The only thing missing are the Tea Partiers calling congressmen niggers and faggots. But forget reality - what are CNN and Fox News saying?
CNN: Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, D-Missouri, released a statement late Saturday saying he too was called the "N" word as he walked to the Capitol for a vote and that he was spat on by one protestor who was arrested by U.S. Capitol Police. Cleaver declined to press charges against the man, the statement said...
Protesters also hurled anti-gay comments at Rep. Barney Frank, D-Massachusetts, who is openly gay, as he left the same health care meeting that Lewis attended in a House office building.
A CNN producer overheard the word "faggot" yelled at Frank several times in the lobby of the Longworth building. Frank said he heard someone yell "homo" at him.
FOX: Republican National Chairman Michael Steele and one of the organizers of Saturday's Tea Party rally strongly condemned the racial slurs that some black lawmakers alleged were yelled at them by some health care protesters as they headed for a procedural vote at Capitol Hill....
But black lawmakers weren't the only targets of the protesters' invective. Rep. Joe Crowley, D-N.Y., alleges some of the demonstrators also castigated Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., who is gay.
"I don't even want to repeat it," said Crowley when asked what they said to Frank.
A spokeswoman for the U.S. Capitol Police said she was unaware of any law enforcement inquiry into the incidents.
Oh Fox... will you ever be more than a conservative mouthpiece?
People need to realize that there is a corporate executive who often stands between a patient and his or her doctor. That’s the reality. And I think the insurance industry is now fear-mongering during this debate on health care reform, saying that a government bureaucrat could stand between someone and his or her doctor. But the current situation is just as bad, if not worse, because you have people doing that now who are denying care to meet Wall Street’s expectations.
Wendell Potter is former head of corporate communications for Cigna Corporation, where he worked for 15 years. He is now a fellow at the Center for Media and Democracy.
Politicians on Capitol Hill have no trouble with committees that decide the fate of American lives. What they have a problem with is losing corporate donors. Private medical insurance agencies have a lot of lobbyists on the payroll.
Truthfully, the availability of a public option will ultimately save taxpayers money. We already foot the bill with higher hospital expenses and taxes when the poor have to wait until the last minute to receive care. When there's a public clinic that requires virtually no money to visit, people will get more effective and less expensive care earlier. Many of America's lower middle class will then opt out of the ridiculously expensive plans, so they can send their kids to college, or move to a safer neighborhood, or whatever. This will cut into the bottom line of insurance corporations, which is why they are fighting it so bitterly.
And the rich won't see anything change. They'll always pay for private "cadillac" plans, just like they do in Germany and England. They just don't want to lose profits in the insurance companies that they own, or - God forbid - have to pay the same tax rates that they did ten or fifteen years ago.
You probably don't want to hear how the world things of the US. Okay, here's my current favorite, from the fantastic In the Loop: "You know they're all kids in Washington? It's like Bugsy Malone, but with real guns."
Later...
Malcolm Tucker: Linton! Linton! Linton Barwick: Mr Tucker, isn't it? Nice to see you again. Malcolm Tucker: Are you fucking me about? Linton Barwick: Is there a problem, Mr Tucker? Malcolm Tucker: I've just come from a briefing with a nine-year-old child. Linton Barwick: You're talking about AJ. AJ is one of our top guys. He's a Stanton College Prep, Harvard. One of the brightest and best. Malcolm Tucker: Well, his briefing notes were written in alphabetti spaghetti. When I left, I nearly tripped up over his fucking umbilical cord. Linton Barwick: I'm sorry it troubles you that our people achieve excellence at such an early age. But could we just move on to what's important here? Now, I understand that your Prime Minister has asked you to supply us with some, say, fresh British intelligence, is that true? Malcolm Tucker: Yeah, apparently, your fucking master race of highly-gifted toddlers can't quite get the job done... Linton Barwick: All right. Malcolm Tucker:...between breast feeds and playing with their Power Rangers. So, an actual grown-up has been asked to fucking bail you out.
I have worked on large scale "scan documents from archives and the commit to big-ass proprietary content management systems". The conversion was extremely expensive, and the maintenance even more so
You cannot point to bad implementations of technology to prove that the technology itself is bad. Digital documents are slowly displacing paper, and at one of my client's offices I have made the switch already.
All documents, faxed or mailed in, get turned into OCR PDFs, and then the paper recycled. The Fujitsu doublesided ADF scanner is programmed to dump a basic timestamped PDF into a single folder with the push of a single button. The massive inbox can be processed by multiple people, and they don't even have to be in the office. Documents are stamped Received or Reviewed with the user's name, along with a timestamp. (This is a default feature of Adobe Acrobat Pro that came with the scanner.) Documents are then filed under the vendors name on a fileserver, and of course, the fileserver is backed up over the net, so even if the whole place burns down, there are complete copies of all documents. They run about 60kb a page. Users can also choose a more detailed scan if it's important.
Yearly filing no longer happens. Paid documents are stamped digitally. Temporary workers could be hired to telecommute, but the accountant now puts in about a third time less since he's not always pulling up and refiling physical sheets of paper, or scanning them in to e-mail internally. Virtually every document can be located within seconds and reviewed.
There's rarely a time when the format of a document trumps the data it carries. For larger organizations, I think it would be even more efficient to digitize the data immediately into a database, and then purely as a backup, have access to the PDF.
The information asymmetry involved in technology make it a very lucrative place to be. A vast majority of people don't understand the differences between Windows and Linux, much less the difference of open and closed source.
Oracle is determining what parts of Sun are profitable, and planning to abandon the parts that are not. The abandonment of unprofitable Sun products will be touted as their commitment to open source. The privatization of Sun products will be touted as their commitment to innovation, or some other meaningless phrase.
If it makes you feel any better, that was also the policy of Sun. And Microsoft. And Apple. If you are ever on the wrong side of a profit equation for a company, you will be screwed. This is as certain as death and taxes.
Nuclear is about the only thing which will provide enough energy. But Fonda and the NIMBY crowd put an end to that.
If, in exchange, America stopped waging war over oil, you could certainly change their minds.
How/When? If we packed up and left all the warlords would battle it out in the region, slaughtering each-other (and quite a few civilians in the crossfire). Then eventually Iran would take over.
Well, Iran is a democratic paradise compared to Saudi Arabia. The only other more secular Muslim state in the region would be perhaps Syria, Jordan, and Egypt. And Iraq when it was under Saddam Hussein's rule.
In our English speaking and half Christian sister country of Liberia, people have been slaughtered with some regularity since 1980. And it doesn't seem to bother our conscience, which seems to be the case throughout every other place on earth that doesn't have vast natural resources that somehow belong to us. I guess Jesus put them in the wrong spot.
sn't that what got Bin Laden pissed off at us in the first place?
Bin Laden hates Israel, because fundamentalist muslims hate Jews. Israel is like Saudi Arabia, in the sense that their nations officially belong to a specific religion and ethnicity. Bin Laden also hates America, for propping up secular dictatorships like Iraq, Pakistan, Syria, Lebanon, and for putting US troops on holy Muslim ground, since his home state of Saudi Arabia is home to Mecca and Medina.
When we stopped sponsoring his little army as soon as the Soviets were defeated
It's amazing that you know that, but then you should also know that besides al Qaeda, we have also created Hezbollah and Hamas. In Lebanon, we destroyed their nationalist movement with multiple invasions with Israel, and since the state could not defend their citizens against our armies, they created an indigenous support system (we call it an "insurgency") to repel further invasions. Palestinians, after begin herded into a series of smaller and smaller out door prisons, and having their land and water confiscated, lost faith in the PLO and so they formed Hamas.
When you step on someone's throat, their family and friends do not watch with disinterest. They find a way to arm themselves to try and cut yours. Here's an appropriate phrase from the docudrama The Battle of Algiers.
Reporter: It isn't cowardly to have bombs carried in baskets to public places by Muslim women?
M'Hidi: Is it any less cowardly to bomb villages from planes with napalm? Give us your planes and we'll give you our baskets.
I'll give you a dollar for every quote from the television broadcasts of Hannity, Beck, or O'Reilly that defend the rights of:
1. A person who isn't wealthy. 2. A person against a corporation. 3. An illegal alien. 4. Muslims suspected of terrorism. 5. Same sex couples.
Remember: rights mean equality under the law.
I'll give you ten dollars for any pleas to go through a diplomatic process when conflict arises between the United States and any non-white country.
I'm dead serious. Respond with links to the transcripts, and I'll paypal or mail a check for up to $100 to the person with the most links. I seriously doubt it will be enough to buy a cup of coffee. At Dunkin Donuts.
1. Build more rail, and less road with federal money. 2. Gradually raise the gasoline tax over the next ten years to cover the cost of our middle east deployments. 3. Continue funding solar, geothermal, and wind power research in universities. Keep the patents public property, which can be licensed for large sums of money to foreign powers payable directly to cover the research, or for free for any US company that wants to build power plants with that sort of technology. 4. Freedom!
Yeah. One would almost assume it would be easier to switch to alternative sources of energy, bring our troops home, spend a fraction of the military budget on protecting our airliners and ports, and stop sponsoring military dictatorships in the middle east with arms and money.
But, they'd still hate us for our freedom! Or something...
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
Many people believe that the federal goverment's entire set of authorities is enumerated in the Constitution, and that it has no legal basis for making federal law in this area
There's a clause about general welfare and a clause about common defense. We didn't have to get constitutional amendments for the Air Force, and the CIA is certainly unconstitutional. I hear no complaints on constitutional grounds on either issue. We know some founders believed in publicly funded education. I don't think publicly funded healthcare is much different.
Why can't this be done by the states, individually, as each state sees fit? Having it be a federal law is, in some senses, anti-democratic, because there are more localities in which it lacks the consent of the governed.
Because states couldn't survive the inundation of health care costs from citizens of states that decided to keep private care. Federal funding spreads the cost over the whole country, from areas like New York and California, which are economically vibrant and already pay for roads and other infrastructure in states that couldn't possibly afford them, like Louisiana.
Having it be a federal law is, in some senses, anti-democratic, because there are more localities in which it lacks the consent of the governed
I'd buy this argument if the conservatives paid it more than lip service.
Is it automatically the case that the Federal government is the best agent to fix this situation? They've fsck'ed up a lot of other areas of governance in the past.
Well, the evidence from every other western nation in existence points to yes. Of course, those are scary communist stalinist nazi fascist states, like Belgium, Denmark, and Spain.
Why should people who earned their wealth through hard work, careful investment, and self-sacrifice have to pay for lazy people?
The American aristocracy is no different from the old French aristocracy. Wealth inequality is way up, which means that the middle class mostly failed at the illusion of the American dream. They work twice as hard and make the same amount of money as they did in 1980. They have spent their savings. They can afford health care, or safe housing, or fresh fruits and vegetables, or college tuition for their kids, but not all of these things. 45% of American households make less than $40,000 a year. Subtract taxes, two vehicles for two working parents, gas, and rent, and you're not left with enough to have what your parents did.
I'm not saying that all poor persons are lazy; I'm referring to the fraction of poor persons who truly don't deserve to have other people pay for their bills
We are all on welfare. No American would be willing to pay at the pump for the true price of gas. And the fact is, providing for basic needs of food and health care is much cheaper than criminalizing poor behavior and then paying for 1.5 million of your countrymen to rot in jails for the rest of their lives. Most of these people are mentally unstable, and should be in state-run halfway houses or hospitals where their behavior can be monitored and hopefully improved through counseling, instead of mixing them with violent criminals where they are raped and beaten, and then thrown out into the streets again so the cycle can repeat itself.
Example: should I have to pay for treating emphasema in a smoker?
You could make tobacco products illegal. They kill millions of people worldwide ever year. But I guess that clashe
the government loses money when it treats people who are sick.
I had no idea insurance companies were different. It's a good thing! Otherwise, they'd be kicking people off insurance programs and denying payment while their former customer died from treatable diseases.
Were you involved at all in the public relations debacle around the 2008 death of 17-year-old Nataline Sarkisyan of Northridge, Calif. who passed away after being denied a liver transplant by Cigna?
Yes, I was. At that time, I was the chief spokesperson for the company. I was the person who was responsible for putting out the company’s statements and answering questions from reporters when they called about it.
Her request for a liver transplant was denied, and then Cigna reversed itself under pressure, but she ended up dying because the transplant came too late.
Yes, that’s right. The transplant had been requested by her doctors weeks before her death. Her doctors felt that it was her last resort and had recommended it. Cigna felt that the transplant in her case would have been experimental and on those grounds chose to deny coverage for it. The family sought the assistance of the California Nurses Association and reached out to the media and it became a very, very highly publicized case. And I can’t tell you how many calls I got from all over the world regarding that. Then, in the midst of all that publicity, Cigna decided to reverse itself and decided to cover the procedure. But you’re right. She died just about two hours after the family was told that Cigna changed its mind.
At the time, some people argued that it was just an isolated incident. But now there is data showing that Cigna denied 33 percent of claims and PacificCare denied up to 40 percent. Does this data cause you to speak about that experience in a new way?
Well it does. One of the talking points that I used when reporters called was that 90 percent of requests for a transplant are approved by Cigna. I haven’t seen data to know whether that is still accurate...
Looking back, do you think Cigna was in the right?
I can’t comment on that. I was not among the group that reviewed the claim when it first came in. What I do know is that I think the California Nurses Association was right in pointing out that this is not an isolated case. People need to realize that there is a corporate executive who often stands between a patient and his or her doctor. That’s the reality. And I think the insurance industry is now fear-mongering during this debate on health care reform, saying that a government bureaucrat could stand between someone and his or her doctor. But the current situation is just as bad, if not worse, because you have people doing that now who are denying care to meet Wall Street’s expectations.
Wendell Potter is former head of corporate communications for Cigna Corporation, where he worked for 15 years. He is now a fellow at the Center for Media and Democracy.
The upper 50% of the wage earners pay @97% of all tax collections, and the lower ones only @3%
Since that mirrors the distribution of wealth that would make sense. How about we ask the wealthy if they'd like to give up all of their assets in exchange for a lower effective federal tax rate? And instead of just sitting on their ass, investing in financial companies that exploit people and resources, they'd actually have to show up and do some real fucking work?
Oh, suddenly there's no problem? That's what I thought.
And by the way, go ahead an call me an anti-American commie. I'm in great company.
At the first session of our legislature after the Declaration of Independence, we passed a law abolishing entails. And this was followed by one abolishing the privilege of Primogeniture, and dividing the lands of intestates equally among all their children, or other representatives. These laws, drawn by myself, laid the axe to the root of Pseudo-aristocracy. And had another which I prepared been adopted by the legislature, our work would have been complete.
It was a Bill for the more general diffusion of learning. This proposed to divide every county into wards of 5 or 6 miles square, like your townships; to establish in each ward a free school for reading, writing and common arithmetic; to provide for the annual selection of the best subjects from these schools who might recieve at the public expence a higher degree of education at a district school; and from these district schools to select a certain number of the most promising subjects to be completed at an University, where all the useful sciences should be taught. Worth and genius would thus have been sought out from every condition of life, and completly prepared by education for defeating the competition of wealth and birth for public trusts.
I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. Already they have raised up a monied aristocracy that has set the government at efiance. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people to whom it properly belongs.
I hope that we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country
The point of this article is to discuss the reform in a constructive manner, not to bash entire ideologies just because they are not your own.
Obviously, you've never seen a single hour of Fox. Imagine several schizophrenic paranoid white men, who are afraid of gays, Mexicans, muslims, the poor (that's code for minorities), hate equality, love war, and instead of using a values system as a starting point for their worldview, they start out with a worldview and then selectively apply their values system in nonsensicalrants. Give them an audience and editors and producers that only care about ratings and pushing ideology handed directly to them from GOP and other ultra-conservative sources.
Now pretend that it's news so people think they are using journalistic standards, when in fact they are simply opinion shows.
All of the media outlets are rather stupid. Fox News is dangerously delusional.
As long as you're even about it.
on
Health Care Reform
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· Score: 1, Flamebait
If we can't afford to give my neighbor health care, we can't afford a trillion dollars a year for warfare and imperialist adventures, or any other corporate welfare programs.
When we gave Wall St hundreds of billions to fix their fuckups, they continued bonusing themselves tens of millions of dollars. I don't think access to basic medical care is in the same universe of entitlement of the wealthy.
So you think Google is the rule, and not the exception? Most modern corporations have the will to skirt US law to sell to countries like Iran, Cuba, North Korea, and so forth, despite trade embargoes. US companies helped themselves and Hitler make a killing during WWII. (A guy named Prescott Bush even got in some trouble for it.) The US and her corporations armed Indonesia in the genocide of the East Timorese, right through the 90s. We are still responsible for 70% of the arms sales in the world, all manufactured by US corporations.
So, no. As long as the Chinese government is paying cash, corporations will ignore everything else. Just like they always do.
Hell, US investment in China skyrocketed after Tiananmen Square, because China proved they were willing to kill their own citizens to maintain order while they opened China up to "investment" in the Special Economic Zones. Meanwhile, Cuba is under an embargo because it's a communist state? I think we can all see the true value system of the American corporation. Just be glad you're on this side of the equation -- for now.
When interests rates get so high, all the capital in a market floods to the finance industry because it offers large and immediate returns without many associated costs. The effect of deregulation, including the abolishment of usury laws early in the 20th century, has led to a world financial market that's basically a hundred trillion dollar casino. The Dow Jones number is perfectly meaningless in relation to the real economy. How many people are employed? What real goods are they producing? These are questions that land on deaf ears in the modern economy.
The legal rate, it is to be observed, though it ought to be somewhat above, ought not to be much above the lowest market rate. If the legal rate of interest in Great Britain, for example, was fixed so high as eight or ten per cent. the greater part of the money which was to be lent, would be lent to prodigals and projectors, who alone would be willing to give this high interest. Sober people, who will give for the use of money no more than a part of what they are likely to make by the use of it, would not venture into the competition. A great part of the capital of the country would thus be kept out of the hands which were most likely to make a profitable and advantageous use of it, and thrown into those which were most likely to waste and destroy it. Where the legal rate of interest, on the contrary, is fixed but a very little above the lowest market rate, sober people are universally preferred, as borrowers, to prodigals and projectors. The person who lends money gets nearly as much interest from the former as he dares to take from the latter, and his money is much safer in the hands of the one set of people than in those of the other. A great part of the capital of the country is thus thrown into the hands in which it is most likely to be employed with advantage.
The postal service was considered important infrastructure and is constitutional (Article I, Section 8), so there's no reason broadband and health care can't be considered the same. We have the CIA and the Air Force and the NSA which are all unconstitutional, yet are still federally funded without much complaint.
Also:
Why didn't you specifically tell us which countries you are talking about?
You do realize all those things you listed are perfectly free? As are the right to not be subject to unreasonable searches and the right not to incriminate yourself.
I had no idea that there were no lawsuits or legal battles over this, or that the ACLU hasn't spent millions across the country defending the Bill of Rights, or that equal protection under the law just magically happened, and we didn't have to send federal troops across the country to destroy Jim Crow laws.
Or in fact, that under the guise of protecting freedom, we spend upwards of a trillion dollars a year on defense of those freedoms. (Which is nonsense, but an off topic subject.)
Earlier, you said: "Having lived in and visited countries with largely state-run telecom industry and then come home to the USA, I think it should be painfully obvious to all that government does not do a good job at running telecommunications."
Why didn't you specifically tell us which countries you are talking about?
Privatization! All the same mistakes the government makes, plus the cost of profits, administrative overhead, plain old greed, no transparency, and no incentive to make things right.
The Pentagon’s reliance on outside contractors in Iraq is proportionately far larger than in any previous conflict, and it has fueled charges that this outsourcing has led to overbilling, fraud and shoddy and unsafe work that has endangered and even killed American troops. The role of armed security contractors has also raised new legal and political questions about whether the United States has become too dependent on private armed forces on the 21st-century battlefield...
“This is unprecedented,” [Charles Tiefer] added. “It was considered an all-out imperative by the administration to keep troop levels low, particularly in the beginning of the war, and one way that was done was to shift money and manpower to contractors. But that has exposed the military to greater risks from contractor waste and abuse.”
"Right now the government is paying health insurance plans that administer Medicare Advantage, on average, 12 percent more per person than it spends on patients enrolled in traditional Medicare," said AMA Board Member Cecil Wilson, MD. "With Medicare payments to doctors who care for seniors slated for a 10 percent cut next year, Congress must put the money used to subsidize the insurance industry to better use."
At the AMA's Annual Meeting late last month, America's physicians sent a resounding message to Congress - eliminate the Medicare Advantage subsidy. AMA policy clearly states that subsidies to private plans offering alternative coverage to Medicare beneficiaries should be eliminated, and that these private Medicare plans should compete with the regular Medicare program on a fiscally neutral basis.
"While groups that truly represent physicians fight to preserve all seniors' access to health care by stopping Medicare physician payment cuts, the insurance industry and its partners are solely focused on preserving their $65 billion government subsidy," said Dr. Wilson.
Engineers hired to investigate the cause of September's massive Big Dig tunnel leak have discovered that the project is riddled with hundreds of leaks that are pouring millions of gallons of water into the $14.6 billion tunnel system.
While none of the leaks is as large as the fissure that snarled traffic for miles on Interstate 93 northbound in September, the breaches appear to permeate the subterranean road system, calling into question the quality of construction and managerial oversight provided by Bechtel/Parsons Brinckerhoff on the massive highway project.
Finding and fixing all the leaks will take years, perhaps more than a decade, said Jack K. Lemley, an internationally known consultant hired by the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority to investigate the problem. Just repairing the section of wall where the September leak occurred will take up to two months and require closing of traffic lanes.
The engineers also said they have discovered documents showing that Bechtel managers were aware that the wall breached this fall was deficient from the moment it was built in the late 1990s, yet did not order it replaced and did not inform state officials of the situation.
We already have a government that can monitor everything you say, including non-public correspondence where you have a reasonable expectation of privacy. You think outright censorship is very far away?
The government does not need to censor the media. The media censors itself. This news item is a perfect example of the hysterical bias of corporate outlets. When Paul Bremer shut down the radical Iraqi newspaper Al Hawza for publishing false stories in Iraq, for the safety and security of Iraqis, there was no public outcry of dictatorship or communist ideals. They just said it was a bad decision.
Chavez came out with a statement saying, "The Internet cannot be something open where anything is said and done. Every country has to apply its own rules and norms." He's basically pushing for public support of laws that require journalistic integrity. In effect, he's arguing for libel laws that already exist in much of the Western world to be applied to media outlets on the internet.
Saudi Arabia is a monarchy that has active internet censorship. Where are the news articles about that? How about Pakistan? How about Egypt?
The Press Law, Publications Law, and the penal code regulate and govern the press. According to these, criticism of the president can be punished by fines or imprisonment. Freedom House deems Egypt to have an unfree press, although mentions they have a diversity of sources. Reporters Without Borders 2006 report indicates continued harassment and, in three cases, imprisonment, of journalists. They place Egypt 143rd out of 167 nations on press freedoms. The two sources agree that promised reforms on the subject have been disappointingly slow or uneven in implementation. Freedomhouse had a slightly more positive assessment indicating that an increased freedom to discuss controversial issues has occurred. -WikiPedia
Chavez is a current propaganda tool for the West. He's no saint, but I get tired of news media who are either unwilling or unable to report balanced information.
The Conservative position - relying on individual responsibility - holds *every* citizen responsible for the plight of the less fortunate.
This is the dumbest argument in the world. Do you want a doctor waiting for you at the hospital, or a bunch of nice people who will pray for you? If I want kidney dialysis, should I just run up to the nearest megachurch and ask around? Last time I attended, all they wanted was my credit card number for their automatic tithing program. Right now the solution is for me to wait until I'm unconscious, have an ambulance drag me to the hospital, have them revive me at great cost, and receive dialysis until I'm kicked out of the hospital in a few days.
Social services are a form of infrastructure that lead to lower poverty rates and happier citizens. The government exists for the express purpose of carrying out the will of it's citizens. If a majority of your neighbors decide health care and education are infrastructure just as the post office and roads are, then make your argument clearly heard, and hope for the best.
The conservatives ran the show for eight years, and emptied the treasury by cutting taxes for the ultra wealthy and the very wealthy while simultaneously fighting two wars. Now they don't want to face the music, and are trying to blame the situation on "entitlements" by "welfare queens" and other code words for poor people. Well, we've spent trillions in the naughties on war and low taxes for the wealthy. Let's try billions for universal health care, investment in education and infrastructure, and a sane tax code to boot.
Slashdot Mirror
The only thing missing are the Tea Partiers calling congressmen niggers and faggots. But forget reality - what are CNN and Fox News saying?
CNN: Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, D-Missouri, released a statement late Saturday saying he too was called the "N" word as he walked to the Capitol for a vote and that he was spat on by one protestor who was arrested by U.S. Capitol Police. Cleaver declined to press charges against the man, the statement said...
Protesters also hurled anti-gay comments at Rep. Barney Frank, D-Massachusetts, who is openly gay, as he left the same health care meeting that Lewis attended in a House office building.
A CNN producer overheard the word "faggot" yelled at Frank several times in the lobby of the Longworth building. Frank said he heard someone yell "homo" at him.
FOX: Republican National Chairman Michael Steele and one of the organizers of Saturday's Tea Party rally strongly condemned the racial slurs that some black lawmakers alleged were yelled at them by some health care protesters as they headed for a procedural vote at Capitol Hill....
But black lawmakers weren't the only targets of the protesters' invective. Rep. Joe Crowley, D-N.Y., alleges some of the demonstrators also castigated Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., who is gay.
"I don't even want to repeat it," said Crowley when asked what they said to Frank.
A spokeswoman for the U.S. Capitol Police said she was unaware of any law enforcement inquiry into the incidents.
Oh Fox... will you ever be more than a conservative mouthpiece?
People need to realize that there is a corporate executive who often stands between a patient and his or her doctor. That’s the reality. And I think the insurance industry is now fear-mongering during this debate on health care reform, saying that a government bureaucrat could stand between someone and his or her doctor. But the current situation is just as bad, if not worse, because you have people doing that now who are denying care to meet Wall Street’s expectations.
Wendell Potter is former head of corporate communications for Cigna Corporation, where he worked for 15 years. He is now a fellow at the Center for Media and Democracy.
http://news.newamericamedia.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=33655d70ff9cd7509f16bfd2bfbafa9f
Politicians on Capitol Hill have no trouble with committees that decide the fate of American lives. What they have a problem with is losing corporate donors. Private medical insurance agencies have a lot of lobbyists on the payroll.
Truthfully, the availability of a public option will ultimately save taxpayers money. We already foot the bill with higher hospital expenses and taxes when the poor have to wait until the last minute to receive care. When there's a public clinic that requires virtually no money to visit, people will get more effective and less expensive care earlier. Many of America's lower middle class will then opt out of the ridiculously expensive plans, so they can send their kids to college, or move to a safer neighborhood, or whatever. This will cut into the bottom line of insurance corporations, which is why they are fighting it so bitterly.
And the rich won't see anything change. They'll always pay for private "cadillac" plans, just like they do in Germany and England. They just don't want to lose profits in the insurance companies that they own, or - God forbid - have to pay the same tax rates that they did ten or fifteen years ago.
India, the Barney Fife of nations.
You probably don't want to hear how the world things of the US. Okay, here's my current favorite, from the fantastic In the Loop: "You know they're all kids in Washington? It's like Bugsy Malone, but with real guns."
Later...
Malcolm Tucker: Linton! Linton! ...between breast feeds and playing with their Power Rangers. So, an actual grown-up has been asked to fucking bail you out.
Linton Barwick: Mr Tucker, isn't it? Nice to see you again.
Malcolm Tucker: Are you fucking me about?
Linton Barwick: Is there a problem, Mr Tucker?
Malcolm Tucker: I've just come from a briefing with a nine-year-old child.
Linton Barwick: You're talking about AJ. AJ is one of our top guys. He's a Stanton College Prep, Harvard. One of the brightest and best.
Malcolm Tucker: Well, his briefing notes were written in alphabetti spaghetti. When I left, I nearly tripped up over his fucking umbilical cord.
Linton Barwick: I'm sorry it troubles you that our people achieve excellence at such an early age. But could we just move on to what's important here? Now, I understand that your Prime Minister has asked you to supply us with some, say, fresh British intelligence, is that true?
Malcolm Tucker: Yeah, apparently, your fucking master race of highly-gifted toddlers can't quite get the job done...
Linton Barwick: All right.
Malcolm Tucker:
I have worked on large scale "scan documents from archives and the commit to big-ass proprietary content management systems". The conversion was extremely expensive, and the maintenance even more so
You cannot point to bad implementations of technology to prove that the technology itself is bad. Digital documents are slowly displacing paper, and at one of my client's offices I have made the switch already.
All documents, faxed or mailed in, get turned into OCR PDFs, and then the paper recycled. The Fujitsu doublesided ADF scanner is programmed to dump a basic timestamped PDF into a single folder with the push of a single button. The massive inbox can be processed by multiple people, and they don't even have to be in the office. Documents are stamped Received or Reviewed with the user's name, along with a timestamp. (This is a default feature of Adobe Acrobat Pro that came with the scanner.) Documents are then filed under the vendors name on a fileserver, and of course, the fileserver is backed up over the net, so even if the whole place burns down, there are complete copies of all documents. They run about 60kb a page. Users can also choose a more detailed scan if it's important.
Yearly filing no longer happens. Paid documents are stamped digitally. Temporary workers could be hired to telecommute, but the accountant now puts in about a third time less since he's not always pulling up and refiling physical sheets of paper, or scanning them in to e-mail internally. Virtually every document can be located within seconds and reviewed.
There's rarely a time when the format of a document trumps the data it carries. For larger organizations, I think it would be even more efficient to digitize the data immediately into a database, and then purely as a backup, have access to the PDF.
The information asymmetry involved in technology make it a very lucrative place to be. A vast majority of people don't understand the differences between Windows and Linux, much less the difference of open and closed source.
Oracle is determining what parts of Sun are profitable, and planning to abandon the parts that are not. The abandonment of unprofitable Sun products will be touted as their commitment to open source. The privatization of Sun products will be touted as their commitment to innovation, or some other meaningless phrase.
If it makes you feel any better, that was also the policy of Sun. And Microsoft. And Apple. If you are ever on the wrong side of a profit equation for a company, you will be screwed. This is as certain as death and taxes.
Nuclear is about the only thing which will provide enough energy. But Fonda and the NIMBY crowd put an end to that.
If, in exchange, America stopped waging war over oil, you could certainly change their minds.
How/When? If we packed up and left all the warlords would battle it out in the region, slaughtering each-other (and quite a few civilians in the crossfire). Then eventually Iran would take over.
Well, Iran is a democratic paradise compared to Saudi Arabia. The only other more secular Muslim state in the region would be perhaps Syria, Jordan, and Egypt. And Iraq when it was under Saddam Hussein's rule.
In our English speaking and half Christian sister country of Liberia, people have been slaughtered with some regularity since 1980. And it doesn't seem to bother our conscience, which seems to be the case throughout every other place on earth that doesn't have vast natural resources that somehow belong to us. I guess Jesus put them in the wrong spot.
sn't that what got Bin Laden pissed off at us in the first place?
Bin Laden hates Israel, because fundamentalist muslims hate Jews. Israel is like Saudi Arabia, in the sense that their nations officially belong to a specific religion and ethnicity. Bin Laden also hates America, for propping up secular dictatorships like Iraq, Pakistan, Syria, Lebanon, and for putting US troops on holy Muslim ground, since his home state of Saudi Arabia is home to Mecca and Medina.
When we stopped sponsoring his little army as soon as the Soviets were defeated
It's amazing that you know that, but then you should also know that besides al Qaeda, we have also created Hezbollah and Hamas. In Lebanon, we destroyed their nationalist movement with multiple invasions with Israel, and since the state could not defend their citizens against our armies, they created an indigenous support system (we call it an "insurgency") to repel further invasions. Palestinians, after begin herded into a series of smaller and smaller out door prisons, and having their land and water confiscated, lost faith in the PLO and so they formed Hamas.
When you step on someone's throat, their family and friends do not watch with disinterest. They find a way to arm themselves to try and cut yours. Here's an appropriate phrase from the docudrama The Battle of Algiers.
Reporter: It isn't cowardly to have bombs carried in baskets to public places by Muslim women?
M'Hidi: Is it any less cowardly to bomb villages from planes with napalm? Give us your planes and we'll give you our baskets.
I'll give you a dollar for every quote from the television broadcasts of Hannity, Beck, or O'Reilly that defend the rights of:
1. A person who isn't wealthy.
2. A person against a corporation.
3. An illegal alien.
4. Muslims suspected of terrorism.
5. Same sex couples.
Remember: rights mean equality under the law.
I'll give you ten dollars for any pleas to go through a diplomatic process when conflict arises between the United States and any non-white country.
I'm dead serious. Respond with links to the transcripts, and I'll paypal or mail a check for up to $100 to the person with the most links. I seriously doubt it will be enough to buy a cup of coffee. At Dunkin Donuts.
You did watch the linked video where Colbert rips apart Hannity's Tree of Liberty, didn't you?
1. Build more rail, and less road with federal money.
2. Gradually raise the gasoline tax over the next ten years to cover the cost of our middle east deployments.
3. Continue funding solar, geothermal, and wind power research in universities. Keep the patents public property, which can be licensed for large sums of money to foreign powers payable directly to cover the research, or for free for any US company that wants to build power plants with that sort of technology.
4. Freedom!
Yeah. One would almost assume it would be easier to switch to alternative sources of energy, bring our troops home, spend a fraction of the military budget on protecting our airliners and ports, and stop sponsoring military dictatorships in the middle east with arms and money.
But, they'd still hate us for our freedom! Or something...
Well, if you think clips of Fox News are detrimental to the reputation of Fox News, then thanks for your support of my argument.
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
Many people believe that the federal goverment's entire set of authorities is enumerated in the Constitution, and that it has no legal basis for making federal law in this area
There's a clause about general welfare and a clause about common defense. We didn't have to get constitutional amendments for the Air Force, and the CIA is certainly unconstitutional. I hear no complaints on constitutional grounds on either issue. We know some founders believed in publicly funded education. I don't think publicly funded healthcare is much different.
Why can't this be done by the states, individually, as each state sees fit? Having it be a federal law is, in some senses, anti-democratic, because there are more localities in which it lacks the consent of the governed.
Because states couldn't survive the inundation of health care costs from citizens of states that decided to keep private care. Federal funding spreads the cost over the whole country, from areas like New York and California, which are economically vibrant and already pay for roads and other infrastructure in states that couldn't possibly afford them, like Louisiana.
Having it be a federal law is, in some senses, anti-democratic, because there are more localities in which it lacks the consent of the governed
I'd buy this argument if the conservatives paid it more than lip service.
Is it automatically the case that the Federal government is the best agent to fix this situation? They've fsck'ed up a lot of other areas of governance in the past.
Well, the evidence from every other western nation in existence points to yes. Of course, those are scary communist stalinist nazi fascist states, like Belgium, Denmark, and Spain.
Why should people who earned their wealth through hard work, careful investment, and self-sacrifice have to pay for lazy people?
The American aristocracy is no different from the old French aristocracy. Wealth inequality is way up, which means that the middle class mostly failed at the illusion of the American dream. They work twice as hard and make the same amount of money as they did in 1980. They have spent their savings. They can afford health care, or safe housing, or fresh fruits and vegetables, or college tuition for their kids, but not all of these things. 45% of American households make less than $40,000 a year. Subtract taxes, two vehicles for two working parents, gas, and rent, and you're not left with enough to have what your parents did.
I'm not saying that all poor persons are lazy; I'm referring to the fraction of poor persons who truly don't deserve to have other people pay for their bills
We are all on welfare. No American would be willing to pay at the pump for the true price of gas. And the fact is, providing for basic needs of food and health care is much cheaper than criminalizing poor behavior and then paying for 1.5 million of your countrymen to rot in jails for the rest of their lives. Most of these people are mentally unstable, and should be in state-run halfway houses or hospitals where their behavior can be monitored and hopefully improved through counseling, instead of mixing them with violent criminals where they are raped and beaten, and then thrown out into the streets again so the cycle can repeat itself.
Example: should I have to pay for treating emphasema in a smoker?
You could make tobacco products illegal. They kill millions of people worldwide ever year. But I guess that clashe
the government loses money when it treats people who are sick.
I had no idea insurance companies were different. It's a good thing! Otherwise, they'd be kicking people off insurance programs and denying payment while their former customer died from treatable diseases.
Were you involved at all in the public relations debacle around the 2008 death of 17-year-old Nataline Sarkisyan of Northridge, Calif. who passed away after being denied a liver transplant by Cigna?
Yes, I was. At that time, I was the chief spokesperson for the company. I was the person who was responsible for putting out the company’s statements and answering questions from reporters when they called about it.
Her request for a liver transplant was denied, and then Cigna reversed itself under pressure, but she ended up dying because the transplant came too late.
Yes, that’s right. The transplant had been requested by her doctors weeks before her death. Her doctors felt that it was her last resort and had recommended it. Cigna felt that the transplant in her case would have been experimental and on those grounds chose to deny coverage for it. The family sought the assistance of the California Nurses Association and reached out to the media and it became a very, very highly publicized case. And I can’t tell you how many calls I got from all over the world regarding that. Then, in the midst of all that publicity, Cigna decided to reverse itself and decided to cover the procedure. But you’re right. She died just about two hours after the family was told that Cigna changed its mind.
At the time, some people argued that it was just an isolated incident. But now there is data showing that Cigna denied 33 percent of claims and PacificCare denied up to 40 percent. Does this data cause you to speak about that experience in a new way?
Well it does. One of the talking points that I used when reporters called was that 90 percent of requests for a transplant are approved by Cigna. I haven’t seen data to know whether that is still accurate...
Looking back, do you think Cigna was in the right?
I can’t comment on that. I was not among the group that reviewed the claim when it first came in. What I do know is that I think the California Nurses Association was right in pointing out that this is not an isolated case. People need to realize that there is a corporate executive who often stands between a patient and his or her doctor. That’s the reality. And I think the insurance industry is now fear-mongering during this debate on health care reform, saying that a government bureaucrat could stand between someone and his or her doctor. But the current situation is just as bad, if not worse, because you have people doing that now who are denying care to meet Wall Street’s expectations.
Wendell Potter is former head of corporate communications for Cigna Corporation, where he worked for 15 years. He is now a fellow at the Center for Media and Democracy.
http://news.newamericamedia.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=33655d70ff9cd7509f16bfd2bfbafa9f
The upper 50% of the wage earners pay @97% of all tax collections, and the lower ones only @3%
Since that mirrors the distribution of wealth that would make sense. How about we ask the wealthy if they'd like to give up all of their assets in exchange for a lower effective federal tax rate? And instead of just sitting on their ass, investing in financial companies that exploit people and resources, they'd actually have to show up and do some real fucking work?
Oh, suddenly there's no problem? That's what I thought.
And by the way, go ahead an call me an anti-American commie. I'm in great company.
At the first session of our legislature after the Declaration of Independence, we passed a law abolishing entails. And this was followed by one abolishing the privilege of Primogeniture, and dividing the lands of intestates equally among all their children, or other representatives. These laws, drawn by myself, laid the axe to the root of Pseudo-aristocracy. And had another which I prepared been adopted by the legislature, our work would have been complete.
It was a Bill for the more general diffusion of learning. This proposed to divide every county into wards of 5 or 6 miles square, like your townships; to establish in each ward a free school for reading, writing and common arithmetic; to provide for the annual selection of the best subjects from these schools who might recieve at the public expence a higher degree of education at a district school; and from these district schools to select a certain number of the most promising subjects to be completed at an University, where all the useful sciences should be taught. Worth and genius would thus have been sought out from every condition of life, and completly prepared by education for defeating the competition of wealth and birth for public trusts.
I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. Already they have raised up a monied aristocracy that has set the government at efiance. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people to whom it properly belongs.
I hope that we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country
-Thomas Jefferson
The point of this article is to discuss the reform in a constructive manner, not to bash entire ideologies just because they are not your own.
Obviously, you've never seen a single hour of Fox. Imagine several schizophrenic paranoid white men, who are afraid of gays, Mexicans, muslims, the poor (that's code for minorities), hate equality, love war, and instead of using a values system as a starting point for their worldview, they start out with a worldview and then selectively apply their values system in nonsensical rants. Give them an audience and editors and producers that only care about ratings and pushing ideology handed directly to them from GOP and other ultra-conservative sources.
Now pretend that it's news so people think they are using journalistic standards, when in fact they are simply opinion shows.
All of the media outlets are rather stupid. Fox News is dangerously delusional.
If we can't afford to give my neighbor health care, we can't afford a trillion dollars a year for warfare and imperialist adventures, or any other corporate welfare programs.
When we gave Wall St hundreds of billions to fix their fuckups, they continued bonusing themselves tens of millions of dollars. I don't think access to basic medical care is in the same universe of entitlement of the wealthy.
So you think Google is the rule, and not the exception? Most modern corporations have the will to skirt US law to sell to countries like Iran, Cuba, North Korea, and so forth, despite trade embargoes. US companies helped themselves and Hitler make a killing during WWII. (A guy named Prescott Bush even got in some trouble for it.) The US and her corporations armed Indonesia in the genocide of the East Timorese, right through the 90s. We are still responsible for 70% of the arms sales in the world, all manufactured by US corporations.
So, no. As long as the Chinese government is paying cash, corporations will ignore everything else. Just like they always do.
Hell, US investment in China skyrocketed after Tiananmen Square, because China proved they were willing to kill their own citizens to maintain order while they opened China up to "investment" in the Special Economic Zones. Meanwhile, Cuba is under an embargo because it's a communist state? I think we can all see the true value system of the American corporation. Just be glad you're on this side of the equation -- for now.
COCK
When interests rates get so high, all the capital in a market floods to the finance industry because it offers large and immediate returns without many associated costs. The effect of deregulation, including the abolishment of usury laws early in the 20th century, has led to a world financial market that's basically a hundred trillion dollar casino. The Dow Jones number is perfectly meaningless in relation to the real economy. How many people are employed? What real goods are they producing? These are questions that land on deaf ears in the modern economy.
The legal rate, it is to be observed, though it ought to be somewhat above, ought not to be much above the lowest market rate. If the legal rate of interest in Great Britain, for example, was fixed so high as eight or ten per cent. the greater part of the money which was to be lent, would be lent to prodigals and projectors, who alone would be willing to give this high interest. Sober people, who will give for the use of money no more than a part of what they are likely to make by the use of it, would not venture into the competition. A great part of the capital of the country would thus be kept out of the hands which were most likely to make a profitable and advantageous use of it, and thrown into those which were most likely to waste and destroy it. Where the legal rate of interest, on the contrary, is fixed but a very little above the lowest market rate, sober people are universally preferred, as borrowers, to prodigals and projectors. The person who lends money gets nearly as much interest from the former as he dares to take from the latter, and his money is much safer in the hands of the one set of people than in those of the other. A great part of the capital of the country is thus thrown into the hands in which it is most likely to be employed with advantage.
Adam Smith
Book II, Chapter IV
Wealth of Nations
The postal service was considered important infrastructure and is constitutional (Article I, Section 8), so there's no reason broadband and health care can't be considered the same. We have the CIA and the Air Force and the NSA which are all unconstitutional, yet are still federally funded without much complaint.
Also:
Why didn't you specifically tell us which countries you are talking about?
I'm still waiting.
You do realize all those things you listed are perfectly free? As are the right to not be subject to unreasonable searches and the right not to incriminate yourself.
I had no idea that there were no lawsuits or legal battles over this, or that the ACLU hasn't spent millions across the country defending the Bill of Rights, or that equal protection under the law just magically happened, and we didn't have to send federal troops across the country to destroy Jim Crow laws.
Or in fact, that under the guise of protecting freedom, we spend upwards of a trillion dollars a year on defense of those freedoms. (Which is nonsense, but an off topic subject.)
Earlier, you said: "Having lived in and visited countries with largely state-run telecom industry and then come home to the USA, I think it should be painfully obvious to all that government does not do a good job at running telecommunications."
Why didn't you specifically tell us which countries you are talking about?
Privatization! All the same mistakes the government makes, plus the cost of profits, administrative overhead, plain old greed, no transparency, and no incentive to make things right.
The Pentagon’s reliance on outside contractors in Iraq is proportionately far larger than in any previous conflict, and it has fueled charges that this outsourcing has led to overbilling, fraud and shoddy and unsafe work that has endangered and even killed American troops. The role of armed security contractors has also raised new legal and political questions about whether the United States has become too dependent on private armed forces on the 21st-century battlefield...
“This is unprecedented,” [Charles Tiefer] added. “It was considered an all-out imperative by the administration to keep troop levels low, particularly in the beginning of the war, and one way that was done was to shift money and manpower to contractors. But that has exposed the military to greater risks from contractor waste and abuse.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/12/washington/12contractors.html
"Right now the government is paying health insurance plans that administer Medicare Advantage, on average, 12 percent more per person than it spends on patients enrolled in traditional Medicare," said AMA Board Member Cecil Wilson, MD. "With Medicare payments to doctors who care for seniors slated for a 10 percent cut next year, Congress must put the money used to subsidize the insurance industry to better use."
At the AMA's Annual Meeting late last month, America's physicians sent a resounding message to Congress - eliminate the Medicare Advantage subsidy. AMA policy clearly states that subsidies to private plans offering alternative coverage to Medicare beneficiaries should be eliminated, and that these private Medicare plans should compete with the regular Medicare program on a fiscally neutral basis.
"While groups that truly represent physicians fight to preserve all seniors' access to health care by stopping Medicare physician payment cuts, the insurance industry and its partners are solely focused on preserving their $65 billion government subsidy," said Dr. Wilson.
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/76805.php
Engineers hired to investigate the cause of September's massive Big Dig tunnel leak have discovered that the project is riddled with hundreds of leaks that are pouring millions of gallons of water into the $14.6 billion tunnel system.
While none of the leaks is as large as the fissure that snarled traffic for miles on Interstate 93 northbound in September, the breaches appear to permeate the subterranean road system, calling into question the quality of construction and managerial oversight provided by Bechtel/Parsons Brinckerhoff on the massive highway project.
Finding and fixing all the leaks will take years, perhaps more than a decade, said Jack K. Lemley, an internationally known consultant hired by the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority to investigate the problem. Just repairing the section of wall where the September leak occurred will take up to two months and require closing of traffic lanes.
The engineers also said they have discovered documents showing that Bechtel managers were aware that the wall breached this fall was deficient from the moment it was built in the late 1990s, yet did not order it replaced and did not inform state officials of the situation.
http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2004/11/10/big_dig_found_riddled_with_leaks/
If slavery was legal, would you support it? How about herding Jews into ghettos? Or shooting union supporters on the streets of Philadelphia?
When the government makes something illegal, that by no means makes their argument moral or valid.
Sounds like you would have been a great citizen for any number of murderous dictators. Just pass a law, and Dave will support you!
We already have a government that can monitor everything you say, including non-public correspondence where you have a reasonable expectation of privacy. You think outright censorship is very far away?
The government does not need to censor the media. The media censors itself. This news item is a perfect example of the hysterical bias of corporate outlets. When Paul Bremer shut down the radical Iraqi newspaper Al Hawza for publishing false stories in Iraq, for the safety and security of Iraqis, there was no public outcry of dictatorship or communist ideals. They just said it was a bad decision.
Chavez came out with a statement saying, "The Internet cannot be something open where anything is said and done. Every country has to apply its own rules and norms." He's basically pushing for public support of laws that require journalistic integrity. In effect, he's arguing for libel laws that already exist in much of the Western world to be applied to media outlets on the internet.
Saudi Arabia is a monarchy that has active internet censorship. Where are the news articles about that? How about Pakistan? How about Egypt?
The Press Law, Publications Law, and the penal code regulate and govern the press. According to these, criticism of the president can be punished by fines or imprisonment. Freedom House deems Egypt to have an unfree press, although mentions they have a diversity of sources. Reporters Without Borders 2006 report indicates continued harassment and, in three cases, imprisonment, of journalists. They place Egypt 143rd out of 167 nations on press freedoms. The two sources agree that promised reforms on the subject have been disappointingly slow or uneven in implementation. Freedomhouse had a slightly more positive assessment indicating that an increased freedom to discuss controversial issues has occurred. -WikiPedia
Chavez is a current propaganda tool for the West. He's no saint, but I get tired of news media who are either unwilling or unable to report balanced information.
The Conservative position - relying on individual responsibility - holds *every* citizen responsible for the plight of the less fortunate.
This is the dumbest argument in the world. Do you want a doctor waiting for you at the hospital, or a bunch of nice people who will pray for you? If I want kidney dialysis, should I just run up to the nearest megachurch and ask around? Last time I attended, all they wanted was my credit card number for their automatic tithing program. Right now the solution is for me to wait until I'm unconscious, have an ambulance drag me to the hospital, have them revive me at great cost, and receive dialysis until I'm kicked out of the hospital in a few days.
Social services are a form of infrastructure that lead to lower poverty rates and happier citizens. The government exists for the express purpose of carrying out the will of it's citizens. If a majority of your neighbors decide health care and education are infrastructure just as the post office and roads are, then make your argument clearly heard, and hope for the best.
The conservatives ran the show for eight years, and emptied the treasury by cutting taxes for the ultra wealthy and the very wealthy while simultaneously fighting two wars. Now they don't want to face the music, and are trying to blame the situation on "entitlements" by "welfare queens" and other code words for poor people. Well, we've spent trillions in the naughties on war and low taxes for the wealthy. Let's try billions for universal health care, investment in education and infrastructure, and a sane tax code to boot.