The Rag Blog

Jonah Raskin : Class of ’09 Speaks Out on New Media

Posted on May 31, 2009 by Thorne Dreyer

For four months, from 6 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. every Wednesday, freedom of speech seemed to be alive and well in an old fashioned classroom where students asked questions, talked in small groups and wrote with pens and pencils on lined-paper.

By Jonah Raskin / The Rag Blog / May 31, 2009

Ben is a newly minted college graduate in California. He’s in his early twenties, energetic and hopeful, and he has recently created and published his own flashy magazine. In many ways, though he belongs to the current generation that supposedly thrives on Facebook and Twitter, he is still very much caught up in old print media.

Readers can actually touch and hold his magazine. They can turn its pages. “The latest technology has freed us from the four walls of our bedrooms,” Ben says. “But it has also restricted us. Social network sites supposedly allow us to ‘express ourselves.’ And yet they also limit our ability to express ourselves. Moreover, the proper way to write and communicate has been lost in the transition to new media.”

Kent belongs to the same generation as Ben; he, too, is a recent college graduate. During his senior year he worked as an intern at one of the radio stations in the Pacifica network of non-commercial stations. Like Ben, Kent has apprehensions about the brave new technological world he and his contemporaries have entered. He also wants very much to be a part of it. “The convergence of media is a fearful thing,” he said. “It can be used for all the wrong reasons. Big Brother can use it to watch us and control us. But I want to be a part of the revolution that is taking place and that is changing the ways that people receive news and information.”

Ben and Kent were students in a class that I taught in the spring 2009 semester. They and 63 other college seniors sat in a large lecture hall where I taught communication law. For four months — from January through May — all of us thought long and hard about the ways that new media is changing old laws about privacy, libel, copyright and the First Amendment. We talked, argued, debated, discussed the use of the “F” word,’ the “N” word, the “C” word and more. The only rule in the class was this — “it is forbidden to forbid.” No fights broke out, and no one personally attacked any one else. For four months, from 6 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. every Wednesday, freedom of speech seemed to be alive and well in an old fashioned classroom where students asked questions, talked in small groups and wrote with pens and pencils on lined-paper.

Karen was another senior in the class, and while she was happy to finish four years of college she was also apprehensive about entering the job market knowing full well that a job would be difficult to find given the high levels of unemployment. “Now that I’m graduating it all seems so surreal,” she said. Like Ben and Kent, Karen was aware of the speed with which changes are happening in the media. “It’s not the same as it used to be 50 years ago, or even 50 minutes ago,” she said. “Media is constantly changing and to be involved with it as I hope to be, I know I must change in order to stay current.”

Most of the students in the class feel ambivalent about the changes that are taking place. They don’t see any way to stop them, or even slow them down. And, though they have grown up their entire lives with computers, and have always used them, they also look back with a sense of nostalgia to a world before computers, the Internet, and the Web took hold. Some of the students, especially those from other countries, came of age in worlds without modern technology. Maria was born and raised in Brazil, in a town in which no one had a telephone at home. Everyone who wanted to make a call had to go to a phone in the street.

“The moment I put my feet down in the United States in 2001, I literally thought that I had stepped into a spaceship,” she said. “I felt I was reborn. Now that I’ve been in this new environment for the past eight years, and now that everything seems to be available literally in the palm of my hand, I notice that I am no longer satisfied with what I have. I am continually reaching for the next new thing, the next new Apple phone. I want the first flying car, and I want to be able to go to the moon in a few hours.”

Jenny was born in the United States — in the green, rolling hills of Kentucky before moving to California — and like Maria she also grew up without much technology. “My parents were young, carefree hippies,” she said. “I never had a Barbie, a boob tube, a video game, or a computer, though I do remember my mother listening to National Public Radio.” Jenny doesn’t feel deprived by her hippie parents, and she hopes to raise children as she was raised — without a TV or a computer. She’ll probably have a harder time with her children than her parents had with her.

Patrick had a different story to tell, perhaps because his father was a graphic designer who wanted the latest technology. Born in 1986, and raised in what he called a “conservative” family, Patrick remembered the day in 1992 when his dad came home with a “mysterious object in a large cardboard box with the icon of an apple on the outside.” He added, “My dad fed this machine a plastic disk and it seemed to come to life, blipping and clicking, whirling and ticking.”

From then on Patrick felt at home with computers. They seemed almost human to him. In college he quickly created a space for himself at MySpace, and made a home for himself on the campus radio station where he learned — as he put it — “to say and do anything I wanted.” It was a new experience for him. At home he had been “censored” by his parents. He feels that he will never again have the freedom to express himself that he has had on the college radio station, but now that he has had a taste of that freedom it will be difficult to give up. “I understand that in order to find a job I might have to clean up a bit my MySpace and Facebook pages,” he said. “But I also don’t want to compromise who I am.”

Tom echoes that idea. A car lover, and an outdoorsman, as well as a videographer, he has strong feelings about media freedom. “I believe that the Internet ought to be the one place that needs to be unregulated and where we can transfer information freely across the globe,” he said. “If you think Obama is a communist you ought to be able to say it.”

His classmate Ralph comes from a small town in rural California. He plans to become a schoolteacher and a football coach at a high school. “I love my generation,” he says. “I think we’re great. But we also ought to realize that the media pushes a lot of crap on us and we hungrily eat it up, even when we know its crap.”

The students in the class were all proud of themselves and their peers, and proud of their generation, too. But they were also critical of their generation. In fact, no one is more critical of this generation than the members of the generation themselves. They all feel that in the rush to embrace new media much that is valuable had been lost, and much of it might be irretrievable.

“Text messaging has taken away the mystery of the first date, the mystery of a conversation,” Janet said. Like many others in the class she had clear expectations of what she hoped for after she graduated from college and went to work. “I want to dress like I want (no uniforms),” she said. “I don’t want to be censored by any company I work for. I want to know the truth about everything, and I want to know what is happening at the company, too. There will be no holding me back, and not any of us, either I suspect. We’ve known freedoms through the new media and no one will be able to take them from us – at least not without a fight.”

Karen – who noted that the world seem to be changing every 50 minutes — had drawn up a list of rules for herself — and for anyone else who was looking for rules for themselves. Her list sounded new and fresh, and yet it might have been written fifty years ago, as well: “be kind and gracious; work hard and don’t half-ass things; be honest — lying only hurts you, especially within the media; and stay true to yourself in a world of fakes and liars.”

[Jonah Raskin is a prominent author, poet, educator and political activist. His most recent book is The Radical Jack London: Writings on War and Revolution. He contributes regularly to The Rag Blog.]

The Rag Blog

Posted in Rag Bloggers | Tagged Communications, Education, Electronic Media, New Media | Leave a comment

Unions: The ‘Risk’ of Secret Ballot Elections

Posted on May 31, 2009 by RagBlog

Randel K. Johnson of the United States Chamber of Commerce.
U.S. Chamber of Commerce: Betting Against the American Middle Class
By Leo Gerard / May 26, 2009

Randel K. Johnson, vice president of that esteemed group, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, recently revealed a corporate-squelched truth in a slip of the tongue.

During a debate on May 15 with Stewart Acuff of the AFL-CIO about the Employee Free Choice Act, Johnson admitted – finally – that the act preserves secret ballot elections for unions. The act would allow workers – rather than employers – to decide whether to form a union by conducting a secret ballot election or by collecting signed membership cards from a majority of workers.

Incredibly, for as much as unearned-bonus-grubbing-CEOs have lied about secret ballots in their relentless campaign against the Employee Free Choice Act, that was not Johnson’s revelation.

No, here’s what he disclosed: If the act passes, he said, “It would be a rare union that would decide to risk a normal secret ballot election.”

Risk. Interesting word, Mr. Johnson.

The Chamber of Commerce knows there’s a huge risk to secret ballot elections. And the Chamber likes it that way. Employers stack the deck against workers in secret ballot elections. They don’t publicly admit it though. That’s why Johnson’s use of the word “risk” was so surprising.

The Chamber and big corporations like Wal-Mart are intent on defeating the act because it would remove from employers the power to force workers to conduct secret ballot elections. It would strip from employers that ability to generate risk, to defeat unions, and thus to further shrink wages and the American middle class.

A Cornell University professor, Kate Bronfenbrenner, who has researched labor issues for a quarter century, issued a new study last week that clearly illustrates the risk of secret ballot elections and how employers have labored long and hard to increase that risk in recent years. It’s called, “No Holds Barred: The Intensification of Employer Opposition to Organization.”

Among the tactics she documents employers using in the weeks before the “secret ballot” election to thwart unionization are firing of union organizers, threats to close the plant or cut wages and benefits, and forcing workers to meet one-on-one with supervisors who intimidate and interrogate them to determine whether they support the union.

Bronfenbrenner concluded, “This combination of threats, interrogation, surveillance, and harassment has ensured that there is no such thing as a democratic ‘secret ballot’ in the NLRB (National Labor Relations Board) certification election process. The progression of actions the employer has taken can ensure that the employer knows exactly which way every worker plans to vote long before the election takes place.”

Her study showed employers implementing these tactics more frequently than in the past. When she compared organizing campaigns in this five-year period to those in the studies over the previous 20 years, she discovered two disconcerting facts: the cases in which employers used 10 of these threatening techniques in the run-up to elections more than doubled. And employers focused much more on coercive and punitive methods rather than positive procedures such as unscheduled raises and promotions.

Not surprisingly, she also found that as employers exploited harsher tactics and intensified their attacks in the weeks before “secret balloting,” the union was more likely to lose. And, conversely, she found that in campaigns where public sector workers tried organizing and government agencies refrained from coercive and illegal tactics, the union was significantly more likely to win.

If it weren’t so easy for employers to create risk for workers, millions more could get the union protection they want. Surveys show an increasing number of American workers desire a union. In the mid 1990s, it was 40 percent. Now it’s 53 percent. Yet only 12.4 percent of American workers have that protection – and the better wages and benefits that go with it.

Bronfenbrenner addressed this issue in her report: “Our findings suggest that the aspirations for representation are being thwarted by a coercive and punitive climate for organizing that goes unrestrained due to a fundamentally flawed regulatory regime that neither protects their rights nor provides any disincentive for employers to continue disregarding the law.”

She continues: “Unless serious labor law reform with real penalties is enacted, only a fraction of the workers who seek representation under the National Labor Relations Act will be successful.”

That reform is the Employee Free Choice Act, and there’s the point of Johnson’s use of the word risk. The Chamber of Commerce intends to kill the act and leave risk fully on the shoulders of workers. As Bronfenbrenner showed, that would mean fewer will be unionized. Middle class wages and benefits would continue to decline.

It is time for American workers to stop bearing all of the risk. They’re working for less and bailing out the very people who are obstructing their ability to fairly bargain for more.

In October, Bank of America, which has received more than $45 billion in taxpayer bailout money, hosted a conference call with conservatives and business officials, including a representative of AIG, which has received more than $100 billion in taxpayer bailout money, to organize opposition to the Employee Free Choice Act. Then in March, just days after the act was introduced, Citigroup Inc., which got $50 billion in bailout money, hosted a similar conference call, this one led by Glenn Spencer of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

During the October call, Bernie Marcus, co-founder of Home Depot, said he should be on a 350-foot boat in the Mediterranean, but he thought fighting the Employee Free Choice Act was more important because, “This is the demise of a civilization. . . This is how a civilization disappears.”

Yes, the Employee Free Choice Act could contribute ever so slightly to dissipation of a decadent class. Unionization is how the middle class re-emerges. America could do without a few filthy-rich boys lolling on yachts in the Mediterranean. At the heart of America, however, must be a strong and broad middle class.

Source / Blog for Our Future

Thanks to Jeffrey Segal / The Rag Blog

Posted in RagBlog | Tagged Chamber of Commerce, Corporate Power, Labor Unions | 2 Comments

Report : Americans Now Support Progressive Ideas

Posted on May 30, 2009 by Thorne Dreyer

“Public Opinion,” mixed media by Andrey Benyei.
The results are in: Americans are now more closely aligned with progressive ideas than at any time in memory

By Joshua Holland / May 30, 2009.

On issue after substantive issue, significant majorities of Americans favor progressive solutions to the nation’s problems and reject the right’s worldview. That’s true whether the issue at hand is taxes, war and peace, the role of government in the economy, health care, and on and on.

Yet the idea that America is a “center-right” nation persists; Republican and conservative activists repeat the assertion ad nauseum — as it’s in their interest to do — and most of the political press corps swallows it whole.

The idea is like a zombie — you can bludgeon it, burn it or get Dick Cheney to shoot it in the face, but it keeps coming — it will not die.

The persistence of the center-right narrative, even in the face of piles of evidence suggesting it’s little more than a myth, has very real consequences on our political discourse.

Aside from coloring the way the media covers — and the public views — the vital issues of the day, it impacts progressive activists, who even when they have the wind at their backs often feel the need to move slowly, cautiously and in ways that will minimize direct confrontation with the conservative movement.

Progressives have long begun the legislative process in the middle and then moved to the center-right, when the reality is that the country is looking for bold changes, not incremental tinkering.

This week, a new report released by the Campaign for America’s Future and the media watchdog group MediaMatters attempts to finally bury the idea that the U.S. leans rightward. It takes a comprehensive look at the political landscape in which we live and a look forward at America’s shifting demographic profile — all of which reveal a citizenry that is anything but center-right and will only continue to trend in a more progressive direction, leaving modern conservatism increasingly isolated in its ideas.

The study gathered public-opinion data from a number of respected, nonpartisan polling outfits, findings from the (huge) National Election Study series and official statistics on ethnicity and gender to make the case. Among the findings:

On what may be the key difference between liberals and conservatives today — the role of government — more than twice as many people agree with the statement, “there are more things government should be doing” than believe the Reaganite adage, “the less government, the better.”

In 1994, more than half of Americans said, “government regulation of business usually does more harm than good” and fewer than 4 out of 10 thought “government regulation of business is necessary to protect the public interest.” That’s been flipped on its head during the 15 years since — today, fewer than 4 in 10 believe regulation causes more harm than good.

A majority (55-70 percent, depending on how the question is worded) believes it’s the government’s responsibility to provide health care to all Americans; fewer than a third of those responding to a CBS/New York Times poll thought health insurance should be “left only to private enterprise.”

Almost 2 out of 3 Americans believe the taxes they pay are fair, and that the very wealthy pay too little in taxes; almost 7 in 10 believe corporations don’t pay their fair share of taxes.

During a conference call with reporters, Robert Borosage, co-director of Campaign for America’s future, acknowledged that until 15 to 20 years ago, a center-right coalition of conservatives and political moderates did represent a majority of the electorate, but noted that the views of moderates and independents have grown much more closely aligned with those of more progressive voters, and the result is a center-left mandate for the new administration and Democratic-controlled Congress.

What’s more, the country’s changing demographics suggest that America will continue to be a center-left country in the coming decades. The most progressive (or at least solidly Democratic-leaning) constituencies in the country — single women, African Americans and other minority groups, young people — are growing as a share of the electorate, while the “Reagan Democrats” — older, working-class whites — who were the backbone of the conservative movement are declining as a share of the population.

Page Gardner, founder of Women’s Voices/Women Vote, said of the new coalition, “if you look at their views across the board, they’re incredibly progressive.”

More Americans are also living in high-density urban environments than ever before, which political scientists have long held creates more tolerance for diversity and in general a more receptive attitude toward the role of government in one’s daily life.

Finally, the report notes that the social issues that used to inspire not only the right but also many in the center are rapidly losing traction — in part because of the demographic trends described above.

Most Americans remain pro-choice (despite one oddly-worded Gallup poll to the contrary), and while a slim majority opposes full marriage equality for gays and lesbians, the general level of acceptance of gays and lesbians is growing ever greater.

That a sea-change is happening in America’s political culture should be apparent by the results of the last election, a race that the Republican party explicitly framed as a question of ideology, accusing Barack Obama of being very far to the left — even deriding him as a cryptosocialist.

But the authors of the report point out, “for the press, Democratic victories are explained away as candidates having moved to the right, while Republican victories are confirmed as a true expression of America’s conservative pulse.”

And it’s not just returns from the election — the report notes:

Conservative commentators, particularly those on Fox News, have portrayed Obama as so liberal that his activist agenda bordered on socialist or even Marxist. Yet according to Gallup polling, Obama’s approval ratings for this first 100 days in office were higher than those of any president since Ronald Reagan and higher than seven of the last eight presidents at the 100-day mark. It doesn’t seem likely that an entrenched center-right nation would reward such a liberal president with historically high job approval.

But as MediaMatters Director Eric Burns outlined, by and large, the media have not only failed to fully acknowledge the ideological outlook of the American electorate, the months since the election has been marked by the “mainstreaming of incredibly conservative views” within America’s pundit class, with “sometimes violent” rhetoric being debated as if it were comfortably within the mainstream.

Burns suggested that part of the reason the center-right meme persists is that many political reporters today cut their teeth in the era of the “Reagan Revolution” and during the “Clinton wars” of the 1990s — an era in which conservatives were ascendant.

Another factor is that there hasn’t been a significant shift in Americans’ self-described ideology, as a much-discussed Pew poll taken just after the election found.

Pew’s research showed, “Only about 1 in 5 Americans currently call themselves liberal (21 percent), while 38 percent say they are conservative and 36 percent describe themselves as moderate. This is virtually unchanged from recent years; when George W. Bush was first elected president, 18 percent of Americans said they were liberal, 36 percent were conservative and 38 percent considered themselves moderate.”

The problem with self-identification, however, is that it hinges on how one defines those labels — an individual may say he or she is conservative for a variety of reasons, but that same person may favor the progressive position on every issue down the line. According to the most recent (1997) Household Survey of Adult Civic Participation, only around half of Americans could say “which party is more conservative at the national level.”

It’s ultimately issues that get decided in Washington, and the report issued this week adds to an already-large body of data suggesting that Americans are highly receptive to progressive arguments on issue after issue, regardless of with which label they may identify themselves.

Source / AlterNet

Thanks to Harry Targ / The Rag Blog

Posted in RagBlog | Tagged American Society, Progressives, Public Opinion | 2 Comments

The Jindal Way : Get Rid of a Good Thing

Posted on May 30, 2009 by Thorne Dreyer

Residents at the John J. Hainkel Jr. Home and Rehabilitation Center in New Orleans.
Louisiana Catastrophe Redux

The administration of Governor Bobby Jindal announced its intentions to introduce legislation to sell the Hainkel Home through a press release without seeking any input from residents, patients, family relations, or community stakeholders.

By Will H. Rogers / The Rag Blog / May 30, 2009

NEW ORLEANS — Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal’s administration figured a state-run nursing facility housed people who couldn’t speak up, was located in a city presumed to have lost any voice, was likely to be of poor quality, and probably cost Louisiana a lot to run. The facts don’t jive with the Jindal agenda, but align perfectly with a Republican strategy of shrinking government and outsourcing to cronies.

The John J. Hainkel Jr. Home and Rehabilitation Center, located at 612 Henry Clay Avenue in New Orleans, serves those who suffer from serious illness or disability, the elderly, and Adult Day Health Care clients. Over a century old, the Home was founded as the New Orleans Home for the Incurables by a group of community-minded women who witnessed a need and responded with a mission to serve the indigent and handicapped.

The John J. Hainkel Jr. Home and Rehabilitation Center has operated as a Louisiana State facility since the 1970’s with support from a non-profit charitable organization (The New Orleans Home for the Incurables) still committed to its original values. Volunteer groups donate time and resources to grounds maintenance, patient care and resident activities to enhance services.

The administration of Governor Bobby Jindal announced its intentions to introduce legislation to sell the Hainkel Home through a press release without seeking any input from residents, patients, family relations, or community stakeholders. After much opposition, the Jindal administration altered course with a re-written bill (HB 783) to lease the Home. Residents, patients, and clients in the Adult Day Health Care oppose both the sale and/or lease of the Hainkel Home.

The Hainkel Home provides needed services to the disabled and elderly in an area with a shortage of providers, in a brutal post-Katrina environment, services that are sorely needed.

The Hainkel Home maintains one of the highest national quality ratings in the State of Louisiana. It is a bright spot for New Orleans and a state that so often ranks 49th or 50th in health and human services rankings.

The Hainkel Home is a teaching facility where LSU, Delgado, Nunez, and Loyola physician, nursing, physical therapy, occupational therapy, and dental hygiene students can learn in a geriatric and rehabilitation setting.

But, perhaps most damaging to the Jindal agenda, the Hainkel Home is cost effective. A payer mixture of 85% Medicaid clientele, and other Veterans Administration, Medicare, and private insurance covered patients and residents has enabled the Hainkel Home to cover operational costs and return funds to the Louisiana State Treasury for six years running.

As more facts came to light, the Jindal Administration has backtracked and amended legislation. The fiscal projections provided to legislators on the House Health and Welfare Committee had to be swapped out as hearings began in order to reflect reality. Amendments were even added while the hearing was under way. A sloppy bill passed the Committee by the narrowest of 9-7 margins.

The full House votes on Monday, June 1, 2009. Those wishing to help have been urged to contact Representative Neil Abramson at abramson@legis.state.la.us to express support for his efforts in opposing House Bill 783. Or to contact New Orleans Home for the Incurables Board Director Mary Rodrigue at (817) 372-4616 to express support for efforts to save the Hainkel Home and not allow its sale or lease.

The Rag Blog

Posted in Rag Bloggers | Tagged Bobby Jendal, New Orleans | 1 Comment

Socialized Medicine? Canadian Health Care Saved my Father’s Life

Posted on May 30, 2009 by Thorne Dreyer

The following anecdote about Canadian health care, about which we here in the South hear much negativity, came to me from a friend whose reliability I respect. Due to the intimate nature of the report, identifying information was removed to protect the author’s privacy.

Nonetheless, it presents a picture very different from that seen in U.S. mainstream media, and definitely more encouraging about the quality of “socialized medicine.” and the details are quite convincing. We’ve chosen to credit the author as “A Canadian Friend.”

Mariann G. Wizard / The Rag Blog / May 30, 2009

My father was diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer. After quality treatment and an emergency operation, he was completely cured. The tab: $113 for a rental tv.

By A Canadian Friend / The Rag Blog / May 30, 2009

Due to the confusion and inconsistencies I have seen (especially lately) concerning the Canadian health care system, I feel I must convey my experience this last year with everyone…

My father was a healthy man. Mid-sixties, about 30-40 lbs overweight, but in general overall good health. Non-smoker (except the odd stogie), recreational drinker. In December 2008 he went in for his annual physical and was given a clean bill of health. In fact the doctor said he was extremely healthy –- everything was good.

Fast forward to February 2009. One week-end we noticed his eyes and the area around his eyes were turning yellow. The coming Monday my mother took him to the emergency room as it gradually worsened over the next day or so. Dad was taken in immediately –- no waiting whatsoever. They quickly determined he had a blockage in his lower intestine that was affecting his liver –- he was turning jaundiced and his blood was slowly poisoning him. This quickly turned into a serious situation.

He was immediately given an appointment to see a specialist in London, Ontario, two days later, the Wednesday. They did a scope and determined that there was a blockage coming from the head of his Pancreas –- no need to say anything further –- we all knew what that meant…

The initial diagnosis was pancreatic cancer –- he had approximately 2-3 months to live. Needless to say, this was quite a shock considering the results from his recent physical and just the fact that he has always been very healthy. The cancer was likely going to spread to his liver, lungs, etc and the prognosis was terminal. The doctors stressed this was just an initial diagnosis and more tests would be done to see if anything could be done, i.e. surgery, chemo, etc.

This is when a certain surgeon entered our lives, and literally saved my father’s life. He decided that there was only one option: a surgery called the “Whipple Procedure.” Basically this is one of the harshest surgeriess, save for an organ transplant, the body can handle. Per Wikipedia:

It consists of removal of the distal half of the stomach (antrectomy), the gall bladder (cholecystectomy), the distal portion of the common bile duct (choledochectomy), the head of the pancreas, duodenum, proximal jejunum, and regional lymph nodes. Reconstruction consists of attaching the pancreas to the jejunum (pancreaticojejunostomy) and attaching the common bile duct to the jejunum (choledochojejunostomy) to allow digestive juices and bile to flow into the gastrointestinal tract and attaching the stomach to the jejunum (gastrojejunostomy) to allow food to pass through.

Yeah –- we couldn’t believe an operation like this was possible either… it is an eight and a half hour surgery.

Fast forward three weeks. This was the earliest they could do the operation due to the fact that dad needed to prepare his body, get stronger and flush a lot of toxins out. They took him at the first available spot they could. He went in on a Monday morning, 7:00 a.m. with the operation scheduled to begin at 8:00 a.m. The surgeon came to us before he began and stated the following, “This is an eight to nine hour surgery. If you see me before six hours is up, it’s bad news. Either he expired or we found too much cancer and it would not be feasible to operate.” I was astounded by honesty and compassion. He stated he HAD to tell us this so we knew all the risks associated. This was an amazing man and I felt lucky dad had him doing the operation.

After staring at the clock for six hours, you could feel the anxiety lift as the clock slowly turned past 2:00 p.m. then 3:00 p.m. and then finally around 5:00 p.m. the good surgeon came out and gave us the good news. He got all the cancer and the operation was a complete success. Unbelievably, we were able to see dad that night around 8:00 p.m. when he woke up –- in surprisingly good spirits. We were not out of the woods yet though…

He had numerous internal stitches that needed to heal. He had an incision from his hips to his chest that took 52 staples to close. The next few days were critical. He was put in a semi-private room called a step down room. This is where they send patients who just went through something as major as this procedure, with the purpose of “round the clock” observation.

For the first two days, the nurses NEVER left his side. He constantly had a nurse at his bedside, taking care of his every need and whim. That blew me away. The care and concern these nurses showed was unbelievable. I consider them to be lifesavers as well. Also the good surgeon checked on him many times per day and even the day of the operation he came and checked on him at 10:30 p.m. that night. Think about that –- he had to be up before 6:00 a.m. to get ready –- worked on dad from 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. and still was at the hospital at 10:30 p.m. to check on my dad. This was an amazing man.

We’re going on three weeks post-op. Dad came home 11 days after the surgery with 15 days being the average stay. He is starting to gain weight and his colour has returned. As an atheist, I hate the word, “miracle” but I have no problem stating that the surgeon and nurse who looked after my dad were and are “miracle workers.” They can never be compensated or thanked enough for what they did for our family. These are the true heroes in society.

How much did this cost my family? $113.00. And that was to rent a TV for dad’s room for a week. That is it. What would this have cost in the U.S.? Since my parents are of meager means, it was an absolute lifesaver that they did not need to worry about being financially ruined over this. Here’s a kicker as well… the cost of all the trips my parents and I had to make to go the hospital for appointments, etc. is tax deductible. So we will see most of that TV rental money back anyway. You gotta love it.

In closing this is just one story that illustrates what I believe to be the average experience that we lucky Canadians are privileged enough to enjoy with our health care system. Is it perfect? No, it is not. I would like to see more preventive procedures being free, such as routine eye appointments, but that was just recently taken away by our provincial government –- I can see that coming back in the future. And yes, before the freepers start to chime in, it isn’t technically “free,” as we pay very high taxes, but I’d rather see that money go to health care than world domination and endless oil wars.

Canadians are known as passive and very docile and the perception exists that we will just roll over and take whatever is pushed on us. But I know one thing for sure –- take away our healthcare system or try to “Americanize” it and you will see blood pouring in the streets. Revolution. This is one issue I believe all Canadians can agree on. It is a fundamental human right to have access to the best health care possible –- how anyone can see it different than this is mind-boggling.

Source /

The Rag Blog

Posted in Rag Bloggers | Tagged Canada, Health Care, Socialized Medicine | 9 Comments

Gaza: Still in Misery Following the War

Posted on May 30, 2009 by RagBlog

Four months after Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza, Suad Khadir and her family are still living in a tent. To escape the heat, they often seek refuge under the rubble. Photo: Ashraf Amra/New York Times.
Misery Hangs Over Gaza Despite Pledges of Help
By Ethan Bronner / May 28, 2009

GAZA — Dozens of families still live in tents amid collapsed buildings and rusting pipes. With construction materials barred, a few are building mud-brick homes. Everything but food and medicine has to be smuggled through desert tunnels from Egypt. Among the items that people seek is an addictive pain reliever used to fight depression.

Four months after Israel waged a war here to stop Hamas rocket fire and two years after Hamas took full control of this coastal strip, Gaza is like an island adrift. Squeezed from without by an Israeli and Egyptian boycott and from within by their Islamist rulers, the 1.5 million people here are cut off from any productivity or hope.

“Right after the war, everybody came — journalists, foreign governments and charities promising to help,” said Hashem Dardona, 47, who is unemployed. “Now, nobody comes.”

But with the Obama administration pressing Israel to allow in reconstruction materials, and with attention increasingly focused on internal Palestinian divisions, Gaza will soon be back at the center of Middle East peace negotiations. The Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, met with President Obama on Thursday in Washington.

For many Israelis, Gaza is a symbol of all that is wrong with Palestinian sovereignty, which they view increasingly as an opportunity for anti-Israeli forces, notably Iran, to get within rocket range.

The ruins of the parliament building in Gaza City, which was destroyed by Israel during the war four months ago. Photo: Ashraf Amra/New York Times.

That leaves Gaza suspended in a state of misery that defies easy categorization. It is, of course, crowded and poor, but it is better off than nearly all of Africa as well as parts of Asia. There is no acute malnutrition, and infant mortality rates compare with those in Egypt and Jordan, according to Mahmoud Daher of the World Health Organization here.

This is because although Israel and Egypt have shut the borders for the past three years in an effort to squeeze Hamas, Israel rations aid daily, allowing in about 100 trucks of food and medicine. Military officers in Tel Aviv count the calories to avoid a disaster. And the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees runs schools and medical clinics that are clean and efficient.

But there are many levels of deprivation short of catastrophe, and Gaza inhabits most of them. It has almost nothing of a functioning economy apart from basic commerce and farming. Education has declined terribly; medical care is declining.

There are tens of thousands of educated and ambitious people here, teachers, engineers, translators, business managers, who have nothing to do but grow frustrated. They cannot practice their professions and they cannot leave. They collect welfare and smoke in cafes. A United Nations survey shows a spike in domestic violence.

Some people say they have started to take a small capsule known as Tramal, the commercial name for an opiate-like painkiller that increases sexual desire and a sense of control. Hamas has recently warned of imprisonment for those who traffic in and take the drug.

Yet the pills arrive, along with clothing, furniture and cigarettes, through the hundreds of tunnels punched into the desert at the southern border town of Rafah by rough-edged entrepreneurs who pay the Hamas authorities a tax on the goods.

A smuggler digging a tunnel at the border of Egypt and the Gaza Strip. Everything but food and medicine has to be smuggled in. Photo: Ashraf Amra for The New York Times.

Similar tunnels also serve as conduits for arms. Israel periodically bombs those in hopes of weakening Hamas, which says it will never recognize Israel and will reserve the right to use violence against it until it leaves all the land it won in the 1967 war. After that, there would be a 10-year truce while the next steps were contemplated, although the Hamas charter calls for the destruction of Israel in any borders.

Israel began the siege after Hamas won Palestinian legislative elections in 2006. It was tightened after Hamas pushed the Palestinian Authority out of Gaza in June 2007. Iranian backing for Hamas has added to Israel’s conviction that the siege is the right path.

The aim is to keep Gaza at subsistence and offer a contrast with the West Bank, which in theory benefits from foreign aid and economic and political development. Hamas supporters will then realize their mistake. The plan has not gone well, however, partly because the West Bank under Israeli occupation remains no one’s idea of paradise and partly because Hamas seems more in control here every year, with cleaner streets and lower crime, although its popularity is hard to gauge.

“Hamas is learning from its mistakes and getting stronger and stronger,” said Sharhabeel al-Zaeem, a prominent lawyer here. He and others have been urging international officials to get construction materials and other goods into Gaza through the closed crossings.

They argue that the current system serves only Hamas, since it taxes the illicit tunnel goods and limited currency exchanges and is not blamed by the people for the outside siege. If glass and cement were allowed in through the crossings with Israel, they say, Hamas would not get the credit and the Palestinian Authority could collect the taxes.

“The people of Gaza are depressed, and depressed people turn to myth and fantasy, meaning religion and drugs,” said Jawdat Khoudary, a building contractor. “This kind of a prison feeds extremism. Let people see out to see a different version of reality.”

Israeli officials remain skeptical of opening the borders. Many believe that their war served as deterrence and note the drastic reduction in rocket fire as evidence. They fear that steel or cement will be siphoned off by Hamas for arms. But they are feeling pressure from the Americans and United Nations, and they are discussing a pilot project.

Meanwhile, Gaza feels more and more like a Hamas state and less linked to the West Bank. Men are increasingly bearded, women are more covered. Hamas is the main employer. Schools and courts, once run by the Fatah-dominated Palestinian Authority, are all Hamas. The government is collecting information on companies and nonprofit groups and seeking control over them.

Many here are especially worried about the young. At a program aimed at helping those traumatized by the January war, teenagers are offered colored markers to draw anything they like, says Farah Abu Qasem, 20, a student of English translation who volunteers at the program.

“They seem only to choose black and to draw things like tanks,” she said. “And when we ask them to draw something that represents the future, they leave the paper blank.”

[Taghreed El-Khodary contributed reporting.]

Source / New York Times

The Rag Blog

Posted in RagBlog | Tagged Gaza War, Israel, Palestine, Palestinian Blockade | Leave a comment

‘Pedro’ Tancredo : GOP Mad Buffoon du Jour

Posted on May 30, 2009 by Thorne Dreyer

Pedro Tancredo in full battle array. Graphic by Larry Ray / The Rag Blog.
Republican attack dog Tom Tancredo calls Sonia Sotomayor a racist

This is just the tip of the iceberg of a long list of hateful, insane acts and statements by Tancredo.

By Larry Ray / The Rag Blog / May 30, 2009

Like a buzzard to fresh roadkill, disgraced former GOP congressman, Tom Tancredo could not pass up the lights and cameras. Dusting off his career xenophobic Latino bashing, he attacked Supreme Court nominee, Judge Sonia Sotomayor calling her a “racist.”

In case you don’t immediately place Uncle Tom Tancredo, he is the grandson of Italian immigrants and ran for congress from Colorado’s 6th Congressional District promising to only serve three terms. Tancredo stumped with unforgettable magniloquence, “We want to reinvigorate the electoral process by introducing people into the system who think of government service as a temporary endeavor, not as a career.”

He etched in stone his three term limit promise saying, “For me, the issue of giving one’s word and promising to do something like this is more important than the rest of it … I took the pledge. I will live up to the pledge. That’s it. That’s the overriding issue.”

Tancredo broke his pledge and ran for a fourth term in Congress in 2004.

Then on April 2, 2007, Tancredo announced that he would run for President in the 2008 election. His singular platform issue, his signature fixation, was illegal immigrants and immigration reform.

In the May 3, 2007 debate among the ten candidates for the 2008 Republican Presidential nomination, Tancredo was one of three who raised their hands when asked if anyone did not believe in the theory of evolution. Starting to place him now?

A month before he dropped out of the race, he ran a TV ad with a voice of death warning, “There are consequences to open borders beyond the 20 million aliens who have come to take our jobs … the price we pay for spineless politicians who refuse to defend our borders against those who come to kill.” Mercifully, he ended his candidacy on his 62nd birthday.

During his time as a US Congressman, he was a strident anti-abortionist, and had hawkish pronouncements on the Iraq war, even though when he was eligible for the Vietnam war draft, in June 1969 he went for his physical, telling doctors he had been treated for depression, and eventually got a “1-Y” deferment.

Though he was raised a Roman Catholic, he attacked Pope Benedict XVI for “encouraging illegal immigration to the USA to boost membership in the Catholic Church.” Tancredo now attends a Christian evangelical church.

But illegal immigration is his constant one-note samba. Whenever Lou Dobbs hears it he dances gleefully.

Tancredo was persona non grata at the White House after getting into a shouting match with Karl Rove, ranting at him, “if the nation suffered another attack at the hands of terrorists able to skirt immigration laws, the blood of the people killed would be on Bush’s and Congress’ hands.” Rove had him blacklisted from entering the White House, calling Tancredo a “traitor to the Party.”

Tancredo said if we have another terrorist attack on the USA we should bomb Mecca.

He suggested that state legislators and ‘sanctuary city’ mayors should be imprisoned for passing laws contrary to federal immigration law.

This is just the tip of the iceberg of a long list of hateful, insane acts and statements by Tancredo who, incidentally, was given an A+ for his opposition to amnesty for illegal aliens by “Americans for Better Immigration.” The average Congressmen was given a C+.

Last Thursday, May 28th, Tancredo appeared on CNN to voice his opposition to Judge Sotomayor as nominee for appointment to the Supreme Court. CNN host, Rick Sanchez asked him if he thought Sonia Sotomayor is a racist, Tancredo replied “certainly her words would indicate that that is the truth” and he then compared the Hispanic-American advocacy group. “La Raza” to the KKK.

And Tancredo would know about the KKK. On September 11, 2006 in Colombia, South Carolina he was guest speaker before a group he helped form, the “Americans Have Had Enough Coalition.” The room in which he spoke was reportedly decked out with large portraits of Robert E. Lee and lots of Confederate battle flags. After Tancredo spoke, men dressed in Confederate uniforms are said to have broken into a rousing chorus of “Dixie.”

Tancredo panders to racists. He thunders about “racial multiculturalism” being the ruin of America. He called Miami a “Third World Country.” Governor Jeb Bush called his remarks “naive” and countless organizations and political leaders have denounced Tancredo’s blatant racism.

I will stop here, but I just wanted to paint a clear picture of this loud, mistaken dogmatist who now is the latest spokesperson du jour for the leaderless Republican Party, whether they like it or not.

Today some Republican Congressmen started breaking ranks with their sour conservative party core calling Tancredo’s rant disgraceful and not representative of the Grand Old Party. Even GOP Party Chairman, Michael Steele, has completely disavowed Tancredo.

Judge Sotomayor’s early comment, taken out of context by both Tancredo and Rush Limbaugh, who compared Sotomayor to KKK leader David Duke, will certainly be thoroughly reviewed in her upcoming confirmation hearing. Hopefully Republicans in the hearing will not take the low road.

Too bad Tancredo and Limbaugh are both opponents of same-sex marriage, because theirs would be a marriage made in hypocrites’ heaven.

[Retired journalist Larry Ray is a Texas native and former Austin television news anchor. He also posts at The iHandbill.]

The Rag Blog

Posted in Rag Bloggers | Tagged Bigotry, Republican Party, Right Wing, Sonia Sotomayor, Tom Tancredo | Leave a comment

Labor Justice : ‘Last Vestige of Slavery and Segregation’

Posted on May 29, 2009 by Thorne Dreyer

“Brothers of the Sun” by Luana Boutilier / Farmworker Movement

…two groups of our most highly exploited workers have been denied the law’s protections — farm workers, and housekeepers, nannies, and other domestic workers.

By Dick Meister / May 28, 2009

It’s been three-quarters of a century since enactment of the National Labor Relations Act that grants U.S. workers the basic legal right of unionization — the right to bargain with employers on setting their wages, hours and working conditions.

But for all that time, two groups of our most highly exploited workers have been denied the law’s protections — farm workers, and housekeepers, nannies, and other domestic workers.

Congress should remedy the situation by amending the law to include the excluded workers. Which is the goal of a campaign – “Labor Justice” — that’s been launched by two veterans of United Farm Worker union campaigns, longtime UFW activist LeRoy Chatfield and former UFW attorney Jerry Cohen. They’ve already won the backing of labor, political, civil rights, academic, religious and community leaders and organizations in more than 30 states.

Chatfield and Cohen played key roles in passing the 1975 law that granted union rights to California’s farm workers. There have been drives to enact similar laws in other states, but none have even come close to passing. Neither have drives for state laws to grant union rights to domestic workers.

The need to extend the legal protections is obvious. Most farm workers’ pay is at or near the poverty level. They typically have few fringe benefits and very little legal protection from employer mistreatment.

Domestic workers, some of them self-employed, some of them employees of companies that hire them out, also generally earn little more than poverty-level pay and have few benefits. Most are women, who often are subjected to physical and sexual abuse. Some have formed union-like organizations to seek better treatment, but need the force of law behind them.

The “Labor Justice” campaign leaders call the exclusion of farm workers and domestics from the protections of the Labor Relations Act “one of our nation’s last vestiges of slavery and segregation.”

Certainly the exclusion is at the least racist, since the vast majority of U.S. farm and domestic workers are Latino immigrants. In a letter to Labor Secretary Hilda Solis urging the Obama administration to back the proposed expansion of the law, Cohen compared the exclusion of farm workers and domestics to the situation in racist South Africa under Apartheid. “Blacks,” Cohen noted, were specifically excluded from the protections of South Africa’s equivalent of the National Labor Relations Act.

It was racism, in fact, that kept farm workers and domestics from being granted the protection of the U,S. law originally, although it was a more subtle racism – a “sleight of hand,” as Cohen said.

At the time of the law’s introduction in 1935 as part of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal, most farm workers and domestics were African-American. The segregationist Southern Democrats in Congress, an important part of FDR’s political base, absolutely refused to vote for a law that would grant African-American workers the same rights as white workers.

So, as presented to Congress by Roosevelt and as passed, the Labor Relations Act, the basic labor law of the land, specifically excluded from its legal protections “agricultural laborers” and anyone “in the domestic service of any family or person.”

But now, 74 years later, we finally have the opportunity to correct that shameful exclusion. Finally, we have the chance to provide every worker – every one of them – the vital right of unionization.

[Dick Meister, a San Francisco-based journalist, has covered labor and political issues for a half-century as a print, broadcast and online reporter, editor and commentator. Contact him through his website.]

Source / Portside

Also see Key Leaders Endorse National Labor Justice Campaign by Randy Shaw / Beyond Chron / LA Progressive / April 14, 2009

Thanks to Jeffrey Segal / The Rag Blog

Posted in RagBlog | Tagged Justice, Labor, Labor Unions | Leave a comment

Harvey Wasserman : Big Troubles for Big Nuke

Posted on May 29, 2009 by Thorne Dreyer

Nuclear reactor fiasco in Oikiluoto, Finland. Four years under construction; defects multiply and price tag keeps climbing. Photo by Henna Aaltonen / The International Herald Tribune.
The New York Times finally reports the economic disaster of new nukes

Despite the torrent of bad economic indicators, Republicans like Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) continue to demand massive government funding for new reactor construction.

By Harvey Wasserman / The Rag Blog / May 29, 2009

In a devastating pair of financial reports that might be called “The Emperor Has No Pressure Vessel,” the New York Times has blazed new light on the catastrophic economics of atomic power.

The two Business Section specials cover the fiasco of new French construction at Okiluoto, Finland, and the virtual collapse of Atomic Energy of Canada. In a sane world they could comprise an epitaph for the “Peaceful Atom.” But they come simultaneous with Republican demands for up to $700 billion or more in new reactor construction.

The Times’s “In Finland, Nuclear Renaissance Runs Into Trouble” by James Kanter is a “cautionary tale” about the “most powerful reactor ever built” whose modular design “was supposed to make it faster and cheaper to build” as well as safer to operate.

But four years into a construction process that was scheduled to end about now, the plant’s $4.2 billion price tag has soared by 50% or more. Areva, the French government’s front group, won’t predict when the reactor will open. Finnish utilities have stopped trying to guess.

Finnish inspectors say Areva allowed “inexperienced subcontractors to drill holes in the wrong places on a vast steel container that seals the reactor.” The Finns have also cited Areva for “the attitude or lack of professional knowledge of some persons.”

Areva hopes to build similar reactors in the U.S. Its boosters have promised cheaper, cleaner, faster nuke construction with standardized designs like the one at Okiluoto. But “early experience suggests these new reactors will be no easier or cheaper to build than the ones a generation ago” whose price tags soared by 700% and more, and whose completion schedules ran into the decades.

Areva’s second “new generation” project at Flamanville, France, is also over budget and behind schedule. Cracks have turned up in critical steel and concrete components, along with revelations that critical work has been done by unqualified welders.

The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission has not approved the Areva design in use at Okiluoto and Flamanville. Four other designs under consideration are also mired in process. Some are still being altered. A post 9/11 issue is their ability to withstand a jet crash, which the 104 US reactors currently licensed to operate were not forced to consider.

The fiascos in Finland and Flamanville have thrown Areva into economic chaos now being mirrored at the Atomic Energy of Canada, Limited. Once touted as a global flagship, AECL sucked up 1.74 billion Canadian dollars in subsidies last year and has been a long-term money loser which the government has now announced it wants to sell.

AECL’s natural uranium/heavy water design has flopped in the world market. “Design issues” with its installed plants require heavy maintenance. AECL’s Chalk River research facility, which suffered a major accident in 1952 (in which former President Jimmy Carter served as a “jumper”) needs 7 billion Canadian dollars for clean-up work. Its 51-year-old medical isotope facility recently popped a major leak that may close it forever.

The Paris-based energy expert Mycle Schneider reports that of 45 reactors being built worldwide, 22 are behind schedule and nine have no official ignition schedules.

Despite the torrent of bad economic indicators, Republicans like Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) continue to demand massive government funding for new reactor construction. Alexander says he wants the US to build as many as 100 new reactors here, even though the private sector won’t finance or insure them. The media is citing the idea as a $700 billion package, but in fact the project price of building new reactors is on the rise, and by some estimates has already exceeded $10 billion each. The Department of Energy has cited four finalists for $18.5 billion in loan guarantees voted in with the 2005 Bush Energy Plan. Florida and Georgia have raised rates to pre-pay proposed new reactors.

But Missouri has turned down a proposed rate hike for a new Areva project. And green activists have three times beaten proposed $50 billion federal loan guarantee packages to fund “new generation” construction. Grassroots battles are now raging to prevent the re-licensing of aging reactors like Vermont Yankee and New York’s Indian Point.

As Congress deals with a wide range of energy-related legislation, the nuclear industry is desperately grabbing for any federal money it can get. One bill after another has been floated with nuclear hand-outs hidden in various nooks and crannies.

As the comparative price of efficiency and renewables plummets, the window may be closing fast on the possibility of building new nukes in the US, raising the industry’s desparation level.

This battle will certainly rage for years to come. But the appearance of such brutally bad news from Finland and Canada in the Business Section of the New York Times bodes ill for an industry that, after fifty years, cannot get private funding or liability insurance, cannot deal with its wastes, and now cannot demonstrate the ability to produce new product anywhere near on time or budget.

At very least, Paul Joskow of MIT tells the Times, the rollout of new nukes may be “a good deal slower than a lot of people were assuming.”

[Harvey Wasserman is an author, a journalist, an educator, an activist, and a utopian thinker. His Solartopia! Our Green-Powered Earth is available at solartopia.org. This article was also published by The Free Press.]

The Rag Blog

Posted in Rag Bloggers | Tagged Energy, Nuclear Power | 2 Comments

Health Care Reform : Our Last Stand

Posted on May 29, 2009 by Thorne Dreyer

Health Care for America Now

This effort, in my opinion, represents our last stand to effectively combat the forces that would deny Americans decent health care merely to increase the profits of the insurance and pharmaceutical cartels.

By Dr. Stephen R. Keister / The Rag Blog / May 28, 2009

As I watch the proposals for a national health program, and the well financed opposition in Congress, I am reminded of a warning sounded by Eric Hoffer in 1951. Hoffer wrote, and this surely applies to the increasing roar of the opposition, that

“Charlatanism of some degree is indispensable to effective leadership. There can be no mass movement without some deliberate misrepresentation of facts. No solid, tangible advantage can hold a following and make it zealous and loyal unto death. The leader has to be practical and a realist, yet must talk the language of the visionary and the idealist.”

The two most recent organizations created by the insurance and pharmaceutical industries — which they hope the American public will accept as bona fide entitles — are Patients United Now and Americans For Prosperity. These creations exemplify charlatanism at its finest; their appeal is to the naive and ill-informed. The really dirty stuff is just beginning.

I attended a local meeting of Health Care for America Now (HCAN) and would strongly suggest that all readers of The Rag Blog take advantage of the organization’s web site. This effort, in my opinion, represents our last stand to effectively combat the forces that would deny Americans decent health care merely to increase the profits of the insurance and pharmaceutical cartels. I entered this contest as a strong backer of single payer/universal health care as outlined by Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP); however, as a pragmatist one must make concessions, as I did to Dr. Marc Stier, the energetic, intelligent, and dedicated leader of the Pennsylvania chapter of HCAN.

I continue to feel that single payer is the program of choice; however, the realities that we face in the United States Senate (we can almost visualize the wire transfers to Switzerland and Liechtenstein while we watch the Finance Committee prostrate itself before the insurance and pharmaceutical giants) alone illustrates the seeming futility of facing any significant legislation. The Lehigh Valley News has a thoughtful discussion of why single payer is in trouble in an article titled “Why Is Single Payer Care Off the Table” by Rev. Sandra L. Strauss, who is director of public advocacy for the Pennsylvania Council of Churches.

The HCAN meeting I attended convened with an eight person panel, including Dr. Stier. Brief — but the statements given by representatives of the two U.S. Senators, and our local Congress-lady rang hollow. There is, however, some encouraging news regarding Sen. Robert P. Casey of Pennsylvania. According to an article from The Hill, distributed by truthout, Sen. Casey, a member of the Senate Health care Committee, will follow Sen. Edward’s Kennedy’s lead. It also appears that Senators Durbin, Gillibrand, Harkin, Inouye, Kaufman, Levin, Merkley, Reed, Rockefeller, Schumer, Stabenow, Whitehouse, Webb, and Sanders are on board as well.

I would guess that there were 50-60 individuals present at the gathering. Some, including Dr. Stier, speaking to a generally well-informed audience, clarified the plans and intents of HCAN. There were several handouts; one was titled “A public Health Insurance Plan Option — What Is It?” This was concise and to the point; however, one clause gave me pause: “May hire insurance companies, where efficient and appropriate, to handle administrative functions such as paying claims.” Shades of “Medicare Advantage,” the Bush administration’s attempt, still ongoing, to privatize Medicare.

It was noted that HCAN is planning a march on Washington in June, and is hoping for 20-30,000 participants. This calls to mind a “march” some years ago, the “one million man march” which was organized, in essence, to prove the participants’ masculinity. This brings to mind a thought that occurred to me during the meeting: “Where ARE the uninsured; where are the folks that we are representing?” Will any of these people come to the June gathering in Washington? Which brings to mind more words of Eric Hoffer from The True Believer>:

“The poor on the borderline of starvation live purposeful lives. To be engaged in a desperate struggle for food and shelter is to be wholly free from a sense of futility. The goals are concrete and immediate. Every meal is a fulfillment; to go to sleep on a full stomach is a triumph; and every windfall a miracle. What need could they have for ‘an inspiring super-individual goal which would give meaning and dignity to their lives?’ They are immune to the appeal of a mass movement.”

I would suggest that all progressives, at this time of feelings of ambivalence regarding President Obama, review Hoffer’s thinking. To me he is more relevant than he was in 1951.

President Obama, speaking on C-SPAN on May 24, reportedly vowed that his health care plan will provide “basic coverage” to all Americans. He gave no specifics but repeated the mantra that his plan “will invest more in prevention and wellness programs” as including as a move to increase electronic data-keeping. Once again, a cop-out! The anxious mother with a feverish child wants a physician at the bedside and does not give a hoot about wellness programs. The husband, sitting in an intensive care unit with his wife in a diabetic coma, wants a competent endocrinologist in charge and does not give a tinker’s damn about electronic data keeping. “Basic coverage?”

Are we discussing something akin to Medicaid ? Medicaid, a half-way measure in the search of health car?. A fraud in many instances which provides “care” on paper but in the real world provides nothing in the way of first class medical attention.

To make the situation even more frightening, an AP story carried in the Erie Times News reports that “a major health insurer says that the government can save more than $500 billion in Medicare spending by sending patients to less expensive, more efficient doctors, reducing hospital visits by the elderly, and cutting down on unnecessary care.” The ‘health insurer’ consulted by some idiot in Washington is the United Health Group, the largest participant in the Bush administration’s “Medicare Advantage,” a company that pays its CEO some $30-plus million per year. Nowhere does the “consultant” suggest doing away with Medicare Advantage plans, which are draining the Medicare trust fund by billions of dollars per year. One wonders who the demented individual in Washington was that provoked this “consultation” which is rather akin to asking the Godfather to review the business practices of the family industries to which the Mafia sells protection. Not really a fair comparison since the Costa Nostra never had it as good as the United health Group.

The other concern regarding “basic coverage” is that it will require, by law (probably unconstitutional) that everyone purchase private insurance. Of course, the policies of the less fortunate will have something like a $5,000 yearly deductible, high co-insurance payments, and numerous exclusions. For instance, they will state that they will pay for “management of diabetes,” but in the very, very small print will exclude payment for “diabetic complications.” This all dovetails nicely with a report from the Philadelphia Inquirer that says that the cost of insurance from Independence Blue Cross, for a family of four, non-group subscribers, would rise from $1,069.15 per month to $1,634, a 52.8% increase. Of course, there are cheaper plans, but here again we find the large deductibles, the co-insurance, and the exclusions.

And as far as Blue Cross is concerned, these folks are politically active, as Paul Krugman points out in the May 22 New York Times (“The Blue Double Cross”). On the Monday following the White House photo-op, The Washington Post reported that Blue Cross of North Carolina was preparing a series of ads attacking a public option insurance. The insurance industry will not be satisfied with merely doing away with single payer/universal care, but will stoop to all manner of deceit to persuade the gullible public that a public option plan is not in its interest. Not only will our elected representatives receive baksheesh, but we will see contrived ads about how bad health care is in other countries, how freedom of choice will be disallowed by a public plan, and we will be told that the “government will choose your doctor” and that there will be waiting periods of weeks to obtain care, etc. All hogwash, lies, and misrepresentations.

Two final thoughts:

We who support health care for all must, as well, support The Employee Free choice Act. These programs, in my opinion, are joined at the hip. And, we must support the American College of Physicians PAC in its efforts 1) to ensure that all Americans have access to affordable care; 2) to pilot test new Medicare payment models that realign incentives to support effective, efficient, patient-centered, coordinated care; 3) to improve Medicare fee for service payments to make primary care competitive with other specialties; and 4) to establish a national workforce policy to ensure sufficient numbers of primary care and other physicians.

Since we are writing from Erie, Pa., the site of ex-President Bush’s “coming-out” speech on June 17, we will try to keep you informed of an occasion that The Erie Times News, a good companion newspaper to the Washington Times or Greensburg Tribune, will turn into a memorable, earth shattering, event.

[Dr. Stephen R. Keister, a regular contributor to The Rag Blog, lives in Erie, PA. He is a retired physician who is active in health care reform. His previous articles on The Rag Blog can be found here.]

The Rag Blog

Posted in Rag Bloggers | Tagged Health Care Reform, Single Payer, Universal Health Care | 2 Comments

New Abu Ghraib Photos Said to Depict Graphic Rape Scenes

Posted on May 28, 2009 by Thorne Dreyer

Previously released photo from Abu Ghraib prison. The new photos, many reportedly depicting sexual abuse, are said to be much worse. Photo from Telegraph, U.K.
Photographs which Barack Obama is attempting to censor include images of apparent rape and sexual abuse, it has emerged.

The graphic nature of some of the images may explain the US President’s attempts to block the release of an estimated 2,000 photographs from prisons in Iraq and Afghanistan despite an earlier promise to allow them to be published.

By Duncan Gardham and Paul Cruickshank / May 28, 2009

At least one picture shows an American soldier apparently raping a female prisoner while another is said to show a male translator raping a male detainee.

Further photographs are said to depict sexual assaults on prisoners with objects including a truncheon, wire and a phosphorescent tube.

Another apparently shows a female prisoner having her clothing forcibly removed to expose her breasts.

Detail of the content emerged from Major General Antonio Taguba, the former army officer who conducted an inquiry into the Abu Ghraib jail in Iraq.

Allegations of rape and abuse were included in his 2004 report but the fact there were photographs was never revealed. He has now confirmed their existence in an interview with the Daily Telegraph.

The graphic nature of some of the images may explain the US President’s attempts to block the release of an estimated 2,000 photographs from prisons in Iraq and Afghanistan despite an earlier promise to allow them to be published.

Maj Gen Taguba, who retired in January 2007, said he supported the President’s decision, adding: “These pictures show torture, abuse, rape and every indecency.

“I am not sure what purpose their release would serve other than a legal one and the consequence would be to imperil our troops, the only protectors of our foreign policy, when we most need them, and British troops who are trying to build security in Afghanistan.

“The mere description of these pictures is horrendous enough, take my word for it.”

In April, Mr Obama’s administration said the photographs would be released and it would be “pointless to appeal” against a court judgment in favour of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

But after lobbying from senior military figures, Mr Obama changed his mind saying they could put the safety of troops at risk.

Earlier this month, he said: “The most direct consequence of releasing them, I believe, would be to inflame anti-American public opinion and to put our troops in greater danger.”

It was thought the images were similar to those leaked five years ago, which showed naked and bloody prisoners being intimidated by dogs, dragged around on a leash, piled into a human pyramid and hooded and attached to wires.

Mr Obama seemed to reinforce that view by adding: “I want to emphasise that these photos that were requested in this case are not particularly sensational, especially when compared to the painful images that we remember from Abu Ghraib.”

The latest photographs relate to 400 cases of alleged abuse between 2001 and 2005 in Abu Ghraib and six other prisons. Mr Obama said the individuals involved had been “identified, and appropriate actions” taken.

Maj Gen Taguba’s internal inquiry into the abuse at Abu Ghraib, included sworn statements by 13 detainees, which, he said in the report, he found “credible based on the clarity of their statements and supporting evidence provided by other witnesses.”

Among the graphic statements, which were later released under US freedom of information laws, is that of Kasim Mehaddi Hilas in which he says: “I saw [name of a translator] ******* a kid, his age would be about 15 to 18 years. The kid was hurting very bad and they covered all the doors with sheets. Then when I heard screaming I climbed the door because on top it wasn’t covered and I saw [name] who was wearing the military uniform, putting his **** in the little kid’s ***…. and the female soldier was taking pictures.”

The translator was an American Egyptian who is now the subject of a civil court case in the US.

Three detainees, including the alleged victim, refer to the use of a phosphorescent tube in the sexual abuse and another to the use of wire, while the victim also refers to part of a policeman’s “stick” all of which were apparently photographed.

Source / Telegraph, U.K.

The Rag Blog

Posted in RagBlog | Tagged Abu Ghraib, Barack Obama, Iraq, Prisoner Abuse, Sexual Abuse, Torture | 2 Comments

Steve Russell, Indian : Advice to Myself at 14

Posted on May 28, 2009 by Thorne Dreyer

I seldom got caught skipping school because the last place they would look for a truant was the public library. I read books by the shelf rather than by author or topic. It was a small library.

By Steve Russell / The Rag Blog / May 28, 2009

My usual contributions to Rag Blog are about foreign policy or economic policy, much like my contributions to The Rag were. I am a paid columnist for Indian Country Today, but my subjects there seldom cross paths with my subjects here even though my copyright agreement allows me to republish my columns if I choose.

This column is different from my usual ICT fare and I got so many emails from concerned parents and kids that I have become convinced it may resonate outside of Indian Country. In response to a question I’ve gotten here more than once: I’ve been an Indian all my life, born and raised in Indian Country, and I’ve never heard an Indian say “Native American” without smirking.

I usually write this column primarily for people who care about tribal government. This one is different. If you are currently an important person by conventional standards, you may want to skip this because I’m speaking to myself at age… oh, 14 or so, upward.

I know you because I was you, raised on Indian land currently occupied by white people. Raised by extended family rather than a mother and a father and not knowing anybody who finished high school.

Honestly, I had few encounters with white people who flat out did not like Indians. However, being known as who I was meant that I was destined to work with my hands, unless I could be an artist of some kind. The people who assumed that did not mean me any harm, but directing me to classes and activities for which I had no talent was not helpful.

I’ve heard people say they didn’t know they were poor. That’s the case unless somebody tells you, and plenty of people let me know. It did not take me long to figure out that most of the other kids did not have commodities and they lived in houses with light switches on the wall rather than a bulb dangling in the center of the room and several cords running away from that one connection so the wires were often hot to the touch.

There’s never any shortage of adults who want to tell you what to do, right? Do they still show you Indians in the textbooks that were either savage or stupid? I hope not. If so, I hope your folks give you stuff like the book I had about Will Rogers, an Indian who was smart and funny. They tell you your life is over if you can’t finish school, even though school is one teenage horror after another.

You might live with grandparents who have nothing except Social Security and a VA pension. You need to work. You are ashamed of being a burden. You see what you need to do. What could I possibly tell you?

Well kid, I’m about to retire from my second career as a university professor. My first one was state court judge. Since I got my school loans paid off, I’ve had a middle class life, the kind of life I used to think of as “rich.” My kids never missed a meal and never took charity. I drive a truck that starts, every time. My light switches are on the walls.

What they say about finishing school — that your life will be over if you drop out — is nonsense. I quit in the ninth grade and my only regret is that I didn’t quit sooner, but it is true that you must have an education, unless you are just incredibly talented. That is, the great Indian artist. If you are that, you probably know it by now.

It will probably be easier for you if you stay in school, but if you do, you need to know that your grades matter. If I had stayed in high school long enough to get a transcript, I probably would not have been able to talk my way into the University of Texas, because my grades were horrible.

If you are smart, you are interested in how the world works, and if the school won’t teach you the things you need you will have to teach yourself. Whether your schools work for you is something you probably understand better than the adults in your life. Since you are me, the schools are not working for you, so I have one word that will save your life: read.

I seldom got caught skipping school because the last place they would look for a truant was the public library. I read books by the shelf rather than by author or topic. It was a small library.

I delivered the Oklahoma City Oklahoman and Times and the Tulsa World and Tribune and I read every one of those suckers front to back every day. I did not understand at the time how awful they were because I had nothing to compare them with, but reading crap is better than not reading. Speaking of reading crap, my grandparents had a trunk full of old Reader’s Digests. I read them all, including the “condensed books” which are to books as condensed soup is to soup.

Starting then and continuing to this day, whenever I run across a word I don’t know, I either dog ear the page or make a note on a piece of paper I use for a book mark if I don’t own the book. Then I go back and look up all the words that I had not recognized.

When I got to the university, I knew more words than the high school graduates, although I often did not pronounce them correctly. While I thought Camus was pronounced “K-Moose” and Goethe was pronounced “Goth” and that embarrassed me, being familiar with their ideas was more important. Besides, looking back on it, being made fun of was a handy reminder not to forget my origins.

Read everything. Even stuff you do not yet understand. If you manage that, other survival skills will come to you. Some that came to me were looking up the publications of professors, going to the bookstore to see the assigned books in advance and trying to get more than one class with the same books (that had to do with money, but it turned out to be a useful learning tool as well), knowing when to drop a class and when to bear down.

I also used stuff I already knew: stuffing newspapers in shoes with holes, pocketing untouched dinner rolls off the rich kids’ plates in the cafeteria, using an older edition out of the library when I could not afford textbooks.

You may need to quit school to work. That does not mean you have to give up your education. Lots of folks still think Indians and people from the boondocks are stupid. You and I know better. Don’t listen to them. The future is waiting for you. Go grab it by the scruff of the neck.

[Steve Russell, Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, is a Texas trial court judge by assignment and an associate professor of criminal justice at Indiana University. He is a columnist for Indian Country Today, where an earlier version of this article appeared. Steve wrote for Austin’s The Rag in the Sixties and seventies and is a regular contributor to The Rag Blog. He lives in Bloomington and can be reached at swrussel@indiana.edu.]

The Rag Blog

Posted in Rag Bloggers | Tagged American Indians, Education, Native Americans, The Rag | 2 Comments

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Steve Russell, Indian : Advice to Myself at 14

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