You’ve been reading my extended blog rants for some time, perhaps. Well… maybe a few of you. Here’s a slight departure. Instead of blathering on about one issue, I’m going to just briefly rant about two or three things. (Yeah, no planning ahead here – let’s just see how far I get).

Beer at the ‘House. Like you, I saw the photo of the president and vice president sitting down with Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and Sgt. James Crowley. Looked friendly enough, as intended. For me, though, it doesn’t erase that disturbing image of Gates being led out of his house in handcuffs – a man who walks with a freaking cane – in obvious distress. Whoever made the decision to subject Harvard’s Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and the Director of the W.E.B. DuBois Institute to this level of humiliation is, well, let’s say not a nice man. I don’t care what Gates said to the police in his own home. If he didn’t wave a gun at them or try to assault them in some way, there was no reason to arrest him. They were responding to a non-existent crime. They could have just left the scene. They chose otherwise.

Cash for Lunkheads. That the so-called “Cash for Clunkers” program has proven highly popular is not surprising. What the hell – $4,500 towards a new car? Pass the freaking potatoes! It’s a kind of stimulus, and as such is a good thing, but  as someone who drives a 15 year old car that gets in excess of 20-25 miles to the gallon, I feel a bit frosted by the whole thing. I mean, we made a relatively sober decision to buy an economical car 15 years ago, while other folks (plenty of them) bought ludicrous gas guzzlers that helped drive the price of gas through the roof (through increased consumption), not to mention contributed mightily to environmental degradation. So now the gas-hog drivers get a $4,500 check towards a new ride, while I get bupkis (except further incentive to squeeze another year out of my wreck). Isn’t this kind of rewarding stupidity and selfishness? Again – I think they should extend the program, and I see the point of it. But w.t.f., you feds – share the love a little bit. Shouldn’t folks who bought more modest vehicles – who are just as crunched as any suburban truck-drivers –  get some help too?

Bank Holes. The “too big to fail” banks are back in the business of handing out six and seven-figure bonuses to their executives, even after having been put on life support by the U.S. government (i.e. you and me). This is just a thumb in the eye, isn’t it? It’s like they’re saying, “Well… we gambled like a sailor on acid, almost brought the entire financial system down, then got billions from you losers, and we’re still on top. Suck it up!” Meanwhile, they are all inventing new ways to screw their customers until the provisions of the credit consumer protection bill kick in, like increasing minimum payments (i.e. accelerating payment schedules on low-interest debt), raising interest rates, and so on. What to do about this? Good question. How about revoking their TARP aid? How about closing the Federal Reserve lending window (through which they’ve gotten even greater infusions of cash)? How about nationalizing the fuckers? Summers? Geithner?

All right… that’s all I’ve got.

luv u,

jp

While most of the media focuses on health reform efforts in Washington, there’s a lot going on in the area of global empire maintenance, now the responsibility of Mssr. Barack H. Obama, Esq.  There are, of course, the ongoing wars of choice in Iraq and Afghanistan, with much of the attention focused on the U.S. soldier captured by an Afghan Taliban group. I did hear other news of the Afghan conflict this week – the Physicians for Human Rights call for a formal investigation into the 2002 Dasht-e-Leili massacre perpetrated by Afghan warlord (and soon to be military chief) General Dostum. This killing of hundreds – probably more than a thousand – Afghan prisoners of war was reported on shortly after it took place. The Bush defense department actively squelched any inquiry, even though FBI agents sent to Guantanamo had collected testimony from survivors of the massacre and felt an investigation into a possible U.S. role may have been warranted. Technically, as the occupying power, we would be considered responsible anyway, but given the circumstances it’s hard to imagine some of our forces weren’t at least aware of this war crime.  

Just one bloody chapter in a nearly eight-year-old war that shows no sign of letting up. Our military people keep marching two-by-two into oblivion, just as they have in Iraq for the past six years, and we as a society seem unwilling and/or unable to put a stop to it.  What exactly is the point, here? If we’re propping up a government that gives a major post to a mass murderer like Dostum, how the hell is that different from having the Taliban run the joint? The ever-increasing military presence, the pilotless drone strikes, the bombings… all of this is hardening the populace’s distrust for their American occupiers and setting off a chain reaction of violence that threatens neighboring Pakistan, as well. I have to think Obama knows the risks, and yet we continue. Before we had an arrogant imbecile in control – what’s our excuse now?

I wish that were all, but it isn’t. We’ve got Hillary Clinton dispatched to Asia, speaking of the dangers of purported North Korean nuclear proliferation to Myanmar (Burma), then hopping over to India to celebrate the nuclear proliferation deal that George W. Bush signed with that nation. Double standard? Well, we already had that going for us, obsessing over a possible Iranian bomb while refusing to officially acknowledge the presence of hundreds of Israeli nukes (a largely useless arsenal that will continue to prompt nuclear proliferation efforts in the Middle East). She and the administration have been making relatively encouraging noises on the Honduran coup, calling for the return of President Zelaya, but it seems to be having little effect. Unfortunately, the Honduran military is an institution designed not for national defense, but for “internal security” (i.e. keeping the peasants and workers in line), much like the many other militaries we helped foster in that region. Once you teach the little dog to bite, he may continue to do it, even if doggy daddy no longer wants him to.

If the administration is going to err, it should err on the side of justice. In the case of Honduras, frankly, we owe them. They are struggling with the military straitjacket we put them in decades ago. Let’s help them undo the last buckles.

luv u,

jp

How have you been feeling lately? Good, I hope… because if you’ve been ill, you’re probably discovering how massively expensive it is to get treatment, even if you have health insurance. In America, it really takes a major illness to know whether or not you have what could be termed adequate coverage (and if you’re one of the 47 million who have no insurance at all, the question doesn’t even arise). But the utter failure of this system shows up in the little details as well. Not to bore you with my personal foibles, but for the last five or so years I’ve had dental insurance… which means, in my case, if I have any substantial work done – crowns, for instance – I can expect to pay $1,000 out of pocket instead of $1,600 (assuming it happens no more than once a year). Don’t know about you, but that grand is a little hard to put my hands on, so I tend to throw it on the old credit card and whittle it down month by month. That, in miniature, is one illustration of how people can get into serious financial trouble simply by being unfortunate enough to get sick or injured.  

Okay, I’m probably considered a bad example of what’s wrong with this system. But sometimes bad examples like me can illuminate the problem as much as the good ones do. I’ve got a decent job, good health insurance, okay dental, and generally good health thus far. Not so very long ago, though, I had one of those no-frills policies that politicians (who enjoy superior government-supplied coverage) often recommend for us ordinary folk. And it’s real easy with a plan like that to end up thousands in the hole if just a couple of things go wrong at the same time. At one point, a trip to the doctor and some blood work ran me $500. My plan picked up $0. (That’s right: $0. Never saw a dime out of them.) With a plan like that, even relatively routine preventive care kicks the shit out of you financially. I don’t even want to contemplate what a prolonged hospital stay would do. 

This is the magic of the marketplace. As a prole, I was supposed to be pumping money into the health insurance company at that point, not pulling money out. I know I’ve mentioned this before in these pages, but it’s worth saying again – our mostly-privatized health care system is an example of “lemon socialism”; privatize the profitable part of a business and socialize the costly part. The government provides coverage for the elderly, the poor, the infirm, etc. … all of the folks who require more care. That leaves the rest of us to the marketplace, where these massive private health insurance companies can decide who to cover, whose bills to pay, etc. Young and middle aged workers tend to pay in more than they take out of health insurance – by leaving them out of the government system, we create a situation where that system will inevitably run massive deficits over time.  If we all participated in the same system, the healthy would compensate for the chronically ill, the elderly, etc. That’s the way it works in other industrialized countries – it could work here.

Forget  “Harry and Louise”. I hate to sound like a tin-pot nationalist, but this is America. If other nations can do it, so the hell can we.

luv u,

jp