Quote of the Day -- Surprising Source Edition

“Surround yourself with people who make you happy. People who make you laugh, who help you when you’re in need. People who genuinely care. They are the ones worth keeping in your life. Everyone else is just passing through.” ― Karl Marx

The Cold Insanity of Our US Capitalism

We, the US, Need Amber Ruffin

The woman is spot on.

America's Inanse, Immoral, Unconscionable Health Care System

No other country in the world does health care the way we do.

And it's killing us. LIterally killing us.

But first, it bankrupts a lot of us. Crazy when what is supposed to be your "health care system" is actually murderous. No?

Quote of the Day -- On Fascism

“The American fascists are most easily recognized by their deliberate perversion of truth and fact. Their newspapers and propaganda carefully cultivate every fissure of disunity .…They claim to be super-patriots, but they would destroy every liberty guaranteed by the Constitution..."

"...They demand free enterprise, but are the spokesmen for monopoly and vested interest. Their final objective toward which all their deceit is directed is to capture political power so that, using the power of the state and the power of the market simultaneously, they may keep the common man in eternal subjection.” --Vice President Henry A. Wallace, April 9, 1944.

Quote of the Day -- On All-Consuming Capitalism

-- Frederic Bastiat, 1801-1850, born Claude Frederic Bastiat, French economist, statesman, and author Mr. Bezos? Mr. Zuckerberg?

Two Quotes of the Day -- On Socialism and Capitalism

"The good things at which socialism aims can only be achieved where industry is highly developed and has sunk deep into the habits of the nation. In England or America, socialism, if it could be achieved without prolonged war and industrial dislocation, could bring a very considerable degree of material well-being to the whole population, by exacting only four or five hours of daily labour from every adult citizen. And it would not need to be a centralized bureaucratic system, because the workers, from long practice, have come to understand the industries in which they are employed, and would be thoroughly competent to manage them themselves. 

A gradual approach to these benefits is possible without a catastrophic abolition of the capitalist system, and therefore without the very grave dangers to industrialism and the whole fabric of civilization which are involved in a universal class-war. But these benefits cannot be secured in a country as yet almost un-industrial, however much it may be nominally communistic, because in such a country the total produce of labour is not very much more than is needed for subsistence, and there are not, in the general body of the population, the habits, the skill or the knowledge required for a democratic control of the processes of industrial production."

― Bertrand Russell, The Prospects of Industrial Civilization (1959), Part I, Ch. I: Causes of the Present Chaos, p. 26

"It is now highly feasible to take care of everybody on Earth at a 'higher standard of living than any have ever known.' It no longer has to be you or me. Selfishness is unnecessary and henceforth unrationalizable as mandated by survival."

--R Buckminster Fuller, 1963

Both men were and are correct. We just aren't so bright as to put it all into place and have ti work for us all, for humankind.

We Can't Have Universal Health Care

 No, universal health care will never work here. Not in the United States. It's just not workable.

(Click on picture for easier reading).

God help and forgive us.

Forgive our stupidity. Our inhumanity. Their greed.

Quote of the Day -- On Capitalism

We have to grasp, as Marx and Adam Smith did, that corporations are not concerned with the common good. They exploit, pollute, impoverish, repress, kill, and lie to make money. They throw poor people out of homes, let the uninsured die, wage useless wars for profit, poison and pollute the ecosystem, slash social assistance programs, gut public education, trash the global economy, plunder the U.S. Treasury and crush all popular movements that seek justice for working men and women. They worship money and power.

Chris Hedges

Happy Birthday, Karl Marx!

Born this day, May 5, 1818.

 

Workers of the world unite; you have nothing to lose but your chains.

Religion is the opium of the masses.

There must be something rotten in the very core of a social system which increases its wealth without diminishing its misery

Catch a man a fish, and you can sell it to him. Teach a man to fish, and you ruin a wonderful business opportunity.

When the sufferers learn to think, then the thinkers will learn to suffer.

The last capitalist we hang shall be the one who sold us the rope.

What This Pandemic and Our Situation Is and Is Not

A friend posted this yesterday on Facebook. It was apparently written by one Paul Field.

Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but you need to know how silly you look if you post some variation of, "Welcome to Socialism..."

You are not seeing Socialism. What you are seeing is one of the wealthiest, geographically advantaged, productive capitalist societies in the world flounder and fail at its most basic test. Taking care of its people.

This crisis is not about the virus.

This crisis is about the massive failure of our, "Booming economy," to survive even modest challenges. It is about the market dissonance of shortages in stores, even as farmers/producers destroy unused crops and products. This crisis is about huge corporations needing an emergency bailout within days of the longest Bull Market in our history ending and despite the ability to borrow with zero percent interest rates.

This crisis is about corporatized healthcare systems being unable and ill equipped to provide basic healthcare, at the same time they post record profits. It is about crisis response depending on antiquated systems nobody remembers how to operate.

But most of all, this crisis is a direct result of the politicization of every aspect of our society for the benefit of a privileged few. The vilification of education, science, media, natural rights, rural lifestyles, urban lifestyles, charity, compassion, and virtually everything else for brief political gain has gutted our society.

What you are seeing is a quarter century of technological brilliance being reduced to a narcissistic popularity contest. You're seeing the folly of basing the health and welfare of an entire society on personal greed. You're seeing all the necessary tools, for us to shrug off this crisis, go unused while people argue over who should get the credit and profit. Even worse, you're seeing vital help withheld because recipients might not, "deserve it..."

You're seeing a lot of things nobody thought they'd ever see, but you're not seeing Socialism...

"Doing nothing for others is the undoing of ourselves."-- Horace Mann

I think the man is spot on.

Quote of the Day -- On America and Universal Health Care

Quote today from one George D Morgan on Facebook.

He's so right.

"I spent 36 years in the insurance business. So I know a thing or two about the subject. The one thing everyone needs to understand is that insurance is an exclusionary product--though it includes good risks that the insurance companies want, it EXcludes bad risks they do not want.

Because of the exclusionary nature of insurance, health care is not, never has been, and never will be, a good candidate as an insurance product. This is because everyone needs health care.

Everyone---without exception.

So don't talk to me about Socialism or Capitalism or anything in between. We need to adopt a universal health care system because health care is universally needed--unlike what is provided by insurance.

It's really that simple."

And the rest of the Western, industrialized world does it. 

Somehow I think we could manage.

Stephen Hawking, 1942 - 2018

Rest in peace, sir.

May we try to live up to your guidance and advice.

Trump Fits the Republican Party After All

There are and have been many things about Donald Trump that aren't Republican Party policy and platform, famously, and it has driven and still does drive a lot of them near mad. He certainly fits no mold. When you don't know much and your guiding goals are your own success and increased fortune instead of even your declared political party's goals, let alone your nation's, it's very unlikely you'll fit neatly in any given box.

All that said, the New York Times today has an insightful article today. In the paper version, it's titled "A 'Trump Doctrine' Is Born." Here's the headline when searching for it online.

Donald Trump's Plan 

to Save Western Civilization 

This is the byline description of the article: "'America First' has become 'Defending the West.'"

When you think of it, how perfect, how fitting is it for this President, Donald Trump, to have had a campaign slogan and now a presidency that declares "America first"?

It's incredibly fitting.

This is, after all, the Republican Party. It's the political party of people who have been fighting for the already-wealthy and corporations for the last 100 years, at minimum.

So when a multi-millionaire--or possible billionaire?--becomes President through and with that same political party, it should be no surprise, then, that he adopts a policy and platform and slogan that is all about "America first." It's all about us, America, the world's richest nation, probably, somehow either only emphasizing keeping our wealth or, more likely, growing and increasing that wealth.

Nothing about helping the less advantaged. Nothing of helping the poor, the staring, the sick, the needy. Just "America first!" To heck with anybody and everybody else. 

His and their healthcare plan, if you can call it that, is more of the same. It provides yet more tax cuts for those already-wealthy while dropping, it's estimated, 32 million Americans from their health insurance and so, health care.

Now that's sick.

So yes, "America first!"  The rest of you freeloaders, get busy. Get back to work. You think we made all this money by someone just giving it to us?

Christianity and Capitalism

People, in this nation, who consider themselves to be both Capitalists and Christians are only Capitalists.

Mark 10:21-22   Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said, "You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me." When he heard this, he was shocked and went away grieving, for he had many possessions.

Luke 12:16-21   Then he told them a parable: "The land of a rich man produced abundantly. And he thought to himself, 'What should I do, for I have no place to store my crops?' Then he said, 'I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, 'Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.' But God said to him, 'You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?' So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God."

And my personal favorite:

Matthew 19:24    Jesus said "Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God."

Think happy thoughts.

And enjoy your Sunday.

Link:  9 Jesus Quotes About The Poor

Quote of the Day -- On America and Capitalism

“Thus did a handful of rapacious citizens come to control all that was worth controlling in America. Thus was the savage and stupid and entirely inappropriate and unnecessary and humorless American class system created. Honest, industrious, peaceful citizens were classed as bloodsuckers, if they asked to be paid a living wage. And they saw that praise was reserved henceforth for those who devised means of getting paid enormously for committing crimes against which no laws had been passed. Thus the American dream turned belly up, turned green, bobbed to the scummy surface of cupidity unlimited, filled with gas, went bang in the noonday sun.”

― Kurt Vonnegut, God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater

Quote of the Day -- On Yesterday's House Health Care Debacle

How can you prescribe a cure for heartlessness? 

What a deplorable day for America. 

Perhaps the Senate will stop this assault; we will see. 

Meanwhile the congressional GOP, and its fundamentalists, are full of real bastards, replete with the hubris and conceits that blind white people of privilege. 

It’s the stuff of fiction. 

All of them are the pious and stunted Babbits who have shown up time after time in American history. In the 19th century, these ignoramus moralists used to tar and feather the wicked and clutch their skirts and get the vapors, when their real motive was fleecing someone. 

And now? 

Snake Oil comes in Red, White, and Blue with a GOP pin. 

Once again, the officiously comfortable afflict the poor, elderly and vulnerable, and proclaim their righteous glory and salvation while killing them, Alleluiah. No dunking chairs, stocks or nooses are being used here, and no one is quite being run out of town, but it's a bonfire of hubris. 

And of course, a rancid lecher like Trump and his administration target women and the poor. 

He is enabled in so many ways by those who obsess over the organ Trump is so fond of and yet horrified by, the organ which does all those things he and his coterie are so terribly, demonstrably, shamed by. Misogyny, racism and an orgy of white class privilege define today; NOT American ideals. 

This is ancient, orgiastic Rome on the Potomac. 

Or, leap ahead to the 17th century: You don't have to endorse everything HRC did in her campaign to be appalled by her burning at the stake by Comey and the rest with casual, partial, deadly “reveals". (Comey tosssed letter bombs.) 

So, friends, what comes next? 

Demonstrations, protests, and 2018. 

The Democrats may have been less than elegant today -- but really, who can blame a visceral reaction in the face of an Orwellian overload of cant? We're watching democracy be trampled, and decent people be trampled, and our way of life -- I don't think I'm exaggerating here -- be peeled off to appease and enrich the exalted triumphalists. 

They should start wearing togas. 

Staid, pleasant rhetoric doesn't cut it for me in these times. And unless we're really willing to do the hard work of connecting people, this ugliness dominates. I think we're on the cusp of a radical act: Democracy, and yanking it back in 2018 from the worst, most venal characters since the days of Vigilantes, boss rule and segregation and other nativist elements. 

Can we provide the cure for the diseased heart of the American power structure? 

For the heartlessness and greed which lie at the heart of Trumpism and the GOP? 

That's my definition of palliative care: vote them into oblivion. Whatever it takes, wherever we are, but link arms, and do not be silent.

--Jacki Lyden

Link:

Jacki Lyden - Wikipedia

Face it. We Like Money More

Click on the picture.  Read it.

Way to go, America

Check out the latest ranking of all the nations of the world and who does--and who doesn't--come in at the top. This is precisely what Republican and Right Wing policies and legislators and government and governments get us.

In a global ranking of 'best countries,' the United States drops to No. 7

The top 6 nations? 

Socialist. 

 All Socialist. 

This is what working together gets them. 

A little from the article.

A new ranking of the world's “best countries” is out — and the results don’t look good for America.

Switzerland takes top nation honors, according to the second annual “Best Countries” ranking from U.S. News & World Report, the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School and global brand consultants BAV Consulting. Just behind the Swiss are Canada and Britain, second and third, respectively.

The United States ends up in the seventh spot, just edging out Australia but also lagging Germany, Japan and Sweden.

Get that. Our neighbors to the North, the Canadians, are number two in the world. I expect most Americans would no way expect that.

Not only are we ranked in the 7th spot but we dropped 3 spots from the previous list. We are only seen as the “most powerful.” Given the absolutely foolish and fiscally irresponsible amount we spend on military and what we call defense, we ought to be most powerful.

Bet better, America. You're falling behind. And it's not because you're not spending boodles of money. It's just that you're foolishly spending far too much of it on what we consider "defense" and health care.

Link:

US Falls in US News Best Countries Rankings

Senator McCaskill, On the Trail of Our Crushing Health Care System

Proof positive, folks, of what the insanity of having our health care system tied to profit and profits does. Capitalism, at it's both worst and finest, and brought to light, thank goodness, by our own Senator Claire McCaskill. From yesterday's New York Times:


Senator Claire McCaskill, left, and Senator Susan Collins presented a 130-page report Wednesday on price gouging by prescription drug makers. CreditDrew Angerer for The New York Times

To Stop Price Spikes on Prescription Drugs, 

a Widening Radar

In the actual paper itself, it had a different headline and one that I like far better. It was

The Price of One Vial: $38000

A bit of the article:

Congressional reports can be a snooze. But that is not how I’d characterize Wednesday’s in-depth account of price gouging among prescription drug makers. The 130-page narrative prepared by the United States Senate Special Committee on Aging was juicy, detailing how four pharmaceutical companies have taken advantage of our health care system to enrich themselves and their executives, harming patients and taxpayers.

Susan Collins, a Republican from Maine who is chairwoman of the committee, and Claire McCaskill, a Democrat from Missouri who is its ranking member, published the report. But in a statement, they said their work was not finished and called for “continued efforts to stop bad actors who are acquiring drugs that have been off-patent for decades and driving up their prices solely because they can.”

The report focused on Retrophin, Rodelis Therapeutics, Turing Pharmaceuticals and an old favorite, Valeant Pharmaceuticals International. But these four companies are not alone in pursuing the pernicious price-hike business model, the committee noted. Other companies take the same approach, hurting taxpayers, patients and the health care system.

That’s for sure.

It is unclear where the Senate may set its sights next. But fresh Medicare data points to a candidate right in Ms. McCaskill’s backyard: St. Louis-based Mallinckrodt PLC. It makes H.P. Acthar Gel, a 1950s vintage, off-patent drug whose cost has rocketed from $40 a vial in 2001 to $38,000 today.

That Epi-pen episode, not that long ago was just one more example of this kind of, again, Capitalist gouging of the American public. Sick Americans, actually.

Senators McCaskill and Susan Collins (R-Maine) get credit for bringing this to light and for doing this examination. Seems the women have the empathy for the American public who are trying to afford our grossly obscene and immoral health care system. Men in Congress don't seem to be as interested in doing this so-important work.

Senator McCaskill gets additional kudos for this exploration since one of the companies they're looking into is based right here in Missouri, Mallinckrodt PLC.  That takes some guts since she no doubt risks some political capital--potential votes--in doing this though the article did mention one Senator Tim Scott (R-So. Carolina) did raise questions about this drug's pricing "over a year ago."

It's a fascinating, even, possibly important, very relevant, if depressing article. Virtually all adult Americans, paying for health care, should be aware of it. It shows just what the pharmaceutical companies are doing to us all and getting away with.

All in the name of health care.

And, again, that mighty, mighty Capitalism so many love so dearly.

Links:

Healthcare, Meet Capitalism

US Healthcare is an Embarrassment

Will Corporate Greed Destroy Our Healthcare System?

Health Care Problem Isn't Socialism, It's Capitalism

Healthcare Isn't A Free Market, It's A Giant Economic Scam