TrickyBuddha Studios

I want all of these anti-socialism Republicans to stop using my socialized resources. I want them to STOP using my Medicare, my Social Security, and my VA Healthcare. I want them to get off my highways, get off my bridges, and stay out of my forests, parks, and museums. I want them to stop fishing MY socialized fish planted there by fish and game wardens, and I want them to stop sending their children to MY socialized schools and public universities. I don’t want to see them putting their dirty little hands all over my books in my fine, socialized libraries. While they’re at it, they can just turn off their water, electricity, and gas, and take down those mailboxes, too. And stop calling my police officers and firefighters!!! We pay our taxes proudly in this house and we don’t take kindly to dragging along a bunch of whining, ungrateful babies along behind us.

I got this forward and, well, I laughed. I’ll be honest. But after I laughed, I thought. And what I thought was that if I were “the other side”, how would I respond?

And I realized I’d probably say that we, the other side, use these systems because it makes sense to — kind of like how I conditionally love and support Walmart — but it would be a better world if the taxpayer were not put on the hook and exploited for the creation and maintenance of such systems.

That’s when I came to the conclusion that, fundamentally, that’s the line in the sand.

On one side, we have people who want to do for themselves and think that others should, too. And if people need help, that’s cool. We can help them individually. If everyone helped those around them, then everything would be OK. If people paid a road crew to pave a road, then the road gets paved. No need to get government involved. And on the other side, we have people who think it’s more efficient for everyone who is capable to contribute a little more to help everyone who needs it or to get the roads paved. And who better to help everyone than the government (because we sure don’t trust everyone to get help otherwise)? So it all comes down to your belief in people. Do you think we can help one another and let no one fall behind? Or do you think we need a bigger system in place to maintain order?

And that’s probably always going to be the line. And it probably always has been the line. “Vista is go” suggested that people eventually come to realize that things are better when the basics are met and when people work together. That’s how society evolves. And social democracies seems to be the template solution to the common issues. It seems that way in other countries. But here, I wonder. Here, I think the sand has petrified and the line has become permanent. I’m starting to believe that there’s too much weight on either side of this tug-of-war for anything to ever change or advance. Stagnation. All that’s left is for a few of us on either to side to yell at the others in this never-ending feud.

Health Care Wanted: Dead or Alive
Tuesday, 18 August 2009
by Dennis Kucinich

The masquerade is over! The “public option” is … dead.

Health care reform is now a private option: WHICH FOR PROFIT INSURANCE COMPANY DO YOU WANT? You have to choose. And you have to pay. If you have a low income, under HR3200 government will subsidize the private insurance companies and you will still have to pay premiums, co-pays and deductibles.

The Administration plan requires that everyone must have health insurance, so it is delivering tens of millions of new “customers” to the insurance companies. Health care? Not really. Insurance care! Absolutely. Cost controls? No chance.

You will next hear talk about “co-ops.” The truth is that insurance company campaign contributions have co-opted the public interest.

I need your help to spread the word and rally the nation around true healthcare reform which covers everyone and maintains fiscal integrity without breaking our nation’s bank! Your contribution will empower our efforts to continue to fight for the single-payer, not-for-profit health care bill, HR676 “Medicare for All,” which I co-authored with John Conyers.. The bill now has 85 sponsors in the House.

The hotly-debated HR3200, the so-called “health care reform” bill, is nothing less than corporate welfare in the guise of social welfare and reform. It is a convoluted mess. The real debate which we should be having is not occurring.

Removing the “public option” from a public bill paid for by public money is not in the public interest. What is left is a “private option” paid for with public money. Why should public money be spent on a private option which does not guarantee 100% coverage nor have any cost controls? A true public option would provide 30% savings immediately which would then cover the 1/3rd of the population who presently have no healthcare.

Unfortunately, under HR3200, the Government is choosing winners and losers in the private sector; proposing to spend public funds on subsidizing insurance companies who make money not providing health care. This process wil insure only one thing – the expansion of profits. Gone is the debate over cost.

As a result of current negotiations, the Medicare Part D rip-off will continue for another decade, further fleecing senior citizens. Drug importation has been dropped, so no inexpensive drugs can be accessed from other nations.

Instead we are told the pharmaceutical companies will accept a 2% cut in the growth rate of their profits – this they call cost control!

If the matter were not so serious, it would be farcical: The executive branch pretends that the proposed health care reforms are something they are not. The legislation is being attacked for something it is not. Congressional leadership and the White House defend the legislation, pretending it actually is the very proposal that is being attacked. But it is not.

A commonsense government health care reform policy would insure that every single American has full access to healthcare by expanding Medicare to cover everyone under a Single Payer System. We are already paying for a universal standard of care, it is just we are not getting it.

I need your help to spread the word and rally the nation around true health care reform which covers everyone and maintains fiscal integrity without subsidizing insurance and pharmaceutical companies and breaking our nation’s bank!

My voice in Congress will continue to challenge the special interests who do not want single payer to succeed. I need you to join me in combating the special and corporate interests who spend millions to try to win this Congressional seat. With your help WE will win again. With your help I will continue to represent your concerns, be YOUR VOICE in the United States Congress, and be the voice for health care for all Americans!

Please contribute $25, $50, $100 in support of my campaign. Please contribute now.

With your help, we can accomplish ANYTHING in America. Persistence, dedication, truth and courage will lead the way and win out in the end.

We usually go to bed late and wake up… later. But occasionally a wrench is thrown into our heteroclitic sleeping patterns.

For instance, today: the office wanted to do an AM inspection of the place, and for that to work we’d need to preempt that with an even-earlier smuggling of our three kitties — before the office opened (we live directly across from them). But, we couldn’t leave too early because we didn’t want to inconvenience “Aunt Lisa and Uncle Jared”. So we waited until both of them were out of their house before our kitties went dark and waited for the heat to give up the chase.

Situations like these don’t cause problems for other people, but again we have odd hours. Candice sensibly suggested going to bed early and waking up early and going about it that way but I knew it wouldn’t work for me. We’ll go to bed at 5am and I’ll lay there until 6am or 7am or 8am sometimes. For an early-t0-bed and early-to-rise deviation to work, I’d have to be zonked by, say, 2am — if I want to be up and happy for 7am or 8am.

I decided it’d be easier for me to stay up through the night. I do that “now and then” and it’s never too much of a challenge, nor was it this time. I didn’t wake up particularly rested yesterday, but I got through today without any problems or naps.

We dropped the cats off, had our inspection, went to the post office, picked the cats back up, and then returned home. After, I kept busy with my workout, Facebook, and finishing off Prince of Persia. Speaking of PoP, I thought maybe I had overdosed a bit to beat it so soon after I started playing, but according to one of my achievements I beat the game in “under 12 hours”. I found that odd since I thought I had dillied. And dallied. But maybe it was just one or the other.

Anyway, here’s to a short night of dinner (pizza!) and bed.