Bits & Pieces on domestic American politics from the Alternative Press

Just a "few" bits and pieces on domestic American politics tonight.

In This Edition:
[Edited 10/29/11]

- Dennis Kucinich on Occupy Wall Street & National Emergency Employment Defense (NEED) Act
- Recent Occupy Wall Street Polls (oldest first)
- Study Confirms Wealth Distribution in United States is Most Unequal Among Industrialized Nations
- CBO Study Shows Growing Inequality
- Noam Chomsky at Occupy Boston--Three Part Video
- Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction (Bad) News
- Article on Rick Perry "Flat Tax"
- Bob Dylan--High Water [For Charley Patton]
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Dennis Kucinich on Occupy Wall Street:

Occupy
Friday, 28 October 2011

Dear Friends, 

An Iraq War veteran who survived two tours of duty gets his skull fractured in ... Oakland! 
53 activists arrested in Atlanta. SWAT teams deployed to boot out peaceful protesters. 

Recent actions against Occupy protesters are irresponsible and tragic. They're an assault on our democracy. These protesters are bravely exercising their right to freedom of expression, to bring attention to a political and economic system that's rigged against most Americans. I stand with them; and, all Americans -- left and right -- should join me in protecting their freedom to non-violently create change. 



This isn't a Democratic or Republican movement. It's not about one party or one policy. It's about standing up to a financial system that's completely backwards. Wall Street banks get billions in bailouts and emerge with massive profits. Most Americans see a program of austerity in a painful economic climate -- benefit cuts, high unemployment, declining wages, and crumbling infrastructure. Congress moved swiftly to "save" banks (something I strongly opposed), and now Congress is paralyzed, unable to create jobs and to save our middle class.



It's no surprise Americans are standing up. Our country's economic policies have consolidated and accelerated wealth to the top. One percent of Americans now control 42% of our wealth. It's not radical to think this is out of balance or to demand a government that is of the people and for the people. I've been to these protests, and I can tell you they're filled with honest, hard working Americans who are concerned with the direction of our country and our economic future.



I am deeply concerned. I'm concerned about an economic system which tethers job creation to China and big banks. We shouldn't have to borrow money from China -- or Japan or South Korea -- to get out of this ditch. We should stop the Fed from giving billions to the big banks. We have to take back the power to manage our own economy, to regain control over our monetary system, consistent with the U.S. Constitution. That's why, one month ago, I introduced the National Emergency Employment Defense (NEED) Act. The legislation would put the Federal Reserve under the Department of the Treasury, and it would help us recapture control of our financial system. As part of the NEED Act, Congress would use its constitutional power to invest in America, creating millions of jobs by putting billions of dollars directly into circulation. And since this money is adding real, tangible value to our national wealth, it will not generate inflation. 



We need a financial system that is of the people and for the people. We need to take it back from the big banks. We need economic and social justice. I will continue to support the Occupy movement. I will continue to fight for legislation, including the NEED Act, that sets America on a path of jobs for all, health care for all, education for all, retirement security for all, and peace.



Let's keep this movement alive. Let's keep fighting for economic and social justice. Keep occupying Wall Street. And, with your help, I'll keep occupying Congress. 

With respect, 

 
Dennis Kucinich 

P.S. Please forward this email to your friends and family, and share it on Facebook and Twitter. Let's spread this movement, and continue to support the Occupy protests.
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Recent Occupy Wall Street Polls

4 Polls That Show Occupy Wall Street is Just Getting Started
By Lynn Parramore, AlterNet
Posted on October 24, 2011, Printed on October 28, 2011


After over a month of demonstrations, numerous dismissals, and thousands of arrests, Occupy Wall Street is gaining momentum. Over the last two weeks, polls have poured in revealing that Americans familiar with the protests largely support them. And since that familiarity will continue to increase, we can only conclude that the country's support for the movement will keep on growing. When you've got NYT pundit Charles Blow unfurling his hipster flag comparing OWS to legendary 90s band Nirvana, you know a tipping point has been reached!

Recent polls prove that when Americans hear this band, they dig it. Here’s a round-up:

Oct. 9-10 Time Magazine/Abt SRBI: This poll showed a 54 percent favorable rating of OWS, compared to a mere 27 percent thumbs up for the Tea Party.
. . . .

Oct. 13-16 United Technologies/National Journal Congressional Connection Poll: Here, a majority of those polled – fully 59 percent – said that they backed the goals of the protests from what they "know about the demonstrations." And 68 percent supported the Democratic surtax on millionaires to pay for the cost of their jobs plan, a policy cited by OWS protesters in a recent Millionaire's March in New York City.

Oct. 17 Quinnipiac poll: This survey of New York City voters revealed that the Big Apple is on board with OWS. 67 percent agreed with the views of the Wall Street protesters and a whopping 87 percent believed it's okay that they are protesting.
. . . .

Bottom line: If this thing continues to grow – and there is every indication that it will – the Occupy Wall Street could become the definitive movement for an entire generation. On Sunday, Noam Chomsky addressed Occupy Boston and called the movement "unprecedented." "There's never been anything like it," said Chomsky. "If the bonds and associations that are being established at these remarkable events can be sustained through a long, hard period ahead – because victories don’t come quickly – it could turn out to be a real historic, a very significant moment in American history."
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October 25, 2011 6:30 PM
Poll: 43 percent agree with views of "Occupy Wall Street"
By Brian Montopoli Topics Polling

Forty-three percent of Americans agree with the views of the "Occupy Wall Street" movement, according to a new CBS News/New York Times poll that found a widespread belief that money and wealth should be distributed more evenly in America.

Twenty-seven percent of Americans said they disagree with the movement, which began more than a month ago in lower Manhattan and has since spread across the country and around the world. Thirty percent said they were unsure. . . . .
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Study Confirms Wealth Distribution in United States is Most Unequal Among Industrialized Nations

A new study released Thursday has found the distribution of wealth in the United States is among the most unequal among industrialized nations. The United States ranked in the bottom five on a combination of issues including poverty prevention, health and access to education—ahead of only Greece, Chile, Mexico and Turkey. The study was done by the German-based Bertelsmann Foundation. Meanwhile, a new study here in the United States has found New York State has the highest income inequality of all 50 states and that the New York City metropolitan region has the highest income inequality of any large metro area.
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CBO Study Shows Growing Inequality
The Report:
Trends in the Distribution of Household Income Between 1979 and 2007
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Article:
CBO Cites Income Inequality
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Noam Chomsky at Occupy Boston--Three Part Video

Noam Chomsky at Occupy Boston: Video 1 of 3

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Noam Chomsky at Occupy Boston: Video 2 of 3

-
Noam Chomsky at Occupy Boston: Video 3 of 3


See also: http://www.occupyboston.org/
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Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction News

Democrats Offer Significant Concessions
Plan Is to the Right of Bowles-Simpson and Gang of Six

PDF of this statement (4pp.)

By Robert Greenstein, Richard Kogan and Paul N. Van de Water
Revised October 28, 2011

The new deficit-reduction plan from a majority of Democrats on the congressional Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction (the "supercommittee") marks a dramatic departure from traditional Democratic positions — and actually stands well to the right of plans by the co-chairs of the bipartisan Bowles-Simpson commission and the Senate's "Gang of Six," and even further to the right of the plan by the bipartisan Rivlin-Domenici commission. The Democratic plan contains substantially smaller revenue increases than those bipartisan proposals while, for example, containing significantly deeper cuts in Medicare and Medicaid than the Bowles-Simpson plan. The Democratic plan features a substantially higher ratio of spending cuts to revenue increases than any of the bipartisan plans.

Although the new plan thus moves considerably closer to Republican positions than any of the bipartisan plans, Republicans have been quick to reject it. . . . .

See rest here: Democrats Offer Significant Concessions
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Article on Rich Perry "Flat Tax"

TPMDC
Rick Perry’s Flat Tax Plan: Not A Flat Tax

BRIAN BEUTLER OCTOBER 26, 2011, 6:00 AM 8647 64

The flat tax is such a popular idea in conservative circles that Texas Governor Rick Perry is trying to revive his presidential primary campaign by proposing one.

Except for the flat tax part.

It turns out Perry’s plan isn’t flat, doesn’t eliminate the current tax code, as many conservative elites claim to want, and would likely blow a huge hole in the federal budget.

Perry’s plan doesn’t scrap existing tax law altogether, but rather creates a new, parallel tax code that taxes individual and corporate income at 20 percent. Investment income would go untaxed. Every tax payer would have a choice between staying in the current system, or transferring over to the new one. But as Michael Linden, a tax expert at the liberal Center for American Progress, points out, the new, simpler, alternative code would constitute a tax increase for most Americans and a huge tax cut for wealthy Americans, creating incentives for a small well-to-do sliver of the country to make the switch, and for everyone else to stay put.

. . . .

“For most people who don’t have big capital gains and dividend income, they’re going to stay in the current system,” Linden explained. “It’s not a flat tax.”

. . . .

“For very wealthy people who do have big capital gains and dividends — they’ll take the new one, but even that’s not really a flat tax. It’s 20 percent on ordinary income and zero percent on investment income.”

. . . .

“The wealthy will end up benefitting from a very simple tax code, and they’re going to end up paying really low rates,” Linden said. “Of the richest 400 taxpayers, fully 66 percent of their total adjusted gross income came from capital gains and another seven percent came from dividends. So basically for the very wealthy you’re going to save nearly 75 percent of income from taxation. It’s just a massive tax cut for very wealthy.” . . . .
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Bob Dylan--High Water [For Charley Patton]

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11/29/211
They took away the previous, excellent, original version of "High Water" posted on October 28, so we are stuck with this:

For what its worth, a more recent, shall we say different, version of High Water. Lacks the power of the original because the words are secondary to the godawful gaudy, noise-filled performance. He's lost himself it seems to become a clownish performer, just an old shadow of who he was.

Libya--Some Pre-intervention Historical Background & "Howling Hypocrisy" part 3

In This Edition:

- Criteria For Western "Humanitarian" intervention

- Libya--Some Pre-intervention Historical Background

- "Howling Hypocrisy" part 3 (Cynical Western Foreign Policy)

- Afghanistan

Edited 3/22/11
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Criteria and Recipe For Western "Humanitarian" intervention

1. Choose a country that has coveted resources used by Western Nations and/or strategic importance in the "Grand Chessboard" of American empire.

2. Establish that it has a socialistic and/or nationalistic government using central planning, and is willing to defend its people by resisting global capitalist "free market" takeover of its economy.

3. Be sure that it is weak enough militarily and socially to be unable to defend itself against a merciless and cowardly air attack that uses highly advanced Western military technology.

If the target fulfills the above criteria, and is not already subservient or willing to acquiesce to Western interests, then proceed with the following:

4. Demonize the leaders of the country, using as much psycho-babble as you think the people can endure without catching on to the intent of inciting contempt and hatred, as in Orwell's two minutes of hate.

5. Let it be known among dissatisfied potential insurgents, using the CIA, the National Endowment for Democracy, or other subversive agents, that you will support them.

6. After contacts are established, instigate age-old rivalries, tribal or national, via propaganda and financing (including payoffs), by way of the CIA and their institutional agents; choose, fund and otherwise support a subservient and allegedly willing disgruntled partner to agitate for regime change or whatever the goal happens to be.

7. Get the willing partners to begin agitating with protesters against human rights abuses in a way that threatens and provokes the current government, urging the partners to use armed force and terror tactics when the established government (over)reacts to defend themselves.

8. Enlist the multi-national elite corporate press (New York Times, BBC, Al Jazeera, etc.) to flood the print, televised and social media with reports of atrocities and human rights abuses, refugees and civilian deaths, to properly prepare public opinion for the "humanitarian" intervention to come. It is imperative to ignore or downplay other egregious atrocities, human rights abuses, civilian killings, and violations of international law by the Western "democracies" and their dictatorial allies, who wish to attack and take-over the target nation!

9. Make threats and lay down ultimatums, but refuse mediation or negotiations--after all, the target regimes had already been seen as obstacles to Western goals and placed on the list for "regime change."

10. Once public opinion has been properly prepared, either proceed with the bloody carnage of intervention in contravention of international law, or, if possible, coerce the undemocratic U.N. Security Council to approve same.

Voilà--another bloody mess that may, or may not, bring the promised objectives, but will surely drain nations of blood, treasure, and goodwill, often for long periods, all the while enriching the military-industrial complex. Did I leave anything out?

Chris

See also:
Another NATO Intervention?
Libya: Is This Kosovo All Over Again?
By DIANA JOHNSTONE
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One of the questions I asked myself after hearing reports about a possible Western intervention on behalf of "democratic" rebels in eastern Libya was, "Who are these rebel people of the Libyan National Transitional Council?" Actually, this question came after another: "What are the oil and other interests of those pumping up the propaganda in favor if intervention?"

The answer to the first question could not be gained easily from reports by Western media. The answer to the second is fairly easily obtainable after a few Google searches.

The rebels were simply described as people fighting one of many repressive and undemocratic regimes in the North African and Eastern Mediterranean gulf region. White hats and black hats--all too simple in my mind. Wikipedia gave the name of a few prominent leaders (Seemingly from the eastern Libya Cyrenaica tribes, and a few from Gadaffi's regie.) and said many chose to remain anonymous. One wondered why, if it was simply to be a fight to secure the freedom of the Libyan people, that the West, the U.S. in particular, was not proposing to intervene on behalf of the besieged Palestinians, the people of Yemen and Bahrain, or even for those in other Gulf region oil providing monarchies and essential dictatorships, like Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, or Jordan? As far as repressive regimes go, why not also go after our own puppet, Iraq's al-Maliki, who was also killing protesters seeking freedom and an improved quality of life?

OK, back to the original question. "Who are these rebel people of the Libyan National Transitional Council?" More importantly, why are "humanitarian" interventionists seemingly disinterested in the answer to that question? Perhaps the interventionists are not bright enough to even ask the question, or perhaps they are so craving for an act of bloody, destructive and righteous "humanitarianism" that they could not let their mind wander into that dangerously cloudy territory. With the righteous zeal and certainty of a prosecutor at the Salem Witch Trials, they screamed for justice against the demonized tyrant.

When one pokes around for answers, one cannot help to stumble upon the tribal history of North Africa, including the portion proclaimed by the UN, in 1951, to be "Libya." The events in Libya appear to be much more related to that fractious tribal history than to some deep respect for the writings of Thomas Jefferson, although, at the local tribal level, it does appear to have some relevance. If one reads even a smidgen of the history though, the romanticism of democracy melts away to reveal the self-interested tribal core. The conflict begins to look like the result of Western and UN meddling in the ages long conflict of tribes (clans if you will) in the area that was once at least three distinct tribally dominated regions, and people not particularly comfortable with Western notions of "democracy." The following articles tell some of that history and the policy implications that may be derived from it.
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Libya-- Pre-intervention Historical Background

Wall Street Journal
MIDDLE EAST NEWS
MARCH 8, 2011
Behind Libya Rifts, Tribal Politics
Groups Sidelined by Gadhafi Form Opposition's Core; Ancient Allegiances Bear Upon Battle for Brega

By CHARLES LEVINSON

BENGHAZI—On Saturday night, rebel fighters charged into the Libyan coastal village of Bin Jawad, stronghold of the Hasoony tribe, after residents there assured them the town would welcome forces opposed to Col. Moammar Gadhafi.

Instead, rebel fighters say, they walked into an ambush. Hasoony tribesmen—who leaders from other tribes said had been armed and paid off in recent days by Col. Gadhafi—opened fire. Rebels suffered at least a dozen deaths, according to various accounts, and retreated.

The Hasoony tribesmen's decision to back Col. Gadhafi illustrates how tribal allegiances are helping to guide the battle to control a fractured Libya. Many members of the new ruling class taking shape in eastern Libya are from long-privileged tribes that were relegated to second-class status under Col. Gadhafi. . . .

The Senussis' success in eastern Libya—a region known as Cyrenaica—partly explains why the Italians struggled as colonial ruler there from 1911 until World War II. In what is now western Libya, tribes waged separate struggles. But in the east, tribes mounted a unified opposition to Italian rule. Historians say the Italians, in repressing the eastern rebellion, were responsible for the death of about half of eastern Libya's population, many of them in concentration camps outside Benghazi.
Col. Gadhafi's predecessor, King Idriss Senussi, maintained power with the support of his privileged castle guard, known as the Cyrenaican Defense Force. Their ranks were filled almost exclusively with members of eastern Libya's Saady tribes.

See Groups Sidelined by Gadhafi Form Opposition's Core; Ancient Allegiances Bear Upon Battle for Brega for the rest of this informative article.
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‘Libya’ Does Not Exist
Posted By Justin Raimondo On March 13, 2011

The idea that there is a nation called “Libya” is the central problem with our understanding of what is going on in that fake “country,” the flaw in our projections of what will or ought to happen.

The country known today as Libya has only existed since the end of World War II, and was the product of a shotgun marriage of the three “provinces”: Tripolitania, in the West, Cyrenaica, in the East, and Fezzan in the South. “Libya” was created, first, by the Italians in 1933, who sought to incorporate the three distinct areas into a unified colony, under a single Fascist proconsul. After the defeat of the Axis powers, the British took control and installed an “emir” in Cyrenaica. Writing in the New York Daily News recently, Diedreick Vandewalle, a professor of government at Dartmouth, gives us some historical perspective:

“History has not been kind to this nation. Its three provinces — Cyrenaica, Tripolitania and Fazzan — were united for strategic purposes by the Great Powers after World War II. Cyrenaica in the east, and Tripolitania in the west, the two most important provinces, shared no common history and were suspicious of each other.

“The monarch, King Idris al-Sanusi, the heir to a Sufi Islamic movement that had its headquarters in Cyrenaica, kept complaining to the U.S. ambassador that he wanted to rule only as Amir of Cyrenaica, not as King of Libya.”

The kindness of history is found lacking, by Vandewalle, because, as he complains later on in his piece,

“In many ways, Libya remains the tribal society it was in 1951, when the country became independent. As a political concept, Libya for many of its citizens remains limited to tribe, family or province: The notion of a unified system of political checks and balances remains terra incognita.

“The danger for future governments is that they could easily continue this hands-off government, remaining little more than a conduit for the country’s vast natural resources. The real challenge for Libya will not only be reconstruction — but the creation, for the first time since 1951, of a true state with a shared national identity.” . . . .

See ‘Libya’ Does Not Exist for linksa nd entire article.
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Riding the Sandstorm
Posted By Nebojsa Malic On March 4, 2011
. . . .

Coveting Cyrenaica

And then there is Libya. Ruled since a 1969 coup by Colonel Muammar el-Gadhafi, the "Great Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya" has North Africa’s largest reserves of oil. Protests that started in the eastern city of Benghazi on February 16 met with a violent government reaction.

Since then, news from Libya has been contradictory and confusing. Gadhafi claims his enemies are "al-Qaeda" and Imperial lackeys, and that his military isn’t killing civilians. The rebels accuse the government of widespread atrocities, while alternately pleading for Imperial intervention and rejecting it.

By just about any rational standard, invading Libya is a horrible idea. Claims of atrocities perpetrated by Gadhafi’s forces sound a little too much like the atrocity porn concocted to justify interventions in the Balkans. Even if they are all true, the rebels seem more than capable of handling it.

Brendan O’Neill has derided the advocates of intervention as "iPad imperialists" and warned of the dangers of faux "ethical" foreign policy, that is actually anything but. His position is worth noting because he has been a consistent critic of Imperial meddling in the Balkans, and the way the creeping intervention in Libya is shaping up bears uncanny similarities to how events unfolded in Bosnia. . . . .

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Again, who are these people?

From Democracy Now!

MOHAMMED NABBOUS: Yes, on the Facebook and on other websites, like Twitter, like—you know, I was just trying to send as many information as I can to encourage people to go on the 17th. But, fortunately, it happened even before the 17th. It happened on the 15th, and I was so happy to go on the streets. I was trying to find these protesters, but the first day we couldn’t find anyone. So, the second day, we found some people, and we started protesting, but it wasn’t that serious. The third day, it was really serious, and the fourth day it was really serious. And then, we just, you know, joined our brothers and sisters down here in front of the court, and we started getting united and just, you know, telling people what we want, telling what we had to say. We started chanting and writing signs and just doing all of what we can do.

ANJALI KAMAT: What inspired you to get involved with the 17th demonstration?

MOHAMMED NABBOUS: The system. I mean, me, myself, I wasn’t actually damaged by the system that much, but other peoples are really suffering from this system, so it’s not fair. Not because I am—I am happily, I mean, living a normal life, that means everybody else is. I mean, even some people were telling me, "Why are you on the streets? Why are you demonstrating? You have nothing to complain. You have everything. Why are you here?” I was like, "It doesn’t matter. I mean, there are other people that I can see they are suffering, and they need more. And if my country is better, I’m going to be even better."

[I'm thinking--Hmmm, " I wasn’t actually damaged by the system that much, but other peoples are really suffering from this system. . . . I mean, there are other people that I can see they are suffering, and they need more. And if my country is better, I’m going to be even better." Even though I am not from an identifiable tribe, maybe the U.N. can help the millions of poor and disenfranchised in our country, and support the rehabilitation of unions for our working people? Should we start in Wisconsin, Michigan, Indiana, or just where? Maybe some civilized medical benefits like in Western Europe? A national no-corporate dominance zone? Must be dreaming again.]
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"Howling Hypocrisy" part 3

Ancient Poison Bears New Fruit: Western Frenzy Grows in Libya

WRITTEN BY CHRIS FLOYD   
MONDAY, 21 MARCH 2011 00:36

The American war against Libya grew in intensity on Sunday, raining death in all directions -- including on civilian vehicles and Libyan forces in full retreat. Behind the full-scale barrage launched by the Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, the armed opposition led by recent henchmen of Moamar Gadafy pressed forward in a military offensive. Libyan soldiers were gunned down as they fled -- a reprise of the "turkey shoot" American forces conducted on retreating Iraqis back in the first glorious Gulf War. 

(But weren't they supposed to retreat? Wasn't that the purpose of the UN directive? Oh, it's so confusing!)

Here's what happened today, following yesterday's hell-storm of 110 Tomahawk missiles:

American warplanes became more involved on Sunday, with B-2 stealth bombers, F-16 and F-15 fighter jets and Harrier attack jets flown by the Marine Corps striking at Libyan ground forces, air defenses and airfields, while Navy electronic warplanes, EA-18G Growlers, jammed Libyan radar and communications ... 

Rebel forces ... began to regroup in the east as allied warplanes destroyed dozens of government armored vehicles near the rebel capital, Benghazi, leaving a field of burned wreckage along the coastal road to the city. By nightfall, the rebels had pressed almost 40 miles back west...

For miles leading south, the roadsides were littered with burned trucks and burned civilian cars. In some places battle tanks had simply been abandoned, intact, as their crews fled. ... To the south, though, many had been hit as they headed away from the city in a headlong dash for escape on the long road leading to a distant Tripoli.

In other words, the "no-fly zone" supposedly imposed to stop the fighting in Libya and secure the safety of its civilians morphed very quickly into what it was always intended to be: a military intervention on behalf of one side of a civil war, leading to more war -- and to many, many more civilian casualties.

Let us put it as plainly as possible: Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton and Nicolas Sarkozy and the ludicrous upper-class twit called David Cameron do not give one good goddamn about the "security and freedom" of the Libyan people. They simply do not. They care about one thing only: imposing the domination of their monied, militarized elites.

Or as Alexis de Tocqueville put it following his tour of the society that Europeans had imposed -- with great savagery and deceit -- in America:

"The European is to other races of men what man in general is to animate nature. When he cannot bend them to his use or make them serve his self-interests, he destroys them and makes them vanish little by little before him."
. . . .
Support for military action was also muted by deep-seated suspicions that the West is more concerned with securing access to Arab oil supplies than supporting Arab aspirations.

"They are hitting Libya because of the oil, not to protect the Libyans," said Ali al-Jassem, 53, in the village of Sitra in Bahrain, where protests by the Shi'ite Muslim majority against the Sunni ruling Al-Khalifa family have triggered military reinforcement by neighboring Gulf Arab forces.

A spokesman for Bahrain's largest Shi'ite opposition party Wefaq questioned why the West was intervening against Gadhafi while it allowed oil-producing allies to support a crackdown on protesters in Bahrain in which 11 people have been killed.

"We think what is happening in Bahrain is no different to what was happening in Libya," Ibrahim Mattar said. "Bahrain is very small so the deaths are significant for a country where Bahrainis are only 600,000."

Yet on the same day the Peace Laureate was drawing his first blood in Libya with his Zeus-like hurtling of a hundred and ten thunderbolts, his Secretary of State was publicly supporting the Saudi incursion into Bahrain, which enabled the murderous crackdown there. At the same time, American officials admitted that they did, in fact, know of the Saudi incursion in advance -- despite their heartsworn denials just a few days ago.

Again: Obama, Clinton, Sarkozy and Cameron do not give a damn about the killing of unarmed protestors in Bahrain -- any more than they give a damn about the killing of protestors, armed or unarmed, in Libya. It suits their current purposes to wage war in Libya, and so they wage war in Libya. It suits their current purposes to stand with one of the most oppressive and extremist regimes on earth to suppress, with deadly force, the yearning for democracy in Bahrain; so that's what they do.


The Peace Laureate and the bipartisan war-lovers in the American political and media elite tell us over and over that the assault on Libya is a "humanitarian intervention" aimed solely at "protecting the Libyan people." Yet at the same time, the ever-bellicose but often brutally frank Clinton states plainly, in public: "a final result of any negotiations would have to be the decision by Colonel Gadhafi to leave.”

How much plainer can it be? It is not a humanitarian intervention; it is a military operation to impose regime change -- which is, needless to say, patently illegal under the international laws which the US and the UN say they are upholding. But who cares about that?

The fact that anyone takes anything these compulsive, demonstrable liars say at face value, even for a micro-second, is one of the great mysteries of our age. Yet how many oceans of newsprint, how many blizzards of pixels have already been spent in earnest disquisitions on the serious import of their statements!
 . . . .

See URL above for the rest of the article.
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Obamaʼs Libya War: Unconstitutional, Naïve, Hypocritical
By Matthew Rothschild, March 19, 2011

. . . .
Finally, Obamaʼs stated reasons for this war, which he refuses to call by its proper name, are hypocritical and incoherent.

He said “innocent men and women face brutality and death at the hands of their own government.”

Thatʼs true of the people of Yemen, our ally, which just mowed down dozens of peaceful protesters.

Thatʼs true of the people of Bahrain, our ally, which also just mowed down dozens of peaceful protesters.

Then thereʼs the kingdom of Saudi Arabia, our chief Arab ally and a repressive government in its own right, which just rolled its tanks into Bahrain.

In the Ivory Coast today, another country on good terms with Washington, a dictatorial government is brutalizing its people.

And a brutal junta has ruled the people of Burma for decades now.

There is no consistent humanitarian standard for Obamaʼs war against Libya. None whatsoever. Obama has now pushed the United States to a place where we are now engaged in three wars simultaneously. [four if you count Pakistan-Chris]

Heʼs a man, and weʼre a country, that has gone crazy on war.''

See URL above for whole article.
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Protecting Libyan Civilians, Not Others
By Robert Parry
March 20, 2011

Even if you think that the incipient Libyan civil war was an unfolding humanitarian tragedy that justified some international intervention, it is hard not to take note of the endless double standards and selective outrage that pervade U.S. foreign policy.

For instance, there’s the parallel hypocrisy in Washington’s tepid reaction to the invasion of Bahrain by military forces from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, supporting a brutal crackdown on prodemocracy demonstrators by Bahrain’s king. Where are the warnings of a muscular Western response in the home port of the U.S. Fifth Fleet?

Indeed, many Washington policymakers and pundits quietly justify the Saudi/UAE military action by noting that the protesters are part of Bahrain’s Shiite majority who might favor closer ties to Shiite-ruled Iran if some form of democracy came to the island kingdom.

Since Iran is considered a U.S. adversary – and because the Sunni-run Persian Gulf sheikdoms provide lots of oil to the West – Realpolitik suddenly takes over. The principles of majority rule and human rights are shoved into the back seat.

Similarly, when Yemen, a key U.S. ally in the “war on terror,” opens fire on pro-democracy protesters, there’s only a little finger-waving, no international clamor for a military intervention.

Of course, this double standard is even more striking when it is Israel killing civilians – such as when it escalated minor border clashes into full-scale assaults against nearby enemies, inflicting heavy civilian losses in Lebanon in 2006 and in Gaza in 2008-09, not to mention Israel’s repeated assaults on Palestinians in the West Bank.

In such cases, U.S. politicians, including then-Sen. Hillary Clinton, endorsed Israel’s acts of “self-defense.” Prominent columnists like the Washington Post’s Charles Krauthammer cheered on the mayhem against the Lebanese and the Palestinians as a justifiable collective punishment for them tolerating Hezbollah and Hamas. . . . .

See URL above for rest of article.
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Afghanistan

When polled, American have repeatedly said they do not think the Afghan War is worth fighting. In polls over the last year, the CNN poll returned numbers in the range of 52 to 63% against the war.

Last week, the House voted on a bill, H CON RES 28, sponsored in part by Dennis Kucinich, to end the war and bring the troops home.

The bill:

On Agreeing to the Resolution
Directing the President, Pursuant to Section 5(C) of the War Powers Resolution, to Remove the United States Armed Forces From Afghanistan.

The war-mongering House of Representatives voted 321 to 93 against bringing the troops home. Our "democracy" produces these undemocratic results all the time on issue after issue where the people feel one way on an important policies but are overruled by their "representatives."
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Protesting What America Has Become: Iraq--Seven Years After

In This Issue:

- Iraq--Seven Years After the Invasion
- Selling Corporate Welfare as Healthcare "reform"
Sirota
Nader
Angell
& Others
(Edited 3/21/10)
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Iraq--Seven Years After the Invasion

Rational & Reasonable Americans Protesting Lead-up to Iraq War in Winter of 2002

On the first day of Spring, I had wanted to do another blog on Baker Birds of the season, but another important commemoration is occurring. Today, all across the country, in places like Portland, OR, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Washington DC, Americans are protesting America's illegal wars and the aggressively homicidal nation we have become. The protests, which began on Thursday, were timed to coincide with Friday's seventh anniversary of the War on Iraq, but also include protests against Obama's war on Afghanistan, Israel's illegal occupation and abuse of Palestinians, and other US inspired military transgressions around the world. Signs carried by protestors reflected familiar popular themes like "Troops Home Now," "War is not the answer," "Healthcare--Not Warfare," "Books--Not Bombs," "End These Wars," "Justice for Palestine," "Jobs, Healthcare, Education--Not War & Occupation."

Ron Kovic (Photo from AnswerLA)
Wheel-chair bound Viet Nam Veteran Ron Kovic, urging people to attend today's protests, said:

“Like many Americans who served in Vietnam and those now serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, and countless human beings throughout history, I had been willing to give my life for my country with little knowledge or awareness of what that really meant. I trusted and believed and had no reason to doubt the sincerity or motives of my government.

“It would not be until many months later at the Veterans Hospital in New York that I would begin to question whether I and the others who had gone to that war had gone for nothing. Nearly 42 years have passed since then and the tragic lessons of Vietnam continue to go unheeded. The same old patterns of war, lies, aggression and brutality continue to repeat themselves. Another country, another occupation, another reason to hate and fear, but in the end it is the same crime being committed over and over again, the same innocent civilians being killed, the same young men and women returning home in caskets and body bags and wheelchairs.

“We can no longer remain silent. Too many have died already. How many more senseless wars, flag draped caskets, grieving mothers, paraplegics, amputees, stressed out sons and daughters, innocent civilians slaughtered, before we finally begin to break the silence of this shameful night?

“Many of us trusted and believed that change would come, that these wars would end, and that finally we would be listened to but that is not at all what has happened. We have been tragically misled. We have been deceived and betrayed. We had been promised peace and we have been given war. We had been told there would be change but nothing is changing. The same patterns repeat themselves. Rather than learning the lessons from the disastrous fiasco in Iraq our government continues down the path of destruction, brutality, aggression and war, dragging us into another senseless and unnecessary conflict in Afghanistan.

“America is headed in the wrong direction, and I want to encourage everyone to join with us on Saturday, March, 20th to once again proudly and passionately fill the streets of our country and raise your voices on behalf of peace and nonviolence and an end to the war in Afghanistan. War is not the answer. Violence is not the solution. A more peaceful world is possible.”

--Ron Kovic, Vietnam Veteran, author, "Born on the Fourth of July"



“Everything for the Rich—Nothing for the People.”

Answer LA, a Los Angeles peace group posted the following on their web page:

The March 20 action recognizes that only the people can end the wars and occupations being carried out by the U.S. or its proxies against the peoples of Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine, the Philippines, Pakistan and elsewhere. Contrary to its “anti-war” image, the Obama administration has called for a major increase in the obscene, trillion-dollar military budget, and the escalation of the war on Afghanistan.

In the United States, millions of people have lost or will lose their homes, jobs and health care due to the economic crisis. Funding for schools, colleges, health care and other programs has been slashed. At the same time, the White House and Congress handed over trillions of dollars to the biggest banks, insurance companies and investors—the same ones who caused the crisis through their wild risk-taking in search of ever-greater profits. Another trillion will go to the military-industrial corporations.

The real motto of the government should be: “Everything for the Rich—Nothing for the People.”

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Thousands march in D.C. war protest
Thousands are protesting in the nation's capital on the seventh anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, carrying signs reading “Indict Bush Now” and flag-draped cardboard coffins.

Protesters gathered at Lafayette Square across from the White House and planned to march through downtown. Stops on the route include military contractor Halliburton, the Mortgage Bankers Association and The Washington Post offices.

The protest, organized by military veterans and activists Ralph Nader and Cindy Sheehan, was expected to draw smaller crowds than the tens of thousands who marched in 2006 and 2007. But organizers say momentum is building as peace protesters have become disenchanted with President Obama's decision to send more troops into Afghanistan.

--Associated Press
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Anti-war protests held near White House
Sat, 20 Mar 2010 18:38:38 GMT
Large crowds of anti-war demonstrators have gathered in the US and several other countries to mark the 7th anniversary of the invasion of Iraq.

In the Washington DC, thousands of people gathered near the White House in the largest demonstration against the extra deployment of US troops to Afghanistan.

The coalition of anti-war groups was led by military veterans as well as high-profile activists such as Ralph Nader and Cindy Sheehan.

Despite promising to withdraw troops from Iraq and Afghanistan during his campaign, US President Barack Obama recently approved the deployment of some 30,000 more troops in Afghanistan.

The move would increase US presence in Afghanistan to more than 100,000 troopers.

Similar rallies were also held in Japan, where around 600 protesters called for the complete withdrawal of US-led troops from Iraq and Afghanistan.

In the Philippines, protesters gathered outside the US embassy in Manila to demand an end to the American occupation of the two war-torn countries.
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Thousands in U.S. protest against war; seek troop withdrawal:

On the seventh anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, thousands of people from across the United States today converged on Lafayette Square, opposite the White House in Washington DC. The rally then marched through downtown DC, halting en route at the premises of military contractor Halliburton, the Mortgage Bankers Association and The Washington Post offices.
Article was later removed from Website.
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Linking War to the Lack of Affordable Health Care

On Thursday, responding to a question from AMY Goodman on Democracy Now! about how the lack ofhealthcare was linked to war, Ralph Nader responded:

Well, just the cost of the war in Afghanistan, which is expanding rapidly, is more cost to the taxpayer than the supposed yearly cost of this health insurance bill that’s about to pass. So that’s just one country. That doesn’t even count Iraq. Joe Stiglitz, Nobel Prize-winning economist, whom you’ve had on the show, estimates the Iraq war to cost $3 trillion.

But how about the human costs? Two countries blown apart, millions of people dying, many millions refugees from their own country—such as Iraq, four million refugees out of 25 million people—more people displaced, more people sick, injured, our soldiers dying, coming back traumatized with illnesses, family split apart. This is madness! And the American people have got to really come together here. Nobody is going to do it for them. Dennis Kucinich is not going to do it for them. Nobody’s going to do it for them. They have got to start marching. And there’s going to be a big rally on Saturday—I hope Dennis will be there—in Washington, DC, in opposition, among other things, to Obama’s war in Afghanistan.

You know, Eisenhower was so prescient when he warned the American people in 1960 about the military-industrial complex. It’s devouring over half of our operating federal budget. The Pentagon budget, which is over half of the federal operating budget in Washington [Nader may have misspoke, but it is around half. - Chris], isn’t even auditable. The General Accounting Office of the Congress every year declares it’s not auditable. You know what that means. That means there’s no control on how the money is spent, and so they’re hiring private contractors, as the New York Times reported, to engage in homicidal activities and military activities, totally unaccountable, in the dark shadows of the war in Afghanistan.
From ProsperityAgenda.US

So the key question, Amy, is, how do we motivate the American people to start acting on what they already believe, that these are wars that are eating at the heart of America and damaging its status all over the world, and that we’ve got to bring those soldiers back home, and we’ve got to shut down these wars, because all they do is fuel the insurgencies, as General Casey and many others have said over the years? Our military occupation in Afghanistan is fuelling the insurgency. It’s producing huge sectarian revenge animosities and killings, and it’s propping up a very corrupt government that is loathed by most of the people in Afghanistan. And all this on the back of the taxpayer, while we don’t have any money to fix the Americans’ public works and all the things that Dennis has talked about. How do you get the American people angry? http://www.democracynow.org/2010/3/18/dennis_kucinich_and_ralph_nader_a

Iraqi Holocaust, Iraqi Genocide

Friday, marking the anniversary of the beginning of the War on Iraq, Dr Gideon Polya posted the following on Countercurrents.org:

In the period 1990-2010 Iraqi violent deaths totalled 1.6 million, non-violent excess deaths from deprivation totalled 2.8 million, under-5 infant deaths (90% avoidable and due to US Alliance war crimes in gross violation of the Geneva Convention) totalled 2.0 million and refugees totalled 5-6 million.

This is an Iraqi Holocaust and an Iraqi Genocide as per Article 2 of the UN Genocide Convention (cf WW2 Jewish Holocaust, 5-6 million killed, 1 in 6 dying from deprivation).

See Also: Iraqi Holocaust, Iraqi Genocide

Iraqi Refugees

Along these same lines, according to Juan Gonzales on Democracy Now!, "Iraq is suffering the worst refugee crisis in the world today. According to the United Nations, more than 4.2 million Iraqis have fled the country, many of them to neighboring Jordan and Syria. Another 1.9 million are internally displaced."

That's 6.1 MILLION people, over one and one half times the population of Oregon or the city of Los Angeles, almost one fourth of the population of Iraq living as refugees due to our illegal war.
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Cost of War in Iraq & Afghanistan
$973,107,799,113
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DN! On Anniversary of US Invasion, Iraq Is No Different Under Obama than Bush:

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Selling Corporate Welfare for "Big Pharma" & Insurance Industry as Healthcare "reform"

The following articles and snippets help explain the hoax of Health Care "Reform," "the best we can get" from our corporate run "free enterprise" system.

Published on Friday, March 19, 2010 by Creators Syndicate
What's the Matter with Democrats?
by David Sirota

Ever since Thomas Frank published his book "What's the Matter With Kansas? " Democrats have sought a political strategy to match the GOP's. The health care bill proves they've found one.

Whereas Frank highlighted Republicans' sleight-of-hand success portraying millionaire tax cuts as gifts to the working class, Democrats are now preposterously selling giveaways to insurance and pharmaceutical executives as a middle-class agenda. Same formula, same fat cat beneficiaries, same bleating sheeple herded to the slaughterhouse. The only difference is the Rube Goldberg contraption that Democrats are using to tend the flock.

First, their leaders campaign on pledges to create a government insurer (a "public option") that will compete with private health corporations. Once elected, though, Democrats propose simply subsidizing those corporations, which are (not coincidentally) filling Democratic coffers. Justifying the reversal, Democrats claim the subsidies will at least help some citizens try to afford the private insurance they'll be forced to buy - all while insisting Congress suddenly lacks the votes for a public option.

Despite lawmakers' refusal to hold votes verifying that assertion, liberal groups obediently follow orders to back the bill, their obsequious leaders fearing scorn from Democratic insiders and moneymen. Specifically, MoveOn, unions and "progressive" non-profits threaten retribution against lawmakers who consider voting against the bill because it doesn't include a public option. The threats fly even though these congresspeople would be respecting their previous public-option ultimatums - ultimatums originally supported by many of the same groups now demanding retreat.

Soon it's on to false choices. Democrats tell their base that any bill is better than no bill, even one making things worse, and that if this particular legislation doesn't pass, Republicans will win the upcoming election - as if signing a blank check to insurance and drug companies couldn't seal that fate. They tell everyone else that "realistically" this is the "last chance" for reform, expecting We the Sheeple to forget that those spewing the do-or-die warnings control the legislative calendar and could immediately try again.

Predictably, the fear-mongering prompts left-leaning Establishment pundits to bless the bill, giving Democratic activists concise-yet-mindless conversation-enders for why everyone should shut up and fall in line ("Krugman supports it!").

Such bumper-sticker mottos are then demagogued by Democratic media bobbleheads and their sycophants, who dishonestly imply that the bill's progressive opponents 1) secretly aim to aid the far right and/or 2) actually hope more Americans die for lack of health care. In the process, the legislation's sellouts are lambasted as the exclusive fault of Republicans, not Democrats and their congressional majorities.

Earth sufficiently scorched, President Obama then barnstorms the country, calling the bill a victory for "ordinary working folks" over the same corporations he is privately promising to enrich. The insurance industry, of course, airs token ads to buttress Obama's "victory" charade - at the same time its lobbyists are, according to Politico, celebrating with chants of "we win!"

By design, pro-public-option outfits like Firedoglake and the Progressive Change Campaign Committee end up depicted as voices of the minority, even as they champion an initiative that polls show the majority of voters support. Meanwhile, telling questions hang: If this represents victory over special interests, why is Politico reporting that "drug industry lobbyists have huddled with Democratic staffers" to help pass the bill? How is the legislation a first step to reform, as proponents argue, if it financially and politically strengthens insurance and drug companies opposing true change? And what prevents those companies from continuing to increase prices?

These queries go unaddressed - and often unasked. Why? Because their answers threaten to expose the robbery in progress, circumvent the "What's the Matter with Kansas?" contemplation and raise the most uncomfortable question of all:

What's the matter with Democrats?

© 2010 Creators Syndicate
David Sirota is a bestselling author whose newest book is "The Uprising ." He is a fellow at the Campaign for America's Future and a board member of the Progressive States Network-both nonpartisan organizations. Sirota was once US Senator Bernie Sanders' spokesperson. His blog is at www.credoaction.com/sirota .

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From Ralph Nader: Basic Progressive Critique of the Dems Health Care "Reform" bill and of Poor Dennis Kucinich.

Summary:
- corporate Democrats crushing progressive forces both inside their party and against third parties
- doesn’t even kick in until 2014, except for one or two items
- 180,000 Americans who will die between now and 2014 before any coverage expands
- does not provide universal, comprehensive or affordable care to the American people
- It shovels hundreds and billions of dollars of taxpayer money into the worst corporations who’ve created this problem
- doesn’t require many contractual accountabilities and other accountabilities for people who are denied healthcare in this continuing pay-or-die system that is the disgrace of the Western world
- It doesn’t require Uncle Sam to negotiate volume discounts
- allows these new biologic drugs, under patent, to fight off generic competition—that’s a terrible provision
- it doesn’t allow reimportation from countries like Canada to keep prices down
- No real Public Option support
- so the American people have got to say, no, this isn’t it . . . . they really have to mobilize now, at the state level, try to get some of the state bills through and demonstrate the effectiveness of full Medicare for all with free choice of doctor and hospital
- There’s all kinds of exploitations that the health insurance companies and drug companies are going to be free to continue their ravenous ways over people who are at their most vulnerable situation
- the system costs twice as much per capita, about $7,600 per capita, than similar—than single-payer systems in Canada and Germany and France. They cover everybody for half the price per capita that we’re paying here, when 50 million people aren’t covered and thousands die every year. Eight hundred die every week, because they can’t afford health insurance to get treatment and diagnosis. And we’ve got hundreds of billions of dollars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
- And let’s say there are more people covered, right? Well, they’re being forced to buy junk insurance policies. There’s no regulation of insurance prices. There’s no regulation of the antitrust laws on this.
- and of course, while not explicitly stated, there's no Single Payer (which Obama did not campaign for)

AMY GOODMAN: We’re joined now by Congress member Dennis Kucinich of Ohio, who will be voting for the healthcare reform bill, and longtime consumer advocate Ralph Nader. Both of them, Ralph Nader and Dennis Kucinich, have run for president of the United States several times.

Ralph Nader, your response to the healthcare reform bill and Congress member Kucinich’s position?

RALPH NADER: Well, this is the latest chapter of corporate Democrats crushing progressive forces both inside their party and against third parties. There’s nothing new here. It’s being pointed out in my former running mate’s autobiography, the late Peter Camejo, which is coming out in a couple weeks from Chicago.

What we’re seeing here is a legislation that doesn’t even kick in until 2014, except for one or two items on staying with your parents’ insurance policy until you’re twenty-six. That means that there will be 180,000 Americans who will die between now and 2014 before any coverage expands, and hundreds of thousands of injuries and illnesses untreated. This bill does not provide universal, comprehensive or affordable care to the American people. It shovels hundreds and billions of dollars of taxpayer money into the worst corporations who’ve created this problem: the Aetnas, the CIGNAs, the health insurance companies. And it doesn’t require many contractual accountabilities and other accountabilities for people who are denied healthcare in this continuing pay-or-die system that is the disgrace of the Western world.

For the drug companies, it’s a bonanza. It doesn’t require Uncle Sam to negotiate volume discounts. It allows these new biologic drugs, under patent, to fight off generic competition—that’s a terrible provision. And it doesn’t allow reimportation from countries like Canada to keep prices down.

Congressman Kucinich’s points are not respected, either. There is no public choice or public option in order to keep prices down, so it’s an open sesame for these giant insurance companies that are concentrating more and more power, in violation of the antitrust laws, over the millions of American patients. And it doesn’t safeguard the states from the kind of litigation that’s heading toward Pennsylvania and California, that are now trying single payer.

So what we should recognize is nothing is really going to happen in this bill, if it’s passed, until 2014, because there’s a gap here, including a presidential campaign and the contest in 2012 and a congressional elections in 2010, for the single-payer supporters in this country. Majority of the American people, majority doctors and nurses, support single payer. They’ve supported Dennis Kucinich all over the country on this. They have supported singlepayeraction.org, which I hope a million people will visit in the next few days in their outrage over what’s happening here.

So I think what we have to do, Amy, is see this as a four-year gap before this bill kicks in and try to get the single payer as a major issue in the 2010 campaign and as a major issue in the 2012 campaign and try to save some of those 180,000 Americans that will die because they cannot afford health insurance to get diagnosed or treated. And that figure comes from Harvard Medical School researchers.

JUAN GONZALEZ: Ralph, I would like to ask you, though, what about the issue that Representative Kucinich raises, that at least if this bill is passed, there will continue to be debates and battles in Congress over reform of it, whereas if it was to be defeated, then the likelihood is that for years down the road there would not be another effort at healthcare reform?

RALPH NADER: I think both—you know, the Democrats are basically saying, if you don’t pass this bill, we won’t have a chance for another ten and fifteen years. And if the bill is passed, they’re going to say, “OK, that’s behind us. We now have to pay attention to all the other issues on our plate.” So the mindset of the Pelosis and the Hoyers, the people who run the House of Representatives, is that this is it for ten or fifteen years.

And the American people have got to say, no, this isn’t it. Now, Dennis is—you know, Dennis is subject to retaliation if he didn’t support this bill in the House of Representatives. And, you know, you have to have empathy with him on that. He’s got a subcommittee. He’s got to live with these corporate Democrats. But the American people are not subject to that kind of retaliation, and they really have to mobilize now, at the state level, try to get some of the state bills through and demonstrate the effectiveness of full Medicare for all with free choice of doctor and hospital. There’s no free choice of doctor and hospital under this. There’s all kinds of exploitations that the health insurance companies and drug companies are going to be free to continue their ravenous ways over people who are at their most vulnerable situation, when they’re sick and injured. So, you know, we really have to look at this—

RALPH NADER: Imagine, the system costs twice as much per capita, about $7,600 per capita, than similar—than single-payer systems in Canada and Germany and France. They cover everybody for half the price per capita that we’re paying here, when 50 million people aren’t covered and thousands die every year. Eight hundred die every week, because they can’t afford health insurance to get treatment and diagnosis. And we’ve got—

AMY GOODMAN: Ralph Nader, what about the fact that—

RALPH NADER: —hundreds of billions of dollars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

AMY GOODMAN: What about the—

RALPH NADER: Really, it’s time for the American people to get upset.

AMY GOODMAN: Ralph Nader, what about the fact that thirty more million people will be covered under this, no matter how much you feel it is lacking, under this healthcare reform bill?

RALPH NADER: First of all, that won’t even begin until 2014, 180,000 dead Americans later. Second, there’s no guarantee of that. The insurance companies can game this system. The 2,500 pages is full of opportunities and ambiguities for the insurance companies to game the system and to make it even worse.

And let’s say there are more people covered, right? Well, they’re being forced to buy junk insurance policies. There’s no regulation of insurance prices. There’s no regulation of the antitrust laws on this. Everything went down that Dennis was fighting for. There’s no regulation that prevents the insurance companies from taking this papier-mâché bill and lighting a fire to it and making a mockery of it. There’s no shift of power. There’s no facility to create a national consumer health organization, which we proposed and the Democrats ignored years ago, in order to give people a voice so they can have their own non-profit consumer lobby on Washington.

Best Kucinich Defense:

REP. DENNIS KUCINICH: If I can respond, what I’d like to say is this—if I may respond, you know, I think that with three years left in the Obama presidency, we have to continue to encourage him, but we’ve got to be careful that we don’t play into those who want to destroy his presidency and say—you know, the birthers and others who say that, you know, he should have never been president to begin with. This is—you know, there is a tension that exists, and I’ve—you know, I’ve been very critical of the administration on the war, on the so-called cap and trade, and on a whole range of other issues. But at the same time, we have to be just very careful about how much we attack this president, even as we disagree with him. We have to be careful about that, because we may play into those who just want to destroy his presidency.

And he’s—you know, like it or not, he’s the president, he’s what we have, and I’m going to continue whatever I can do, just as one person, to try to keep trying to influence a different direction. But, you know, it’s not easy. He’s made his position different than, you know, what many of us would go along with.

See DN! Video Above
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Moyers Talks to Dr. Marcia Angell About Health Care Reform

March 5, 2010
BILL MOYERS: Welcome to the Journal.
. . . .
BILL MOYERS: So, has President Obama been fighting as hard as you wished?

MARCIA ANGELL: Fighting for the wrong things and too little, too late. He gave away the store at the very beginning by compromising. Not just compromising, but caving in to the commercial insurance industry and the pharmaceutical industry. And then he stood back for months while the thing just fell apart. Now he's fighting, but he's fighting for something that shouldn't pass. Won't pass and shouldn't pass.

What this bill does is not only permit the commercial insurance industry to remain in place, but it actually expands and cements their position as the lynchpin of health care reform. And these companies they profit by denying health care, not providing health care. And they will be able to charge whatever they like. So if they're regulated in some way and it cuts into their profits, all they have to do is just raise their premiums. And they'll do that.

Not only does it keep them in place, but it pours about 500 billion dollars of public money into these companies over 10 years. And it mandates that people buy these companies' products for whatever they charge. Now that's a recipe for the growth in health care costs, not only to continue, but to skyrocket, to grow even faster.

BILL MOYERS: But given that, why have the insurance companies, health insurance companies been fighting reform so hard?

MARCIA ANGELL: Oh, they haven't fought it very hard, Bill. They really haven't fought it very hard. What they're fighting for is the individual mandate. And if they get that mandate, if everyone does have to buy their commercial products, then they're going to be extremely happy with it.

BILL MOYERS: But this is all about politics now. It's not about pure health care reform. So given that reality, what would you have the President do?

MARCIA ANGELL: Well, I think you really do have to separate the policy analysis from the political analysis and I'm looking at it as policy. And it fails as policy. Moreover, a lot of people say, "Let's hold our nose and pass it, because it's a step in the right direction." And I say it's a step in the wrong direction.

You're right. Politics is different and there are a lot of people who say, "Look, it's a terrible bill. Even a step in the wrong direction as policy goes. But we need to get Obama elected again and we need to continue with the Democratic majority in Congress. And so we need to give Obama and the Democrats a win. If we don't, the Republicans will come in and take over Congress in the fall, and then the White House in 2012. But the problem with a political analysis is sometimes you're right and sometimes you're wrong. And Democrats and particularly liberals have a history of outsmarting themselves.

And I'm not so sure that if this bill goes down, it's going to make it any harder for them politically. So I think it's difficult times for the President and for the Democrats. But if you look at it as a matter of policy, the President's absolutely right that the status quo is awful. If we do nothing, costs will continue to go up. People will continue to lose their coverage. Employers are dropping health benefits. Things will get very bad. The issue is will this bill make them better or worse? And I believe it will make it worse.

( See title link for rest of article)

From Wikipedia: Marcia Angell, M.D. (born 1939) is an American physician, author, and the first woman to serve as editor-in-chief of the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM). She currently is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School in Boston, Massachusetts.[1]. Dr. Angell is the author of The Truth About the Drug Companies: How They Deceive Us and What to Do About It
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Other Views:

Zero Public Option + One Mandate = Disaster
by Norman Solomon

Segment:

For many, the available coverage would be bottom-of-the-barrel quality -- and even then, given thin personal finances, would cause added strains to pay for premiums. In the absence of public-option health insurance run for purposes other than maximizing profits, the built-in unfairness of an individual mandate becomes magnified.

What's more, the very concept of healthcare as a human right will be fundamentally undermined by placing the health-insurance burden on individuals. Many who receive government subsidies will routinely struggle to make ends meet, while making do with shoddy health plans as part of a new configuration of healthcare apartheid. And, inevitably, the extent of government subsidies will be vulnerable to attacks from politicians eager to cut "entitlements."

On a political level, the mandate provision is a massive gift to the Republican Party, all set to keep on giving to the right wing for many years. With a highly intrusive requirement that personal funds and government subsidies be paid to private corporations, the law would further empower right-wing populists who want to pose as foes of government "elites" bent on enriching Wall Street.

With this turn of the "healthcare reform" screw, the Democratic Party will be cast -- with strong evidence -- as a powerful tool of corporate America. But the Democrats on Capitol Hill and the organizations eagerly whipping for passage are determined to celebrate the enactment of something called "healthcare reform."
*****

"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, "it means just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor less."

"The question is," Alice replied, "whether you can make words mean so many different things."

"The question is," Humpty Dumpty responded, "which is to be master -- that's all."

Many well-informed and insightful people are now hoping that the current healthcare bill will become law and then lead to something better. But few backers want to dwell on its requirement that everyone get health coverage from the private insurance industry -- a stunning, deeply structural transfer of humongous power and wealth that would greatly boost the leverage of an already autocratic corporate state.

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NY Times Reporter Confirms Obama Made Deal to Kill Public Option
Miles Mogulescu
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My Congressman, Bart Stupak, Has Neither a Uterus Nor a Brain
by Michael Moore
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This one, by a gifted "salt of the earth" writer, challenged me, as I too, after giving meager sums to Ralph Nader in the last Presidential election, flip-flopped at the last minute to vote for Obama out of fear that McCain would win. Previously, I had been excoriated for voting for Ralph Nader in the contest that the conservative Supreme Court gave to George W. Bush over Al Gore, even though my vote in Oregon did not affect the outcome. (At this point, I do not know if militarist McCain would have been worse.) I only add this because as humans we are sometimes emotionally and intellectually frail, and Dennis Kucinich has demonstrated that even the most progressive among us are subject to choosing between the worst of choices. I cannot say what I would have done had I been in his position.

Everybody Knows The Deal Is Rotten
by Christopher Cooper
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Lest anyone think I support the Republicans or Tea Party folks on health care--I don't. Here is the Republican Plan:

Republican Back-up Health Care Plan: Die Quickly





Rational & Reasonable Americans Protesting Lead-up to Iraq War in Winter of 2002

"Are you feeling like a chump yet?"

A few items on Obama and Heath Care
[Edited, 2 links added, 12/24/09]

Below are interesting links on Obama's behavior with regard to getting real reform for Americans who have looked for actual progress and solutions to their financially burdensome and disaster provoking health care dilemma. (Do I blame the wellspring for much of the anti-health care sentiment on the Republican leadership and the likes of Fox News? Of course I do! But they were not elected on a platform that promised real reform. Obama wasted the political capital he was given by a vast majority of the American people and frankly, he lied to us.)

On Wednesday, Obama told NPR that:
"This notion I know among some on the left that somehow this bill is not everything that it should be ... I think just ignores the real human reality that this will help millions of people and end up being the most significant piece of domestic legislation at least since Medicare and maybe since Social Security," (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=121783002) but many are questioning his spin on the health care/insurance "reform" that is presently before congress. No one really knows what the Senate-House reconciliation will produce, but it is not likely to meet the hopes of many of his supporters, or his own promises, during the '08 election campaign and after he became President.

The first link below, from July of this year, shows Obama saying that any plan he signs "must include . . . a public option to increase competition and keep insurance companies honest." He also reaffirmed his opposition to any mandate requiring everyone to purchase insurance, whether they can afford to or not: "If a mandate was the solution we could try that to solve homelessness by mandating everyone to buy a house--the reason they don't have a house is that they don't have the money." It points out that 59 % support a public option, and that only 33 % support a mandate to purchase insurance.

You can watch the video whether you contribute to the cause or not (No Mandate!)--Must See: https://secure.actblue.com/contribute/page/obamapromise?refcode=sbjt_prom
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Obama rejected mandates during his campaign

Obama also rejected mandates in the January 21, 2008 Democratic Presidential candidates debate, using the notion of promoting mandating the purchase of insurance against Hillary Clinton and John Edwards. He also indicated support for an open process, enlisting the American people in the process, and opposition to secret, "behind-closed-doors" deals with insurance and drug companies, deals that he ultimately made with drug companies and others after he became President. He also said that we need to be "very clear about who is carrying water for the drug companies and the insurance companies and who is looking out for the families who are struggling. . ." So who now is carrying water for the insurance and drug companies? Watch:


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Aother article from the Washington Independent:

Obama: Health Reform Bills Not Compromised ‘in Any Significant Way’
By MIKE LILLIS 12/22/09 3:16 PM
http://washingtonindependent.com/71769/obama-health-reform-bill-not-compromised-in-any-significant-way

Liberals might be grumbling about the concessions needed to pass health care reform this year, but President Obama has no regrets. In an interview with The Washington Post Tuesday, Obama said he’s “very enthusiastic” about the reforms contained in the Senate bill, which, he added, accomplishes “95 percent” of his campaign goals.

In listing those priorities, Obama cited the 30 million uninsured Americans projected to receive coverage, budget estimates of more than $1 trillion in savings over the next two decades, a “patients’ bill of rights on steroids” to protect consumers from being dropped by insurance companies, and tax breaks to help small businesses pay to cover employees. [...]

“We don’t feel that the core elements to help the American people have been compromised in any significant way,” Obama said. “Do these pieces of legislation have exactly everything I want? Of course not. But they have the things that are necessary to reduce costs for businesses, families and the government.”

In a curious claim, Obama also told the Post that the public option “has become a source of ideological contention between the left and right,” but added, “I didn’t campaign on the public option.”

That’s curious because he did campaign on the public option. It’s here, in “Barack Obama’s Plan for a Healthy America:”

Specifically, the Obama plan will: (1) establish a new public insurance program available to Americans who neither qualify for Medicaid or SCHIP nor have access to insurance through their employers, as well as to small businesses that want to offer insurance to their employees.

Easier said than done.
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And then there's this one:

Healthcare FLASHBACKS (VIDEO)

Huffington Post
First Posted: 08- 9-09 12:30 AM | Updated: 09- 8-09 05:12 AM
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/08/09/flashback-obama-promises_n_254833.html



Oh my! But guess what--the White House lobbied against North Dakota Senator Byron Dorgan's amendment which would have allowed safe, less expensive drug imports from other countries. Obama said "We'll allow the safe re-importation of low-cost drugs from countries like Canada" during his campaign, but his White House lobbied against Dorgan's bill, and it failed without a whimper from Obama.

See:

The Senate Health Care Bill: Leave No Special Interest Behind

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/politics/sns-200912231659tmsahuffcoltq--m-a20091223dec23,0,6309565.story

See also:

Study Reveals “Revolving Door” Between Capitol Hill Staffers and Healthcare Lobbyists

http://www.democracynow.org/2009/12/22/study_revolving_door_between_capitol_hill
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Obama Double-Crossed Progressives on Health Care

By Matthew Rothschild
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article24254.htm
From: http://www.progressive.org/wx122309.html

December 23, 2009 "The Progressive" -- - Are you feeling like a chump yet?

If you're a good progressive, and you wanted single-payer health care for all, or, second best, Medicare for All Who Want It, or third best, a robust public option, or fourth best, a paltry public option, now you've got nothing, nada, zippo.

Has it ever crossed your mind that this is the way President Obama wanted it to be?

That he tossed in the public option at the beginning only to get progressives on board, knowing full well that he was going to jettison the public option by the end?

Have you considered that maybe Max Baucus wasn't the problem?

And that maybe Olympia Snowe wasn't the problem?

And that maybe even hideous Joe Lieberman wasn't the problem?

But that Obama himself was the problem?

After all, Obama never once said he wouldn't sign a health care bill that didn't have a public option in it. [Well, Mr. Rothschild, he did in fact say that--see the ActBlue link above--Obama Promised! https://secure.actblue.com/contribute/page/obamapromise?refcode=sbjt_prom]

After all, Obama dumped on the public option at almost every opportunity, calling it just a "sliver" of the overall package, and not the most important sliver at that.

After all, Obama's chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, was huddling regularly with Max Baucus when the Montana Senator squashed the public option the first time.

And after all, Obama didn't even ask Lieberman to back the public option.

Seems to me that Obama played us all for fools.

His discussion of the public option was a cynical charade from the start, and now he expects all good progressives to rally around this "historic" health care bill?

Forget about it.

The most historic thing about Obama's health care bill is the double-cross he dealt progressives.

Matthew Rothschild is the editor of The Progressive magazine.
© 2009 The Progressive
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This could go on and on . . . . But lastly, two items from BBC:

BBC World News - US Congressman DENNIS KUCINICH on healthcare reform 1300g 24Dec09



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BBCNews
Obama's bonanza for lobbyists
US President Barack Obama's decision to leave Congress to flesh out his healthcare plans has provided rich pickings for lobbyists on Capitol Hill, as The Report's Simon Cox discovered.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/world/americas/obama_healthcare/8270958.stm

As any viewer of the long-running but now ended US political drama The West Wing could tell you, lobbyists are almost part of the fixtures and fittings on Capitol Hill.

Back on the campaign trail in 2008, Barack Obama announced that he was "the only candidate who isn't taking a dime from Washington lobbyists".

But leading lobbyist John Jonas argues that today, the way the President has chosen to present his healthcare reforms has created a bonanza for the industry.

"That's kind of one of those curious things the way the world works out. Obama has made a lot of noise about his dislike for lobbyists, raised a lot of concerns about their negative influence on the process," said Mr Jonas.

"Former president Bill Clinton did not have those concerns, but interestingly, by leaving the process to Congress by not being prescriptive in the way Mr Clinton was, President Obama has really allowed lobbyists to have much influence on the process because it hasn't come in a pre-packaged form.

“ In the US lobbying is a great sport. The insurance industry is once again triumphing over the public interest ”
Congressman Dennis Kucinich
"It has been developed in a variety of different committees and so we've had a much more porous process."

Lobbyists trying to influence the reforms have focused their efforts on winning the argument about the economic cost.

Washington has been awash with dollars spent on lobbying, with an estimated $250m (£156m) spent in the last six months alone. Tales circulate of several lobbyists vying for the attention of a single senator or congressman as they make their way to vote.

'Gucci Gulch''

As someone firmly on the left of the Democratic Party and strongly pro-health reform, Congressman Dennis Kucinich is unlikely to be on any lobbyist's list.

He put forward his own failed bill, which would have introduced a US version of the British National Health System in America.

As a long-time advocate of the controversial so-called public option - a government insurance plan that would compete with private insurers - Congressman Kucinich has watched lobbyists' attempts to influence Mr Obama's healthcare reform with growing alarm.

HEALTHCARE IN THE US
46 million uninsured, 25 million under-insured
Healthcare costs represent 16% of GDP, almost twice OECD average
Reform plans would require all Americans to get insurance
Some propose public option to compete with private insurers
"In the US, lobbying is a great sport. The current bill before Congress is called HR 3200 - I explain to people how that got its bill number: 3200 is the number of lobbyists who are promoting the interests of the private insurance companies," he said.

"We have an area where people move through to try to go to vote, an open space called Gucci Gulch, where all the people with their $2,000 suits and their Gucci shoes gathered to importune members of Congress, and frankly the lobbyists have been successful.

"The insurance industry is once again triumphing over the public interest.

"They have moved mightily to forestall a very weak so-called 'public option' that would give people who could not find private insurance an opportunity to find any kind of insurance, and they are aggressively knocking down each and any effort towards substantive economic reform."

Influence

So who are these Machiavellian figures who prowl "Gucci Gulch" looking to buttonhole senators and congressmen?

Nick Allard, who formerly worked for the late Senator Ted Kennedy before joining advocacy firm Patton Boggs, rejects this stereotyped view of his industry.

"That expression plays into the popular image of influence peddlars, and cigar-chewing people who get results and influence with money," he says.

“ The dirty little secret about our government is that it can't be bought, it can't even be rented for a little while ”
Nick Allard, lobbyist
"Really the way you get things done is kind of boring and embarrassing, but it is by rolling up your sleeves and making a good case on the merits."

But, as I stood with him on the spot which Dennis Kucinich called the Gucci Gulch, he admitted he will make last-minute attempts to catch a Congressman before a final vote.

"At the final stages of legislation where things are really stacked up the only chance to get them is here," he says.

Some $250m (£156m) have been spent by lobbying firms in the past six months but Nick Allard denies that this money has bought undue influence:

"The dirty little secret about our government is that it can't be bought, it can't even be rented for a little while. There are exceptions of course, but by and large money doesn't buy results," he told me.

"If it was that easy you wouldn't need to hire expert advocates."

President Obama hoped to have his plans ready by summer but he will be lucky to have one by the end of the year. Whatever the outcome, it appears the lobbyists win either way.

You can listen to The Report via the BBC

or download the
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/world/americas/obama_healthcare/8270958.stm

Published: 2009/10/01 09:01:53 GMT

© BBC MMIX
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I'm so tired of being a chump for the Democratic establishment!

So . . . I signed up with Oregon's new Progressive Party (hoping not to be a chump for them). At least they support "Every American will have access to guaranteed quality health care, regardless of their financial means," although I probably wouldn't be able to support some of their positions on mass immigration.

Oregon Progressive Party:
http://progparty.net/
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