We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Saturday, June 30, 2012

Did John Roberts Give Mitt Romney A Gift?

Click here to access article by Marcia Angell, MD from Huffington Post. 
Obamacare is simply incapable of doing what it is supposed to do -- provide nearly universal care at an affordable and sustainable cost. ...He made the private insurance companies the linchpin of the new system, and promised them millions of additional customers and billions of taxpayer dollars. He also did nothing to rein in the profit-oriented delivery system that rewards providers on a piecework basis for doing tests and procedures. So with all the new dollars flowing into the system and no restraints on the way medicine is practiced, the law is inherently inflationary.
The doctor makes a compelling argument that the right-wing Supreme Court Justice Roberts gave the One Percent right wing a gift. Ignore all the right-wing critical remarks on his decision--they are all for public consumption.  

This issue of health care illustrates the main difference between the two contending factions within the One Percent capitalist rule: the slow poison versus the meat ax method to kill safety nets for the 99 Percent.