You remember Norma Rae, although her name was Crystal Lee. Sally Field played the Union Organizer from Burlington North Carolina in 1979 and won an academy award for the performance. Ms. Field who presumably is financially secure, is still with us but Crystal Lee, who wasn't, isn't. She got brain cancer she couldn't afford to treat, she had to battle her insurance company to live up to its contractual obligation, they stalled and she died Last Friday.
Sarah Palin is right, Death Panels are real and the Health Insurance companies all have them, practicing 'delay and deny' tactics that resulted -- intentionally -- in the death of the 68 year old Crystal Lee Sutton. Her insurance company interfered between her and her doctor, she couldn't afford Chemo on her own and some employee likely got a bonus for saving the company money.
Like Most Republican arguments, the Death Panel idea illustrates the principle of projective accusation. if your president was guilty of more lies than any other in history, you start accusing the opposition of lying and if you're lucky you can find a mote in his eye and gleefully use it to deny the giant sequoia in your own. Thus to protect the insurance companies that profit by interfering in the doctor-patient relationship, dictate and deny treatment and let people die unnecessarily they accuse a system designed to stop it of doing the same thing. Americans are stupid enough to buy it.
Death Panels are real and death panels are inevitable because corporations are beholden to their stockholders, not to their insured clients. Actual panels of actual people get salaries and bonuses for obfuscating and delaying claims until it's too late, or for scouring your life for some unreported case of acne or the flu to justify denying your cancer claim. A large part of your premiums go, in fact, to pay for these Death Panels and to keep the stockholders happy.
Perhaps someone will chime in here and deny it. I hope so because I'm dying to say You Lie! I can't wait to tell the inevitable troll who will insist that just like Public Schools, Public Libraries, National parks and the National Guard, Government claims administration is Socialism! You lie!
Some will read and agree and move on, some will read and shake their head and exclaim, "...thats a shame..."
ReplyDeleteMost will not read, and won't think a thing about it, as they visit their favorite blogs and get their morning heaping serving of stupidity...
All they need to know is that Obama is black, liberal, and a Socialist and off to the fields they go to toil finding comfort from their fears in the fact that they are not alone...
Its easier than thinking for themselves...
The irony of losing Crystal Lee in this way is not lost on me. She struggled to win decent wages and working conditions in much the same way we are now struggling to win decent health care. Then as now, the villains are corporations who don't give a damn about the health and welfare of working Americans.
ReplyDeleteDoes this story anger me? Absolutely! If we don't win this one, there will be class warfare ... and deservedly so!
Octy,
ReplyDeleteCalm down and don't let your emotions run so freely.
If you look at the electoral map you will note that most of the poor in the south are white and conservative. There anger is directed at blacks and the belief that government benefits blacks more than whites.
The concept of patron clientism is also alive and well in this region and as such poor whites are more apt to support the status quo than they are to gamble it all and risk losing the benefits they perceive they have vis a vis others because of their 'connections' to 'patrons.'
The whole concept of supply side economics where those who supply the investment is the one who creates jobs is nothing more than patron clientism.
In patron clientism poor people are more apt to attack and turn on each other to protect their benefits than they are to turn on their patrons.
You are constantly commenting on the fact that people vote against their own self interests...that would be true if people perceived that they had interests that could be met outside the patron client relationship...but the reality is poeple vote to support the interests of their patrons because they believe in the concept of trickle down and you scratch my back and I will scratch yours...
Never saw much of a labor movement in the south did you? Never saw much social unrest in the south did you? Reality is the civil rights movement would not have achieved what it did without the northern 'aigitators"
Look at the issue of CEO compensation? Where are the tea baggers on that one? Where is the grass roots movement on that one?
Look at how easy it is for the reactionary right to forgive adultery, perversion, and self enrichment on the part of their elected officials?
But say something intelligent and thought provoking and you are a commie and they want to run you out of town...
We will slip into corporatist/democratic fuedalism before we ever see anything resembling a class war...
TAO: "Calm down and don't let your emotions run so freely ... Never saw much of a labor movement in the south did you? ... We will slip into corporatist/democratic fuedalism before we ever see anything resembling a class war ..."
ReplyDeleteYou ignore some historical facts. Crystal Lee WAS a union organizer in the south ,,, North Carolina to be exact. Most of the ILGWU shops were southern shops. After merging with the ACTWU, the resulting needle trades union, UNITE, was still centered mainly in the south until those factories transferred overseas.
If you think corporate feudalism is the natural outcome of current events, then you have your head in sand.
Aren't we already part of a feudal state? I don't see any kind of class warfare other than the kind of bickering and slandering and pandering by the political parties. I doubt that there will be workers militias or a Stockbroker insurgency.
ReplyDeleteSorry, but my crystal ball sees corporate feudalism with immortal corporations rather than mortal barons and Dukes. If we're lucky they'll let us wear their coats of arms or logos on our clothes and we'll love them for it.
Captain: "Aren't we already part of a feudal state?"
ReplyDeletePerhaps, but shall we accept this state of corporate hegemony without resistance? Does this mean (O)CT(O)PUS is trying to raise class consciousness and promote sedition? You betcha! If the tea baggers call me a "socialist," why not go all the way!
You have to be the change that you envision for the world...
ReplyDeleteBut before you do you might need to read this:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/bloomberg/20090914/pl_bloomberg/ayd_ojxpghii
It might help to start painting everything as corporate socialism and or corporate welfare...
Even Teddy Roosevelt ideas were slandered as being socialist and even Communist.
ReplyDeleteIt's the modern equivalent of "heretic" and not much more informative. I like to talk about socialist schools, socialist radio, socialist post offices, socialist libraries as often as possible because it's hard to explain why these publicly funded things are evil.
But deep down, I know it's hopeless anyway. We still can't accept the science of 150 years ago - we're a backward, ignorant, superstitious and hostile lot.
TAO, with respect to your link, did you read this part? The part that said:
ReplyDelete"Still, he said, the public would come to embrace programs put in place.
“Whatever bill gets out of this, once it gets in front of the people,” he said, “they’ll want to continue it.” He cited the controversy over Medicare’s creation. Today, he said, Americans “would kill if it was taken away.”
TAO: "It might help to start painting everything as corporate socialism and or corporate welfare ..."
Have you been reading my posts of late? Like these, for example:
http://swashzone.blogspot.com/2009/09/happy-unhappy-labor-day-national-banana.html
http://swashzone.blogspot.com/2009/08/exposing-puppet-masters-behind-puppets.html
http://swashzone.blogspot.com/2009/08/healthcare-reform-matters-of-life-and.html
What do you think I have been doing? Or are you naturally tendentious?
"naturally tendentious" such as like being naturally biased?
ReplyDeleteSURE!
So, obviously, if that was meant as some sort of put down I can only assume that you humor yourself to be what? Objective?
Non biased?
Or ABOVE bias?
How about unread ... as if I haven't been doing my damnest to expose examples of corporate socialism and corporate welfare. Sheesh!
ReplyDeleteThen why not say, "don't you read my posts?" because according to the dictionary "tendentious" means biased (Merriam Webster Dictionary: "marked by a tendency in favor of a particular point of view : biased.")
ReplyDeleteI read everything you post and I also research things that I do not understand.
So, then your next expose should be on corporate income taxes, especially focussing on the companies that make up the S&P 500....
There, now THAT should really annoy you.