The Fourth of July and the Perversion of Patriotism

In the United States, big-capital--- big-business--- has always tried to pervert patriotism into a holiday of big-power chauvinism using the media and its bought and paid for politicians making the most shameful jingoistic speeches distorting real patriotism in order to sow confusion in the minds of the people.

Big-capital would like to poison our minds with the image of John McCain as a "patriotic war hero." Getting shot out of the sky while strafing with machine-gun fire poor Vietnamese peasant families working their rice paddies to secure their next meal has nothing in common with "patriotism." Any "suffering" John McCain endured by his captors was nothing compared to the suffering endured by the Vietnamese people who heroically--- and patriotically--- stood up and defended their country against big-capital U.S. imperialism which sought to brutally and tyrannically subjugate and exploit the people in the rape of their country in quest of corporate profits.

John McCain should hold his head in shame for the cowardly and murderous acts he perpetrated against the Vietnamese people. McCain had options; he did not have the good sense to follow the leadership of the patriots who opposed the dirty war in Vietnam; McCain lacked the courage, leadership and patriotism to lead the struggle against this unjust and immoral imperialist war. Today, instead of being apologetic to the Vietnamese people for his dirty deeds, and the American people for the shame and dishonor he brought upon our country for the war crimes he perpetrated against the Vietnamese people in our name from a jet-fighter adorned with our most sacred patriotic symbol--- the American flag--- McCain cries he was mistreated by his captors; that he was "brutalized" and "brainwashed" and "coerced" to make statements against the war.

Millions of patriotic American youth had the good sense and basic, common human decency to stand up and say, "Hell no, we won't go."

Today, who "coerces" McCain to to front for big-capital and once again do the dirty work for U.S. imperialism in carrying out another brutal and bestial carnage, this time in Iraq. And Afghanistan.

Who is "coercing" McCain to remain silent about the systematic brutalization of the Palestinian people? McCain's loyalty is to big-capital, and his patriotism runs as deep as his big-capital backers' pockets.

Little Rachel Corey had the patriotic courage to stand up to the Israeli war machine; John McCain does not... and from the looks of things neither does Barack Obama.

Big-capital's support for the unjust, immoral and illegal wars in Iraq and Afghanistan aimed at securing the oil fields and gas supply pipelines of the Middle East along with the political domination required to suppress the resistance of the local populations to accomplish the rape of their resources has brought us to a Fourth of July, months before an Election, in which the perversions and distortions of what patriotism really is has risen to a new shameful level.

This Fourth of July and the perversion of patriotism by big-capital finds the oil companies like Mobil robbing us at the pumps, Archer-Daniels-Midland, Cargill & Wal-mart robbing us as we try to feed our families, the "Big Three" stealing our jobs, the rigged "one-armed bandits" of the corrupt Indian Gaming Industry picking pockets of what remains after the bankers and the mortgage companies foreclose and evict us from our homes.

The Fourth of July is about protest.

The Boston Tea Party. The fight to put an end to chattel slavery. The struggle of the miners, truck drivers and auto workers to organize powerful industrial unions capable of standing up to big-capital. The fight to defeat Hitler, Mussolini, and Tojo. The struggle against McCarthyism. The fight to bring an end to that other dirty imperialist war in Vietnam.

Protest against injustice is what the Fourth of July is really all about no matter how much money big-capital spends trying to poison peoples' minds to the contrary; no matter how many "stump speeches" the politicians they own say otherwise; the Fourth of July is about people struggling for justice, dignity and human rights.

Big-capital needs to shamefully distort what the Fourth of July is really all about because big-capital is the source of today's injustices and as any good community organizer knows, the only way to confront injustice is through vigorous protest.

Barack Obama made us all aware he was a community organizer. As such, Obama understands that in an Election Year, people will take their issues to the streets to make some "political hay" in an attempt to get their problems resolved.

There are those who argue that now is not the time to "make political hay" around our problems; Barack Obama, the community organizer mentored by Frank Marshall Davis, would have to disagree, even if his "political handlers" think otherwise.

We know, from history, the "wheel that squeaks the loudest gets the grease."

It takes massive, united protests to turn the wheels of justice.

There are those who compare Barack Obama to George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Delano Roosevelt... unless we take our problems and our demands for solutions to the streets we will never find out if this is the case because these Presidents never would have achieved greatness had it not been for the determined revolutionary activism of people united for change.

George Washington took up armed resistance to British rule; Lincoln was elected in the midst of some of the most militant protests this country has ever experienced as caring and compassionate people were trying to bring an end to slavery; Roosevelt was elected in the midst of massive protests and social upheavals of workers and farmers seeking justice from capitalist tyranny--- protests unparalleled in American history; protests which resulted in tremendous benefits many people take for granted today.

The Fourth of July is a patriotic holiday because of the struggles of the common people for freedom and liberty--- struggles against tyranny and injustices.

Today, we face a powerful tyrant--- big-capital.

Big-capital is a far more powerful foe and tyrannical force than the British occupiers ever were.

Big-capital is far more powerful and tyrannical than the cruel, despicable racist slave holders of the Southern Confederacy who sought to destroy our country to protect their thoroughly corrupt, rotten and inhuman social and economic system.

Big-capital today is far more repressive, powerful and tyrannical than the mining companies and auto bosses of the 1930's; who, when confronted with sit-down strikes by workers seeking change were forced to recognize the unions.

Big-capital today is far more tyrannical, oppressive and undemocratic than what Joe McCarthy ever imagined in his wildest dreams.

To protest is patriotic.

The time has come to say: ENOUGH!

The time has come to serve notice on big-capital that WE ARE FED UP!

We are fed up with the robbery at the pumps.

We are fed up with the oil wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

It is our patriotic duty to take to the streets in protest.

We need to serve notice on big-capital that we will not put up with this robbery at the pumps and the endless parade of flag-draped coffins returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.

We need to serve notice on big-capital that we are fed up and will no longer take what they are dishing out.

There is a lot of talk about "change."

"Change" does not take place by thousands of people sitting in the Excel Center or Cobo Hall listening and clapping to a politician talking about "hope" and "change" that has not been defined.

There needs to be a catalyst for this change; there needs to be a "spark" that ignites a movement for "change."

The Boston Tea Party was such a catalyst for "change." No one would dare to dispute that those who dumped the tea into Boston's harbor were anything but true patriots.

Today we need a "Boston Tea Party" as a spark to ignite a real movement for change.

On this Fourth of July, let us not be deceived by all the chauvinistic and jingoistic rhetoric coming from big-capital--- the merchants of death and destruction, their media and the politicians they have bought and paid for.

On this Forth of July let us prepare to take big-business on--- in the patriotic tradition of the Boston Tea Party, by igniting a boycott of Exxon/Mobil/Esso...

Gather together your friends and neighbors to picket and protest at your local Exxon/Mobil/Esso gas stations and convenience stores. This is the essence of patriotism--- saying "No!" to the robbery at the pumps; saying "No" to dirty imperialist wars for oil.

Make signs: "We are fed up with the robbery at the pumps." "We are fed up with your dirty wars for oil." "Boycott Exxon/Mobil/Esso." Walk around these gas stations and convenience stores on your way home from work; protest the robbery at the pumps--- this is the way to get change in a country tyrannically dominated by big-capital.

Like Thomas Paine and the protesting patriots of 1776, distribute leaflets with these messages every time you go to get gas at stations other than Exxon/Mobil/Esso.

Now is the time for us to define the "change" we need and want; we must not wait until after Election Day, then it will be too late.

Whether you intend to vote for Barack Obama, Cynthia McKinney or Ralph Nader... we need to "unite for change;" every community organizer understands that the kind of "change" needed has to be well defined and articulated before politicians will listen. Also, what every community organizer understands is that politicians will never listen to voices for "change" until they take to the streets in protest where their demands are seen and heard.

Barack Obama's mentor, Frank Marshall Davis, was a true patriot in the best sense of this word. This summer, sit under the shade of a tree or on the beach and read for yourself the words of Frank Marshall Davis. Pick up his books "Living the Blues" and "The Writings of Frank Marshall Davis" at the local socialist institution--- your local public library.

Ironically, when I went to the Warroad Public Library to check out "Livin' the Blues" by Frank Marshall Davis, I was greeted by Mary Marvin, the head librarian, asking me to fill out a post card protesting the fact that the Warroad Public Library is the most underfunded library in the State of Minnesota. I wrote on the post card: "Fund our public library not this dirty war in Iraq." Mary Marvin did her patriotic duty and organized a protest for change. I did my patriotic duty and joined the protest activity she organized seeking more funding for our community's public library... dozens of library patrons had filled out these post cards to elected officials as an act of protest in order to get "change."

Pick up a copy of Howard Fast's, "Citizen Tom Paine."

Dalton Trumbo, a patriot extraordinaire, wrote "Johnny Got His Gun;" please give this book to any young person thinking of enlisting in the military.

Something to think about as you sit around the picnic table on this Fourth of July with family, friends and neighbors.

Health care reform or scam? Doctors supporting single-payer universal health care

Why the change of heart among doctors? GREED.



Now that health care is in a complete mess and continual crisis doctors are for single-payer universal health care; for one selfish reason: MONEY. Doctors are having a hard time collecting on their exorbitant bills from unemployed workers and workers paid poverty wages, and now these doctors want Uncle Sam to subsidize their extravagant life-styles and become their collection agency to boot.



The solution is very simple… take these greedy doctors out of the picture just like the insurance companies, HMO’s and pharmaceutical companies along with private hospitals. The time has come to consider socialized health care.



We can get all the doctors we need in this country in a few years… just go through the ghettos, barrios and Indian reservations and offer any kid who wants to become a doctor a free education contingent upon doing well in high school. Guarantee these kids a $75,000.00 a year job, plus cost of living increases yearly upon completion of university.



Let the greedy, money grubbing doctors compete with this.



Here in Minnesota the health care plan being brought forward by Democratic State Senator John Marty will protect money grubbing doctors as the pharmaceutical companies, huge HMO’s and hospitals continue to profit as Minnesotans pay exorbitant premiums.



To the Democrats, Republicans and many Greens the free enterprise system of capitalism is the “cats meow.” The doctors purr; the patients pay.



Put the doctors to work for a public health care system just like public school teachers.



Many of those training doctors--- adjuncts--- don’t even receive a living wage as they scrimp from pay-check to pay-check trying to feed their kids and make ends meet… I have yet to hear any doctor voice any empathy.



The only way single-payer universal health care is going to succeed in this country is when it is seen as a temporary Band-Aid solution with socialized health care being the solution… the Canadian single-payer system, one of the best health care systems in the world, is now in trouble because these parasites have been milking the system… it will take socialized health care to maintain good quality health care for all in Canada, just like here in the United States.



We need to go into health care reform with our eyes wide open and fully aware that this rotten capitalist system has given rise to an equally rotten and corrupt health care system where it is pretty much futile to even expect that a working person will receive treatment appropriate for their disease or illness… arrogant doctors pursue a course of treatment” most profitable for them and now these greedy parasites who have more in common with the scam artists in real estate and brokerage firms want to protect their nice little racket. And that is all that health care in this country has become; one big racket. Next thing you know the local bookie will be looking for the government to bail them out when someone betting on the ponies happens to pick a long-shot.



Minnesota Democratic State Senator John Marty is putting forward a scam in place of real health care reform; Senator Marty's scam will protect the bloated incomes of greedy, parasitic doctors, and do nothing to help people requiring health care.



As this article states very clearly, these greedy doctors have been the primary impediment to real health care reform for over eighty years in this country and now they want the government to protect their incomes… not coincidentally, doctors are among the biggest contributors to the campaign coffers of these politicians.



Let us be very clear about something: Doctors as a group in this country have been among the most reactionary, anti-woman, racist, anti-labor, pro-big-business, pro-capitalist, warmongering elements in our society. Most doctors wouldn’t give Physicians for Social Responsibility the time of day. Doctors have traditionally been the “grassroots” of the Republican Party. Is this true of all doctors? Of course not… but, the majority of the doctors in this country have been, and are, among the most selfish and greediest grouping in our society--- seldom, if ever, demonstrating any kind of empathy for anyone else's problems.

Now is the time to tell doctors to “take a hike.” We can find young people who really care about people to train to become doctors… Cuba did it, and so can we. In fact, the Cubans are exporting health care all over the world just like Manitoba exports forest-fire fighters. What does the United States export? Capitalism: War, exploitation, rape of resources, greed and poverty… just what wealthy doctors invest in to make more money.



Are we trying to solve this health care mess in the interest of getting the sick well and keeping people in good health; or, in the interest of doctors looking to make big bucks?



When push comes to shove, H.R. 676 isn’t much better without considerable tweaking; but, then again, looking at John Conyers’ list of campaign contributors one finds a bunch of doctors… ditto for Senator John Marty.


For years I have been pointing out what the writer below has just discovered: that universal health care was part of the original "New Deal" package of reforms; dropped after the American Medical Association attacked socialized health care as a "Bolshevik plot" intended to destroy the free enterprise system.


The American people consistently rally to the defense of public education... there is no reason to believe the American people will be any less supportive of socialized health care.


Alan L. Maki

The Doctors' Revolt

Doctors, the traditional advocates for the medical
status quo, are increasingly in favor of major
reforms to the U.S. health-care system.

Roger Bybee

| July 1, 2008 |

http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=the_doctors_revolt

Doctors have historically been the watchdogs of the U.S.
medical system, with the American Medical Association
scaring New Dealers into dropping national health
coverage from the Social Security Act and then the AMA
shredding Harry Truman's reform efforts in the late
1940s. But a new poll and other significant indicators
suggest that doctors are turning against the health-
insurance firms that increasingly dominate American
health care.

The latest sign is a poll published recently in the
Annals of Health Research showing that 59 percent of
U.S. doctors support a "single payer" plan that
essentially eliminates the central role of private
insurers. Most industrial societies -- including nations
as diverse as Taiwan, France, and Canada -- have adopted
universal health systems that provide health care to all
citizens and permit them free choice of their doctors
and hospitals. These plans are typically funded by a mix
of general tax revenues and payroll taxes, and essential
health-care is administered by nonprofit government
agencies rather than private insurers.

The new poll, conducted by Indiana University's Center
for Health Policy and Professionalism Research, shows a
sharp 10 percent spike in the number of doctors
supporting national insurance: 59 percent in 2007
compared to 49 percent five years earlier. This
indicates that more physicians are eager for systematic
changes, said Toledo physician Dr. Johnathon Ross, past
president of Physicians for a National Health Program.

"What this means is the usual bloc of anti-reform is
breaking up," he told The Toledo Blade. "These doctors
are looking in the eyes of sick [uninsured] patients
every day."

The poll results underscore mounting signs that doctors
are resenting the increasingly short leash on which they
are held by insurers and large hospital chains, the
current masters of American medicine. And, increasingly,
doctors seem to be showing support for a single-payer
system that would essentially eliminate for-profit
insurers and curb the power of big provider chains.

The ever-accelerating corporatization of health care is
producing a seismic shift in the way that doctors look
at universal health care. Doctors are experiencing an
extreme and relatively sudden loss of control at the
hands of insurers and hospital networks, while being
snowed under by paperwork and bureaucratic battles with
insurance companies over authorizations and payments.

Losing Faith in the System

Dr. Seth Foldy, a family physician and former health
commissioner for the City of Milwaukee, believes that a
decisive breakdown of the health-care system has changed
the perspective of many doctors. "We've had a virtual
recession over the last six years, with more people
unable to get insurance and more doctors not getting
paid," he states. "There is an overall sense that the
system doesn't work, and, worse, there's been no real
effort to fix it."

The statistics indeed suggest a major breakdown:
Premiums have climbed 87 percent since 2000, and
workers' meager pay raises have been far outstripped by
major increases in their share of the premiums. While
the U.S. ranks 37th on a variety of quality measurements
used by the World Health Organization, per-capita
spending in the U.S. is twice as high as any other
nation. For example, the U.S. spent $6,697 per person in
2005 compared with $3,326 in Canada. Meanwhile, the
sharply escalating costs in the U.S. are leading to
shrinkage of insurance coverage provided by employers.
Some 47 million Americans are uninsured, with the
present economic downturn certain to significantly
increase those numbers.

Among the most acute symptoms of the current crisis is
the rapidly declining share of employers who offer
insurance to their workers. In Wisconsin, for example,
73 percent of workers had health insurance through their
jobs in 1979, but by 2005, the share had plummeted to 58
percent. The Kaiser Family Foundation's annual survey
for 2007 shows that the percentage of employers offering
coverage has decreased by 9 percent since 2000, mostly
in firms with fewer than 50 workers.

As these trends have unfolded, coupled with growing
bureaucratic control by insurers and hospital chains,
many doctors have come to question whether for-profit
insurers need occupy such a central role in U.S. health
care.

State-level polls reinforce the just-released national
survey from Indiana's Center for Health Policy. A
remarkable 64 percent of the Minnesota doctors surveyed
in 2006 expressed support for a Canadian-style single-
payer system that would drive insurers from their
commanding role in the health system, reported Minnesota
Medicine. The Minnesota poll aligned closely with a
Massachusetts survey of doctors in 2004, which reflected
61 percent backing for single-payer, according to the
Archives of Internal Medicine. Doctors' views seem to be
coming into closer alignment with those of the general
public, of which 67 percent explicitly support a system
like Canada's or Britain's.

This finding among the members of Minnesota's Medical
Society -- an affiliate of the American Medical
Association (AMA) -- reflects a broader trend emerging
even among the members of the AMA, traditionally the
bulwark of those defending the medical status quo. In
1935, Franklin Delano Roosevelt wanted to include a
national health plan in the Social Security Act. But his
advisers persuaded him to omit inclusion of the health
provision, fearing that it would lead the AMA to sink
the entire Social Security project.

Similarly, when his successor Harry Truman outlined a
plan for national health care after the 1948 election,
the AMA opposed the plan despite 75 percent public
support for his proposal. The AMA ignited a highly
sophisticated, multilevel effort among its members and
business allies to block the "socialized medicine" plan
and politically crush its proponents, as professor Jill
Quadagno of Florida State University outlines in her
book, One Nation Uninsured. The Truman plan was soundly
defeated, and the AMA succeeded in unseating health-
reform champions like U.S. Reps. Andrew Biemiller of
Wisconsin and Sen. Claude Pepper of Florida, both from
"safe," staunchly Democratic areas.

But the AMA faces a vastly different landscape today.
Less than one-third of doctors belong to the AMA, as
physicians increasingly identify with organizations
based on their medical specialty. Moreover, despite the
AMA's harsh and incessant preaching against single-payer
health care as "socialized medicine" and its active
promotion of myths about "rationing" and "long waiting
lines" in single-payer nations, the group's own national
polling has shown a dramatic shift in its members' view
of reform over the past 15 years or so. Where only 18
percent of AMA members favored single-payer reform in
1992, the figure had soared to 42 percent by 2004.

Single-payer proved more popular than more modest
measures like public programs to cover the uninsured, an
individual mandate to purchase insurance, or an employer
mandate, according to the AMA's 2004 Advocacy Agenda
Setting Survey. Among some subgroups of the AMA, support
for single-payer was even stronger, reaching 58 percent
among psychiatrists. (Pediatric cardiologists showed a
70 percent level of support for single-payer in a 2003
poll of physicians published in the Annals of Internal
Medicine.)

Meanwhile, members of the American College of Physicians
-- the nation's second-largest doctors' organization
with 124,000 internal-medicine physicians and related
specialists -- voted in December 2007 to endorse the
single-payer idea. The vote followed an analysis of
health care in the United States and 12 other
industrialized countries, after which the ACP concluded
that universal coverage had been successfully attained
elsewhere through single-payer or mixed public/private
systems.

Ironically, the commanding role of for-profit insurers
and other corporate players has produced all the dire
effects that doctors were warned about as the products
of "socialized medicine," delivered instead by a system
that generates immense profits. "When doctors were
worried about the government looking over their
shoulder, now they actually have insurers second-
guessing everything we do," says Dr. Deborah Richter,
past president of Physicians for a National Health
Program and now a general practitioner in Cambridge,
Vermont.

"When doctors had a fear of bureaucracy, now they are
being hit with different demands from every insurer,"
Dr. Richter explains. "When doctors had a fear of losing
income, they're now facing declining reimbursements from
the insurers."

From Quadagno's perspective as a sociologist who has
studied the shifting contours of our nation's health
care, the complexity and failures of the current
corporate-driven system are central forces behind
doctors' changing views. "One big factor is having to
deal with so many companies, which creates huge
paperwork and headaches," Quadagno says. "And then
doctors either have to turn away the uninsured or
provide care for no compensation."

"The stock of the private sector has gone down in
doctors' eyes, while the stock of the public sector
hasn't," Foldy says. "Medicare is not unpopular among
doctors. The concept of Medicare for all [which is how a
single-payer plan is often described] is making
ideological headway. And prior to the Iraq War, the VA
system made great strides as a model of quality
recognized by many doctors."

Meanwhile, doctors' perceptions of the for-profit
insurance industry -- which ranks about as low as Big
Tobacco in the general public's eyes -- have declined as
premiums soar, bureaucratic problems multiply, and the
ranks of the uninsured grow. "There is much less trust
that the private-sector insurance companies will be good
partners in health care," Foldy says. "Doctors are
encountering a lot of problems with [insurance
companies], in honesty and uprightness around timely and
full payment. Doctors are facing a high denial rate when
they file claims."

Losing Control to Private Insurers

The high denial rate is the product of increasing
scrutiny of claims by a mushrooming private-sector
bureaucracy. As New York Times columnist Paul Krugman
has noted, "Between 2000 and 2005, the number of
Americans with private health insurance coverage fell by
1 percent. But over the same period, employment at
health insurance companies rose a remarkable 32 percent.
What are all those extra employees doing? ... They are
working harder than ever at identifying people who
really need medical care, and ensuring that they don't
get it."

Along with the denial of claims comes what Richter calls
the incessant "second guessing" by insurance company
staff. A survey by a physicians' group called Primary
Care Vermont found that doctors perceived insurers'
long-distance challenges to their judgments as a major
problem requiring constant, time-consuming wrangling.
"So you have an insurance clerk with a high school
education saying you can't do an MRI scan," Richter
says. "It's a steady drip, drip, drip. That takes away
from the care of the patient."

A whole new layer of intrusion into doctors' care of
their patients has cropped up in the form of "disease-
management programs," which Richter argues are chiefly
designed to generate more prescriptions for the
pharmaceutical industry. "There are now disease-
management program businesses, contracted by insurance
companies to deal with patients with chronic illnesses
like asthma, diabetes, or hypertension. These programs
are now bypassing the doctor and asking the patient to
request certain data or certain tests from their
doctors.

In one especially troubling case, Richter recalls, "one
of my patients got a letter just before the holidays
from a disease-management outfit saying he had
congestive heart failure. The letter spoiled his
holidays because he was worried he was going to die, and
when he finally came in to see me, he was mad at me for
not telling him about his condition." The patient
finally calmed down when Richter showed him that he did
not have the condition.

The level of bureaucratic complexity is nightmarish and
ongoing, says Richter. In a single day, she deals with
dozens of different insurance plans, each authorizing
treatments for different conditions and each denying
others. Moreover, each insurance plan has its own
"formulary" -- a list of approved drugs -- from which
doctors must prescribe in order to have the
pharmaceuticals covered by insurance. "With people who
are insured, you have to tailor what you do to the
insurance -- you have to change their prescription
according to the formulary," she says. "The new Medicare
Part D makes it worse, because there are 25 to 50
different plans. In any one day, I'm dealing with 30 to
40 different formularies."

Fighting over authorization for treatment is another
major issue, says Foldy, who specializes in working with
homeless psychiatric patients. "Surgeons probably hear
[denial of authorization] a lot more than I do. This was
even more of a problem earlier in the mid-1990s when
[for-profit, insurer-owned or influenced] HMOs were more
aggressive."

The mid-1990s were a period of extreme restrictions on
care, with employers viewing "managed care" as an
effective means of holding down premiums. For-profit
HMOs and insurers began pressuring hospitals to release
patients before they were well enough to take care of
themselves, as with "drive-through deliveries" where new
mothers were sent home within 24 hours after giving
birth.

"The [for-profit] HMOs have backed off some, and they've
shown themselves to be failures in holding down costs,"
Foldy says. When the HMOs were very rigid, employees
wanted their employers to change insurance companies.
"So the insurers decided that they would rather have
higher premiums and happier patients. The incentives
weren't aligned right to hold down premiums."

Heart surgeon Dr. Dudley Johnson, a renowned pioneer in
open-heart surgery who now specializes in high-risk
cardiac cases, has frequently encountered another form
of bureaucratic resistance from insurers. Insurers are
generally unwilling to refer patients outside the
hospital and clinic networks with which the insurers
have negotiated financial arrangements.

"In any number of cases, we've have to fight the
insurers, even when the patients' own doctors obviously
couldn't do the needed [specialized] surgery," Johnson
says. "Some of the patients would eventually get in.
Some of them never did get clearance, even though their
quality of life would be better with surgery as well as
their prospects for survival."

Doctors face severe pressures from their networks to
refer only within the network, Johnson says. "If your
doctor says a doctor outside your network is the best,
that doctor gets in a lot of trouble. The insurers and
networks are working in sync to get all the patients to
come to their hospital. They have people who check the
records to see to whom their doctors refer patients. So
you hear doctors say, 'I can't write it in the chart who
I'd recommend you to see.' There's a lot of pressure."

Such pressures have driven physicians like Johnson to
conclude that only a single-payer system can restore
patient care rather than profit as the core of the
health-care system. But even if the polls in Minnesota
and Massachusetts reflect a broad shift toward that
conclusion, single-payer advocates face the task of
converting individual opinion into effective collective
action.

Reform Movement Gaining Momentum

For activists like Richter, that means, first of all,
helping doctors to discover that they are not alone in
their alienation from the medical status quo. "Doctors
are complaining but don't realize how unhappy other
doctors are," she says. To break through this sense of
isolation, Richter has given presentations on the need
for single-payer reform at every hospital in the state
of Vermont. The response now is markedly different from
a few years back. "The crowds are bigger and the heads
are nodding in agreement," she says.

Richter readily concedes the difficulty of organizing
doctors, who spend much of their time working alone and
often either absorbed in building up a new practice or
preparing for retirement. "They say organizing doctors
is like herding cats. It's tough to get them to join
forces," Richter admits. "I don't see organized medicine
joining to lead the fight now, but eventually they'll
get on the bandwagon."

Quadagno is less optimistic based on her studies of the
episodic upsurges for health-care reform in the U.S. and
the current lineup of forces in the U.S. "Different
organizations have different stances, and there isn't
any unified force," she says. "Unions are now less
unified and less powerful than in the past. And then you
see the AFL-CIO's energy going into efforts like 'fair
share' initiatives to make Wal-Mart cover its employees
rather than pushing for universal care, such as a
single-payer plan."

While pro-reform sentiment may be building among
doctors, single-payer advocates will eventually face the
fierce and well-funded opposition of the for-profit
insurers and their allies like the drug companies (who
fear that a single-payer system will bring on
negotiations with the government overpricing, thereby
slicing their profits). "Insurers have the capacity to
do more than any doctors' group," Quadagno says
ruefully. "I don't think a single-payer plan can win."

In contrast, Richter is much more optimistic based on
her direct organizing experience and listening to
doctors' alienation from the fast-advancing
corporatization of health care. Although she's keenly
aware of the insurer-and-pharma coalition's influence,
Richter believes that the insurers will continue to
aggravate the grievances of both doctors and patients
alike. For example, the insurance industry's hiring
explosion will continue to mean more exasperating fights
for doctors seeking payment for their services, and for
the general public trying to get its bills paid. The
public's approval rating of the insurers is likely to
drop further.

Additionally, doctors are growing particularly inflamed
by the trend for "medical tourism." This term refers to
the outsourcing of medical surgeries, just as major
firms have been outsourcing both factory and white-
collar work to low-wage nations. "More and more
insurance companies are paying patients to go to places
like India for hip and knee replacements, bypass
surgery, and other operations," Richter says. There were
150,000 medical-tourist operations last year. It started
with cosmetic surgery, but now medical tourism has
really expanded because insurers can pay just one-tenth
or one-twentieth the cost they do here. Richter
predicts, "That may finally bring along the surgeons,"
who have been less inclined to fight for reform.

Given the enormous political clout of the medical
insurers and allied health-care interests, winning
single-payer health care in the United States is certain
to be an arduous and lengthy fight. But the heightening
conflicts between doctors and insurers and hospital
chains, along with the AMA's declining importance, has
made a significant swath of the medical profession far
more sympathetic to the single-payer option than
advocates would have dared to dream just a few years
ago.

An Open Letter to voters about Health Care reform...

I have received a number of letters and phone calls over the past several months telling me that Minnesota State Senator John Marty’s health care legislation is patterned after the federal H.R. 676.



This is not the case at all, which anyone can tell from simply reading the two pieces of legislation.



If this is the case, then what are the costs involved in the Marty legislation and why is how this plan will be financed, along with the real costs, so hidden?



The Marty legislation doesn’t read anything like H.R. 676.



As you probably know, the Democratic leadership has already stated, that even if they win the Presidency and control both Houses of Congress, they will not support H.R. 676. Like on impeachment, Congressman John Conyers will back down--- and have those visiting him arrested just as he did those who came to his office seeking he follow through with promises of impeachment.



And, I am sure you know the Marty legislation here in Minnesota will never pass. Democratic Senator Rod Skoe has even told me he endorsed it just to get all of us supporting socialized health care off his back. I think Skoe’s endorsement is even more devious than just getting us off his back… Skoe, and most of those who have endorsed the Marty legislation have done so with a very devious intent; intending to go along with the even more reactionary proposals as a “compromise” alternative to the Marty legislation. I am sure many of your other endorsers have equally sinister and corrupt motives like Skoe who cannot be trusted for anything.



We are very well aware most Minnesotans want just what the Canadians have in the way of health care; yet, there isn’t a single proposal in keeping with this--- not H.R. 676, not the John Marty legislation. Even the Conyers proposal is too costly for most working people; again, those uncritically supporting H.R. 676 conveniently ignore the costs and who will pay the costs--- very dishonest on their part, even though politically expedient.



The Minnesota Universal Health Care Coalition (MUHCC) could easily draft something in line with what the Canadians have. So could the Physicians for a National Healthcare Policy. This would solve everything. Everything, that is, except for the profiteers wrecking the system just like this is ruining the Canadian single payer universal health care system. Most Canadian labour union people will tell you the solution is outright socialized health care; as will most of the socialist supporting New Democratic Party voters.



To me, it is quite dishonest that MUHCC and others have written off socialized health care without even giving it any consideration since here in Minnesota the majority of voters could be won to support it. Simply because there are those business people and those like doctors, hospital administrators, HMO’s and insurance company CEO’s who deathly fear ant talk of “socialized health care” is no reason not to discuss this solution which would be no different than public education or Social Security.



In fact, as we approach the Fourth of July, we can say that it is downright undemocratic for the Democrats and Republicans to scheme to prevent an open public dialogue and public discourse on the question of socialized health care.



In fact, we could go even further knowing that there are so many millions of people suffering not only the consequences of their illnesses, but the double whammy of paying outrageous medical and health related bills; trying to pay them even though for many it means being foreclosed on and evicted from the family homestead and then thrown out of nursing homes when they can no longer afford to pay the bills.



We saw how Democrats used dirty-tricks and schemed to deny the liberal Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer the U.S. Senate nomination; we see how these same corrupt forces in the Democratic Party are scheming to push Obama even further to the right as they force him to provide the most minute detail of the neoliberal agenda while they make sure he remains very vague and inconsistent when it comes to ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, on health care reform, Social Security, the minimum wage and the rights of working people.



I, along with others, went to Obama’s “Unite for Change” events, and in most cases, we found no one home for these publicly promoted and advertised events… similarly, we will find no one home at the White House on the day after the Election unless we immediately begin to use our very limited resources to organize rank and file and grassroots initiatives dedicated to fighting for real solutions to our pressing problems; it would be all the better if such initiatives are geared towards organizing progressive independence from the Democrats and Republicans.



When those promoting Obama’s “Unite for Change” event at 722 Upton Avenue North in Minneapolis found out that I was coming intending to raise the issues of socialized health care, a real living minimum wage and with a plan to end these dirty wars in Iraq and Afghanistan everyone arrived at a home with no one home--- not even an explanation provided. I have since heard of many other such “cancellations without notice” all over the United States.



Obama refuses to define what “change” he is for. People are fast losing “hope” in Obama’s rhetoric.



John McCain has one pathetic claim to fame which he says qualifies him to be President of the United States of America: he got shot down reigning death and destruction on the Vietnamese people and Obama can’t even bring himself to denounce McCain for the warmongering murderer he really is. Make no mistake, McCain is no hero… McCain is a war criminal who deserved to get shot out of the sky for what he was doing in Vietnam. McCain received better medical care from his Vietnamese captors than what most working people receive when they go to a doctor or hospital and McCain walked out of Vietnam without a bill for the medical care he received and Uncle Sam has never paid his bill or compensated the Vietnamese for the death and destruction they suffered at the hands of John McCain and his “buddies.” And here we are, in another quagmire in Iraq, another boon-doggle in Afghanistan; and Obama and McCain are cheering on Bush to go to war with Iran while both ignore the real health care needs of their own people as money is wasted creating death and destruction in the countries of others.



It is too bad that honesty in politics will not be a consideration this Fourth of July as the capitalist sooth-sayers hawk their snake-oil cure-alls.



Something to consider around the dinner table as we finance bombs doing more damage to other peoples instead of simply “bursting in air;” of course, as we all know, we can’t pay for socialized health care and continue dirty imperialist wars in Afghanistan and Iraq for dope, oil and world domination… although the by-product of Afghan poppies might relieve some pain.



Alan

Labor Needs to Improve Conditions for Nonunion Workers, Official Warns

Labor Needs to Improve Conditions for Nonunion Workers,
Official Warns…

Ed Ott, the AFL-CIO and CtW might take note of the more than two-million workers employed in smoke-filled casinos, hotels, restaurants and theme parks getting poverty wages without any rights under state or federal labor laws at more than 400 casinos comprising the Indian Gaming Industry; where not even the minimum wage, lunch and breaks, nor the Family Leave Act are not enforced… workers employed under these Draconian conditions in these “right-to-work-for-less without-any-rights colonies” created under terms of “Compacts” which give the state and federal government the responsibility of enforcing and regulating the compliance of slot machines are clubs over the heads of every worker in this country; one would think the human rights of casino workers would come before the rights of the one-armed bandits.

Also--- like Barack Obama--- Ed Ott was short on any specific solution to the problem he articulated so well. The obvious solution is to make the minimum wage a real living wage based upon the facts, figures and calculations of the United States Department of Labor and its Bureau of Labor Statistics relating to real cost of living factors… as Alan Greenspan pointed out in his book, “The Age of Turbulence,” these calculations are made weekly… and as Greenspan also pointed out, the digital electronic age has made it possible to make all kinds of rapid adjustments concerning economic matters… so, there is no reason why federal legislation shouldn’t mandate the minimum wage be adjusted just as rapidly as the rest of the economic conditions in our country; a response to the welfare of working people should be at least as important as responding rapidly to falling stock markets and share-holder profits.

Never mind casino workers; Mr. Ott, the AFL-CIO and CtW might want to look at the deplorable conditions of adjuncts in colleges and universities across this country--- from Northern Michigan University to New York City… Just shameful… but then again, there isn’t much good to say about a rotten capitalist system when it comes to the plight of any workers, anywhere... auto workers getting $14.00 an hour, a disgrace.

The time has come for unorganized workers to bring forward real solutions to Ed Ott and John Sweeney as well as local and state labor leaders and labor councils for action… we need to find out what Barack Obama has to say about all of this, too; and, what solutions he is proposing.


Alan L. Maki
Director of Organizing,
Midwest Casino Workers Organizing Council

Labor Needs to Improve Conditions for Nonunion Workers, Official Warns


Patrick Andrade for The New York Times

All union workers’ gains are vulnerable, says Ed Ott of the New York City Central Labor Council.


By STEVEN GREENHOUSE
Published: June 23, 2008

Ed Ott, the executive director of the New York City Central Labor Council, an umbrella group for the city’s labor unions, has an unexpected and unnerving warning for New York’s more than one million union members.

He warns that their wages and living standards will be threatened unless the city’s unions do far more to lift the incomes and living standards of the city’s nonunion working poor, including restaurant workers, supermarket cashiers and taxi drivers.

“Going forward, if we don’t raise the standards for the lowest-paid workers in the city, and there are literally hundreds of thousands of them, our own levels that we achieved — of wages, pensions and time off — they’re not sustainable,” said Mr. Ott, whose group is a federation of 400 union locals. “For a working class that is going to be making minimum wage or slightly above, what’s going to happen is that as taxpayers, that will create a social base for an attack on our own standards.”

Mr. Ott’s remarks, made in a recent speech at City University and in a follow-up interview, were an impassioned plea as well what he said was a “wake-up call” to the city’s labor movement. New York’s union movement has far more members than any other city’s, although it is widely viewed as less aggressive in unionizing and helping low-wage workers than the labor movements in Los Angeles and several other cities.

He said that many low-income workers who receive no paid vacation or sick days were bound to ask why many municipal workers are entitled to 40 days off per year — combining vacation days, personal days and sick days — in their first year on the job.

“There’s a danger that in the eyes of the majority of people we might be seen as too expensive,” said Mr. Ott, a former official with the Communications Workers of America and the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers Union who became leader of the labor council in 2006 after its previous president, Brian McLaughlin, was indicted on embezzlement charges. “If you have an extremely low-paid strata, you can’t believe they’ll say, ‘You should have another two sick days when I don’t have any.’ We have to find ways to elevate their status.”

Mr. Ott is glad that many union members — for instance, construction workers, telephone workers and teachers — have achieved middle-class status. But he voiced frustration that many unions showed little concern about lifting the status of low-wage nonunion workers. He made his remarks at a time when the number of nonunion workers has soared in traditionally union-dominated industries like construction and hotels.

Mr. Ott sees two working classes in New York: a unionized one that is doing well and a nonunion one that is struggling to get by.

“You see a working class on the subway at 6:30 in the morning and you see them at 8:30 at night heading home,” he said. “They work in the back of restaurants, they clean buildings nonunion, they’re child care workers, they’re in retail. Frankly, I marvel that these guys can find a way to live in this city. They work very hard. Most of these workers who work outside a union setting, they work more than one job or they work one job many hours.”

Mr. Ott said the union movement needed to work closely with less-well-off groups of workers — taxi drivers, domestic workers, restaurant workers, even freelance writers and computer workers — to help raise their living standards, not just for moral reasons but also for their own self-interest. “Every time you go to the bargaining table now, there’s downward pressure,” he said. “Even in the public sector, it’s ‘Any improvements you want, you have to pay for with concessions.’ That’s downward pressure, too.”

As part of his strategy, Mr. Ott took the unusual step of inviting the Taxi Workers Alliance, a group of several thousand nonunion immigrant taxi drivers, to join the Central Labor Council.

In his view, unions need to embrace immigrant workers and work closely with their advocacy groups. The labor council is working with Domestic Workers United to help enact legislation in Albany to improve wages and benefits for nannies and housekeepers. The labor council is also trying to make common cause with the Freelancers Union, a Brooklyn-based group that is seeking to provide affordable health and disability benefits to tens of thousands of freelancers and independent contractors.

In his view, a major problem is that many struggling workers are viewed as independent contractors and do not have many of the basic protections guaranteed regular workers, including the right to overtime pay and workers’ compensation.

Bhairavi Desai, executive director of the Taxi Workers Alliance, praised Mr. Ott’s strategy and agreed with his analysis.

“Unless we lift the floor, the ceiling is going to collapse,” Ms. Desai said. “Some of the mainstream labor movement is all about fending for yourself as opposed to working together to raise conditions across the board for all workers.”

Mr. Ott said several New York unions have become more serious about helping low-wage workers. He cited the United Federation of Teachers, which has unionized 28,000 home-based child care providers, as well as the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, which has organized nearly 1,000 workers at H & M clothing stores in Manhattan. He also praised the efforts of Unite Here to raise wages for Aramark workers, who earn an average of about $20,000 a year in corporate cafeterias at Goldman Sachs, Bank of New York and other financial institutions.

“One of the dangers we have in this city is the city is polarizing economically,” Mr. Ott said. “There is some fabulous wealth toward the top. And there is this growing body of working-class folks. The middle could collapse. The danger is, are our standards not sustainable in a city’s that’s politically and economically polarized?”

Booting US Sugar from the Everglades

$1.75 Billion Dollars of tax-payers’ money to bring United States Sugar Corporation under public ownership; not a penny to save the Ford Plant.

This is nothing but a huge subsidy to stock-holders losing money in a failing industry under the guise of environmentalism.

Apparently public ownership of a huge corporation by a Republican Administration is OK… spending money to save two-thousand jobs in Minnesota just isn’t doable.

Public ownership of a private corporation to bail out Wall Street coupon clippers is appropriate; public ownership to save jobs in St. Paul is interference with free enterprise.

Fidel Castro would have given the Florida governor some free advice about how to bring United States Sugar Corporation under public ownership and tax-payers wouldn't have had to pay a dime for the company which they have subsidized for years.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20080624/us_time/bootingussugarfromtheeverglades

Booting US Sugar from the Everglades

By MICHAEL GRUNWALD/WELLINGTON, FLA. Tue Jun 24, 3:45 PM ET

Florida Governor Charlie Crist could be turning his constituents into sugar barons. And he's about to set the stage for the Everglades to come back from the dead.

At a news conference Tuesday morning near the imperiled "River of Grass", Governor Crist announced a $1.75 billion deal to buy the U.S. Sugar Corporation, including 187,000 acres of farmland that once sat in the northern Everglades. If the deal goes through, it will extinguish a powerful 77-year-old company with 1,700 employees and deep roots in South Florida's coal-black organic soil. It will also resurrect and reconfigure a moribund 8-year-old Everglades replumbing effort that is supposed to be the most ambitious ecosystem restoration project in the history of the planet.

"It's mind-blowing," said Kirk Fordham, the executive director of the Everglades Foundation, before the announcement was made. "Who would have thought we'd see this in our lifetimes?"

The purchase would give the state control of nearly half the 400,000 acres of sugar fields in the Everglades Agricultural Area below Lake Okeechobee, although sources said U.S. Sugar would lease back its land for six years. Environmentalists hope that eventually, the area will become storage reservoirs, treatment marshes and perhaps even a flowway reconnecting the lake to the Glades. This could help recreate the original north-to-south movement of the "River of Grass", and eliminate damaging pulses of excess water into coastal estuaries. That would be good news for panthers and gators, dolphins and herons, ghost orchids and royal palms.

Crist has been mentioned as a possible running mate for Senator John McCain, and they both took a lot of flak in Florida last week when they dropped their opposition to offshore drilling. But Crist has been true to his pledge to be "the Everglades governor," replacing many of Jeb Bush's industry-friendly aides with eco-friendly appointees, blocking the Legislature's efforts to eliminate funding for restoration, and stopping the sugar industry from pumping polluted runoff into the lake. In a recent interview with TIME, he hinted that he was planning some "breathtaking changes" for the Everglades. "Putting your heart and soul into it really makes a difference," he said.

The end of U.S. Sugar would clearly have ramifications. Florida Crystals, the agribusiness controlled by the well-wired Fanjul family, would be all that's left of Big Sugar. Founded by General Motors executive Charles Stuart Mott in the Everglades back in 1931, U.S. Sugar currently produces 9% of America's sugar - thanks to a massive federal water-control project that its executives helped design, and a lucrative federal sugar program that artificially boosts its prices. The company has always been popular in its headquarters of Clewiston, "The World's Sweetest Town," but labor activists have accused it of mistreating its workers, and environmental activists constantly blame the firm for ravaging the Everglades.

Big Sugar did block the flow, and suck the water out of the Everglades, and sent nutrients into the Everglades, converting its sawgrass marshes into cattail clumps and inspiring one of the most contentious pollution lawsuits in American history. But ever since the litigation was settled in the mid-1990s, Big Sugar has done an impressive job of cleaning up its act; development has been a much greater threat to the health of the Everglades. Still, U.S. Sugar executives have often warned that they might grow condos someday, and environmentalists have dreamed of locking up their land.

Now their dreams appear to be coming true. They're about to become part-owners of Big Sugar. "This could be a game-changer," said Everglades activist Alan Farago before the press conference was held. "The biggest obstacle has always been the EAA. Now we can try to salvage restoration." There are still plenty of details to be worked out, such as how the state will raise cash during a fiscal crisis, and the sugar industry has a troublesome history in Florida. The Crist administration will have to negotiate land swaps with Florida Crystals, and it will have to figure out what to do with a mill, a refinery and a railroad that are now the property of the state. And there's no doubt that the new opportunities for water storage in the agricultural area will require a revamping of the original restoration plan from 2000, which envisioned hundreds of underground storage wells. But that's a good thing; the storage wells would have been ridiculously expensive, and the original plan was dead in the water.

The Everglades has been under siege for over a century, in part because it doesn't look the way people expect environmental treasures to look. "To put it crudely," wrote Everglades National Park's first superintendent Daniel Beard, "there is nothing in the Everglades that would make Mr. Johnnie Q. Public suck in his breath." If Crist can reverse the flow of history and help the Everglades flow again, that really would be a breathtaking change.

Please don't abandon the Democratic Party in our time of need

A Democratic Party hack called me two days ago with this "request;" then the same issue was brought forward on a progressive list serve/discussion board to which I have been posting my views on Obama and progressive politics:

Alan, please don't abandon the Democratic Party in our time of need.

My response---

Don't abandon the Democratic Party in its time of need?

The fact is the Democratic Party abandoned the working class long ago... when Harry Truman replaced Henry Wallace.

I thought I made it very clear; I work "in the Democratic Party," not FOR the Democratic Party.

I work "in the Democratic Party" for the singular and sole purpose of bringing specific issues and their solutions forward concerning the problems working people are experiencing.

If the Democratic Party, their politicians and party hacks were the least little bit concerned with "being abandoned in time of need," perhaps they should have given this some thought when:

1. They refused to stand up and defend Al Gore's victory over Bush and ABANDONED US to the likes of George Bush--- knowing full well what Bush was about;

2. They should have fought for a minimum wage that is a real living wage based upon the actual cost of living factors and the Democrats should have invited us all to march on Washington to back up this demand;

3. They should have brought forward legislation for single-payer universal health care as the first step towards socialized health care;

4. And, finally, the Democrats should not have abandoned the American people in their full and complete opposition to this dirty war in Iraq.

Just yesterday, the Democratic Party once again abandoned the working class and the American people by groveling at Bush's feet for a "bi-partisan compromise" that includes fully funding this dirty war while attaching extended unemployment compensation benefits, veterans' education benefits, and funding relief for flooding victims; as if the working class thinks it is appropriate to receive a few "bones" as this barbaric carnage and destruction continues in Iraq.

To make matters worse, as far as I am concerned, since I represent some 250,000 casino workers employed in the Indian Gaming Industry who work in smoke-filled casinos at poverty wages and without any rights under state or federal labor laws; these same Democrats continue to approve more of the "Compacts" which have led to some 400 (four-hundred) "right-to-work-for-less without-any-rights" Colonies spread out across the entire United States; now employing over two-million workers under these most Draconian conditions... not one single Democratic politician has had the moral or political courage to stand up and say that this wholesale abuse of the human rights of working people must end. The Indian Gaming Industry is nothing but a front for some of the most violent and vicious mobsters--- including the Kansas City Mob. By the way, the Democratic Party and Barack Obama are reaping millions of dollars in campaign contributions from the likes of Frank Fertitta and his "Family," which owns the huge Station Casino empire which is a "management firm" for the Indian Gaming Industry.

Check out the law-firm/lobbyist of choice for the Indian Gaming Industry and the mobsters in this country: Brownstein/Hyatt/Farber/Schreck and then come back and talk to me about who is abandoning whom. Check out the campaign contributions being made to the Democratic Party coming from this group of law-firm/lobbyists.

I am not ruling out supporting Obama IF he comes on-side on the three core progressive issues and their solutions which I will recapitulate here for you since you seem bent on avoiding and evading their discussion:

1. The war in Iraq. End it on the day of taking office;

2. A minimum wage that is a real living wage as calculated by the United States Department of Labor and its Bureau of Labor Statistics taking into consideration real cost of living factors and legislate a mandatory recalculation every three months based on these cost of living factors;

3. Single payer universal health care based upon the Canadian example using the Canada Health Act as a "template" because this is what Americans say they want more than any of the other fraudulent health care schemes.

After being under attack without let-up since the day Harry Truman assumed the Presidency, the working class is entitled to something in return for votes for Democrats; don't you think?

Corporate lobbyists purchase the votes of Democratic politicians every single day just as they do the Republicans... now, it is time for Democrats to buy the votes of working people... the price is a real bargain: Peace, living wages and health care.

By the way, it is only fair that I declare my own "conflict of interest;" I am the Director of Organizing for the Midwest Casino Workers Organizing Council so we have a real ax to grind here with the Democrats and Barack Obama, and you better believe we intend to "make some political hay" during this election cycle.


Yours in the struggle,

Alan L. Maki

House votes to provide $162 billion in war funding

Shame on the Democrats for including extended unemployment benefits and education for veterans along with funding programs for victims of flooding to further finance this dirty war in Iraq.

There is a real hypocritical irony to funding an extension of unemployment benefits to workers here in Minnesota as the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development has joined with employers in depriving workers of unemployment benefits to start with, including Iraq war veterans.

Recently Mystic Lake Casino, owned by SMSC Gaming Enterprise, fired a casino worker because he advocated for clean air and water in his community by opposing the "Midtown Burner Project," in no way connected to his employment at Mystic Lake Casino.

An adjudicator with the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development ruled the Iraq war veteran and casino worker was ineligible for unemployment benefits because he exercised his First Amendment Right of Freedom of Speech.

People, outraged by the firing and the decision to deny unemployment benefits, are encouraging the organization of a boycott of Mystic Lake Casino and the Little Six Casino, owned by SMSC Gaming Enterprise a front for some of the biggest and most violent mobsters in the United States. SMSC Gaming Enterprise is among the ten largest employers in Minnesota.

The corrupt Minnesota Democratic Farmer-Labor Party has been as shamefully silent on the attacks on veterans by employers and the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development as its elected officials have been in acquiescing to Bush's war in Iraq

While the U.S. House voted to provide $162 billion in war funding... Minnesota politicians and the bureaucrats they appointed to oversee the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development are working to prevent Iraq war veterans from getting the unemployment benefits to which they are entitled in the first place after they are unjustly fired from their jobs.

Democrats and Republicans sure can work quickly when it comes to funding death and destruction but they haven't been able to provide socialized health care for the American people in over sixty years... now, this is something to think about.

House votes to provide $162 billion in war funding


Jun 19, 10:08 PM (ET)

By ANDREW TAYLOR


WASHINGTON (AP) - A much-delayed Iraq war funding bill sailed through the House on Thursday, along with a doubling of college aid for returning troops and help for the unemployed and Midwestern flood victims.

Republican allies of President Bush provided the winning margin in a 268-155 vote to provide $162 billion to fund U.S. operations in Iraq and Afghanistan well into next year.

Democrats opposed to the war, however, succeeded in using the Iraq funding bill as an engine to drive past White House resistance a sweeping revision to GI Bill college benefits and a 13-week extension of unemployment checks for those whose benefits have run out.

Lawmakers separately approved those domestic add-ons by a 416-12 vote, sending the combined bill to the Senate for a vote next week. The White House issued a statement supporting the legislation.

The measure also provides a quick $2.7 billion infusion of emergency flood relief for the Midwest, though more is expected to be needed to deal with the major losses in Iowa, Illinois and other states.

The bill would bring to more than $650 billion the amount provided by Congress for the war in Iraq since it started five years ago. Nearly $200 billion in additional funding has gone to operations in Afghanistan, according to congressional analysts.

It also would give Bush's successor several months to set Iraq policy after taking office in January - and spares lawmakers the need to cast more war funding votes closer to Election Day.

"The way it's been set up now, whoever ... is president will have a few months to think through how we are going to extricate ourselves," said House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey, D-Wis., a key negotiator.

The relatively brief debate featured only glimpses of the bitterness that consumed Congress last year as the new Democratic majority tried - and failed - to force troop withdrawals and other limits on Bush's ability to conduct the war. Most war opponents expressed frustration and a sense of resignation at having to yield to the lame duck president.

"The president basically gets a blank check to dump this war on the next president," said Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass. "I was hoping George Bush would end his war while he's president."

Republicans cited progress in Iraq since Bush beefed up troop levels last year in an effort to create stability in the war-torn nation.

"Our troops have made tremendous gains, and forcing them to reverse course - as most in the Democratic majority want them to do - would be both irresponsible and reckless," said Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio.

The new GI Bill essentially would guarantee a full scholarship at any in-state public university, along with a monthly housing stipend, for people who serve in the military for at least three years. It is aimed at replicating the benefits awarded veterans of World War II and more than doubles the value of the benefit - from $40,000 today to $90,000.

The GI Bill measure, authored by Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., had such extraordinary support from both Democrats and Republicans that White House objections were easily overridden.

Administration representatives sought to curb its costs in closed-door talks, Obey said. Instead, the chief concession by Democrats was to add an administration-backed plan - costing $10 billion over 10 years - allowing veterans to transfer their benefits to their spouse or a child.

The White House tried much harder to kill the effort to extend unemployment benefits as part of the war funding bill. Just two weeks ago, it appeared the administration would probably prevail. But after the unemployment rate jumped a half-percentage point to a nationwide average of 5.5 percent, House Democrats engineered a veto-proof tally in support of the 13-week extension.

In late-stage talks with Boehner, a key figure in negotiating the overall agreement, Democrats dropped a plan to extend unemployment benefits for an additional 13 weeks in states with particularly high unemployment rates. They also agreed to require people to have worked for 20 weeks in order to be eligible for the extended payments.

In another key concession, House Democrats dropped a provision to pay for the GI college benefits by imposing a half-percentage point income tax surcharge on incomes exceeding $500,000 for single taxpayers and incomes over $1 million earned by married couples.

The move was long expected, but nonetheless riled moderate and conservative "Blue Dog" Democrats upset that rules requiring additions to federal benefit programs be paid for with additional revenues or offsetting cuts to other programs.

Democrats, many Republicans and governors across the country emerged the victors in a battle with the White House to block new Bush administration rules designed to cut spending on Medicaid health care for the poor and disabled.

On war spending, the bill would prohibit U.S. money from being spent on Iraq reconstruction efforts unless Baghdad matches every dollar spent. But negotiators dropped a demand that Bush negotiate an agreement with Baghdad to subsidize the U.S. military's fuel costs so troops operating in Iraq aren't paying any more than Iraqi citizens are.

Last month, after a bitter debate, the House passed the unemployment benefits extension, the GI Bill improvements and a series of restrictions on Bush's ability to conduct the war. The war funding part of the legislation failed amid the partisanship.

The Senate restored the war funding and folded in more than $10 billion in additional non-war spending backed by Republicans and Democrats alike. Most of that money is now eliminated.

Democratic-led Congress to vote on war funding, unemployment benefits extension

Pick up any newspaper in the United States today, and this is the story you will see with this headline blaring out at you:

Democratic-led Congress to vote on war funding, unemployment benefits extension


Link: http://www.startribune.com/politics/national/congress/20496409.html?page=1&c=y

Democratic-led Congress to vote on war funding, unemployment benefits extension

By ANDREW TAYLOR , Associated Press

Last update: June 19, 2008 - 5:24 AM

WASHINGTON - The Democratic-led Congress finally appears ready to give President Bush his request for $162 billion in long-overdue funds for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

A deal worked out Wednesday between House Democrats and Republicans and the White House, if it passes as expected, would put to rest Bush's long-standing battles with the Democrats over war funding. At the same time, Democrats would win help for the unemployed and a remarkably generous increase in GI Bill education benefits for military service members.

The House was to vote on the compromise Thursday. (Note: This is TODAY… Alan Maki)

Progressives have some serious questioning to do here.

When I first learned of this being in the works a couple weeks ago, I called the offices of every single congressperson and the two senators from Minnesota asking to be kept informed as this legislation was progressing. I never received a single follow-up phone call, nor even an e-mail.

Obviously, elected public officials did not want citizen participation or input from working people and the unemployed concerning this legislation.

Now I take my morning walk with Fred, pick up a newspaper and read this headline…

Democratic-led Congress to vote on war funding, unemployment benefits extension.

Is this the way we want to see the working class “united for change?” In return for supporting funding this dirty war in Iraq, working people will get an extension of unemployment benefits. This does not sound like the kind of “unity for change” progressives would be seeking; of course, it isn’t. But, this is an example of what Barack Obama has in mind. This is a very clear and perfect example of the reactionary, ultra-right, neo-liberal agenda Obama supports.

Obviously, Democrats hope to buy the votes of working people and the unemployed with this disgraceful “package.”

This is the kind of bi-partisan “unity” we can look forward to from an Obama presidency.

Again, working people were intentionally kept out of the decision-making loop on this; by both the Democratic Party politicians and labor "leaders."

The AFL-CIO and Change to Win labor federations are shamefully supporting this “compromise” that will pump hundreds of millions of dollars more--- billions of our hard earned dollars--- into the death and destruction taking place in Iraq and Afghanistan. This is an outright disgrace, insult and slap in the face to every worker in this country, the overwhelming majority of whom were, have been and are opposed to these dirty wars.

Military spending destroys jobs. More unemployment results from military spending in spite of George Bush’s claim that “military spending creates a few jobs;” another big lie from Bush, just like the lies that he used to start this dirty war in Iraq.
Legislation for unemployment compensation should have been stand-alone legislation; certainly not tied to military spending… a package including for educational benefits for veterans would have been appropriate and this alone would have been enough to create “bi partisan unity.” There would not have been a single Democrat or Republican who would have dared vote against such legislation with a hotly contested approaching election.

Obama has called for “Unite for Change” meetings, discussions and forums to be held all over this country on Saturday, June 28.

These “Unite for Change” meetings should be turned into the beginning of grassroots educational and organizing efforts that will unite the working class in boldly challenging the neo-liberal agenda of increased military spending to support the carnage in Iraq and Afghanistan and insist that the priorities of this country be reordered away from war and military spending to meet human needs, first and foremost--- no-fee, comprehensive, all-inclusive single-payer universal health care which is publicly funded and publicly administered.

The way to unite the working class is to bring forward a bold progressive agenda that drops funding for military spending, coupled with legislation for a minimum wage that is a real living wage which would tie Unemployment Compensation and Social Security to the same cost of living factors. In this way, we defend the “New Deal” reforms of the past by winning a “new” New Deal for today.

For anyone to suggest that we should give up our vote to support these kinds of worthless, sleazeball politicians who would be so unconscionable to attach the needs of working people for survival to funding an illegal, immoral war based upon lies and deceit is all the justification needed for working people to sit home on Election Day as far as I am concerned.

In fact, on the eve of an Election, working people could have gotten this very same package from a Republican controlled House, Senate and Presidency… so, why do we need Obama and the Democrats?

This shameful scenario seeing Democrats cower to the merchants of death and destruction and the military-financial-industrial complex of which they are an integral part, once again brings forward the need for working people to take up the question of re-establishing a labor party in this country along the lines of the old Farmer-Labor Party which served Minnesotans so well for a decade.

In my opinion, supporting and voting for Cynthia McKinney in this Election can help us work our way towards such independence from the Democratic and Republican Parties.

Perhaps what is most interesting is that neither Obama's nor McCain's comments were even sought for this article concerning this dirty deal that is every bit as dirty as this imperialist war for oil itself.

With the capitalist economy already on the skids to oblivion... this huge increase in military spending now being appropriated by the Democratic controlled Congress will speed up this process leaving untold human misery in its wake... unemployment will soar out of sight as industrial plants from small operations like Northern Engraving Corporation in Waukon, Iowa to the the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant close their doors, and the wrecking balls are brought in.

The time has come for working people to become full participants in the decision making process.

Corporate executives at the Northern Engraving Corporation tried to with hold the news of their decision to close the Waukon, Iowa plant which will cause economic hardship to hundreds of people in this small community without their participation in the decision-making process just like the huge Ford Motor Company did in the Twin Cities... in return, working people are supposed to jump for joy that their unemployment benefits are extended for a few more weeks as the bottomless pit of the merchants of death and destruction continues to be fed.

Working people can not survive under capitalism.

Cynthia McKinney is the only politician who has taken the time to meet with workers at the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant to ask how she can help them...



Barack Obama came to the Twin Cities, addressed over 30,000 people, and he had the unmitigated gall, audacity and arrogance to ignore the plight of the two-thousand workers who will lose their jobs if the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant is allowed to close according to the decisions made behind the closed doors of Ford Motor Company's corporate boardroom in Detroit without any input from workers or the community.

Something to think about, and discuss, around the dinner table this evening.

Health Care and the Circus in the Cities

Google and Microsoft have the ability to wage a major political fight, the kind appreciated in Washington for the money it generates in lobbyist fees and political donations for lawmakers. Both companies began their Washington operations as one-man bands but now have large presences.

To understand the quote from the New York Times above, read on---


Many people look at the Circus in the Cities which tries to package itself as an expression of democracy and they wonder why, and how it is, that these clowns making a pretense of being democratically elected politicians can spend so much time on seemingly petty issues and they can't manage the time of day to resolve our problems of everyday living over which they have control.

Things like health care and the minimum wage never surface and we are told, "Wait until after Election Day and we will take care of you"...

Well, in the case of single-payer universal health care only thirty Election Days--- 60 years--- have come and gone.

And what do we have? One big expensive mess where we can't afford to stay well and we can't afford to die.

Lot's of progressives are enamored with John Conyers and his House Resolution 676... Conyers and his mesmerized progressive friends are telling us, "Wait until after Election Day."

What is there to wait for? H.R. 676 isn't going to be brought forward by Conyers anymore than his promises of impeachment proceedings against the most corrupt President and Administration in U.S. history.

Supporters of H.R. 676 point to a pile of resolutions in support of H.R. 676 by labor unions which mean absolutely nothing because the labor bureaucracy providing the endless trail of resolutions supporting H.R. 676 state before the resolutions are even passed that they will be looking at other health care reforms.

The American people, and especially Minnesotans, when asked what kind of health care system they want point north across the border towards Canada and say, "We want the same thing the Canadians have."

The Canadians do not have anything like the phony health care proposal Minnesota Democratic Farmer-Labor Party Senator John Marty is proposing with huge, un-affordable premiums... and people know H.R. 676 isn't going to fly any better than the flying saucers Dennis Kucinich has seen.

Minnesotans have good reason to say they want what the Canadians have because Floyd Olson and Elmer Benson came up with the idea in the first place and Tommy Douglas and Dr. Norman Bethune put single-payer universal health care on the agenda in Canada as a first step towards socialized health care where all the for-profit motives are finally removed from the health care system and keeping people well and treating their illnesses when sick is the only concern... not how much some Wall Street coupon clipper is going to be making off his pharmaceutical, health management, insurance or hospital stocks.

So, why is it we can't even get a hearing on the issues involving health care when everyone in this country knows that there is a serious problem here needing immediate attention?

It is all about lobbying and the money associated with lobbying.

Politicians, including that darling of the limousine liberal crowd--- John Conyers, all they care about are issues that have well-heeled lobbyists on both sides of the issues.

The Minnesota Universal Health Care Coalition can't afford to pay for office space, let alone to purchase the services of high-end lobbyists.

If we had big-money lobbyists willing to bribe their way through the capitol building and house office building we would see action real fast.

Don't believe me?

Well, consider this article from the New York Times and note what I have put in bold type:

Any antitrust inquiry in an acquisition of Yahoo is likely to be complex and last months, at least.




By STEPHEN LABATON and MIGUEL HELFT
Published: February 5, 2008
WASHINGTON — It could be payback time.


Related stories:

Google Works to Torpedo Microsoft Bid for Yahoo (February 4, 2008)

Google Assails Microsoft’s Bid for Yahoo (February 3, 2008)

Yahoo Offer Is Strategy Shift for Microsoft (February 2, 2008)

Eyes on Google, Microsoft Bids $44 Billion for Yahoo (February 2, 2008)

Microsoft's Yahoo Bid
Full coverage of Microsoft's offer to buy Yahoo, who is advising, who else might be in play and where the bid goes from here.



Dennis Brack/Bloomberg News

Senator Herb Kohl and Representative John Conyers indicated willingness to hold hearings on the proposed deal.


An expensive legal and political campaign last year by Microsoft helped delay completion of Google’s $3.1 billion bid for the online advertising company DoubleClick. Microsoft filed briefs against the deal in the United States and abroad, testified against it in Congress, and worked with a public relations firm to generate opposition.

Now Google is preparing to strike back.

With Microsoft bidding nearly $45 billion to buy Yahoo, Google has begun to lay the groundwork to try to delay, and possibly derail, any deal. Google executives have asked company lobbyists to develop a political strategy to challenge the acquisition, which could threaten Google’s dominance of Internet advertising. Google’s top legal officer posted a statement Sunday that criticized the proposed deal.

Spokesmen for the two companies in Washington declined to comment Monday about a looming legal and political battle, which has yet to fully emerge and is likely to stay below the radar at least until the control of Yahoo seems clear.

Moreover, some antitrust specialists and government officials said Google might tread carefully in opposing any deal since it could backfire.

Google dominates the market for Internet advertising, and to the extent it portrays the deal as encroaching on that dominance, it could help make Microsoft’s case that its acquisition of Yahoo would create a more competitive marketplace.

Lawmakers are responding to the takeover attempt. Representative John Conyers, Democrat of Michigan and chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said he would hold hearings to examine any proposed deal.

And Senator Herb Kohl, Democrat of Wisconsin, who leads an important antitrust subcommittee, said he was interested in the proposed acquisition. “Should Yahoo accept Microsoft’s offer,” he said, “the subcommittee expects to hold hearings to explore the competitive and privacy implications of the deal.”

Google and Microsoft have the ability to wage a major political fight, the kind appreciated in Washington for the money it generates in lobbyist fees and political donations for lawmakers. Both companies began their Washington operations as one-man bands but now have large presences.

Microsoft enlarged its Washington staff in the late 1990s after it came under antitrust assault in the Clinton administration. Its lobbying shop is considered among the most effective in the capital, and it has retained more than 20 law firms, lobbying companies and press relations operations for an array of political and regulatory issues.

Google’s Washington office is less than three years old and has been steadily growing. In fall 2006, it established a political action committee and has since used Democrats from the Podesta Group lobbyists, two former Republican senators — Connie Mack and Dan Coats at the law firm of King & Spalding, and the law firm of Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck.

Google recently moved to larger quarters, with 27,000 square feet of space including a game room, open work areas, free lunches and environmentally friendly features like recycled rainwater — a smaller version of its Silicon Valley headquarters.

While Microsoft and Google have been occasional allies in Washington — they have worked together on intellectual property legislation and issues of open access — they clashed last year on legal and regulatory fronts.

In addition to the fight over DoubleClick, Google lodged a complaint in antitrust proceedings against plans for Vista, Microsoft’s new operating system. Google said these were anticompetitive because they unfairly discouraged the use of Google’s desktop search program. By lobbying in state capitals, Google persuaded prosecutors to intervene on its behalf. Ultimately, Microsoft agreed to modify the operating system to make it easier for users to decide which search application they wanted.

As they are gearing up now, a legal fight, if at all, is months away. Federal regulators will not begin to consider any deal until it is completed and formally presented. It is not certain whether the deal would be considered by the Justice Department, which has overseen previous antitrust proceedings against Microsoft, or the Federal Trade Commission, which reviewed and approved Google’s purchase of DoubleClick. (That transaction has not closed as European regulators continue to review it.)

Moreover, the size and complexity of a Microsoft-Yahoo deal is such that a government review is unlikely to be completed quickly, particularly in an election year, and may not be final before a new administration takes office in 2009.

Should Yahoo finally agree to be acquired by Microsoft, a focus of the political and legal debate will be the products and markets that could be affected. Microsoft has said the acquisition would increase competition in two related and large markets: Internet search and online advertising. Many ad industry executives, who have watched Google’s rise with some trepidation, agree.

But Google wants the focus of any antitrust debate to shift to issues other than search and advertising. In a statement posted on his company’s blog Sunday, David Drummond, Google’s general counsel, noted that a combined Microsoft and Yahoo would have an “overwhelming share” of the instant messaging and Web e-mail markets, and that the two companies run some of the most trafficked portals on the Web.

“Could a combination of the two take advantage of a PC software monopoly to unfairly limit the ability of consumers to freely access competitors’ e-mail, I.M., and Web-based services?” Mr. Drummond asked.

It is not hard to see why Google wants to shift the focus. In the search market, a combined Microsoft-Yahoo would have about 33 percent of the market, still trailing Google’s 58 percent, according to comScore.

But in Web-based e-mail, comScore ranks Yahoo, with 256 million visitors worldwide in December, and Microsoft, with 255 million, as the top two providers. While there is bound to be overlap among users of the companies’ e-mail services, a combined Microsoft-Yahoo would command a much larger share than Google, which comScore ranks in third place with 90 million visitors in December.

Yahoo and Microsoft also rank No. 1 and 2 in financial news, and No. 2 and No. 1 in instant messaging, according to comScore.


Stephen Labaton reported from Washington and Miguel Helft from San Francisco.

You see, we have a Circus in the Cities and an even more fabulous and spectacular show under-the-big-top in Washington D.C. because of this:

Google and Microsoft have the ability to wage a major political fight, the kind appreciated in Washington for the money it generates in lobbyist fees and political donations for lawmakers. Both companies began their Washington operations as one-man bands but now have large presences.

Until working people can move beyond being manipulated and played for suckers and fools by politicians who always have their hands open behind their backs we aren't going to see a resolution to this health care mess it is as simple as that.

Organizations like the Minnesota Universal Health Care Coalition and others seeking real health care reform are going to have to understand that without the big money to turn over to the lobbyists to put into the pockets of politicians there just isn't going to be any legislative action in the form of H.R. 676 or the Marty proposal here in Minnesota and John Conyers and John Marty know that all too well as this one little paragraph of truth from the New York Times points out:

Google and Microsoft have the ability to wage a major political fight, the kind appreciated in Washington for the money it generates in lobbyist fees and political donations for lawmakers. Both companies began their Washington operations as one-man bands but now have large presences.

You know, I have been searching for one little kernel of truth from the New York Times for years... and this is the first time I ever found it... now, to get the Minnesota Universal Health Care Coalition to believe it, this is another matter.

Without having the money to turn over to the lobbyists to bribe politicians just to start the debate, we need to consider what we do have and how to use what we have to generate the real debate to win the change we need--- single-payer universal health care as a step towards socialized health care.

What do we have? We have ourselves. Alone we don't amount to anything as far as getting anything from politicians in the way of health care reform... what the heck, our annual pay-checks wouldn't cover walking into one legislators office with a decent bribe.

So, we have to educate our friends, neighbors and fellow workers; we have to organize; we have to begin sending a message to the clowns in the Cities and in Washington D.C. that we aren't buying their line of, "wait until after Election Day" because we now understand the game.

Besides, with the price of gas we probably won't be able to afford the trip to the polls on Election Day... Barack Obama might want to think on that.

I certainly won't waste a penny on gas to drive five miles to vote for a guy who lacks the political and moral courage to turn to the north... smile... point his finger towards Canada... and say: That is what you will get when I enter the White House if you vote for me on Election Day.

We don't need this crap, "But, look at what we will get if we don't vote for Obama." We certainly don't need "Vote Democrat, impeach Bush" John Conyers lecturing us, "We are going to look after you if you put a Democrat in the White House.

This Election kind of reminds me of a friend who recently got a new job. The employer made all these promises that she was going to get this and going to get that if she would agree to work for substantially less than what she thought the job should pay. The other day I asked her how the new job was going, and she said to me, "Well, I should have got all those promises my boss made to me in writing; I am getting the lower pay, but none of the promises."

Something to think about as you are sitting around the kitchen table.

You might want to take a walk to your local library for the book "Livin' the Blues" by Frank Marshall Davis who is sure to become more controversial than Reverend Wright in this election campaign. Barack Obama in his book called Frank Marshall Davis his "mentor." We might be able to learn something from Frank Marshall Davis about how to go about winning real health care reform... but, don't let anyone kid you, there is only ONE WAY >>>>> to real health care reform and that solution is what our neighbors to the north have... don't settle for giving up your vote for anything less.