It was a crass thing for Trump to say to a recent war widow, but of course it’s also fundamentally said in praise of brave men. They knew what they signed up for. But do American soldiers know what they sign up for? Not just the risk, but the horror and culpability? Did Trump voters know what they signed up for? I’ll put it to you they did not.
COLORADO SPRINGS– [UPDATED]
My question to TR Reid, who speaks tonight at CC’s Palmer Hall, is how can voices for health care rights get past the corporate media editors?
As Washington Post Denver bureau chief and NPR reporter, Reid’s answer will reveal his earnestness, because most clearly his editors have kept the upper hand. The Independent, which is sponsoring tonight’s event, has invited two respondents to offer rebuttals, but both represent the health care status quo, there is no one advocating for socialized medicine, automatically framing Reid’s centrism as the people’s best hope.
I remember a TR Reid interview on NPR, which left me with the distinct impression of a hobbled argument. Look at the subtitle of his Frontline documentary: Sick Around the World: Can the U.S. learn anything from the rest of the world about how to run a health care system? They don’t say “what can the US learn” but can it. That’s the same false question the corporate media use to approach Global Warming. Though the answer is a multiplicity of affirmatives, the headline posed as a question leaves the viewer with the impression the conclusion is his to decide. The moon: is it there?
A follow-up Sick Around America was famously, in alternative media circles at least, altered to endorse insurance mandates. Reid broke away from the final product when PBS refused to mention his conclusion that health insurance should not be for profit. Reid chalked it up to a disagreement, not specifically a motive.
The book Mr. Reid will be signing is titled The Healing of America: a global quest for better, cheaper, and fairer health care. His own disjointed title reflects why he returned empty-handed. Can you imagine if it had read simply: a global quest for health care?
Better, cheaper and fairer are redundant qualifiers and load the theme with false perspective. “Better” assumes American care can be ranked on a scale, this book is obviously only for those getting care. “Cheaper” assumes health care must have a price — Universal health care is free. “Fairer” again assumes that our current equilibrium is in some measurable aspect fair, besides which, the concept is a fallacy. There’s unfair and fair. Moving from one toward the other, fairness is unfair until it is fair. Besides which, every schoolchild knows “fairer” is expressed as “more fair.” If Reid had been honest, he would have phrased it “less unfair.”
TR Reid applauds the health care available in other developed countries, but notes the other systems are not without their flaws. Is this some sort of psychological inducement to feed the American ego, that US reform can aim higher than the health care as a right provided elsewhere? I think it’s a loophole with which to scuttle his proposal.
It seems TR Reid is ignoring the chief obstacle to health care. It’s not reason, it’s not taxes. The chief obstacle is capitalist greed, it’s class warfare, and the social systems of our like nations are under attack as well. The shortcomings which TR Reid sees in Europe are the result of legislative meddling with systems enacted by the people.
Americans aren’t going to get health care by waiting on their legislators, or the benevolence of the corporations. The audience tonight may be impressed by TR Reid’s findings, but he’s offering nothing but placebo. Talking about health care, visualizing it, salivating at its proximity, is as much taste as TR Reid, the Washington Post and its corporate health industry advertisers will have us get.
UPDATE: TR Reid spoke to a standing room only crowd and received a standing ovation. As per usual for journalists, he provided his own disclaimer for venturing from objectivity when he posited that providing health care for all could be a moral obligation. But on the matter of The Politics of Health Care Reform, the topic of his speech, he had nothing to say.
Really, he threw the question back at the audience. Why won’t the USA provide universal coverage to its people. I’ve thought about it a lot, he told us, and I don’t have the answer.
When it came why some countries pay for Viagra, while others do not, TR Reid was humorously inquisitive. His rundown of the various medical systems throughout the world was decidedly comprehensive. But on the question of the hour, Reid was the customary incurious newspaperman which might explain his success in major media.
Not once, even at someone’s prompting, did Reid mention the for-profit worm in America’s medical system’s rotten apple. We’re told that Reid walked away from the second Frontline documentary for its whitewash of his criticism of the for-profit incentive which prevents payment systems from serving the public good. He’s excised the subject from his own presentation too. Instead, Reid focused on the millions of uninsured Americans, without a mention of the bigger population of victims, those insured who are denied care nonetheless.
Reid was pessimistic about the chances for near-term reform, based on anecdotal evidence of comments he’s received on the Frontline website. A year ago his documentary got mostly supportive comments. This year they are predominantly critical. Thus, Reid concludes, Americans do not want health care reform.
His audience tonight applauded every punchline about health care as a human right, yet Reid held that we did not want it badly enough. I hate it when the best of our spokesmen blame the audience.
Should a television cameraman get photo credit for a studio image? Can NBC copyright what represents a national address in a neo-public forum? I think not.
Joe Lieberman reminds me of dogged namesake un-American. What more proof do our fellow citizens need that their US House of Lords/Senators mocks a representative democracy?
Senator Lieberman wants the Dems to drop provisions to expand Medicare to Americans aged 55 and above? Would it be that easy? Then conversely, why not expand it to all Americans, all comers actually, and forgo the pages and pages to which the Republicans object? Are Americans guaranteed the pursuit of happiness, but in ill health?
Where’s the Hulk/Rock SNL Obama when a senator really needs throwing out the window?
The ENOUGH OF LIEBERMAN emails have become as ubiquitous as Viagra spam now. Finally, they beg, give us X dollars and we’ll make sure the Connecticut voters don’t reelect him. Sure.
When Lieberman faced a challenger in the 2006 Connecticut Democratic primary election, who stepped in to support him? A veritable who’s who of incumbents. Some even campaigned for Lieberman when he was forced to run as an independent.
Former President Bill Clinton, campaigned for Lieberman on July 24
CT Senator Chris Dodd
IL Senator Dick Durbin
IL Senator Barack Obama
NY Senator Hillary Clinton
NV Senator /Minority Leader Harry Reid
CA Senator Barbara Boxer, campaigned for Lieberman on July 24
CA Senator Diane Feinstein
CO Senator Ken Salazar, campaigned for Lieberman on July 31
DE Senator Joe Biden, campaigned for Lieberman on July 31
HA Senator Daniel Inouye, campaigned for Lieberman on July 31
IN Senator Evan Bayh
NJ Senator Frank Lautenberg
DE Senator Tom Carper
AR Senator Mark Pryor
OR Senator Ron Wyden
NE Senator Ben Nelson
When it’s a choice between you and Lieberman, they choose Lieberman. Between you and the health insurance industry? They let Lieberman decide.
Barack isn’t president yet, Barack is just one man, Israel is handing Barack a fait accompli, Barack can’t buck The Establishment, Oh Poor Barack the Impotent! What can the poor man do?
According to Rasmussen Americans (are) Closely Divided Over Israel’s Gaza Attacks. However, these are not just ‘Israel’s Gaza Attacks, now are they? They are America’s Gaza Attacks, America’s Attacks on Hamas, America’s Attacks on the Palestinians, and that damn Barack Obama is America’s Commander in Chief, now as much as in 2 weeks. So why all this myth making about Barack the Impotent?
It is simply that American liberals don’t want to admit that they voted this in. Tonight I sat at a talk and discussion about the Israeli destruction of Gaza with 14 others, all who voted for Barack the Impotent. They were talking about in 2 weeks the ‘regime change’ supposedly going to occur. What regime change I asked? There is no regime change taking place in 2 weeks. You are making it all up as you go, since this is the same ‘bipartisan’ group of gangsters as before. Let’s not talk about regime change when, in fact, there is none.
How long are American liberals going to play stupid like this? Your guess is as good as mine? The myth gets further defined as Barack the knowledgeable and Decent, Barack the Educated Man of the World. But when it comes to Barack the Man with a Penis; go figure? He don’t have one and is Barack the Impotent now, or all at least for 2 weeks more. Then The Penis of Barack will rise like Jesus Christ after Crucifixion, I guess? Your guess is as good as mine? Until then, Barack can’t do it!
What is it with Americans who want to individualize a Machine of Little … well you know what I mean… who want to indivualize a group of Ivy League-Chicago School Politician Hacksters like the Barack crowd is? Air Force Air Head Cadets! Locked in Lockheed Shits! Barack is the Liberal Impotent made into a Deity of Change here! Or can he? ….the myth goes on and on and on. Can he? Barack, the He Really Wants to Do-Right Guy, Barack the Community Organizer, Barack the Man of Rainbow Color, Barack the Gentle Giant surrounded by Treacherous Dwarfs! Barack the Noble, Barack the Man of One?
Good grief, the Liberal Community can give one the Heebe Jeebies. Meanwhile, the rest of the world has to put up with the suffering America’s moronic pseudo liberal communities help deliver to them. God Bless…. Well God Bless Anybody but US!
If there is a Hell, it will be full of moronic Americans discussing about how Impotent Barack the Impotent is, with Satan looking on in disbelief! Oh Barack! He just can’t do anything yet! He needs more Viagra than even John McCain! After all, John had Sarah but all Barack has is…. well he’s got Hillary! He’s Barack the Impotent Man! No wonder he’s planning to rape Afghanistan yet more. Can the liberals who voted for Barack the Impotent even find the country on a map?
American media outlets are distributing an expurgated transcript of the CKOI prank call to Governor Sarah Palin. Lots of the jokes made for International listeners were apparently lost on American reporters, as obviously on Palin. Prank caller assistant “Frank the Worker” introduces French President “Sarkozy” who then refers to French faux-ex-pat pop icon Johnny Hallyday as his American adviser, and the Quebec pop country buffoon Stef Carse as the Prime Minister of Canada, not Stephan Harper, the single Canadian we might know, in particular if we were governor of Alaska. Then the Masked Avenger tells Palin that his wife Carla Bruni wrote a song for her, “De rouge a levre sur un cochon” which means “lipstick on a pig!”
To be sure he speaks the phrase quickly, as if disbelieving himself that anyone would not recognize the joke.
The Masked Avengers, comedians Marc-Antoine Audette and Sebastien Trudel, often make fun of the typical American’s complete ignorance of Canadian politics. This prank call refers to the Prime Minister of Quebec Jean Charest, whom the caller assumes Palin would know, being “so next to him.” But they pretend his name is Richard Z. Sirois, who Canadian listeners would recognize is their CKOI cohost of “Les Cerveaux de l’info” (their radio show “The Info Brains”). It might be noted that the duo pulled an identical prank call on George W. Bush in 2000.
Here’s the full unexpurgated transcript of the CKOI prank call made to Governor Sarah Palin. Corrections are in bold. Notes and translations are in brackets.
HANDLER: This is Betsy.
RADIO HOST: Hello, Betsy.
HANDLER: Hi
RADIO HOST: Hi, this is Franc L’ouvrier, [trans. Frank the factory worker, a pun on Joe the Plumber] I am with president Sarkozy, on the line for Gov. Palin
HANDLER: Yes, one second please. Can you hold on one second, please?
RADIO HOST: Yeah, no problem.
HANDLER: Alright, thanks.
HANDLER 2: Hi, I’m gonna hand the phone over to her.
RADIO HOST: OK, thank you very much, I’m gonna put the president on the line
GOV. SARAH PALIN: This is Sarah.
RADIO HOST: Uh yeah, Gov. Palin?
GOV. PALIN: Hello.
RADIO HOST: Just hold on for President Sarkozy, one moment.
GOV. PALIN: [off line] Oh, it’s not him yet. I always do that.
FAKE SARKOZY: Yes, hello, Gov. Palin.
GOV. PALIN: [off line] I’ll just have people hand it to me right when it’s him.
FAKE SARKOZY: Yes, hello, Mrs. Governor?
GOV. PALIN: Hello, this is Sarah. How are you?
FAKE SARKOZY: Fine, and you? This is Nikolas Sarkozy speaking. How are you?
GOV. PALIN: Oh, so good, it’s so good to hear you. Thank you for calling us.
FAKE SARKOZY: Oh, it’s a pleasure.
GOV. PALIN: Thank you sir. We have such great respect for you, John McCain and I. We love you, and thank you for taking a few minutes to talk to me.
FAKE SARKOZY: I followed your campaigns very closely with my special American advisor, Johnny Hallyday.
GOV. PALIN: Yes, good.
FAKE SARKOZY: Excellent, are you confident?
GOV. PALIN: Very confident, and we’re thankful that polls are showing that the race is tightening.
FAKE SARKOZY: Well, I know very well that the campaign can be exhausting. How do you feel right now, my dear?
GOV. PALIN: I feel so good, I feel like we’re in a marathon and at the very end of the marathon you get your second wind and you plow through the finish.
FAKE SARKOZY: You see, I got elected in France because I’m real, and you seem to be someone who’s real as well.
GOV. PALIN: Yes, Nikolas we so appreciate this opportunity.
FAKE SARKOZY: You know, I see you as a president one day too.
GOV. PALIN: Haha, maybe in eight years.
FAKE SARKOZY: Well, I hope for you, you know we have a lot on common because personally, one of my favorite activities is to hunt, too.
GOV. PALIN: Oh, very good, we should go hunting together.
FAKE SARKOZY: Exactly, we could go try hunting by helicopter like you did. I never did that. Like we say in France, “on pourrait tuer des bebe phoques aussi.” [trans. “We could kill some baby seals too.”]
GOV. PALIN: Well, I think we could have a lot of fun together as we’re getting work done. We could kill two birds with one stone that way.
FAKE SARKOZY: I just love killing those animals, mm mm, take away a life, that is so fun. I’d really love to go as long as we don’t bring vice president Cheney, haha.
GOV. PALIN: No, I’ll be a careful shot, yes.
FAKE SARKOZY: Yes, you know we have a lot in common because except that from my house [note: bad French accent makes this sound like “ass”] I can see Belgium. That’s kind of less interesting than you.
GOV. PALIN: Well, see, we’re right next door to other countries that we all need to be working with, yes.
FAKE SARKOZY: Some people said in the last days, and I thought that was mean, that you weren’t experienced enough in foreign relations and you know, that’s completely false. That’s what I said to my great friend, Prime Minister of Canada, Steph Carse [local Canadian singer who rerecorded Achy Breaky Heart, not Stephen Harper].
GOV. PALIN: Well, you know, he’s doing fine too, when you come into a position underestimated, it gives you an opportunity to prove the pundits and the critics wrong. You work that much harder.
FAKE SARKOZY: I was wondering, because you are SO NEXT TO HIM, one of my good friends the PM of Quebec, Mister Richard Zed Sirois. [Mr. Richard Z. Sirois is their KVOI “Les Cerveaux de l’info” radio co-host, not Quebec Prime Minister Jean Charest] Have you met him recently? Has he come to one of your rallies?
GOV. PALIN: I haven’t seen him at one of the rallies, but it’s been great working with the Canadian officials in my role as governor. We have a great cooperative effort there, as we work on all of our resource development projects. You know, I look forward to working with you and getting to meet you personally and your beautiful wife, oh my goodness; you’ve added a lot of energy to your country with that beautiful family of yours.
FAKE SARKOZY: Thank you very much, you know my wife Carla would love to meet you. You know, even though she was a bit jealous that I was supposed to speak to you today.
GOV. PALIN: Well give her a big hug for me.
FAKE SARKOZY: You know my wife is a popular singer and a former HOT TOP MODEL. And she’s so hot in bed, she even wrote a song for you.
GOV. PALIN: Oh my goodness, I didn’t know that.
FAKE SARKOZY: Yes, in French it’s called “de rouge a levre sur une cochonne” [trans. “Lipstick on a pig!” but pig in the feminine can also mean a floozy], or if you prefer in English “Joe the Plumber” (sings:) “It is Life, Joe the Plumber”.
GOV. PALIN: Maybe she understands some of the unfair criticism, but I bet you she’s such a hard worker too and she realizes you just plow through that criticism.
FAKE SARKOZY: I just want to be sure, I don’t quite understand the phenomenon Joe the Plumber, that’s not your husband, right?
GOV. PALIN: That’s not my husband, but he’s a normal American who just works hard and doesn’t want government to take his money.
FAKE SARKOZY: Yes, yes, I understand. We have the equivalent of Joe the Plumber in France, it’s called “Marcel the Guy with Bread Under his Armpit”. Oui.
GOV. PALIN: Right, that’s what it’s all about, the middle class and government needing to work for them. You’re a very good example for us here.
FAKE SARKOZY: I seen a bit, but NBC, even Fox News wasn’t an ally, an ally, sorry about as much as usual.
GOV. PALIN: Yes, that’s what we’re up against.
FAKE SARKOZY: I must say, Gov. Palin, I love the documentary they made on your life – you know, Hustler’s “Nailin’ Palin”.
GOV. PALIN: Oh good, thank you.
FAKE SARKOZY: That was really edgy.
GOV. PALIN: Well good.
FAKE SARKOZY: I really loved you. And I must say something else Governor, [drops French accent] you’ve been pranked by the Masked Avengers, we’re two comedians from Montreal.
GOV. PALIN: Oh, [sic] we’ve been pranked. What radio station is this?
FAKE SARKOZY: This is for CKOY in Montreal.
GOV. PALIN: In Montreal? tell me their radio station call letters.
FAKE SARKOZY: CK… Hello? [to listeners] If one voice can change the world for Obama, one Viagra can change the world for McCain.
PALIN AID: I’m sorry, I have to let you go, thank you.
FAKE SARKOZY: Yay! Woohoo!
The funniest part of the debate was McCain saying that he won’t need any on the job training for being President unlike how Obama supposedly would. That’s right, John, clones of Bush/ Reagan do not need any on the job training at all. However, neither do clones of Clinton.
But how stupid could McCain get with using this line? People aren’t comparing Obama’s ‘experience’ as a political hack with that of Old Fart John, they are comparing Obama’s experience with that of Sarah Palin since they figure that such a decrepit tottering old fool probably won’t last his 4 year term. In fact, McCain looked so bad health wise in tonight’s debate that many folk will have trouble thinking that he could make it through even another year!
As to substance? Well there was little. Neither candidate had anything to say about the effects of deficit spending for the military plunging (that’s today’s Wall Street word) the world economy into the deep, yet they blabbed on about it for most of their time. And to the military and what wars to fight, Obama outflanked General McCain to the far right, saying that we must go aggressively into Pakistan and Afghanistan yet more than has already been done! He wants to invade Sudan, too, it seemingly appears. McCain says that Obama speaks big, but carries a small stick, where as with Viagra McCain it is the other way around. Hey, that’s differences for you!
Obama seemed to score a point or two on the theme of health care, simply because McCain’s approach was to say let the poor die in the streets and don’t bother business folk with such picayune affairs. Obama replied that he was not so eager to napalm the American public.
Who won the debate in this debate of losers? Why Obama did. McCain is too cloned from a one letter President who is sinking faster than Wall Street stocks. It’s the economy, W. Look for the gap between McCain and Obama to grow wider with John’s weak punches. The Republican campaign is now on life support and needs Cheney to start a nuclear war to possibly rally the flag waving public back into their camp of Fantasy. We’re on to new fantasies instead! Clintonism just turned Blacker! Oh joy!
You might call it unfair to label those who go into the military as from the bottom of the barrel, but even at the top of the Pentagon’s barrel the mental qualifications appear pretty damn loose.
Our military’s options in Iraq have been summarized as this: go long, go big, or go home. Explained, these choices mean either decrease the troop levels and dig in for a protracted occupation, or increase US forces to attempt a definitive coup, or withdraw and bring the boys home. Defense Department heads are said to be favoring a combination of the three.
Sorry boys, for breakfast you get either Lucky Charms, oatmeal or donuts. Not all three.
Who else but the idiot at the back of the classroom could conceive of this synthesis: go big AND long, THEN you can go home? We’re not talking Gomer Pyle or Forrest Gump. We’re talking Larry’s brother Daryl and his other brother Daryl, awoken on the wrong side of the bed, armed, on Viagra. Keep those boys away from the heavy equipment!
Addendum: Am I saying that all Army men are idiots? Of course not. But let them come forward! All non-idiot soldiers please speak up about the war, refuse to fight it, show us what you’ve got upstairs.
Addendum 2: At the protest today, a middle aged gentleman drove by slowly with his window down, frowning and giving us a protracted thumbs down. I shouted from the side of my mouth so the others wouldn’t hear: “IDIOT!” He nearly leapt out of his expensive SUV to yell back to me “FUCK YOU!”
Does supporting the war in Iraq automatically make you an idiot? Damn straight. What a stupid question.
Have a look at the program cover of Fort Carson’s sustainability conference. Is this an army guy camouflaged against the earth as seen from space? It looks like his assault rifle is the Atlantic. Who is he supposed to be looking at with those goggles? And what is the meaning of a military blended inconspicuously into our planet?
The sustainability conference was hosted today by Fort Carson to address the issues of expanding the base. The term sustainability comes up when the Defense Department, just like any land developer, has to respect the environmental impact of its changes.
What does “sustainable” mean to you? Maybe you’re thinking Viagra and erections, but used in the context of “environment” probably it means something more important. Not to Fort Carson.
The Army Strategy for the Environment: “Sustain the Mission – Secure the Future” establishes a long-range vision that enables the Army to meet its mission today and into the future…
-General Peter J. Schoomaker, United States Army Chief of Staff