Poor Young Thing
A young gal who works for the Montana Human Rights Network came to our small town last night to see if there was support for more health care reform. She personally would like single-payer ( as would most of the twenty or so people who showed up) but thinks the best bet is to use the Super-waiver to set up a state system like Vermont's. She had lobbied for "progressive values" in the last legislative session and the scars and bruises were still visible. But she still had hope.
This young gal was incredibly bright and I wonder what she thought of us (average age in the audience was sixty) , what she thinks of her own generation, what she thinks of the world in general as she drives back to Helena, looking at the people in their cars.
Montana is not Vermont. We have a governor (for another year) who has expressed support for single payer but the population is generally willing to throw themselves at any corporation which promises jobs(especially insurance) and any demagogue who promises "freedom" from Big Government. In the small crowd were two people who tried to run for state office and were defeated by right-wing knuckleheads spouting the boilerplate lines about taxes and wolves and guns.
It is hard to see the way the whole Obama-care battle sapped the optimism out of the progressives, young and old, yet left them still clinging to their threadbare "democratic capitalism" like a leaky raft on the storm-tossed seas. Their old friend Max Baucus throws them bottles of salt water. They still believe health care is a "right" but can't make the link to food and housing and energy and education and everything else that is theirs to control if they had the courage to step up and take it.
They believe "better candidates" will win in the next election, they believe "common sense" will eventually prevail, they believe the uprising in Wisconsin signalled some profound change and that the Vermont model will provide a light through the tunnel. They believe in the Nation magazine and that capitalism can be reformed. I sat the whole two hours without saying a word.
posted by troutsky @ 5:52 AM
11 comments
11 Comments:
Max is going to tell them to shut up and be thankful they don't live in Greece. Though that's clearly a bit of a preview.
IMF should be swooping in here and forcing the sell off of the water supply and the transportation network for 50 cents on the dollar (better deal than Greece is getting).
Bachmann/Cain 2012
Funny how "medical insurance" only became a job benefit as a result of FDR's "wage capping" his war machine.
Socialism doesn't work. Cash in hand to the worker ALWAYS works better than some politician's vahue (or otherwise) promise of a future benefit, even a "corporate Republican" politician's promise. ;)
In other words, the free market (LMFAO) will always make the optimum decision?
What is it optimizing?
Pardon me if I call the pure stinky cheese.
Also, FDR didn't press on any kind of insurance changes for fear of endangering social security.
Socialism doesn't work. What objectives are being proposed. The fact that it may conflict with one of yours hardly means it doesn't work.
FDR didn't press on any kind of insurance changes for fear of endangering social security.
Oooops...
Employee benefit plans proliferated in the 1940’s and 1950’s. Strong unions bargained for better benefit packages, including tax-free, employer-sponsored health insurance. Wartime (1939-1945) wage freezes imposed by the government actually accelerated the spread of group health care. Unable by law to attract workers by paying more, employers instead improved their benefit packages, adding health care.
In other words, the free market (LMFAO) will always make the optimum decision? For the individual, YEP! Else there wouldn't be a "transaction". :)
-In the small crowd were two people who tried to run for state office and were defeated by right-wing knuckleheads spouting the boilerplate lines about taxes and wolves and guns-
Good going there, Troutsky, that's what the people are, aren't they, buddy? Knuckleheads, what else could they be, not wanting to pay high taxes, not wanting wolves allowed to rampage and kill their livestock, not wanting to be disarmed by an ever-growing and oppressive government bureaucracy.
They must be nuts, and I'm begging you, please continue sounding the alarm. Don't just sit there silent the next time you have an opportunity to speak up. Work them all up into a lather. Lead them out into the streets. Break some store windows, turn over some cars.
Hell, start a bunch of fires. Don't let anybody put them out out either. What in the hell do you think they made baseball bats for?
Make sure you carry a bunch of signs saying clever things like "Death To Those God Damn Tea-Baggers"
Pagan, It's a question of priorities. Wolves are not their biggest problem right now. Few pay any taxes. The US government keeps this county afloat through PILT funds and other subsidies.
They, like you, have absorbed a narrative about their "victimhood" that is simplistic and contagious. They can't afford to put gas in their tank and they worry about wolves.
FJ: A cash in hand economy is one route. No debt , no credit, no promises. Just pure exchange. Of course that isn't capitalism but it might be worth a try.
They can't afford to put gas in their tanks because the EPA is making gas oil exploration, drilling, and refining inordinately expensive. Now which party is doing that and which one is trying to change the situation? If it weren't for gas "subsidies", gas would be even higher than what it is now. We should explore, drill, and refine every where we can. How are windmills going to put gas in your tank? Shit, it still takes oil to run a windmill or a solar plant, WTF? You won't save enough oil to bring the price down substantially unless you build more nuclear energy plants, and a lot of you guys are still against that too. Never mind that its the only way we're going to ever phase away from oil and coal in the long term, if ever. And you would still need to increase oil and coal supplies for the short term.
And as far as the wolves go, its not an immediate problem to anybody that's not a rancher, but if you're a rancher, that's your livelihood you're talking about there, and it could have a long term deleterious effect on the price of beef too. Do you have any conception how much money a rancher loses when he loses a prize steer to wolves? Now multiply that by five or six, or more in any given year and it starts to become a pretty damn big deal.
Pagan, the oil companies tightly control the refining capacity in the U.S. They keep it tight and with supply so tightly controlled any speculative opportunity like the Libyan adventure ill spike crude prices with no change in supply at the pump.
It's one hell of a grift and then we have the suckers screaming drill baby drill when they haven't even figured out it isn't a problem of shortage at the well head.
Pony up,they freakin' own you.
LAUREL, Mont. (AP) -- An ExxonMobil pipeline that runs under the Yellowstone River near Billings in south-central Montana ruptured and dumped an unknown amount of oil into the waterway, prompting temporary evacuations along the river Saturday morning.
Company spokeswoman Pam Malek said the pipe leaked for about a half-hour, though it's not clear how much oil leaked.
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It improves the fishing.
Why is it always a "company spokesperson" (aka "stooge") who explains the extent of the damage?
Ducky, I am not a fan of the big oil companies, I know their game. I noticed a long time ago how they control supplies, and also how they skimp on maintenance. That's common sense. the less the supply, and the less expense in the way of exploration, drilling, refining, and production, the higher the price, thus the more profit exponentially. It doesn't take a genius to figure that out. The games they play are tantamount to being in bed with the Democratic Party, many of whom by the way have a great deal of stock in oil companies. In the meantime they can claim that they are being "tough on big oil" and trying to rein in their excesses, and helping the environment all at the same time. Everybody at the top end gets greased and the American consumer gets screwed. And the GOP isn't much better. They go alone with this (as long as they and their major donor/supporters/contributors get their tax breaks to hell with the rest of us) and encourage them to up the ante by selling a great deal of their oil abroad.
You're not telling me anything I don't know, but by the same token, you will turn around and out of the other side of your mouth slam Sarah Palin who did her best, and to a point succeeded, in putting an end to the scam. And that's what it is, a scam, perpetrated by both parties, the Democrats, and the establishment mainstream GOP as well.
That's why the Tea Party, and the Palins among the political class, are trying to wrest control of the GOP in order to reform this old crooked backdoor way of doing business. But you're too busy doling out the hate to see who's really on the side of right.
minibus reklamlari
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