I have had the misfortune to have caught what appears to be the Swine Flu. Not only do I appear to have all the symptoms but my lungs seem to be filled with bacon fat.

This has resulted in my being stranded on the couch for days watching far too much television (not counting the surreal and nauseating hallucination I had of Tom DeLay being on “Dancing with the Stars”).

But it is the commercials which I find to be the most enlightening. Here’s what commercials have taught me this week:

1. Though we’re in a recession, you may be out of work and your house may be in foreclosure, the one place you don’t want to cut back in these difficult times is on buying OreIda frozen French fries.

2. The sentiment of Cat Stevens’, “If You Want to Sing Out, Sing Out” is not a celebration of freedom, feeling positive about life and individualism. It is about the personal happiness and the satisfaction of self expression that you will have if you buy a new T-Mobile cellphone.

3.   Walt Whitman’s  ”Pioneers! O Pioneers!” is actually a tribute to the glory and dynamic promise of wearing Levi Jeans.

4. On an island of flightless birds, a bird that dares to risk all to leap off a cliff and take flight in pursuit of personal freedom is the equivalent of deciding to buy an extra thin LG flatscreen TV.

And to think I was starting to feel better.

According to end timers who quote many mythical (religious) references the world is suppose to end 2012. This is one of the reason many right wing end time believers think President Obama is the anti-Christ.

To be fair it seems like every president since Nixon has been dubbed as the anti-Christ thanks to the end timers and Nostradamus effect woo woos.  Ronald (6) Wilson (6) Reagan (6) name had the sign of Beelzebub built right into his full name.  With a few character gyrations the name “Mabus” from a Nostradamus’ quatrain sighting it as the name of the anti-Christ can be turned into “gwbus”.  Of course since progressives are mostly reasonable people very few of them actually “believed” Reagan or Bush were the anti-Christ.  However now we are dealing with the party of true believers which are the most frightening people on earth.

Many reasonable people do not get this conspiracy because it is based on irrational religious belief not reason.  People don’t understand there is a method to the madness of the right wing by consistently calling President Obama a Muslim, Hitler and born in Kenya.  It follows the end time thinking of many true believers based on the Nostradamus quatrains.  Hitler is often cited because according to Nostradamus effect believers Hitler was the 2nd anti-Christ Nostradamus foretold.  Nostradamus also said the anti-Christ will come from the Mideast so that is why many of these crazies do not let go of the birther and Muslim arguments.  It would all me laughable if these people really did not truly have these insane thoughts about our duly elected leader.

We just saw where GOP rep. Trent Frank uttering words that could be right out of a Nostradamus quatrain.

“Obama’s first act as president of any consequence, in the middle of a financial meltdown, was to send taxpayers’ money overseas to pay for the killing of unborn children in other countries,” said Frank. “Now, I got to tell you, if a president will do that, there’s almost nothing that you should be surprised at after that. We shouldn’t be shocked that he does all these other insane things. A president that has lost his way that badly, that has no ability to see the image of God in these little fellow human beings, if he can’t do that right, then he has no place in any station of government and we need to realize that he is an enemy of humanity.”

Quatrain X 10

“Stained with murder and enumerous adulteries

Great enemy of the entire human race

One who will be worse than his grandfathers, uncles or fathers,

In steel, fire, waters, bloody and inhumane”

Of course thinking like this is irrational and this GOP rep. was probably just talking off the top of his head but it still gives fodder to the right wing wackos to justify any extreme action.

Moreover the real right wing political strategy here is to delegitimize President Obama as much as the can to block his agenda.  The right wing does not want to stop there either.  The right wing is formulating a strategy where they really are inciting the military overthrow of the democratically elected government or even not so tacitly promoting the assassination of the president.

Newsmax columnist John Perry wrote Tuesday that President Obama “is inviting” a military coup and that it might not be such a bad thing: “Imagine a bloodless coup to restore and defend the Constitution through an interim administration that would do the serious business of governing and defending the nation. Skilled, military-trained, nation-builders would replace accountability-challenged, radical-left commissars.”

On the same day right wing radio host Jim Quinn directly addressed U.S. troops, telling them that Obama is “gonna get you killed.”

Of course the right wing forgets it was Bush and Cheney that started an illegal war that has so far ended up in the deaths of over 4,000 troops and tens of thousands wounded.  But reasonable thought has no place

Is it a conspiracy?  Yes of course it is when you have a central strategy that is dolled out as talking points to the right wing echo chamber and activist groups every day to take down the duly elected president.  This alone is firm evidence of a conspiracy.

How do you fight insane beliefs?  You simply cannot fight people’s belief systems graves are filled with hundreds of millions of bodies around the world because people believed in causes larger than themselves.  Beliefs are much stronger than careful consideration and logic.  We have a president who is thoughtful and logical but that attribute does not match a major swath of our society.  The worse our schools get the more fertile ground there is for beliefs instead of reason so the future may be dimmer than we hope.

We all know the real aim of the vast right wing conspiracy is to maintain the status quo.  They want to keep on funneling the wealth of the nation to the top 1% and only use people’s adamant religious beliefs to line their pockets.  They want no real healthcare legislation, no renewable energy policy and have come to rely on a poor educational system.  Of course on many fronts the minority of conservative Democrats are helping the GOP resist real change.  Heaven forbid these religious zealots actually believe in the golden rule and the real teachings of their savior but that is not politically expedient.

No one has the answers when a large minority of the country simply goes insane.

If the world does end in 2012 it will be the GOP that is responsible with their right wing conspiracy to get back power that will end it.

Probably the thing that has surprised me most after the election of President Obama is how large swaths of this country simply cannot accept the tenants of our representative democracy.  Instead a large minority continue to demonize and mischaracterize the very progressive policies that people voted for even though conservative have failed America.  We still hear after a president that doubled the debt, destroyed the economy and expanded imperialist America a large minority of people who still believe that the policies that caused those disasters where not to blame.  In fact the day after the GOP takes back power someday they will repeat the same policies of Bush with more tax cuts, more deregulation and international interventionalism.  Yet people will willingly follow the GOP into the abyss.

There are numerous components to the success of a president which automatically is related to the success of the nation.  But two major reasons for success are policies and the attitudes of the people.  Under Republican presidents we seem to have people willing to give them time to succeed.  Reagan was three years into his presidency before a substantial recovery ensued.   Well into 1982 the unemployment rate was almost 11%.  However now people on both ends of the political spectrum are declaring Obama’s presidency a failure 8 months in for things changing too fast towards Socialism or not changing fast enough depending on you political slant.

The other major reason for success is policy.  We have seen Republican policies fail no matter how much support they get from the people when they are implemented.  A Democratic president has one year to implement their policies and then politics intervenes.  No Democratic president since Carter has had a Democratic congress for more than 2 years.  So with a Republican president you have the support of the people and terrible policies and with a Democratic president you have the right policies and tepid support from the people at best.

There are structural and political problems in our system as well that hinders any progress as a nation.

First and foremost the Constitution sets up a power structure where enforcement powers are far concentrated in the Executive Branch.  We have seen over the centuries more and more power concentrate in the executive branch, especially powers associated with domestic and national security.  The endless creation of enforcement agencies that occur after every major security threat is cutting the corners on our liberties from administration to administration.

Second, the Senate is build to resist any real change not only with it’s archaic 60 vote cloture rule that is abhorrently undemocratic but with it’s disproportionate makeup.  It’s ridiculous for states like Nebraska, Alaska and Montana to have as much power as California, Texas or New York.  That is the reason we have conservative rural states with conservative Democrats holding back healthcare legislation.  When a gang of several people who represent less than the population of NYC are determining the healthcare legislation for the whole nation something is very wrong with our system.

Third, corporate person-hood that gives them all the rights of individuals like “free speech” which is only a term used to funnel corporate money into a corrupt campaign funding system.  Until the notion of corporate person-hood is defeated the law will always support corporate sponsored government.  That’s why McCain-Feingold is a failure and will probably be struck down in courts anyway.  Corporate sponsorship of candidates is another reason that blocks viable third parties in our system today.

Fourth, no matter what Americans say we never want to sacrifice.  Taxes need to be increased, especially the payroll tax ceiling.  Otherwise Social Security and Medicare benefits must be cut.  But raising taxes is political suicide in this country since the days of Reagan.  Like usual even though all private healthcare premiums have gone up Congress in one of it’s bipartisan spineless acts has frozen premium increases so Medicare will be insolvent even sooner.   So the Republican goal of starving the beast is still working.

Fundamental attitudes in this country need to change for real change to occur.  Not just change during elections but after elections.  Democratic leaders spurred on by progressives need more than one year to implement their policies.  It took almost 30 years for Republicans to institute the policies that are destroying this nation and some Democrats have embraced conservative policies for personal political reasons.  We need a few more election cycles to purge these conservative attitudes in congress.  But while the right wing echo chamber plays on the progressive base feeds right into their hands due to inpatients with it’s leaders who will probably not get 30 months in power let alone 30 years.  Nobody has all the answers but I certainly know deregulation, tax cuts and global interventionalism is not the answer.

So many things are going on around us without our knowing. For example, I just took a bite of your tuna sandwich. Mmmm…delicious mercury!

Below is a list of things you may or may not know but are not greatly publicized:

1. Social Security\Medicare has been de facto reduced for the first time in memory.
This year Social Security did not receive any cost of living increase AND the copay amount for Medicare went up. The net result is a reduction for all Senior Citizens in income.

2. Tivo spies on you and sells that info.
This may not be the biggest surprise but Tivo records everything you watch including the duration and sends that data directly to whoever wants it. They claim users have anonymity but they necessarily have the data of who the owner is and where they live…which is data that is worth money too so assurances of respecting privacy vs. profits with any corporation are less than convincing.

TiVo will offer stations, advertisers and program producers year-round, second-by-second information about the shows and commercials watched by people who have one of the company’s DVRs. The anonymous data will come directly from the boxes.

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2009-04-20-tivo-data-new-plan_N.htm

3. Bottled water is often just filtered tap water for which you pay 3,000% more than it would cost you at home.

This may be less surprising but many of the major bottled water companies such as Coca Cola’s Dasani and Pepsi’s Aquafina are simply selling you the water that comes out of your tap…at around 3,000 percent of what that same amount of water would cost you. Well, add in the cost of water filtration, through your refrigerator or stand alone like Pur and it might be more like 2,999 percent.

And that’s not even mentioning the massive impact to the environment that all those discarded plastic bottles and the manufacture of all that plastic is creating. With all this global warming going on that it’s contributing to, I sure could use a drink of cool, obscenely overpriced water right about now, how about you?

4. Queen bees dumb down their workers.

The allegory of this science article from the LA Times speaks for itself:

A queen bee needs to keep her subjects calm and quiet, and she does so by secreting a scent that prevents worker bees from learning, according to new research.

The study, published Thursday in the journal Science, found that a component in the queen’s pheromone inhibits the sterile worker bees’ ability to learn from negative experiences. The active scent element is similar to the brain compound dopamine, which is involved in learning and memory in humans and insects.

By preventing aversive learning, the queen ensures that her youngest offspring will stay in the hive and not use their stingers, even if something unpleasant occurs.

“Aversive learning is when the animal makes an association between a particular odor and a nasty experience,” said senior study author Alison Mercer, a neurobiologist at the University of Otago in New Zealand.

The “nasty experience” in the study was a mild electric shock, accompanied by a particular smell.

Honeybees separated from the queen extended their stingers when they detected the odor. But young honeybees exposed to the queen’s pheromone did not respond. The young bees that groom the queen are exposed to high levels of her pheromone.

Older bees somehow become capable of aversive learning — otherwise they would have little chance for survival as they forage for food outside the hive.

amber.dance@latimes.com

5. Americans are rapidly getting too big for their britches…and their t-shirts, SnugWows and caftans. Obesity’s rapidly escalating.

I know it is not a secret that many Americans are obese but the rate in which that obesity is increasing and how prevalent it is seems not to be as widely known. According to a July 2009 report (http://healthyamericans.org/newsroom/releases/?releaseid=182):

Adult obesity rates now exceed 25 percent in 31 states and exceed 20 percent in 49 states and Washington, D.C. Two-thirds of American adults are either obese or overweight. In 1991, no state had an obesity rate above 20 percent. In 1980, the national average for adult obesity was 15 percent. Sixteen states experienced an increase for the second year in a row, and 11 states experienced an increase for the third straight year.

At this rate, the medical costs and lethargy of the majority of Americans will grow exponentially. How does having a greater population of lethargic people with severe health conditions affect our society, economy and health care system? And what about politically, when even clicking on an email petition is just too much energy to expend, let alone rolling out of one’s home to vote.

We are a nation of consumers indeed. With great consumption comes great responsibility…for getting your fat ass on a treadmill and skipping the weekly trips to Olive Garden’s unending pasta bowls, Pizza Hut’s cheese stuffed crusts and McDonald’s McGob O’ Fat sandwiches.

Just wanted to hit several items for a start, hope those of you reading this will share some of the lesser known realities on your list so we can get them out there a bit more.

As Michael Moore’s new film, “Capitalism, A Love Story” is coming out its seems an appropriate time to reflect on the character of American capitalism and how it has usurped social responsibility and democracy in this country.

In the remarkable documentary, “The Corporation”, a segment of the film is dedicated to applying human psychologically to the actions and behavior of a corporation and analyzing it’s character as if it was a person…which legally, it is recognized to be. Not surprisingly, the personality of an American person known as a corporation amounts to that of a sociopath.

So, using that and the title of Moore’s film as inspiration, why don’t we look at capitalism as someone with whom we have a relationship…because we do.

How does capitalism treat us in a personal relationship and will it leave after it gets what it wants claiming it has an important business meeting in the morning?

HOW CAPITALISM TREATS US IN OUR RELATIONSHIP:

1. Puts itself and getting what it wants first over our health, safety and lives.

2. Is very controlling, won’t let us have the remote control to our democracy.

3. Leaves the seat up on health care so many of us fall in due to no coverage.

4. Is selfish in not paying its share of the bill, making us pay its way by not paying taxes itself through loopholes, setting up offshore, etc.

5. Stuffs its mouth with what’s on our plate by using campaign contributions to receive subsidies, being war profiteers, colluding on price fixing.

6. Has its way with us to get profits, begs us for money when it’s broke then once we give it our money, it runs off and spends it only on itself.

7. Lies to us about being faithful and always being good to us while cheating on us with Wall Street insiders.

8. Gets drunk on “boom”s, getting loud and obnoxious about how everyone can make free money on dot coms, home equity, tulips, etc. then hits us in the gut and
steals our retirement money.

9. Always thinks its right, whatever it does. It can never be wrong, it’s always our fault.

10. Has become obese and gluttonous, enough is never enough. And its obesity has led to its impotence, it can no longer satisfy the public’s needs, including jobs, decent wages, health care and a stable economy.

It’s not healthy to stay in abusive relationships and considering that capitalism refuses to go in for counseling with us, we need to change our relationship so it works better for us. My suggestion is that we need an alternative lifestyle, we should have an open relationship with capitalism, free to spend time with socialism too when we want to since capitalism can’t satisfy us all the time.

We need to set strict ground rules with capitalism too, there need to be boundaries that can’t be crossed and the abuse has to stop. And as much as socialism may want to spend all of it’s time with us, we have to make clear that we need our space and don’t want to be smothered by it or capitalism.

Others may talk about us behind our backs but if it makes us happy, that’s all that matters.

Live from The Chicago Municipal Opera House, bequeathed to the city by Charles Foster (Citizen) Kane, it’s Oscar Night! Tonight is a special ceremony, wherein we honor the Best Pictures to NOT win Best Picture. At what other venue could we possibly hold this auspicious event? Citizen Kane is more than just a great film that got snubbed by the Academy. It is widely regarded as one of, if not THE, greatest motion pictures ever made. In fact, so laden with accolades is Orson Welles’ groundbreaking triumph, it seems unnecessary to award it with  something as trivial as an Oscar at this point. Better perhaps to allow the film that bested it, How Green Was My Valley, that one link to immortality. Leaving “Kane” aside, let us now focus our attention on some of the other masterpieces of film that were robbed of their Art Deco paperweights.

Goodfellas (1990); When The Departed won Best Picture in 2007 (it was released in 2006), most movie fans considered it to be little more than a face saving way to present a Lifetime Achievement Award to its director, Martin Scorsese. It may have been his goriest crime drama, but it was hardly his greatest picture. This is the man who gave us Taxi Driver andRaging Bull, after all. Both of those films merited an Oscar, but it isGoodfellas that must be looked upon as the master director’s greatest epic. The best gangster movie ever made? With its release in 1990, it certainly muscled its way into that conversation alongside Oscar winners The Godfather Parts I and II. Goodfellas is a cinematic tour-de-force, dazzling us with one unforgettable scene, camera angle, and performance after another. Surely every movie fan has riffed on Tommy’s  (played by Joe Pesci) “Funny How?” monologue at least once. So, what movie did the Academy decide to laud as the year’s best in its place? Kevin Costner’sDances With Wolves. While not a bad movie, Costner’s politically correct Western amply demonstrates that the freshman director knew less about making grandiose, sweeping epics than Scorsese had forgotten (which would be confirmed by later Costner “epics” The Postman andWaterworld). Early in Goodfellas, when the narrator, mobster Henry Hill (Ray Liotta), introduces us to his mentor Jimmy Conway (Robert Deniro), one of the first things he tells us is that “Jimmy loved to steal!” One cannot but wonder how Jimmy feels when the shoe is on the other foot, because he, along with his wiseguy cohorts, wuz robbed!

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968): Here we have a movie so unusual, so utterly unique, so creative, so visionary, so unlike any other movie ever made that it basically changed our perception of the medium. To be sure, there were “art films” before (and no doubt inspiring) 2001. But it was 2001 that first dazzled us with the technology of filmmaking, the “special effects” that opened up doors undreamed of to directors and studios. If Jaws (1975) was the movie that ushered in the era of the summer blockbuster, it was2001 which revealed the potential of what such films could look like, and the impact that makes on an audience. You don’t watch 2001, youexperience it, which was exactly what director Stanley Kubrick was intending. Plot? Secondary. Performances? Who needs ‘em? The best lines, every single one of them, went to the disembodied, hollow voice of a malfunctioning supercomputer. What supplanted all of that was a VISION; Kubrick was out to entertain our subconscious minds, not the part of us that decides to get up and buy some popcorn. So, what beat out this cinematic work of the finest art? Well, it wasn’t even nominated (though Kubrick was nominated for, and lost, Best Director), so you could say that all the nominees did. The award went to Oliver!, but Funny Girl and The Lion in Winter were also picked as better films. HAL 9000 wasn’t the only thing malfunctioning in movie-land that year, it seems.

May I have the envelope, please? We now come to my personal pick for Best Picture Not to Win Best Picture, Sunset Boulevard (1950): Director Billy Wilder was firing off on all cylinders with this masterpiece,  directed from the height of his powers. Combining black comedy and noir mystery with a subject  he knew all too well about (Hollywood, with its egos and fantasy worlds), this, among all his works, seems his most personal statement. Did Wilder see himself as the writer played by William Holden, losing his soul to the gaudy seductress Norma Desmond (played to perfection by Gloria Swanson) who represented, better than any other role in history, Tinseltown itself? When Norma haughtily proclaims, “I’m still big! It’s the pictures that got smaller!”, is it her ego Wilder is poking fun at, or his own? Perhaps he himself didn’t know for sure, but with this claustrophobic, surreal tragi-comic nightmare, he gave Hollywood its most searing and unflinching look at itself. Nevertheless, it’s hard to fault the Academy this time. “Sunset” was bested by another great movie, featuring another stellar performance by the female lead. All About Eve is perhaps Bette Davis’ finest film (and performance), and unquestionably deserved its Oscar. The only problem is that Sunset Boulevard deserved it too, even more.

Clearly, the Academy has made some dumb, historically indefensible decisions. Worst Picture to Win Best Picture? Hard to be objective in such matters. Some people see art where others are left shaking their heads. DidTitanic deserve its Oscar? This movie, perhaps seen by more people in the world than any other motion picture ever made, certainly delivered the goods in terms of spectacle and scale. But with its two dimensional lovers, and one dimensional villain, it is doubtful that it will be talked about in years to come as a masterpiece. Preachy Crash is a movie whose Oscar provokes many a temper tantrum by serious movie lovers. But for me personally, the “honor” can only go to Chicago!, which won in 2003 (released in 2002). Chicago! is a soulless, unabashedly amoral piece of doo doo. In Roxie Hart (played with neither charm nor sex appeal by Renee Zellweger) Hollywood gave us perhaps its most annoying anti-heroine ever. Featuring unwatchable dance numbers (literally, because they are shot so dark or cut so rapidly), pathetic lyrics, lousy performances, and an utterly bleak and sneeringly cynical viewpoint, in its defense I can only say that  some of the costumes are nice. Kind of. But Best Picture? Fugeddaboudit!

Maybe Norma Desmond was right. The movies really did get smaller. Consider that in 1970, Cabaret, a movie musical far superior to Chicago! in every conceivable way, lost  Best Picture to an even greater film, The Godfather (consider also the competition between Sunset Boulevard andAll About Eve). 2001 would never conceivably be released by a major studio in this day and age. Hollywood is in a pretty bleak state right now, content to crank out superhero movies one after the other, or gory splatter-fests, or Will Smith special effects extravaganzas – noisy movies lacking the intelligence or wit of the films mentioned above. Great movies are still being made, just not with the regularity with which they once were. They are like oases in the desert, rare respites, refreshing reminders of the possibilities of filmmaking for we, as Norma puts it, “wonderful people, out there in the dark…..”

We Americans are being very wasteful with our natural resources of emotional energy. This is causing a slew of problems affecting our environment including adding a great deal of additional CO2 into the atmosphere,  pollution of political discourse  and a shortage of positive emotional energy.

I think the time has come for us to take action. For those who ask, “What can I do to conserve emotional energy and reduce Global Flaming?”, I have put together the following list of things you can do in your daily  life and your community that can make a difference and reduce our dependency on senseless and contrived emotional fuel:

What You Can Do to Reduce Global Flaming

1. Substitute organic music of your choice  for the artificial news in the MSM (listen to Pink Floyd’s “Dark Side of the Moon” when you watch Fox News or CNN, you’ll find it syncs up perfectly, especially on the songs “Money” and “Brain Damage”).

2. Plant a Birther.

3. Instead of arguing obviously fictional charges made against Health Care Reform, Financial Reform, etc., carry a large mallet around and conk Republicans on the head until they announce they’re running for office in South Carolina or Minnesota.

4. Create rolls of toilet paper out of The New York Post.

5.  Unscrew the thought light bulbs from Republicans and replace them with squashes.

6. Recycle old condemnations of racists from the 50’s and 60’s.

7.  Use the additive “Where’s My Asshat?” as a middle name for wack Republican talking heads and politicians to get better mileage (i.e., Michele “Where’s My Asshat” Bachmann, Glenn “Where’s My Asshat” Beck).

8. Instead of driving reason home with Republicans, walk or bicycle it (for them, the slower the better).

9. Don’t leave the blather running when brushing off brainwashed right wing tools, just shut them off by twisting their very tiny spigot.

10.  Reduce toxic emissions, seal Rush Limbaugh’s mouth with a catalytic converter.

Working together, we can reduce and hopefully reverse the negative impact on us and our nation that this crisis of Global Flaming has been wreaking. We can protect the environment of productive political conversation and genuine desire for social progress by conserving our emotional energy.

Turn off that right wing talking head that keeps running off at the mouth with insanity, recycle your disgust or outrage and use them wisely to contact your representatives and progressive organizations,  save energy by not bothering to debate that Republican in your family into thinking for themself (just give them a copy of “Idiocy for Dummies” for Christmas).

All being real healthcare reform with a public option and nothing being no healthcare bill at all.

Senator Cantwell (D-WA) is the second Finance Committee member along with Senator Rockefeller (D-WV) to say this will not vote for Chairman Baucus’ (D-MT) health insurance reform bill in it’s present form.

“I wouldn’t vote for a bill that doesn’t have Medicare reform and the public option,” Cantwell said in a telephone interview. “What would I tell the people in Washington state?”

Who can blame them the bill is hardly a Democratic bill at all which really just favors insurance companies. In fact Wendell Potter former insurance company VP said Baucus must have drawn up this bill because the insurance companies would not have this much gall. If Cantwell and Rockefeller do not vote for the bill it will likely not be voted out of committee because no member of the GOP was ever serious about voting for healthcare reform.

This puts the Baucus bill in the tenuous situation that it is hated by conservatives and progressives alike. The few conservative Democrats that like the bill (or more properly stated are paid to like the bill) will not be able to vote it out of committee. Even if the Baucus bill does go to the floor of the Senate it will have a tough time getting 60 votes to achieve cloture. People are misreading it thinking only conservative Democrats pose a filibuster threat when progressive Democrats in the Senate are just as much of a threat in filibustering a bad bill.

The best case scenario is that the House goes ahead and passes a bill with a public option and the Senate passes a better bill with or without the public option. At this point the Baucus bill is so bad that even adding the public option will not fix it. Then the House and Senate bills need to be reconciled which will be the biggest legislative fight many of us have seen in our lifetimes.  If the bill goes to both chambers with a public option the House will pass it and the Senate could filibuster.  This is when the Democratic leadership including President Obama really need to step in and make sure the final bill is a good bill.  To me forcing Democrats to join Republicans in a filibuster should be used as a weapon to shame them even though we know some of them have no shame.  If a bill does not have a public option the House will not pass it and there is more than a good probability that there will be no bill.

Democrats need to realize a bad bill will get minimal support.  There simply is no political cover for a bad bill anymore, especially since the president has stepped in and says he wants a public option.  If you look at the polls support for healthcare reform is about 50-50 when you talk about specific plans.  If Baucus poisons the well with progressives and core Democrats the public can easily become 80% or more against his bill once the details continue filter out to the public.  While a bill with a public option has much greater support.  This is how I see this coming to a showdown of real reform versus no reform.

When it comes to huge impacting realities about American society, The MSM is militant…they employ a “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy.

For example, it was an open secret for decades that Catholic Priests had been abusing young boys. It was so well known “unofficially” that it became a throw away joke for many standup comics, SNL and many comedy shows. And yet the MSM kept the news and investigations just between them and their priests.

There was all the Bush insanity, the 2000 election to begin with that had blatant evidence of tampering with our democracy, the nasty secrets of The Patriot Act, WMDs and Iraq, Iraq being conflated with 9/11, aw hell, the whole 8 years under Bush.

The MSM just played the role of a ventriloquist dummy, letting ideologues on the right especially make outrageous charges and just repeating them without analysis…of just calling obvious bullshit for what it was. Instead, they call the broadcast of phony propaganda, “balance”.

Now we come to The White Elephant in the Room.

Racism.

As with the Catholic Priests molesting young boys, it is an open “secret” that those most insane at the Tea Parties and Town Halls, those most repeating the phrase, “I want my country back!”, calling Obama a Muslim, Nigerian, Socialist, etc. are for the most part, racists.

And yet, watch the MSM. They ask questions like, “Why do you think there’s so much outrage out there?” and “Is all the government spending on the bail out, stimulus and possibly on health care, upsetting people?” WTF? These people who can’t even spell the word “moron” correctly are sitting around their trailer reading the Wall Street Journal to check their stock portfolios and while discussing offshore tax havens, remark about the effect of the increased deficit on the bond market?

Or how about this…the people we’re talking about use whatever cover they can for expressing their hatred of other races. They hate this black man for destroying their one claim to being “special”. Sure they may be poor, live in trailers, fry their Thanksgiving turkeys in a barrel of oil, have more children and less teeth than most Americans but the one thing that let them hold their heads up proudly (and all of their chins), the one accomplishment they had that made them superior to others in this nation was that they were white.

For them, only white people could and should do the most important things and be the most important people. But not anymore. By becoming president, Barack Obama affirmed that such racist garbage should remain behind their trailers for pickup. However, from the racist perspective, he has taken away “their” country.

What does it mean when a poor, white, frothing-at-the-mouth southerner wails, “I want my country back?” It means a nostalgia for separate drinking fountains and schools, back of the bus, having “them” step off the sidewalk to get out of white people’s way…the country they want is the country their racist predecessors had that validated their feelings of superiority simply because they were born with light colored skin.

Quite an accomplishment indeed, being born with light colored skin, ya gotta hand it to them.

Now, there is an odd flip side to this. Pres. Obama does not want the media talking about racism either. He does not want it as a distraction to the issues or for its reality to be broadly acknowledged because it would bring up the issue that his being black DOES make him different as a president, a segment of the population DOES despise the President of the United States simply for being black.

Admirably, Pres. Obama wants to be president of a post-racial America. He does not want his having a darker skin tone than some Americans to be a focus of his presidency because then “the terrorists” have won and he’d be participating in being judged by the color of his skin and not the content of his character.

However, by believing that if you claim not to see the White Racist Elephant in the room that others won’t see it, I think he makes the mistake of providing cover for those who are racists and ultimately is not being honest.

Over 70% of Republicans don’t believe Pres. Obama is an American or legally president. No white president has ever had “being an American like us” so challenged. That is not the “small minority” (love the phrase “minority” applied to racists though) that Pres. Obama and his Admin are describing as racially motivated.

Granted, this is a complex and difficult issue. Perhaps Pres. Obama’s approach will best achieve the results of a true evolution to a post racial America. Then again, maybe by obscuring the truth of the rampant racism in this nation, it is protected from greater scrutiny and scorn and allowed to flourish.

I don’t know for sure but I do know one thing…the evolution won’t be televised…not by the MSM.

Alright folks.

We were on on the verge of a depression, barely missed total bank melt down, and must muddle through a few years of recovery before anything like full employment and prosperity can be expected.

We are ensnared in two intractable wars, plus a war against deranged religious extremism in general, we have no coherent plan for middle east peace nor any idea of what an effective stance on the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians should be.

Our economy is utterly dependent on fossil fuels.

There is some sort of discussion of health care and insurance reform, or so I hear.

And so now in the House 99 Repugs and one Dem from MO (it’s bipartisan!!!) have sponsored a law that says that the President must get the approval of the Senate for every last man jack of his advisory team. Karl Rove would have fallen under this law. Yet Karl is a prime mover here.

Yeah.   This is how adults should be spending their days? What a steaming pile of crap.

The horseshit of the Birthers is running down. Sentient people are realizing how they appear utter fools arguing that the president was not born in America.   So the new bogus complaint is trotted out.

What will it be next month? When will they come to terms with a negro as president?

Senator Baucus (D-MT) finally unleashed his bill which is mostly a giveaway to the healthcare industry.  Re-releasing this post to remind everyone what’s in the bill.

1. The plan has no Public Option with possible co-ops or triggers in it’s place.  The bad fact is this is not the worst part of the “gang of six” plan.
2. Instead of direct subsidies like the other legislation passed in Congress Baucus’ plan has tax credits and ungenerous tax credits to help families pay premiums.  Instead of families up to $88,000 in income paying 10% maximum on healthcare premiums in the other bills in congress, Baucus would have families pay 13%.  Meanwhile people who get their income through unemployment insurance or disability would not even get a subsidy under Baucus’ plan.
3. Buying healthcare insurance would be mandatory.  For universal healthcare you need some mandates but the fines Baucus is discussing are three fold larger (up to $3,800/year) than in other bills where fines are more or less an incentive to buy insurance.
4. Instead of taxing the rich the “gang of six” wants to tax and fine healthcare insurers and providers.  Sure some of the revenue should come from those sources but other plans rightly tax the rich.
5. 60 year olds would be charged 5 times more than 20 year olds.  While you would not let a population that is inherently younger and healthier  pay more than an older population that statistically has more health problems that factor is ridiculous.
6. Baucus even water down the concept of an “insurance exchange”.  Instead of people automatically paying group rates only some uninsured people will get to pay similar rates to group rates.  The whole individual and small business premium rate cartel is one of the huge injustices in our system.

So far who have spoken have panned the bill.  Senator Rockefeller (D-WV) who is on the Finance Committee has already said he would not vote for the bill in it’s present form.

“I have sat besides Max Baucus for 22 years on the Finance Committee. …I’m probably one of his best friend among Democrats. But I cannot agree with him on this bill. … There is no way in present form I will vote for it. Therefore, I will not vote for it unless it changes during the amendment process by vast amounts.”

Read more at “Fines proposed for going without health insurance”.

Read the summary of the Baucus bill here “Framework for Comprehensive Healthcare Reform”.

Yes America, it’s true.  The media is giving power to the most ignorant segment of our country. Of course, the first clue that these people were not the brightest bulbs in the chandelier is when they decided to call themselves “Teabaggers.” While they may be a great source of entertainment for those of us who have more than two brain cells to bump together, the topic of health care is an important one. These people are grossly uninformed, misinformed, and  generally motivated by their fear of the unknown. Never once do they consider that perhaps they know so little because they are so overwhelmingly brainless. Oh, and that they refuse to get their news from anywhere other than right-wing propagandists and Fox News – who are bought and paid for by the same corporations that have brought us to the brink of disaster.

Video Highlights:

They believe that czars are bad, generally because it is an unfamiliar word in their vocabulary. When informed that Reagan also used czars, and that czars were expanded under George W. Bush, the crowd expressed dumbfounded confusion and disbelief. Their level of skepticism increased further as they were educated on the roles of the czars here in America. That they wield no executive power and act as advisers.  Not to mention that most of them have been confirmed! Dubiously, one man questioned, “and you know this how?” If Glenn Beck didn’t say it, it must not be true. One woman worried about whether or not they are given land to lord over (like those czars that Caesar had back in “Roman Times.” )

Another deep thinker also contributed to the discussion about czars, stating that, “in Russia, czars are kings. I want people to know that in America, Jesus is king.’” I wish that the guy interviewing her would have said, “many people believe that Jesus was a socialist.” But, he may not have gotten out of there alive.

Other Highlights:

A man goes on and on about abortions and how black women make up a high percentage of said abortions. But this has nothing to do with race.

A man wielding a wooden cross, typically used for cross burnings by the KKK, states that he had no clue that the rally was going on. He goes on to ask the people around him if they wanted to sign the cross, which already had several signatures. But, this has nothing to do with race.

More mention of President Obama being a Muslim, and not a Christian as he states. But, this has nothing to do with race.

A man holds up a tall sign that proudly states, “Joe Wilson for President.” He changed his mind after he was informed that Joe Wilson actually voted to pay the hospital bills of illegal immigrants that visited the Emergency Room – with taxpayers money.

A man states that there are simply not enough doctors in America for everyone to receive health care. That we would be 200,000 doctors short!  When asked what should be done for the millions of Americans who lack coverage, he didn’t have a solution. Especially when there is no solution that would conjure up more doctors. In other words, those without health care, feel free to rot.

A woman states her belief that President Obama is interested in building an army of 2 million people who will be as well armed as the military. She goes on the repeat the false claim, even as she is corrected. I guess she also believes in FEMA Death Camps.

A man states that Hitler wooed all with his fancy words, just like President Obama. Does this mean that all educated men with charisma should be out of the question for the presidency in the future?

A woman whose been in the health care industry 20 years claims that the, “Bury Obamacare with Kennedy” signs are simply “sarcastic.” While another individual  goes on to state that the sign was okay, because the Kennedy’s had “done other stuff too,” though he could not think of any of that stuff “off the bat.”

And finally, ignoramuses attending the rally believe that being a communist, fascist, and socialist are all the same thing. Practically interchangeable. Not only that, when questioned, they have no grasps of what they are even protesting.

::sighs::

There are other blatant examples of the overall ignorance of the crowd. All brought together by the hard work of Glenn Beck and Faux News.

These are the people keeping us from having a REAL health care debate. And their “representatives” are allowing it to happen!

At the end of the video, a woman is in a tizzy about how she is frustrated that they aren’t being listened to by the government, as a whole…

God help us if they ever are.

Thank you KQuark for motivating this entry. After viewing the video that you posted in comments, I had to write this or my brain was going to explode all over my keyboard & computer monitor.

Progressives to their credit are becoming more and more aware of what much of these teabag protests are all about, blatant racism. After all just reading the signs of the teabaggers this past weekend exposes the type of people they are. However we also have to be cognizant of the real world implications of this hate. More and more I am coming across stories of hate crimes, especially towards African American women because these “men” are too cowardly to attack African American men.

Following is just another story of these increasing hate crimes. I guarantee you if the man was not part of the teabag movement he is sympathetic towards it.

Army reservist beaten in front of child

By Kristi Swartz
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

“A man beat an Army reservist in front of a Morrow Cracker Barrel, yelling racial slurs at her as he kicked her in the head, Morrow police said. The assault happened in front of the woman’s 7-year old daughter, who stood there, crying, witnesses told police.

Morrow police arrested Troy Dale West of Poulan after reviewing a video surveillance tape and talking to customers. He was charged with battery, disorderly conduct and cruelty to children.

The woman and her daughter were leaving the South Lake Plaza Drive restaurant last Wednesday around 7:30 p.m. as West was heading inside, Capt. James Callaway of the Morrow Police Department said.
The restaurant doorway nearly struck the woman’s daughter, prompting her to tell West, “Sir, you almost hit my daughter with the door, could you please be careful,”

Callaway said.  West responded, telling the woman that she needed to watch her daughter and then began yelling racial slurs at her and kicking and punching her in the head, Callaway said.
Witnesses told police the woman kept telling West that she was an Army officer.

“She kept saying, “Sir, I’m a United States solder, don’t do this,’” Callaway said.

Police interviewed customers and other witnesses and arrest West at the restaurant, Callaway said. He was charged with cruelty to children, a felony, because he beat the woman in front of her daughter, Callaway said.
“I was in the ambulance with her daughter, and she was extremely upset, crying and asking why he would do this to her mom,” Callaway said.

Police have turned the case over to the FBI’s Civil Rights Division, saying it may be a violation of the Federal Hate Crime Law, Callaway said.

“We are not making the decision that it’s a hate crime, we’re referring it and letting them make a decision on it,” Callaway said.

Officials at the Cracker Barrel in Morrow as well as its corporate offices in Lebanon, Tenn., referred all calls to the police and the FBI.
Calls to the FBI, which also has the video surveillance tape, were not immediately returned.

“We’re glad that the Cracker Barrel called the authorities,” company spokeswoman Julie Davis said.

West of Poulan was arrested after police reviewed a video surveillance tape and talked to customers.”

I would encourage anyone to report hate crimes and incidents to the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Journalistic integrity is fast becoming an oxymoron like “army intelligence” or “truth in advertising”. Today’s news programs have had a cleansing of “reporters”. Now we have “anchors”, or “personalities”. “Commentators.” Of course they cannot call themselves reporters, as that would imply some objectivity on their part.

Is there any integrity left in the industry? I do believe there is some. Most assuredly we are scraping at the bottom of the pot; possibly adding some water to stretch what’s left. Is it irony that in today’s media, some of the highest levels of integrity and honesty are exhibited by comedians? Fortunately however, there are still some reporters out there.

Some are new, like this Rachel Maddow I’ve seen lately. I don’t watch her show, but I have seen some clips on the web. She maintains a professional demeanor, and plainly contrasts truth and fallacy as she interviews her guests. I look forward to seeing more of her in the future.

And some are old. Icons of journalism who’ve been around for years but haven’t retired yet; postponing that last fade-to-black and becoming part of the past with Mr. Kronkite and Mr. Murrow.

I do not have much experience with this particular television reporter, either, but for the segments I have viewed, not on his regular public television broadcasts; but courtesy of YouTube. (Truth is, I don’t subscribe to television anymore.) For 50 years, this man has been, and still is, pursuing truth and bringing it to the people for consideration. In doing so, he has enlightened me to some truths that are just plain scary. Scary in how evil some corporations are, how dirty they are willing to play, how naive the public is to attempt to compromise with them, and how complicit the govt. is in our nation’s economic woes.

Please watch these videos. Share them with friends; post their links on public forums as often as possible. The truth IS out there. Some are still digging it up; and we owe it to them to pass it along until it is heard by everyone.

Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Bill Moyers.

1.Moyers interviews William K. Black : [The] “Bush Administration essentially got rid of regulation, so if nobody was looking, you were able to do this with impunity and that’s exactly what happened,” — W. Black

2. Moyers interviews Wendell Potter : “Well, I was beginning to question what I was doing as the industry shifted from selling primarily managed care plans, to what they refer to as consumer-driven plans. And they’re really plans that have very high deductibles, meaning that they’re shifting a lot of the cost off health care from employers and insurers, insurance companies, to individuals. And a lot of people can’t even afford to make their co-payments when they go get care, as a result of this.” — W. Potter

3. Moyers discusses the history of health insurance and a single payer system : “Health care costs are rising 6% a year.” — B. Moyers

4. Moyers interviews David Cay Johnston : “One of the key sources I quote is a prominent Republican lawyer married to a United States senator who is the expert in Texas on municipal finance. The subsidy, he says, is $202.5 million. And Bush and his partners captured about 168 million of it.” — D. Johnston

5. Moyers hands an O’Reilly stooge his arse : “…and if you want a job, I may have some recommendations for ya.” — B. Moyers