Andy Driscoll's blog

Conversations about issues, especially heath care, wind up going nowhere.

First, you have to care that 50 million people are without health care. You
have to care that US infant mortality rates exceed those of any other
industrialized countries and that those mortality rates are climbing. You
have to care that the health care system in this country contains more waste
than any other system.

If you don't care about those things, you must convince yourself that we
have the finest medical system in the world, mostly for one reason: the

From: Lydia Howell
Date: Sun, 26 Aug 2007 18:36:32 -0500

Well an expert has spoken and we should all just do as we're told: give money and time to the Democrats--regardless of how they vote---and of course, next spring, after their pre-selected prez candidate is named, the peace movement should shut down and focus on getting said Democratic candidate elected to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

That's being a bit too cynical for me, Lydia. I may not agree with everything Steve purports (below), but I, too, have talked extensively about how high expectations following the new majority were bound to result in disappointment. Most of the votes have been in our favor; not all, but most. But a lot more has to happen before a veto-proof majority is in place, and I think if you check most of the votes, especially in the House, they gone our way. We're all experts, aren't we?

[See Counterpunch below]

I'm still not certain that impeachment proceedings wouldn't distract Congress from its main job right now: get us out of Iraq and into universal health care and stabilization of the environment. The jury, as it were, remains out. Nothing of substance will ever pass as long as this President - among all presidents ever - remains in office. Despite the extent to which many believe he must be guilty of high crimes and misdemeanors, most believe we must win and win big in 2008.

The debate rages over the courage and wisdom of an assessment that prevents us putting this madman and his Machiavellian Vice President on trial for destroying most of what remained a democracy in this nation until these men came along, not to mention the global well of goodwill we once enjoyed.

"We have always known that heedless self-interest was bad morals; we know now that it is bad economics." So declared F.D.R. in 1937, in words that apply perfectly to health care today. This isn't one of those cases where we face painful tradeoffs - here, doing the right thing is also cost-efficient. Universal health care would save thousands of American lives each year, while actually saving money. – from the article below

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As we’ve all discovered, people who want to believe the best or worst of one point of view will invariably avoid considering its counter-argument. In this case, we can bank on people opposed to universal health care avoiding “Sicko,” preferring their more comfortable preconception that universal health care is manifestation of “socialized” medicine, control by “big government” (as if government is not the government we have created), and/or that we are not responsible for our fellow citizens’ well-being.

Every time I hear the latest total death toll for American soldiers in Iraq, I cannot help but wonder whether, after four years of waging war, Americans still consider such totals a pittance compared with the 55,000 American dead over a similar, if slightly longer period in Vietnam. Remembering casualty rates among the wars of the last half-century, 3,500 ranks pretty low.

And yet, all of us continue to be horrified by the ever escalating numbers of Americans dying in this godforsaken region of the world - Iraq. Have our expectations been so lowered - or so raised - that we are beginning to see each death of our sons and daughters as a symbol of the criminal folly foisted not just on the Middle East, but on all of us through our so-called leader's Machiavellian conspiracy to rule the world by military conquest?

Wherever they can, apparently, libertarian types will put the worst face on public education they can muster. This is particularly obvious among the Minneapolis e-democracy list membership.

Even when public schools model the successes of private education - it's never enough. "Show me the data!!!!" goes the hue and cry, as if the data are an everyday, moment to moment reality, especially in the early going of new models.

Never enough for those who want to privatize all public institutions, because the word "public" is the four-letter anathema to an ideology that sees "gummint" as the enemy and not the creature of a democracy.

My friends on the left who slog away in the tenches for peace and a rapid exit from Iraq are up in arms over Keith Ellison's vote to extract ourselves from that war-torn country. Most of us worked our asses off and/or contibuted some big bucks to elect the man who promised his first priority would be to exit Iraq. Now many vilify him as a traitor to the cause he so ardetnly espoused last year.

This seems to go double for hearty advocates who take some ownership of the man and the representative. But, too few people have that important handle on the legislative process into which we send our representatives. Positions are critical, but the purist position can only be a starting point until the amendments and bill restructuring force the softening of positions to arrive at a passable measure. It’s the lessons few people learn when they have the luxury of living their advocacy full tilt back home.