Maggie’s prelude:
As a mother, I can imagine how hungry the Lost Boys were in Neverland. I don’t care how long Peter fantasized about pies, cakes and ice creams. Tinkerbell probably wasn’t much of a cook, and even if she chose to mother the boys? I’m betting she stamped her foot down over no work and no eat.
It will be the law of the land here again one day. Soon, I hope.
Guest Post by David C. Stolinsky
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/12732/progressives-reality
- Many of these children in adult bodies were told, and actually believed, that better health care for everyone, including an unlimited number of illegal immigrants, would be attainable at a low cost, if only the government were to run it.
- Many children in adult bodies also seem not to know that Socialism failed in the Soviet Union, Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Romania, Albania, Bulgaria, China, North Korea, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, and Cuba, and is now failing in Venezuela. The irrational wish is evidently stronger than rational arithmetic.
- These victims of arrested emotional development seem to confuse good motives with good results. They want better health care for a greater number of people at a lesser cost; so they fantasize that they can achieve it without denying care to those who are too old, too sick or too expensive to receive it. They kind-heartedly want a “more equal distribution of wealth”; so they fantasize that they can maneuver it without penalizing and discouraging the productive members of society, while rewarding and encouraging the unproductive ones.
For more of the article and others, visit
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/12732/progressives-reality
If our (USA) form of capitalism leads to 5% of people holding 90% of all wealth and assets while the other 95% work all day long for a sandwich, will we be honest enough to say it doesn’t work either?
Wealth and income inequality, if it gets far enough out of whack, will always lead to very bad outcomes. The solution is what?
Wip, I do grasp what you are saying and agree there is a severe disconnect between the haves and the have-nots, the greater problem we face is that the have-nots expect an abstract entity called government to provide their solutions. The solution, as the they see it, is for the government to take what they want from the haves.
https://plus.maths.org/content/adam-smith-and-invisible-hand
“Our” form of capitalism doesn’t lead to the income inequality you cite as problematic. Our form of capitalism uses what Adam Smith called an “invisible hand” to coordinate the self-interests of all workers in order to further the interests of society. Most important to the function of the system (now called game theory) was, and is, moral social structure, which was required for the invisible hand mechanism to work efficiently.
“For example, property rights must be strong, and there must be widespread adherence to moral norms, such as prohibitions against theft and misrepresentation. Theft was, to Smith, the worst crime of all, even though a poor man stealing from a rich man may increase overall happiness. He even went so far as to say that the purpose of government is to defend the rich from the poor.”
Does that sound harsh to you? Not if you are rich and you see the FSA lining up outside your gate, sharpening their knives whilst they await the do-gooders with the battering ram to open your property to let them feed. And guess what? I don’t know if you consider yourself rich, poor, or middle class, WIP. But, I know there is a group of FSA recruits with their eye on what is yours should the opportunity arise for them to seize it. Because, it is only fair.
I’ll finish this comment with this paragraph from the page linked above. I look forward to continuing our discussion in a civil tone, WIP. And, if you decide to go nuclear, then I’m ready for that too. I took a 5000 level PoliSci class called The Politics of Inequality when I was younger and got and A, of course. It covered all the laws that enabled affirmative action and turned the ideal of a safety net for the poor into a way of life for the lazy. What you refer to above as wealth and income inequality is quite probably an intentional cycle of poverty LBJ’s Great Society designed to create a class of voters dependent on government from cradle to grave.
I learned everything I needed to know in that class about making shit up and claiming it was so just because it sounded fair. And, because it was a social science class, I learned how to design surveys and extract the data sets I needed to prove my points.
“It is clear why Smith says that moral norms are necessary for such a system to work – in order for exchange to proceed, contracts must be enforceable, people must have good access to information about the products and services available, and the rule of law must hold.”
The solution, WIP, is to restore the rule of law. We need to grasp there is a natural law intended to protect inalienable rights which will prevail if we fortify and buttress it against the do-gooder-wanna-be warriors. We do not have to accept the garbage packaged by the social scientists and community organizers. They are Peter Pan, promising all the sweets we can eat if we just elect them. Turn down the sweets and pick up your sword of truth.
We really do not have to be just sheep.
Cuz the hand was “invisible” twas easy to amputate the thumbs & let them eat (with ) phantom thumb pains. No hand.
Bull Moose, Roosevelt iteration 1, was ‘progressive’ reaction to robber barony so-called — & them stole their piles same as how done today: color of law.
Bleating then was pretty much as now. Bleaters voted then, as now. But they don’t ever bleat out….
Ah, the Bull Moose who gave us the League of Nations.
All rodes (hard, put up wet) lead to 20,000 leagues under the sea of blood & red ink…hang ten.
Can’t make the “hang ten” gesture with my invisible hands sans thumbs. The best I could do is have a distended pinky, fine for the Queen’s tea, not so good for catching the he’e nalu.
Ha. So longs you got feet & toes, board & sex wax, you don’t gotta symbol – you can surf. Or even that modified portapotty sailing contraption hanks rigged up to get off that island….
When I get chance, I’ll transcribe descriptions of “wealth inequality” in those late 19th & early 20th century robber baron days. Same as it ever was, is the tune.
yes, like water flowing underground
water flowing underground
Same as it ever was
Same as it ever was
AFTER THE 1873 panic…Jim Fisk (an exemplar, not the only, nor biggest, locust, color of law criminal) threw dinner parties where cigars were rolled in $100 bills, black pearls were stuffed into oysters, diamond bracelets were served as party favors. Pet dogs were leashed on diamond collars.
“Progressivism lent its name to the school of history writing that registered the decisive impact of economic forces on the course of the nation’s development. Wall Street in particular cast its shadow backward to the nation’s founding. Charles Beard’s “Economic Interpretation of the Constitution,” published just at the time of the Pujo hearings, was perhaps the most provocative work of “progressive” historiography. His controversial discovery that the founding fathers had been motivated to junk the Articles of Confederation & substitute the Constitution’s federalism by their desire to protect their investments in government securities was shocking. Yet it also seemed to make perfectly good sense. After all, everywhere people looked titans of finance, the contemporary incarnations of those 18-th century bondholders, seemed to be calling the shots from behind the scenes, dictating the direction of economic as well as political life: this was “morgaization” read backward, history as orchestrated from the Street, a cruel mockery of democracy. Beard despised Morgan & was appalled at the vulgarity of this gilded civilization…& never tired of recording its more freakish excesses: a private carriage & valet for a pet monkey, a pair of opera glasses costing $75,000, be-ribboned dogs driven for afternoon rides in the backseats of luxury Victorias, a full symphony orchestra hired to serenade a newborn.” ~ from “Every Man A Speculator”
Same as it ever was.
The Robber Barons were real. We call them Banksters, now.
Thanks for making the point.
Susceptibility to words. Labels. Holding structures, like septic tanks, & other corporate-type entities, erected by confidence men or taken over by hostile asset strippers for to hollow out, spider-style.
These “calls” don’t address the biggest part of the ice berg. So the titanic sails again, & again, & again. ∞
“Robber barons, banksters, founding fathers” – all the same thing. All the same people. Propped up by all the same people. The usual suspects are all Keyser Söze.
The commonalities that get it done, keep it done (no progress), are always the same, too. States, gov, tribes, gangs, color of law, obedience of the mass to authority.
Obediance? Naw…fascinated codependent “love.” Thank you, sir – may I please have another? The family of man is a tyranny ruled by its weakest members.
I brought up “free will” yesterday; no takers. Free will asserters gotta’ reconcile humanimal’s penchant for slavery – else STFU (of course, they won’t – they can’t). Until then – ah, sweet resolution, lol – FW is an oxymoron, like military intelligence, jumbo shrimp, & fiat money.
Pecupeeps be pretzel-y contortionists – & they can’t help themselves, do a damn thing about it. Downstream (of this) arguments, debates, rants & raves & yadda-yadda, are not to be taken seriously – these too are spider-sucked husks, hollow, reverb inside a bongo – & those noise-makers are just for fun & exercise & laughs.
Thronging together to locate responsibility as far away from home as possible, is most of it.
And all the “I want to believe” (UFO poster in Fox Mulder’s office) stuff is denial. Of reality. Of all the complicity that makes reality what it is. And, as said, of slave will – slaves, not so ironically (since it is just as hardwired as the rest), trumpeting their freedom.
c.1500, from Latin pecuniarius “pertaining to money,” from pecunia “money, property, wealth,” from pecu “cattle, flock,” from PIE root *peku- “wealth, movable property, livestock” (cf. Sanskrit pasu- “cattle,” Gothic faihu “money, fortune,” Old English feoh “cattle, money”).
Livestock was the measure of wealth in the ancient world. For a possible parallel sense development in Old English, see fee, and cf., evolving in the other direction, cattle. Cf. also Welsh tlws “jewel,” cognate with Irish tlus “cattle,” connected via notion of “valuable thing.”
“We have met the enemy and he is us.”
“Probably the most famous Pogo quotation is “We have met the enemy and he is us.” Perhaps more than any other words written by Kelly, it perfectly sums up his attitude towards the foibles of mankind and the nature of the human condition.
The quote was a parody of a message sent in 1813 from U.S. Navy Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry to Army General William Henry Harrison after his victory in the Battle of Lake Erie, stating, “We have met the enemy, and they are ours.” It first appeared in a lengthier form in “A Word to the Fore”, the foreword of the book The Pogo Papers, first published in 1953. Since the strips reprinted in Papers included the first appearances of Mole and Simple J. Malarkey, beginning Kelly’s attacks on McCarthyism, Kelly used the foreword to defend his actions:
Traces of nobility, gentleness and courage persist in all people, do what we will to stamp out the trend. So, too, do those characteristics which are ugly. It is just unfortunate that in the clumsy hands of a cartoonist all traits become ridiculous, leading to a certain amount of self-conscious expostulation and the desire to join battle. There is no need to sally forth, for it remains true that those things which make us human are, curiously enough, always close at hand. Resolve then, that on this very ground, with small flags waving and tinny blasts on tiny trumpets, we shall meet the enemy, and not only may he be ours, he may be us. Forward!
— Walt Kelly, June 1953
The finalized version of the quotation appeared in a 1970 anti-pollution poster for Earth Day and was repeated a year later in the daily strip. The slogan also served as the title for the last Pogo collection released before Kelly’s death in 1973, and of an environmentally themed animated short on which Kelly had started work, but did not finish due to ill health.
In 1998, OGPI (Okefenokee Glee & Perloo Incorporated, the corporation formed by the Kelly family to administer all things Pogo) dedicated a plaque in Waycross, Georgia, commemorating the quote.
Other quotes:
Perhaps the second best-known Walt Kelly quotation is one of Porky Pine’s philosophical observations: “Don’t take life so serious, son. It ain’t nohow permanent.” Kelly’s widow Selby re-used the line as a tribute, in a poignant daily strip that ran on Christmas Day, 1973 — two months after Kelly’s death.”
All Rhodes..
?
paved with fair to middling intentions.
What’s Rhode around rides back around. Too bad the round trip’s not quicker, tho. Karma skips generations all the time.
And forced education.
Good luck with that. It is said that what is yours is only what you can defend. The 5% use the government just as much as the FSA to get and keep what they want. Property rights? Yes, of course. So, as the population increases but the available land decreases, what say you? I believe that what is “right” will forever be in flux.
Mags, you are ex military, correct? What say you about our own government and the property rights of other nations? What level of morality did you reach? How much of my property have you seized for your own pension and endless healthcare? The government is the biggest thief on the planet ya know.
Btw, I live in one of the top 10 wealthiest areas of the country. Just sayin.
I just saw this and plan to return to discuss this further with you WIP. There is a serious mismanagement of LAND in this country and always has been. Most people do not realize how nasty that particular swamp (Southeast Missouri Bootheel Swamp pun intended) really is, but I do. And my Momma did. And her sister died young.
I will get some midnight chow, take a nice stroll up and down my big porch, pet my very large puppy and thank my husband again (I make it a point to do so several times daily) and settle in for a bit of typing and talking as I am able.
Okay, WIP. I just am going to drop this link here regarding the draining of a swamp. Ttust me… at one time, our federal government was quite capable of organizing an effort that would drain a swamp.
http://cdm.sos.mo.gov/cdm/landingpage/collection/msalrdd
Nick receives military retirement, but I do not receive a pension, except for this tiny little non-disabling thing that has been riding around in my gut for 20+ years. Well, it turned disabling, but only temporarily. How that works is this: I will file to have the VA pay the 20% not covered by Tricare. They will declare me disabled for 3 to 6 months, during which time I’ve had a variety of test run at VA hospitals in Poplar Bluff and St. Louis. So, if it goes as expected, they will take responsibility, pay the 20% and I’ll move on with my life. If this operation fixes my long term stomach problems, then I will call it good.
As for the endless health care? If I’d had to rely on VA health care, I would be dead. If I hadn’t supplemented our Tricare with company health insurance policies while I was working, I can’t imagine how my brain drain issues would have been paid for… The NeuroScience Institute did NOT accept Tricare patients. Fortunately, I’d insisted on taking the company’s healthcare (I didn’t like having a kid and relying on Tricare or military provided care, at that time). I remember the big argument we had because Nick felt we could manage with the doctors on base (he was still active then) but I really wanted to have that United Healthcare policy in pocket, since it was subsidized by the company with the nice boardroom on the Potomac. And, except for the one revision which landed me in the ICU with an externalized brain drain (how gross was that?) for 29 days until they figured out how to control the pressure internally (adult onset hydrocephalus is very rare and each case is unique and complex.) I’ve been very blessed in my ability to recuperate and rehabilitate and get back to working for a living. I’ve been told I could probably go full disability with my “condition” but I know what sits down that road. Becoming fully disabled. No thanks.
We literally saved my income, having lived on a MSgt’s pay until my son was in fourth grade. I returned to work (yes, government contract but via private hire) and Nick and I pledged that since we’d been living on a single income we would continue to do so. I admit we had a few fights over my desire to spend a BIT more and his to save every dime to get out of that stinking hellhole (Nick retired from USAF at 20, then hired on as an instructor teaching the job he’d done for 20.) Eventually, after graduating from journalism school and realizing I didn’t like journalists, I jumped to the technical writer/editor field (I simply changed my professional writing/editing credential into a technical one since I did indeed HAVE the background required. And then some.
While I have come to realize what I did as a government contractor really was a waste of time and money, I did make great effort to be a working cog in the wheel. I showed up to work and tried to figure out how to best perform my job as an independent analyst responsible to the Command Staff. and how to be a good tech writer. and how to be a consultant and every job I had I worked hard to work hard. It is just that the private contracts are really rather vague in many ways regarding what it is exactly that the government requires a private contractor to do. Corrupt? Beyond corrupt. Evil is the closest I can get to a term that explains how those high level executive wanna-be operate as “stewards of the public trust.”
Final comment WIP because I’m exhausted, but wanted to answer as best I can. I don’t like the idea of being on disability. I don’t consider it an option, but the truth of the matter is this: I will do so, if necessary, to pay the 20% copay required by our insurance policy. Do I wish the VA would just pay it and be done? Yes. Do they do anything in a simple straightforward way? No.
When I decided to join the MIC after college, I didn’t see it as the gravy train. I thought there really was potential for public/private partnership as I’d grown to understand it whilst getting all my education in journalism, polysci and history, and so on. The VA paid for that under the GI bill regulations, since I’d been separated due to medical issues. That “qualified” me for retraining and since it was that first botched operation after my son was born which has plagued me all these years, I don’t feel shame at having accepted the college tuition, book and monthly stipend that accompanies the GI bill. (I think it was about $500 monthly, which paid for gas and daycare two days a week.) But, I intended to support myself after graduation and I did though not in the role I’d hoped.
I believed I would be in a position to investigate and report on some issues in ways no one else could do, having had access to people at the base who knew stuff I could only begin to fathom. I knew good and well I had a unique perspective, having been part of the miltary, but that I viewed things differently than many people I knew. I thought I could explain to the world why there was so much fraud, waste and abuse and I hoped I was just clever enough to devise a way to expose the fraud out of it. The waste is an easy issue, once you get rid of the grift. It is the fraud and abuse that need to be killed.
But, no one was willing to stand up and call Fraud Fraud. I was silly enough to do so and within a very few years (I returned to work in 2003, having spread out four more years of college into ten… again, VA paying tuition, books and a monthly stipend during actual class attendance months), I was knee deep in the quagmire of unions, federal labor law abuse and all sorts of terrible behavior I wish I’d never seen. I was suspended from my job due to filing a grievance for a union guy with a heart condition, the union refused to back me, so I filed charges independently with the NLRB, bringing a NLRB rep to Oklahoma from DC and feeling like the whole damn world had gone bumfuck insane over a little training contract that seemed to be just too lucrative for some people to walk away from.
But, in 2009, walk away I did. And, except for the fact that the OB/gyn doctor who botched his diagnosis of me had been hired out of Kansas after losing his license to practice there, which reeks of malpractice but when you are military you are stuck with the doctor you are assigned. So… do I think the doctor should have paid for my care? Yes, because he misrepresented himself as a doctor, causing him to be fired after an investigation due to complaints by women like me and including me. But, at that time (and probably now) military doctors were not culpable for liability for malpractice.
I don’t think I’ve taken any of your money, wip. Nick retired with honors and worked hard to teach several new generations of computer technicians how to do their jobs and do them well. I wrote training materials and designed lesson plans for radar techs. While I think the USAF would have accepted training materials written by a pack of TBP monkeys as easily as mine, I rest easy knowing I tried hard to produce quality output, even when forced to be mediocre by company policy.
AWACS is its own little enclave in the USAF, organized as no other unit. Many platforms operate like this, but the AWACs crew, at least then, were indeed different. If you are one, you know of what I speaketh. Use the thumbs, I don’t need any more bad juju.
But right now, I need rest. I hope I addressed your questions, which are valid. In a world where the military industrial complex is king, the uniformed troops become wards of the state in many ways. I’ve seen it happen to far too many people, willing to sacrifice their integrity for a couple thousand dollars a month in disability. I’m sure John McCain was drawing a VA pension in addition to any other compensation he was entitled to as a POW. Trust me, I did the paperwork for my father’s POW package when he became “homebound.” It was an enormous wad of your money, but only those last 18 months of his life.
I will revisit tomorrow, maybe, but I’ve really overdone it tonight and have to bid you adieu.
Here four hours later, hoping to address the Land Management problems, but chilled and very much aware that the wound vac will be installed by the “real” wound nurse today and I am an idiot for deciding I would rather grit my teeth and bear the pain instead of asking for more pain pills.
You can bet one old US Navy Doctor (retired) will be chatting with my husband later today, especially if the homehealth service delays too long past noon.
WIP, I’m not afraid to speak truth to wips or powerful people, but all this discussion of all my endless medical care is wearying, especially now that I’ve let the damn opiate wear off and I have an open wound ready for husband to clean, prepare and pack with saline dressing awaiting wound nursery. I am working on a piece I’m titling Wound Care and Lessons Learned. I thought I would be “helpful” to the topic and explain how one “rips the bandage off the wound” and gets it clean and sealed within seconds, avoiding germs and bacteria from open air exposure and even had a clever analogy about hidden debt to uncover and expose in order to cauterize the flow of money, but now I have to rename the piece. I’m writing it offline in Word (see Stucky, I am indeed educable) so I don’t lose it midstream while changing horses.
Admin went and used “lessons learned” in his most excellent “Decades Later” review, so I will rename, but I’ll come up with something clever. Or not. Maybe the tadpole will be bored and help me come up with a catchy title. Zen and the art of wound care?
AGgin, let’s try to finish this discussion later, but please don’t suggest I’m avoiding the answer, taking cover under a surgical cut. I don’t run for cover unless I have to protect others. I’m about the bravest woman I know.
I’m sorry about your medical condition and I wish you well. The problems start with government and the banking syndicate not the FSA, imo.
We are very close in agreement, wip, about the government and banking institutions, but I am not willing to give the FSA a pass for their ignorance. At some point, most people can be taught to read and after reading, comprehension. My stepson, who called yesterday and got a big chuckle out of “Da Stepmom” being in his big baggy boxer shorts because the other two are far too skinny, has an IQ of less than 90… borderline normal. I married his father when he was 7… he stood up for Nick at the wedding. I thought it that important for him to be part of it all we drove all night long from Missouri to get him “home” to his lesbian mother’s house before we flew off to Cancun.
He and I read everything Theodor Geisel wrote and we played games like scrabble and clue and put puzzles together on rainy days. He wanted to live with us, but his mother wanted the child support dollars (who doesn’t?) so I admit I sometimes got irritated that I was taking care of him almost all week every week and if we told him he could NOT come over, he used the guilt card on both me and Nick. Which got him what he wanted, but created tension in his young life.
Well, after a real bad decision by his “mother” to allow him to quit school and get his GED at age 15, he finally is settled into a career path of sorts (age 33) andworks at jobs he can do and is willing to do just about anything that pays a wage, decent or not. He is a user of the HUD system (I was actually impressed at the conversation he held on the phone with the local social services office about the possibility of his transferring his monthly rent assistance to our local area but the job did not pan out at the quarry.) and has recently joined the ranks of nursing home kitchen staff/dishwasher/food server, where he seems to be quite happy. I think he finally feels like he is doing something of value, unlike when he’s worked at Casey’s General Store (famous for their pizza? Really? Who is the moran in charge of advertising for Casey’s?)
But really, he is happy because he has met and plans to marry a young woman who coaches autistic adults at a larger care facility outside Tulsa, close to Broken Arrow. I feel like I won the lottery… one son on the road to a level of career I’d only hoped possible; the other on the road to content and happy, cared for by a young woman who is literally TRAINED to see the value in my big-hearted good natured stepson.
here is an image of me and my boys just after the log home was built and we had our first family gathering here… the bright light behind me? My Poppa Grooch, hovering over us, watching and bringing angels.
The big burly guy is vinnie and I’m so grateful his life is finally on track. He has almost zero contact with his mother, who spent most of his teen years trying to get him declared incompetent mentally with herself the disability receiving parent. I was so proud when he told me “I’m not disabled. Sh…sh…sh… sure I have issues, but I don’t need a caregiver to handle my life!” (when vinnie gets angry he stutters, so most conversations we have about his mother are semi-coherent.)
He called middle of the night one time from Tulsa, kicked out age 19. I called a lady I’d worked with in USAF down there who picked him up, handed him a hundred bucks and took him to the bus station. He was at our house a day later.
Then, the real tension started because Vince had been drug all over the lesbian world by his mother and her partner and had seen a lot of things he shouldn’t have seen and I didn’t want my own son to know about any of it.
Poor little vinnie.
I’ll take it Lord. But, please send the wound nurse.
Asked and answered. All is well again in Narnia.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5W6JyF7br8
Admin, see I have learned patience. I realize WIP asks valid questions and I held my cool. Tell Stucky the grasshopper shows promise.
The 5% invent it, so as to use it to steal more than all the rest combined. TBTF (until, ultimately, they do) goes all the way back to beginning of “civilization” (incl the pedestalized “founding fathers”).
Running out of land is not an issue. Even if every inch were privately owned – as some inches now are pretended to be – so what? Titles to properties pretend to swap owners on pretend markets now. The “only” difference would be actual titles & markets.
The one, & only, underlying aversion (to put it mildly) to actual markets, actual titles to property (beginning with each person’s self-ownership) is the tides & waves of competition, the winds of change, & the lack of storm ports, that comes with it.
“Dynasty” wouldn’t even be a word were it not for dispensations from the color of law gods – because reality is much closer to the casino, ie, if you keep playing, the odds insist you lose, give your winnings “back.”
Fake reality, via color of law, seeks to stop the game (in fact to rig the game) so that “winnings” (theft) never go back; thus are dynasties created & maintained.
“Right” is not contingent. I don’t belong to you, you don’t belong to me. It’s that simple & the rest scales from that a priori.
Criminal flux doesn’t change the a priori or what extends from it.
Better: criminal motherfluxers, the bottom of the barrel, the dregs, don’t set the bar – despite being floated up by fawning dreglings, voters & such; all such are is stark contrast, the wrong that makes right obvious.
But you are right. That much luck does not reside in the humanimalsphere.
I think I did pretty well with this one almost a day ago, back when the world was just beginning to get foggy from the pain. Believe it or not, standing here at my kitchen island typing and walking around and around thinking help get me through. The human brain is an amazing tool. I’m glad I took the time and learned how to use mine.
Crony capitalism and corporatism as Mussolini referred to fascism is what we have.
Actually it is a hybrid of the above along witg socialism (graduated income tax system) do as we say aka share the debt burden and risk (losses like what happened with the Too Big To fail bullshit) while we concentrate more wealth into our hands and stamp out any future competition with gov’t regulations and subsidies.
As a potential candidate for recently deceased douchebagger of the year awards, Maurice Strong so honestly stated, ” I’m a capitalist in methodology and a socialist in ideology.”
Do as he and the elite say, not as they do.
A nice place to start is to get rid of the notion that corporations are individuals and ascribed the same rights as a living breathing natural person.
Corporations should not be allowed to own corporations or exist longer than was intended to complete some task on the government and people’s behalf like it was back in the day before the corporations began taking their cases to the Supreme court and made a mockery of the 14th amendment!
Is it any surprise that this issue leads us back to a piece of drivel called McCain-Feingold and the Clinton political machine which shut down the release of a documentary about Hillary.
“Brought by Citizens United, a nonprofit group, against the Federal Election Commission, the case presented a seemingly straightforward question: Do campaign finance restrictions on corporate spending apply to Citizen United’s plan to run advertisements for an anti-Hillary Clinton documentary at the peak of her 2008 presidential run??
They’d been chipping away at restrictions on campaign finance laws since Bill was getting blowjobs from interns, but the blow dealt to voters in Citizens’ United opened the door for the complete and total prostitution of our Congress Critters to corporate interests.
https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=122805666
Amen. A movie called “The Corporation” is a good view of how corporations were supposed to work.
WIP
If I could give you more thumbs up I would.
That documentary and the content it led me to along with the Money Masters documentary BLEW my MIND and launches me down more rabbit trails.
Now there you go again distracting me when I’m trying to address the earlier comment you made! Thankfully, I can just bookmark WIPs link.
“House of Cards” and the “Ascent of Money” are good also.
Another one that I found truly mind altering was
ENRON: the smartest guys in the room.
I forgot about “Money Masters”. Very good one.
Am getting ready to rest, WIP. I do plan to continue our discussion about VA fraud and misuse. However, before you try to say my father didn’t deserve the aid and attendance money from the VA the last couple years of his life, think about the reality of it all.
My father, a lowly crew chief known for his ability to get a PBY’a engine finely tuned enough to start on first attempt, was told by the pilot to man the gun because the cfrew didn’t have a gunner and the Japs were incoming to Dutch Harbor.
A half hour later, he sat on the wing of that PBY and watched the three-man raft floating away. Decided he better swim to the raft before any more time passed. and the men took turns hanging over the side until the wounded pilot died and there was room for all three.
Met a few people at a little interrogation camp called Ofuna and then shipped out to Zentsuji, where he spent the remainder of WWII. I’ve been told Louis Zamperini’s author/daughter? mentioned my father in the Unbroken book, but I went to so many of those POW gatherings and chatted with so many POWs who were nice to their kids (my father’s family are highbrow Germans and they KNOW they are smarter and better than others). So, it made me really sad when people would present me with opportunity to praise the man yet again for what was really just a coincidental series of unfortunate events that gave him the opportunity to regret that his children were just not quite what he’d wanted them to be.
I stood and gave the “perfect” eulogy at his casket, honored his name and his memory and MOVED on. So when I say McCain makes me sick for his hypocrisy, I know of what I speak.
http://military.wikia.com/wiki/Ōfuna_(Prisoner_of_War_Camp)
I have a handwritten letter from a Marine (to Dad) out of Alabama who was there at Zentsuji and who was put into a civilian prison after being caught stealing sugar. The letter, written with an obviously trembling hand, is a gaping raw story about the agony of loneliness so intense he would curse the japanese guards to make them angry enough to open the door and kick him. Because at least he knew then he was not alone.
The kicker? He ends the letter with “Semper Fi.”
So, hell yes. I’d done volunteer work at he VA office after the Murrah Building bombing and learned how to massage the paperwork. My father got all the Aid and Attendance and grant money you can imagine. He got angry at my mother and I for applying for it (behind his back! roll eyes here and realize the man had PTSD and couldn’t make a decent decision about his health care because he was stuck in a POW camp in Japan in his mind) but he sure did learn to love controlling all that money. I’d hoped it would make life good for us all. It proved that tripe about love of money as true after all.
Time to rest. My Nick is off getting me freshly squeezed lemonade because neither of us want to deal with the damn juicer right now.
So,WIP? what about “all” that grant money my father received for having been a POW for a few years in Japan. Did he steal that from you?
last night we were talking about FSA versus income inequality, but I offered up some rather detailed examples of how the military industrial complex is bleeding the country’s resources by promising rewards and pensions to veterans which it cannot afford to hand out.
Yet, they continue to hand them out like there is no tomorrow.
My father got that aid and attendance award for almost two years and, sigh, my mother, having lived her life as his wife NOT his caregiver, did NOT have the fortitude to tell him and my siblings that the money would be spent on CAREGIVERS. To preserve our father’s dignity, my mother’s sanity and the slimmest of hope we could get through the King of the POW trashtalkers dying in an ever diminishing world, I let my mother manipulate me into “getting that money” my father REFUSED to apply for on his own.
Then, he and she hoarded it in strange containers here there and all over, making me not only guilty of fraud, but hurt beyond belief when I found out my siblings thought I was trying to steal the family farm by “becoming” his POA. Ignorance is ignorance is ignorance.
But, yeah, I’m guilty in a weird good daughter sort of way of grabbing some of that VA pension money to help my own family out.
Of course, he really WAS a POW for more than 3 years and he did act honorably toward his POW brothers and helped several people out with some amazing tricks he learned while walking around the woods on snowy evenings.
So, tell me WIP… how do we address the enormous amount of unfunded liabilities the VA is able to slip past the CongressCritters because McShitstain was a HERO HERO HERO and deserved every bit of this nation’s gratitude for what he did.
My father was a unique individual with the character blend of Jed Clampett and Mark Twain. He could write enormous essays and letters. I have a 39 page double sided letter written to me in his fancy flowing handwriting which makes me wish people would at least LEARN cursive writing still.
But, enough was enough and he got to the point where only he had anything worthwhile to say and he was pretty sure the only reason I “got” that extra pension money for him was because I wanted it. My mother, after using my connections with people at the VA who trusted me, didn’t stand up to him and none of the grant dollars I swore would be used for his care were used for anything other than hoarding and buying favor from the “others.”
It does need to stop. the intentions of the special grant moneys to help homebound POWs were good ones, but it was a sad end to the relationship I once had with my father, who called me Little One. My baby goat is now named Little One instead of Magita. It is a better fit and she seems to understand.
[Wip
Good luck with that. It is said that what is yours is only what you can defend. The 5% use the government just as much as the FSA to get and keep what they want. Property rights? Yes, of course. So, as the population increases but the available land decreases, what say you? I believe that what is “right” will forever be in flux.
Mags, you are ex military, correct? What say you about our own government and the property rights of other nations? What level of morality did you reach? How much of my property have you seized for your own pension and endless healthcare? The government is the biggest thief on the planet ya know.
Btw, I live in one of the top 10 wealthiest areas of the country. Just sayin.
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Reply
September 3, 2018 10:11 pm]
So, WIP…here is my thought for discussion if you don’t mind answeringme. Do you think there is any hope of convincing the American people that theft is theft. No matter what social ill you plan to fix with the money stolen?
WIP, after your splendid bravado declaring me the recipient of all your hard earned money via the VA responsibility for my wound care and other service connected issues, I would have thought you would be eager to re-visit this comment thread to continue our discussion of my theft of YOUR money.
I realize you are busy and I truly respect your opinion, which is why I reached out to engage you in civil debate.
But, I’m listening to crickets here.
This question, WIP. Speak to me and let’s discuss this issue like civil human beings, hopefully showing a few noobes around here how intellectual discussion and debate is conducted amongst the truly informed minds here at TBP.
I’m being civil. I still don’t see a direct question so I’ll ramble a little. I am not a socialist, I believe I am a realist and pragmatist. I like solutions or at least the best solution possible. The government is the biggest thief on planet earth. Any and all money they take from me and give to someone else is theft. The government is out of control. We do not have a department of defense, it is the department of offense and theft. Government employees of all kinds have been elevated above those they serve. It is bo longer a service. It is a grab bag. My solution is quite long winded. I may or may not share, entirely anyway. But it has to do with property tax and decentralization.
Not. Gonna. Happen. Soooo, there is no solution other than use the government for your own ends. The 5% as well as the 95%. It’s a jungle out there.
It was just a few comments up. We had discussed the very real problem of promising money to people for things they may or may not have contributed to society’s good… giving big cash awards to POWs like my father for turning his home into a private nursing home with a grant of $68,900 to turn his existing home into a place where he could be cared for, at government expense, for the rest of his life. (about two years after I’d gotten the grant for him against his will)
So, knowing full well he was not some heroic icon like Shitstain McCain, I did indeed apply for and use my considerable background connections to get that grant money in place to use for his care. He was a POW too and according to the laws governing the whole fiaso, entitled to that grant money. Also entitled to the more than five thousand dollars MONTHLY for payment for caregivers in the last days of his life. All that in addition to the 100% disability pension awarded just because he was a POW and asked for it. Nice of them, wasn’t it? I’ll just mention the wheelchair accessible van grant which was never used.
So, yes… all that money just handed to Veterans for getting hurt while on the job.
Here is my question to you copied from above and now I hope to have a civil debate about this wall of unfunded liabilities promised to a whole army of veterans who know they are entitled to your money.
Do you think there is any hope of convincing the American people that theft is theft. That stealing your money to provide my father a wetroom just like I saw in the nursing home where my Poppa Grooch died was WRONG. Even though Shitstain got all those VA bennies and all the other vets get them and even me… sitting here with my open wound being vacuumed by a thousand dollar vacuum paid for by, gasp, the VA because a doctor botched surgery on me while I was active duty.
Since it is obvious the social ill/income inequality can only be addressed by redistributing your wealth, whose wealth should the VA grab to fix this problem?
Thanks for jumping right in there with the Earth to Maggie thing. That was nice to see. It made me chuckle and start filing my claws.
Ok, that was less than 8 paragraphs so I guess I have to answer.
The MIC is a propaganda machine. I assume our father’s and grandfather’s wars were different than ours but most assuredly not near as much as we have been programmed to believe (Smedley Butler and all.). I wouldn’t have near as much issue with veterans pay/benefits if I was benefiting as well. What am I getting for my contribution to the MIC? Serious question. Why do I keep having my freedoms taken away from me? If our military is working for me, what the fuck is going on? What’s going on is that, once again, the 5% are using the government for their own ends. How do you square the fact that the MIC (5%) are working towards controlling the entire planet? The 5% want to control the entire planet and you focus on the FSA? There are only 2 solutions for the FSA. 1) give them money to stay calm and not go around swinging cactuses and burning cars (once again, the 5% pay them to do this. Soros and all.) 2) Make work. Give them work to do.
The 5% don’t fucking care about humanity because if they did the money spent on the MIC could be used in many more moral ways. When I say the 5%, I’m talking about the worldwide 5%. They all think the same. Domination and control. For the people, of course. SMFH.
Shitstain McCain? Don’t disrespect your father by putting him in the same conversation. Have you ever asked yourself why the MIC is all voluntary now?
Mags, I think you are badass living in, what looks like, the 2nd redoubt. The Ozarks(?) must be a pretty cool place to be. You are doing almost exactly as I wish to be doing some day. But, fuck me, my wife is in some type of mental nirvana and we are not on the same page. This is not a romantic callout, I’m just saying, I need a woman more like what I envision you are.
In the spirit of keeping this to a real civil debate and discussion (and thanks, WIP, for stepping up and engaging me in discussion. I truly do like discussing the issues and seeing if we can’t find a way to turn the spigot OFF.)
You asked:
I wouldn’t have near as much issue with veterans pay/benefits if I was benefiting as well. What am I getting for my contribution to the MIC?
My response in less than 8 paragraphs:
The spiel, or elevator speech as the big smarmy corporate executives put it, is that both the housing grant of $68,900 and the $12,800 wheelchair accessible van grant, are simply compensation from a grateful nation (of CongressCritters) for the suffering my father endured at the hands of his Japanese captors during WorldWarII.
In that light, you must accept that what you “got” from my father’s ending up a POW was a big bottle of Freedom. Use it sparingly.
Now, I will return to your reply for the next direct debate question and let you address my response. Compensation from a grateful nation.
The “Freedom Bottle” is empty. What am I getting now? Was he used by the 5%?
I never disparaged your father, his personal motives or his sacrifice. What about the motives and sacrifice millions of mothers and fathers made by having their sons used by the 5% to advance their agendas? Why don’t they “get” the same or similar compensation? I can’t think of a bigger sacrifice than giving up your own child to the slaughterhouse. Even God sent his own son. How about the millions of MIC units that get never ending benefits when they never even got a scratch let alone had a leg blown off? We are to fall on the ground groveling with gratitude? Not me.
“Some folks are born made to wave the flag. Oh, they’re red, white and blue. And when the band plays Hail to the Chief boy they point the cannon right at you Lord. It ain’t me, it ain’t me lord, I ain’t no Senators son no no.”
See what I mean, WIP? You and I have shared concerns. I am NOT proud of “getting” all that grant money for my father now. I realize that the idea that “just because Shitstain McCain was entitled to all those benefits, then so should my Dad be entitled” was a road better not travelled. But, like those folks who rush in where angels know better than to tread, I signed the forms and grabbed a pretty impressive wad of cash for dear old daddy, don’t you think?
And before JQ’s collection of pastors jump on me about honoring my father, please realize the man was 6’2″ and ruled his home like Santini on steroids. We respected and honored him until some of us could play that game no more. One of my proudest moments is the one where I told him that I had heard the story about how the incompetent people at the hospital were trying to kill him only about a thousand times and I completely understood their position.
He let his own ego take over and tell him that the world owed him something because he had been a POW. I had a friend without a leg who couldn’t get the care he deserved and I’d “accepted” that grant money on my father’s behalf, making me guilty of fraud.
It is time to come clean and demand my redemption.
Then, you asked:
How do you square the fact that the MIC (5%) are working towards controlling the entire planet? The 5% want to control the entire planet and you focus on the FSA?
It can only be squared if you are willing to admit that control of the entire planet gives them control of every stinking moment of our lives. The Free Shit Army are just their guide on bearers. If you understand military formation, WIP, you should realize the Guide On Bearer is the dude with the flag/standard who is providing the directional element. By using the plight of the FSA to inspire the social justice warriors (its not fair its not fair its not fair gimme gimme gimme), the MIC and other powerful forces will continue smash our faces into the Politics of Community Minded Meaning until Tyranny finally convinces us that it is better to just hand over what they want and hope they leave us alone now.
WIP, as I said…take a few moments when you have time and familiarize yourself with the Politics of Meaning topic I referenced above. I think a full discussion between you and I about this ONE little self-adulating press release (she actually had it released because she was “grieving” for her father. What a slimebitch I thought she was then, now and forever more.
I didn’t mean to “focus” on the FSA. They are just the first wave.
Oh, and just to let you know. That rambling “gee I just can’t stay on topic” crap was a ruse designed to lead idiots down a path I wanted to leave them sitting on. I have a powerful mind and I know how to use it.
I also know how to mislead, distract and decimate.
Let’s you and I discuss this and see if we can’t find shared ground to start the rebuild of community in a world that demands communism.
Please review this document and perhaps we can discuss how this tripe from the Social Science League of America accepted this lamebrain’s Politics of Meaning without putting up one bit of resistance.
http://archive.birdhouse.org/words/max/hillary.html
The Post-Mortem on Hillary Clinton’s Politics of Meaning
By Max Green
Rallying for community spirit in America is sort of like cheering loudly for your home baseball team to finish second in the pennant race. Those who favor a shift from individualism to community, “communitarians” they are called, do so while upholding and, indeed, giving preferred position to individual rights, the very thing they oppose. Individualism is our primary language; as such, communitarians honor America’s history of individual rights and the pursuit of private property. They would point out, however, that it’s not our only tradition, and that today Americans have forgotten a “biblical and republican tradition” which is increasingly important in tempering the noxious effects of self-interest run rampant.
Communitarians believe Americans must fight to reappropriate this second tradition even though, in the end, public spirit will usually be overpowered.
At the time, I was on “half-days”, pregnant and in some discomfort from having been misdiagnosed and maltreated by a military doctor hired in the OB/GYN at Tinker whose name was Rich and whose perverse medical notions eventually inspired a pack of us “gals” to file a complaint and get him fired. Fired, yes. Accountable? No.
My main gripe that started this debate was about the FSA. The government created the FSA. The government even employs psychiatrists and other mental fidgeters to work against the people. Propaganda. Everything starts as the fault of government now, imo. Yes, even the FSA. What makes up the government? People do. What people? Citizens, for the most part. Which of them make the biggest difference and wield the most power? The 5%, that’s who.
I’m out because I’d bet you and I agree on everything else.
God bless you Mags. I hope you are doing better. I really do.???
The author also missed about 3/4ths of the African continent.
Wip, Ask a socialist and they will talk about eradicating income disparity aka: proles/bourgeois society, but almost all socialist countries are dictatorships in the end with a few govt elites and shared misery and impoverishment for the masses ( with essentially no middle class except govt drone workers and the military enforcers.)
I guess in the Peter Pan mind, equal poverty is still equality.
The socialists are quick to yell, “what about Sweden!”. The truth however is that Sweden has a 5-party system, is not truly socialist and up until a decade ago was a homogenous society of pretty much all white Swedes. Now that Sweden has added just a 4% immigrant mix to the equation their healthcare is looking at month-long waits for a primary care physician, cutbacks in social services, year waits for critical surgeries, exploding violent crime and a rape epidemic.
Same with old Bernie’s state of Vermont–the second whitest state in the Union. When you live isolated in lily-white Vermont, it is easy to vote for the likes of Sanders and keep the Peter Pan derangement going for longer. I bet if a few hundred thousand relocations from Camden, Baltimore, Philly and dying Detroit were shipped to Vermont, the guilt-ridden whites there would be singing a different tune.
Universal healthcare isn’t impossible. The government spending alone is enough to fully fund a UK-style American NHS. But it can’t be combined with open borders, as Europe is busy demonstrating. The same is true of other social aid programs – as should be obvious to everyone.
I think decent health care is possible IF we make people responsible for their own health. Obesity and its related diseases, diabetes, heart attack, stroke, arthritis, etc. suck up a huge portion of healthcare dollars. Build education into the system for the overweight and penalties for continuing on that path.
KAD
Be careful what you wish for
Sounds like what I have suggested the future holds foe all of us in this one world technodictatorship…
Everyone will get a social worker to tell you ehat you should buy and what and when to eat it…along with your I.E.P. individualized education plan will be an individualized health and exercise plan.
Hahaha…please Nanny State take care of us, we don’t deserve to make our own choices….freedom is overrated !
Puerto Rico discussed this in 2015
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/feb/10/puerto-rico-considers-plan-fine-parents-obese-children
I have known some children who were morbidly, sadly, obese. I would have loved to “fine” their parents, but sadly, their parents were even more morbidly obese. The problem with the Nanny State is that it “provides” everything one needs to live a bare and miserable existence while providing absolutely no incentive for those trapped in the cycle of poverty to escape that cycle.
So, you think taxing soda by the ounce is a good idea?
No, unless the goal of taxing it by the ounce is to eliminate a few of the companies who make it.
As with the raising of the taxes on cigarettes, I’m sure many have cut back on how many they buy, but they are still buying them…
Cigarettes have been proven to cause lung cancer yet are still sold because there would be an uproar if they were banned or made illegal at this time…besides
We saw how well prohibition worked for organized crime and alcohol.
Aaron Russo told us what the future would be like…obamacare mandate that forced all medical records online was the foundation for the system featured in the video below:
I am of the opinion of Dennis Learys character from the prophetic movie “Demolition Man”
1 minute of Truth
When government attempts to tell us what we should or shouldn’t buy to be a “good” citizen in the eyes of the law all kinds of abuses and unintended consequences will develop. Just like the bullshit individual mandate to force a natural person to purchase a financial instrument, health insurance, otherwise be considered a criminal in the eyes of the government
There you go trying to get me to read another interesting comment when I am supposed to be inert and still. Sigh… I will be back Plato… a good point to discuss indeed. I skimmed it and will think about it after I eat my potatoes, gravy and cheesecake.
Good grief, Plato! You didn’t have to downvote me. I had to lay down and get some rest! Doctor’s orders. I can bring a note.
Twasnt me doin the down votin.
Some TBPers down vote me on principle, doesn’t matter what I say and I relish every bit of it.
badge of honor (or orneriness?)
Probably a lil bit of both along with a few brewskys
I plan to share my story about the current state of our health care system from first-hand experience. Since we are military retired, we pay the quarterly premium for the only Tricare plan available in our region and we do/did the research and learned where to go for the best care. When asked at the hospital why we chose the route we took, I told the doctor bluntly, “Because they tried to kill me at the other hospital and I decided I wouldn’t go back.” At the midnight hour, Nick said “where to?” and I said “not there” and we drove the additional 50 miles to get me to quality care in network. Universal healthcare is possible, sure. But it really doesn’t want to help you get well. Depending upon the “system” for information is insane.
So, no, it is not impossible. But, it is dangerous. If it weren’t for our extensive background in managing our (my) healthcare crises for a couple of decades, I probably would not be sitting here typing this. We view every healthcare worker we meet as a potential threat until they prove us wrong. And that has made all the difference.
In today’s Managed Care drug rep peddling health care environment, it seems you must be your own
patient advocate
Otherwise run the risk that comes with not knowing!
Scary indeed!
Don’t worry, the doctors are experts and have taken the Hippocratic oath so of course they wouldn’t suggest a course of action that would do more harm than good.
Either way, they still get paid.
And, again, Plato. Did you give our careful acceptance of new health care givers a thumbs DOWN? I will catch up on comments, then return to our discussion above, which I had to leave to rest.
this was a joke, plato. My beeper alerts me it is time to walk the porch.
Only two people wish I’d died. I’m winning friends and making strides here Admin.
It’s way out of wack not because the working class were treated like slaves but because the ZOG always run the money machine to enrich and empower themselves. The 1913 Charter of the Federal Reserve (Rothschild) Bank must be ended and Money Management returned to the US Treasury; and the CBO and GAO perform regular audits. The Pigs should all leave America for Israel or Switzerland. Trump is trying to end Red Tape and bring jobs back. The Food industries should see huge growth as the Earth Cools. Unions need to provide honest work for their pay. Welfare must be trimmed down to care for widows and orphans; it cannot continue (much less growing) as a massive destructive FSA. The Youth must be taught that it takes work and production to grow families, economies and nations; Cuba, Zimbabwe, Venezuela etc were robbing “Peter” and that System always goes broke and fails.
Robert, there’s no fixing a one-way trajectory. It’s gotta crash and burn before we can rebuild it.
Gerold, were it not so. Sigh.
The horde is too large, especially now that the Congress Critters found a way to avoid addressing the refugee/immigrant influx. They wouldn’t want to have to face that most detestable of consequences: ACCOUNTABILITY
Here is one of the source documents from one of the Gatestone source documents:
A wonderful article… I have bookmarked it for reading later.
I am enjoying the debate, folks. However, my time upright is restricted. While my college professor and old friend told me she made one deadline while recovering from breast cancer by having her computer screen placed above her face while she lay flat on her back typing, I ain’t that dedicated. I am, however, passionate about this topic and hope to continue the discussion later.
Give me a couple hours to rest and recuperate.
By the way, while I am not sharing details of my illness, I will share this bit of medical advice from the doctor to make the ladies of TBP laugh.
I am under doctor’s orders to eat all the mashed potatoes, butter and sour cream and cheese I want, coupled with the admonition to use my abdominal muscles as little as possible.
And, let me tell you something. Using them as little as possible is hard. So, using them a LITTLE feel like I’ve done 100 leg lifts, old school gym style.
(Nick has cheerfully* fashioned hand grips around the place to assist me in standing from a sitting position and other great acrobatic feats performed right here on the ground floor of my log home!)
*more like resignedly, but I give the man credit for being able to switch gears midstream. (That is a private family joke, whose meaning originated in a little log rental cabin on the banks of the Illinois River, where Mom was recovering from brain drain revision #2 and son was put in charge of pulling Mom’s raft around the water’s edge to keep my shaved, scary, stapled head shaded throughout the day while Dad took an hour or two to go fishing and really relax. A heavy request for a ten-year-old, but that boy can lift.
“should” or “shouldn’t”
“Don’t you think” ( rhetorical)
Are you sure you posted on the correct thread? I do not understand your rhetorical comment.
I agree with him on nothing is free, if you dont work you dont eat.
(Unless your family love you and is alive, or you beg. Merciful just societies even help their poor and “drunkards” . That is the natural state of a truly free society imo?)
His need to put in some narrative anti socialist and “failing” state bs i dismiss.
Anyone with eyes and a internet connection know what country actually is the true failed socialist state.
IF to fight against an empire stealing every resource you have and kill your family means you live in “a failed socialist regime” it is only his feelz and personal truth or worse, not facts. I will never trust a narrative pusher from the empire tho.
(I liked your prelude Maggie?)
Ah, are you actually from/in Norway? Nick and I were USAF and travelled to Iceland on many occasions, and to NATO regions. I actually did a plane swap for a NATO exercise held in Norway, but didn’t get to stay over. Those were rare and high visibility exercises and although I had many very good trips bestowed on me, that two week trip to Norway eluded my grasp.
So, I do understand your concern for the poor and the drunkards, because that is a very Scandinavian sentiment. (Pippi Longstocking, the works of Hans Christian Anderson, OMG… Nordic Fairy Tales!) I better just post this before I launch into the epic saga of how much I love Nordic epic saga.
For all I know, your last name is Norway and you are from Iowa.
And I am going to reread the article, trying to find where you saw “failed socialist regime.” [Edit: Is it this? Many children in adult bodies also seem not to know that Socialism failed in the Soviet Union, Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Romania, Albania, Bulgaria, China, North Korea, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, and Cuba, and is now failing in Venezuela.] If so, then I’m about ready to discuss it. I’d read it without realizing the term Socialism is different in auld Scandinavia. It has been a while since I did the political science paper on the relationship between Iceland and other Nordic countries of northeaster Europe. Mostly, it was about fishing. If you are from Norway, that will make you laugh. If you are from Iowa, you are long gone.
I was very good friends with a young woman from the Netherlands whilst in college at OU. Her name was Monica Geibels and she was there on an international Violin Scholarship. I told everyone she was my Dutch fiddle playing friend, but I went to her graduate recital/performance and I cried it was so stunningly beautiful. I helped her get through the History of Greece, which was dry and very hard for her to get for some reason. I think you might understand unless you ARE P. Norway from Iowa.
She spoke English but only by some Dutch to French to English multi-layer conversion that caused her an inability to grasp nuance and subtle meaning. It was all or nothing with Monica, so trying to understand the history and political background of Greece translated through all those translators in her brilliant musical mind caused a disconnect for her ability to understand. I spoke with the professor about her (we visited his office together) and since I had an associates degree from the CCAF for being an academic classroom and awacs flight instructor (martha here folks; nick is fine), I asked him if he couldn’t provide me with his exam questions so that I might help her grasp the political and philosophical principles she needed to get for the class. Her scholarship was contingent upon her receiving at least a B in every single class and I knew I could do it. He agreed and I ended up helping him make some improvements on his tests because, for gods sake perfessor, you need a damn editor.
So, I’ll check back later and see if you are a cornshucker from Iowa. If you are not, then ignore my crass hillbilly humor and tell me a bit about yourself.
To “fix” healthcare (a ridiculously inverted nomenclature) requires a few simple tweaks that could be implemented within a week or two. That, of course, is not the point of government, insurance, nor the “healthcare” industry.
End insurance. We don’t have insurance to provide people with food, air, water or shelter, so why would we have it for medical treatment? Everyone carries the burden of their own usage. If the cost is higher, take out a loan, work out a payment schedule, like a mortgage. Your benefit, your responsibility. It would take care of all the malingerers and hypochondriacs that clog the system and your medical payment credit score would limit your options if you choose to be a deadbeat. Similarly people could create medical thrifts- something like mutual aid societies where people could contribute of their own free will and be qualified to draw from that thrift after application and where everyone that belongs receives a measured share. There is no compulsory participation required by the government to join and their is no guarantee of compensation beyond the decisions of the thrift, but ample incentive on the part of the organization to be fair or face going out of business.
End Medicare and Medicaid. The government has no business being in the medical industry. Period. Imagine the cost savings and tax cuts possible.
Posted pricing should be a legal requirement. You don’t go into a restaurant and order a meal without knowing the price, and you don’t buy a house without a selling price, how is it possible that one of the largest sectors of the economy is free to charge whatever they like without giving the purchaser and idea of it’s cost beforehand?
Sliding price scale based on physical condition. A morbidly obese patient pays a full price for treatment while a physically fit individual pays a discounted rate. This encourages people to look after themselves and think about their health rather than passing their bad choices on to the backs of those who maintain their physical condition. The current system is a 180 degree turn from common sense.
Make those responsible for injury to others responsible for the cost of care. You punch someone in the mouth and knock out a tooth, you pay their dental bill. You get drunk and run over a pedestrian, you pay off their medical bills. That one is a no-brainer; passing those kinds of costs off onto the general population through insurance is sick joke, no pun intended.
Anyone past the age of life expectancy is exempt from medical care unless they can pay for it up front and in full. Human beings have a lifespan, spending the bulk of “healthcare” costs on those who are terminal and beyond their natural lifespan is wasteful, absurd and flies in the face of common sense. Similarly and end of life triage should be developed for those diseases and afflictions that have a mortality rate higher than say, 75%. A thirty year old diagnosed with pancreatic cancer is almost certainly going to die, spending vast sums to attempt to forestall the inevitable makes little sense. That may seem heartless, but it’s a decision rooted in practicality rather than fantasy.
The very idea that the entire population of a given body of land has a financial obligation to every other inhabitant regardless of their status as a citizen, their behavior and lifestyle choices that directly impact their health, and their probability of recovery is nonsense- look at the costs of that system as it exists today- but rewards the very behaviors and choices that have the greatest chance of compromising the health of those individuals and punishes those who look after their health and well being by forcing them to subsidize the ones who do not.
Or we could do to the pharmaceutical and medical industry what we do to the dairy industry- set a price cap. No matter what your cost for R&D or providing a service, let the government tell you what you can sell it for and either get big or get out.
To fix the fix is in, or not to be, that is the question. The rhetorical question. Cuz humanimal wears carnivore dentures. Fixodented in.
Ww2. “War economy” distraction, & doubling down on on all those interwar malinvestments that “depressed” the previously ransacked economy…which is to say even more authoritarian-controlled than usual.
Wage & price controls. Employers couldn’t bid for workers the usual way. So they offered bennies, like health insurance. They bought at wholesale, offered at retail, as part of the compensation “package.” Don’t forget all those interlocked directorships, handjobbing back\forth.
Property. Markets. Competiton. That’s it.
Why that’s not it: States. Citizens. The madding dash for special treatment. Which ain’t free just because you joined a country club. Nuthin’s free. So your club clubs you, others, to “give you” whatever the bribes are.
If only, Hardscrabble. Oy vey!!
Thank you so much for your thoughtful response. I sent you an email, desperate to have some real syrup with my toast and eggs. (limiting baking soda right now, so the pancakes will wait. I just want some syrup and my poor husband can’t bear to pay so much money for it. He no longer gripes about your gallon of ambrosia All natural fruit preserves and local honey and maple syrup are on the “YES!” list.) I asked my dear husband to get me some organic maple syrup at the store and the continued effort of his to get me maple syrup (I have maple flavored syrup, sugar free maple flavored syrup, some pineapple and maple sauce (he searched the ice cream condiment wall for that one, I bet) and a little glass jugof something called Sugah which claims to have no high fructose corn syrup or other refined sugars in it, but what the hell is it?
Nick sucks at the grocery store thing, knows it and gets angry as soon as I ask for something because he knows he doesn’t know where to find it and he is too damn proud and independent to ask. Anticipating my non-critical “Thank you for trying” coming when he comes in yet again with some bizarre NOT maple syrup item is hell on earth for the man, but to save his dignity, he cannot look up at the top shelf above the big plasticined infused jugs of high fructose corn syrup and other corn sugars where the prices go above ten dollars per small 6 oz jug or jar. He will never actually admit that I was right and he is just too damn cheap to buy real maple syrup at the grocery store so shut up and pay the farmer for the jug.
And, in spite of my belief the Amish truly make their syrup the proper way too, it really is not as light, crisp and buttery tasting as that fine bottle of light amber syrup you sent to me. I will never be able to enjoy life fully again until a bottle of your wonderful amber syrup arrives on my doorstep.
You know my son cut his teeth on the humor of Brian Regan, being gullible enough not once but TWICE to be hauled to see him, first at Rose State College Auditorium for a “college preparation lecture” one Saturday afternoon when he would rather have been with his gaming buddies house, but snapping a photo of his jaw drop when Brian Regan sauntered onto the stage to give the “lecture.”
Happy 17th birthday was a Saturday matinee excursion to the local campus theater that the three of us, unbreakable and unbroken, will never forget. And Brian has no idea what a very special role he played.
The next show we surprised him with was at the Civic Center downtown OKC. Brian had a pretty large following for a time, and it wasn’t as big a surprise. Joey thought we were seeing David Copperfield. So, when Brian walked out there, my son, the rocket scientist, said “you guys did it again.”