U.S. Soldiers Being Held Virtually Incommunicado by Own U.S. Military

In an outrageous usurpation of authority and in violation of the Sixth Amendment, at least two U.S. soldiers are being held in prison with little contact with the outside world. Let me emphasize these are American soldiers being held by our own military for, in one case, refusing to deploy to the battlefield due to reasons of conscience, and in the other, for going AWOL in order to support his family. Read more about these abuses at the link below. (You may also click on the title of this post above.)


http://www.truthout.org/092809A?n

Sorting Through the Hubris

We are living through a concerted effort on the part of the modern-day robber barons to convince everyone that the financial crisis is over, and that even the "recession" has bottomed-out and the economy is "recovering." This is similar to every other so-called recession I can remember. As soon as possible, we begin hearing reports that the worst of the recession is behind us and that before you know it, all will be well. This time, however, the propaganda has been harder to put across, as the average American remains terrified of losing his or her job and then one's home. Not only that, but there continue to be significant discordant voices from nearly every source.

Somewhat surprisingly, the major media continue to report on various problems. A case in point is a major article (not the first) on the housing crisis in Florida which appeared only a few weeks ago. As I write this I am listening to "This American Life" on my local National Public Radio station. This excellent edition, told in breezy tones, is a revisiting of a broadcast originally presented in 2008. Soon (because this is a replay of a program I have already heard in part), various individuals who appeared on the original broadcast in May of 2008 will reappear and tell of their current situation. Some are doing better. Others are in the same position they were in a year and a half ago.

We can see that the narrative which would have us believe all is rosy is not selling very well. This has huge political repercussions. Exactly what it will mean in electoral politics is unknown, although there is some evidence that Democratic office-holders may be improving their position. (I will try to provide my source for this information later.)

In a strange way it is hopeful that Americans are not so easily fooled this time. They know in their hearts that all is not well. Perhaps this time, the truth has more of a chance to cut through the propaganda.

Michael Moore: We Have Now the End of Capitalism

Soon, movie-goers will flock to theaters everywhere to watch a film with an amazing premise: capitalism is evil and is on the way out. To my knowledge there has never been a film like Michael Moore's Capitalism: A Love Story. At the link below you can watch Michael Moore speak about what is really happening in our economy now. While I have not yet seen the film, what Michael Moore is saying off-screen is more riveting than the trailers for the film itself.

Regular readers of this blog know I have been saying repeatedly over the last three years that the profit system was failing. This view was never simply my own, but was based on the work of prominent others. Now, however, we have an impending major film from the country's best-known documentary film maker which says essentially the same thing.

In coming days I intend to spend more time on Michael Moore's web site "fact-checking" his film. Such an allegation most definitely needs to be backed up. Whether from Michael Moore or from other sources, the data backing up the claim of the dying of capitalism should be readily accessible to any honest researcher.

In any event, it is time to say good-bye to the greed-based and ever-so-hurtful profit system!


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qlMYzLlQ0n4&feature=channel

Michael Moore Prescribes Common Sense for the Automobile Industry

In an interview with Larry King Michael Moore talks about the future of the transportation system in this country and the needed conversion of capacity in today's automobile manufacturing industry. These comments made late in 2008 are still pertinent now. Michael Moore, who has close ties to auto workers, knows whereof he speaks.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0bbOZ-nkJs&feature=channel

Michael Moore: A Love Story

Michael Moore's new film, Capitalism: A Love Story is set to blast its way into the hearts and minds of Americans in theaters everywhere. With typical good-humor and a wealth of facts, Moore launches an assault on the very tenets of capitalism. All this according to a new article by reviewer Mark Weisbrot, himself an economist. As Weisbrot says, to have a film seriously question capitalism itself is almost unheard of in American media. Just today I heard that a New York Times reporter has just written a book with a title something like The Financial Markets and Why They Matter to You. I thought to myself, "They matter all right, but for their essentially negative effect on morals and the underpinnings of our financial and economic systems."

In our daily world financial markets are but one salient example of greed run rampant, of ethics sickened by a pernicious and deep selfishness magnified a million times by souls simple and powerful who seek a measure of gain off the work of others.

The review of Moore's film is itself a work of art. The ringing prose sounds out its own alarm in cogent and passionate text which calls forth both one's inner whimsy and one's conscience out into the light of day. Here the self can look at the evil which is the profit system full on, without disguise or distortion.

Plaudits, then, for Michael Moore for what appears to be a major accomplishment -- calling into question the very appropriateness of capitalism in the America we love.


(Copying of this post either in whole or in part except brief passages for purpose of review, is prohibited. All rights reserved.)

For Mark Weisbrot's excellent review click the title above or cut and past this web address:

http://www.truthout.org/091509F?n

Prosecutor with a Conscience

It is refreshing to know there are men and women in government with a conscience. Such a person is Lieutenant Colonel Stuart Couch. Lt. Col. Couch refused to prosecute a man accused of conspiring to commit acts of terror on Sept. 11, 2001, because he discovered the man had been tortured. This is the kind of patriot we need in our country now.

See video of this extraordinary person at the link below or by clicking on the title above.

(It goes without saying that true terrorists are to be condemned. Yet is not torture itself a kind of terrorism? -- TMP)


http://www.pbs.org/now/shows/536/guantanamo-justice.html


Note: My apologies for the recent lull in posting. Things have been busy with a Labor Day week-end intervening as well. I hope to be back on track with more frequent posts.

Being Studious

This week I have been back at school, both formally as a teacher, and as a reader examining the subject of the functioning of the human brain. In addition to cranial pursuits I have also been exercising my body. So it has been a time of renewal of both mind and body.

The economy of the U.S. remains dismal in spite of constant attempts by the media to declare the "recession" as having "bottomed out." But the person on the street knows the economy is not good. Otherwise, why do lay-offs continue?

In coming days, may we use our minds and bodies to promote a just society, one in which all persons have the dignity of work as desired, and a supportive income as needed.

Critical Condition

That is the title of a special documentary shown tonight on Bill Moyers Journal. The film is gripping, even wrenching at times. The main point of the documentary is that if the persons depicted had had health insurance, they never would have gotten so sick. These are real people with real lives and needs. The film is a virtual must-see.

At the end of the program came an announcement about next week's show which promises guests who claim our current system is a national scandal. That show also promises to be a must-see.

Please use the reference below or click on the title of this blog to go to the Bill Moyers Journal home page.


http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/index-flash.html

Justice Finally Coming to Karl Rove and Company

Truthout recently up-dated the situation with Karl Rove and the attorney firing scandal of 2006. It is good to see justice come to one of the sleaziest men ever to inhabit the White House. I cannot say that full justice has been done yet by any means. But it is good to see the House Judiciary Committee moving forward to assist the special prosecutor in this matter. Much more needs to be told, of course, including the lying about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and the theft of the 2000 and 2004 Presidential elections. For now, at least we have an important start.



http://www.truthout.org/081309R?n

Obama's Sell-Out with Big Drug Companies

Well-known investigative reporter Greg Palast has done a little digging and come up with a surprising figure.


********


Obama on Drugs: 98% Cheney?


by Greg Palast
Thursday, August 13, 2009

For The Huffington Post






Eighty billion dollars of WHAT?

I searched all over the newspapers and TV transcripts and no one asked the President what is probably the most important question of what passes for debate on the issue of health care reform: $80 billion of WHAT?

On June 22, President Obama said he'd reached agreement with big drug companies to cut the price of medicine by $80 billion. He extended his gratitude to Big Pharma for the deal that would, "reduce the punishing inflation in health care costs."

Hey, in my neighborhood, people think $80 billion is a lot of money. But is it?

I checked out the government's health stats (at HHS.gov), put fresh batteries in my calculator and toted up US spending on prescription drugs projected by the government for the next ten years. It added up to $3.6 trillion.

In other words, Obama's big deal with Big Pharma saves $80 billion out of a total $3.6 trillion. That's 2%.

Hey thanks, Barack! You really stuck it to the big boys. You saved America from these drug lords robbing us blind. Two percent. Cool!

For perspective: Imagine you are in a Wal-Mart and there's a sign over a flat screen TV, "BIG SAVINGS!" So, you break every promise you made never to buy from that union-busting big box - and snatch up the $500 television. And when you're caught by your spouse, you say, "But, honey, look at the deal I got! It was TWO-PERCENT OFF! I saved us $10!"

But 2% is better than nothing, I suppose. Or is it?

The Big Pharma kingpins did not actually agree to cut their prices. Their promise with Obama is something a little oilier: they apparently promised that, over ten years, they will reduce the amount at which they would otherwise raise drug prices. Got that? In other words, the Obama deal locks in a doubling of drug costs, projected to rise over the period of "savings" from a quarter trillion dollars a year to half a trillion dollars a year. Minus that 2%.

We'll still get the shaft from Big Pharma, but Obama will have circumcised the increase.

And what did Obama give up in return for $80 billion? Chief drug lobbyist Billy Tauzin crowed that Obama agreed to dump his campaign pledge to bargain down prices for Medicare purchases. Furthermore, Obama's promise that we could buy cheap drugs from Canada simply went pffft!

What did that cost us? The New England Journal of Medicine notes that 13 European nations successfully regulate the price of drugs, reducing the average cost of name-brand prescription medicines by 35% to 55%. Obama gave that up for his 2%.

The Veterans Administration is able to push down the price it pays for patent medicine by 40% through bargaining power. George Bush stopped Medicare from bargaining for similar discounts, an insane ban that Obama said he'd overturn. But, once within Tauzin's hypnotic gaze, Obama agreed to lock in Bush's crazy and costly no-bargaining ban for the next decade.

What else went down in Obama's drug deal? To find out, I called C-SPAN to get a copy of the videotape of the meeting with the drug companies. I was surprised to find they didn't have such a tape despite the President's campaign promise, right there on CNN in January 2008, "These negotiations will be on C-SPAN."

This puzzled me. When Dick Cheney was caught having secret meetings with oil companies to discuss Bush's Energy Bill, we denounced the hugger-muggers as a case of foxes in the hen house.

Cheney's secret meetings with lobbyists and industry big shots were creepy and nasty and evil.

But the Obama crew's secret meetings with lobbyists and industry big shots were, the President assures us, in the public interest.

We know Cheney's secret confabs were shady and corrupt because Cheney scowled out the side of his mouth.

Obama grins in your face.

See the difference?

The difference is 2%.

*******

Palast studied health care economics at the Center for Hospital Administration Studies at the University of Chicago.

Greg Palast's investigative reports can be seen on BBC Television's Newsnight and, in print, at www.GregPalast.com.


++++++++++++


N.B. I was not able to find any copyright on this article. If someone can find one, I will gladly remove. -- TMP

They Sing It: 9/11 Was an Inside Job

Here you will see an interesting and entertaining video demonstrating the clash between protesters and media over the subject of the 9/11/01 attacks. I like best the quote of Mark Twain. I also like the music at the end. This is worth a look.

Countering Sarah Palin

Here is an excellent article putting Sarah Palin's recent criticisms of a proposed national health care plan in the proper light. I strongly agree the government must be watched extremely closely as it fashions a national health care system, in order to ensure all are covered and proper care is given. But we must remember that doing nothing is not an option, for health care is already rationed and even denied by the big corporatized insurance companies. The article referenced here tells more.


Click on title above or cut and paste this link:


http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2009/08/11/denial_of_care/

Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel Defended

The following is an excerpt from an article by Alex Koppelman of the on-line journal Salon. This is to give a response to allegations of others which were repeated in my previous post here.


And now, the excerpt:



It's become a growing theme on the right: "Obamacare" will mean mandatory euthanasia for your grandmother in order to save money, and the person who created the ideological underpinnings for that policy is the brother of White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel.

There's a deep irony to that suggestion -- Ezekiel Emanuel, who's currently advising the administration on healthcare reform through a post at the White House Office of Management and Budget -- is actually one of the country's leading medical ethicists, a forceful defender of people who are approaching the end of their lives. Indeed, he opposes even voluntary euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide.

The charges against the doctor are "a gross distortion of Dr. Emanuel's 25 years as an oncologist and leading academic researcher," Kenneth Baer, the communications director at OMB [Office of Management and Budget at the White House], told Salon. "He has dedicated his professional life to improving the quality of care and giving more choices to terminally ill patients. He was an outspoken public opponent of euthanasia when the Supreme Court was considering the legality of physician-assisted suicide. We all wish that instead of spending time distorting one doctor's record we all could come together and do the hard work of health insurance reform. This is only a distraction from that important work." (Emanuel himself was vacationing and unavailable for comment.)

[end excerpt]

Clearly, the bill continues to be put together by Congress. And clearly, Mr. Obama can be faulted in many ways for the confusion which now reigns. It also must be seriously asked what kind of behind-the-scenes funding by corporations is being directed toward political operatives and agitators.

As time permits I plan to continue to present the facts as best as I can glean them in a very difficult media environment which has plenty of heat, but very little light.

The Fight Over Health Care

A serious health situation this week prompted me to finally apply once again for health insurance. Fortunately, I feel my economic circumstance will allow this for the first time in seven years. That it would take so long is a travesty of justice, but common in the America of now.

As I am still recovering I must keep this short. But I did want to make a few brief points about the health care debate now becoming vitriolic.

-- The Administration plan has an inherent philosophical conflict as it seeks to maintain the profit motive while at the same time promoting a non-profit motive. This seriously weakens the plan.

-- Our inept and utterly inadequate corporate media do not delve into the various legislative proposals. This leads to confusion.

-- There are those around Obama who are, in fact, enamored of the British NICE plan which seeks to place a dollar value on care, and thus on life.*

-- Because Congress is working with a plan for a hybrid profit/non-profit system, it is harder to generate enthusiasm for the millions of Americans fed up with HMO's and their ilk.

-- Back to the media: Their love of conflict as a way of selling their "product", causes them to gravitate toward the lunatic right-wing fringe who have behaved very rudely toward their Legislators.






*This information comes from quotes of those such as Ezekiel Emmanuel, from a source usually reliable.

Up-date on the Des Moines Nine

This evening I received a press release from Mona Shaw, one of the courageous Des Moines Nine who were arrested for demanding fair treatment for Iowans by Wellmark, a health care concern operating in that state. I am proud to bring this press release to you now:


Eight people including four Catholic Workers were charged with criminal trespass in the lobby of Wellmark Blue Cross Blue Shield today. They are:

Ed Bloomer, 62, Des Moines Catholic Worker,

Kirk Brown, 29, former Catholic Worker of Waukee, Iowa,

Robert Cook, 66, Des Moines, Iowa,

Frank Cordaro, 58, Des Moines Catholic Worker,

Renee Espeland, 48, Des Moines Catholic Worker,

Christine Gaunt, 50, Grinnell, Iowa,

Mona Shaw, 58, Des Moines Catholic Worker,

Leonard Simons, 67, Athol, MA,

Frankie Hughes, 11, Des Moines Catholic Worker.



Those arrested were part of a group of about forty that filled the lobby at Wellmark Blue Cross Blue Shield to "hold Wellmark accountable for the suffering denying claims and coverage of Iowans." The group walked to the lobby after a 1:00 p.m. rally in Nollen Plaza on Monday, July 27, 2009. When the group arrived, several Wellmark employees as well as several police officers were waiting in place. Frank Cordaro, a member of the group asked to see John Forsyth CEO of Wellmark, Inc., to ask him for the corporate information they had requested weeks earlier by letter. Then the group read a statement that included the comment, "It is our moral responsibility, as involved residents of Iowa, including previous and current policy holders, to examine and evaluate the competence of your stewardship over such a large and pervasive public trust."



The statement also reiterated the information they had requested in the previously-sent letter. The statement also said there were some present who would not leave until their questions were answered.



After reading their statement, the group was advised by Richard Werth, Director of Physical Security, that neither Forsyth nor any of Wellmark's Board of Directors or Financial Officers were available. Werth then went on to inform the group that if they did not disperse and leave immediately the Des Moines Police would be instructed to arrest them. All but nine of those who had filed into the lobby then left, and the remaining nine were arrested and taken to the Des Moines Police office where they were processed and released. All but one is scheduled to appear for arraignment on August 3, 2009. Leonard Simons was given an August 10, 2009, appearance date.



On Friday, June 19, 2009, Des Moines Catholic Workers and other activists went to Wellmark headquarters in downtown Des Moines and hand-delivered a letter addressed to John Forsyth. The letter was handed to an administrative assistant on the second-floor lobby of the Wellmark offices. The letter demanded transparency and accountability for the profits gained and the decisions made for the health care needs of the Iowans Wellmark Blue Cross Blue Shield serve. The letter gave Forsyth until July 20, 2009, to respond. To date, Forsyth has not responded to or acknowledged the letter.



A copy of the letter is at this link: http://www.desmoinescatholicworker.org/page69.html



Featured speaker at the 1:00 p.m. rally was Dr. Margaret Flowers, the pediatrician arrested May 5, 2009, at Senate Health Care Reform hearings, and who appeared on "Democracy Now" and MSNBC's "The Ed Show" about her own arrest for urging Senators to consider single-payer at a Senate Health Care Reform hearing in April. Dr. Flowers also gave a talk on Sunday, July 26 at 7:30 p.m. at the Highland Park Presbyterian Church, 321 Euclid Ave., Des Moines.



Related Links

http://www.desmoinescatholicworker.org/healthcareaction.html



http://www.desmoinescatholicworker.org/margaretflowers.html



http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/node/44784