Dear america, you're embarrasing yourself
 

i wish there really was a government conspiracy to kill people with health care, and it was kinda like santa claus, in that you have to believe in it for it to happen, so all these fucking teabaggers and town hall tards would get killed by liberal death panels.

But seriously, what's worrying about this is that it's largely being orchestrated by the PR industry, it seems they have the power to bring things to a dangerous point of violent tension, based on complete LIES they are putting out to protect their financial interests.

Not that I have any sympathy for Obama, who is nothing but a celebrity spokesman for big business interests. He's being spineless on this issue, but at least it's being addressed.

http://www.democraticunderground.com...ess=385x358010

watch this.

Rachel Maddow has been fantastic on this. Looking forward to her book coming out in a few months. I'm curious about Rachel's specific beliefs, how far to the left she goes. Always great to see such an articulate and intelligent gay person in such a mainstream position.


also jon stewart GETS THE IDIOT WHO CAME UP WITH THE DEATH PANEL RUMOR FIRED
http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/th...ccaughey-pt--1


Betsy McCaughey — an outspoken proponent of the myth that Democrats’ health care reform proposals will lead to the creation of “death panels,” as well as a former lieutenant governor of New York and adjunct fellow at the Hudson Institute — has stepped down from her position as a director of Cantel Medical Corp., which bills itself as a “leading provider of infection prevention and control products in the healthcare market.”
From a press release:

CANTEL MEDICAL CORP. (NYSE: CMN – News) announced that on August 20, 2009 it received a letter of resignation from Ms. Elizabeth McCaughey as a director of the Company. Ms. McCaughey, who had served as a director since 2005, stated that she was resigning to avoid any appearance of a conflict of interest during the national debate over healthcare reform.

McCaughey found herself the subject of widespread ridicule after an appearance on “The Daily Show” Thursday, during which host Jon Stewart aggressively challenged her positions on health care reform.

Rachel Maddow is fucking brilliant. I love how somebody from her background (her phd thesis was on queer activist groups) was able to break into the mainstream. It's one of only things about our media which I don't find to be humiliating.

Stfu. No really. Everyone has got an opinion on health care yet so few understand it.

So i should shut the fuck up because everyone has an opinion?


We here in Britain have what you call "socialised" medicine. This means when someone gets sick, they can go and see a doctor. They don't have to pay. If you are ill and need medication or treatment, you get it free.

The taxpayer/government pays for it. It's not perfect but it is at least humane in many respects.

I really think that it's a necessity to have some sort of national health care. Privatized health care not only keeps people sick, but plays a huge role in perpetuating systems of poverty and class inequality, sexism, the rule of big corporations etc. etc. etc...I understand the role of competition in creating very innovative and advanced medical techniques, but I also don't think that is an excuse to just not have affordable treatment options for so many in this population.

Yeah, read my post, thats what i said. That our system of national health care in Britain is humane.

I think everyone deserves health care. ( for the record, No ER can turn anyone away.) What I'm saying is that these politicians are doing it wrong. If notyourfiend grew up like that, he prob has a better idea how to fix it than the politicians do.

As far as you nik... Your antiamericanism gets old. There was prob a better way to present your material than lumping everyone in together again.

I pay for my health insurance. I honestly don't want to pay for yours too.

Yeah.

I was talking about all the Americans who disagree with national health care.

I'm too tired and too inarticulate this morning.

I was fortunate to grow up with health care, especially since I have a number of pretty severe health problems.

But a number of the people around me are not so lucky. In the city I live today (Baltimore) 90% of the work that is available is in the service sector, and few are offered health care plans. I just graduated college, and most of my friends who are my age and educated simply can't get jobs with adequate insurance. Either the premiums are too high and, if they were to pay for health care they couldn't afford food or rent, or it's health insurance is offered as a possibility. Most of my friends who were able to get jobs are doing temp work where health care and benefits are rarely considered.

In order to maintain health care I'm doing AmeriCorps VISTA (essentially the domestic peace corps) In exchange for having emergency room coverage and being able to see a couple of doctors around the city, I am being given a small stipend and living under the poverty line.

you don't understand! here in Britain we have two main pass times: distrusting the french and criticising America's healthcare policy. You can't expect us to base these things on knowing anything about either of them. The French are a bunch of horse eating backstabbers, the Americans don't have a just healthcare system. That'll do for us.

My anti-americanism isn't some novelty there to entertain you, it's a committed position. Anyone that rallies around any position of nationalism is an wrong as far as I'm concerned. Americanism, just like every other national identity based on division and exclusion, is an incestuous/stupid/dangerous worldview.

"Dissent is patriotic" and I completely hear yah nik.

I personally think that blind patriotism is almost always a dangerous thing.

Haha. Thanks. I understand now. Here in oklahoma (as you know, America has one name, but really isn't at all the same from place to place) we mostly just start bitching about football this time of year.

Gawd. I'm done. I've got no patriotism at all. I'm just saying okies aren't like new yorkers who aren't like californians.

Whatevs.

the health care debate up here is exploding because people simply can't afford to live. even though baltimore is a shitty place, i see a lot of potential for something to erupt out of it. because people here are desperate and hopkins, with it's wonderful medical team and world renowned hopstial, continues to completely fuck the city residents over.

oh, and we also like to make a big fuss about how your 'gridiron' is far too complicated to follow.

it's nothing personal. We're a small land that's had our global significance ripped from under us by a place that endorses monster truck racing. it hurts.

The point is to loose patriotism and to loose borders and nation states all together. Any patriotism is wrong in my view, unless your living on an island with absolutely no contact/awareness with the outside world EVER. The point is to have compassion and communism for all of humanity.

Regardless of where they are located however, I do think that most Americans are either passive bystanders or too invested in stupid material investments or blind religious qualms to actually care about the needs of the world around them.

this thread is gonna give suchfriends an orgasm

We can't maintain practices of borders and boundaries of nation state if we are going to have global trade (ie trafficking, WTO etc.)

There is a side of me that wants to see the US collapse due to internal conflict/obliteration of its army overseas, so that a real revolutionary situation comes about. If that doesn't happen we continue with capitalism (which has slaughtered more people so far than fascism/socialism/communism combined) and the current reality, for me personally it's completely intolerable so I wouldn't mind the collapse of the western liberal capitalist democracies that I survive off/that keep me exploited and imprisoned.

(and work hard to contribute the least amount possible to)

Hahahaha. I want nothing more in the world than to take you to a monster truck rally.

I could argue 'til the end of time, but I'll just add..... Suck it.

Now I'm going to go to church in my hummer and then go the mall. After that, Immuna watch me some fox news.

that's good, because i want nothing more in the world than to be taken to one.

Haha, I don't think that all Americans or like that...or that this type of selfishness is just an American condition. I still do think that apathy remains a problem though...

Whatever, I need coffee.

apathy is a problem, but a lack of coffee is a catastrophe

It's too bad you can't come through here. I would show you things. Things you never even thought could exist.

And being too poor to afford another package of instant coffee is, well, the result of taking the only job available which would offer health care? Ha! It's all good. At least it's the weekend. Back to sleep, I suppose....

Get another job? I've got 2...

aren't poor liberals the same who think the world is over-populated? so if yr all rly sick, just die then, and help the world out. it'd be the most courteous and least hypocritical thing to do

now i'm just scared!

The problem is the current dominant worldview of liberal capitalist democracies which basically sees mankind separate from the earth and the earth as a commodity for mankind to use/consume. Basically a Capitalist Christian viewpoint. I think there is something to the idea that we need to realise that we are all part of the one conciousness. When Philip K Dick talks about how the empire never ended and the idea of the black iron prison i interpret that to mean our slavery to God (which is our slavery to an imaginary father figure/schizophrenic cut off from outer reality). This worldview tells us that we are an isolated individual (I) who will die alone and is forever in debt/guilt to an imaginary father figure. I think the black iron prison refers to the cut off point, an imaginary black line separating our bodies and isolating them thus causing a division in the one - (self/world division) which can be imagined as a black line around our skin cutting us off from everything else/a black line around our minds cutting us off from true conciousness.

We certainly can't continue to function the way we are going -

1. the earth is already overpopulated, and thanks to the christian/reckless hedonist consumerist ideologies we continue to have so many kids (instead of looking after the ones that are already here). This will only end up in mass death/war over resources.
2. the enviroment. remember back when anyone who talked about it was just a hippie? the way we live is unhealthy for both the world and us. We build things that are designed not to last and thus to be replaced, made only for profit and are out of sync with nature. It's both inefficient and dangerous.
3. the war machine shows no signs of stopping. we are in a fucked up position were we help fund and propagate it by our very participation in much of society.
4. sexually we are fucked up, superstitious and dumb. homophobia/our hiv aids policies/our squeamishness and christian bullshit combines with our permissive hedonism to create a society of loneliness, repression, intolerance, sti's, unwanted pregnancies, lack of sufficient knowledge and unfufillment. crucial to all this is the view of the body as a commodity which is encouraged under capitalism.
5. saying JUST GET A JOB doesn't work - capitalism depends on a reserve army of the unemployed in order to function. it also means that third world people can't get any work because their countries are being raped/destroyed by capitalism. also capitalism destroys people both pyschologically and physically. the rest are at best addicts with a borderline pyschosis/depression.

i think that irony is the first line of defense/denial to all this. breaking out of the post modern condition should be the goal of culture, but we seem to be failing to do anything culturally but encourage obedience/ignorance/denial/addiction/distraction AT BEST and at worst racism, homophobia, sheer propaganda.

isn't that sort of greedy though, during a recession?

You aren't allowed to get secondary work if you are doing AmeriCorps. You are expected to be on call 24/7.

you do know that over here in Christianland, married couples are averaging like 1.7 kids or so right? .... do you know how many kids a muslim family averages? guess.

also, good luck trying to convince the world to stop following God and start reading Philip K Dick. srsly good luck with that. are you high?

where the fuck did all that tea GO?!?