Categories
People Political Weblogging

Not one word

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

I am trying not to focus too much on Iraq because frankly the situation over in that country makes me so angry that I want to break something. But it’s hard to ignore the reports about our abuse of Iraqi prisoners in the very prison we have used as a model for our justification of overthrowing Saddam Hussein. This abuse is not rumor but has been proven to be fact and pretending that it doesn’t exist does no one any good.

But that’s just what’s happening among our warblogging compatriots. They cannot see a way to spin this into being the fault of terrorists or the Iraqi people themselves, so they just pretend–like Sinclair in the previous post about the soldiers who have died in Iraq–that it doesn’t exist.

For instance, nary a word at Glenn Reynolds weblog that I can see. That wouldn’t have bothered me much, or surprised me really, except that he also chose this particular time to run with a posting about our forces being too soft in Iraq. And then he has the unmitigated gall to say that there is a ‘consensus’ among webloggers that we all somehow agree with this, that we are too soft in Iraq.

Over 10,000 Iraqi have died in this little ‘rightous’ war of yours, Reynolds. Over 600 in Fallujah, alone. When you say ‘consensus among webloggers’ you’re saying you speak for all of us, and that we want more people dead in Iraq.

Other pundits might like to take the more intellectual route on this issue in refuting you, and more power to them. My response is more simple and direct: fuck you, Reynolds.

Beg pardon. What I meant to say is: Instafuck you, Reynolds.

Categories
Media Political

Two and two equals zero

Thanks to Sheila Lennan I found out that the local St. Louis ABC affiliate is one of the few that will not be telecasting Ted Koppel’s April 30th Nightline show, featuring him reading the names of the service people killed in Iraq to this point.

I called the station twice, and was put through to the comment line, to listen to a prepared talk by Tom Tiptom, who is some kind of station manager. I found it antagonistic and pugnacious–an attitude I would expect more from an amateur warblogging site rather than a professional news organization. In addition, I found the arguments presented to be confusing.

According to Mr. Tiptom, the reason that Sinclair is not telecasting the show is because Koppel is not also reading the names of the victims of the New York terrorist attack, and all terrorist attacks since. This, then, makes this a political statement.

All I could think of when I heard this was: huh?

What does the terrorist attacks on 9/11 have to do with the reading of the names of the soldiers who have been killed in Iraq? How can Ted Koppel’s reading of the names be seen as ‘political’, and the stations choosing not to broadcast the show not be seen as equally political?

Are we going to now spend the next several months before the election in this country denying that people are being killed in Iraq, because to acknowledge this is somehow political? Are we literally not going to show broadcasts that demonstrate the costs of our actions? Are we going to pretend that all is well in Iraq and that because of our actions there, terrorism is being held in check, when it’s been proven that there was no connection between Iraq and the attacks in New York?

When I responded on the comment line, I was angry. I am still angry. If the station had chosen to make a comment disavowing the nature of Koppel’s broadcast as political, but then showed it anyway, I would have respected that. And the station. But by not showing the broadcast, they’ve removed my right to make my own opinion about the broadcast, Koppel’s right to be heard, and these soldiers’ right to be remembered, separate from any political movement.

Worst though is that the station thinks people in St. Louis are so stupid that we can’t form our own opinions about the political nature of this broadcast, and therefore we must be protected from ourselves. Or perhaps what the station is saying is that we can’t be permitted to form our own opinions, outside of those it seeks to foster. And that doesn’t make me angry–it scares me.

Just calling the stations doesn’t seem to be enough. What I’m thinking of doing instead is driving down to where the station is located, and during the time when Nightline would normally be broadcast, standing outside the station and yelling each of the service people’s names, myself. Empty gesture? Perhaps. But better than empty complacency.

updateLetter from Senator McCain to Sinclair.

Categories
Political

I opt for herbs

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

In imperial Vietnam, when a scholar could not in conscience continue his life at court he would petition the emperor for permission to return to his home village, where he would raise medicinal herbs & teach the local boys their basic Han characters & the rudiments of Confucian thought.

It’s uncanny but Joseph Duemer has reflected much of what is on my mind today about the situation in Iraq. Like him, I too am reduced to …digusted silence, and would prefer to just putter around my photos and my walks and the writing that remains uniquely me.

I feel at times, though, that I’m letting down those who need our support by showing flowers when children are dying. But I think what matters more is that you hold the dead in your heart, and their memories in your head, and you don’t forget, especially when it’s time to show you haven’t forgotten.

If I felt some satisfaction in the writing, I would continue, and gladly. But all it does is leave me frustrated, and instead of eloquence, I am reduced either to rhetoric, thinly disguised, or bitch slapping war bloggers. As for these fine folk, left or right, see me in a couple of years, and we’ll see who remembers Atrios or Reynolds, Kos, or LGF. The most eloquent of us cannot continue saying the same thing, over and over again, before even the most dogmatic goes mad.

I cannot convince anyone to change their mind, or feel the horror of a world out of control if they truly believe all is well. I cannot make the dehumanization of the worker force by corporate interests that much more clear; the degradation of the environment that much more frightening; the isolation of those made different, or the pain we’ve inflicted on those harmed that much more compelling; nor will I be able to hasten Bush’s departure from the White House more quickly.

For now, I opt for herbs.

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Categories
Political

Not so blind not so led

The clinic I’ve been going to this last month is a very efficient organization. Labs and X-Rays are handled in the basement, people get checked in at the main door, and each suite of doctor’s has a waiting room with a person seated at a desk to handle all the patient insurance accounts.

The woman who manages the accounts for my doctors, we’ll call her the Receptionist for want of a better word, is a very friendly woman, probably in her early 50’s. As she works on the paperwork, she chats with people in the room, and I don’t think she does it as part of her job–I think she just likes people.

This week while I waited to see the doctor, there was just her, an older guy in his 60’s, and myself in the room. She and he were chatting about paperwork and how it worked when they started talking about the upcoming changes to Medicare based on the recent bill passage in Congress.

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The Patient was curious about the Medicare changes because though he still works part-time and has full insurance through his company. he has Medicare as secondary coverage. The Receptionist talked about how people are having to register but there’s a lot of confusion about how it works. The Patient asked when the changes would go into effect and she didn’t know for sure. At that point, tired of rubbing my back against the wall to get at the itch, I mentioned that there is a real possibility that the bill would have to be returned to Congress as unworkable because there was some serious concerns about both the costs and the benefits.

(I was hesitant to give even a mild criticism of anything that was related to Bush because unlike other parts of the country, you never know if you’re going to run into a strong pro-Bush person in Missouri.)

The Receptionist agreed emphatically that the bill did need re-working, it was an obvious political move on the part of Bush. The Patient said that was to be expected from Bush, he hadn’t done anything right since he started office. The Receptionist then pointed out how lousy the economy has been, and how another company in town just laid off workers. The Patient agreed and talked about the price of gasoline, and how Bush’s foreign policy obviously hasn’t helped us at the pumps. Gas was now up to 1.79 a gallon.

I mentioned that it was 1.59 now, and the Patient replied he’d have to drive around his car until it was empty enough to fill.

*laughter*

The Receptionist gave as her opinion that the reason why gas goes up and down so much is so that when it does go down to something like 1.59 a gallon, we think we’re getting a deal because it’s not 1.79; forgetting that last year it was a 1.29 a gallon. And all those boys in Iraq were dying for nothing, if we thought we’d get better deals on gas because of this war.

The Patient asked if we had seen the news this weekend about all those poor people killed in Iraq–soldiers and civilians. The Receptionist and I both agreed, and he continued with there was no reason for us to go over there by ourselves, without the UN. No rush either, and now look where we’re at.

The Receptionist replied with how we’re now in the worst debt in history, and there was no end to the war in Iraq in sight.

*solemn head shaking*

The Patient mentioned he was voting for Kerry, and didn’t understand why anyone else would. The Receptionist agreed. I mentioned how Bush still has a lot of support with the morality folks. The Patient turned in his chair, faced me, and said, “I think that some issues are best left between a woman and her doctor and the government shouldn’t intervene.”

At that point the nurse called me in to see the doctor.

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Categories
Political

The “I got mine” libertarians

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

I read in comments associated with another weblog this weekend that some Libertarian’s don’t believe that everyone has the right to basic health care in this country. I will admit I was surprised by this. I had assumed that we are all agreed that health care should be accessible to all people, but disagreed in how it would be provided. I wasn’t aware that there was a group of Libertarians who believe that basic health care is not a right.

When Ashcroft was diagnosed with gallbladder problems a couple of weeks ago, I was reminded of my own problems with a large (undiagnosed) gallstone that went untreated for close to two years until I had insurance and could have my gallbladder removed. As I watched all the fuss being made over Ashcroft, I thought about how different the situation would be if he was uninsured, and even considered writing something about this.

Luckily, Dan Frosch at AlterNet did a much better job than I could have:

While it’s almost impossible to figure out the exact figure on Ashcroft’s bill, one can estimate. Five days in an ICU unit alone at Providence Hospital in Washington, for example, would run up to $30,000. And then there’s the laparoscopic gall bladder surgery and the five days in recovery – which could cost an additional $28,000 (according to Fairview University Medical Center in Minneapolis). But there are still all the expert doctors who’ve visited him daily and have their own separate charges. That price tag might run Ashcroft as much as $5000 for the ten days he’s in the hospital, says Dr. Quentin Young, PNHP’s National Coordinator and former Director of Medicine at Cook County Hospital. Using such rough estimates, Ashcroft is told he’ll have to fork over at least $63,000.

According to this article, over 18,000 people die every year because they don’t get the medical attention they need until it’s too late. Hard to believe when this country prides itself on the medical care it provides to other nations.

What didn’t surprise me about the conversation is how ill-informed these people were about the state of health care in this country. There were assumptions that the only people who don’t have health care were poor; that anyone needing health care could get this at some ‘local charity clinic’; that COBRA coverage was available to everyone; that only five percent of the American people don’t have health care coverage (it’s closer to 20%).

There was also the usual discussion about socialized medicine being inefficient.
I have to laugh at this because my bill for my dental surgery I had in the beginning of December still hasn’t been paid, this with the ‘efficient private care sytem’ we so enjoy in the United States.

What happened is the company I have COBRA through changed providers unexpectedly, and I had the surgery three days after the switch. When the doctor put in the claim, it was denied because there was …a mixup in the paperwork at the time. When I got the bill from the doctor with the note that the claim was denied, I called the insurance company and they reprocessed the claim. About a month later I got a cc letter from the company asking my doctor for x-rays; the claim wouldn’t be processed until they had the x-rays. I called the doctor, and they said the x-rays had been sent…with the original claim. Most likely tossed out, too, by the insurance company.

At this moment, almost four months later, the bill still hasn’t been paid while the Catch 22 game is played between the insurance company and the doctor, and now I’m being told by the doctor that I’ll most likely have to pay the bill, even though I was insured, because it is ..my problem.

Now, what was that about the efficiency of socialized medicine?

Returning to the comments from this weekend, in the end the discussion kept coming back to a belief that no one has a right to basic health care.

I am reminded of the earliest form of home insurance in this country. Homes so insured had metal plaques nailed to the sides of the homes, and if they were to catch fire, the subscription-funded fire department would put out the fire. However, if the house was not insured, it would burn down to the ground white the department watched.

If we believe that basic health care is not a right, then basic fire protection and other emergency services shouldn’t be either. Seems fair to me, and just think how much those Libertarians would save on local taxes.

(Thanks to Feministe for pointer to the story).