To call him "my" Senator would be a misnomer

Last week I signed a petition on Freepress.net about the DOD/military industry-backed "experts" being hired by the media. Or, would it be more appropriate to say they are backing the DOD/military industry? Either way, the petition basically and in much more gentle terms than I would have chosen asked that congress investigate whether anything illegal had taken place. The following is Senator (gag) DeMint's response. First he says these "experts" aren't being paid by the DOD, so the DOD has done nothing improper. Longstoryshort, they're credentialed folks with ulterior motives identified and filtered to the media by the DOD, so this maybe technically true. He then says, provided that yadda yadda, the DOD "should be given opportunities to explain its side of the debate," which sounds an awful lot like an admission to me. Finally, Senator (ugh) Demint writes that they have suspended the program...even though it is really there to serve our best interest. Thanks, Jimmy! FU too.

"The Framers knew that free speech is the friend of change and revolution. But they also knew that it is always the deadliest enemy of tyranny"--Hugo Black


Dear Mr. Liebert,

Thank you for contacting me regarding a recent New York Times article on the Pentagon's efforts to communicate the successes of the Global War on Terror to the American people. I appreciate hearing from you on this important issue.

As you may know, some journalists have accused the Department of Defense (DOD) of using military analysts to spread positive messages regarding the plans and progress in Iraq. However, these analysts are employed by the media outlets they consult and not DOD. Provided regulations are followed and journalists can ask tough questions of senior leaders and get answers, DOD should be given opportunities to explain its side of the debate on the Global War on Terror.

You may be pleased to know, DOD has temporarily suspended its outreach to military retirees who serve as analysts for media outlets in order to review the program and ensure it does not violate DOD policy. This program is intended to supply media outlets with information and access, in addition to the numerous journalists currently imbedded with military units operating in combat zones.

Thank you again for sharing your concerns with me. Please feel free to contact me again in the future with anything important to you in the future. It is an honor to serve you and the people of South Carolina.

Sincerely,
Jim DeMint
United States Senator

Speechless.

Open Letters to George W. Bush from his ardent admirer,Belacqua Jones: wherethefuckami?

Common Sense

Before anyone beats me to it, I'm claiming the name The Common Sense Party of the United States and forming said party as a union of Americans who reject the idiotic notions, misinformation, disinformation, secrecy, ulterior motives, and exploitation of ignorant Americans that pervades politics in the US and embrace rationality as a guiding principle.

The first principle that must be embraced here is that in the US the terms "liberal" and "conservative" have been turned on their heads. Plainly speaking, the US was founded on liberal principles pertaining to both civil and economic rights. So, Americans who embrace civil rights, are by definition conservative Americans. And, those people who would sacrifice their civil rights are not conservative, but rather thay are fundamentally anti-American radicals. They're just too stupid to to recognize this fact. The formation of the existing constitution, adopted a decade after initial efforts to confederate the original colonies, was a product in part of the weakness of the original confederation regarding taxing authority and provision for defense. So, it is as well contradictory to be anti-tax and conservative. Those claiming to be both are...you got it--stupid. To denounce "tax and spend liberals" is stupid on more levels than just the fact that it is the role of the federal government to spend money to "establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity." It stupid because if you spend without an income (taxes) you accumulate debt. If you do too much of this you will be overcome by interest which must be paid on the debt and will not be able to ever pay off your debt. And, then you're fuct.

And, this country has indeed become so fuct by the clowns running the show, that we need to reaffirm common sense as a national quiding principle.

Are You Fucking Serious?

CNN Headline News brings you a one hour special on the "End of Days." Would you fucking idiot fundamentalists please just go kill yourselves!? Now!!!!

I was just thinking about the fact that it really had been a daily occurrence lately that I had these Americans-are-so-stupid moments, but I've been a bit lost--maybe sidetracked on the fundamental misinformedness of the American populace about political and economic ideas. I did find and article in the New Statesman about destructive US intervention in Latin America where there was an interesting comment posted. I agreed with the guy about the journalistic weaknesses of the article, but the guy was clearly arguing from the fallacious position that socialism ("communism" actually) has been proven not to work and capitalism has proven superior. And, I wrote a bit about that.

But, then Glenn Beck, who thanks to the infotainment revolution gets to call himself a journalist, gives us a "news" program about the realization of Bible prophesies and the imminent armageddon. And, this is something that I need not even elaborate on. I mean, this is just so stupid on so many levels, I don't even want to start elaborating on it. The fact that this idiocy is cloaked as "news" should preclude further discussion of anything but the role of media in society. So, there; you have Glenn Beck to thank for keeping me from writing about socialism. Loudmouthed, fake-grey-aired dumbass. Oh, my Void! GB is quoting Ezekiel. The world hath shit a great terd and that terd is Glenn Beck; where's the toilet paper?

jfshoifferjd

I gotta remember to do my edits in an external document. I realized paragraph 1 yesterday was incomplete, added quite a bit and then lost the whole edit when I tried to save. Bleaaaah. I don't need practice typing that bad.

More on socialism

US Senator and self proclaimed socialist Bernie Sanders on the Colbert Report April 21.

http://www.comedycentral.com/colbertreport/videos.jhtml?videoId=166722

I don't agree with this guy altogether, but I think it's valuable to show Americans that socialists exist in this country, that they are patriots, and that their values are quite mainstream.

It's a tad surprising to me that I agree that we need some redistribution of wealth moreso than I agree that it's a "right" or that everyone "deserves" "free" health care and college. It's surprising only because I usually don't put the two socialist principles into connected thoughts. Frankly, it's up to society to decide what rights we have and what is due to all of us collectively and individually. Human rights are defined by the value systems of the most abundant or most powerful people, not by nature or gods. So, I think it's a bit silly or maybe just (perhaps necessarily) simplistic to say we have a right to or deserve health care or education or ... food. I personally do not believe every American has a right to food just because they were born in this country. Clearly, looking around the globe there are plenty of countries where neither nature nor gods saw fit to provide food for the people, so when we say one of those folks deserves at least a bowl of rice, it's our value system we're expressing. If rice were limited (may not be a hypothetical for long) so that there simply wasn't an extra bowl of rice to send to Sudan, we would be expressing a very different idea of who deserved what. The domestic agricultural engineer would be much more deserving of an extra bowl of rice than the starving family, for example.

The redistribution of wealth idea is something different. It seems to me like a lot of working class folk are more protective of the wealth of the wealthy than the wealthy are themselves. And, it seems to me that this arises out of the fantasy of the common man that one day he might be wealthy and when that happens he doesn't want the government taking disproportionate advantage of him. He is allying himself with, identifying with, emulating insofar as he can the wealthy and successful and thereby elevating himself (in his own mind). I respect the creativity, drive, and ingenuity of the economically successful, but I still want some of their money. More correctly, I want it back. Ninety dollars per month for cable. (Actually, it's almost a hundred per month now. They jack the price up with every new bill. They won't begin to consider pay per channel. They won't provide just internet for just half the price. They gouge every chance they get.) Go in for an auto inspection and have them extort you by saying you need an entire brake rebuild and won't pass you until you get it. Pay twenty bucks for a CD that costs fifteen cents to make. Corporate bailouts. Enron. Yadda yadda. The wealthy got wealthy by taking money from all of us rightly or wrongly. The wealthy, or rather anyone making 200K per year or more have no worries. So, tax them. It's not exploiting their wealth; it's taking money they made off the masses and giving a little bit of it back, in the form of a higher quality of life (meaning health care or education, shelter or food), to the people they took the money from in the first place. When the government fails to redistribute wealth from the rich and ultrarich they fail to live up to the ideals of the Declaration of Independence (Excerpt below). there is a limited amount of wealth in the world and that means for one man to be rich another must be poor. Policies that protect and cultivate the wealth of the ultrarich do so at the expense of the many many people. And, those many many people have the right and the duty to correct the situation for the health and happiness of us all. And, then we have the Fifth Amendment...just joking.

"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. --That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security."

Nationalized health care may be socialism, but so what?

Over and over again (a bit more in this election cycle than usual) I hear pundits say "Nationalized health care? That's socialism." And, socialism has no place in our capitalist and democratic society.

Well, anyone who is against nationalized health care because it is socialism is either a lobbyist for the health insurance industry, a pundit who's been paid by a lobbyist for the insurance industry, or they're just plain stupid...or ignorant I should say.

I don’t debate for a second that there is certainly at least an element of socialism in a federally controlled health care structure, but maybe less than you might think. Right now, health care is basically unaffordable without insurance, so individuals must take a considerable chunk of their paycheck and put it towards insurance that pays for his/her health care if he/she falls ill or suffers an injury. And, hopefully he/she won’t need it because that co-pay can be enough to cover a meal or two per day for a week—not trivial. Some one could save for health care and just sit on a wad of cash for this occasion, but it you’d have to have ten million dollars before you could just get rid of health insurance altogether. This is because maintenance care isn’t terribly expensive, you have to carry the insurance for the unpredictable events in you life, like an auto accident, cancer, debilitating disease or injury, care for which might cost you upwards of half a million dollars.

The way this makes me feel, I cannot describe without offensive language and imagery, so I’ll just say that the individual is being taken advantage of in our current system. You see this system gets expensive—rapidly so as care becomes more intensive—because insurance companies are skimming at every level. When you buy insurance, you are making a bet that you will get sick. They, acting as your bookie, are making the counter bet that you won’t get sick or that you won’t get so sick that they have to pay out more money than you have paid them. The rates are based on the cost of health care and the percentages of historical health care requirements for people in your demographic group. In other words the insurance company has calculated the odds and is making a very well thought-out wager that is virtually guaranteed to yield a profit. You are in Vegas and they are the house. It’s not just you, the doctors need malpractice insurance and the hospital needs liability insurance (in case they remove the wrong kidney or give you the wrong medication and end-up needing to pay for your health care for the rest of your life). Just like home costs go up when the builder needs to pay more for gas to transport building materials, the insurance costs of the doctors and the hospitals get passed on to the consumer. Through this system, a cut is taken repeatedly by insurance companies. That’s less money that goes to your health care providers, less money in your pocket, and hundreds of millions of dollars into the pockets of insurance companies. Anyone who argues that this system is needed to ensure that we have high quality care is trying to mislead you, or they are—you got it—stupid.

I did some back-or-the-envelope math to see what kind of gross annual profit health insurance companies must bring in and it was something like 10 billion nationally. That buys a lot of lobbyists—enough to make sure that nationalized health care arrives in the form of federally subsidized health insurance rather than a replacement of the corporate health insurance system. Ten billion dollars could also buy a lot of doctor visits. Imagine if you just paid you health insurance out of your paycheck like usual, but the company you work for didn’t have to contribute. You payment went strait to the same account to which everyone else’s health care payment went. Out of this big pot of money doctors are paid, hospitals and other facilities take a cut from this account according to how many people they treat or by how expensive it is to maintain the facility. I won’t pretend to know exactly how this could be made to work, but it would inherently be cheaper than the insurance based system. We’d have to be careful to avoid any administrative structure that might allow for politicization of budget management. It would be all too easy, particularly will their lobbyist minions in place in DC, for the masters of the current insurance based system to take control of any new system that is implemented. Some people will try to funnel extra money to their hospital or their medical specialty. Some people will try to usurp the monies in the form of administrative salaries, because they are so wonderfully qualified—and connected. So, we’d have to be careful, but this is health care paid for by the people for the people. Granted some people might need to get jobs if they intend to contribute to and benefit from the system, but the entitlement mentality is a topic for another day. The point is that this isn’t a paternal government spoon-feeding health care to Americans; it is people paying for their own healthcare, without having to pay a bookie a commission.

The fact that this does require a central, communal fund, and that one of the intentions must be to provide health care even to those without jobs who don’t contribute to the system (if you’re getting excited, this includes children, so simmer down) does smell like socialism, but for me, I’d rather be socialist than continue getting screwed by capitalist insurance companies. Most western, democratic countries have adopted some degree of socialism, because in some situations it is more efficient and provides for a better quality of life for more people than capitalism. Health care is one of these situations. To invoke American anti-socialist sentiments and the images of totalitarian rulers we associate with socialism as an argument against nationalized health care is to show just how unarguable anti-nationalization is.