Perhaps we should consider the welfare of the people of America who are suffering as we continue to debate about this issue. There is definitely a clear connection between health and unemployment, and these directly affect our economy. Costs for visiting doctors, chiropractors or therapists might be much higher than what people can afford and because of this they are denied treatment.

I’m sure most have seen Chapelle’s skit

  The Nigger Family

It’s pretty damn funny.

You said inter alia:
“I am not afraid to try new things when there is overwhelming evidence from highly educated professionals that it is safe and effective.”
“Your writing makes you sound like a corporatist conservative for the medical associations, drug companies and insurance industry.”
=========================

I am a “highly educated professional” and there is overwhelming evidence that it is “safe and effective”. In fact,  the existence of “EVIDENCE” is the whole point in this minor and sidetracked discussion. There is NO substitute for science when combating, for example, a heart attack. Prayer would not be most people’s primary treatment modality, with good reason, for like all belief systems it makes the mind numb and does not treat the ischemic myocardium.

It is surely your reading and NOT my writing which “make(s) me sound like a corporatist conservative ....”. You confuse what you understand, mistakenly, to be the centerpiece of American medicine, the pharmaceutical companies. I think academic medicine is our greater treasure, and worthy of protecting. Big Pharma is more than able to fight for itself, indeed it now has more power (i.e. money to buy ‘free speech’) than the people who get sick and die.

If you are truly confused by what I wrote, I give up. If your response to what I wrote is to call me names, I also give up. 

This debate with you is not worth the ATP I use in arguing. It is a wider public that needs convincing. It is NOT the basic scientific nature of medical science, medical education, (allopathic)medical practice and drug discovery, but the provision of care to all Americans, that needs radical adjustment. I am not motivated at all to prevent you from accessing Mongolian shamans for your personal healthcare. I am motivated to advocate for universal access to scientific medical diagnosis and treatment for all Americans, the summum bonum of Western medicine.

Call me whatever you like. I know who I am. Using labels like “liberal” and “conservative” only obscure discussions about the ISSUES anyway. The true issue is provision of healthcare to all Americans, that is where this started, and that requires political action. Action which is threatened since corporations have been given the freedom to spend everything they have on buying free speech.

Hey,ITW Have you ever seen a link this neocon liar has posted here?

By RenZo, February 19 at 12:01 am #

“The discussion of homeopathic remedies, natural medicine, holistic & shamanistic medicine has only as much to do with “effective health care for all Americans” as does Christianity or Catholicism (id est, NOTHING). To believe the opposite is another proof that Gramsci was right, cultural memes totally overpower intellect, in most people.”

When tens of thousands of people give feedback that they get results from a process or substance, I pay attention.  I am not afraid to try new things when there is overwhelming evidence from highly educated professionals that it is safe and effective.

Being narrow-minded and thinking that relief from disease can only come in packages with drug company labels on them or from procedures which are taught in traditional medical schools is the worst side of conservatism, in that it perpetuates ineffective and costly self-interest systems. 

It is common when corporate interests buy up or suppress competing technologies because it could have a serious impact on their revenues.  It has been widely asserted that these are techniques of the automotive, energy and pharma industries, among others.

Your writing makes you sound like a corporatist conservative for the medical associations, drug companies and insurance industry. 

In contrast, I am speaking of methods which are progressive in their scope, new ideas, new research, new methods.  I believe insurance is a stupid and extremely expensive way to deliver routine healthcare, and I can prove it.  And I believe drug companies provide services which are highly overrated and expensive, and cause as many problems as they cure.  The medical community has a record which is also very questionable when it comes to ineffectivness and high cost.

Some seem to wish to continue this outrageously expensive and ineffective system, and tax the hell out of people to insure that the money is available to flow unimpeded to the medical/pharma/insurance industrial complex.  What better way than a government regulation that continues and mandates insurance mechanisms?  This is the worst brand of conservative tyranny. 

While I profess conservatism, it is constitutional conservatism which I embrace.  I wish to be free to choose healthcare methods that I find effective, not that which the government mandates.  But when it comes to solutions, I am definitely in favor of progessive methods where they are effective and cost-containing.  As long as they are not government mandated.  If I am mandated to pay for your extremely expensive healthcare system, I will not be free to pursue my much less expensive healthcare system, as my budget will already have been busted.  That is not freedom, democracy or fairness, but tyranny. 

Regarding Gramsci and intellect, memetics in its application does not automatically assume the falsity of every memetic assertion.  True intellect does not accept or reject an assertion based on anything else other than the truth of its effectivness, application and accountability to the people, whether or not it has attained memetic proportions or not.  My intellect transcends memetics.

There are many brands of conservatism, and you are exhibiting one of them, the desire to keep the medi/pharma/insurance industrial complex in place and mandate its application to all citizens through government edict and participation.  I would say this is more of a corporatist, fascist brand of conservatism.  And I would agree, this brand can certainly not be trusted.

Dear oldtimer DaveZx3

At the risk of sounding too strident, which I have been accused of by posters that I respect for their moderation of expression and radicalism of politics, I want to say a couple of things.

The question of getting or not getting effective health care for all Americans does not, no matter what anyone wishes, get accomplished without expense, without charging taxpayers, nor without DECISIVE legislative action. Just a fraction of our yearly tithing to the Military Industrial Complex would allow us to fund excellent health care for the whole world, using Cuban doctors of course(who are already trying to do it, without our help). The discussion of homeopathic remedies, natural medicine, holistic & shamanistic medicine has only as much to do with “effective health care for all Americans” as does Christianity or Catholicism (id est, NOTHING). To believe the opposite is another proof that Gramsci was right, cultural memes totally overpower intellect, in most people.

Politics, and government are the application of overwhelming force to solutions of societal problems. Usually it is the overclass which extends its will on the poor, uneducated, disadvantaged and frequently sick or malnourished underclass (since societies started forming). Certainly American “justice” never focuses on members of the overclass unless they are stealing from their peers. Just saying that you are a “conservative” tells me that you are part of the overclass (living on a trust fund) or erroneously believe that you belong to the overclass (depending on Medicare and Soc. Security). Yes of course that says a lot about me, but I am saying it.

Forgive me if I did not attribute the neocon-gramsciana connection to Guido di Liguori.  DiLiguori also quotes Sarkozy (the President of France, from an article in Le Figaro) as attributing his (neocon) leanings to Gramsci’s highly developed theories. It was supposedly Alan de Benoist, an ultra right wing Frenchman (aka very ‘conservative’) who first cited Gramsci’s theories of CULTURAL HEGEMONY as a basis for a new rightist societal action plan around 1970. It was not my idea. But I do agree that in Gramsci’s counter-hegemonic strategies we might have a workable plan. Surely there is none now. But then as a ‘CONservative’ you must like things the way they are now.

Please take all the exception you like. And of course I cannot stop anyone from writing thousands of pages of folklore about homeopathic remedies for poverty if they wish. Antonio Gramsci was clearly a genius, even if he was a communist. Besides Italian communists are really democratic type people, and reasonable. It is the conservatives you can’t trust.

RenZo

DaveZ

Just what are those ways to access health care
cheaply without Ins or Medicaid that you speak of??

By RenZo, February 16 at 5:10 pm #

“Please, folks, this is political debate, not a scientific forum, lifestyles column or health advice website”

Politics is the application of policies related to science, lifestyles and health, among other things.
These are certainly qualified to be discussed in any political debate centered on healthcare. 

As an old timer and life-long conservative, I take exception to your use of references to Gramscian memetic propaganda as the basis for neoconism,

Read the Venona files to see the use of the methods of Anthony Gramsci in infiltrating the intellectual and other elitist classes of American society throughout the early and middle 20th century by the Russians.  The use of these strategies, widespread now, are certainly not limited to conservatives, and are much more in use by the far left, such as the one taken from the article above: 

“No work equals no health insurance, increasing the chance of death for Americans in poor health.

That is a bullshit scare tactic drummed into the heads of the population to convince them that there needs to be a “deep pockets payor” in order to get healthcare.  As though filtering billions through fat cats or bureaucrats somehow reduces healthcare costs.  WRONG! It just lets them get rich and control you.

Healthcare reform is about control, not healthcare.
There are hundreds of ways to access superior, effective healthcare without going through an insurance company or a government. 

But because these methods are very inexpensive, they are shunned by the medical/pharma community.  They cannot patent natural substances, so no big profits.  They spend years trying to make a drug they can patent which will come even remotely close to the effectiveness of some naturally occuring substances, and they still peddle it even when studies show the placebo to be virtually as effective.  And they pay the doctors well to be their salesman.  Healthcare has become its own lying meme. 

People think healthcare is expensive now, wait until they raise the rates by 39% this year.  This reform fiasco/scam is moving along very well and right according to plan.  The threatened rate increases will mobilize American support for the reform bill, which will produce rates 20% below the insurance companies, and everyone will think they are getting a good deal, but it will still be 19% more expensive than it was. 

The rate increases for healthcare are the same as 9/11 was for the war on terror.  Helps to mobilize support from the masses.  I would not be surprised if government is behind the rate increases. 

At any rate, the end result will soon be that the government has their nose into your healthcare, and will be justified in making decisions related to who should and should not receive care.  That is the ultimate goal, reduce the population of the earth by 500,000,000 as soon as possible.

Every day that that the President, the Senate, & the Congress wastes on health care reform, is another day I am closer to homelessness for lack of work.
If you think the above mentioned are going to make something that works for anyone except the insurance industry & the medical industry you are foolish.
If the above mentioned had to pay their own health insurance premiums (take responsibility for themselves) they might be able to reform health care because they might understand what our lives are like. Now I am foolish for thinking it’s possible for a politician to understand me.

You need a healthy planet to have healthy humans.
This has been recognized for centuries.

John Muir undersood the role of the C02 cycle
many years ago..
it has been the cause of the advancement and
retraction of glaciers for at least a million earth
years.

“There is a nutritional basis for modern physical
  , mental, and moral degeneration.”

Weston A. Price.. Nutrition and Phsical Degeneration,
  1945

Vapor from the sea;  rain, snow, and ice on the
summits; glaciers and rivers—these form a wheel that
grinds the mountains thin and sharp,  sculptures
deeply the flanks, and furrows them into ridge and
canyon, and crushes the rocks into soils on which
the forests and the meadows and gardens and fruitful
vine and tree and grain are growing. JOHN MUIR
John of the Mountains: The Unpublished Journals of
John Muir

Please, folks, this is political debate, not a scientific forum, lifestyles column or health advice website. Take the minority opinions to the proper venues, please. Here the columns are about policy, and the postings should follow suite. Stop wasting my eyesight.

Blackspeare says:
“The situation in the USA today is akin to the situation in Russia in 1905. “

Not so. Or only in the most general outlines. As Gramsci (the Italian communist whose work is the foundation for neocon-ism) pointed out, modern overclasses (who own the capital)maintain control by psychological means, propaganda, by convincing the underclasses that their compliance is patriotic, reasonable, fair, patient, and that it will be rewarded. This is Gramsci’s Cultural Hegemony. This is PRECISELY WHY Democrats continue to believe that they will effect change by being cooperative, reasonable, friendly and optimistic. And PRECISELY WHY voters believed in Obushbama before he was elected (they were supposed to believe in him, it worked).

Russia of the tsars was a much more cruel place, where food was scarce and violent retribution for crimes common. Communication was less glue-like than our instant mass awareness nowadays. They rightly turned to violent revolution to resolve their problems, but modern America will not rebel with violence, almost never. We cannot imagine it because we have been taught from kindergarten that American is free, fair and wonderful. Check inside your head, that is the meme that has lived there since childhood. Much like Aquinas or was it Augustine, who said “give me a child before he is eight years old and I will give you back a lifelong Catholic”. That is why we speak our native language so easily. That is why we like what mother cooked for us, for the rest of our life.

Your point however about the need for change is agreed to, willingly.

By Inherit The Wind, February 15 at 5:18 pm #

“H2O2 is a deadly poison. When you buy it at the pharmacy it is diluted to a 3% solution—97% “inert ingredients”. Check the bottle if you don’t believe me. It is being researched as rocket fuel and has been for at least 20 years now.  Every crackpot idea for ‘magical’ cures seems to get aired right here on TD.”

Better refresh your research.  I have been ingesting 35% food grade H2O2, diluted according to prescription, as needed, for over a year.  As have thousands of others for years. 

The 3% grade is good for gargling and pouring into your ear to combat head colds, and ear aches.  But only 35% food grade should be ingested, and only when diluted according to instructions. 

Ingested directly, it is definitely a dangerous substance.  Most therapies are by IV feed or injected in small quantities directly into tumors.

Please read something a little more current, and not produced by the AMA. 

Whether or not it can be used as rocket fuel, I don’t know, but it is definitely potent against viruses, bacterial infections and fungus.

H2O2 is a deadly poison. When you buy it at the pharmacy it is diluted to a 3% solution—97% “inert ingredients”. Check the bottle if you don’t believe me. It is being researched as rocket fuel and has been for at least 20 years now.

Every crackpot idea for ‘magical’ cures seems to get aired right here on TD.

Ardee: I echo your advice to me RE: GRYM.

The situation in the USA today is akin to the situation in Russia in 1905.  Czarist Russia was essentially an oligarchy which resisted reform and when push came to shove only made cosmetic changes.  Health reform is a good example.  As the divide between rich and poor becomes greater it reaches a critical mass so to speak and then things become a wee bit hairy.

Regarding the debates over sugars or fats being the main culprits in disease causation. Both true to a degree, but it goes much deeper in my opinion. 

I spent about 6 months reading various research and studies on these subjects in an effort to come to grips with my own lung cancer and other lesser disease condtitions I was facing simultaneously. This was during the first half of 2007.

For what it is worth, I came to conclude that there are two major immunity depleting problems in the American lifestyle which are primarily causative for virtually all, (bacterial, viral and fungal) disease condtions. 

These two problems or deficiencies are oxygen and sunlight (the lack of).  It sounds pretty absurd due to its simplicity, but it is being proven over and over again in study after study.

Sunlight on the bare skin creates the body’s own vitamin D, a substance important to virtually every organ in our body.  It is very hard to get in the traditional American diet, especially in the amounts now recommended by leading researchers. 

The number of disease conditions exacerbated by a deficiency of vitamin D is overwhelming.  Please google it to get a better idea.  Supplements are often poorly absorbed, so one should seek out information to tell the difference between good and bad ones. 

In the end, it will show that the experts were wrong again in recommending to stay out of the sun.  Of course overexposure is to be avoided.  The good news is it is relatively easy, quick and free to remedy a D deficiency.  Spend 20 minutes a day in the highest sun part of the day with little as possible clothes on.  In the winter, especially in the northern parts of the country, this could be a problem, and this is where supplements or tanning beds would have to be researched. Some are very good.

The second deficiency is oxygen.  Well know that virus, bacteria and fungus cannot live and reproduce in an oxygen rich environment.  The exception is the bodies natural (good) bacteria which do thrive in oxygen.

One of the ways the body fights diseases is to manufacture H2O2. (Hydrogen Peroxide)  This is simply water with an aditional oxygen atom.  H2O2 is unstable, and it gives up its extra oxygen atom at the slightest opportunity, usually attaching it to an oxygen poor diseased cell.  The disease, whether bacterial, fungal or viral, will become overwhelmed with these oxygen atoms, which are poison to them, and the disease can be destroyed immediately.  Cancer is becoming recognized as fungally based by many. 

H2O2 is a life giving substance for all forms of life, including plants.  Rainwater often picks up an additional oxygen atom when falling through the atmosphere, and if not losing it quickly due to the pollution of the lower atmosphere, this extra oxygen has a great effect on plant life.  Better than fertilizer.

Learn about the different grades of H2O2, and learn of the different types of therapies being developed by state of the art practitioners. 

Also look into other super-strong anti-viral, anti-fungal and anti-bacterial substances, such as pure Oil of Oregano and similar natural stuff.  These are stronger than most of the anti-biotics available, have no side effects, and disease microbes cannot build up immunity from them. 

Don’t expect your family doctor to recommend any of these things.  These are anti-medical establishment treatments.  WHY?  Because they are available for pennies.  The medical, insurance, pharma and legal systems would suffer major losses in revenue if these things caught on.  You must come to your own conclusions. 

Sunlight and oxygen.  Pretty basic, but in a deceived, polluted world, becoming scarce in the human body.  Is it all for the sake of profits, or population control?  Disease is good for those who want to make money or reduce population.  You decide.  I already have.  That’s why I am not impressed with the proposed health care reform.

Manchild,

If I believed anyone here gives a hens hiney about your childish rants and my complete disdain for your brand of hate I would simply ask a few others here to step up and smack down your claim that I’ve never shared links in support of my opinions or assertions.

You’re under the truly odd impression that these people are too stupid to have paid attention to previous posts and discussions.  You are an odd bird, Little one.

-

Still waiting on those poll numbers you made claims on A MONTH AGO .....LOL

P.S.  This ardee fellow, whom I like to call, Manchild, is the worst sort of dishonest bigot. He enjoys calling all who disagree with him stupid.  And contrary to his protestations I have shared several dozen informative links with him and others.  I can provide links right this Web site that will prove him an habitual liar and petulant child. - Most regulars here already understand what I am describing.

This ones (GRYM) personal opinion of me is not really important to me at all, nor is it really relevant either.

I certainly do not call all who disagree with me stupid, nor have I called him such either, perhaps mentally unbalanced is more apropos. This line of his, as is his name calling, is simply his Goebbels like technique, one which, I am certain, holds no water with most of the folks here.

I am certainly not alone here in my negative opinion regarding this ones propaganda and outright lies. He constantly is challenged to provide links and has yet to do such despite his overmuch protestations to the contrary.

Put up or better yet, shut up.

LC:
My FIL, not the healthiest, best-eating or super-exercising guy on earth, had HIS angioplasty 23 years ago—his only angioplasty.  About 10 years ago he had to have a stent put in artery fairly low down.  No “tune ups”.  He has had to have various meds and changes to those meds.  He’s the first member of his family to make it into his 80’s. Why? My MIL watches everything like a hawk, what he eats, how much, whether he’s taken his meds on time, etc.

Yeah, that’s one.  But your blanket statements about disease, especially cancer are not only false, they can be DEADLY to anyone foolish enough to buy into them.  You have mistaken environment-induced cancer (like my father’s lung cancer from smoking) with ALL cancers—a serious mistake. Dad changed his lifestyle. He quit smoking and died 12 years later from lung cancer.  Would he NEVER have had lung cancer if he never smoked? Probably not.  But did he actually live longer by changing his lifestyle?  I don’t know, and neither do you.

But I really resent people telling OTHER people how to “fix” their lives when it involves dealing with a problem the “fixer” never faced.  Kind of like a rich man’s indulged son telling the poor they need to stop whining and pull themselves up by their own bootstraps.

The Exemplar diets that are referred to are the Japanese and the Italian mediterranean which both have very little sugar (fructose and sucrose). Same with aboriginal diets, very low sugar content with very highj fiber content, although in these societies generally medical care is so abysmal that no one lives long enough to die of heart disease. See the lecture by Dr Lustig (UCLA)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM
for the real truth from a Pediatric Endocrinologist who has published scientific articles and teaches at medical school (not online).

Since someone keeps bringing up fat as the reason for heart disease, I will offer the newest information. The fat causes heart disease scare of the seventies, eigties and nineties is ENDING. It is likely to be fructose and sucrose (table sugar, part fructose) and High Fructose Corn Syrup which cause the obesity, heart disease, diabetes, etc. Not saying high fat diets are GOOD for anyone but the real culprit is fructose. HFCS is in EVERYTHING.
Watch this lecture by Dr Lustig of UCLA:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM

Bill Boyarsky’s Columns
Health Care Reform Can’t Wait—Outside Washington

To avoid confusion I printed the entire article about
Bill Clinton (without any of my commentary),
below just as it appeared as a Yahoo news item &
released by AP

“No cure for heart disease, Clinton’s case shows”
By MARILYNN MARCHIONE, AP Medical Writer
Fri Feb 12, 6:09 am ET

However, I believe there is a cure for heart disease.
The medical approach is to
provide one temporary “fix” after another, & some of
those “fixes” can be fatal.
On the other hand the following book: “Dr. Dean
Ornish’s Program for Reversing
Heart Disease: The Only System Scientifically Proven
to Reverse Heart Disease
Without Drugs or Surgery”  by Dr Dean Ornish, makes
more sense.

Dear John,
You are talking caki as my Nonna (grandma) used to say. You must be very angry, but we are not enemies no matter how much you holler.
Clearly there are some things you are willing to say in spite of no knowledge. This is not a great place to discuss anymore. So long.

John Ellis,

What are your intentions here on TruthDig?  Are they to discuss and share ideas and opinions?  Or are they more aligned with simply being argumentative and/or contrary?

I did not say you were wrong.  I asked if you were being too simplistic.  When I refer to the differing opinions of Robert Owen and Karl Marx, two outspoken socialists, I was being very specific.

Many people can rightly hold a different opinion on what socialism is.  We all see several examples of models, whether government or economic, all about the globe today.  Not allowing for this, in essence, is like telling someone to shut up and listen only to you.  Does that sound right to you?

-

You have misread almost every post here today.  Why do you think that is? 

I’m curious.  What type of Life-Style training are you involved in?

screamingpalm,

Apology gladly accepted.  And I am sorry for your troubles.  No surprise to say that I have a few of my own.

The Hour and Wage Div. of the Labor Dept. will cost you nothing but your time.

If what you believe is correct there may be an opportunity to change the “reasons” for your dismissal.  Change that and you change everything.

See what I’m getting at?

-

If Hour and Wage is not the correct Dept. simply ask them for the proper contact.  And, if I may, I highly suggest you note the date, time and name of everyone you speak with.

Good luck!

John Ellis, - “As this poster wrote a very large comment on income and wages, as none of it was about crime, I quite naturally assumed….”

-

First:  You have me confused with someone else or you have again misread.  I posted nothing on the subject of income and wages.  I simply referred to the “hour and wage” division of the Labor Dept.

Second: I don’t believe it is “quite natural” to assume capital punishment refers to anything other than, well, Capital Punishment.

Third: Referring to someone in the third person while that person is present is considered to be quite rude in most settings.

Fourth: Don’t you think your definition of socialism too simplistic?  Many people can rightly hold differing definitions of what a socialistic government and/or economic model is. I’m not so certain Robert Owen would see eye-to-eye with Karl Marx.

Lastly; and not to put too fine a point on it, you have made a number of mistakes in comprehension on this thread.  I wonder if you are not truly listening but, in it’s stead, attempting to interpret?

I believe that what a person says is rarely more important than why they say it.  But it’s equal to knowing what was said before we apply our own interpretation.

My interpretation is far less important than the person speaking or writing.

By Go Right Young Man, February 14 at 11:33 am #

My apologies for reading to much into your posts. As you might guess, this isn’t the first time I’ve argued about this issue. And I’m sure you can see that it causes me distress. As soon as someone mentions “hand-outs” it tends to make me snap. This is because these arguments normally always follow the same routine and it looked like this was your insinuation, amidst the American Exceptionalism.

I actually did contact a few lawyers before I left the state, but no one called me back. I was also turned down for unemployment and denied again when I appealed. Even if I did take legal action, I don’t know what that would get me. Get my job back? They’d just find another reason to fire me- and actually don’t even really need a reason in the state of Virginia. Get my health insurance back? They denied to cover me anyway.

John Ellis,

Anti-Kickback Law and Suspect Financial Agreements: FAQ

http://www.acr.org/SecondaryMainMenuCategories/BusinessPracticeIssues/FeaturedCategories/AntiKickback/AntiKickbackLawandSuspectFinancialAgreementsFAQDoc3.aspx

Dear John,
You are lying. Please excuse my rudeness, but your antisocial behavior in this public forum requires a strong rebuke. Stop lying. Stop lying.

Kickbacks are illegal. They are unethical, and prohibited by all insurance plans.

Becoming a doctor doesn’t assure anyone of becoming a millionaire. There are quite a few dotors in favor of nationalized healthcare (socialized medicine). Society, anyway, if it were responsive to the needs of the “laboring men”, who are all prevented by “deadly force” from voting their conscience, should set priorities and norms for the ethical behavior of its citizens. Why hasn’t it?

Dear John,

Thank you for the compliments, if they were (I am not sure). You may be offended by what I said, but it is all in your head.  I can’t be exactly what you think I am, can I? 

“Cultural hegemony” is the label invented by Antonio Gramsci for his (brilliant, perspicacious, prescient) theories while he was imprisoned by Mussolini’s fascist (‘corporatist’) government. He observed and predicted that the rich would no longer need to resort to violent oppression to maintain their control of their servant (laboring) classes, because the control of education and media by capital would subjugate those servants effectively.

I made no comments about “you” laboring men, nor did I say you were foolish. I do dispute your statistics, some of your definitions, one of your assertions and one of your fantasies. If you truly believe that not finishing high school makes one a laborer, do you discount the labor that workers (high school graduates) in a cubicle perform or do you think that nurses (high school graduates also) tending to patients are not laboring?

Then too, I am acquainted with ‘men in prison’ (there are women too in prison) and they are not all there simply because of lack of high school diplomas. Many of them ARE there for crimes against capital, and the main purpose seems to be to convince them that such crimes are wrong while incarcerated. Imprisonment is by definition deadly force, but it is not deadly force which keeps Americans from voting in their OWN best interests. There was no deadly force used in the Presidential “elections” of 2000 or 2004 but the worst President in the history of the country was put in power, and no rumble of revolution was heard. The US is circling the drain pipe right now and even though laboring men did not put it there, why didn’t they stop it from happening? What trick prevented them from saving us, if not patriotism, democracy and cultural hegemony?

You have posing confused with posting. You are no more a ‘laboring man’ than I am, or I than you. But I would gladly treat you as an equal, not disparage your parentage, their class status, your educational accomplishments or your native intelligence. I can’t know those things about you anyway, so they are all in my head. You can’t be exactly what I think you are, can you?

John Ellis,

I am…anti capital-punishment
and in favor of market regulations.

“What this poster is trying to tell us is that he is both a capitalist and a socialist.  For the definition of socialism is regulated capitalism.”

-

What this poster was indicating is exactly what this poster wrote….LOL

If you revisit what I wrote you may understand how you’ve misread said post.

TO: Inherit The Wind, February 14 at 11:23 am
Hey IHW:
Thanks for mentioning Bill Clinton.

No cure for heart disease, Clinton’s case shows
By MARILYNN MARCHIONE, AP Medical Writer
Fri Feb 12, 6:09 am ET
Bill Clinton has a new lease on life, but there’s no
cure for the heart disease that has twice forced the
former president to get blocked arteries fixed.
Treatments like the quadruple bypass surgery Clinton
had in 2004 last about a decade on average. Then the
blood vessels used to create detours around the
clogged arteries start to get blocked, too.
One such blockage sent Clinton to the hospital on
Thursday. Instead of fixing it, doctors reopened the
original clogged artery and placed two mesh props
called stents to keep it open.
It’s something he’s likely to need again, heart
experts say.
“We see people who come in like this every four to
five years. Essentially, it’s a tuneup,” said Dr. Cam
Patterson, cardiology chief at the University of
North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Surprisingly, this doesn’t shorten someone’s lifespan
or give them a bad prognosis, said Dr. William
O’Neill, a cardiologist and executive dean of
clinical affairs at the University of Miami’s Miller
School of Medicine.
“I’ve done 10 or 15 in a single patient over a period
of time,” and they still live long lives as long as
they don’t have a heart attack and suffer damage, he
said.
Clinton has not had a heart attack and has done
everything right since his bypass — eating well,
exercising, keeping his blood pressure and
cholesterol in check, said his cardiologist, Dr.
Allan Schwartz at New York Presbyterian Hospital.
“This was not a result of his lifestyle or his diet,”
Schwartz said at a news conference Thursday night.
Since the bypass, “he has really toed the line.”
And what good does that do, you may ask?
It can keep heart disease from getting worse and
fresh blockages forming in new places, said Dr.
Spencer King, a cardiologist at St. Joseph’s Heart
and Vascular Institute in Atlanta and past president
of the American College of Cardiology.
Dr. Clyde Yancy, a cardiologist at Baylor University
Medical Center in Dallas and president of the
American Heart Association, agreed.
“This kind of disease is progressive. It’s not a one-
time event so it really points out the need for
constant surveillance,” he said.
About 1 million artery-opening angioplasty procedures
are done each year in the United States. Nearly 1 in
5 patients who have one have previously had a bypass
operation, said Dr. Ralph Brindis, a cardiologist at
California-based Kaiser Permanente health plan and
incoming president of the cardiology college.
“On average, a bypass operation lasts 10 years,”
Brindis said. “He’s a little early for having a
problem, but not that early.”
Clinton also in the past has partly blamed his heart
problems on genetics. There is a history of heart
disease in his mother’s family. He also has admitted
being careless about his diet, has had high blood
pressure and before his bypass, had stopped taking a
cholesterol-lowering drug he’d been prescribed.
Schwartz emphasized how much of that had changed.
Clinton’s “numbers” were all good, he said. But heart
disease “is a chronic condition. We don’t have a cure
for this condition, but we have excellent
treatments.” ___
On the Net:
American Heart Association:
http://www.americanheart.org
Copyright © 2010 Yahoo! Inc.
can·cer:  Any of various malignant neoplasms
characterized by the proliferation of anaplastic
cells
cancer:any type of malignant growth or tumour, caused
by
abnormal and uncontrolled cell division
tu·mor:  arises from uncontrolled usually rapid
cellular proliferation

Hey John,

after at least six “digs” on Tea Baggers by
Truth Dig in four days,  I felt like quoting the
bible…

At least on their latest,, the EMBARASSMENT
many articulate posters expressed be disgust in
much better fashion than i am able.

This, like most political blogs, turns into a slug fest of “right” versus “left”, “capitalist” versus “socialist”(although the overwhelming majority of americans have no idea what socialism is, they pretend to understand it as a dirty word).

America today is an extension of America yesterday. Capitalism wins every time because those who control capital control politics, and they almost always have. One way they do that nowadays is by controlling (OWNING) the media, and owning the editorial staff (workers).

Another very important way they do that (maintain power) is by cultural hegemony: the instillation of false cultural memes into the people. So poor workers, without heatlhcare, without effective vacations, without good nutrition, without effective power, start to believe that this is THE ONLY WAY IT CAN BE. The believe that this is “America”, “democracy”, “patriotic”. How many still believe that Iraq was growing infinite fields of terrorists? The disempowered, ignorant situation of the disadvantaged becomes permanent, self condemning, self-perpetuating. They really have no idea how totally inaccurate the news is which is fed to them. NO IDEA.

False cultural memes are propaganda. Do you think George W. Bush really is born again? That Obushbama believes in a old white man being god? That Hillary believes, that Bill believes? One of the most powerful, FALSE, cultural memes foisted upon us, like geese with a funnel in our mouths, becoming foie gras, is that we are EITHER LIBERAL OR CONSERVATIVE. In parlimentarian systems, even while classifying themselves as left or right by their place in the room, they address issues one by one. How do you vote on “the death penalty”? How do you vote on “freedom of choice for abortion”? Our very political system itself is a cultural meme. It is all show, purchased by the overclasses to convince us that we have some power, and to anesthetize us.

It didn’t start that way. It is MOST CERTAINLY that way now. But then tobacco farmers in colonial Virginia didn’t know that smoking would cause cancer. Neither did the first industrialists who sold it & became rich on it. When the awareness dawned on them they hid it, of course, to maintain their power, increase their wealth. That is what corporations are SUPPOSED to do, protect their shareholders and increase their capital holdings. This is diametrically opposed to what government should do - protect the people (not the shareholders primarily, although there were shareholders who didn’t know that smoking causes cancer and smoked themselves). Our government lies to us, because we let it do so.

We should be focusing on the one issue in this article. Access to health care, but we ramble through the whole arsenal of epithets, pressing buttons, using viewfinders, taking aim, pulling triggers. What about healthcare. The senate bill sucks. Why can’t we have one system that is the same for everyone who wants to use it? Britain is not a failure for having National Health Service. Norway is fat and happy, winning almost as many medals in winter olympics as the US. France is even competitive internationally, and has not turned “communist” or “nazi”. What is wrong with socialized healthcare? Why can’t we?

Hey John Ellis,

I will most gladly concede all those points,

just a little Sunday morning devils advocate.

Best summery of Capitolism i have seen for a while..

“Ye shall know the Truth, and the Truth shall
  set you Free”

  DO DA DAY ....JESUS…..When he comin back?

“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be
  called the children of God.”
“Blessed are they which are persecuted for
  Righteousness’ sake:  for theirs is the kingdom
  of heavon.”

I not evn christian and can see this

“There is no life, truth, love, or intelligence
  in matter,  all is infinate mind.”

  MARY BAKER EDDY….from
 
  Science and Health, with Key To The Scriptures.

And speaking of MARY BAKER EDDY….

I sure liked her definition of God

LIFE, TRUTH, LOVE,  MIND, SOUL, SPIRIT AND…...

P R I N C I P L E

I believe the liecatcher just makin a very good
point…

you just can’t keep puttin ur thumb in the dyke….

screamingpalm, - “So on one hand you condemn liberals because you say they want a hand out and….”

I did not condemn.  Nor did I claim that liberals are looking for a handout.  There was never a need for you to feel ill thought of in any form.

That is the problem with relying on caricatures of people and groups. - as is the habit of ITW.  He looses the ability to read or listen to others points of view.  Instead of expanding thought and understanding, this debilitating habit - commonly known as bigotry - effectively narrows one’s understanding of the world about them.

Some people, no matter their political leanings, see only a caricature they’ve created for the minds eye.  Everything that is spoken or put to paper will be understood through that myopic prism. 

Example: I am pro-choice, pro-gun control, anti-capital punishment and in favor of market regulations, however, there are some on this Web Site that will see nothing but an evil Neo-Con.  They truly believe, as I or others do not sound like the “progressive” or “liberal” thinker(s) they have themselves devised, that I MUST be an evil human being.  They take this self-induced caricature and make this their solid and unbending reality.

-

Speaking to your very real issue.  It is illegal for your employer to terminate your employment before your FMLA has run its schedule.  It is illegal for your employer to terminate your employment simply because you applied for FMLA leave.  You may want to think about pursuing the matter further.  Perhaps with the Labor Dept. (Hour and Wage) in your county.

-

P.S.  This ardee fellow, whom I like to call, Manchild, is the worst sort of dishonest bigot. He enjoys calling all who disagree with him stupid.  And contrary to his protestations I have shared several dozen informative links with him and others.  I can provide links right this Web site that will prove him an habitual liar and petulant child. - Most regulars here already understand what I am describing.

If this group were actually meeting in a room, communicating eye to eye, Manchild would cease participating. Only in his anonymity does he continue returning to spout his particular form of hatred.

Dr. Liecatcher:

You remind me of Tom Cruise telling Brooke Shields that all she needed was vitamins and her therapy was useless.

I’ve met a number of people with various types of diabetes who weren’t overweight.  SOME can be prevented/treated by diet and weight loss, but so can some arterial diseases.  And many, even most cannot.  Bill Clinton, whose brought his weight ‘WAY down in the last 9 years STILL had to just have stents inserted the other day.

I have never heard of ANY cancer patient who was restored to health by diet and exercise.  It is criminally irresponsible to suggest that cancer victims ignore modern medicine.  You might as well suggest that they put a bullet in their head.  THAT would certainly ensure they don’t succumb to cancer!

I’ve worked on several clinical oncological studies for my work and very, VERY few patients survive to “outlier” status, and even fewer survive the end of the last followup period. 

Those cancers that ARE cured are always done via heavy medical intervention. Child Leukemia is one of those success stories.  Others, like Multiple Myeloma and pancreatic, are far more deadly.

Your comments about what cancer is and how it works seems to be distinctly different than what the oncologists and chemists who work in the labs have told me.  They are the people who exactly see HOW cancer evolves, develops, and EXACTLY what kinds of chemical agents, whether proteins or other, will kill them.

There are countless types of cancers and every single one has a different pathology. The REAL reason we see so much more cancer now than in the past is simple:  We’ve cured so many OTHER diseases and extended life-times so far that cancers have stepped in.  People flat-out didn’t usually live long enough to get cancer.

If you want to live a 21st century of Mary Baker Eddy “medicine” that’s your business.  But don’t practice it on the rest of us!

Bill Boyarsky’s Columns
Health Care Reform Can’t Wait—Outside Washington

Hey folks: Pardon my plaintive cry, but if we don’t
get on the same page
& stop chasing ghosts & ignoring reality & the facts,
a lot of valuable time
& space will continue to be wasted & our demise
hastened.
I hope enough of you learned that the word
civilization is a misnomer designed
for the benefit of the few who are enslaving the many
while at the same time
disparaging the various indigenous & native
populations / cultures as heathens
or savages,  & therefore expendable or genocidable
with guiltless arrogance.
The current class of expendable & genocidable people
is us, we the people.
My current topic is about health, starting with the
definitions of disease &
sickness. However, without the perspective of our
pending annihilation, we
are spinning our wheels & expediting the fascist
oligarchs agenda.

disease
n 1. (Medicine / Pathology) any impairment of normal
physiological function affecting all or part
of an organism, esp a specific pathological change
caused by infection, stress, etc.,
producing characteristic symptoms; illness or
sickness in general

  “sickness - impairment of normal
physiological function affecting part or all of an
organism”

I’ve stated that lifestyle is a primary factor in
achieving a state of health,
& that giving frightening or fancy names to self-
inflicted impairment
of normal physiological functions further enslaves
the ignorant. For example,
obesity onset diabetes , or type 2 diabetes, doesn’t
tell you that in most
cases, the pancreas could do its job if the body was
returned to a normal size.
The medical protocol is insulin, pill or injection.
Once you go down that road, MIPIC,
the MEDICAL INSURANCE PHARMACEUTICAL INDUSTRIAL
CONSPIRACY
owns you. Weight loss is the real solution, but not
via surgical shrinkage of the
stomach which could kill you. Rather a moderate
nutritious diet along with a
good exercise program is the answer to a transition
from glutony to health.
Cancer research has be going on for decades & will
continue forever, consuming
countless $millions without ever finding a “cure”.
The reason is that cancer is a
normal physiological response to cell death caused by
lifestyle & or environmental
factors, e.g., primary or secondary cigarette smoke.
The normal physiological
response to dead cells is to replace them with normal
cells; this can go on for
many years until the number of dead cells increases
faster than the body can
replace them. The definition of cancer is a rapid
increase in abnormal cell growth.
Like speeding up the chicken conveyor belt making it
impossible for the workers
to adequately clean & process them.

I’ve included the Serenity Prayer because I believe
that if we concentrate on
what we can change / improve , we can at least free
ourselves from MIPIC
enslavement.

The Serenity Prayer :From Wikipedia
The best-known form is:

God, grant me the serenity
To accept the things I cannot change;
The courage to change the things that I can;
And the wisdom to know the difference.

There are ONLY two things I object strongly too in the sum of all the postings; two things I must spit out. Briefly,
1) Cuba, I believe, has better healthcare than the US, by most if not all measures of public health;
2) Americans are not STUPID. Our education system has been ratcheted down continuously since Reagan’s administration. With a final coffin nail pounded in by our brilliant Bushbushbaby W’s administration and “No child”. We have to retake the education of our children before any progressive movement can succeed, and that is a thirty year plan at least. Furthermore, watching TV and playing video games adds nothing to the human potential, nothing. Turn off the tv, and go to school board meetings.

Your editorial slant is proudly presented, Mr Boyarsky, and no one could accuse you of being TOTALLY insensitive to the need of the poor for health care. I think you should reconsider, however, how wonderful Medicaid for the poor and unemployed really would be. You would not recommend giving moldy rye bread to the poor because they are hungry, would you? It causes hallucinations (ergot poisoning), after all.

Medicaid is payment for the middle class workers who take care of the underclass. The recipients of the services are so UNDERclass that the doctors who care for them (accept Medicaid) themselves become an underclass of doctors, at least while at work. The overclass of doctors work in upscale offices, hospitals and private clinics where the middle and upperclasses have “insurance” and can afford the copays, “at the time of service”.

American doctors ALL know this fact: that you can’t make an “honest” (i.e. upperclass) living on Medicaid payments. It pays crap. The patients who must rely on it are treated like crap, and for the most part they get crap, instead of quality medical care.

Providing nominal, or third-rate ‘coverage’ for the POOR or UNEMPLOYED at the bottom of the economic/social heap is not a great thing. It may even be a bad thing. Amartya Sen, Nobel laureate for something he REALLY DID (albeit in the voodoo of Economics) believes that the denial of healthcare to so many Americans virtually guarantees that an underclass will continue to exist, at least partially because of that denial. How can people so differently (or under-)valued ever join the greater society? So a little, second-class illness-care for some of the underclass is a tiny bandaid on a big stinky festering wound in North America. The Senate bill if enacted would satisfy moderates like yourself without revaluing those now ignored, disrespected and despised by both Democrat and RepubeCon Senators. It would be a minor cosmetic adjustment to make-up when radical skeletal restructuring is required to make the patient whole and well.

Ardee:

Of course, you are right.  Because I don’t buy into GRYM’s BS, I’m “bigoted” and “dishonest”.  Yeah, like we all know Saddam Hussein had WMDs and Bush was telling the truth about them. We all know Bush’s tax cuts helped the economy. We all know the ONLY reason the whole thing fell apart is Barney Frank’s legislation (In 1999, when the House AND Senate were totally controlled by the Republicans, Frank, a Dem, managed to get this through).  And Ronald Reagan brought down the Soviet Union.

Yup. Because I don’t buy into his fantasies that even the meagerest honest research will show to be false, I’m “bigoted” and “dishonest”.

But Ardee, you are right.  I’m not trained to deal with dementia.

For ITW,mostly..

You do so waste your time responding to the shallow and distorted posts of that consummate propagandist GRYM. Why allow his distortions and outright lies to get to you?

As you duly note, and as I have mentioned before, his hot air is never, ever backed up by any link. I guess he understands that the links he would need to provide would be from CNS, druggy Limbaugh and that ilk. I have called him on it before and he responds with typical right wing hysteria insisting that he has the links..but never posts them.

As to the diminishing of the numbers of uninsured and underinsured, here’s a couple of those thingies that GRYM so abhors…links
which, by the by, cite US Census figures..

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/indepth_coverage/health/uninsured/

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/health/jan-june08/underinsured_06-10.html

http://thinkprogress.org/2009/09/10/census-463-million-uninsured/

I think the most effective means for combating such as he, unscrupulous liar that he is, is just to ignore him personally and simply post the facts that show him plainly to be what he is after all….

By Go Right Young Man, February 13 at 2:19 am #

Sorry to hear of your troubles.  Do the unemployed qualify for Medicaid?  I happen to know that Medicaid pays for cpap machines.  Some of the highest quality cpap machines in the world.

So on one hand you condemn liberals because you say they want a hand out and then tell me I should get one? I don’t qualify because my wife works. There is a healthcare “lottery” in my state which I haven’t won yet. My point was that I shouldn’t have needed to apply for any of these entitlements. I worked and had insurance. I even did the responisble thing and went on FMLA leave to get this taken care of and received a letter from my employer a week 1/2 into my leave saying I was terminated!

Common sense tells us that changes in the private insurance model are certainly warranted. Vigorously upholding antitrust and fair market competition laws amongst pharma is a must.