Hard News: America: Chill out!
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"Up"!
and
"Ponyo"!
On these telling depp-creative things, human intellectual life depends--mine, anyway-
Maybe we could take this into another thread, but I was just astounded by the sheer heart of UP. The montage of Carl and Ellie's romance was a masterpiece of economy, as moving and perfect a work of cinematic shorthand I've seen in American cinema in quite some time. Like a film unto itself.
The rest was impressive and sometimes just off the wall (with a new spin on the whole talking-dog thing, and lots of neat little references to old adventure newsreels), but the heart is in its opening 20 minutes.
And it looked beautiful.
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This is also why relatively small changes in wording can trigger dramatic shifts in support for the public option, which has been as high as 83 percent in some polls and as low as 35 percent in others depending on who is doing the polling and how they're asking the questions
Political information seems to drift out out haphazardly like a fog to the many citizens of that great nation. In a way the rise of bullshit media has disorientated the decent over worked middle american. The reds aren't under the bed anymore, in fact they make the beds, but there's a info-cloud-mess left over from the Cheney years of fear everywhere.
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but of course it's the dawning of the age of solution and he'll almost certainly win this* , obama has great long game.
*has to
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Richard C:
As I see it from a business/economic perspective, a well-run public health system is a net benefit to the business sector. It keeps the workforce healthy and removes risk around insurance premium hikes for employees. A healthcare system is as much a part of good economic infrastructure as roads, rail, fibre optic cables and anti-corruption legislation..
Too right. The biggest inefficency in American industry isn't the UAW or the Teamsters. Rather, it's the handbrake of employee healthcare & pension costs that industries in other countries - with universal healthcare - don't have to meet.
Deliberately weaken the public health system in NZ (and other countries for that matter), and it could well backfire in the form of American-style H&P insurance demands.
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Oh, sure, the insurers in the US are total fuckers. But don't think that NZ doesn't have delays in treating cancer patients. Flights to Australia for chemo ring any bells?
Really? That's TERRIBLE and shouldn't happen.
At the same time, I'd give excellent odds that a flight to Australia + accommodation + chemo costs is still easier on the wallet than out-of-pocket chemo costs for an insured American. It's sick all round.
(The private cost of procedure X in NZ is often lower than the out-of-pocket cost of X for an insured American. Probably the same for other countries too. This is one of the things that make me extra-mad about Americans who tell stories about how their old granny suffered on a waiting list under universal medial care. Why didn't you just send her a bit of money to go private, you unbelievable asshole?)
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Tracey made a really interesting proposition on last week's show: that for all its failings, the Obama strategy seems aimed at avoiding the fate of the failed Clinton attempt at reform. Hillary Clinton foisted a bill on Congress, which got antsy and tore it apart. It failed. Obama has let Congress fail first, and then come with his plan.
That proposition is received knowledge and was made most eloquently here back in June.
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That proposition is received knowledge and was made most eloquently here back in June.
I'd debate that it's received knowledge given the tone of much of the commentary since it was written, but that is certainly a very insightful piece.
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I was thinking about Obama telling Congress he had no time for tire kickers and liars. This came to mind:
He is beautiful, are "they" ashamed yet?
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You lefties need to...
Why, thankyou for the advice James.
If I may offer some in return, 'you righties' need to stop sacrificing babies and drinking their blood by the light of the new moon.
But then maybe oversimplistic homogenising generalisations of large and diverse groups is not that helpful...?
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'you righties'
It's so goshdarned cute, the way the muscles between their ears twitch when they say 'lefties'.
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The best thing about the town hall crazies is how they've told us that Obama is simultaneously a fascist and a communist. Damn that dude is talented! Great speech btw. Out of the ball park. But probably still won't work.
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I had a friend who was mighty proud to call himself a left-wing fascist. He styled this position around Stalin. Curiously, he became an ACT voter.
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(The private cost of procedure X in NZ is often lower than the out-of-pocket cost of X for an insured American. Probably the same for other countries too. This is one of the things that make me extra-mad about Americans who tell stories about how their old granny suffered on a waiting list under universal medial care. Why didn't you just send her a bit of money to go private, you unbelievable asshole?)
You're not wrong. I'm doing a phone consult with a specialist back in NZ and it's going to cost me less than half than one blood test and seeing a nurse cost here.
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I like how when James comes on and makes his standard post, Russell always comes in with some helpful links and facts to point out how he's talking out his butt.
I don't need to look anything up myself, I can just go "what Russell said about that." I can even do it pre-emptively with confidence. "What Russell will no doubt say once he gets the chance to post it. Smacked down!"
The private cost of procedure X in NZ is often lower than the out-of-pocket cost of X for an insured American.
I think I've mentioned this previously, but my ex was living with me in NZ for a while and had to go to hospital for a few hours for fluids and observation. The A & E staff were very apologetic that as an international visitor she'd have to pay $100 to be admitted.
She was quite happy, it would have cost her several times that amount, even with insurance back in LA.
It's quite impressive to design a health care system that just costs so much in total, however it's funded.
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Obama is simultaneously a fascist and a communist
McCain to base! Under attack by commie-nazi's!
Go, UNICEF pennies! Help zer puny children who need you!
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Its funny 4-5 decades of being told to hate anything commie or socialist seems to have penetrated into the US population to an amazing degree.
Guess thats what happens. -
It's not just that medical costs are bankrupting people. It's also about the lengths to which people (often invisibly and dangerously) go to avoid being bankrupted and/or to keep their health insurance.
This is just one story, but one that really struck me.
(NB it's not Ariel Gore's own story, but one posted to her by another mother).
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I'd say it goes beyond being told to. Embraced as an aspect of national identity, even. Will take some shaking off.
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This is just one story, but one that really struck me.
I thought the US healthcare system couldn't depress me any more, and yet.
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From that story:
Since SoonerCare is the only insurance that will accept Sophie, we have to meet their financial criteria, which means living at or below the poverty level. I have had to quit wonderful jobs because I made too much money to qualify for SoonerCare.
There's a perverse outcome that I'm sure congress never intended.
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I like how when James comes on and makes his standard post, Russell always comes in with some helpful links and facts to point out how he's talking out his butt.
And then you wait for James to come back with some sort of linked and smart rebutt, but he never does. He's like some sort of meme reciting machine who can't deal with any challenge to the program.
Why, thankyou for the advice James.
ANSWER et al get their knickers all in a bunch about a few meatheads on the night shift at Abu Graib doing some stupid stuff to some prisoners, during which no one was injured for which the soldiers were punished
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the lengths to which people (often invisibly and dangerously) go to avoid being bankrupted and/or to keep their health insurance
And that all has knock-on effects. If you're in a job which, by some miracle, provides decent health insurance, you'll put up with anything to keep that job. Even illegal or ethically dodgy things. No wonder there's a lack of mandated holidays and the labour movement is so toothless. (Well, there are other historical reasons for that stuff too, but I'm sure the health insurance/employer thing doesn't help.) Some 'freedom'.
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Obama is simultaneously a fascist and a communist
The bizarre mindset of the right in the US was neatly summed up by the GOPs choice to rebut Obama:
But the most "surprising" aspect to the choice of Boustany is the fact that he is a Birther!
So he subscribes to that odd, utterly irrational conspiracy (nothing in this whole circus is nuttier than the birther stuff, just fucking insane twaddle), but in DC this GOP Congressman is the one chosen to rebut this massive policy speech by the nation's President.
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I don't need to look anything up myself, I can just go "what Russell said about that." I can even do it pre-emptively with confidence. "What Russell will no doubt say once he gets the chance to post it. Smacked down!"
Heh.
But, actually, I like James popping by occasionally because he does lay down a challenge. His arguments are well-formed, if derivative, and I do have to go away and satisfy myself I'm right in response. Which means posting useful links. Which is good.
I might remind people that if you take issue with James, I'd prefer you attacked his argument, rather him personally.
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Lest we forget
I've just started reading Antony Beevor's book on the Spanish civil war. There's a passage in the introduction that really jumped out at me, which I shall type up and post as soon as I can, as it seems to be pretty much on point.
Basically, he outlines an argument that the war was between two loosely united groups - one on 'the right' and one on 'the left'. But the groups on 'the right' had much more in common (or to put it another way much less not in common) than the groups on the left, who were much more prone to cross-group mistrust, in-fighting and so on.
So, when James blurts out some crap like:
People and groups that protested for woman's rights, gay rights social justice etc. find themselves working with or effectively supporting Islamists who have no concept of woman's rights that we would recognize, stone to death woman accused of adultery who are actually victims of rape and think gays should be killed
As if 'we' are all some sort of Communist-Nazi hive mind, he can, frankly, go fuck himself.
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