"Over the past seven years, the amount needed for retiree health care costs has jumped $80,000 or 50 percent from $160,000 in 2002."

We need single-payer.

BOSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--A 65-year-old couple retiring in 2009 will need approximately $240,000 to cover medical expenses in retirement even with Medicare insurance coverage, according to Fidelity Investments’ latest health care cost estimate. This figure is a 6.7 percent increase over the 2008 estimate of $225,000.


Fidelity Investments has calculated an annual retiree health care cost estimate since 2002. For many Americans, health care is likely to be their largest expense in retirement. Over the past seven years, the amount needed for retiree health care costs has jumped $80,000 or 50 percent from $160,000 in 2002. [source]

Senator Franken!

He has already declared that he will be willing to compromise. Ugh.

Update:

Here's Franken on single-payer:

A single-payer system would be the most effective in terms of reducing administrative costs, and I would be thrilled to support such a system. But I believe that today’s political environment requires a creative and flexible approach to covering every American.

The compromising he spoke of yesterday at his press conference has already begun.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, Ignoreland, yeah, yeah, yeah, Ignoreland

"We hate our government. And we have really hated them off and on, mostly on, for a long, long time." - Michael Stipe
bmaz (via Emptywheel):

The facts are incontrovertible, the United States instituted a designed and dedicated regime of brutal torture in contravention of national and international norms. The American Executive branch under George W. Bush and Richard B. Cheney created a bureaucracy of lawyers, doctors, soldiers and spies to build and execute the regime that led to detainees being waterboarded serially 183 times in one month, a crime the US has historically prosecuted as a war crime in conflict situations and as a domestic crime at home. Others we have tortured and then left to die....

[...]

So, what do we do about the criminal, immoral and depraved acts officials of the US government have conducted in our name? Clearly Bush and Cheney had no interest in accountability for their crimes of torture. But now President Barack Obama, who sold the electorate that he was the man to bring change and accountability, has shown himself to be more of the same. He truly desires to walk the other way and not address the wrongs committed against our nation, Constitution and fiber of existence. And, as Glenn Greenwald adroitly points out, President Obama even wants to raise the ante on indefinite detention without charges. How should we deal with that?

What do you say to citizens who say we cannot have accountability, cannot address what has been done in our name because now is:

...not the time to let fly the dogs of revenge. With all the pressing issues facing this country and the world right now, tearing the country apart would be a terrible thing to do. Iran, North Korea, the Middle East, Health Care, Energy, the deficit, imigration, etc. It would be insane to do so.

The Founders gave us the answer to that conundrum. You follow the Rule of Law. You uphold the Constitution, what it stands for, and honor every drop of blood spilled since the Revolution to establish and defend it. You honor your oath to office. You do the right thing and have accountability on the merits. That is what you do, and it is time for a concerted effort from the grassroots to demand just that. To paraphrase Ben Franklin, those who would give up the essential Rule of Law for temporary security and political gain, deserve neither.

Remove Obama Torture Lawyers from Office

A no-brainer. Visit velvetrevolution.us.

"Venture capitalists currently describe organic processing as 'fragmented.'"

Fun facts:

Most acquisitions of organic processors occurred between December, 1997 when the draft USDA standard was released, and its full implementation in October, 2002. Few companies identify these ownership ties on product labels.

Cargill's strategic alliances with French Meadow and Hain Celestial are to develop products with nutritionally enhanced organic ingredients such as phytosterols, soy isoflavones, trehalose, inulin, and chondroitin.

Most introductions of organic versions of well-known brands occurred after the USDA standard was implemented in October, 2002. Some, such as Dove Organic, have been developed specifically for Wal-Mart.

They are acquiring brands within the same sector (bread, meat, etc.) with plans to sell them for significant gain at a later date.

More fun facts.

Democrats, like Republicans, have excelled at "giving the moguls everything they wanted."

Thousands of educators in California are about to be furloughed or take pay cuts because politicians care less about higher education than the welfare of corporations. Corporations don't make an economy strong and prosperous, teachers and an educated workforce do.

Robert Sheer:

California couldn't get the White House to guarantee $5.5 billion in short-term notes to avert severe cuts in state and local payrolls, from prison guards to schoolteachers. Compare that with the $50 billion already given to Citigroup, plus an astounding $300 billion to guarantee that institution's toxic assets. Citigroup benefits from being a bank "too big to fail," although through its irresponsible actions to get that large it did as much as any company to cause this mess.

[...]

Citigroup, the prime mover for ending the sensible restraints of the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933, is now a pathetic ward of the state. But back in the day President Clinton would tour the country with Citigroup founder Sandy Weill touting the wonderful work that Weill and other moguls were doing to invest in economically depressed communities. It wasn't really happening then, and now millions of folks in those communities have seen their houses snatched from them as if they were just pieces in a game of Monopoly that Clinton and his fat-cat buddy were playing.

[...]

Why was I so naive as to have expected this Democratic president to not do the bidding of the banks when the last president from that party joined the Republicans in giving the moguls everything they wanted? Please, Obama, prove me wrong.

Klein: Boycott Apartheid-Israel

[source]

Author Naomi Klein calls for boycott of Israel

BILIN , West Bank (AFP) — Bestselling author Naomi Klein on Friday took her call for a boycott of Israel to the occupied West Bank village of Bilin, where she witnessed Israeli forces clashing with protesters.

"It's a boycott of Israeli institutions, it's a boycott of the Israeli economy," the Canadian writer told journalists as she joined a weekly demonstration against Israel's controversial separation wall.

"Boycott is a tactic ... we're trying to create a dynamic which was the dynamic that ultimately ended apartheid in South Africa," said Klein, the author of "The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism."

"It's an extraordinarily important part of Israel's identity to be able to have the illusion of Western normalcy," the Canadian writer and activist said.

"When that is threatened, when the rock concerts don't come, when the symphonies don't come, when a film you really want to see doesn't play at the Jerusalem film festival... then it starts to threaten the very idea of what the Israeli state is."

In January she wrote:

It's time. Long past time. The best strategy to end the increasingly bloody occupation is for Israel to become the target of the kind of global movement that put an end to apartheid in South Africa. In July 2005 a huge coalition of Palestinian groups laid out plans to do just that. They called on "people of conscience all over the world to impose broad boycotts and implement divestment initiatives against Israel similar to those applied to South Africa in the apartheid era". The campaign Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions was born.

Every day that Israel pounds Gaza brings more converts to the BDS cause - even among Israeli Jews. In the midst of the assault roughly 500 Israelis, dozens of them well-known artists and scholars, sent a letter to foreign ambassadors in Israel. It calls for "the adoption of immediate restrictive measures and sanctions" and draws a clear parallel with the anti-apartheid struggle. "The boycott on South Africa was effective, but Israel is handled with kid gloves ... This international backing must stop."

Obama the Tyrant

Glenn Greenwald:

There has now emerged a very clear -- and very disturbing -- pattern whereby Obama is willing to use legal mechanisms and recognize the authority of other branches only if he's assured that he'll get the outcome he wants. If he can't get what he wants from those processes, he'll just assert Bush-like unilateral powers to bypass those processes and do what he wants anyway.

...no matter the form it takes, and no matter which route is used to implement it (act of Congress or executive order), indefinite detention without charges is a repugnant and tyrannical power.

Scott Horton:

It is common for people today to question how any leader can be a tyrant who achieves office through popular election, and, indeed, who remains popular. But such talk is foolish and betrays an ignorance of the origins of the term and the historical context of its use. Throughout history, tyrants came to power through means of control and manipulation of popular opinion. This was so familiar a feature to the thinkers of antiquity, that Aristotle charts it as a characteristic of the tyrant. And in the history of the dark, past century, how many little men in search of a balcony came to power on the back of a jubilant and cheering mob? And indeed, no less a man that Thomas Jefferson was quick to remind his fellow citizens of this principle. [...] Jefferson spoke sharply and loudly because the republic was under siege by a popularly elected (and popular) government. He was right to have done so, and he is vindicated by history for it.

Wash Your Hands of Obama

[source]

WaPo (via TPM):

The Obama administration, fearing a battle with Congress that could stall plans to close Guantanamo, has drafted an executive order that would reassert presidential authority to incarcerate terrorism suspects indefinitely, according to three senior government officials with knowledge of White House deliberations.

Such an order would embrace claims by former president George W. Bush that certain people can be detained without trial for long periods under the laws of war. Obama advisers are concerned that bypassing Congress could place the president on weaker footing before the courts and anger key supporters, the officials said.

Dennis K.: Uncompromising Sanity in a Sea of Democratic Shit

Raw Story:

Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), who is widely known as an advocate for the environment and for clean energy, announced on Friday that he had voted against the climate change legislation passed earlier that day by the House of Representatives.

“I oppose H.R. 2454, the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009,” Kucinich stated in a press release. “The reason is simple. It won’t address the problem. In fact, it might make the problem worse.”

“It sets targets that are too weak, especially in the short term, and sets about meeting those targets through Enron-style accounting methods,” he continued. “It gives new life to one of the primary sources of the problem that should be on its way out — coal — by giving it record subsidies.”

"To support such a bill is to abandon the real leadership that is called for at this pivotal moment in history. We simply no longer have the time for legislation this weak." — Daniel Kessler, spokesman for Greenpeace.

Extinction is among the most serious effects of global warming, and it is absolutely irreversible. If global warming is not soon controlled, up to a third of the Earth’s plants and animals could be committed to extinction by 2050. Numerous species have already gone extinct due to our current level of warming, and many others, including the polar bear, walrus, Arctic seals, Antarctic penguins, American pika, elkhorn coral, staghorn coral, and black abalone, are already on a global warming-induced extinction trajectory. Polar bears are already declining, and Arctic sea-ice extent has shrunk to the lowest levels ever recorded due to current greenhouse pollution levels. To allow greenhouse gas levels to increase further, as the American Clean Energy and Security Act will, is a death sentence for the polar bear and thousands of other species.

The difference between the specific needs of endangered species and the arbitrarily established greenhouse gas reduction targets of the bill are a good example of why we need a greenhouse bill that works with, and builds upon, the scientific standards of existing laws rather than replacing them with politically negotiated targets. - Center for Biological Diversity

Corporate polluters including Shell and Duke Energy helped write this bill, and the result is that we're left with legislation that fails to come anywhere close to solving the climate crisis. Worse, the bill eliminates preexisting EPA authority to address global warming-that means it's actually a step backward.

Last November, the American people voted for change. Unfortunately, while the party in power may have changed, the process through which this bill was negotiated makes it clear that the overwhelming influence of corporate special interests has not. This exercise in politics as usual is a wholly unacceptable response to one of the greatest challenges of our time, and it endangers the welfare of current and future generations. ... If the ‘political reality' at present cannot accommodate stronger legislation, their first task must be to expand what is politically possible-not to pass a counterproductive bill. - Friends of the Earth

"We must make Obama do the right things."

It has become clear that we must drag this civility-first President, this reluctant liberal, who is loath to upset the Washington applecart, kicking and screaming to a better place on many, many issues.

Robert Reich:

Someone recently approached me at the cheese counter of a local supermarket, asking "what can I do?" At first I thought the person was seeking advice about a choice of cheese. But I soon realized the question was larger than that. It was: what can I do about the way things are going in Washington?

People who voted for Barack Obama tend to fall into one of two camps: Trusters, who believe he's a good man with the right values and he's doing everything he can; and cynics, who have become disillusioned with his bailouts of Wall Street, flimsy proposals for taming the Street, willingness to give away 85 percent of cap-and-trade pollution permits, seeming reversals on eavesdropping and torture, and squishiness on a public option for health care.

In my view, both positions are wrong. A new president -- even one as talented and well-motivated as Obama -- can't get a thing done in Washington unless the public is actively behind him. As FDR said in the reelection campaign of 1936 when a lady insisted that if she were to vote for him he must commit to a long list of objectives, "Maam, I want to do those things, but you must make me."

We must make Obama do the right things. Email, write, and phone the White House. Do the same with your members of Congress. Round up others to do so. Also: Find friends and family members in red states who agree with you, and get them fired up to do the same. For example, if you happen to have a good friend or family member in Montana, you might ask him or her to write Max Baucus and tell him they want a public option included in any healthcare bill.

Silence = Complicity!

"The American Clean Energy and Security Act cannot achieve its goal of preventing catastrophic runaway global warming."

Mother Jones:

Emission Reductions
The Good
Would cut and offset emissions by as much as 17 percent below 1990 levels by 2020
The Bad
Watered down from original goal of 19 percent
The Ugly
Scientists say a 25 to 40 percent cut is needed to avert catastrophic climate change.

Efficient and Renewable Energy
The Good
Requires states to generate 20 percent of their electricity from renewable sources and energy efficiency improvements by 2020
The Bad
Watered down from original goal of 40 percent by 2025
The Ugly
Because the requirement would supersede stricter laws in states such as California, the US Energy Information Administration estimates that it might have the overall effect of hampering clean energy production.

Coal Power
The Good
Requires new coal plants built after 2009 to capture 50 percent of their carbon emissions
The Bad
The requirement doesn’t go into effect until 2025
The Ugly
Strips the EPA of its authority under the Clean Air Act to regulate CO2 emissions from new and existing coal plants

Cap and Trade
The Good
Ambitiously caps emissions at 68 percent below 1990 levels by 2050 by creating a market in tradable emissions permits
The Bad
By 2020, the cap will have cut emissions by only 4 percent
The Ugly
Only 15 percent of the tradable emissions permits will be auctioned off by the government; the bill hands out another 50 percent of the permits to the fossil fuel industry for free.

Offsets
The Good
Emission reduction projects funded through carbon offsets must be verifiable, permanent, and “additional,” meaning that the projects would not have occurred on their own.
The Bad
If US polluters use all of the offsets allowed under the bill—equivalent to 2 billion tons of CO2 per year—they won’t have to start cutting their own emissions until around 2025.
The Ugly
Despite similar regulation of offsets under the Kyoto Protocol, a 2008 analysis from Stanford found that between one-third and two-thirds of the projects did nothing to counteract carbon emissions.

The Waxman enviro bill, the American Clean Energy and Security Act, is full of compromises, including lots of money for "clean" coal (there is no such thing as "clean" coal). Compromise is NOT good enough. Visit the Center for Biological Diversity and take action to demand REAL solutions.

CBD: Unfortunately, as originally introduced, the bill fails all five criteria for solving the global warming crisis. Further, since introduction, the bill has been steadily weakened in an attempt to garner support from industry groups. The bill must be substantially improved if it is to meet its aim of solving the climate crisis.

BO WEBB: Well, I’m happy that Congressman Waxman has introduced such a bill, but the bill is weak. It’s a weak bill. In that bill, they’re proposing to give the coal industry—I believe it’s somewhere around $10 billion to do research on clean coal. If you can’t mine it clean, it’s not clean. And these giant sludge dams that they put above our community ... they’re loaded with cadmium and lead and arsenic and mercury and heavy metals and chemicals from the coal-cleaning process. Those get stored above us. This stuff, where does it go? There’s no [such] thing. There’s no vaporizer. There’s no such thing as clean coal, and there’s no such thing as carbon-free coal, because if you took all the carbon out, then there would be nothing left to burn.

What does compromise bring? It brings floating garbage twice the size of Texas.

It brought us the Glen Canyon Dam. We don't need any more compromise.

"The American political game is played, as we all know, with the word compromise."

Compromise means one thing: caving to the corporate interests. All you have to do is look around you to see what that has gotten us.

Civil Rights Eamark Under Fire

The Hill:

Freshman Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.) is defending an earmark request slated for a Florida civil rights group even as Republicans turn up the heat, insisting the group has close ties to the freshman Democrat.

An earmark for a civil rights group run by a black man? It's a scandal!

CQ:

"The average white House Democrat got twice as much money for special projects this year as the average black Democrat, by one measure. By another, white Democrats came out on top by a 5-3 ratio. White Democrats also did better than Hispanics in netting earmarked dollars."

You know what to do, Alan! Get on the Appropriations Committee and start dishing out the earmarks to your more deserving colleagues.

Another Republican "Family" Man bites the dust...

"I love liberty" - Mark Sanford

[source]

[source]

[source]

I could digress and say that you have the ability to give magnificent gentle kisses, or that I love your tan lines or that I love the curve of your hips, the erotic beauty of you holding yourself (or two magnificent parts of yourself) in the faded glow of the night's light... - Mark Sanford

Here are his "thoughts" on evolution:

The idea of there being a, you know, a little mud hole and two mosquitoes get together and the next thing you know you have a human being is completely at odds with, you know, one of the laws of thermodynamics which is the law of, of ... in essence, destruction.

Togetherness and destruction? I think he's on to something!

Here he is answering a question about his religious views:

Q. When it’s convenient, many politicians say they can’t bring their own religious views to bear on important issues because they represent all the people. What’s your view?

A. I don’t agree with that. What people are sick of is that no one will make a stand. The bottom line in politics is, I think, at the end of the day to be effective in standing for both the convictions that drove you into office and the principles that you outlined in running. And that is not restrained to simply the world of Caesar, it applies to what you think is right and wrong and every thing in between. Now we all get nervous about the people who simply wear it on their arm sleeve to sort of prove that they’ve got that merit badge. But I think the Bible says, "Let your light so shine be fore men that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father that’s in heaven." Hopefully, by the way in which you act. The way in which you make decisions. They’re going to see that some thing’s there. I would also say the Bible says in Revelation, "Be hot. Be cold. But don’t be lukewarm" [Rev. 3:15]. And there’s too many political candidates who walk around completely in the middle—completely in neutral. With regard not only to faith, but with regard to policy. And that’s what people are sick of. Everything’s gotten so watered down. So I have people come to me frequently saying, "Look, I voted for you. In fact, I completely disagree with you on these different stands over here. But at least I know where you stand." And so I would say it’s a mistake to confine one’s belief to only matters of government. If you have a religious view, it’s incumbent upon you and it’s real to have that. The Bible talks about the fruit of the spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, self-control. There ought to be certain things that are clearly observable by your actions. I remember when I first gave a Christmas address, a candle lighting event on the state house capitol. And people were freaking because they said, "You can’t say Jesus." I said, "Look, I’m not trying to offend anybody. But if that’s my personal faith, I can say what I want to say. I’m going to say what I want to say." I’m not going to be rubbing anybody’s face in it. But I say you can’t dance around that which you really believe. And so I’d say we need people who are more bold in taking stands on all kinds of different things

"I got a letter canceling ... my insurance.... Can you imagine having to walk around with cancer rolling around in your body with no insurance?"

Spread this tale far and wide. Witness a system designed to cover the healthy and penalize the sick. This is health insurance today. This is capitalism always. Preying on people, playing with their very lives, for profit.

Getting Away with Murder Torture

Ours is not to question why, ours is but to torture and lie.

Scott Horton:

The Justice Department ... regularly prosecuted lawyers for writing opinions, when it reckoned that the opinions were part of a larger conspiracy to commit a crime. Why would that same reasoning not apply to the case of the torture lawyers? In fact it would, and in fact, Congress expressly created a crime—conspiracy to torture—which covers it. The New York Times has reported on another recent case in which a group of tax lawyers and accountants and a foreign bank conspired to introduce a tax shelter product that they offered to their clients. The lawyers participated by issuing legal opinions, as the Justice Department stresses in its own press release covering the matter. So why is this not a perfect precedent justifying the criminal prosecution of the torture team?

"Illness and medical bills contribute to a large and increasing share of US bankruptcies."

From the American Journal of Medicine:

Medical Bankruptcy in the United States, 2007: Results of a National Study

Results

Using a conservative definition, 62.1% of all bankruptcies in 2007 were medical; 92% of these medical debtors had medical debts over $5000, or 10% of pretax family income. The rest met criteria for medical bankruptcy because they had lost significant income due to illness or mortgaged a home to pay medical bills. Most medical debtors were well educated, owned homes, and had middle-class occupations. Three quarters had health insurance. Using identical definitions in 2001 and 2007, the share of bankruptcies attributable to medical problems rose by 49.6%. In logistic regression analysis controlling for demographic factors, the odds that a bankruptcy had a medical cause was 2.38-fold higher in 2007 than in 2001.

Conclusions

Illness and medical bills contribute to a large and increasing share of US bankruptcies.

In the tradition of La Follette, Thoreau and Twain: Matt Rothschild, Naomi Kline, and Stephen Zunes discuss the Progressive movement and empire

Why watch some crap on cable when you can watch stuff from the Progressive Magazine's 100 year celebration?


"Deregulated capitalism is a crisis creation machine." - Naomi Klein

And don't miss Howard Zinn on just causes and just wars, about the good wars that gave us genocide, serfdom, and 50 million dead:


"War cannot be accepted, no matter what. ... War is, by definition, the indiscriminate killing of huge numbers of people for ends which are uncertain." - Howard Zinn

Obama: "Our hope would be to actually create some jobs this year."

The champion of banks and the financial sector belatedly turns his attention to jobs.

WaPo:

Despite signs that the recession gripping the nation's economy may be easing, the unemployment rate is projected to continue rising for another year before topping out in double digits, a prospect that threatens to slow growth, increase poverty and further complicate the Obama administration's message of optimism about the economic outlook.

The likelihood of severe unemployment extending into the 2010 midterm elections and beyond poses a significant political hurdle to President Obama and congressional Democrats, who are already under fire for what critics label profligate spending. Continuing high unemployment rates would undercut the fundamental argument behind much of that spending: the promise that it will create new jobs and improve the prospects of working Americans, which Obama has called the ultimate measure of a healthy economy.

"Our hope would be to actually create some jobs this year," Obama said in an interview with The Washington Post in the days before taking office.

Environmental protection: another LIE for Obama

This is so upsetting.

L.A. Times:

As a candidate for president, Barack Obama wooed environmentalists with a promise to "support and defend" pristine national forest land from road building and other development that had been pushed by the George W. Bush administration.

But five months into Obama's presidency, the new administration is actively opposing those protections on about 60 million acres of federal woodlands in a case being considered by the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

[...]

...the administration has used the courts to backpedal from Bush policies in some areas, including spotted owl protection, energy efficiency standards and hazardous-waste burning.

Most prominently, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson dropped an appeal to the Supreme Court in a case that struck down Bush-era limits on mercury pollution from coal power plants, which environmentalists called too lax.

Whatever the overall strategy, the result has been a series of cases in which President Obama appears to be taking positions in court that run counter to his stated goals.

The Interior Department this spring, for example, defended a Bush plan to lease western Colorado's picturesque Roan Plateau for oil and gas drilling.

[...]

Administration lawyers have also fought environmentalists in court over a coal mining technique known as mountaintop removal.

The administration successfully argued this year that the court should reject the environmentalists' suit, in part because officials were already developing new standards for mountaintop mining projects.

Your Taxes at Work, Propping Up the Military

From the National Priorites Project:

click on image for more states

Our elected representatives wave the flag and support the military at the drop of a hat but they are reduced to confusion and inaction and bickering when it comes to creating a functional health care system.

Another Great Chomsky Clip

This has to be one of my very favorites so far. Chomsky on manufactured consent, propaganda, media and the bewildered herd. Some of it can be read here. It's a talk given at MIT, 17 March 1991.

Maher: "we don't have a left and a right party in this country anymore, we have a center-right party and a crazy party."

People gonna rise up, and get their share...

U.S. Sen. Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark.:

“One of our biggest concerns is that it doesn’t need to be a government plan that usurps that ability to compete in the marketplace, which I’m concerned that a totally government-run option would do.”

There should not be a marketplace for health.

My life should not be subject to the whims of an insurance executive with an eye on the bottom line. Period.

It's simple. No more killing of Americans for profit. Remove insurance companies from the health care equation.

It's our health. It's our country.

"We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

Everyone is saying there is no political will for single-payer.

That political will was sapped by the health insurance company lobby, which has spent millions to get its way, proving yet again that it takes next to nothing to turn Democrats into putty in the hands of corporate America.

This Can't Be Happening (dlindorff):

Because Obama and Congressional Democrats are unwilling to cut themselves off from the lucrative campaign-funding bonanza that is the health care industry, they cannot address seriously either the cost or the access crisis that plagues health care in the US, and that makes health care in this country cost 20 percent of GDP—twice what it costs in any other modern nation on a per capita or GDP basis, and that still leaves one in six Americans without ready access to even routine health care.

The answer to this crisis is obvious: a single-payer “socialized” system, in which you still have private doctors, and private or publicly run hospitals, but where the government sets the payment rates for treatment, and provides all compensation to health care providers.

It's good to see that protest is turning toward groups like AHIP. They should be hounded into HELL.

So, why was the street in front of the San Diego Convention Center lined with noisy protesters?

Two words sum it all up: “Single Payer”. With annual profitably in the neighborhood of $11 billion dollars, those are the two words that the health insurance industry fears most. AHIP and their associated lobbyists have worked long and hard to keep any reforms involving “single payer” off the table. And they’ve had a measure of success thus far, the kind of success fueled by massive campaign contributions and slick public relations programs designed to fool the public into thinking that the industry actually cares about health care.

Led by the California Nurses Association, along with Physicians for a National Health Program, and Progressive Democrats of America, the protests sought to call attention to the industry’s’ woeful record of denying coverage and care along with its diversion of billions of dollars from patient care to overhead, waste and near-obscene profit levels.

A commenter on Hullabaloo puts it nicely:

I don't want some faceless government bureaucrat deciding what medical procedures I get to have. I want that to be decided by a faceless HMO bureaucrat who gets paid a bonus for fucking me out of the insurance I paid for, with shareholders standing over his shoulder telling him how to fuck me harder.
The Fankor | 06.20.09 - 3:39 am | #

Obameter

You can follow how Obama is doing, promise-wise. Click on image for the details.

I didn't see anything about his broken promise on NAFTA. Or secrecy.

Dear Mr. President...

The most critical moment of Obama's presidency is here. What will he do? Will Dear Mr. President take a walk with Americans, or with the insurance industry? With billionaires and millionaires, or with the people?

Robert Reich does a little pleading:

Mr. President:

Momentum for universal health care is slowing dramatically on Capitol Hill. Moderates are worried, Republicans are digging in, and the medical-industrial complex is firing up its lobbying and propaganda machine.

[...]

If you want to save universal health care, you must do several things, and soon:

1. Go to the nation. You must build public support by forcefully making the case for universal health care everywhere around the country. The latest Wall Street Journal/NBC poll shows that three out of four Americans want universal health care. But the vast majority don't know what's happening on the Hill, don't know how much money the medical-industrial lobbies are spending to defeat it, and have no idea how much demagoguery they're about to be exposed to. You must tell them. And don't be reluctant to take on those vested interests directly. Name names. They've decided to fight you. You must fight them.

2. Be LBJ. So far, Lyndon Johnson has been the only president to defeat American Medical Association and the rest of the medical-industrial complex. He got Medicare and Medicaid enacted despite their cries of "socialized medicine" because he knocked heads on the Hill. He told Congress exactly what he wanted, cajoled and threatened those who resisted, and counted noses every hour until he had the votes he needed. When you're not on the road, you need to be twisting congressional arms and drawing a line in the sand. Be tough.

3. Forget the Republicans. Forget bipartisanship. Universal health care can pass with 51 votes. You can get 51 votes if you give up on trying to persuade a handful of Republicans to cross over. Eight year ago George W. Bush passed his huge tax cut, mostly for the wealthy, by wrapping it in an all-or-nothing reconciliation measure and daring Democrats to vote against it. You should do the same with health care.

4. Insist on a real public option. It's the lynchpin of universal health care. Don't accept Kent Conrad's ersatz public option masquerading as a "healthcare cooperative." Cooperatives won't have the authority, scale, or leverage to negotiate low prices and keep private insurers honest.

5. Demand that taxes be raised on the wealthy to ensure that all Americans get affordable health care. At the rate healthcare costs are rising, not even a real public option will hold down costs enough to make health care affordable to most American families in years to come. So you'll need to tax the wealthy. Don't back down on your original proposal to limit their deductions. And support a cap on how much employee-provided health care can be provided tax free. (Yes, you opposed this during your campaign. But you have no choice but to reverse yourself on this.) These are the only two big pots of money.

6. Put everything else on hold. As important as they are, your other agenda items -- financial reform, home mortgage mitigation, cap-and-trade legislation -- pale in significance relative to universal health care. By pushing everything at once, you take the public's mind off the biggest goal, diffuse your energies, blur your public message, and fuel the demagogues who say you're trying to take over the private sector.

Senate health plan worse than the one proposed by health insurance industry

That must have taken work!

Ian Welsh:

But, if something like this is what comes out as the eventual “reform” it is worse than nothing. Being forced to buy bad insurance, with huge co-pays without a public option to keep prices in check has as its primary value that it is a subsidy for the insurance companies and that it reduces catastrophic healthcare costs for hospitals, because due to forced purchases of bad plans, some of the folks who used to come in at the last minute, after having not gotten care, and then costing the hospital hundreds of thousands of dollars in emergency care, will be partially paid for. They’ll still come in last minute and not have been properly cared for since the deductibles will mean they didn’t get help, but 70% or 80% of their final death-rattle costs will be paid for.

Some things never change...

There are some things we can always rely on.

As the public option follows single payer down the toilet (see today's headline: Senate's Health-Care Draft Calls for Most to Buy Insurance,Nixes Obama's 'Public Option'), let's pay our disrespects to those who allow it all to happen - the domestic spying, the torture, the wars, the executive power grab, the bogus banking bailout... what haven't they caved on?


In other news...

Managed care stocks rise as health reform stumbles

The future looks bright for those paid to profit off the sick...

Scum = someone who has decided to become extremely rich by taking advantage of sick people.

Digby:

It's a good day to be an insurance company CEO. An mandate from the government forcing people to buy your product and no serious competition from anybody but your monopolistic buddies in the industry, all of whom look after each other very, very well.

Start looking at new yachts and vacation homes in Gstaad, CEOs. The party's back on!


* United Health Group
CEO: William W McGuire
2005: 124.8 mil
5-year: 342 mil

* Forest Labs
CEO: Howard Solomon
2005: 92.1 mil
5-year: 295 mil

* Caremark Rx
CEO: Edwin M Crawford
2005: 77.9 mil
5-year: 93.6 mil

* Abbott Lab
CEO: Miles White
2005: 26.2 mil
5-year: 25.8 mil

* Aetna
CEO: John Rowe
2005: 22.1 mil
5-year:57.8 mil

* Amgen
CEO: Kevin Sharer
2005:5.7 mil
5-year:59.5 mil

[...]

* Eli Lilly
CEO: Sidney Taurel
2005:7.2 mil
5-year:37.9 mil

* McKesson
CEO: John Hammergen
2005: 13.4 mil
5-year:31.2 mil

* Medtronic
CEO: Arthur Collins
2005: 4.7 mil
5-year:39 mil

* Merck Raymond Gilmartin
CEO:
2005: 37.8 mil
5-year:49.6 mil

[...]

Who could have predicted...?

[source]

Scarecrow:

Who could have predicted that if you set out to reform America's health care system, but accepted the constraint that you have to preserve its most flawed features -- like the private insurance system that leaves millions uncovered, costs way too much and provides lower quality care than other nations without those features -- that every one of the leading "reform" proposals in Congress would wind up leaving millions of people uncovered, cost way too much, and likely not improve the overall quality of care in America?

The people who want American society to be an economic free-for-all, where screwing people over is a fundamental right, are going to win once again.

Billy Bragg - Something Happened

Obama's leadership: cave to the right and top with a dollop of rhetorical flourishes

Ian Welsh:

Obama says that a robust public option is important to him. But it’s all about priorities. The war and IMF money to bail out Eastern European banks was a White House priority, you could tell because Obama himself whipped for it when it was in trouble, just as he did for the TARP bailout funds. A real public option? It’d be nice to have, says Obama, just like he said he’d like to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act and Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.

He’d like to. But he won’t expend any effort or capital for either.

I wonder how much capital he’ll expend for real health care reform. Is something that can be called “health care reform” enough, or does he really want the real thing?

We’ll see.

Warmongers make more war affordable

Jeremy Scahill:

Only 30 Democrats voted against the war funding when it mattered. And these 30 did so in the face of significant threats to their political future from the White House and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. That means that only 30 out of 256 Democrats are willing to stand up to the war and the current president presiding over it. Their names are listed below; I would encourage people to call them and thank them for standing up and voting no when it counted.

[...]

It is a pathetic symbol of just how bankrupt the Congressional Democratic leadership is when it comes to U.S. foreign policy that Pelosi, Hoyer et al are trying to use funding for the IMF to convince other Democrats to support war funding. The IMF has been a destabilizing force in many countries across the globe through its austerity measures and structural adjustment schemes. Remember, it was the policies of the IMF and its cohorts at the World Bank and World Trade Organizations that sparked global uprisings in the 1990s.

[...]

Below are the Democrats who stood against Obama's expanding war the day their votes mattered (See where your Representative stood here):

Tammy Baldwin, Michael Capuano, John Conyers, Lloyd Doggett, Donna Edwards, Keith Ellison, Sam Farr, Bob Filner, Alan Grayson, Raul Grijalva, Michael Honda, Marcy Kaptur, Dennis Kucinich, Barbara Lee, Zoe Lofgren, Eric Massa, Jim McGovern, Michael Michaud, Donald Payne, Chellie Pingree, Jared Polis, Jose Serrano, Carol Shea-Porter, Jackie Speier, John Tierney, Nikki Tsongas, Maxine Waters, Diane Watson, Peter Welch, and Lynn Woolsey.

"Another $106 billion, and all we
get is a lousy war.
Pretty soon that’s going
to be about the only
thing made in America:
war."
- Dennis K.

Asshole-in-Chief

President Barack Obama will sign an executive memorandum this evening extending benefits to same-sex partners of federal employees, but the extension will likely not include the two benefits considered most important: Health insurance and retirement pensions. [source: Raw Story]

Speaking of government takeovers...

Dennis Kucinich:

“We are destroying our nation’s moral and fiscal integrity with this war supplemental,” Kucinich argued on the House floor Tuesday. “Instead of ending wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan now by appropriating only enough money to bring our troops home, Congress abdicates its constitutional authority, defers to the president, and asks for a report. That’s right, all we are asking for is a report on when the president will end the war.”

Dennis would have made a better President than Barack Obama. He would have ended the wars. He would have closed Guantanamo already. He likely would not have hidden detainee abuse photos. He would have prosecuted Bush and Cheney. He would have forcefully advocated for single-payer health care. He would have brought real change to the banking industry. He would not have gone to court to argue against gay marriage.

"Another 106 billion dollars, and all we get is a lousy war."

Bernie Sanders: "We rank among the lowest in the health outcome rankings of developed countries."

Senator Sanders wants you to sign his petition in support of single-payer and tell your story.

Whereas:

* 46 million Americans are currently without health insurance;
* 60 million Americans, both insured and uninsured, have inadequate access to primary care due to a shortage of physicians and other health service providers in their community;
* 100 million Americans have no insurance to cover dental needs;
* 116 million adults, nearly two-thirds of all non-seniors, struggled to pay medical bills, went without needed care because of cost, were uninsured for a time, or were underinsured in the last year;
* The United States spends $2.3 trillion each year on health care, 16 percent of its Gross Domestic Product;
* Americans spend $7,129 per person on health care, 50 percent more than other industrialized countries, including those with universal care;
* The U.S. does not get what it pays for. We rank among the lowest in the health outcome rankings of developed countries, and on several major indices rank below some third-world nations;
* The number of health insurance industry bureaucrats has grown at 25 times the growth of physicians in the past 30 years;
* In 2006, the six largest insurance companies made $11 billion in profits even after paying for direct health care costs, administrative costs and marketing costs.

And, whereas:

* Medicare has administrative costs far lower than any private health insurance plan;
* The potential savings on health insurance paperwork, more than $350 billion per year, is enough to provide comprehensive coverage to every uninsured American;
* Only a single-payer Medicare-for-all plan can realize these enormous savings and provide comprehensive and affordable health care to every citizen.

Now, therefore:

* We, the undersigned, urge the United States Congress to pass a single-payer Medicare-for-all program which will provide quality, comprehensive health care for all Americans.

Words, Words, Words...

Updated definitions from the BO Presidential Dictionary, 2009 edition:

Transparency – Campaign strategy of presenting myself to voters as operating in a clear, frank, and open manner, in contradistinction to my Machiavellian predecessor.

Precedent – Action taken by my Machiavellian predecessor to which I will appeal as justification for doing the same once I’m in office; trumps transparency.

Society

"Society, have mercy on me.
...
I hope you're not lonely, without me."

Food, Inc.: "when we've run an item past the supermarket scanner, we're voting."

We vote everyday with our pocketbooks at the supermarket. What kind of world are you voting for?

"They don't want this story told."
Are you going to tell it?

"Everyone kind of backed away from it"

"Weeks after President Obama took office, the CIA extended its contract with a firm run by two psychologists who helped introduce waterboarding and other harsh methods to the agency's interrogation techniques, according to a news report....

Panetta told [The New Yorker] he 'didn't support these methods that were used, or the legal justification for why they did it.' He also said he supported at one time the creation of a 'truth commission' to look into the subject. But after Obama said in late April that he did not want to look as if he was going after either former president George W. Bush or former vice president Richard B. Cheney, Panetta said, 'everyone kind of backed away from it...'" [Continues]

California: billions in tax breaks for giant corporations, dumping its teachers

There will always be those few who would destroy California to enrich themselves. Informed, active, and organized citizens can do much to stop them. It's up to us.

[Hopefully, the young woman who wants to
become a CEO at Disney will change her mind!]

California Progress Report:

The budget packages of September 2008 and February 2009 made three key changes in corporate income tax law, which according to the report, will result in a loss of $8.7 billion in tax revenue over the next seven years.

[...]

The changes include giving corporations the option of being taxed solely on their total sales in California instead of the traditional way of taxing based on how much total business a corporation does in the state, including sales, property and payroll.

[...]


The Legislative Analyst’s Office agrees that the change is expected to reduce state revenues “by hundreds of millions—or perhaps billions—of dollars annually.” And the benefits will be shared by few, according to the California Budget Project’s recent report.

Based on estimates from the Franchise Tax Board, the report found that 80% of the benefits of the single sales factor change will go to just 0.1% of the state’s corporations, the ones with gross receipts over $1 billion. Just nine corporations will each pay an average of $33.1 million less in taxes in 2013-14 thanks to the new law. Another 13 corporations will each pay $10-20 million less tax money, according to the report.

"If the Obama administration has its way, no torture victim will ever have his day in court."

Ben Wizner, ACLU:

The Obama administration has now fully embraced the Bush administration’s shameful effort to immunize torturers and their enablers from any legal consequences for their actions. The CIA’s rendition and torture program is not a ’state secret’; it’s an international scandal. If the Obama administration has its way, no torture victim will ever have his day in court, and future administrations will be free to pursue torture policies without any fear of liability.

The law is the law?

Joe Sudbay, AMERICAblog:

It's shocking how many people viewed yesterday's DOMA discussion through their own purely intellectual, legal lens. The condescending tone from some of the legal types, both straight and gay - all Democrat - was insulting, demeaning, and horribly out of touch (with their own humanity). Gay Americans lost rights last November in California. We had fundamental rights taken away by an election. Think about that. When was the last time that happened in this country?

Yesterday, a Democratic President of the United States of America, in the year 2009, and an African-American child of inter-racial parents no less, gave his lawyers the go ahead to compare our marriages to incest on the same day that 42 years ago the Supreme Court ruled in his parents' favor in Loving v. Virginia. And these people, along with our President, are suggesting that the appropriate response is to shrug our shoulders and go home, since, after all, the law is the law?

A commenter writes:

The worst part of yesterday's ruling was coming on this forum and reading all of the comments from so-called Democratic allies that we should stop whining, because Obama's agenda was filled with so many allegedly more important things like health care.

There is nothing more important than basic human rights.

This isn't about the 'luxury' of getting married.

It is about being denied protections for our partners and not receving the full benefits, and civil rights, of a system we pay taxes into.

It comes about after the fury of realizing that minority rights can be stripped away by a simple majority vote, and having the courts say that is fine.

But, ultimately, it is about betrayal by a man who lied to our faces to get elected and who cares more about preserving a well-crafted 'centrist' image, then doing what is ethically and morally right.

I think that if we do not raise our voices now, the Democratic Party will walk all over us.

Personally, I want to hear Obama specifically defend, or retract the arguments made in this case.

It is time for our President to engage in a little intellectual honesty on this.

It is one thing for him to not specifically support and 'push,' if you will, gay marriage. It is another thing entirely to equate it with incest and discuss the burden to our economy.

Yoo Fucker to testify in court

Given the Obama/Holder refusal to prosecute those who violate the law against torture (it's much more important to defend marriage against assault by gays), this is likely to be as good as it gets.

N.Y. Times:

A federal judge has ruled that John Yoo, a former Bush administration lawyer who wrote crucial memorandums justifying harsh interrogation techniques, will have to answer in court to accusations that his work led to a prisoner’s being tortured and deprived of his constitutional rights.

"They made and recorded a sort of institute and digest of anarchy, called the Rights of Man." - Edmund Burke, 1790

Did you know that Noam Chomsky supports anarchist principles? And that Howard Zinn calls himself an anarchist?

Howard Zinn: "I am an anarchist."

Noam Chomsky:

"I was attracted to anarchism as a young teenager, as soon as I began to think about the world beyond a pretty narrow range, and haven't seen much reason to revise those early attitudes since. I think it only makes sense to seek out and identify structures of authority, hierarchy, and domination in every aspect of life, and to challenge them; unless a justification for them can be given, they are illegitimate, and should be dismantled, to increase the scope of human freedom. That includes political power, ownership and management, relations among men and women, parents and children, our control over the fate of future generations (the basic moral imperative behind the environmental movement, in my view), and much else. Naturally this means a challenge to the huge institutions of coercion and control: the state, the unaccountable private tyrannies that control most of the domestic and international economy, and so on. But not only these. That is what I have always understood to be the essence of anarchism: the conviction that the burden of proof has to be placed on authority, and that it should be dismantled if that burden cannot be met."

Anarchism = "Democracy all the way through"

"Anarchism is more or less a tendency in human thought and action rather than a worked-out social philosophy or description of social organization. It's a tendency which is based on a principle. The principle is that authority and dominance are not self-justifying. Maybe they are justified, maybe not, but they have a burden of proof. [...] Why would it lead to a better society? Of course that's based on a moral positive, that slavery is wrong. People should be free to the extent possible that doesn't interfere with other people's freedom. So if freedom and control of one's own fate and activities, if that's valued, then it follows that we should adhere to this tendency and try to implement it." - Noam Chomsky

The indefensible, inappropriate, insulting DOMA Defense

Andrew Sullivan:

The deployment of arguments that refer to our relationships as equivalent to incest, that demand that we simply marry someone of the opposite sex if we want our civil rights, that implies federal recognition of our civil marriages would mean taxing some Americans to pay for something they abhor: this is simply salt in the wound, and it will be deployed and used by every far right gay-hater in the future, and cited as endorsed by the Obama administration. In the context of Obama's failure to fulfill any of his pledges to the gay community since he took office, this is terribly deflating.

OBAMA said in 2008:

When you're a black guy named Barack Obama, you know what it's like to be on the outside. And so my concern is continually to make sure that the rights that are conferred by the state are equal for all people. That's why I opposed DOMA in 2006 when I ran for the United States Senate.

OBAMA is a FRAUD!

Daily Kos:

Obama has shown a consistent disregard, if not an open hostility, toward the GLBT community. During the campaign he hosted homophobic gospel singer Donnie McClurkin. He had the bigoted fundamentalist Rick Warren do the invocation at his inauguration. His stance opposing marriage equality was used by the hatemongers who helped pass Prop 8 in California.

Yet the GLBT community voted for him in droves. Why? Because he told us what we wanted to hear, and we were "realists" about the "fact" that he could "never support marriage equality" and still be a "viable candidate." We could still get him to overturn DOMA, we told ourselves, and pass the Matthew Shepard Act, and repeal Don't Ask Don't Tell, etc. Marriage equality would have to wait until the bigots, overwhelmingly old and white, died off, and the new, progressive generation, could take full control of the political process.

You know what? Fuck that.

Fuck all of it.

Fuck political realism. Fuck expediency. Fuck it all to hell. And Fuck Obama.

Because we did all of that, we gave Obama the benefit of the doubt, we trusted the Democrats to do the right thing, and they shit all over us.

Not only that, but now Obama and his "Justice Department" are actively undermining us. At least the right wingers are honest about their intent to demonize us. The Democrats pretend to be our friends and then stab us in the back. Which is worse?

Fuck Obama Forever

"It is an outright lie to suggest
that the DOJ had no choice."

Obama defends DOMA in federal court. Says banning gay marriage is good for the federal budget. Invokes incest and marrying children.

UPDATE: Mormon Bush holdover helped write and file anti-gay DOMA brief.

UPDATE: Gay groups rip Obama.

UPDATE: Are gay politicians going to continue hosting gay pride fundraiser for Joe Biden?

UPDATE: Obama spokesman caught lying to Politico.

Joe and I have been trying since last night to get a copy of the government's brief just filed in this case. This is not the GLAD case that we've written about previously, it's another in California.

We just got the brief from reader Lavi Soloway. It's pretty despicable, and gratuitously homophobic. It reads as if it were written by one of George Bush's top political appointees. I cannot state strongly enough how damaging this brief is to us. Obama didn't just argue a technicality about the case, he argued that DOMA is reasonable. That DOMA is constitutional. That DOMA wasn't motivated by any anti-gay animus. He argued why our Supreme Court victories in Roemer and Lawrence shouldn't be interpreted to give us rights in any other area (which hurts us in countless other cases and battles). He argued that DOMA doesn't discriminate against us because it also discriminates about straight unmarried couples (ignoring the fact that they can get married and we can't).

Independent Gay Forum:

There are three things worth saying about President Barak Obama’s Motion to Dismiss in the case of Smelt and Hammer v. United States:

(1) It is gratuitously insulting to lesbians and gay men, referring (unnecessarily) to same-sex marriage as a “form” of marriage, approving of congressional comparisons between same-sex marriages and loving relationships between siblings, or grandparents and grandchildren, and arguing (with a straight face, I can only assume) that discrimination against same-sex couples is rational because it saves the federal government money. There are some respectable arguments in this motion, and this kind of disrespect is offensive.

(2) It argues that the couple don’t have standing to sue because they have not “applied for” federal benefits. While there are some federal benefits that people do, in fact, need to apply for, no heterosexual couple applies for the vast majority of federal benefits like joint income tax returns – they just rest in the knowledge that they will be there when and if they need them.

(3) Most notably, we should all beware: Premature cases ruling against us can do harm long after the original has faded from memory. The motion cites specifically to a case from 35 years ago, Baker v. Nelson, in which the Minnesota Supreme Court waved off in fourteen short paragraphs any claim that same-sex couples might have a right to marry one another, and which the U.S. Supreme Court dismissed for want of a substantial federal question. This well-intentioned case from back when the 70s were in their infancy is still being used against us (it even made an appearance in California’s first same-sex marriage case, Lockyer v. City and County of San Francisco). What may not have seemed like much of a question then has certainly gained some substance over time, but the damage from that case lingers and stings to this day.

Noam Chomsky on health care

My fascination with Noam Chomsky continues.... Having him around is like having a Socrates in our midst.

Sheldon Whitehouse: "the storyline ... about waterboarding is false in every one of its dimensions."

More will be revealed on Friday.

War is a Force that Gives us Chuckles

Endless war is made possible by the millions of Americans who support the troops, no questions asked. When Stephen Colbert is co-opted by the military for a tour in Iraq, it just makes the whole phenomenon all the more depressing to watch.

Bad Attitudes:

We’ve invaded a country to rip off its resources, subjected its people to bombardment, kidnappings, rape and torture, and a comedian goes over to yuck it up with the troops. Does that strike you as a tad bit unseemly?

What if Chinese troops occupied San Francisco, turned the Presidio into a torture chamber, looted the de Young museum (or at least allowed it to happen because they were ordered to guard the financial district instead), and were building a gigantic, armed fortress in Golden Gate Park.

Then, after six years of this, they sent a comedian over who subsequently made jokes about all the steep hills and the damp fog, engaged in funny banter with the commanding general, and buttered-up the soldiers by calling them the best looking fighting force the world had ever seen?

What if all this was going on as car bombs were blowing up and killing people at the same time?

I’m a big Stephen Colbert fan, and I appreciate that he’s trying to help the morale of American soldiers. They are, apart from the Iraqis themselves, the biggest victims of the moral catastrophe called ‘Operation Iraqi Freedom,’ which at best was naked theft, and at worst was George W. Bush’s wicked attempt to get his face carved on Mt. Rushmore.

But this whole thing feeds into a deep, underlying militarism that pervades our language, outlook, and culture, which in turn enables the U.S. government to persist in vicious and costly imperial follies that will, eventually, bring this country down (if they haven’t already).

Noam Chomsky:

The U. S. pioneered the public relations industry. Its committment was to "control the public mind," as its leaders put it. They learned a lot from the successes of the Creel Commission and the success in creating the Red Scare and its aftermath. The public relations industry underwent a huge expansion at that time. It succeeded for some time in creating almost total subordination of the public to business rule through the 1920s....

Public relations is a huge industry. They're spending by now something on the order of a billion dollars a year. All along its committment was to controlling the public mind....

... The corporate executive and the guy who cleans the floor all have the same interests. We can all work together and work for Americanism in harmony, liking each other. That was essentially the message. A huge amount of effort was put into presenting it. This is, after all, the business community, so they control the media and have massive resources... Mobilizing community opinion in favor of vapid, empty concepts like Americanism. Who can be against that? Or, to bring it up to date, "Support our troops." Who can be against that? Or yellow ribbons. Who can be against that?... The point of public relations slogans like "Support our troops" is that they don't mean anything. They mean as much as whether you support the people in Iowa. Of course, there was an issue. The issue was, Do you support our policy? But you don't want people to think about the issue. That's the whole point of good propaganda. You want to create a slogan that nobody's going to be against, and everybody's going to be for, because nobody knows what it means, because it doesn't mean anything, but its crucial value is that it diverts your attention....

Another great Chomsky clip to complement the above quotation (ends abruptly):

Who did you screw in the war, Daddy?

I wonder - if Obama's kids could see this, what would they say?

And what does Daddy say to his kids?

"It's necessary, Sasha, for people to lose their fingers and legs, to keep the world safe. Daddy is President now. He has to do mean things."

"No, Sasha, this is not a dumb war or a rash war. Go play with your sister in the White House garden. Daddy's busy."

"Sasha, repeat after me, 'we can hold true to our values, and in doing so advance those values abroad.' You'll understand what that means when you are older."

"No, Sasha, this is not a dumb war. And stop comparing me to Bush. We are in the early stages of a long struggle, so you're just going to have to stop asking me about it."

"Sasha, when you get older, you'll learn that Afghani fingers aren't as valuable as American fingers. It's that simple."

Another great Chomsky clip: "control the public mind ... the greatest threat to corporations."

Referenced:

Propaganda by Edward Bernays (Google Preview) (or full text via Scribd)

[Bernays, Propaganda, p. 31]

James Madison: The primary purpose of government is to "protect the minority of the opulent against the majority."

Constitutional Convention.

James Madison's "symptoms of a leveling spirit."