According to Thom
Hartman we are never going to have a conversation about the messed up health
care system in America and we’re never going to have a discussion about
campaign finance reform in America because the media is controlled by these
corporate interests. There was an issue
raised on Norman Goldman or somewhere where this called with the “false
equivalency” argument accused Norm of being a hypocrite because “You say you
are against money raising and yet here you are money raising” for some liberal cause. No.
The issue isn’t “money raising”.
Quite the contrary, it’s the fact that the RICH people don’t HAVE to
“raise money” any more like the rest of us who need money to survive either as
a person or an organization. NOBODY is
making the argument that having money is of Zero Value in society today. The argument is that - - certain
conservatives say “The supreme court makes decisions that may be unpopular but
uphold the rights of all Americans, even those whose beliefs are unpopular,
such as flag burning”. Here is a false
equivalency of “Flag Burning” equals “Corporations are people”. Personally - - if you follow my stuff from
25 years ago- - I was against the Flag Burning ruling too in 1989 or
whenever. Because conduct isn’t speech,
which is the same argument Hartman is making today on campaign finance. You can’t just speak words and have a flag
spontaneously catch fire, unless you’re Carrie or somebody. Flag burning is conduct, and someone pointed
out that if you had a bonfire of ten thousand American flags you were going to
set on fire, the city officials would be after you for burning without a
permit. And here is a case of a
different kind of “burning”. It’s burning
down democracy. And leave it to a Black
caller (voice) to point out that the constitution guarentees each American an
equal voice on our speech. But if you
have a billion dollars, your voice is a lot more “equal” than someone on
welfare. Sure, if each American were
given a check for a hundred million dollars, it would be a different ball
game. For one- - Free Speech TV would
not need multi week fund drives to raise a few houndred thousand dollars. I could just write out a check for ten times
that amount, and Free Speech wouldn’t have to bother. This is how it is with rich people. They don’t “fund raise” any more. Just prove to Shelden Addelson that you’re
the biggest political whore in town willing to say anything- - and you don’t
have to man the phones with a staff for hours on end, freeing up a lot of
time. Hartman is right. Money is power. But once again - - so is the media, and if
you cannot discuss certain political ideas in the corporate media- - one should
be able to make the argument to the Federal Communacations Commission that they
are aiding and abetting people who want to repress fair and unbiased free
speech. Rotsa Ruck on that!
There is a disturbing
new reality about drugs and pricing I wasn’t aware of till just this
morning. Many would wonder “If these big
name drugs have become so prohibitive in cost, why not just go with a generic
drug?” The answer may be in part because
according to Hartman “The big drug companies have bought out the generic drug
makers”. In other words, why stay in
business when the most important thing is to chase the all mighty dollar and
when someone waves a wad of cash in front of you, you go for it, like a dog
goes for a bone. But also note that this
is just another sign of the illiquidity of our finances and markets today. Just as we mentioned with stock market “cornering”
as of yesterday, here is a case where Big Money can actually suppress the free
markets. And these smaller drug
companies a little moral backbone to stand up to the big drug cartels and not
be bought out. Because it’s society as a
whole that will suffer harm. If you have
a higher moral calling you should not just think of your own financial welfare. But the medical industry has whored itself
out. Because this Presbyterian hospital
in Dallas is noted even in Dallas as one of the poorer hospitals in terms of “dumping
patients” being a private hospital. If
course their attitude doesn’t speak well for the Presbyterian church at
large. I have had my own experiences
with the Presbyterian church I won’t go into.
They are supposed to be a nonprofit corporation but this year they
received a “eight percent funds increase” and last year it was seven percent “extra
funds” or whatever. So the distinction
is really a mockery, as we all saw with the whole phoney IRS “scandal” last
year. By the way I think you can make a
case in the New Testament for people being found guilty by God of crimes they
haven’t “technically” committed. For
instance- - had I petitioned my local Presbytry to have a certain Pastor kicked
out of the church- - and supposed I had failed big time- and called a bunch of
names on top of that and I was left more hateful than ever of the Church. You may say “But that never happened because
you were too much the moral coward- - to even RISK such a thing happening”. OK.
But do you know what it says in Matthew 25? Jesus said that in the last day he could
come upon the goats, those who rejected him, and they will say to him “When did
we ever see you hungry or naked or sick and in prison and did not visit you?” And Jesus said to them that they were as
Guilty of having committed the sin as though they did. Because Jesus knew their hearts, their state
of mine- - and just because Jesus himself never gave them an “opportunity” to
commit this particular sin- - - their attitude would still be revealed in how
they treated others. So the Presbyterian
Church’s attitude is revealed in how it treats “others” such as the nursing
staff, putting responsibility on them
that others should be accountable for.
And of course if we believe FOX news the President is personally
responsible for everything. (Selah)
Let’s talk about some
of these political debates and stay in Texas for the moment. Because this republican running against Wendy
Davis is named Abott, and he is disabled because a big tree fell on him in a
flook accident and he successfully sued and won ten million dollars. Under the theme of “No good deed goes
unpunished” Abott spent the rest of his legal carrier making it harder for poor
people, mal practice victims, rape victims, and the like- - from suing. And now he thinks he can ride this tide of
hard-ass attitude for the disposed right into the governor’s mansion. The add that the Wendy Davis camp is running
right now pretty well spells it out. I
wouldn’t vote for this Abott guy for dog catcher. But there are other bizarre debates like in
Colorado where Udall, the democrat, is facing off with Gardener, the Republican
for US Senate. And it seems Gardener was
nailed on this bill he’d sponsored- - the moderator raised the issue- - of
Gardener favoring a law which would make any woman getting an abortion
responsible for murder and able to be arrested, because the fetus is a
person. Gardener didn’t like that light
shining on him. What he did was accuse
Udall of lacking credibility apparently because he’d changed his views on gay
marriage to the pervailent view of tolerance now, as if the two points were
connected in the least. But we see this ‘issue
shifting” guimick used in Florida. Rick
Scott used the issue of Charlie Christ wanting a fan blowing on him during the
debate with Rick Scott because it was apparently warm in the studio. The smartest thing to do would be to drop the
issue if the opponent makes a big stink about it. But even though Christ is right on all of the
issues and Rick Scott stinks to high heaven on all of the issues- all the media
could talk about- - and Twitter about apparently - - is the “fan incident”. But Rick Scott used this same bugaboo four
years ago in 2010, only that time an aid of his opponent texted him on his
Black Berry - - and Rick Scott made an issue of it then- - and that year the
great cell phone incident was all the voters of Florida remembered- - and it
turned the tide to Rick Scott after the polls had been tied. We now come to Kentucky where Mitch Mc
Connell now says he is all in favor of “Kynnect”, which is the Kentucky version
of the Affordable Care Act. Mc Connell
wants this “web site” to continue- - “and get other funding” but he still wants
to repeal Obama Care. Mc Connell’s
political stance here is untenable- - and you’d think the voters would see
through the “love the sweet but hate the calories” type stance of the Senator
on health care.
And then we come to a
new Police law that it catching on like wild fire. It seems that if the police THINK that your
money may be used to commit a crime they can conthiscate it. This law was put in to end racketeering and
big drug gangs and the like. But now
they are using this “take the money and then don’t prosecute” law on ordinary people. They said over eighty percent of these funds
conthiscations- - ie “thefts” were never
prosecuted, but the cops still didn’t return the money. Or you have to battle for years in court to
get the money returned and it’s just not worth the time and expense. But cops have it pretty easy these days
because they can buy things like Margerita mixing machines- - and the
like. Of course the for profit prison business is
going great guns now. And Law
Enforcement often admits that law enforcement had quotas of parking tickets and
other revenue raisers to meet. And if I’m
not mistaken they even have their quotas of shake-downs of suspects to be met. It dawns on me that pardoning a rich person
for a multitude of white collar crimes, often before he’s even tried- - is not
at all the same as a Black person in prison for twenty years wrongly convicted
of a crime gets “pardoned’ and he’s lost twenty years of his life, but the rich
person forfeits nothing. Of course - -
on Days of our Lives- - Father Eric will forgive the Crime Family daughter who
drugs and “rapes” him – and causes him to lose the priesthood- - but the woman
whose testimony was instrumental in his being cleared of all charges- - Nicole-
- well, Father Eric says he’ll NEVER forgive her because her sin is too
unforgivable”. I guess it’s a means of
reason only religious people understand.
This
is Thursday October 16, 2014 and “Cold Turkey” Day in the Romulan Empire and I
still don’t know what that day celebrates but only that it started in
1970. I can only assume it’s either
connected with the Lennon single, or else something to do with Canadian
Thanksgiving aftermath. But it’s also
“The Great Shake-out” which took place at 10:06 this morning. Meanwhile Nancy Warwick is predicting the end
of the world tomorrow. God told
her. I have the Hartman sound on
now. We are in rose background. Bill is out of the room. Dora is back and out serving coffee. I haven’t seen her around in a while. I had two cups. It seems I haven’t written down any notes in
the past day. Yesterday for lunch we had
an extra generous chef’s salad with rich corn chowder - - and a banana for
desert. Nancy Beale had to take one of
these ‘horse capsule” things of potassium and she had Christian cut it in half
for her. I again asked Christian about
my Resperidol, and again he said that I was taking the one milligram dosage,
even though there is that tiny pill fragment in the evening, which might be a
different drug entirely. I count throw in some Cosmic stuff right here because we've done that amazingly little recently, but it will keep for another day. This particular blog is pretty good for future reading down to previous postings.
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