@tom “....the war in Afghanistan is over oil not peoples lives or safety. “

it’s over oil even more than it’s over unicorn tusks.

@Fibonacci65 I don’t think any country values lives over profit, the war in Afghanistan is over oil not peoples lives or safety. But you’re confusing Government with Corporation, the crosswalk or the dialysis machine would be a government decision, as would the U.S. House Agriculture Appropriations Committee etc. quoted in the article. The poor treatment of your sister is down to the insurance companies. And companies definitely don’t value life over profit. The difference is that governments, politicians, senators etc. have to look like they give a crap about anything but their own profit and advancement.

@oddsox,,

good comment, but I would expect that Sirota knows that his overly inflated
rhetoric is to be taken as less than entirely serious.

@Archie1954

As a Centrist who blogs on both TruthDig and Tea Party sites, among others, I’m used to holding minority opinion.

“Always stand on principle….even if you stand alone. ” ? John Adams

This article strikes me odd. I frankly don’t understand where Mr. Sirota has been over the last forty years. - As if there’s something new under the sun in the global use of extrajudicial killing.

And this odd analogy of shadowy medical Death Panels is surely meant to move the subject away from President Obama altogether.

This issue has nothing to do with GOP phantom death panels and everything to do with how Senator Obama once believed the use of water to make admitted terrorists uncomfortable and frightened was an assault on the U.S. constitution. President Obama now simply vaporizes suspected enemy combatants.  No capture. No detention. No messy trials.

Yes, it’s odd how Mr. Sirota sidestepped a real issue in favor of a non-issue in making his point.

I have the proof—a friend here in Canada is undergoing the same operation (partial lung removal) as my sister did in the States—a very wealthy, well-insured sister, I might add.  Canadian friend gets 5-7 days with proper pain management in hospital, plus physiotherapy to help her get well quickly.  My sister was tossed out after 3 days, wept with pain for the next 3, had no therapy at all and suffered greatly.  All that for $3,500 per month “insurance.”  She might have died with such rotten care.

I find this statement a glaring example of one who descends into fiction to make a valid point. This is absolutely no way to engage in a meaningful debate.

If indeed “your sister” had such expensive health insurance there is absolutely no way in hell the events as you report them would have occurred.

I do not detract from the abysmal state of our nations health care and the crying need to reform it, only point out that your strategies are very wrong headed. I have Kaiser Permanente as my provider. I just had a total hip replacement and was in rehabilitation for two weeks before being sent home with all necessary prescriptions and home care in the form of a therapist coming to my home to ensure I was doing the necessary exercise.

Yes, our health care industry is far too expensive, yes the majority of working class folks receive inferior care at a great price and there are far ,far too many here without care at all. Yes we need single payer care in some form , and there are currently excellent examples of such around the world.

But when you attempt to make an argument and descend into obvious fiction you are hurting not helping the cause.

I think it’s kind of a stretch to try to draw a line between the government sanctioned execution of a US citizen in Yemen and starving masses in Somalia.
I’d contend it’s not really “the government” who compiles the “kill list” but rather those who control “the government”. You know: that same bunch responsible for the assassinations of JFK, RFK, MLK, John Lennon, and countless others whose names you and I never knew. The same bunch who wired Building 7 to collapse. The same bunch who, rather than try to account for the missing $3.5 trillion, simply wired the records department in that funny-shaped building with high explosives.

Carlin was right: it’s the great American Okie-Doke:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJr_ggTeq64

a system of rule, founded on inequality, legal injustice, etc., for people and
peoples can only get less equal/just/judicious/honest than ever before.

and due to many factors; chief among them appears to be planet getting daily
poorer, dirtier, more poisonous, drugged, etc.

followed by addiction to absolute power, unchecked greed,
belligerence/belligerency/bellicosity, production of ever ‘better’
killing/destroying machines, etc.

wait and see! this is just a beginning! expect much fiercer wars, oppression of all
kinds; which wld make u wish u’d be back in good old days of bush and
obama/bombama/bwuana!

and in u.s such addicts appear at this time opposed by just one or two% of its
pop. tnx bozhidar balkas vancouver

Premeditated and cold blooded murder, is always rationalized by killers…their reasoning
acts to hide their guilt, from themselves as well as their violation of moral codes they
themselves espouse. If any. Their actions render their contention that others should
follow any sort of moral code a moot point.  There is a whole grab bag of psychological
disguises to hide behind. Yet in doing so the message that comes through loud and
clear is that, it’s kill or be killed, by any and all means necessary. So what then is the
difference between those we portray as evil and ourselves? Our justification for taking a
life rests on a need for society to protect itself. But how does society protect itself from
itself? Especially when it violates without compunction, it’s own moral laws. It then
ceases to have any moral justification for it’s action. Reason alone does not make
murder acceptable. All criminals posses reason, as do crimal societies, what’s missing is
not reason or rationality, but a moral basis for societies actions. Something we now can
dispense with because of the terror war, because we are afraid. But fear can never be
the basis of life, but only it’s unraveling into paranoia and suspicion.

If anyone else had authored this hogwash, I’d write it off as very dark humor, but Sirota’s not kidding.

In essence, he’s saying: 
“Fund these programs or you’re a murderer!”
Another oversimplified, far-left extremist leap—get a life!

There are those on the far-right who also like to oversimplify and leap to conclusions.
Just so you’ll understand, read the def below… it’s from a far-right page I read this morning.

Ineptocracy (in-ept-o-cra-cy) - a system of government where the least capable to lead are elected by the least capable of producing, and where
the members of society least likely to sustain themselves or succeed, are rewarded with goods and services paid for by the confiscated wealth of a diminishing number of producers.

Being a Centrist gets harder every day.

You make a good point tombuck, and I belive that ultimately you are correct, but there is a moral equivilancy to letting people suffer and die due to policies of intentional neglect.

You can’t save everyone, some people die from food poisoning, some people die from crossing the road, some people die from sticking forks in toasters. It doesn’t matter how much money you spend some people will always die. The argument that spending less money is unacceptable because more people will die is no less spurious than the argument that spending anything less than enough to save everyone is unacceptable.
Some decisions, even well meaning decisions, can inadvertently costs lives. The decision not to spend money on the crossing but to spend it on a dialysis machine might mean people still get killed crossing the road. That’s massively different from actively targeting someone for assassination.