Sunday, July 19, 2009

A Great Working Class American Classic Film, Salt of the Earth!


So many real world working class American issues packed into only the first 10 minutes of the great radical film Salt of the Earth! Lets list them: Accumulation by dispossession, internal colonialism, western expansion, sexual division of labor, childbirth, racism and child hood fights, work place safety, organized labor and the UNION!, debt. Salt of the Earth is a great film made by people blacklisted from Hollywood by McArthyism in the 1950s. Check it out! Availble in full from Netflix or in pieces on Youtube.




Friday, July 17, 2009

We Are Still at War! Shout Out to This is Where We Take Our Stand

Let's not forget, although the nightmare of George Bush actually inhabiting the White House is over, we are still left with his active legacy of U.S. troops fighting wars overseas. If there is any hope left of something half-assed progressive actually coming out of the Obama administration it will still be spoiled with his legacy of escalation in Afghanistan. Now is the time to rev-up the anti-war movement, and not get complacent with Obama in the White House. Thankfully, the IVAW is still on the job. So here is a shout out to This is Where we Take Our Stand!




Penalty for Being Poor: Guatemalan Woman Deported and Her Children Stolen

Stories like this really piss me off! File this one under "Why I don't love America". So the woman probably doesn't have the resources to get the proper care for her children, so they take her children and deport her? What a shitty country and a shitty system!

Thursday, July 16, 2009

The Weak Voice of the Communist Party USA

Update below.
Come on now! Is this the best Peoples' Weekly World can do? (Organ of the so-called Communist Party USA.)

“Members of the United Steelworkers (USW) and their families are appreciative of efforts by the U.S. House leadership to fix our broken health care system by introducing ‘America’s Affordable Health Choices Act’ (HR 3200). The legislation meets President Obama’s goals to control runaway health care costs, offering all Americans real choices for expanded access to quality health care. .............."

Granted Peoples' Weekly is only posting a statement from a union official, but why no added commentary that criticizes the centrist Obama and Democrats in their compromising betrayal? They rolled out the red carpet and offered the for profit insurance corporations a "seat at the table" while taking single-payer "off the table". Senator Bernie Sanders and Congressman Dennis Kucinich are stilling speaking up and fighting for a single-payer plan, so why isn't the Communist Party USA? Seriously, socialists should be calling for a complete expropriation of private health insurance corporate assets, justified by the massive fraud and theft they have committed on the American people and at the expense of their health!
Pathetic!

Update, one day later:
I should clarify that the above quoted statement posted by the Peoples' Weekly World is from a Leo Gerard of the United Steel Workers union. It is true that the whole statement fails to mention the fight for a single-payer system, nor does the Peoples' Weekly, which is the main target of my criticism. As it turns out, Leo Gerard, in an interview with the Real News, argues that even if the political winds in congress are tilting against a single-payer plan, the left still must argue for it in principle. Posted below is the Real News interview with Leo, which is quite good. I think my criticism of Peoples' Weekly and the CP-USA still stands. And that is that they are failing to be a critical left voice either within of outside of the Democratic Party coalition.


Tuesday, July 7, 2009

No, You Give Me A Break!

Now this is just the most silly argument from John Stossel for whatever kind of health care reform, no matter how shitty.

"That's what health insurance does to medical care. Patients rarely even ask what anything costs. Doctors often don't know. Often nobody even gives a damn. Patients rarely ask, "Is that MRI really necessary? Is there a cheaper place?" We consume without thinking. By contrast, in areas of medicine where most patients pay their own way, service gets better, while prices fall.

Why not just have a free market where people can buy whatever kind of health insurance they want? Competition would then bring prices down."

No, people are not going to consume as much health insurance as they can. And no, competition is not going to magically lower prices. But cutting out the executive salaries and stock dividends that go to for-profit insurance company investors would. And generally people don't sit around and say, "Hey, I feel fine, but I think I will go get poked and prodded by a doctor and nurse, because hey, what the heck it free."

I am sure for a well paid free-market ideologue propagandist like Stossel he actually believes that it is a simple matter to go out and buy the health insurance ones needs. This is far outside of the reality of most working Americans. Their reality is that if they don't get insurance through a group plan from their employers, then they can't afford it period. They can't even come close to affording it. I know, I did shop around for it before I had my present job, and I could only afford to pay for my son, leaving myself uninsured.

It is easy to make these delusional "free-market" arguments from one's perch in the elite corporate media. But it just doesn't fly here in working-class America!