Most of the wealth in this country is inherited.  This so called success is just a matter of luck.  The Republican sock-puppets love to talk about Bill Gates but he is a rare exception not the rule and even he had his dad’s fortune to fall back on.  Don’t like the income tax?  Get rid of it and put a 50% tax on all inheritance and a 20% tax on all imports and if that is not enough money to run the country see Ron Paul about eliminating foreign entanglements.

The wealthy 1% bought the Reagan supply side mantra of “trickle down” economics, and convinced Congress to provide more tax breaks to them. Now that all of us have come to our senses and realized that the 1% have fleeced the rest of us, the rich are worried, and starting to push back on Congressmen they give big donations too. The tremendous irony here is that by making it easier to the poorer among us to get some of the bare neccessities of life - like health care, it does help all of society, especially the upper classes, who can now sell more goods and services to the rest of us. And the 1% get the most advantages from a country that provides them with so many fundamental services that enabled them to get rich in the first place.

By Felicity

“{If nothing else, the 1-percenter should consider that without (dying off is not a remote possibility) the millions of minimum wage earners who help make possible his life one of grotesque luxury and pampered privelege, he might find himself a tad inconvenienced?}”

Thanks for mentioning this. I swear it’s one of the things I have ALWAYS long to see…a 1-percenter trying to manage his/her life with all of that money, and nobody to take it. In my daydream, a one percenter is listening to a minimum wage earner when the minimum age earner tells him or her to clean up their own shit, because there isn’t a single person left that is willing to do it for them, no matter WHAT price they’re willing to pay.

Meantime, just for laughs, you might want to check out an old movie titled, “A Day Without Mexicans.” It really is a hoot.

TO: Leefeller, July 26 at 1:46 am #

This is from the website I got after a Google search of: THE LEADING CAUSE OF DEATH IN THE U.S.
It was the first item on the page. I’m sorry the URL I listed just gave the website without the article.
Please try this URL:
http://www.newmediaexplorer.org/sepp/2003/10/29/medical_system_is_leading_cause_of_death_and_injury_in_us. 
October 29, 2003
Print this article
Medical system is leading cause of death and injury in US

Categories
Health
Pharma
Shocking statistical evidence is cited by Gary Null PhD, Caroly Dean MD ND, Martin Feldman MD, Debora Rasio MD and Dorothy Smith PhD in their recent paper Death by Medicine - October 2003, released by the Nutrition Institute of America.

“A definitive review and close reading of medical peer-review journals, and government health statistics shows that American medicine frequently causes more harm than good. The number of people having in-hospital, adverse drug reactions (ADR) to prescribed medicine is 2.2 million. Dr. Richard Besser, of the CDC, in 1995, said the number of unnecessary antibiotics prescribed annually for viral infections was 20 million. Dr. Besser, in 2003, now refers to tens of millions of unnecessary antibiotics. The number of unnecessary medical and surgical procedures performed annually is 7.5 million. The number of people exposed to unnecessary hospitalization annually is 8.9 million. The total number of iatrogenic deaths shown in the following table is 783,936. It is evident that the American medical system is the leading cause of death and injury in the United States. The 2001 heart disease annual death rate is 699,697; the annual cancer death rate, 553,251…”

diamond, July 26 at 5:19 pm #

I believe that ,should you re-read my comment, you might find it an indictment of the system and not primarily of Obama. He is rather adept at succeeding within a corrupt system though.

Ardee it’s hardly fair to blame Obama for a system he didn’t create. There’s a tendency in America to blame the individual and praise the individual but not to look at the system. How is it possible that at the beginning of the 21st century a van stuffed with ballots could be driven from one Florida backwater to the other so the votes couldn’t be counted in the 2000 election, when the re-count was underway? Estimates are that Al Gore won 77,000 more votes than he was given in Florida.

Sheriffs, for example, are not chosen for their education, understanding of the law, or their moral standards. Because they are elected, all the same problems with buying votes and corruption that plague the presidential election operate, with predictable results. If there is not extensive reform of the financial sector, the tax system and the way sheriffs, Supreme Court judges and presidents get their jobs, somewhere down the track another moral pygmy, like Bush, with neither the ethical nor the intellectual capacity for the job will occupy the white house, and the now-familiar situation of futile wars and/or economic disaster (Reagan, Nixon, LBJ) will unfold. Barack Obama is a good step in the right direction but the system still stinks.

Someone asked me once, “Since you are such a know-it-all, how come you never ran for Congress?” To which I could only respond, “Because I know better.”

In other words, I know myself well enough to understand once on the golden hill, like most politicians, I would probably dedicate my life to staying on the golden hill. And that would mean I’d have to put aside any notion I ever had about serving the good folks who put me there!

In the beginning, the Polis and Bachus type dems may have been honest men. But they fell out of love with service to their fellow man and fell in love with the golden hill. Which once again points out why we should demand term limits! Which doesn’t do anything to solve the current health-care crisis. And by the way, let’s quit calling it current, since it isn’t!

All politicians are subject to the human failing of justifying the means by the ends. Particularly when faced with the loss of their means and having to own up to the ends of their choices. So they put off the ends, even if that means selling their soul to the highest bidder!

And speaking of selling the soul, Insurance Corporations spring to mind. It’s futile to try and appeal to the better side of their nature. They have no better side. If these people had a conscience and the ability to feel empathy, THEY would be demanding change! Can their be a conscience where there is a deliberate choice to spend millions campaigning against the needs of their captive clients? Of course not.

From the article:

“Obama has responded with characteristic coolness—and a powerful counterstrike. “No, it’s not punishing the rich,” he said. “If I can afford to do a little bit more so that a whole bunch of families out there have a little more security, when I already have security, that’s part of being a community.”

Wise words from a wise man. But when dealing with the generationally wealthy one percenters, we’re not dealing with wise people. Other than they understand, just as their guilded forebearers did, sucking off of tax dollars and gaming the tax-funded system pads their bottom line. Some may call that wise. I call that generationally corrupt.

As Sirota points out, “1-percenters’ share of America’s total income is the highest it’s been since 1929…” Maybe the big mistake we all made, or at least those who made decisions back during the Great Depression, was not shipping those responsible for the Great Depression off to prison camps! Remove them from their money and remove their example of greed from their prodegy!

So I have to take issue with president Obama. (Yes I did say that!) I think we should “punish” the wealthy one percenters by making them pay for this mess. And maybe my anger is rooted in my age. How many decades does one have to watch the wealthy abuse those who are not, before one simply says enough!

I think we need to demand repayment to the people, from all the Wealthy Welfare Rats! If that’s punishment, they need to know it’s punishment, and they need to know why they need to be punished! Else what’s the point? Like the chronically nasty spoiled child, if they don’t understand, nothing will change!

I wish I knew a 1-percenter so I could get his reaction to some numbers Maddow recently ran:  A minimum wage earner working a 40 hour week for 52 weeks makes $15,800/year. As a family, health insurance/year will cost him $13,200/year leaving him $1,600/year to live on. 

{If nothing else, the 1-percenter should consider that without (dying off is not a remote possibility) the millions of minimum wage earners who help make possible his life one of grotesque luxury and pampered privelege, he might find himself a tad inconvenienced?}

It currently takes about ten million or so to achieve a seat in Congress, Obama spent in excess of 700 million dollars in his purchase (rental actually) of the White House. Yet we wonder why the real interests of the average American are not represented by our government?

The salary, benefits and perks for our elected officials should probably be based upon the national average in order for these ‘ivory tower’ politicians to remember what real life is like. Elections should be cost free in order to give the people a far greater choice of candidate as well.

But that would force control of this nation back into the hands of the voters, and we simply are not going to see that happen without a serious and (sad) possibly violent struggle.

It seems the desire is to tax the wealthy - because they don’t need it as much and they should really want to help the community. We will not accomplish that with this healthcare tax scheme. We will be taxing people on the cusp of wealthy who are still ramping up wealth (and probably limiting the number of people ramping). Think about it - you’re 30-something, your career or small business has begun to take off as has your partner’s - your family is finally making some real dough - 300k-400k/year. You are right in the crosshairs of the kind of taxation being considered by both the feds and local government.

The article has a picture of a Ferrari - but you can’t afford that, and likely never will. These new tax plans hit the up and coming successes not the rich, investor class. They already have money and spend most of their time trying to trim taxes because its the best investment - most of the time its hard to earn 30-40% on investments - tax avoidance is the best investment around for them.

Its worse than you think - most of the truly rich, investor class have plenty of unrealized or now realized losses on investments. So you think - raise the cap gains tax to get these people. Guess what, they have years of losses to carry forward against gains now because of market losses…

Bottom line - these new tax plans are wrong headed red meat for the left and will fail to raise enough revenue and snuff out many of those on the way to “wealth” and that Ferrari in the picture. BTW, I’m not against taxing the “rich” to provide healthcare for those in need or a healthcare fix in general but this is the wrong way.

Remember the Golden Rule:

Them that has the gold makes the rules! They’ll learn ya yet!

Liecatcher,

Well it looks like Liecatcher may have a choice to opt out of medical insurance, sort of like not attending public school.

Liecathcer’s link seems to be a blog and did not provide any numbers as he posted on his post.  700,000 people die in hospitals?  Could it be they were terminal and wanted to die under medical care instead of at home or on the street?  No one said going to a hospital was like going to starbucks.

Over use of medicines may be real, the pharmaceutic companies do promote and push their products like shrills, but on the other side of the fence some people who do not believe in medicine, so what is one supposed to make of that?

Substantiating comments becomes tricky, one must ask questions, what are the sources and their intent or purpose? Liecatcher, from the post, it sounds like you do not believe in medical care?

liecatcher—I think that those stats are due to two main things 1) the nature of Capitalist profit-driven health care (give treatments not necessary, choose more expensive treatments, dont treat the poor) and 2) our crappy environmental, food and drug laws!)lack thereof) All the fricking pollution, exposure to weapons of war in crappy neighborhoods, but, most of all—-

everything is PROFIT DRIVEN.

I dont know what the stats are on those incidents in Sweden, but, I’m wiling to bet that theyre alot different.

Some conditions can only be treated with medical care. Most people dont know that unti they really need it.

Heres the stats that show that it is poor medical care in US , more so than lifestyle or other factors:

http://www.health-care-reform.net/causedeath.htm

This Journal of the American Medical Association article illuminates the failure of the U.S. medical system in providing decent medical care for Americans.
 
 
“In spite of the rising health care costs that provide the illusion of improving health care, the American people do not enjoy good health, compared with their counterparts in the industrialized nations.  Among thirteen countries including Japan, Sweden, France and Canada, the U.S. was ranked 12th, based on the measurement of 16 health indicators such as life expectancy, low-birth-weight averages and infant mortality.  In another comparison reported by the World Health Organization that used a different set of health indicators, the U.S. also fared poorly with a ranking of 15 among 25 industrialized nations…..
Although many people attribute poor health to the bad habits of the American public, Starfield (2000) points out that the Americans do not lead an unhealthy lifestyle compared to their counterparts.  For example, only 28 percent of the male population in the U.S. smoked, thus making it the third best nation in the category of smoking among the 13 industrialized nations.  The U.S. population also achieved a high ranking (5th best) for alcohol consumption.  In the category of men aged 50 to 70 years, the U.S. had the third lowest mean cholesterol concentrations among 13 industrialized nations. Therefore, the perception that the American public’s poor health is a result of their negative health habits is false….

Even more significantly, the medical system has played a large role in undermining the health of Americans.  According to several research studies in the last decade, a total of 225,000 Americans per year have died as a result of their medical treatments: (unquote) It lists these (all profit driven)• 12,000 deaths per year due to unnecessary surgery
• 7000 deaths per year due to medication errors in hospitals

• 20,000 deaths per year due to other errors in hospitals

• 80,000 deaths per year due to infections in hospitals

• 106,000 deaths per year due to negative effects of drugs

In countries with government sponsored care, there is no motivation to do surgeries or prescribe drugs, except patient care.

The Attack of the 1-Percenters

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20090723_the_attack_of_the_1-percenters/

Posted on Jul 23, 2009

By David Sirota

“Here’s a truism: The wealthiest 1 percent have never had it so good.”

Here is another truism: ““No, it’s not punishing the rich,”

And to put things in perspective, when you say:

“To review: With 22,000 Americans dying each year because they lack health insurance,”

I respectfully submit that over 700,000 die each year because they have “health insurance”.

From the following website found after a Google search for the leading causes of death in the U.S.

http://www.newmediaexplorer.org

“Medical system is leading cause of death and injury in US

Shocking statistical evidence is cited by Gary Null PhD, Caroly Dean MD ND, Martin Feldman MD, Debora Rasio MD and Dorothy Smith PhD in their recent paper Death by Medicine - October 2003, released by the Nutrition Institute of America.

“A definitive review and close reading of medical peer-review journals, and government health statistics shows that American medicine frequently causes more harm than good. The number of people having in-hospital, adverse drug reactions (ADR) to prescribed medicine is 2.2 million. Dr. Richard Besser, of the CDC, in 1995, said the number of unnecessary antibiotics prescribed annually for viral infections was 20 million. Dr. Besser, in 2003, now refers to tens of millions of unnecessary antibiotics. The number of unnecessary medical and surgical procedures performed annually is 7.5 million. The number of people exposed to unnecessary hospitalization annually is 8.9 million. The total number of iatrogenic deaths shown in the following table is 783,936. It is evident that the American medical system is the leading cause of death and injury in the United States. The 2001 heart disease annual death rate is 699,697; the annual cancer death rate, 553,251.”

Yeah, you’re right, hippie, we need a real revolution to make the threat credable, but, in my usual tactful way, I was trying not to scare the cowardly.

As to greed and power, they overlap but are different things.  Serota use ‘1% ers’ as a euphemism becaue ‘ruling class’ is a dirty word in the American mainstream truth.  The whole conceptual language is polluted by euphemisms, circumlocutions and Big Words to prevent the population from getting a simple overview or outline of power relations.

capitalists do not want more money primarily to get another house or car, but rather, to increase their power position relative to other capitalists.  they are greedy, yes, but the major motivation is power.  If they don’t continously gain power, they lose it to those who do.  They MUST get more money to stay in the same place over time.

It is necessary for the population to understand that capitalism is a power system, and money a power resource.  You do not learn this in Educated economics, political science, or schoolbook history.  Indeed, you learn truths and conceptions that prevent you from understanding it.  And moralisms are part of this misunderstanding, although they are quite true.  But they are not the essential point.

FatFreddy wrote: “Taxes were raised by Roosevelt and the New dealers and things got better until they cut them in 37.”

There are a couple of other contemporaneous facts worth considering: The stimulus spending that pulled us out of the Great Depression, combined with what really sealed-the-deal to end the GD, where the US nationalized almost all of industry to fight WWII, left us with a national debt totaling something near 125-130% of GDP. Think about that one for a moment as we fret over the stimulus *and* health care spending of a few $ trillion—where the US GDP today stands between $24-33 trillion (the collapsing economy yields a bit of conflict between different GDP figures).

In other words, it took government spending of 127.5% (split the baby on the variously reported debt figures) of 40s era GDP to yank us out of that economic collapse, where we are all fretting about running a 12-17%-of-GDP deficit now, and how stimulus plans have to be deficit-neutral???

BTW: The post-war/post-stimulus economy after the GD and WWII was so revved up that we basically paid off that whopping debt within 15 years after WWII—and it was the single greatest period of growth for the American middle class since the founding.

But you were talking taxes, and particularly so for the 1 percenters as is the theme of this post. Final “largest growth of the middle class” and paying-off-the-GD/WWII highest-since-the-founding debt tax tidbit: Under Eisenhower, the tax on the top 1% was (drum roll please…) 90%.

And the rich people were still rich under that apparently draconian level of taxation. (Sure, through inumerable loopholes, I’m confident nobody actually paid that 90%—but we had to raise taxation on them to that level to ensure they paid *something*. There are entire corporations today that don’t pay one thin dime to this government for all the offshore accounts and other tax loopholes; we in the underclass shoulder almost all the burden for building F22s and paying private companies to do KP duty for the military… .)

I believe absolutely every thought about how to move forward from this mess should center around, er, um… history maybe? Actual historical, inflation-neutral views of what was required the last time we corrected what is virtually the same set of problems arising from the same set of deluded free market principles… maybe?

make war and bank bailouts “deficit neutral”

The US needs to afflict the comfortable in order to comfort the afflicted.

If profits are not “touched”, the costs would just be ridiculous.

The entire “insurance” “industry” is an immoral business…it doesnt have to exist, and it shouldnt.

I mean, you just cannot let those who “like theirs, keep what they have”, ensure about 36 million more people, and keep it deficit neutral, without taxing someone…

“The Right Wing Fanatics in the “C” Street house, and the Left Wing Hypocrites have more in common then we care to admit. The Voters, The Workers, The Poor, and The Ignorant are at the bottom of both groups Xmas List.”—Xntrk

I do wonder who the so-called “left wing hypocrites” are though. Are you sure they are really left-wing and not just playing like they are to fool the voters et al?

How different would things have been if a real Progressive like Huey Long had been elected president?

“In my younger daze a 1 percenter was a hard core biker, 99 percent biker and 1% being human.”—coloradokarl

One of the History Channel programs on gangs are about the “1%” bikers. They are the top 1% of gangs, really large like an alternate civilization that spread over continents the world.

You are right FolkTruther it is about power for with all other things flow. Psychopaths certainly want it but normal people too can want it and abuse it. It is a danger to every person on the earth as the power from the knowledge of the human body are made known and perverted by them.

“In the above table several of the regimes were brutal, totalitarian dictatorships, usually labeled fascist, but not all the regimes that had a corporatist foundation were fascist. In particular, the Roosevelt New Deal despite its many faults could not be described as fascist. But definitely the New Deal was corporatist. The architect for the initial New Deal program was General Hugh Johnson. Johnson had been the administrator of the military mobilization program for the U.S. under Woodrow Wilson during World War I. It was felt that he did a good job of managing the economy during that period and that is why he was given major responsibility for formulating an economic program to deal with the severe problems of the Depression. But between the end of World War I and 1933 Hugh Johnson had become an admirer of Mussolini’s National Corporatist system in Italy and he drew upon the Italian experience in formulating the New Deal.”

From the web site. Note FatFreddy, the highlighted bold area. It was very different from the type of fascism that we see today in our country and around the world and those who wish to make it even more powerful here than in the 1930’s i.e. Dominionism that embodies it right here.

“So, if this “new plan” is not going to be paid for by richest 1% AND it has to be deficit neutral (very stupid idea), I guess that leaves cutting benefits for poor, elderly and disabled…samo/samo.”—KDelphi

That is what I think is part of their plan. Make it impossible to help the humanity of our country.  It is literally against their philosophy and religion to do so. Freeing up that money will help them in other areas they deem more important. Sink or swim, that is the freedom they give you. Along with the freedom from things.

Hippie4ever a massive strike at this time just might work though with the same propaganda organs of the corporate nation-state would be against us as would the gov’t itself even though it is wasting trillions a year on its brutal wars of conquest for control of political and resource wealth. [Look at the past history of such strikes during a time of economic disaster, 1873 for one where several states were put under martial law.] It could also be a trigger used by the National Security State to bring out its claws on us too. Despite what you may have heard from the CMSM, we are in a Great Depression that could accelerate into a Hyper Depression at any time. There are many contingencies put in place over the 28 years since the revolution cum coup started to erode our economy and our rights going on over many presidents both Republican and Democrat. Think of Rome just before the Republic fell. A Republic that had been acting like an empire abroad and it just brought the same mentality home to its own people to use.

Thanks, Cyrena. I’m glad you see it too. Only to add that indoctrination a.k.a. public education has played a major role in diminishing citizenship while promoting a fractured, specialized training for those deemed exploitable. How can a public education system matriculate individuals incapable of critical thinking? And how can a society be democratic when a majority of its citizens, barely literate, repudiate their own Constitution because they do not even recognize it, and confuse it with “left wing propaganda” because the media has redefined political terms. For example, “liberal” now means big spender, “gay” means stupid or ridiculous, “protester” means dangerous fanatic, “union” means organized crime and anti-Americanism. Thanks, media, we will remember.

Folktruther, are you suggesting the raw exercise of power is not also an expression of greed? Can an individual with with such motives practice compassion independent of their power in a meaningful way? I agree with you about the dynamic of the ruling class; I just look at it differently, as a human failing, a stunted vision adopted by the worst among us.

Similarly, I disagree that “unless the population threatens to revolt and take the power and money away from the ruling class, it is to the interests of the whole power system to increase class inequality.” Sorry, but it sounds extremely “American” to me that unless the population THREATENS to revolt…I’d suggest we need a real, 100 percent revolt, General Strike, National Strike, Moratorium, whatever you want to call it WE NEED IT NOW. Especially to obtain a single-payer national health—it will take massive civil disobedience to obtain this HUMAN RIGHT, and we should consider how we proceed after our big Sell Out by the New Republicans a.k.a. the Democratic Party.

Is this article about the plutocracy, the top of the plutocracy or a small part of the plutocracy, that is to ask how does the plutocracy fit with the top 1 percent of the wealthy?

So, if this “new plan” is not going to be paid for by richest 1% AND it has to be deficit neutral (very stupid idea), I guess that leaves cutting benefits for poor, elderly and disabled…samo/samo.

BaucASS should still step down for conflict of interest…

Taxes were raised by Roosevelt and the New dealers and things got better until they cut them in 37.

The New Deal was based on Corporatism.

http://www.sjsu.edu/faculty/watkins/corporatism.htm

If you are confused, or you simply do not know what “the allowing” is all about…

Then maybe this link will help?

No, it is not aabout a lack of compassion, it is not about greed, it is not about backbone, it is about POWER. It is easier for the ruling class to maintain their ruling position the more money they have and the less the population has.  And they compete with each other within the ruling class for relative position.  They fund both Dem and Gop reps who need money to get elected.  If the reps don’t do the ruling class bidding, the money goes to their opponents.

So unless the population threatens to revolt and take the power and money away from the ruling class, it is to the interests of the whole power system to increase class inequality.  But for the population to threaten credibly, we must unite and mobilize.  But atomized and fragmented, as we are in the US, we cannot threaten the power structure, or take money away from the rich.

so there is no point to complaining about the moral inedequacies of the ruling class and their agents. As far as political morality goes, they are scum. What we should be doing, however,  is thinking of ways to mobilize the population against them.  With the destruction of the unions by globalization, we have to figure out some other way to do this.

By hippie4ever, July 24 at 12:04 pm
“I used to wonder why people don’t see this, because the media isn’t sophisticated and one should be able to remember one’s life from year-to-year. This is human experience, and once ripped-off a person should know better. Even an American should be able to recognize the disintegration and grand theft occurring openly for all to see.

Unless you use crystal meth, rely on Big Jesus and alcohol, or Faux News—and these aren’t mutually exclusive categories. That’s a majority right there, of the deaf, dumb and blind.”

Me too hippie4ever…me too. I used to wonder and even more in the past decade or so, on why folks don’t get this. It doesn’t take any particular genius…at least nothing more complicated than sustaining an existence, but they haven’t figured it out yet…the grand theft occurring openly for all to see. I STILL can’t understand it.

But, you’re dead on in terms of the majority, and falling into those categories. Covers it pretty well, even with some generous overlap. Americans have been in a dumbing down process for decades now. It troubles me greatly.

Meantime, great piece from David Sirota.

In my younger daze a 1 percenter was a hard core biker, 99 percent biker and 1% human now things are 99 percent rich guy and 1% human. We ALL BLEED RED, Give a little now or give a lot later, Your Choice….......

Yes, xntrk, Huey Long saw right through those bastards. He had their number. And, as you know, he taxed the oil companies to pay for the education of the children of the poor. The elites were outraged! Things like these are why they had him killed. He was a genuine hero who knew he was in a war -not in Afghanistan but in America - and he was brave and angry until the day they shot him down. It’s time the idle rich carried their share of the load instead of being carried by the people who actually pay their taxes- the workers- and then telling them that they’re protecting them by having futile, ruinous wars. It’s obvious who they need protecting from.

“A politician needs large sums of money for his next campaign so he has to grovel before the wealthy every day to raise his war chest.”

Needs? A Politician NEEDS money, money, money, to support his mistresses, illicit love nests, and pay off those in the know. What they lack is the imagination to manage this with panache. Thus, we see them kissing the ass of the ruling class and crapping on the working class, without the decency to even blush.

And, they they have the gall to call this a ‘Democracy’ or even a ‘Republic’. Their secret de-coder ring contains the following message:

How can I screw thee?
  Let me count the ways…

The nice thing about this secret message is that it applies to Girl Friends, Boy Friends, and Constituents, with no editing…

The Right Wing Fanatics in the “C” Street house, and the Left Wing Hypocrites have more in common then we care to admit. The Voters, The Workers, The Poor, and The Ignorant are at the bottom of both groups Xmas List.

As for ‘Health Care Reform’, I have concluded that the bill’s title should reflect its true purpose: Insurance Company Revitalization Bill - 101 Ways to aid the Rich.

Single-Payer, or nothing is the way to go. I am damned if I want to provide propaganda for the thieves in charge!

As for David Sirota’s insight, it seems to kick in after the deals are made, and the money changes hands.

Where is Gene Debs or Huey Long when we really need them?

Fat Freddy, July 24 at 6:27 am #

“It’s time for the ownership class to “buck-up”. They only pay about 17% in income taxes.”

Actually I just saw it was 15%! If only we who made $20,000 or less had that! And after the first $107,000 there is no SS to pay either. [Hint put it on all their millions and billions and then SS et al would be in the black forever.]

Personal Failure, July 24 at 6:47 am #
(Unregistered commenter)

“but, but, i might be a one percenter soon! it’s the american dream!”

One of their “carrots” they dangle in front of our greedy faces. The Horatio Alger myth alive and strong, they give out an award every year to one they think embodies that myth.

With the Republicans color change back to Red shouldn’t those Democrats like them be called “Red Dog Democrats?”

When taxes on the rich were low we had the brief boom then bust of 1929. Taxes on the rich were raised to as high as 74% then we regained our economy. It did well till the 1980’s when Reagan lowered them and then boom for the rich and bust for us. It continued under Clinton who did raise it slightly on the wealthy which gave us a surplus then GW Bush lowered it again and here we are. Still a debtor nation and the largest military force on the earth. We also have a Second Great Depression.

I believe that it is the psychopaths who are ruling us, mostly, and are promoting their way of thinking. Greed, stab the others in the back, ruthless compition, lack of empathy. Empathy is derided as “soft” along with sentimentality. If you don’t act like them then you are a sheep in need of shearing or worse. Psychopaths have no business in gov’t.

Cream rises to the top too.

Roger Lamonde, scum and the shit of vegetarians rise to the top.

I agree with Wait: this is about a lack of compassion, and more greed than a society can tolerate. It is also the legacy of Reagan, whom some historians have rewritten into a Fascist American God. Our current social debacle has been a rerun of Reaganomics, proof that an amnesiac people will be forced to repeat history every few decades if not years. From Charles Keating and the S&Ls; to Timothy Geitner and Wall Street: it’s the same game. Cheney/Bush used “shock and awe” on 9-11 and a phony media to paralyze opposition; then passed even more legislation to funnel remaining tax monies upwards to the Top 1 Percent.

I used to wonder why people don’t see this, because the media isn’t sophisticated and one should be able to remember one’s life from year-to-year. This is human experience, and once ripped-off a person should know better. Even an American should be able to recognize the disintegration and grand theft occurring openly for all to see.

Unless you use crystal meth, rely on Big Jesus and alcohol, or Faux News—and these aren’t mutually exclusive categories. That’s a majority right there, of the deaf, dumb and blind.

Careful, David Sirota: the ruling class does not appreciate exposure on any level. And thank you for having the balls to write the underlying cause of our oppression, manipulation and exploitation.

The top 1% receive the most benefits of tax monies which are paid by others. The Pentagon’s purpose is to protect the investments of the investors, world wide.Anyone thinking that the Pentagons mission has to do with democracy and freedom is a fool. Deficit spending is when the Federal government issues bonds then doles out the proceeds from the bonds to THE CORPORATE WELFARE KINGS[the 1%‘ers] with the principle and interest paid by others, individual taxpayers. This includes Social Security taxes collected. As a percentage of income the 1% ers pay 1/10 as a percentage, the amount as individual taxpayers. The solution to Social Security is so simple, tax the entire amount of income. Perhaps the employers matching contribution could be eliminated at some point.

They don’t lack backbone. They lack compassion. That’s what the atmosphere of the past 30 years has bred into our culture. Indifference. It’s ironic that in a culture that the Right claims to be Christian, we lack empathy for one another.

Empathy: the one-word litmus test during the Sotomayor hearings. It more or less came down to this: “Empathy: Are you for it, or against it?” The Right was against empathy because they believed for Sotomayor to be empathetic, meant she would show bias in her legal decisions, taking the side of the underprivileged, the disenfranchised, the underclass. Shocking!

Another word for it is compassion and whatever word you use, it amounts to much the same thing … and there ain’t too much of it to go around in today’s America.

See Krugman’s OpEd of July 24:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/24/opinion/24krugman.html?ref=opinion

Or check the frontpage story in the Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/24/us/24unemploy.html?hp

It takes a special kind of indifference to turn a blind eye toward people who for no fault of their own find themselves unemployed, and unable to collect the benefits they paid into. Yet our politicians delay.

Of course it’s no different than the indifference exhibited by bankers who feel they deserve incredible bonuses after the tax-payers bailed them out when many of those same taxpayers are on the skids.

Not to mention the medically uninsured.

The Right-wing and the 1% Class that it serves and protects, have developed a pretty thick skin toward the pain and suffering of others.

Progressives are outraged by the fact that right-wing politicians and pundits are gleefully trying to shut down Obama’s Health Care initiative, while at the same time offering no alternatives. But to serve their embittered constituency, all they are required to bring to the discussion in lieu of facts are a bad attitude, abject mockery of liberals and unmitigated rage.

This solution-free, yet cathartic approach is reinforced everyday in the political dialogue they have with one another.

Take World Net Daily (http://www.wnd.com/index.php )  a portal for enraged opinion where a panoply of hysterical Right Wingers spit venom daily.

Look at the list of Contributors:

http://www.wnd.com/WND Columnists

Between them there is enough invective released here every day to keep your average disenfranchised Middle American on the verge of apoplexy.

For a special treat here is Anne Coulter’s condescending (as usual) take on Health Care. Note the games she plays with facts.
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?pageId=104721

It’s all entertainment for Conservatives and they are able to enjoy it BECAUSE THEY DON’T CARE!

Speaking of apoplexy, Jackie Mason holds forth once a week on a video blog that will curl your sidelocks. Here’s his take on health care reform.

http://www.wnd.com/index.php/index.php?pageId=104715

Facts and Empathy are irrelevant to their post-modern politics. They block the immediate gratification of emotional release so important to this the Howard “Mad as Hell” Beale segment of society. These Americans want satisfaction. They want heads to roll. They want … “their country” back. They are simply pissed. Stymied by the myths they were raised on and demoralized by the demise of their industries, their neighborhoods and their demographics, they lash out hatefully, disrupt progress, join militias and enthuse over Palin’s “flipping the bird” at the establishment.

It’s not entirely their fault (How’s that for compassion?) They’ve been programmed to think this way. Until Progressives initiate our own methods for harnessing American frustration and converting it into action, everyone is going to have a pretty hard time of it but our most vulnerable will have it far worse.

Wow! I am getting old, I remember when it was called ” Limousine Liberal”.
Be careful of what you write, David, our Jehovah of liberal causes will have you put away for “Preventive Detention” to save the world from ingrates like you and me.
Ever notice that E Verify does not apply to the rich scum that hires domestic slaves?
Only in Amerika.

Just scan the list of Blue Dog Democrats and you’ll see that those protecting the rich through “fiscal conservatism” are often from districts that need health care the most. Not another cent for their re-elections, I’m thinking.

It’s time for the ownership class to “buck-up”. They only pay about 17% in income taxes. What do you pay? 30%? 35%? That’s the point that needs to be stressed. The wealthy need to pay their fair share.
However, raising any taxes during a recession, especially one as bad as this, can be dangerous.

“The rich are the scum of the earth in every country.” (G. K. Chesterton, conservative Catholic writer and thinker)  Scum, I understand, is a good source of energy, properly harvested, dried, and burned.

When are American politicians going to grow a backbone and stand up for the people who voted them in instead of these parasites. Obama is going to need all his skill and all his eloquence but if he gets this health plan through he’ll join the legends: like Roosevelt and Kennedy he’ll not only be admired but genuinely loved and every time an American goes to the doctor or has to go to hospital they’ll remember why they’re able to pay and WHICH PARTY MADE IT POSSIBLE. This is a win/win for the Democrats so they should get their heads out of their backsides and support Obama to a man and a woman. 70% of Americans want universal health care, the same number that wants gun control: it would be nice to think they could get one of them this century. And it would be even nicer to think that the parasites might actually have to pay some taxes.