Health & Wellness: Bowing down to the Health Insurance Industry

I have discovered a new enemy that makes the Third Reich, the USSR, Hussein, and terrorists look tame. At this point, you're probably thinking "The Health Insurance Industry? Nah, you've gotta be kidding!" Well, according to an article on AlterNet by Barbara Ehrenreich, that new enemy is the health insurance industry. I recommend reading it. I especially liked her notion that all those people whose job in life it is to DENY insurance coverage, be unemployed! After all, if David Kucinich is elected, they'll still have coverage! If not? Oh well, tough shit for them!

Pornography and the End of Masculinity

Did the title catch your attention? It caught mine when I found this article on AlterNet. I found it a very interesting and informative read. I had noticed the increasing trend both in pornography and even everyday society of peoples tolerance with cruelty and degradation, not just to women, but to others as well. For example, the government program for torture of "terror suspects" should have caused a firestorm of backlash from the public that seethed with anguish, fear and hatred of the government for employing these types of tactics , but at best, the general public had the anguish of a pissed off kitten.

Thats probably why the conclusion the author makes is what really rang true for me:

As is often the case, this paradox can be resolved by recognizing that one of the assumptions is wrong. Here, it's the assumption that U.S. society routinely rejects cruelty and degradation. In fact, the United States is a nation that has no serious objection to cruelty and degradation. Think of the way we accept the use of brutal weapons in war that kill civilians, or the way we accept the death penalty, or the way we accept crushing economic inequality. There is no paradox in the steady mainstreaming of an intensely cruel pornography. This is a culture with a well-developed legal regime that generally protects individuals' rights and freedoms, and yet it also is a strikingly cruel culture in the way it accepts brutality and inequality.

The pornographers are not a deviation from the norm. Their presence in the mainstream shouldn't be surprising, because they represent mainstream values: The logic of domination and subordination that is central to patriarchy, hyper-patriotic nationalism, white supremacy, and a predatory corporate capitalism.

Sick of Sicko?

If your answer is no, good for you. If your answer is yes, then why? Today, at a wedding shower, I overheard a guest complaining about Moore's movie Sicko. Normally, when I hear someone bashing left leaning eye openers (movies or stories that opens peoples eyes to the truth in right wing cover ups and corruption) I don't bother arguing with them because I know its frustrating and a waste of time since people like that have already made up their minds before even seeing it and have the most illogical arguments to explain why what they saw was apparently so "wrong." This time, I felt compelled to speak up (although I gave up soon after when his incessant babbling on what was wrong with the movie was too much for me). The entire crux of his argument was that Moore spent all of his time on Cuba and how great their health care was and how people leaving the theater were like "maybe I should move to Cuba." I, not being that great at debating, spent too much time trying to state that Moore never makes any claim about being unbiased, unlike a certain right wing wacko and his so called "No Spin Zone." But I digress. The person, whom I will refer to as Mr. X (and not because I already forgot his name, heh) made a point of "Cuba can't feed any of its people, but Moore ignored that point!" Well, he should have brought it up. Not for his argument that "why would you want to move to a country that has such great health care but can't feed its people," but because Cuba is a country that can't feed its people but has great health care! I know what you're thinking..."huh?" Think about it, if Cuba's health care is as great as Moore claims, and I think this likely, yet they are a poor third world country, where as we're supposed to be a rich developed country and our health care sucks, where do you think the problem lies? Incidentally, its not as if America can feed all of its people either!

I should point out, however, that I have yet to see the movies, but I have been following it to some degree (mostly on the Daily Show and a YouTubeish copy of Colbert). It seems to me that Moore's whole point is not "what are the conditions of the country that has good health care" (France and Cuba in his movie) but why is it that their health care is so much better than ours? Indeed, even CNN was so taken aback that they felt the need to attack Moore who fought back and actually forced CNN to admit they were wrong! I'm not sure if its because CNN (and other news agencies) are on the payroll of the medical industry as Moore claims, but you know something? It wouldn't surprise me! Remember, just like HMO's, the news media are run by private for profit corporations and get a lot of their funding from the aforementioned medical industry.

As I said, I have not seen the movie. I do plan to see the movie, in which I will post my comments once I have seen it. Just remember that people who operate on a profit motive have a tendency to only care about maintaining that profit and more often than not, do NOT have YOUR interests in mind! Think of it this way, if firefighters were market based and not publicly funded, and putting out a fire in your house depended on if you have "fire insurance," how would you feel if they came, and stood their looking up your insurance report trying to find a reason NOT to put out the fire in your house while the whole time, you're standing there arguing with them trying to convince them that you have insurance and they should put it out? Based on Moore's appearance on Colbert and Daily Show, that seems to me to be what the movie is about. In any case, I will go see it, and Mr. X has not dissuaded me in anyway. If anything, I'm even more interested than before!

Clarification

I want to be clear about something (you may have gleaned this from my Evolution/Shmevolution Post), I do not believe in "Creationism" or "Creationist Theory." My parents raised me in the Catholic Church, however, they also raised me with a strong Scientific background and to question my beliefs and everything around me. As an engineer, I was educated predominately in Science (An Engineers basic definition is as an "Applied Scientist"), so I have come to the conclusion that Evolution is fact. It is consistently supported by both anthropological, biological and genetic evidence. So, whether or not I "believe" in evolution is irrelevant and whether or not someone "believes" in Creation is also irrelevant because all of the evidence says evolution is fact, it is real, and it is proven. Sure, maybe the details need to be worked out, maybe scientists from time to time need to revise their evolutionary models, but that doesn't change the fact that it is real.