Today I ate lunch at the hamburger factory in Victor, Joe and Patty Reeds place. I had a Philly Cheese-steak (I think the best I've ever had), a glass of water and the Jackson Hole News and Guide. It was really a very pleasant experience, that is until I started reading about how our government plans to reduce the deficit by cutting spending on certain things like Medicare and Social Security. But the thing that really upset me, I mean it really made me want to stand up in the middle of the cafe and at the top of my lungs scream foul as loud as I possibly could, was how the GOP plans to save money on medicare. The suggestion is to privatize it, allow the markets and private industry to administer Medicare (for profit) and the government (you and me, Joe taxpayer) reimburse the private markets for their services.
That forced me to pause and think, how could this even be a suggestion and what self respecting congressman would take enough money from the snake oil lobbyist to get this actually put on paper. You see the concept is that the private markets could run Medicare more efficiently, and I'm sure they would but at what cost? Well we don't need to look far to find out what it might look like. 40 million uninsured Americans, health care cost increasing 15% to 25% annually, Enron, Tyco. Global Crossing, Wells Fargo, Bank Of America, General Motors, L.T.C.M, Orange County, the list is nearly endless. Private markets by their nature take risk for profit, they constantly strive to lower cost, improve efficiency and increase profits. Medicare is insurance that all working Americans pay a premium for during their entire working career so that when they reach the age of 62 no wait, 64 or is it 65, oh I'm sorry, really 67? OK 67, when they reach the age of 67 they can be assured that their health needs will be met, and we want to privatize that security?
Nasim Taleb talks about Black Swan events in his book by the same name. "A Black Swan event is an event, positive or negative, that is deemed improbable yet causes massive consequences." Well I think we can eliminate the word positive from that definition when describing the possible outcomes of handing Medicare over to private industry. Part of me thinks ranting about this in a blog is a massive waste of time because who would ever let this occur, people will revolt, make noise...right?
During the last election season (November 2010), polls were conducted all across the country 3 weeks before election day and the question was asked, "Do you know who you will vote for in the US Senate and US House of Representatives races this November?" Shockingly, more than 60% of the respondents didn't even know the names of the candidates in either party. So who is going to make some noise if no-one is paying attention. No-One! And even if someone does, will anybody be in the forest when the tree comes crashing down?
The Philly Cheese-Steak was really quite tasty which is a good thing because if Joe and Patty can sell enough of them before Wellpoint and United Health Group have Carte Blanche authority over Medicare they might be able to pay for their privatized version of Medicare, again.
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
Saturday, April 2, 2011
Wake Up D*** A**
My wife tells me to stay involved.
I just recently hired a new person to be a delivery driver and before the ink has dried on the application he submitted, he forwards me this email with stuff like,
I am a hardcore Democrat. I believe that privatizing healthcare, education, Social Security, Medicare and SCHIP in an effort to fatten the pockets of wealthy cronies of political leaders so they can remain in office indefinitely at the cost of hard working Americans, is not only wrong, it is criminal. If you were to look at the free market experiments all pioneered by Milton Freidman; Chile, Russia, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Bolivia, Afghanistan and now Iraq you would see that all government was replaced with free market for profit corporations that did not have a government to answer to other than the IMF or the world bank. What ensued in this purely capitalistic no government experiment was mass poverty, rebellion, rampant inflation and the worst education opportunities in the world.
I do believe in government and so did the founding fathers. Without an accountable system of government, that is responsible for ensuring all Americans have access to a quality education, basic health care and the ability to retire with dignity sometime before you die, we would have a country that looks like Haiti or Cuba or China.
I think our political beliefs may be quite far apart so I would encourage you not share this type of Beck, Limbaugh, Palin hysteria type garbage with me.
Some of that came from the book I was reading at the time "The Shock Doctrine" by Naomi Klein and if you haven't read it yet I suggest you do, but the whole exercise of reacting negatively to someone who was just saying what they thought was right made me stop and think. We are not winning the right to control the message, my rant was a classic example of "Thou dost protest to much". No one is listening, sure if you are a progressive or liberal, Olberman or Maddow certainly command your attention but they are not changing any minds from the conservative credo to the liberal health care for all, love my brothers mentality. It may have been somewhat therapeutic for me to send my assault on the poor new hire ( I did actually send it) but afterwords I thought did I really accomplish anything or did I just more firmly entrench my conservative counterpart in his ways.
Several days later on the front page of the www.newyorktimes.com a headline stated that "Police Men and Fire Fighters Shun the GOP". Fantastic I thought, people must be starting to wake up. The whole Wisconsin Union busting thing is going to cost the GOP dearly. Without any verification, qualification of polls, quantitative data, metrics, poll statistics, ect. I accepted that Police Men and Fire Fighters were waking up to the reality that Democrats cared more about the well being of the American workforce than the GOP. Then it dawned on me, just like George Lakoff and Drew Weston said you need to frame the debate or the conversation the way you want it to be heard. You know the bandwagon concept.
We can design the message based on reality without reacting to baseless emails that have been forwarded 100 times over. My response should have been more like this...
Thanks for sharing this email with me, although I have to tell you I disagree with many of the points, not on the surface of course, I mean really, I only speak English and I would like to see people working for a paycheck rather than collecting un-employment or welfare and as a small business owner sometimes the hoops do seem extreme but I have heard what happens in other countries when we let the guys that destroyed our economy just a few years ago, run the government and it aint pretty. Lately I have heard an awful lot about our countries Policemen and Firefighters staging protest all over the country against that governor in Wisconsin who is trying to take away our First Amendment Rights the the founding fathers gave us in the divine document we call "The Constitution". I'm with the guys who protect us and fight for us and teach our children.
That might sound a little to mealy but I think you get the point. The real answer might be the James Carville method, which I tend to gravitate towards...
"Wake up dumb ass and read a book, then maybe you wont send me this type of garbage again!!"
Yes, I think my my wife is right, I should stay involved.
I just recently hired a new person to be a delivery driver and before the ink has dried on the application he submitted, he forwards me this email with stuff like,
- "English should be the only language spoken in AMERICA"
- "We need to get rid of government because government only hurts business"
- "The poor are poor because they are lazy and are not willing to go out and find work, they do not deserve any assistance or welfare"
I am a hardcore Democrat. I believe that privatizing healthcare, education, Social Security, Medicare and SCHIP in an effort to fatten the pockets of wealthy cronies of political leaders so they can remain in office indefinitely at the cost of hard working Americans, is not only wrong, it is criminal. If you were to look at the free market experiments all pioneered by Milton Freidman; Chile, Russia, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Bolivia, Afghanistan and now Iraq you would see that all government was replaced with free market for profit corporations that did not have a government to answer to other than the IMF or the world bank. What ensued in this purely capitalistic no government experiment was mass poverty, rebellion, rampant inflation and the worst education opportunities in the world.
I do believe in government and so did the founding fathers. Without an accountable system of government, that is responsible for ensuring all Americans have access to a quality education, basic health care and the ability to retire with dignity sometime before you die, we would have a country that looks like Haiti or Cuba or China.
I think our political beliefs may be quite far apart so I would encourage you not share this type of Beck, Limbaugh, Palin hysteria type garbage with me.
Some of that came from the book I was reading at the time "The Shock Doctrine" by Naomi Klein and if you haven't read it yet I suggest you do, but the whole exercise of reacting negatively to someone who was just saying what they thought was right made me stop and think. We are not winning the right to control the message, my rant was a classic example of "Thou dost protest to much". No one is listening, sure if you are a progressive or liberal, Olberman or Maddow certainly command your attention but they are not changing any minds from the conservative credo to the liberal health care for all, love my brothers mentality. It may have been somewhat therapeutic for me to send my assault on the poor new hire ( I did actually send it) but afterwords I thought did I really accomplish anything or did I just more firmly entrench my conservative counterpart in his ways.
Several days later on the front page of the www.newyorktimes.com a headline stated that "Police Men and Fire Fighters Shun the GOP". Fantastic I thought, people must be starting to wake up. The whole Wisconsin Union busting thing is going to cost the GOP dearly. Without any verification, qualification of polls, quantitative data, metrics, poll statistics, ect. I accepted that Police Men and Fire Fighters were waking up to the reality that Democrats cared more about the well being of the American workforce than the GOP. Then it dawned on me, just like George Lakoff and Drew Weston said you need to frame the debate or the conversation the way you want it to be heard. You know the bandwagon concept.
We can design the message based on reality without reacting to baseless emails that have been forwarded 100 times over. My response should have been more like this...
Thanks for sharing this email with me, although I have to tell you I disagree with many of the points, not on the surface of course, I mean really, I only speak English and I would like to see people working for a paycheck rather than collecting un-employment or welfare and as a small business owner sometimes the hoops do seem extreme but I have heard what happens in other countries when we let the guys that destroyed our economy just a few years ago, run the government and it aint pretty. Lately I have heard an awful lot about our countries Policemen and Firefighters staging protest all over the country against that governor in Wisconsin who is trying to take away our First Amendment Rights the the founding fathers gave us in the divine document we call "The Constitution". I'm with the guys who protect us and fight for us and teach our children.
That might sound a little to mealy but I think you get the point. The real answer might be the James Carville method, which I tend to gravitate towards...
"Wake up dumb ass and read a book, then maybe you wont send me this type of garbage again!!"
Yes, I think my my wife is right, I should stay involved.
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
Trouble Ahead
Now What?
The 2010 election season is behind us and what a mess we have created. I was the Democratic nominee for US Senate in Idaho. To say I lost my shirt would be an understatement. Someone said to me after the election "If chickens could vote in Idaho they would elect Colonel Sanders". I think people want to make the right decision but they fall victim to right wing fear mongering, conservative controlled press outlets and outright lies by the power players with too much money. Most of us do not have the time to fully investigate every issue, so we end up listening to the media. We trust that the media is honest and unbiased. Unfortunately that is far from reality. Why? Because those with money, want more. Plain and simple.
I personally can see a better America, where those with money can make more but not at the cost of everyone else. At some point we have to realize that if all of the toys are reserved for the top 1% of the population we should expect anarchy. This is not the type of re-balancing we should wait for, but rest assured this is where we are heading.
Early on in my campaign I decided to run on the issues that I believed in rather than what has been sold to the American public. These are issues that I know the American public believes in also, but most people running for office are afraid to admit openly. Issues like,
You should be able to see a doctor if you are sick
You should be able to get a good job with benefits
People should be working their way into the middle class not falling out of it
More things should be made in America
Our schools should be better and teachers should make more money
Tax cuts for the rich don't make sense when we are 14 trillion in debt
Social Security is good
Helping those in need is not a bad thing
Unemployment Insurance is good when unemployment is at 10%
I have found that even the most devout conservative can agree with me on most of these issues if we have an opportunity to discuss them. Numbers, facts, logic, compassion and sensibility are all things that trump sensational media rhetoric when discussed openly but unfortunately there just wasn't enough time. I did try and I will try again, hopefully we do not need to hit bottom before the masses are willing to really listen.
The 2010 election season is behind us and what a mess we have created. I was the Democratic nominee for US Senate in Idaho. To say I lost my shirt would be an understatement. Someone said to me after the election "If chickens could vote in Idaho they would elect Colonel Sanders". I think people want to make the right decision but they fall victim to right wing fear mongering, conservative controlled press outlets and outright lies by the power players with too much money. Most of us do not have the time to fully investigate every issue, so we end up listening to the media. We trust that the media is honest and unbiased. Unfortunately that is far from reality. Why? Because those with money, want more. Plain and simple.
I personally can see a better America, where those with money can make more but not at the cost of everyone else. At some point we have to realize that if all of the toys are reserved for the top 1% of the population we should expect anarchy. This is not the type of re-balancing we should wait for, but rest assured this is where we are heading.
Early on in my campaign I decided to run on the issues that I believed in rather than what has been sold to the American public. These are issues that I know the American public believes in also, but most people running for office are afraid to admit openly. Issues like,
You should be able to see a doctor if you are sick
You should be able to get a good job with benefits
People should be working their way into the middle class not falling out of it
More things should be made in America
Our schools should be better and teachers should make more money
Tax cuts for the rich don't make sense when we are 14 trillion in debt
Social Security is good
Helping those in need is not a bad thing
Unemployment Insurance is good when unemployment is at 10%
I have found that even the most devout conservative can agree with me on most of these issues if we have an opportunity to discuss them. Numbers, facts, logic, compassion and sensibility are all things that trump sensational media rhetoric when discussed openly but unfortunately there just wasn't enough time. I did try and I will try again, hopefully we do not need to hit bottom before the masses are willing to really listen.
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