Yup, thirty cents on every health care dollar, that’s what we pay health insurance companies. Think about that…and then ask yourself what you get for that thirty cents? We pay real estate agents a percentage because they know the business and help us buy our homes. We pay retailers a percentage because they house the goods we buy until we go to the store to get them. But health insurance companies? What they literally do is ration the care we receive, and obviously they ditch the customers who will cost them money. Makes perfect sense for car insurance, lower rates for better drivers who pose less risk, but health? What we literally do is pay heath insurance corporations thirty cents on the dollar to decide who among us deserves, or is entitled to, health care. They then use that thirty cents to administer that gruesome function, and to advertise endlessly back at us about how much they care- and to lobby our government to avoid any regulation or oversight and to ensure their continued profitability.

Can you blame them? If someone came to you with a business proposition to start a health insurance business, wouldn’t it make perfect sense in the business plan to maximize profits by taking in as much money as possible while laying out as little as you can? Wouldn’t you obviously try to winnow down your customer base to the healthiest people possible until you can unload them onto Medicare to absorb the real costly care?

This is the core problem with this whole health care debate that no one wants to face up to. If health is a business, run by insurance companies, then of course they are going to focus on profits- and do as little as they can for as much as they can charge. Don’t kid yourself about legislation to avoid it, they are always going to find ways to disqualify and dump people who need health care services, despite the Baucus Bill buy off of providing millions of new paying customers paid for by the taxpayers, because that’s how corporate business works. That’s not hyperbole, that’s just literal fact- corporations exist to maximize profits for shareholders. As a shareholder, would you want it any different? If you were a shareholder in a food company would you want your share value to go down because the company was giving away food to the hungry?

A public plan doesn’t have to advertise or lobby. It doesn’t have to pay anywhere near the administrative overhead of corporate insurance. And, like paving roads or providing police, it doesn’t have to make a profit for investors. Does anyone really think that a government run system- Medicare for all- would really be more draconian than corporate, profit-driven “insurance?” Seriously? How many Medicare recipients get letters in the mail telling them they are no longer covered? That would be zero.

The real hard fact here- like it or not- is that if we don’t get a public option- a real one- health care costs will strangle our economy and millions of us will find our insurance unattainable. A public option is not going to end our heath care problems by any means- we are still a fat people who avoid exercise and stuff unimaginable garbage into our faces until we can only fit into sweat pants and blankets with arms and we spend millions on antacid products to help our stomachs cope with the toxic shit we load into them. We need to change our behavior and that’s not going to happen anytime soon, but if we don’t start getting people covered so they can get early preventative care- and stop paying thirty cents on the health care dollar for which we get no value- we really will have a catastrophe befall us all and we will all look back at this time and wonder what the hell we were thinking.

It is no overstatement to say that a, if not the, defining moment in Barack Obama’s presidency will come when he addresses the joint session of congress next Wednesday. While the topic will be health care reform the real subject will be one word- spine. This will be the moment when Obama stares congress and the country in the eye and tells us all in unavoidably clear and uncertain terms exactly what it is he stands for, if indeed he stands for anything (and anything short of clear and uncertain will indeed be very clear and certain). Up to this point, while some Obama Love backlash was inevitable, with tens of thousands of lawless military contractors still roaming unchecked in Iraq and Afghanistan, Bagram Air Force Base functionally serving as the new Gitmo, drones still killing civilians, and our national debates on energy, the economy and health care now totally dominated by the demented screams of the lunatic fringe, “yes we can” has turned into “What the F**K?”

Politics, of course, like life in general, is not fair. It is a rough sport that never shies away from bald faced lies and shameless naked whoring. Idealists from both sides of the spectrum, from soppy, love everyone lefties to purist anti-government conservatives either sell out and learn how to survive on the mean streets and K Street Markets or they get chewed up and spit out. It is a terribly discouraging sign, however, that the Obama White House seems truly surprised by the strength of the vitriol that has been spewed their way. Did he really think governing was going to be like a grad seminar where everyone rests their forefingers against their cheeks and nods gently while they endlessly discuss nuanced concepts and came together in the end on a useless shared definition of post-modernism? Did Rahm Emanuel really think Obama was some kind of Obe Wan Kenobi figure who was going to magically make a progressive agenda real?

Rightly or wrongly, fairly or unfairly, the word is out on the street that Obama is really just a big pussy who can be rolled. Sure he got a few things through in the first hundred days when Stevie Wonder’s voice could still be heard echoing through the Mall, but the new savior quarterback who took the field to the deafening cheers of the American people has now fumbled and fumbled badly and the stadium has gone silent. His once mighty ground organization that so many thought would redefine political power in favor of the people and the grass roots over special interests proved no match for corporate astroturf. It is now a confused, dispirited and shrinking flock unable to do much more than stage impotent protests in San Francisco or L.A. of the embarrassing sort we’ve all been ignoring for decades.

And so it comes down to next Wednesday for Obama to tell us all what he is made of. Will he stand up and say “THIS is what I want” and fight for it, twist arms for it, and find a way as FDR made Social Security, or LBJ made Medicare or Reagan made deregulation happen? Or, as was reported today from a White House source, is his blood in the Republican water to the extent that he is basically willing to give up anything just to get anything he can call “a deal.” Is he, as he now appears, the new kid who so wants so desperately to be liked that he’ll just give away his lunch money before even being hit up for it? If he is, he will not only be a one-term disaster, but he will effectively take the hopes and dreams of progressives, Democrats, and just basically decent Americans with him. Actually, it will be a lot worse than even that.

Once you really look beyond all the noise and the anger in America right now you see what is behind the chaos- not corporations, or right wingers, or socialists- but fear. Plain and simple fear. Those who are making the most noise and are the most upset are the most terrified not just by health care reform but by what they see happening all around them. They have been whipped into a frenzied lather because those who either lack the skills to mentally unpack ideas and rhetoric, or who do not take the time to do so, are the easiest to frighten and manipulate and they habitually fall for for the easiest and simplest- and self excusing- explanations on offer. Providing those excuses- invariably placing blame on others- is how politics at it’s darkest, and most effective, works. Hope can be fleeting, but fear is forever.

Those who lack the mental gifts for reason or who are simply uneducated tend conservative simply because they fear losing what the have more than they are willing to hope for improvement. Stoking that fear, and providing those excuses and boogeymen, from communists or “Oakies” in the 30’s to blacks in the 60’s and 70’s to immigrants and “socialists” today, has been the fuel for the conservative movement, particularly since the masters, Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan perfected the “they’re coming to get you” artform. This is bad enough when the society and economy are basically stable but the problem for the conservative movement in America now is that it simply cannot hold. There is no longer a viable status quo to embrace and we have no choice but to forge a new America together.

The reason for this is that for the last thirty years we got in line behind Reaganism and reduced government, deregulated across the board, and let corporations have their day using the core theory that left unfettered they would rise the tide that would lift all the boats. What happened instead is exactly what transpired eighty years ago and the business community not only gorged itself on behalf of its share and bond holders, but their ravenous snouts broke the trough from which they fed. Our system is now fully broken. The days of “living wages,” easy credit and disposable income that fueled a consumer-driven economy are gone now. Jobs are going for good, wages are sinking for good, energy costs will inevitably rise, and the health care industry- almost twenty percent of our economy- can no longer feed itself on the fat of the populace. The fat is gone.

The great political problem for Barack Obama is that, rather than being a transformative leader who will lead out out of the morass into a new and better America he is far more likely to become the poster boy for its decline. The simple and gruesome reality is that American life is not going to get any better for the average citizen, it’s going to get worse. We are all going to have to learn how to do with less and to live within our diminishing resources. That is not change you can believe in, it’s change you fear and, yell and scream all you want, it’s reality.

Many people scoffed when Jon Stewart was named the new “most trusted man in America” in Time Magazine’s new poll in the wake of Walter Cronkite’s death. Anyone who laughs does not understand the role Stewart really has come to play in our culture- and most importantly how our media culture has changed since Cronkite’s day.

The great gift Cronkite had was that he seemed like- and actually was- a smart and reasonable person who was heavily engaged in the news every day and it was his job to distill it all into a few moments each night. That’s really who he was to America, the guy you trust to give it to you straight. He didn’t care about glamor or fame or advertisers or any of that stuff. He was just all about the news, which is why CBS put him in charge when they did- and why they forced him out when they did. In all the discussion of Cronkite’s career there was scant mention of the railroading that CBS did on him to pave the way for the new corporate-style media and the long line of empty suits tethered by short leashes that followed him across all the networks.

To be fair to Brokaw and Rather and Jennings and their ilk it wasn’t just that, with their designer suits and blowdried hair, they lacked Cronkite’s honest, incorruptible aura, the very media they were on degraded. Instead of news as a public service, it became just another ad-sponsored, ratings driven TV show that required stars, logos and music and all the rest of it. Even if they had wanted to be real newsmen, network television news was no longer the place for it. By the time networks started scraping the barrel of morning show types to anchor the news they might as well have used any game show host.

With the advent of cable, and the demise of network news as a serious option, American news media culture finally adopted the European model of partisan outlets such as Fox News and MSNBC and they just openly began serving up turbocharged spin to their faithful audiences. O’Reilly and Olberman ranted from either side of the fence and a horde of followers lined up to grind their axes in ever shrinking, but loyal, media markets.

And then came Stewart. While network news lost a million viewers every year since Cronkite’s day, and cable became a dubious shout fest, Jon Stewart spoke to a huge swath of America when he shrugged and said “Hey what the fuck?” Every night he began to do exactly what Cronkite did- sift through the day’s news and tell us what we needed to hear. Sure, he made jokes, but the jokes were serious and they were always about the news. But unlike contemporaries like Bill Maher and other stand-up veterans who do political material, Stewart does not simply grind his ax. He’s never self aggrandizing or righteous the way others are. He always seems like just some guy you know- as Cronkite was- who asks the same questions most of us would. Sure, he’s socially liberal, but then so is most of the country. His spanking of the unctious financial douchebag Jim Cramer was not only fabulous, but it needed to be said out loud.

But most importantly of all, Stewart sees right through the bullshit that is slung at us by the state-sized load each and every day. That’s his real gift. Through his jokes and shtick he does indeed expose the truth as most of us see it. In today’s America, “that’s they way it is” has been replaced by “hey, what the fuck?” And that’s just where we are now.

Also posted at Newsvine.com

It’s almost impossible to believe that at the first decade of the 21st century draws to a close that there would actually be a debate in this country over the value and the use of science. But there is. There are people in our government and mainstream popular culture who doubt the value of science and actually believe that the Earth is less than 10,000 years old- and who’s ignorance extends to denying the threat posed by climate change because “God” is really the one in charge. Makes perfect sense, since he’s the one who unleashed the flood why not cook the planet?

In a poll released two days ago by the Pew Research Institute, a breathtaking 6% of American scientists identified themselves as Republican. It’s a staggering number when you think about it. This literally means that, while the Republican Party still holds a grip on roughly 30% of Americans- and 40% of the United States’ Senate- they represent only 6% of the most talented and trained minds in our country, those charged with advancing human knowledge and intelligence.

The reason for this disparity is because a Neanderthal named George W. Bush was installed into the White House in 2000 and, like all evangelicals, he used all the power of his position to advance his faith. His being the highest and more powerful office on the planet, he was able to install untold numbers of his benighted and illiterate fellow travelers from the shaded path of ignorance into offices of power where may remain and continue to infect our national body.

The reality is that our country is like a big, slow moving whale that glides along oblivious to the myriad of parasites like Goldman Sachs that feast on us (see Matt Taibbi’s incredible article in the July 9 issue of Rolling Stone magazine) and faith-based ignoramuses who ignore the warnings and advice of the smartest and best trained among us and rely instead on the voices they hear from inside their sloped foreheads.

It’s worth remembering that the Roman Empire was felled not by genius or science but by Barbarians…

When you really think about it, the very core problem we have in America can be boiled down to one simple concept- we lie to ourselves and we allow others to lie to us. America, after all, is theoretically all about free markets, which means sales and marketing, which means lying. Sound too harsh? Consider that since mercantilism spawned capitalism, the name of the game has been for producers to persuade consumers not only the buy their goods but usually to mask the cost. Our culture is awash in a “$19.95″ instead of $20 mentality.

Consider this from CNN’s ironically titled “Fit Nation” segment:

“In recent years, as the American population has become generally more overweight, brands from the luxury names to the mass retail chains have scaled down the size labels on their clothing.

“You may actually be a size 14 and, according to whatever particular store you’re in, you come out a size 10,” said Natalie Nixon, associate professor of fashion industry management at Philadelphia University. “It’s definitely to make the consumer feel good.”

Yes, you read right, clothes makers are lying to us about how big we are to make their products more attractive. They are banking that you’ll feel better in one of their offerings deliberately marked two sizes down than another product labeled correctly.

This is, of course, the exact same problem that created our current home mortgage crisis. Brokers were lying to their clients, who lied right back, and the banks lied to investment houses who lied to their clients as well. The same is obviously true of the auto industry, where makers lied to us about what they were making

And last, and most importantly, the same principle drives our politics. Our politicians know they have to lie to us to get elected, which is how they justify doing it to themselves, and we are eager to take their lies to avoid the responsibility for the truth. But we are currently allowing banks and healthcare corporations who reap unspeakable profits on our need for medical care, to fund immense lies through the mouths of our politicians- lies that will cost us all dearly.

While we happily eat turds served in styrofoam if they are called “value meals,” perhaps we are not so different from the pathetic Michael Jackson who lied to himself- and to all of us- about his medication, his face, his hair, his skin, his sexuality, and just about everything else. Like Jackson, we’re all just accepting lies because it’s easier than facing the truth, but the truth will not wait forever and the longer we wait to face it the harder it will be to take.

And the day of truth is most surely on the way.

Amazing! If you saw Sarah Palin’s breathtaking, stream of very, very dim consciousness press announcement that she was not only passing on running for re-election as governor of Alaska, but stepping down right away, you could only watch with wide eyes and slack jaw. Coming on the heels as it does of a string of disturbing events from, Michael Jackson’s pathetic exit from this mortal coil to South Carolina governor Mark Sanford’s toe-curling public therapy session, it just makes you wonder what planet these folks are all living on. In Palin’s case, a collective shudder of fear should go through anyone with a brain given that this nutcase might have been a heartbeat away from the Oval Office. Can you imagine?

Palin’s gameplan is obvious. Anyone serious about the Republican presidential nomination is using Richard Nixon’s playbook where, in the wake of Goldwater’s crushing defeat in 1964, private citizen Nixon spent two years going anywhere there was a Republican candidate to support and quietly piled up chip after chip in preparation for the ‘68 race. Romney is doing just that right now, Rotary Club dinner by living room coffee get together, and is slowly building a solid foundation that will be hard for anyone to match. Palin just decided that she can’t sit up in Alaska on her hands doing nothing, which is what the governor of Alaska does, and let Romney solidify his support so she’s literally walking away from her elected office. Just like the intellectual child she is, she’s just setting down the sippy cup she cried over a minute ago to go chase the big shiny object in the next room. She’s putting her foot right on the faces of the people of Alaska to get a step up for her career- and worst of all she has no one around her with brains enough to understand the optics of this move.

The only thing more fascinating than this decision to commit political suicide was actually watching her do it. She stood in front of a microphone and tried to cover up her obvious ambition with a senseless ramble about the dishonesty, if not outright criminality, of lame duck status, upset over bad press, effecting change from “outside,” to her usual attempt to draw “our troops” into whatever point she is trying to make as though they somehow provide her political cover. Her suggestion that David Letterman needed to extend his apology to her to “our brave fighting men and women” was an example of her bizarre rhetorical retardation. But today took the cake. By walking away from an office to which she was elected by the voters so that she could pursue a White House bid- something no one has ever done before- she showed that she has no clue whatsoever about national politics.

The question we all need to consider is how any of us ever took this woman seriously in the first place, and let her get anywhere near a seat of power. A shudder indeed.

Also posted at Newsvine

With all the teary and predictably over-hyped noise around the demise of Michael Jackson the most disturbing thing is the pass he is getting for being a notorious pedophile. Most people will agree that child molestation is right at the top of the list of heinous crimes, yet even when he was alive Mr. Jackson was excused for these crimes as though they were just part of his overall whacky behavior. Whacky though he clearly was he was also a predator and should have been prosecuted and removed from society into a jail cell.

Most pedophiles, like Jackson, come from very troubled and abusive homes and have difficulty forming meaningful adult relationships. He clearly had a very unpleasant upbringing and was very likely abused himself. This is a common pattern, but nowhere else is it an excuse for preying upon other children before the law and those who do it are dealt with severely both in sentencing and in society. Who among us would knowingly hire a convicted pedophile? Or have one move in next door?

The evidence of Jackson’s guilt over the years has never seriously been in question. From that night when he showed up to an award ceremony in the mid-80’s with Brooke Shields and little child star Emmanual Lewis, it was pretty obvious where Jackson’s affections lay. Nobody seriously thought he was getting busy with Shields who looked like Superman standing next to him. When police raided his Neverland ranch they found all the classic trappings of a career pedophile. Not only was there a petting zoo but Jackson’s bedroom featured a variety of kid’s games was at the end of a long isolated hallway that had trip alarms installed to alert him when anyone was coming in time to get pajamas pulled back up. He fed children alcohol, or “Jesus Juice,” and police also found a huge collection of photo albums and pictures of nude and semi-nude boys. And most damning of all was that one of his victims was able to identify Mr. Jackson’s distinct penis, with it discolored patches a result of the skin disease vitiligo. The description given by the boy, down to the size and shape of the patches, was exactly how it looked when Jackson had to let it be photographed by police. Had that case gone to trial he would have most certainly been convicted and jailed.

Like most pedophiles, Jackson didn’t think he was doing anything wrong. This is clear in the Bashir documentary where he freely admits sharing his bed with visiting children, something a more savvy predator would not have done. Jackson’s sexuality was probably as confused as everything else in his pathetic life and he no doubt thought he was spreading “love” as he knew it. But that’s not what it was. Like most wealthy pedophiles, Jackson focused on poor kids, stooping even so low as to engage low income children suffering from cancer in need of financial help, such as the one he had cuddling with him in Martin Bashir’s documentary. Engaging in sex with children is not “love,” it is a crime and he should have gone to jail for it, which is exactly where he would have ended up had he not been able to buy off his accusers.

Michael Jackson was a great dancer, had two hugely successful albums and maintained our attention with the ongoing tragedy, calculated to distract our attention and not, that was his life. The question we all need to ask ourselves is what does giving Jackson a pass for molesting children mean? If it’s okay for him, and in fact if he’s glorified, won’t send the clear signal to others who do or want to share their love with children that it’s not really that bad? If it was okay for Jackson, and we are willing not only to turn a blind eye but to continue to revere him, can it really be NOT okay for others?

The sad reality of our society is that as the Jackson merchandising machine is established over the next few years with it’s revenue hungry focus on sparkling soxes and gloves and moonwalks, the revelations from victims that will inevitably come out will only turn up the media heat. The dark revelations of the worst sort will only help sell even more albums and DVD’s while underlining the core message- that even so heinous a crime as pedophilia is morally acceptable if enough money and fame is involved.

Just over thirty years ago Elvis died of a drug overdose on the eve of a concert tour shocking the world and unleashing a media and tabloid frenzy that lives on to this day- and whose fury will certainly now be visited upon the corpse of Micheal Jackson. How long can it be before a fuzzy cellphone image of him in the morgue appears? Those who knew and were around Elvis knew full well he was in rapid decline and would soon be gone, and most were active enablers. The same will be true of Michael Jackson who long ago transcended the gulf between human and icon and was simply going through the motions until the final step of the journey which he took today.

As in Elvis’ case, it’s a certainty that drugs will prove to be the cause of his demise, drugs he took daily to try to quell the anxiety and depression and fear and despair over his sad life and deteriorating physical condition, a despair that could only have become ever more acute as he tried to come back to the world stage and found he could no longer come close to what he had once been. With his nose all but destroyed by his many surgeries, and reputed to be gone altogether, there is no chance he could have been able to sing as he once did and lip synching would have been a PR disaster. The rehearsals just underway at the Staples Center had to be depressing and no doubt brought on more self medication that surely led to his demise. Having already lost almost all of his money and property, faced with the certain humiliation and legal entanglements that would have resulted in the cancellation of his upcoming shows, for which tickets had already been sold, there was nowhere to go but further down for him.

No one should shocked that Jackson died, the real surprise is that he lasted as long as he did. Like Elvis, Jackson had long since outlived his heyday, and while he retained legions of die-hard fans he would never again be that young vibrant force that riveted the attention of the world. That reality haunted his every day. For the last twenty years the only attention Jackson got was over his bizarre and wholly fabricated “check out how weird I can be” lifestyle, the horrific mess he made of his face, and of course, for his inappropriate relationship with children, his own and other peoples. Like Elvis, his was a life of almost no meaningful adult relationships and he surrounded himself instead with groveling sycophants which leads only to the black hole of loneliness into which they both fell.

What we should all learn from Jackson, and from Elvis, is the value of the moth to the flame quest for fame that seems to consume us all. When that quest is simply the need for validation from strangers to give ourselves meaning and value, as it almost always is, it is sure to become a troubled and wretched road to Despair Town which is where Jackson spent the last years of his tormented life.

The only thing sadder than dying at fifty is having lived for so long in so dark and lonely a place. At least he’s finally found peace.

With the publication of the salacious emails Governor Mark Sanford sent his Argentine mistress you can’t help but think of that poor bastard Larry Craig reaching underneath the bathroom stall to fondle another man’s love gear or former mega church pastor Ted Haggard on his knees buzzing on crystal meth or hooker loving Louisiana Senator David Vitter prancing in ladies underwear. These are all men who worked hard to put up a front as righteous beacons of morality who, underneath, were just as lusty and filthy as the rest of us if not more so. Clinton was a world class bowzer himself who was, like Craig, a danger addict but he never ran his mouth about being a morally righteous guy. That’s what makes the Republican crowd different, the repression, this bizarre pretense of being other than they, and all of us, are.

The problem for these sad men was never the sex it was this repression and the denial of their desire that led to their disgrace. There is no doubt that naughtiness is a formidable component in sex drive and who among us has not felt or, at least considered, the illicit thrill of doing what you are not supposed to do? But the problem for those who repress themselves to the level that these guys did is that the thrill and the lust for it becomes all the more volcanic- and leads to blinding stupidity. Is there another word for an elected official holding his hand under a bathroom stall for another man’s goods or being a governor and just fleeing to Argentina for six days without telling anyone or even making a cover? These are not stupid men, these are people who just overheated themselves in the pressure cooker of denial.

The reality of human existence is that love and sex are complicated, layered collections of emotions and drives that religion has always sought to control and simplify. Love and sex, we are told, are supposed to harmoniously co-exist in the form of a single partner but that almost never ends up being the case. There are virtually no human beings who have never entertained the fantasy of ravishing, or being ravished, beyond the confines of the marital bedroom. While relationships are always give and take endeavors, the lesson here is simply that we have to spare ourselves the pretense of perfection and rectitude and accept ourselves for the complex creatures that we are. This is not to suggest dismantling fidelity and condoning unbridled debauchery but simply that we not try to pretend we are more simple or more capable of walking a narrow path than we are. Sanford’s trip to Argentina- where he just jumped in his car and took off- happened because the guy just cracked under the pressure he put himself under.

The more we pretend we can adhere to scriptural and clerical standards of righteousness, which are literally inhuman, and demonize any deviations, the more attractive a seedy motel, a Men’s Room stall or an Argentine getaway becomes. It’s well known that telling a kid that there is one room he or she is never supposed to go is the one place they will obsess about seeing. Adults are not really very different, and less of the holier than thou preaching and finger wagging- and more we dismiss those who do preach and finger wag as the ones who are deficient- the better we’ll all be.

Also posted at Newsvine.com

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