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There is a segment of the population that will never believe in a completely government run health care system. I understand their view to an extent.
The government historically has had trouble getting things right. The government has been a lousy landlord (public housing) over the years and the nation's welfare system was insane for many years. Besides, it is their democratic right to be against universal health coverage.
Personally, I am for universal health coverage (everyone covered) but my health plan right now, even with serious flaws, is not that bad, as long as my company doesn't cap me out, or deny me coverage for some cost saving reason or on some technicality. This is where the government, in my view, should play a role for everyone including me if it comes up.
As for those not covered at all, the government should take care of them as well. I don't mind paying for that either if I am able. A little tax hike or fees for my fellow man and woman is fine because if we don't pay it, those uncovered ill citizens will one day stagger into a hospital emergency room, get admitted and need weeks of treatment, and the costs will be passed down to us that way. Premiums might go up, costs of drugs, our own treatment will keep drifting higher and higher.
 When the health care debate started, this is where I thought it was going. I thought the real objective was to cover everyone and fix the flaws in the system. The uncovered landscaper with diabetes can get a prescription and a monthly doctor visit to monitor his condition. The woman with high blood pressure and a pulmonary condition can get pills and an inhaler and a regular three month check-up.
But we know now, that the GOP has been successful in changing the parameters of the debate.
The debate is all over the place and now we are arguing over issues which have nothing to do with core issues: can I get access even if I have no money and no job, and will everyone else be covered as well?
The GOP (the Republicans), as they are always able to do, turn every legislative initiative into a referendum on the survival of capitalism in America. Every law must bow at the feet of capitalism and conform to that religion or be condemned to economic hell. The health care debate is no different.
The big debate now is the government run option which would serve as the safety net and the equalizer. The GOP argued that such an entity would put the private insurers out of business because the private insurers could not compete with a government option that had inherent advantages. Then, a socialized system would answer the call.
Again, I doubt it.
I am familiar with government run health plans because I have helped people get their bills paid through Medicaid and Medicare as a public interest lawyer. I used to spend my days at the city-run (the government) hospital in Washington D.C. collecting medical records and speaking to clients. I assure you; it works but it is a bureaucratic morass and will not compete that well with a well oiled, efficient, bottom line, capitalist machine (a private health insurance company).
I am also somewhat familiar with veterans insurance provided by the government through my legal work. I have walked into the VA hospital in DC and observed four men sharing one hospital room that is half the size of a normal room. Men and some women crowd the lobby and the hallways in order to get health care. They get it, but it is slow and tedious. How many of you in for some tests want to share a room with three other people for a few days?
My point is, the government plan is a good idea but the government is never going to be that efficient though it should strive to be. But this is the nature of bureaucracy and personally, I am prepared to accept some of it. Remember back in the 60's when the government had to give all children a vaccine for a new disease really quick? There were long lines but the government got it done. Imagine, if a company was running that, and we had to pay. It would have been World War V.
With that said, if I have no care, lost my job, sick, and need some tests or treatment, and the government is providing the financial help, I am going to take it. And I will accept some of the shortcomings until I get back on my feet again. We should press it to be efficient and not get worse but it is free, and a lot of people like the word "free."
This is precisely why the GOP's railings against any government option is a crock. In fact, I don't know why the GOP is against a public option. Can the government make a better computer than private companies? No way. If it could, the government would make computers and not buy them from the private companies. Can the government produce better bicycles than FUJI? No way.
 Point is, individual innovation, motivated by reward is an important human concept. The government could never produce Google or Federal Express. Federal Express is better than the U.S. Postal Service, the government associated mail service (though not actually the government) in sending packages. But this doesn't mean we don't need UPS as well.
Concepts of socialism have real implications and we have to admit that as we move forward. The reason countries based upon Marxist-Leninist principles have trouble is because a slacker gets the same as a hard worker. But just because there are flaws does not justify condemnation of the entire concept of government health. Government is not all bad, and the GOP and many others know it. The Defense Department is the government; should be privatize that?
The finally point is, there must be a middle ground, give and take; everything cannot be competition or motivated by just profit. At some point, the government's social contract with the people must become an intimate and necessary component of the market as well. This must be embraced by the country because citizens will be working in that government system and it has to feel like a great thing if and when it happens.
If the point is always profit and wealth at the maximum level at the expense of human dignity, don't worry about health care, we are doomed.
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First, I am not going to panic. The health care reform war has just begun. Three years from now when this pathetic proposal currently being settled upon (if passed) is exposed as the legislative crock that it is and another win-win for the oligarchs of the nation, Barack Obama will have another chance to get it right, and so will the Blue Dog Democrats (unless they are all voted out) who are selling you and your children down the river.
But until then, my only thought is I am deeply disappointed in Barack Obama.
Regarding the health care debate, this is not the same guy who was out on the campaign trail, on message, keeping his opponent off-balance, speaking to the people, and not the news guys, but a real guy, with flaws, but focus. He jabbed people into submission with a relentless assault like Larry Holmes the champion boxer.
That is how he gets back in charge of the debate. Get back to the basics. Start jabbing. Every day. All day. No mercy.
If a cut opens up, aim for the cut. Stop playing defense. Punish the resisters by calling them out. Ask them why are they against change? When they try to fight back with nonsense, more jab, more punishment.
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Anyone with one brain cell knows that Sarah Palin is running for President and it just started yesterday when she gave up her position as Governor of Alaska. No one, unless they are under indictment, facing serious personal or professional challenges, suffering from serious health problems, or have a family member suffering from health problems, gives up a high profile political job.
There are only 50 U.S. governors, and she was one of them, and was probably one that people could actually name. This is because she was John McCain's running mate last year, and everyone heard all the jokes, and then heard all the hate she spewed out on the campaign trail (Remember all the terrorist comments about Obama? And don't forget now, no one booed her). Palin has what most candidates don't have: name recognition and some kind of profile.
That brings me to the point of this. Do not sleep on Sarah Palin. People are laughing saying she has no chance to win. The GOP is throwing her in the trash bin. (GOP insider David Frum says she has no chance). Don't believe it.
If the political stars don't align for Obama and if the economy keeps stagnating, people keep losing jobs, and he slips up and makes another comment about some entity that conservatives hold dear, the door will be open for change, or at least, a grassroots level effort to elect anyone but him will form. Remember, George W. Bush got elected twice and he proved to the world easily he had no business running a country.
 Back in 1968, people said that Richard Nixon couldn't win. Democrats were in trouble but they had Bobby Kennedy ready to take over for the exiting Lyndon Johnson. Things looked good, right? Nixon was a former Vice President, who had lost in that controversial 1960 election to John F. Kennedy. He all but wrote off Presidential aspirations in between 1960 and 1968. He wasn't even the candidate for the GOP in 1964; Barry Goldwater got decked by LBJ in that election. But Nixon rose from the jokes and the hell of political defeat in 1968.
A Civil Rights bill was passed in 1964 and then the Voting Rights Act in 1965. Vietnam went to hell, the war on poverty stalled under allegations of socialism, and then in 1968, Bobby Kennedy was killed. Nixon played the race card to poor southern whites. The door flew open for Nixon and he stepped into history.
Point is, don't sleep. Anyone who organized in the last campaign for real change, should get back to organizing. Those who hated the Bush years, should remind everyone, that Palin is Bush politically and probably more concretely conservative. She is what you voted against less than a year ago only more extreme.
The conservative money changers will fill her coffers with loot. They loved her during the 2008 campaign despite her incompetence and hateful rhetoric and they will love her more in 2012. She is coming to save the day (at least, this is her angle), even though her brand of politics is what was voted down. But this is the United States; people can't even remember what they ate for breakfast their memories are so bad. Some would have voted for George W. Bush again if they could. This is America.
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Baraka Obama, the President is an American citizen.
Everyone, of course, is not so sure, and they are trying to challenge it. It is so stupid. Most of these individuals call themselves "birthers." They think Barack Obama was born in Kenya or someplace other than the United States. But on August 4, 1961, the guy was born in Hawaii and Hawaii is part of the U.S. The birthers have pie on their face especially after Factcheck.org laid their theories to waste with the truth.
Someone said why won't Barack Obama simply release his birth certificate by paying $10.00. I say don't do it. No President has ever had to do that. In addition, the birthers, borderline zealots, would just come up with another reason why he isn't a citizen. This is all being driven by racial hatred, fear, and stupidity. Mr. Obama should not join in the circus. Don't pay to get anything released; tell the birthers, the Potomac River is that way, go jump in it.
The Honolulu Advertiser provides the best evidence of all that he is a citizen. Their paper printed a record of his birth in the newspaper after he was born. The birthers think that somehow even this was some kind of set-up. Complete craziness all of it, absolute craziness.
The nation finally elects a person of color President and people are out there tearing the guy apart. Sad.
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I am thinking of Piri Thomas' famous book "Down These Mean Streets." It is "the" story for people of Puerto-Rican descent like Sonia Sotomayor. She traveled down those mean streets as a child in the Bronx, and now again, as she has risen to the top of the world.
Poet Elizabeth Alexander called her "fierce." She is. She is fearless. Did anyone think that a bunch of rich, country club Republicans could knock her off her game? Judge Sotomayor was, and is, simply too tough, and too polished to be denied. History is behind Door #1. Walk through it.
GOP senator, Richard Lugar is already on record as saying that he is going to vote for her. That clears the way for a bunch of other moderate Republicans. Only the conservatives will seek the lonely island of ill-will now. Not because it is justified but because history tells them they must keep the madness going.
Michael Bloomberg, the distinguished mayor of New York City supports Sotomayor. Of course, Linda Chavez is against her, but what did we expect? The Red Sea has parted already.
To those who still refuse to accept this wonderful moment in history, I leave you with a poem by Willie Perdomo, a poet, who was born in that same barrio like Sotomayor, and who lived it and survived like her and became a writer. Forgive the "N-word" at the beginning, and at the end but this is a great poem. But this was the hearings, and what she overcame all her life, and now, the moment is here, for her to shine.
N**ger-Reecan Blues
Willie Perdomo (for Piri Thomas)
Hey, Willie. What are you, man?
No, silly. You know what I mean: What are you?
I am you. You are me. We the same. Can't you feel our veins drinking the
same blood?
-But who said you was a Porta Reecan?
-Tu eres Puerto Riqueno, brother.
-Maybe Indian like Gandhi Indian.
-I thought you was a Black man.
-Is one of your parents white?
-You sure you ain't a mix of something like
-Portuguese and Chinese?
-Naaaahhh. . .You ain't no Porta Reecan.
-I keep telling you: The boy is a Black man with an accent.
If you look closely you will see that your spirits are standing right next to
our songs. You soy Boricua! You soy Africano! I ain't lyin'. Pero mi pelo es
kinky y kurly y mi skin no es negra pero it can pass. ..
-Hey, yo. I don't care what you say - you Black.
I ain't Black! Everytime I go downtown la madam blankeeta de madesson
avenue sees that I'm standing right next to her and she holds her purse just
a bit tighter. I can't even catch a taxi late at night and the newspapers say
that if I'm not in front of a gun, chances are that I'll be behind one. I wonder
why. . .
-Cuz you Black, n**ger.
I ain't Black, man. I had a conversation with my professor. Went like this:
-Where are you from, Willie?
-I'm from Harlem.
-Ohh! Are you Black?
-No, but-
-Do you play much basketball?
Te lo estoy diciendo, brother. Ese hombre es un moreno!
Miralo!
Mira yo no soy moreno! I just come out of Jerry's Den and the
coconut
spray off my new shape-up sails around the corner, up to the Harlem
River and off to New Jersey. I'm lookin' slim and I'm lookin' trim
and when my homeboy Davi saw me, he said: "Como, Papo. Te
parece como
un moreno, brother. Word up, bro. You look like a stone black
kid."
-I told you - you was Black.
Damn! I ain't even Black and here I am sufferin' from the young
Black man's plight/the old whtie man's burden/and I ain't even
Black, man/a Black man/I am not/Boricua I am/ain't never really
was/Black/like me. . .
-Leave that boy alone. He got the N**ger-Reecan Blues
I'm a Spic!
I'm a N**ger!
Spic! Spic! No different than a N**ger!
Neglected, rejected, oppressed and depressed
From banana boats to tenements
Street gangs to regiments. . .
Spic! Spic! I ain't nooooo different than a N**ger.
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Day #3 in Supreme Court confirmation land, and the big guns were rolled out: guns, of course. Abortion.
Along with gays, and reverse discrimination, the most ridiculous legal idea ever invented, this is still the GOP playbook - Guns, Gays, God, and the Government. Here's a summary of it:
The government wants to take our guns.
The government should force people to have babies they don't want.
 The government should not treat gays equally (and certainly should not punish people for doing bad things to them because they are gay).
And my favorite - the government is ours.
Justice Sotomayor is a pro. She answered every question with courtesy and thought. She did not bark at the senators. She is on her game. As Charles Schumer said before the hearings began, they haven't laid a glove on her. They still haven't. They can't. She's overqualified for this lousy gig. The pay is low, it is isolated and thanksless; the hours are long, history might be cruel to you if you make a ruling that some people don't like much like Roe v. Wade. In fact, people might suggest you are going to hell for one of your rulings.
It is so incredible this beautiful lady did not leave the room when Tom Colburn, Oklahoma Republican unleashed his Desi Arnaz imitation. It had to happen.
But, as I said, she's a pro. She has her eyes on the goal: history. She will laugh at Coburn when she rules against one of his backwards causes and puts him in his place.
But get this over with and swear in Sotomayor immediately. Get the Bible ready for her beautiful hands. Read her the oath in Spanish and English, someone.
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One of Bruce Springsteen's very good songs is a song called "41 shots." It is his take on the Amadou Diallo tragedy. There are lines in the song that tell the story from both ends of the tragedy: a police officer who shot Diallo but made a mistake and is praying for him to make it, and the Diallo vantage point, the victim who lost his life, in a hail of "41 shots." It is a song about empathy, despite the tragedy.
Day 2 of Justice Sotomayor's confirmation hearings was about that - empathy. The GOP, of course, has none; they think it is still 1919, "Red Summer." Most of them showed the world what and who they are, today and it isn't pretty. They are politicians, lost in the madness of Washington D.C. (the federal part not the city).
I know. I said I wasn't going to listen to too much of it but I did. Forgive me. I wanted to confirm again that the Republicans are petty, and the Democrats are too deferential.
Sotomayor tried to explain (and did) her "wise Latina" comment today but for the Republicans, it was just a chance to score points.
This is what Obama was talking about when he invoked empathy, the ability to see the other side. I personally don't think Judge Sotomayor has anything to explain. I would just tell them to listen to Springsteen's "41 shots."
I did enjoy her exchange with Senator Jeff Sessions on the recent New Haven discrimination case. She laid him to waste with her constitutional skills showing again she should be confirmed 100-0. But this is politics, not the real world.
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As expected, the Republicans are showing their petty racist tendencies in the Sonia Sotomayor Supreme Court nomination hearings. Imagine, that these guys with an intimate relationship to all things bigoted are suggesting that Sonia Sotomayor is a racist. It is quite absurd, but then again, Albert Camus, the French existentialist, noted that "racism is absurd."
Check out this Daily Kos excerpt which summarizes Republicanism today:
"A higher percentage of Republicans voted for the Civil Rights Act of 1964 than Democrats. But years of bitching about social programs that benefitted a community just emerging from the yoke of Jim Crow drove blacks away from the Party of Lincoln. In this decade it has been bitching about hispanic immigration that has driven Latinos away in droves. There are 535 elected members of Congress (plus a few delegates), but there is only one Republican Jew, no Republican Muslims, no Republican agnostics, no Latino Republicans (other than the four Cubans from Florida), no (openly) gay Republicans, and no women in leadership positions. Republican strategists know that the country is getting less white, less Christian, and less intolerant of gays, but they are powerless to stop the hatred of the Republican base towards racial and religious minorities and gays."
 I don't plan to watch much of the Sotomayor hearings. She is so qualified they should be begging her to take the lousy job.
But as for the racial politics I know will emerge in the Q&A, I have known what the GOP has been about since Nixon. It is mean and nasty and pathetic. I don't need to see them in action for their followers. Check out the MLK Jr ad to the left. Imagine, their desperation.
Firefighter Ricci testifies too in this one. He is going to load up, I am sure.
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Hamlet, by William Shakespeare, is the greatest piece of drama I have ever read or witnessed in theater. I relate to it because it is all about making a difficult decision. Hamlet, the protagonist, finds out early in Act I that his uncle has killed his father, and married his mother. His father, who appears to him as a ghost, basically orders him to handle things because of what his uncle has done.
Well, we know what happens: Hamlet spends four acts trying to decide what to do in the face of hard evidence. Poet, playwright Amiri Baraka called Hamlet, the world's "first liberal," because he was unable to decide. It is courageous but also a strategic error: due to his delay, his uncle places him under surveillance, and decides that Hamlet, his crazy nephew, has to go.
So it is now with Attorney General, Eric Holder, a man of enormous integrity, intelligence, grit, and determination who must now must make a difficult decision regarding torture and whether to order a difficult inquiry that will be controversial and politically taxing for his boss, President Obama.
I respect Holder 100 percent and even met him recently. He is class personified but I just wish he would order the inquiry regarding the Bush administration program torture so the matter can be brought to conclusion. No more delay. (The latest development is just that Holder may call for an inquiry).
After it was just revealed that then Vice President Dick Cheney was operating a secret surveillance operation at the C.I.A. and intentionally kept it secret, inquiry into the nuances of the U.S. torture program under President Bush is warranted. Secrecy suggests, well, secrecy.
The government is supposed to have a relationship with its citizens of trust and accountability. I don't want to be cynical about that. I believe it is possible. Order the inquiry and lets find out what happened. We are at Act V.
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