Heck of a job

"Which patients should get a share of limited resources, and who decides? What does it mean to do the greatest good for the greatest number, and does that end justify all means? Where is the line between appropriate comfort care and mercy killing? How, if at all, should doctors and nurses be held accountable for their actions in the most desperate of circumstances, especially when their government fails them?"

These are the questions asked in the New York Times Magazine article about New Orleans' Memorial Hospital. You'll remember that, abandoned and without power with high winds and rising water making evacuation impossible, some patients, perhaps as many as 17 were given lethal doses of morphine and sedatives as an alternative to letting them suffer and die of heat, dehydration, starvation, drowning or from the failure of the machines keeping them alive. While the times appears to be asking questions about personal responsibility, the timing makes it vulnerable to being boarded and looted.

Rightly suspecting the imminent hijacking of this story by anti-health care propagandists, Hanna Rosin writes "pre-emptively" at Andrew Sullivan's The Daily Dish that

"this story shows the opposite of what would happen under government mandated health care reform. The reason the hospital staff got stuck having to make all these terrible decisions is because they were abandoned, and on their own. There were no established procedures, no regulations, no guidelines. There was just them, exhausted and overwhelmed, and a few dozen very ill patients unhooked from their respirators."

Would an HMO or a privately owned, for-profit facility have been better prepared or better able to get National Guard helicopters to the scene ipso facto? We can expect to hear that this is a logical conclusion. It's not.

I'm sure Rosin is right and that this, like any other pieces of flotsam that can be dragged out of the flood and into the argument will be used to show that the Government is poison and corporations are the antidote. In fact, that the government was unable to help in this circumstance owes much to the lack of planning and disdain for taking responsibility that has followed upon decades of Reagan-inspired sabotage of our institutions. Since there never really has been real evidence for the Reagan theorem that Government is the problem because it is the government and Government has no solutions and Government should give way to private, for profit management, the Republican controlled administrations have been forced to manufacture a scenario by insuring impotence, corruption and incompetence in almost all areas, including most obviously FEMA.

The Dish quotes an unidentified staff member as saying:

"This was totally against every fiber in my body.” But “we were abandoned by the government, we were abandoned by Tenet, and clearly nobody was going to take care of these people in their dying moments.”

and I'm sure this will be picked up on as though the failure is intrinsic to government itself and not to a government that was Rightie-rigged and Brownie led against adequate response.

Regardless of whether the euthanized patients could have been evacuated or should have been left "in God's hands" none of this makes a valid argument against public health care, but we're not used to validity or even honesty in this fight and this struggle to make us believe that the government of the people, by the people should be sold off and all decisions about individual life, liberty and pursuit of happiness be determined by how much profit it makes for someone else.

Beck and the Burning Bag

Remember the Halloween trick with the flaming bag of dog crap? Eons of experience show that leaving it alone is the best policy because you can't stamp it out without getting shit all over your porch and on your shoes. It's an apt comparison, I think, to what's happening with Glenn Beck and the boycott of his incoherent hate-fests. Despite Fox having lost some 4 dozen sponsors, his ratings seem to be going up.

The LA Times tells us that according to his latest Nielsen data, he had 2.81 million viewers Monday, his third-largest audience ever on Fox. It didn't hurt that Sarah Palin, the de facto spokeswoman for the Stupid wing of the Hate Party, gave him a plug and it's good evidence that Homo Sapiens bashing has become the national sport.

OK, that's one person per hundred of population, but it's more shit than I want on my porch, thanks.

Hateful twits, hateful tweets

". . . and forgetting long passed mischiefs, we mercifully preserve their bones and piss not on their ashes."

-Thomas Browne-

Unless of course the vitriol of human meanness courses through your veins, in which case you don your rabid Pit Bull apparel and gnaw on what bones can be found. I've rarely seen such hate, even at a time like this where hate is the entire foundation of American Conservative politics. As fast as the greasy fingers can type, the Internet begins to fill with accusations of murder, treason and more formless forms of evil known as "liberalism." There is no restraint in Mudville now that Ted Kennedy has struck out.

Too many blogs, too many twits, too many accusations to dignify with a reply, but one thing is held in common: the tribe that represents the worst traits of our remote ancestors feels victimized and therefore free from any obligation to decency. They lost an election, their worship of Feudal Corporatism, equal rights and civic responsibility is being challenged - at last - and their true values finally revealed. It's as ugly as it's ever been.

I recently and reluctantly signed up for Twitter. I should have stayed at home. the necessity to keep it all idiotically short as brought out more unadorned ugliness than one finds on blogs.

"Kennedy was a special pile of human excrement,”

rages the ridiculous Breitbart

“IF a GOP possesses 1/100 of human failings of T. Kennedy he/she is TOAST,”

is another one of his staggering lies with endless examples to prove it false. Malkin laughs that he didn't go to France for his treatment as though it were funny or actually meant something, others follow suite and Chappaquiddick references spurt like pus from the septic boil of Republic sentiment; from those who would and do accept any act of Presidential treason, dishonesty and manslaughter -- and yes drunken driving. How many people died because George W. Bush was President? No, Kennedy was a “villain,” “a big ass motherf@#$er,” a “duplicitous bastard” and a “prick.”

Pissing on Kennedy's ashes is just a small part of the psychotic rage that fills the void once filled by Conservatives. A conservative by nature does not respond to disagreement by using chemical, biological or nuclear weapons, that's what a madman does, that's what Mr. Breitbart is, that's what Ms. Malkin is and this is what the end of everything sounds like.

NIGHT OF THE UNRELENTING DEADHEADS

Somewhere in cyberspace last night, I was egregiously misquoted. My words were twisted, turned upside down, pulled inside out. You guessed it: It came from the fringes. How or why or who did this, I shall spare you the details. Perhaps I should say nothing from this day forward, leave behind nothing that can be misread or miscarried, nothing to haunt or incriminate me later. Today, I shall sit back and just let others do the talking:

Randall Terry: “Let a wave of intolerance wash over you. I want you to let a wave of hatred wash over you. Yes, hate is good ... Our goal is a Christian Nation … we have a biblical duty, we are called by God to conquer this country. We don’t want equal time. We don’t want Pluralism. We want theocracy. Theocracy means God rules. I’ve got a hot flash. God rules.”

Randall Terry: “When I, or people like me, are running the country, you’d better flee, because we will find you, we will try you, and we’ll execute you. I mean every word of it. I will make it part of my mission to see to it that they are tried and executed.”

My lips are sealed. So far, so good. Now lets run the video (from a town hall meeting in Reston Virginia earlier this week):



If a picture is worth a thousand words, how much is a photomontage worth?



Did I say anything? Consider this an open thread.

Dead man walking -- tall

The man can't be much warmer than room temperature, but the demons are howling farleftliberalsocialist like some inbred glossolalian hysterics at a backwoods revival meeting where the devil is being denounced. Even those of us who dress more like civilized people and give University lectures are out there making false equivalences between how poor old milk-of-human-kindness Robert Novak was treated by farleftliberalsocialists like Crooks and Liars as compared to the way they're trashing the memory of the last of the Kennedy Brothers -- although the more adroit like William Jacobson at Legal Insurrection says he "wont go there" -- while he's coming back from just having been there.

Rush Was Right! Exclaims the Professor. People are using Ted Kennedy's death to their political advantage and the people who would like to put Ronald Reagan on Mount Rushmore and name airports and highways after him are very disdainful of that sort of thing, aren't they? Can you imagine that - those laughable liberals want to name a health care bill after a man who tried most of his life to reform health care and have the audacity to trash a man who only committed treason and lied about it.

" Democrats are desperate to do anything to overcome public opposition on the merits."

says the Associate professor. He doesn't tell us whether those merits include "death panels" or other outright lies so beloved of Republican saboteurs. He doesn't mention that the public opposition is the minority opinion and that's it's costing News Corp and the Insurance Industry and the Drug Companies billions to do anything and everything to overcome majority opinion; anything including lies and fabrications.

Face it, they're delighted that one more impediment to the will of the minority is down and so sure are they of public stupidity and gullibility they don't even bother to cover their tracks or hide their fallacies.

"Strange, when Rush Limbaugh used the phrase "Kennedy Memorial Health Bill," [in predicting how Democrats would use Kennedy's death] he was harshly criticized.. . . Now that passage of Democratic health care restructuring seems much less likely, I guess it is okay to invoke Kennedy's name."

That's just what I mean. No Perfessor, the objection to Rush calling a sickly old man a dead man was what the anger was about. Laughing about a brain tumor: it's not the same thing as calling a dead man a dead man: even a dead man who tried to do some good in this world instead of shilling for pirates.

Boycot Whole Foods

My liberal butt just got whacked, my liberal brain ransacked. John Mackey, president of Whole Foods, is pushing against public options in health care reform. He thinks that private programs, which currently leave 46 million people uninsured, are the way to go. He thinks that high health care deductibles for people, regardless of their income, will go a long way to solving the health care crisis.

Sorry Mr. Mackey. How many employees working for Whole Foods can afford a $2,500 deductible?

Thirty years ago, as a young mother, I had to leave a job because the inadequate health insurance at my job failed to pay for necessary services for my three year old disabled daughter. A public option would have enabled me to continue employment uninterrupted.

Now, I am fortunate to be more comfortable financially. I would be willing to pay more in taxes to support a public option health care plan. What truly bothers me is paying more to a private plan that has high deductibles, low coverages and uses MY MONEY to pay a few people at the top.

I can speak with my food store choices, and until you and your company can gain empathy for the 46 million uninsured Americans and the many more underinsured Americans whose insurance premiums pad the pockets of wealthy health insurance execs my food dollars will go elsewhere.

In Memoriam Senator Ted Kennedy, 1932-2009

Here’s to remembering Senator Ted Kennedy, who stood up for worthy and humane causes several decades running and who, confronted with deep personal loss, made a real difference in American life. He lived a long time, but I’m sorry he passed away before he got a chance to see the conclusion of the health-care reform now in progress. Senator Kennedy, one of the country’s strongest progressive voices, went out of his way to back Barack Obama during the primary season last year. He put a lot of faith in the younger politician’s talent and integrity -- something I believe every American interested in social justice and the alleviation of suffering should keep in mind in the coming months. Stay optimistic, and speak out in a dignified but spirited manner about the prospects and the need for genuine improvement in health care and other areas. Perhaps that's how best to remember "the Lion of the Senate."

Burn baby burn

Teddy Roosevelt was a Socialist; so was Adam Smith, Adolph Hitler and FDR. Anyone in fact who thinks there ought to be a government is a Socialist unless there's " a war on." At that point everything changes and anyone who thinks there's too much government, too intrusive and abusive in it's powers becomes the Socialist villain. That's the simple version. Of course people who wonder why, when half the e-mail screeds one gets from Republican sources begin with a picture of the World Trade Center in flames and exhortations never to forget, we can also call an official day of Remembrance and Service "Socialist." Is it the service that sours the remembrance? Perhaps a national day of insulting France would have been less Socialist. Perhaps burning the UN would have been more "conservative."

“The plan is to turn a ‘day of fear’ that helps Republicans into a day of activism called the National Day of Service that helps the left,”

writes Matthew Vadum in The Spectator. What could be more Socialist that interfering with the fear level Republicans promote in concert with international terrorists to keep authoritarianism alive in America.

"Nihilistic liberals are planning to drain 9/11 of all meaning.”

Or at least the meaning that can be interpreted to demand bigger, more militaristic government and an attack on Constitutional Government. That's "desecration" howls Vadum. I'm sure that all the police, fire, public safety, paramedics and others who died on that day were Socialists as well - and desecrators as well. And what about all the Socialists who volunteered afterwards? You can see the danger!

So when you see the inevitable burning towers picture, remember to preserve the fear, promote the panic and for heaven's sake don't do anything to get in the way of ever increasing government power and defense contractor profit. That would be nothing but Nihilism and Socialism (if your doublethink capacity is great enough to tie those two together.)

While your doublethink module is engaged, please remember that it wasn't Socialism to support a national day of service when George Bush promoted the idea or when it got Bipartisan support this Spring. It's Socialism because Barack Obama is President.

Damn, these socialist/nihilist Liberals are insidious! Promoting positive outcomes and reducing fear is the first step down the slippery slope toward Socialism and if that is difficult for you to understand, Raw Story has all the reasons all the Republican opinion shouters give us to support "conservative" fear mongering, xenophobia, divisiveness, totalitarianism, Chauvinism and military aggression instead of that goddamn e pluribus unum constructivism those nihilist homosexual, far-left Socialists, want to sell us.

Resistance is NOT Futile - Though it May Seem So

Arguing with conservatives (usually republicans, but also a few straying democrats) is most often tantamount to talking to a wall. A very TALL wall. A tall CONCRETE wall that echoes back to oneself what one is saying. A tall, concrete wall that is, thus, incapable of absorbing sound – or anything intelligible.

In other words – arguing with conservatives AND ESPECIALLY the conservative media and its hacks is like arguing with THE BORG or the walls of one of their cubes. (Yes, the Borg of Star Trek fame.)

The Borg are infamous for being an impenetrable group – a group of beings aligned mentally by collective thought that is programmed into their brains via a central computer nervous system that does their thinking for them. A group of brainwashed beings from other worlds that have been assimilated into a collective hive that is hell bent on growing ever bigger by assimilating yet more weaker beings. And they WILL succeed. Why? Because . . .

When the Borg chant incessantly to their prey “Resistance is futile. You WILL be assimilated” – they are not belligerent. They are not argumentative. They are not surly. They are not even determined. All of these qualities would imply that they had hearts. Souls. Individuality of thought. They don’t have any of these things. When they utter their dire words they are simply stating facts as they know them. End of argument. In fact, there is no argument to begin with. Resistance in any form, such as argument, is futile. They are stronger. You aren’t.

Unless, that is, you are a member of the crew under either Captain Jean-Luc Picard or Captain Katherine Janeway. Then you might have a fighting chance.

Now where am I headed with this? Jean-Luc once found himself up against The Borg. He resisted. It was futile.

He was assimilated.

For a time.

Now Jean-Luc is a Captain of the Federation which is part of the United Federation of Planets. The Federation is a really hip, liberal-minded group of folks who, after countless years of useless warring both at home and abroad (ahem – cough - that would be us now), have come together with other species and planets to strive to create a peaceful universe within which they can all comfortably live as they individually see fit while honoring both their differences and their opposing cultural values. Yes – somehow the peace-nik earthlings and the grumpy Klingons and brainy Vulcans and wily Romulans and brutal Cardasians and greedy Ferengi etc etc etc etc etc etc manage to live at peace (or a close proximity thereof – depending on that pesky neutral zone . . . but I digress . . .)

Anyway – my point is – that this hippy dippy tree-hugging peace-signing, no doubt all organic, smiling group of politically liberal thinkers (esp those federation folk with their prime directive) find themselves up against THE BORG – a group of mindless drones to whom they can not talk. With whom they can not reason. THE BORG represent everything The Federation and the United Federation of Planets isn’t.

After all – how can one possible argue with a collective that is so technologically powerful and advanced that they can soar through space faster than any other species in a SQUARE space ship!! The arrogance!! It ain't even remotely aerodynamic!!! While silly humans such as Jean Luc are raised to think of the putting of square pegs in round holes as the stuff of children’s folly – there are then the arrogant as all hell Borg who defy the laws of aerodynamics and build square pegs that sail effortlessly through space. The nerve!

When Jean-Luc is assimilated and his crew must fight to retrieve his mind from the collective clutches of the Borg drones – it becomes the ultimate fight between individuality of thought and collective mindlessness. The ultimate showdown between liberal-mindedness and closed-mindedness. The power of those of closed, controlled minds – The Borg – is awesome. Frightening. Intimidating. But eventually – Jean-Luc – the poster-boy for liberal thought, for open-mindedness – wins.

Years later Captain Katherine Janeway will fight her own battle of wits with The Borg – and survive – but just barely. And let us not forget Seven of Nine - the former Borg turned Federation citizen. Yes, the tide can turn.

Yes, THE BORG will terrify the Federation and its allies for generations. They will assimilate many for whom resistance was futile. But they are NOT always successful. Resistance, then, it would seem, is not futile. As long as a few escape collective brainwashing – there is hope. THE BORG may always be “on message.” They may always chant the party line. They are the ultimate, loyal foot-soldiers. But they are NOT always successful. They may adapt easily to suit each new form of resistance. They may seem invulnerable. But they are not.

We are up against a conservative media blitz and mind-control effort that has been going full steam ahead ever since Bill Clinton dared to take office. It gloated during the Bush years. Now its furor has increased since Obama dared to take office. It is getting shriller. It is beginning to all sound the same. It is so sanctimoniously certain that it is right and that it will assimilate those still astray into its way of thinking. It seems to grow more powerful every day.

BUT! Remember Jean-Luc, Katherine and Seven of Nine – resistance is not futile. And even great big square things that may seem like impenetrable walls aren’t.

At least I hope not

Wild Wild West

If you see someone standing on your front lawn taking pictures of your house and you stick your head out the door to ask what the hell he's doing, maybe you'd better find out if he's a Republican first.

Robert Lutes, a resident of Boise, Idaho suburb, Meridian, probably wishes he had done that. Asking the man on the lawn to tell him what it was about, his question was answered with a .357 magnum revolver pointed at him by the Republican Party chairman of Boise County, Charles McAffee, a "tea-party" activist. No, it wasn't high noon, it was just before dinner time.

There is a controversy of course about whether Lutes was engaged in heated discussion or argument about his delinquent mortgage payments before McCaffee drew on him, but McCaffee, working for collection agency used by Wells Fargo, says he pulled the gun on the unarmed homeowner to "de-escalate" the conflict. No, really.

I am unable to establish Idaho's policy on such use of a concealed weapon, but I know that in Florida, it is illegal to display or "brandish" even a legally carried gun to gain advantage in or "de-escalate" a dispute or argument. Since McAffee was arrested for aggravated assault, I would assume a similarity in the laws. Again, I don't know if Idaho is a "castle doctrine" state, but I suspect it is and under that philosophy, Lutes would have been justified in shooting a Republican Party County Chairman and tax protester like any other armed home invader.

The more civilized part of my nature is glad he didn't, but the little demon on my shoulder sort of wishes the idiot Mr. Teabags had been dealt a little bit of old fashioned Republican justice.