It basically started when Hillary said in the ABC debate the Senator Obama was raising “false hopes”.    Barack Obama, in a rally a few days later gave light to the fact that these hopes were not false.  He used the example of “What if John F. Kennedy had looked at the moon and decided it was just too far away.  What if Dr. King  looked out over the thousands of people gathered at the Lincoln Memorial and he said ‘just go home, theres no use’.”  A very viable argument, agree?

Next, Francine Torge, a former John Edwards supporter, said while introducing Senator Clinton: “Some people compare one of the other candidates to John F. Kennedy. But he was assassinated. And Lyndon Baines Johnson was the one who actually” passed the civil rights legislation.   Intense, right?  There are a few things that come from this young, apparently ignorant, woman.  There is a direct reference to the fact that Senator Obama is at a risk of assassination.  While I do think the Clintons use slimy methods to win, I’d like to hope Obama will be around for a while.  The second statement we can attribute to this brilliant and highly educated woman is that John F. Kennedy was assassinated, therefore he made no grounds on civil rights.   According to Torge, LBJ was the President who did everything.  And yes, he did do quite a bit.  But, JFK did a lot, Dr. King did a lot, Bobby Kennedy did a lot.  They should all get a huge amount of recognition.

The next in these series of events was a quote by Hillary Clinton on the unbiased and fair news network, Fox.   “Dr. King’s dream began to be realized when President Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act,” Mrs. Clinton said when asked about Mr. Obama’s rejoinder by Fox’s Major Garrett after her speech in Dover. “It took a president to get it done.”

Clinton shot herself in the foot.   She completely discredited any progress Dr. King made and attributed it all to LBJ.  Horrible.  But, luckily, politicians always get  time to change their words.  Later, Clinton switched the story to LBJ and Dr. King working together and this is like her.  I’m not sure how, but she did.

This is exhausting and frustrating.

Each Presidential hopeful is offering up his/her plan to make our nations healthcare ‘better’.  Hillary’s is the topic of this discussion. Why? Because I find hers most interesting.

Hillary, in the early 90′s, had a revolutionary health care strategy.  She seemed to be gaining support, but her voice was suddenly silenced.   Interestingly enough, millions of dollars were spent to silence her.  I would understand an act of democracy silencing her.  But money?  That’s not very democratic.  Could it have been the fact that health care industries would lose tons of money if Hillary’s plan passed?  Possibly and probably so.

“Even before debate began in Congress, a powerful coalition had been cobbled together to fight Clintoncare, as opponents labeled it – congressional Republicans, the insurance industry, the pharmaceutical industry, the National Federation of Independent Businesses, the Business Roundtable, the Christian Coalition, the conservative radio talk show network. Those groups spent between $100 million and $ 300 million to defeat it. And the battle was fought like a presidential campaign – with a TV advertising campaign, a network of field operatives and public relations experts to lobby members of Congress back in their districts.” Rob Christensen, “Who killed health care reform? Answer: Everyone,” News & Observer, June 19, 1996.

“In 1993-94, the Health Insurance Association of America, a trade group, spent about $15 million on advertising to defeat Clinton’s proposed overhaul of the nation’s health care system.” John MacDonald, “Proponents, Opponents Join Battle Over Drug Price Limits,” Hartford Courant, June 21, 2000.

“‘We spent $1.4 million to fight President Clinton’s plan,’ [Mike Russell of the Christian Coalition] says.” Harold Cox, “Business will spearhead Health Reform II ; Old enemies of Clinton’s plan in lead,” Washington Times, December 27, 1994.

“According to [Citizens for a Sound Economy] spokesman Brent Bahler, the group has not bought any airtime for commercials but has ‘tentative plans’ for a grassroots advocacy effort that would include an advertising component. Last year, Bahler said, the CSE spent more than $2 million on print, radio and television advertising to defeat Clinton’s health care reform plan.” James A. Barnes, “RNC Turns To TV Ads On Budget,” National Journal, 5.16.95.

Why would they fight it so hard? Because those involved in health care make a lot of money. Why would they want to help their country out if they would have to forfeit their big houses and fancy cars?

Michael B McAllister earned $3.33 million in compensation as CEO of Humana. “Forbes 2006 Executive Pay list,” April 20, 2006.
http://www.forbes.com/lists/2006/12/AG0Q.html.

John W Rowe earned $22.2 million in compensation as CEO of Aetna. Rowe has since left Aetna. “Forbes 2004 Executive Pay list,” April 21, 2005.
http://www.forbes.com/static/execpay2005/LIRS5NI.html?passListId=12
&passYear=2005&passListType=Person&uniqueId=S5NI&datatype=Person

Bill McGuire has stock options worth $1.6 billion at the end of 2005, as CEO of UnitedHealth Group. Robert Simison, “SEC Investigates UnitedHealth Over Stock-Options Practices,” Bloomberg News, December 27, 2006; Michael Regan, “Business 2006: Who Won, Who Lost,” Associated Press,December 26, 2006.

And because of this extreme amount of money in the industry, they have to protect themselves from people like Hillary who want to make their product cheaper in order to help people.

According to the Center for Responsive Politics (www.opensecrets.org), in 2005 there were 2,084 health care lobbyists registered with the federal government. With 535 members of Congress, that’s 3.895 lobbyists per member.

But something happened to Hillary.  That’s why I find her health care plan so interesting.  After having this extreme campaign to create cheap, if not free, universal health care, she was shut up.  What did she do then?  This article snippet tells us:

“As she runs for re-election to the Senate from New York this year and lays the groundwork for a possible presidential bid in 2008, Mrs. Clinton is receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from doctors, hospitals, drug manufacturers and insurers. Nationwide, she is the No. 2 recipient of donations from the industry, trailing only Senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, a member of the Republican leadership.” Raymond Hernandez and Robert Pear, “Once an Enemy, Health Industry Warms to Clinton,” New York Times, July 12, 2006.

That’s right. She went from attacking health care to being the number two seat in receiving contributions from the industry she formally tried to attack.  Interesting? I think so.

It’s even more interesting that this happened at such a key time.  A republican supported bill called Medicare Part D would supposedly help out more Americans.  What is the conservative argument against health care? They don’t want all their money going to government then to health care, they want in to be privately run.  It seems more efficient that way.  But what about Plan D?  It’s republican supported. So it must support those conservative values? No.

According to the Congressional Budget Office, for the ten-year period, 2006 through 2016, the projected spending is $848 billion. “The Budget and Economic Outlook: Fiscal Years 2008 to 2017,” Congressional Budget Office, January 2007. http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/77xx/doc7731/01-24-BudgetOutlook.pdf

That’s right. We’re not even getting free social health care, but 800 billion dollars of our tax money is going to the health care industry under Medicare Part D.  Curious.

A side note: It’s funny that the nation bordering the north has social health care, we deem as bad. But: The 2006 United Nations Human Development Report’s human development index states the life expectancy in the United States is 77.5, and the life expectancy in Canada is 80.2. Human Development Report 2006, United Nations Development Programme, 2006 at 283.
http://hdr.undp.org/hdr2006/pdfs/report/HDR06-complete.pdf.

Canadians live three years longer than we do. Curious.

As for those rumored long wait times in the ER:

According to Statistics Canada, the official government statistical agency, “In 2005, the median waiting time was about 4 weeks for specialist visits, 4 weeks for non-emergency surgery, and 3 weeks for diagnostic tests. Nationally, median waiting times remained stable between 2003 and 2005 – but there were some differences at the provincial level for selected specialized services.… 70 to 80 percent of Canadians find their waiting times acceptable” “Access to health care services in Canada, Waiting times for specialized services (January to December 2005),” Statistics Canada, http://www.statcan.ca/english/freepub/82-575-XIE/82-575-
XIE2006002.htm

A recent study of emergency care in Ontario found that overall, “50% of patients triaged as CTAS I [most acute] were seen by a physician within 6 minutes and 86% were seen within 30 minutes of arriving at the [Emergency Department]. In contrast, the 50% of patients triaged as CTAS IV or V who were seen most quickly waited an hour or less, while 1 in 10 waited three hours or more. Understanding Emergency Department Wait Times: How Long Do People Spend in Emergency Departments in Ontario? Canadian Institute for Health Information, January 2007.
http://www.cihi.ca/cihiweb/dispPage.jsp?cw_page=reports_
wait_times_bulletins_e

The Brits have social health care.  Are they more healthy?

“The US population in late middle age is less healthy than the equivalent British population for diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, myocardial infarction, stroke, lung disease, and cancer. Within each country, there exists a pronounced negative socioeconomic status (SES) gradient with self-reported disease so that health disparities are largest at the bottom of the education or income variants of the SES hierarchy. This conclusion is generally robust to control for a standard set of behavioral risk factors, including smoking, overweight, obesity, and alcohol drinking, which explain very little of these health differences… Level differences between countries are sufficiently large that individuals in the top of the education and income strata in the United States have comparable rates of diabetes and heart disease as those in the bottom of the income and education strata in England.” (See also Table 1 – for example, prevalence of diabetes among high-income Americans is 8.2 per thousand, while it’s 7.3 among low-income Brits.) Banks, Marmot et al., “Disease and Disadvantage in the United States and in England,” Journal of the American Medical Association, 2006;295:2037-2045.

Like Canadians and Brits, even the French live longer than we do.

The 2006 United Nations Human Development Report’s human development index states the life expectancy in the United States is 77.5, the United Kingdom is 78.5, France is 79.6, and Canada is 80.2. Human Development Report 2006, United Nations Development Programme, 2006 at 283.
http://hdr.undp.org/hdr2006/pdfs/report/HDR06-complete.pdf.

Enough with the rambling. I’ve said enough about health care as a whole.

Back to Hillary.  So, Hillary was an advocate of universal health care. She was shut up.  Then, she received hundreds of thousands of dollars from the health care industry. Now, she is running for President and is saying that she wants universal health care. Does common logic not show us a problem here? She received hundreds of thousands of dollars from the very industry that she now claims she is going to attack.

Does that make sense?  I can hardly put any stock in this kind of politican.

However, my philosophy has always been:  I will support a government that allows certain people to mooch, while showing those that need it that the country does care for them.  I will never support a government that allows people to starve and die in order to teach ‘moochers’ proper work ethic.

My philosophy became tangible today.  There is a beautiful young lady that I work with.  Her name is Lauren.  Lauren is a single mother of five.  Her husband passed away a year ago, so she is all on her own.  They were left with nothing: no life insurance, no money, nothing.  Lauren, however, did have a job.  So, she didn’t call on the government to help her.  She kept working, picked up more shifts, and put the pedal to the metal.

This past week, however, travesty hit Lauren.  Her apartment burnt down.  Her, and her five kids, have no clothes, no place to live, no family, nothing.  Lauren can’t come back to work right now.  Why?  Because she has to take care of her youngest kids who can’t fend for themselves: an eight-month-old, a one-year-old, and her three-year-old.

So, what can she do? Lean on the government.  Organizations are helping, churches are helping, but they’re not supplying her with everything she needs.  Her country is showing that they care.  I don’t mind at all knowing that my tax dollars are going to ‘moochers’ as long as Lauren’s getting a share as well; or as long as some of it is getting to those who need it. I care about others, so I don’t mind my money going to them.

That’s me.  That’s welfare.  No matter what one says about it, I can’t help but support the system knowing what it does for the people I love and the people I know.

1.  Nearly 4,000 Newton North High Schools

“Tagged as the most expensive high school in Massachusetts, at $154.6 million, the construction design for the new Newton North High School could be replicated almost 4,000 times using the money spent on the war.”

2.  40 Big Digs

“At almost $15 billion, Boston’s Central Artery project has been held up as the nation’s most expensive public works project. Now multiply that by 40 and you’re getting close to US taxpayers’ commitment to democracy in Iraq – so far.”

3.  Almost 18 months’ worth of free gas for everyone”US drivers consume approximately 384.7 million gallons of gasoline a day. Retail prices averaged $3.00 a gallon in early November. Breaking it down, $611 billion could buy gasoline for everybody in the United States, for about 530 days.”

Think about this one.  That’s a lot of gas.  18 months free?  Wow.

4.  Many, many environment-friendly cars on the road”With $611 billion, you could convert all cars in America to run on ethanol nine times over.

TheBudgetGraph.com estimates that converting the 136,568,083 registered cars in the United States to ethanol (conversion kits at $500) would cost $68.2 billion.”

With the amount of money spent on the war we could’ve created a cleaner enviroment? Interesting.

5.  Nearly 14 million years’ worth of tuition, room, and board at Harvard

“At published rates for this year, $611 billion translates into almost 14 million free rides for a year at Harvard University.

Tuition and fees at the University of Massachusetts-Boston could be paid for over 53 million years.”

With the inclining price of tuition, this figure really hits home.

6.  More than a year’s worth of Medicare benefits for everyone”In fiscal 2008, Medicare benefits will total $454 billion, according to a Heritage Foundation summary. The $611 billion in war costs is 17 times the amount vetoed by the president for a $35 billion health benefit program for poor children.”

Health care is one of the hottest issues in modern politics.  This makes this fact all the more interesting.

7.  A looong contract for Dice-K”The Red Sox and Daisuke Matsuzaka agreed on a six-year, $52 million contract. The war cost could be enough to have Dice-K mania for more than 70,000-some years at this year’s rate.”

I personally despise the Red Sox.  I would have preferred an example using, I don’t know, the Yankees?

8.  A real war on poverty”According to World Bank estimates, $54 billion a year would eliminate starvation and malnutrition globally by 2015, while $30 billion would provide a year of primary education for every child on earth.

At the upper range of those estimates, the $611 billion cost of the war could have fed and educated the world’s poor for seven years.”

I’m sorry, but I can’t read this without getting a little upset.  Please re-read this.  Read it again.  Read it again.  Interesting aside:  Colin Powell once stated that no country ever goes to war with a country that established schools and helpful programs.  Thing of the peace that would have been created using $611 billion to help other countries.

All of these facts are interesting.  Would you like a little more food for thought?  Here are some stats  and figures I’ve compiled:

- Half the worlds population lives on the equivalent of less than $2 a day.

- Basic education for the whole world is estimated to cost $6 billion.

-  Water and sanitation for everybody on the planet would cost around $9 billion.

- Reproductive health for all women would cost around $12 billion.  (1/16 women in Africa die during child birth).

-  Basic health and nutrition for everyone on the planet is estimated at $13-14 billion.

It’s hard to see what we could buy with the money we’ve spent on war without getting angry.

The members of Westboro Baptist Church have been active in protesting military funerals with signs that read, “Thank God for Dead Soldiers.”  The church claims that these deaths are a result of America’s tolerance of Homosexuality and acceptance of gays in the military.

According to the Chicago Tribune, “At the March 2006 funeral of Marine Lance Cpl. Matthew Snyder, who was killed in Iraq, church members waved fire-and-brimstone placards near the funeral motorcade.”

Apparently, this isn’t just a recent trend.  The paper went on to say, “For years Westboro members have crisscrossed the country toting signs using “unvarnished words” such as “God hates fags” because they say the Bible teaches them to speak directly and simply. The church’s 75-person congregation is comprised mainly of relatives of Rev. Fred Phelps, the founding pastor.”

It’s always interesting when an organization or religion based on ‘love’ makes flagrantly painful remarks that will obviously put torment on the ears of the listeners.

In 1915 thousands of Armenians were killed in a mass ethnic cleansing carried out by Turkey.  However, addressing the issue is always hushed.  Arnold Schwarzenegger was heard saying that the Turks did carry out this atrocity, an the country had a mass book/movie burning of anything with the Californian senator in it.

There are very few Armenians left, and it would be an honor for them if there was  a public recognition of the events that murdered their family and race.

Every year the issue is debated in congress.  Every year it is turned down.  Always, it seems, the democrats are for addressing the issue, while Republicans think it is futile.

The entire situation angers me.  As a government, we don’t want to achknowledge this because this would put us on bad terms with Turkey.  The top general in turkey warned that “ties with the U.S. would be irreversibly damaged if Congress passes a resolution that declares the World War I-era killings of Armenians a genocide.”

So – as it seems with all issues – it is a money problem.  We don’t want to do anything that would inhibit our military and oil trade with Turkey.  Why is it that no matter the size of the issue, if it involves money at all, our country chooses the solution that makes the country more money?

This is not a small matter.  If this legislation was passed, we would join 25 other countries in the acknowledgment.  Even France, who is constantly looked down own, declared the genocide last year and has lost all favor with Turkey.  I don’t care what money or trade we lose, we need to do history justice.  We need to do the Armenians justice.  Their deaths, brutal murders, can no longer be swept under the rug and hidden to keep us in favor with a certain country.

Once the bill is passed, the event can be documented in text books in America, currently school books are void of the genocide.  I think it will be a great day when the country thinks of the people, instead of the money.

According to the New York Times, the bill had an extreme pull from both parties, “The bill was approved by Congress with unusual bipartisan support, as many Republicans who side with the president on almost everything else voted to expand the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, or Schip, from its current enrollment of about 6.6 million children to more than 10 million.”

The bill posed to spent 30 billion more dollars than Bush intended. The reason the President thought it was going in the wrong direction is because he thought it “would steer the program away from its core purpose of providing insurance for poor children and toward covering children from middle-class families” (NY Times). My issue with this is: so what? We should fund health care for poor children, of course. But, is it awful to provide the middle class children with health care as well?

The President expounded on his reason for vetoing, “The policies of the government ought to be to help poor children and to focus on poor children, and the policies of the government ought to be to help people find private insurance, not federal coverage. And that’s where the philosophical divide comes in.” My issue: Once again, who cares? Is it awful that certain health-care systems lose money because children gain life? The health care system is a profit system that grows from not providing coverage. There is no profit to be made if the insurance company has to give money to cover its clients. I do not mind if these companies lose money. I mind even less, if in the course of losing their money, children actually get needed health care.

Surprisingly, many Republican congress members spoke out on the issue.

Senator Hatch (Utah): “Unfortunately, I believe that some have given the president bad advice on this matter.” He said supporting the health bill “is the morally right thing to do,” and that he hoped Mr. Bush’s veto could be overridden. \

Senator Smith (Oregon): Called the President’s decision “an irresponsible use of the veto pen.”

A quote from a Democrat I personally enjoyed: “Today we learned that the same president who is willing to throw away a half trillion dollars in Iraq is unwilling to spend a small fraction of that amount to bring health care to American children,” Senator Edward Kennedy, the chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.

Senator Reid (Nevada): said the “heartless veto” showed how “detached President Bush is from the priorities of the American people.”

Jim Wallis, at a religious leaders conference spoke these words:

Jesus made healing a principal sign of his ministry and of the presence of the kingdom of God. From a biblical point of view, it is simply wrong when health becomes a commodity and accessibility depends upon wealth. Until something is done to make universal health care a reality in America, millions of families will remain poor. SCHIP is one bill – one program – to help fix the health care problem. No bill is perfect. But a bipartisan group of legislators think it is a good bill in the right direction.

To veto the bill, with no alternative plan instead – to simply abandon millions of poor children, to leave them to a market system that is failing to provide health care to enough people – is simply morally unacceptable. We must not allow this to become an ideological battle over the larger issue of health care systems. This is about a specific program for poor children that a bipartisan majority believes is working. This is not about health care theories – this is about children. And now, overriding a presidential veto will become the next faith-based issue.

I’ll leave you with the words of Sharon Watkins, another speaker at this conference:

Mr. President, members of the House and Senate, 9 million American children are without health care coverage this day. Those children are our children. God has given them into our care. We are the responsible adults who say whether they see a doctor or not. Our hearts need to break for them because they are our own. They are our future, and we need to give them a bright future. When historians reflect back on this era, do we want to be remembered as the people who turned their backs on the uninsured children of this nation?

There is a small town in Louisiana called Jena. The city is home to around 4,000 citizens, 85% which are white. And, yes, you guessed it there is a race problem. However, this is a much bigger deal than much of the race situations that alarm much of the U.S.

While modern and unbiased media covers the thralling stories of Paris Hilton, the Duke Lacrosse Team, and Kobe Bryant’s sex scandal, bigger things are happening behind the scenes. I guess you could say that if you want to really find out about a government, look at the stories that it hides.

Anyways, Jena. There is high school in Jena, and it’s the only high school. At the school there is a tree outside where only whites sit under during recess. That’s right. It’s 2007 and there is a segregated tree in Louisiana.

One day, an african-american student asked the leaders of the school if he could sit under the tree. They, as if it wasn’t a big deal, told him that it was perfectly okay. Alarming, still, the student felt he had to ask.

Now – the sick part. When students arrived at school the next day they were greeted with three school colored nooses hanging from the tree. A seventeen year old student, Robert Bailey, said about the nooses, “It was in the early morning. I seen them hanging. I’m thinking the KKK, you know, were hanging nooses. They want to hang somebody. Real nooses, the ones you see on TV are the kind of nooses they were, the ones they play in the movies and they were hanging all the people, you know, and the thing dropped, those were the kind of nooses they were. I know it was somebody white that hung the nooses in the tree. You know, I don’t know another way to put it, but, you know, I was disappointed, because, you know, we do little pranks — you know, toilet paper, that’s a prank, you know what I’m saying? Paper all over the square, all the pranks they used to do, that’s pranks. Nooses hanging there — nooses ain’t no prank.”

However, the students who were caught after performing the ‘prank’ were simply let back in school. School officials declaring that it was a harmless prank. Wow. That is all I can say to that, wow.

After this, the african-american students staged a peaceful sit in beneath the tree. The situation simply got worse. The Jena District Attorney, Reed Walters arrived on the scene. He was aggitated that such a mess was created over such a ‘small little prank. He was quoted saying to the demonstrators, “You see this pen? I could end your lives with the stroke of a pen.”

After this many things happened. An african-american student was brutally beaten at a party by white kids, a school building was set on fire. Three african-american students were held at gun-point. They managed to take the gun from the gunman’s hands. Ironically, the gunman was not charged, but the students were charged with arms theft. Interesting and aggravating.

Ultimately – it came down to one final event. The student who was beaten at the pary was taunted by one of his aggressors a few weeks later. In a passion fueled anger, him and his friends retaliated by the same force that was forced about them: fighting.

Now – where do things stand? The six ‘attackers’ have been put on trial for attempted murder. They tolerated much until finally they treated others as they had been treated, and now they are on trial for attempted murder. Already, one kid, who was mentioned earlier has received a 22 year sentence. An all white jury and white judge took a mere two days to decide on the large punishment.

Right now there are six students who are facing many years of punishment for patiently waiting and eventually retaliating.

Years after the declaration of independence announced the amazing philosopy of all men created equal, years after Lincoln’s “Gettysburg Address”, years after the haunting words of Martin Luther King, Jr., years after Robert Kennedy, years after the civil rights movement, we are in 2007 and facing the same issues.

The judicial system has failed in upholding the very foundations of our nation. Sad. Sickening. I just wish I had more of a voice than a small blog so I could instigate some form of change.

For more information search for “The Jena Six”. Petitions have been set up, and many are trying to rally behind these un-fairly treated American citizens. Please. Just look. Investigate.

For more info check out http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/07/10/1413220

I’ve also posted a video that is one of many that informs of this issue.

I only saw bits and pieces of the video itself, so relied on the transcript to see exactly what was said. Bin Laden, as always, spoke of his moral views and continued to critique the american generalities.

He spoke of Jesus, he talked about Mary, he ranted about capitalism, and of course hated on capitalism. Through all of this, he even gave words of advice to the american people.

What was interesting about the entire video was the absence of threats. The immediate emotion following the idea of a Bin Laden is fear of an attack. However, Bin Laden spoke of no further actions. He simply critiqued modern america, and gave his views of Islam being the ultimate cure for America’s coming downfall.

It was interesting to see that Bin Laden, in fact, thinks that his attack has done its work. He believes that due to the atrocious events of 9/11, America is facing a downhill slope towards failure and bankruptcy.

This thought is interesting. America is definetely different since the attacks. Fear is a common emotion shared by many Americans, although it may come out only during ‘heightened security’. Traveling is no longer leisurely, but is a right out pain because of the security measures. Two wars have started. During Katrina it seemed we didn’t even have enough military support at home to help our own country out in times of need. One could argue that we have gone down hill since the attacks. Did Bin Laden succeed in what he had tried to do?

It’s an interesting thought. Did he know it all along? Who knows. But, his attacks did spark many events that have crippled the country, and we are still, six years later, trying to heal.