explode."

The McCain administration and the Western military are heavily invested in a successful vote, which they hope will enhance the legitimacy of the central government and bolster efforts to increase Afghanistan's self-sufficiency in security matters, allowing for an eventual exit of foreign forces. President McCain has called the balloting the most important event of the year in Afghanistan.

Violence has increased markedly around the country in recent weeks, but most of it has been concentrated in the south, the traditional Taliban heartland and the center of the lucrative drug trade. U.S. Marines and British forces have spent much of the summer fighting bloody battles in Helmand, taking the highest casualties of the nearly 8-year-old conflict.

Military officials have expressed hopes that confronting the Taliban in Helmand would encourage Afghans to come out and vote, but the sometimes-intense fighting has instead prompted many people to flee their homes. Insurgents in some areas have threatened to cut off the fingers of those whose digits are stained with the indelible ink that proves a person has voted.

Today's blast could be heard across much of the capital. It scorched walls, downed tree limbs, gutted several parked cars, shattered windows hundreds of yards away and sent a plume of smoke billowing into the air.

Frightened civilians, some bleeding from their wounds, fled on foot. Passersby stopped cars and even motorcycles to ferry wounded people to hospitals.

International forces swiftly set up a cordon of armored vehicles manned by British, French and other troops, and Afghan police waved traffic away.

A Taliban spokesman made a call to the Associated Press claiming responsibility for the attack, but initially said -- mistakenly -- that the bomber was on foot. Suspicion also fell on the Haqqani network, a Pakistan-based insurgent group that is believed to have carried out some of the most sophisticated and lethal attacks in and around the capital.

More: BBC coverage of suicide bomb near Nato's Kabul headquarters.

[The foregoing, based on an article in today's Los Angeles Times, is not meant to denigrate the Times or its coverage, but to raise questions about the decision by the Obama administration to bog down the U.S in the senseless, unending quagmire in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

The quotes attributed to John McCain, Ike Skelton and Jim Langevin are either made up or mis-attributed; the quote from Sen. Obama is accurate but wildly out of context, the context being his campaign promise that he would be "taking the fight to al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan." Although there was a quick response from the imaginary McCain White House, 18 hours after the event it does not appear that the real administration wants to draw further attention to the setback by making a comment.

Apparently there were 1,100 pounds of explosives, not the 600 pounds of the earliest reports. So much for security.

“How do you ask a man to be the last man to die in Vietnam? How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?” John Kerry famously asked. Will the Democrats, who know better, stop funding these adventures or will they continue to remain quiet about this mistake? How do you ask a man to be the last man to die in the Middle East? How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for oil?]

quote unquote: Howard Zinn on activism

"If democracy were to be given any meaning, if it were to go beyond the limits of capitalism and nationalism, this would not come, if history were any guide, from the top. It would come through citizen's movements, educating, organizing, agitating, striking, boycotting, demonstrating, threatening those in power with disruption of the stability they needed." -- Howard Zinn, A People's History of the United States

Media: Harrison On the Edge

Another alternative media voice, podcaster and radio personality Cary Harrison comes to video:

Heath Care: Glenn Beck changes his mind

Once again, it is left to The Daily Show to reveal the moral hackery, partisan flackery, and intellectual quackery that is Fox News.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Glenn Beck's Operation
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Spinal Tap Performance

Clip File: Income Inequality Is at an All-Time High

"Income inequality in the United States is at an all-time high, surpassing even levels seen during the Great Depression, according to a recently updated paper by University of California, Berkeley Professor Emmanuel Saez. The paper, which covers data through 2007, points to a staggering, unprecedented disparity in American incomes. On his blog, Nobel prize-winning economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman called the numbers 'truly amazing.'"

The rest of the story: Income Inequality Is at an All-Time High (Huffington Post 2009-08-14)

Clip File: Fiji Water - Threat or Menace?

Barack Obama sips it. Paris Hilton loves it. Mary J. Blige won't sing without it. You probably have some in your yoga bag. How did a plastic water bottle, imported from a military dictatorship thousands of miles away, become the epitome of cool? A must-read case study in marketing mastery from Mother Jones.

If you drink bottled water, you've probably drunk Fiji. Or wanted to. Even though it's shipped from the opposite end of the globe, even though it retails for nearly three times as much as your basic supermarket water, Fiji is now America's leading imported water, beating out Evian. It has spent millions pushing not only the seemingly life-changing properties of the product itself, but also the company's green cred and its charity work. Put all that together in an iconic bottle emblazoned with a cheerful hibiscus, and everybody, from the Obamas to Paris and Nicole to Diddy and Kimora, is seen sipping Fiji.

That's by design. Ever since a Canadian mining and real estate mogul named David Gilmour launched Fiji Water in 1995, the company has positioned itself squarely at the nexus of pop-culture glamour and progressive politics. Fiji Water's chief marketing whiz and co-owner (with her husband, Stewart) is Lynda Resnick, a well-known liberal donor who casually name-drops her friends Arianna Huffington and Laurie David. ("Of course I know everyone in the world," Resnick told the UK's Observer in 2005, "every mogul, every movie star.") Manhattan's trendy Carlyle hotel pours only Fiji Water in its dog bowls, and this year's SXSW music festival featured a Fiji Water Detox Spa. "Each piece of lobster sashimi," celebrity chef Nobu Matsuhisa declared in 2007, "should be dipped into Fiji Water seven to ten times."

And even as bottled water has come under attack as the embodiment of waste, Fiji seems immune. Fiji Water took out a full-page ad in Vanity Fair's 2007 green issue, nestled among stories about the death of the world's water. Two bottles sat on a table between Al Gore and Mos Def during a 2006 MySpace "Artist on Artist" discussion on climate change. Fiji was what panelists sipped at the "Life After Capitalism" conference held in New York City during the 2004 RNC protests; Fiji reps were even credentialed at last year's Democratic convention, where they handed out tens of thousands of bottles.

Nowhere in Fiji Water's glossy marketing materials will you find reference to the typhoid outbreaks that plague Fijians because of the island's faulty water supplies; the corporate entities that Fiji Water has-despite the owners' talk of financial transparency-set up in tax havens like the Cayman Islands and Luxembourg; or the fact that its signature bottle is made from Chinese plastic in a diesel-fueled plant and hauled thousands of miles to its ecoconscious consumers. And, of course, you won't find mention of the military junta for which Fiji Water is a major source of global recognition and legitimacy. (Gilmour has described the square bottles as "little ambassadors" for the poverty-stricken nation.)

The rest of the story: Fiji Water: Spin the Bottle by Anna Lenzer (Mother Jones 2009-08-12)

Community: Future of News and Civic Media

The “Future of News and Civic Media” conference in mid-June, sponsored by Center for Future Civic Media and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, showcased some of the work being done as a part of the Knight News Challenge (slogan: "You invent it. We fund it.") on creative ways to provide people with the news and information needed to manage their communities effectively.

Clip File: Pleasant way to go solar - neighborhood cooperatives

Scientific American's George Musser chronicles his experiences installing solar panels on his home in cooperation with his neighbors and taking other steps to save energy in 60-Second Solar.

Reform: Let's get back on track

Single payer is not socialized medicine. People would be free to pick the health care providers -- doctors and medical facilities -- they prefer. Single payer would, however, eliminate private insurance, saving nearly $400 billion annually on useless paperwork by insurance bureaucracies and providers' billing departments, enough to cover the uninsured and plug the gaps in coverage for those with insurance. No other option will provide universal coverage and save money.

How does our health care stack up against other countries' health care systems? It's not a pretty picture.

Clip File: The Case for No Stimulus

There are a large number of politicians in Washington who are pushing a brilliant policy that will have the effect of leaving millions of people unemployed or underemployed for years into the future. Their policy is called "no stimulus."

The idea is that we just let the recession brought on by the housing crash run its course, being careful to do nothing further to boost the economy. According to most projections, after 4 or 5 years the economy will be back on track, with the unemployment rate approaching the pre-recession levels. In the meantime - the rest of 2009, all of 2010, 2011, 2012, and probably much of 2013 and maybe even some of 2014 - millions of people who otherwise would be working, will be unemployed or will only be able to find part-time employment, even though they want full time jobs.

Well, you get the point. The rest of the story:
The Case for No Stimulus by Dean Baker (The Independent 2009-08-11)

Health Care Reform: 32% favor single-payer; 57% oppose (Rasmussen)

It must be discouraging for right wing propagandists that despite decades of whining and puling about the dangers of "socialized medicine" and relentless disinformation about the costly, inefficient, disincentivizing Canadian system, a third of Americans should still favor single-payer health insurance. Seems you can't fool all the people all the time.

Thirty-two percent (32%) of voters nationwide favor a single-payer health care system where the federal government provides coverage for everyone. A Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 57% are opposed to a single-payer plan.

There's more at Rasmussen Reports.

Reform: 10 Myths About Canadian Health Care, Busted

 "... the better phrase is "Medicare for all."

This piece (10 Myths About Canadian Health Care, Busted by Sara Robinson, TomPaine.com 2008-02-05) circulated widely on the internet a year and half ago. As we enter the endgame of the health insurance reform debate, it's more important than ever that we have all the facts about the fateful choices before us.

2008 is shaping up to be the election year that we finally get to have the Great American Healthcare Debate again. Harry and Louise are back with a vengeance. Conservatives are rumbling around the talk show circuit bellowing about the socialist threat to the (literal) American body politic. And, as usual, Canada is once again getting dragged into the fracas, shoved around by both sides as either an exemplar or a warning -- and, along the way, getting coated with the obfuscating dust of so many willful misconceptions that the actual facts about How Canada Does It are completely lost in the melee. I'm both a health-care-card-carrying Canadian resident and an uninsured American citizen who regularly sees doctors on both sides of the border. As such, I'm in a unique position to address the pros and cons of both systems first-hand. If we're going to have this conversation, it would be great if we could start out (for once) with actual facts, instead of ideological posturing, wishful thinking, hearsay, and random guessing about how things get done up here.

To that end, here's [an essay] aimed at busting the common myths Americans routinely tell each other about Canadian health care. When the right-wing hysterics drag out these hoary old bogeymen, this time, we need to be armed and ready to blast them into straw. Because, mostly, straw is all they're made of.

1. Canada's health care system is "socialized medicine."
False. In socialized medical systems, the doctors work directly for the state. In Canada (and many other countries with universal care), doctors run their own private practices, just like they do in the US. The only difference is that every doctor deals with one insurer, instead of 150. And that insurer is the provincial government, which is accountable to the legislature and the voters if the quality of coverage is allowed to slide.

The proper term for this is "single-payer insurance." In talking to Americans about it, the better phrase is "Medicare for all."

2. Doctors are hurt financially by single-payer health care.
True and False. Doctors in Canada do make less than their US counterparts. But they also have lower overhead, and usually much better working conditions. A few reasons for this:

First, as noted, they don't have to charge higher fees to cover the salary of a full-time staffer to deal with over a hundred different insurers, all of whom are bent on denying care whenever possible. In fact, most Canadian doctors get by quite nicely with just one assistant, who cheerfully handles the phones, mail, scheduling, patient reception, stocking, filing, and billing all by herself in the course of a standard workday.

Second, they don't have to spend several hours every day on the phone cajoling insurance company bean counters into doing the right thing by their patients. My doctor in California worked a 70-hour week: 35 hours seeing patients, and another 35 hours on the phone arguing with insurance companies. My Canadian doctor, on the other hand, works a 35-hour week, period. She files her invoices online, and the vast majority are simply paid -- quietly, quickly, and without hassle. There is no runaround. There are no fights. Appointments aren't interrupted by vexing phone calls. Care is seldom denied (because everybody knows the rules). She gets her checks on time, sees her patients on schedule, takes Thursdays off, and gets home in time for dinner.

One unsurprising side effect of all this is that the doctors I see here are, to a person, more focused, more relaxed, more generous with their time, more up-to-date in their specialties, and overall much less distracted from the real work of doctoring. You don't realize how much stress the American doctor-insurer fights put on the day-to-day quality of care until you see doctors who don't operate under that stress, because they never have to fight those battles at all. Amazingly: they seem to enjoy their jobs.

Third: The average American medical student graduates $140,000 in hock. The average Canadian doctor's debt is roughly half that.

Finally, Canadian doctors pay lower malpractice insurance fees. When paying for health care constitutes a one of a family's major expenses, expectations tend to run very high. A doctor's mistake not only damages the body; it may very well throw a middle-class family permanently into the ranks of the working poor, and render the victim uninsurable for life. With so much at stake, it's no wonder people are quick to rush to court for redress.

Canadians are far less likely to sue in the first place, since they're not having to absorb devastating financial losses in addition to any physical losses when something goes awry. The cost of the damaging treatment will be covered. So will the cost of fixing it. And, no matter what happens, the victim will remain insured for life. When lawsuits do occur, the awards don't have to include coverage for future medical costs, which reduces the insurance company's liability.

3. Wait times in Canada are horrendous.
True and False again -- it depends on which province you live in, and what's wrong with you. Canada's health care system runs on federal guidelines that ensure uniform standards of care, but each territory and province administers its own program. Some provinces don't plan their facilities well enough; in those, you can have waits. Some do better. As a general rule, the farther north you live, the harder it is to get to care, simply because the doctors and hospitals are concentrated in the south. But that's just as true in any rural county in the U.S.

You can hear the bitching about it no matter where you live, though. The percentage of Canadians who'd consider giving up their beloved system consistently languishes in the single digits. A few years ago, a TV show asked Canadians to name the Greatest Canadian in history; and in a broad national consensus, they gave the honor to Tommy Douglas, the Saskatchewan premier who is considered the father of the country's health care system. (And no, it had nothing to do with the fact that he was also Kiefer Sutherland's grandfather.). In spite of that, though, grousing about health care is still unofficially Canada's third national sport after curling and hockey.

And for the country's newspapers, it's a prime watchdogging opportunity. Any little thing goes sideways at the local hospital, and it's on the front pages the next day. Those kinds of stories sell papers, because everyone is invested in that system and has a personal stake in how well it functions. The American system might benefit from this kind of constant scrutiny, because it's certainly one of the things that keeps the quality high. But it also makes people think it's far worse than it is.

Critics should be reminded that the American system is not exactly instant-on, either. When I lived in California, I had excellent insurance, and got my care through one of the best university-based systems in the nation. Yet I routinely had to wait anywhere from six to twelve weeks to get in to see a specialist. Non-emergency surgical waits could be anywhere from four weeks to four months. After two years in the BC system, I'm finding the experience to be pretty much comparable, and often better. The notable exception is MRIs, which were easy in California, but can take many months to get here. (It's the number one thing people go over the border for.) Other than that, urban Canadians get care about as fast as urban Americans do.

4. You have to wait forever to get a family doctor.
False for the vast majority of Canadians, but True for a few. Again, it all depends on where you live. I live in suburban Vancouver, and there are any number of first-rate GPs in my neighborhood who are taking new patients. If you don't have a working relationship with one, but need to see a doctor now, there are 24-hour urgent care clinics in most neighborhoods that will usually get you in and out on the minor stuff in under an hour.

It is, absolutely, harder to get to a doctor if you live out in a small town, or up in the territories. But that's just as true in the U.S. -- and in America, the government won't cover the airfare for rural folk to come down to the city for needed treatment, which all the provincial plans do.

5. You don't get to choose your own doctor.
Scurrilously False. Somebody, somewhere, is getting paid a lot of money to make this kind of stuff up. The cons love to scare the kids with stories about the government picking your doctor for you, and you don't get a choice. Be afraid! Be very afraid!

For the record: Canadians pick their own doctors, just like Americans do. And not only that: since it all pays the same, poor Canadians have exactly the same access to the country's top specialists that rich ones do.

6. Canada's care plan only covers the basics. You're still on your own for any extras, including prescription drugs. And you still have to pay for it.
True -- but not as big an issue as you might think. The province does charge a small monthly premium (ours is $108/month for a family of four) for the basic coverage. However, most people never even have to write that check: almost all employers pick up the tab for their employees' premiums as part of the standard benefits package; and the province covers it for people on public assistance or disability.

"The basics" covered by this plan include 100% of all doctor's fees, ambulance fares, tests, and everything that happens in a hospital -- in other words, the really big-ticket items that routinely drive American families into bankruptcy. In BC, it doesn't include "extras" like medical equipment, prescriptions, physical therapy or chiropractic care, dental, vision, and so on; and if you want a private or semi-private room with TV and phone, that costs extra (about what you'd pay for a room in a middling hotel). That other stuff does add up; but it's far easier to afford if you're not having to cover the big expenses, too. Furthermore: you can deduct any out-of-pocket health expenses you do have to pay off your income taxes. And, as every American knows by now, drugs aren't nearly as expensive here, either.

Filling the gap between the basics and the extras is the job of the country's remaining private health insurers. Since they're off the hook for the ruinously expensive big-ticket items that can put their own profits at risk, the insurance companies make a tidy business out of offering inexpensive policies that cover all those smaller, more predictable expenses. Top-quality add-on policies typically run in the ballpark of $75 per person in a family per month -- about $300 for a family of four -- if you're stuck buying an individual plan. Group plans are cheap enough that even small employers can afford to offer them as a routine benefit. An average working Canadian with employer-paid basic care and supplemental insurance gets free coverage equal to the best policies now only offered at a few of America's largest corporations. And that employer is probably only paying a couple hundred dollars a month to provide that benefit.

7. Canadian drugs are not the same.
More preposterious bogosity. They are exactly the same drugs, made by the same pharmaceutical companies, often in the same factories. The Canadian drug distribution system, however, has much tighter oversight; and pharmacies and pharmacists are more closely regulated. If there is a difference in Canadian drugs at all, they're actually likely to be safer.

Also: pharmacists here dispense what the doctors tell them to dispense, the first time, without moralizing. I know. It's amazing.

8. Publicly-funded programs will inevitably lead to rationed health care, particularly for the elderly.
False. And bogglingly so. The papers would have a field day if there was the barest hint that this might be true.

One of the things that constantly amazes me here is how well-cared-for the elderly and disabled you see on the streets here are. No, these people are not being thrown out on the curb. In fact, they live longer, healthier, and more productive lives because they're getting a constant level of care that ensures small things get treated before they become big problems.

The health care system also makes it easier on their caregiving adult children, who have more time to look in on Mom and take her on outings because they aren't working 60-hour weeks trying to hold onto a job that gives them insurance.

9. People won't be responsible for their own health if they're not being forced to pay for the consequences.
False. The philosophical basis of America's privatized health care system might best be characterized as medical Calvinism. It's fascinating to watch well-educated secularists who recoil at the Protestant obsession with personal virtue, prosperity as a cardinal sign of election by God, and total responsibility for one's own salvation turn into fire-eyed, moralizing True Believers when it comes to the subject of Taking Responsibility For One's Own Health.

They'll insist that health, like salvation, is entirely in our own hands. If you just have the character and self-discipline to stick to an abstemious regime of careful diet, clean living, and frequent sweat offerings to the Great Treadmill God, you'll never get sick. (Like all good theologies, there's even an unspoken promise of immortality: f you do it really really right, they imply, you might even live forever.) The virtuous Elect can be discerned by their svelte figures and low cholesterol numbers. From here, it's a short leap to the conviction that those who suffer from chronic conditions are victims of their own weaknesses, and simply getting what they deserve. Part of their punishment is being forced to pay for the expensive, heavily marketed pharmaceuticals needed to alleviate these avoidable illnesses. They can't complain. It was their own damned fault; and it's not our responsibility to pay for their sins. In fact, it's recently been suggested that they be shunned, lest they lead the virtuous into sin.

Of course, this is bad theology whether you're applying it to the state of one's soul or one's arteries. The fact is that bad genes, bad luck, and the ravages of age eventually take their toll on all of us -- even the most careful of us. The economics of the Canadian system reflect this very different philosophy: it's built on the belief that maintaining health is not an individual responsibility, but a collective one. Since none of us controls fate, the least we can do is be there for each other as our numbers come up.

This difference is expressed in a few different ways. First: Canadians tend to think of tending to one's health as one of your duties as a citizen. You do what's right because you don't want to take up space in the system, or put that burden on your fellow taxpayers.

Second, "taking care of yourself" has a slightly expanded definition here, which includes a greater emphasis on public health. Canadians are serious about not coming to work if you're contagious, and seeing a doctor ASAP if you need to. Staying healthy includes not only diet and exercise; but also taking care to keep your germs to yourself, avoiding stress, and getting things treated while they're still small and cheap to fix.

Third, there's a somewhat larger awareness that stress leads to big-ticket illnesses -- and a somewhat lower cultural tolerance for employers who put people in high-stress situations. Nobody wants to pick up the tab for their greed. And finally, there's a generally greater acceptance on the part of both the elderly and their families that end-of-life heroics may be drawing resources away from people who might put them to better use. You can have them if you want them; but reasonable and compassionate people should be able to take the larger view.

The bottom line: When it comes to getting people to make healthy choices, appealing to their sense of the common good seems to work at least as well as Calvinist moralizing.  

10. This all sounds great -- but the taxes to cover it are just unaffordable. And besides, isn't the system in bad financial shape?
False. On one hand, our annual Canadian tax bite runs about 10% higher than our U.S. taxes did. On the other, we're not paying out the equivalent of two new car payments every month to keep the family insured here. When you balance out the difference, we're actually money ahead. When you factor in the greatly increased social stability that follows when everybody's getting their necessary health care, the impact on our quality of life becomes even more signficant.

And True -- but only because this is a universal truth that we need to make our peace with. Yes, the provincial plans are always struggling. So is every single publicly-funded health care system in the world, including the VA and Medicare. There's always tension between what the users of the system want, and what the taxpayers are willing to pay. The balance of power ebbs and flows between them; but no matter where it lies at any given moment, at least one of the pair is always going to be at least somewhat unhappy.

But, as many of us know all too well, there's also constant tension between what patients want and what private insurers are willing to pay. At least when it's in government hands, we can demand some accountability. And my experience in Canada has convinced me that this accountability is what makes all the difference between the two systems.

It is true that Canada's system is not the same as the U.S. system. It's designed to deliver a somewhat different product, to a population that has somewhat different expectations. But the end result is that the vast majority of Canadians get the vast majority of what they need the vast majority of the time. It'll be a good day when when Americans can hold their heads high and proudly make that same declaration.

Sara Robinson is a twenty-year veteran of Silicon Valley, and is launching a second career as a strategic foresight analyst. When she's not studying change theories and reactionary movements, you can find her singing the alto part over at Orcinus. She lives in Vancouver, BC with her husband and two teenagers.

It appears that this essay was written for TomPaine.Com, the invaluable online public affairs journal of progressive analysis and commentary, but I picked it up from Physicians for a National Health Program, a single-issue organization of medical professionals advocating a universal, comprehensive single-payer national health program. It was distributed also by the independent online newsmagazine, AlterNet. All these sources have rss feeds and/or email newsletters.