Shallow Thoughts About Deep Things

I was going to give this up. I'm tired of ranting. I'm sick of the corporate control of government. I'm trying to tune out the wackos on both sides of the political spectrum--the right wing fascist Neocon Republicans who want to destroy the country if necessary in order to regain control, and the liberal wannabes who think that being politically correct makes them rational. It's all disgusting, sickening, tiring and emotionally draining.

And few people read these rants anyway. The only rational discussions I ever have are with a legitimate Republican I know and with a couple of legitimate liberals I know. Nobody ever posts much of anything meaningful on here.

But after meeting an old friend from L.A. for breakfast this morning, I think I've decided to keep it up for awhile longer. After all, this web site costs me enough to feed 10 starving children in Bangladesh for a year.

The discussion wasn't about this blog, it was about other things. One of the things we talked about was how money and politics distort reality for so many people. Scientific research is driven by big drug company money--not for the purpose of developing basic science; instead, for the purpose of enriching the coffers. Politics drives health care policies. On the Neocon side, you've got total corporate control by Big Insurance and Big Pharm companies who want everything privatized and everybody to pay whatever Big Insurance and Big Pharm want to charge. On the moderate side (I won't say liberal because there is no liberal side) you've got near total corporate control by Big Insurance and Big Pharm companies who want almost everything privatized but enough left public to deceive people into thinking they're getting rational benefits.

The health care "debate" is driven by the very people who cause us to have a crappy system--the insurance industry and drug companies. The mainstream media gives almost no voice at all to the will of the people. In countless polls and surveys for years, Americans have said loudly and clearly they want a system like the other industrialized nations and even some third world countries have. And you've got small business people all over the country saying, "Why should business have to pay for health care?"

And yet, the media and the politicians ignore the people. Why? Simple: Big Insurance and Big Pharm big money.

What the Obama administration is doing is different from what the Republicans have been doing only in degree. Republicans want everybody to buy insurance. Democrats want those who can't buy insurance to have insurance. The end goal of both sides is the same: Insurance for everybody.

The overriding problem with health care in this country is not the lack of insurance.

The problem IS insurance.

You pay several thousand dollars a year for insurance. If you work for a decent size company, the company pays even more. And yet...you need a doctor, you're not covered. You are only PARTIALLY covered. A typical visit to a doctor can cost 50-75 bucks OVER WHAT THE INSURANCE WILL PAY, and then if you have to buy antibiotics, than can cost you $100-$200 OVER WHAT THE INSURANCE WILL PAY. If you have to have some serious surgery, even with "good" insurance, you can be bankrupted with what the insurance company doesn't pay.

If everybody in the U.S. gets health insurance, nothing will change except that the insurance companies will continue to make more money. They'll still deny payment for basic health care. Sure, they may pay some, but not very much. Average working people still will not be able to afford the kind of health care Canadians, French, Germans, British, the Dutch, even Indians, take for granted. Why? Because in those countries you pay taxes and a portion of your taxes goes for health care. You get sick, you go to the doc, you get your drugs, the government pays the bill from the taxes you've paid so the government can pay the bill.

Just like our socialized system we have in this country for a limited few: Government employees and the military. But better, because even at the V.A. you have to pay some. However, it is affordable and if you can't pay you still get treated.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot convicted criminals. In some states, Kansas, for example, a convicted criminal is guaranteed quality health care for as long as he's in prison. Not just any health care, but quality care.

Average, honest, working men and women in the state, however, are screwed if they don't make enough money.

The right wingers and mainstream press and right wing press (Fox "News," Wall Street Journal, etc.) like to bitch about "socialism." But socialism is OK in their book as long as the government is giving money to big corporations. Just not to individuals. And how about those western states, and Alaska, full of right wingers screaming about socialism? Without socialism, they wouldn't be able to exist. Alaska gets about one and a half as much money back from taxpayers as they pay in to the federal government. If that's not socialism, I don't know what is. And the state itself spreads the oil money around with direct payment to residents regularly. That's more socialistic than all the other industrialized nations combined. I know of no other country that distributes money like Alaska.

And yet...Alaska. Ah, Alaska. The hypocrisy is disgusting.

Anyway, I've just figured out why I should keep on writing these rants. It makes me feel better.

And, now that the Democrats are in, I can bitch about them as I do about Republicans. Sure, they're not as bad...but by not standing up for the people and against Big Insurance and Big Pharm and the Military Industrial Complex, as the last good Republican President Eisenhower so aptly named it, they are going against the will of the people just as if they were Republicans...only a little slower. As long as those entities control things, an apparently honest and intelligent man like Obama can do no more than slow the inexorable decline into total fascism. He can't stop it, only slow it down a little bit.

Without a free, independent and competent press, I don't believe democracy can survive for very long. Sure, we've had evil journalism in our past--the Hearst empire got us into the Spanish-American war just as irresponsibly as Fox "News" got us into Iraq. Actually, they were probably more responsible. Fox "News" simply served as the propaganda arm of the Bush administration. And then the rest of the media chimed right in. However, while the Hearst empire had plenty of power that was wielded just as irresponsibly as the Murdoch empire wields its power, in those days we had hundreds, probably thousands, of independent news outlets. Today we have total corporate control over all major media outlets. And I'm not talking about the talking heads, the right wing hate machine--I'm talking about news reporters. They don't seem to be doing serious news anymore, just rewriting handouts, as it were. They, for the most part, have abdicated their responsibility as journalists. Just as some scientists do whatever research gets the government grants, these "journalists" do whatever reporting their corporate masters tell them to do. That's what got us into Iraq--they did what they were told, and fact and rationality went out the window. The news media is just as responsible for the ongoing decline of our democratic society as the corporate fascists and right wing political hacks and moderate but equally hackish political hacks.