This is What "Democracy" Looks Like

So, like many of you, I said lots of words when I heard about Joe (fun fact - Stalin was also a Joe - coincidence??? I kid, I kid) Lieberman playing the role of Vito Corleone in this health care reform saga. I used phrases comedians would find offensive. I think I even made up a few new profanities. What can I say, I have many talents. Anyway, point being, the Obama administration pushed generally-spineless Harry Reid to kowtow (Obama kowtows like it's going out of style) to Lieberman and scrap the Medicare buy-in from the bill, which was already a substitute for the public option, which was a self-imposed compromise from Obama (love that hope, baby) away from a broader push for universal coverage or at least some regional-based private system that could maximize economies of scale and competition to get us the best coverage for the most people at the lowest cost. None of this is exactly shocking. Joe Lieberman is, well, a lot of words I won't write here. But none of them are good. And Obama is doing what I thought he would all along, except people seem to be more content with letting him do so than I had hoped. But this is bigger than health care. What the Lieberman affair speaks to is, very simply, the heart of democracy in America today.

What do I mean by that? Simple. Lieberman was always going to push hard against any progressive health care reform. Not just because he's an ass - he is. Not just because he despises the left and wants to stick it to them - he does. Not because his soul is composed of arsenic and sulfuric acid - it is. (Okay...you got me...it isn't. Or I should say, I don't know that it isn't. Prove me wrong!) Take all of that away. You could argue against any of those points with some success. There's still one that is far more important than the others - unless Lieberman is, of course, the earthly version of El Diablo, which might be slightly worse. (Again, I kid. But seriously...can you prove he's not? Provide me the proof!) Joe Lieberman runs for office. In order to run for office, Joe Lieberman needs to get loot. Lots of it. It cost almost $6 million to win a Senate seat in 2008. The amount of TV ads, and the rising price of said ads, is part of the reason spending has increased. You know, the 7 ads you see over the course of one episode of Lost in October/November telling you candidate John Smith is actually a terrorist, kills babies himself, or will drop nuclear weapons on every country whose leaders so much as looks at him the wrong way. Ah, nostalgia.

So, Joe Lieberman needs to raise a lot of money in Connecticut. He probably doesn't have to raise that much most of the time, though. There is lots of research looking at entrenchment...so, once you get elected, you're much more likely to stay in office. Not only that, but Lieberman hasn't really faced too many serious challengers. Ned Lamont was, of course, an exception, and forced Lieberman to run as an independent/de-facto Republican to win his current term. But, he wants to have the money on hand because it's always good to have money on hand in politics. He wants to obliterate whoever his competition is with TV ads. He wants to outspend his rivals by a lot just to make sure he stays in office. So, he wants lots of money, both hard (from individuals) and soft (from PACs, etc.). Thus, he, like many of his colleagues in Congress, spend a hell of a lot of time fundraising, as opposed to, I don't know, governance. You can't raise millions of dollars that quickly, especially because their are limits on how much donors can give. Thus, it takes time to build up your treasure chest.

Now, who does Joe Lieberman get money from? A lot of sources. But he gets a lot from the health care industry. This includes pharmaceutical companies, the American Medical Association, etc. In other words, organizations that stand to lose a lot if any large-scale health care reform gets through. Lieberman gets a decent amount of money from them. Over his career, he ranks 10th among sitting senators in terms of industry contributions. This amounts to over $1 million - he ranked second in the Senate in contributions from the health insurance industry during his re-election campaign in 2006. Connecticut also happens to be home to a lot of big health insurance companies. Over 22,000 jobs in the state are directly in the health insurance industry. This is obviously problematic. This doesn't account for the loopholes, either. One way Congressional leaders get around campaign finance rules is by having the industry pay their spouses a lot of money through jobs and speaking gigs. Now, if they are highly qualified people for these positions, I get it. If they're not, you're basically filtering money to the candidate through a huge loophole. Lieberman has been getting slammed about this lately, as his wife pockets quite a lot of money from the insurance and pharmaceutical industries...several hundred thousand/year for, essentially, photo-ops. And that's after they actually got cleaner about it. So, yeah, lots of money. And the results seem to follow eerily well. Lieberman's flip flop on the Medicare buy-in came after the insurance industry slammed it.

Some argue that Lieberman's about-face has more to do with ideology - Lieberman did this to oppose the progressive left, something his comments do suggest. Maybe. But what's he going to say? The guys who bankroll me decided it wasn't good, so I did their bidding? At least the anti-liberal argument wins him some points among conservative democrats and Republicans. The admission of following the money could piss everyone off.

So, yeah, let's put the pitchforks down for a second and stop frothing about Lieberman. I hate his guts more than most of you. But his killing the already-compromised Medicare buy-in was almost a given. It's the last fact that's really got me boiling. It was almost a given. The industry owns him. He directly benefits from their avoiding any real competition (since, as I've noted before, health insurance companies resemble oligopolies in America) through universal coverage, regional plans, a public option, or even a Medicare buy-in. Good business for them is good business for him. He's not alone. This industry spends a lot of money in lobbying Congressional leaders, both legally, and through the loopholes. It doesn't matter that most Americans want real reform - too many of their leaders get their marching orders from the health insurance companies. This is the real story in the Lieberman affair.

It extends well beyond health care, obviously. Look at any major industry in the United States and the amount of money they spend lobbying Congressional leaders. It is disgusting. Now, they like to give money to everyone (as it would be politically stupid to only give to one party), so they sometimes do donate to leaders who won't vote their cause. However, a lot do. The revolving door makes it even worse, as people move regularly from the industry, to regulating the industry, to the industry. Something just stinks here. And, of course, these companies have huge swaths of money, which make it hard for people to challenge them in the competition for Congress.

This isn't a left/right issue. It isn't even an anti-corporation issue. It's a democracy issue. If we want to have a strong democracy, the fact that Washington is owned by, and serves, corporations and industries, is a real problem. Look, it's in these companies' interests to lobby. It only makes sense for them to do so. The issue is, we don't check them on it. What we get are policies that are often bad for the majority of Americans, bad for the country in the long-run, but good for industries. We know they're problematic before they even get implemented, but they happen, anyway. Health care is a good example. We badly need to slow down the growth of health care spending, for the sake of our economy in the long-run. However, to do so, we need to implement some major overhauls of the system. Are we doing that? No. In fact, some of the best ways to lower costs in the long-run, like the public option, have already been dropped from the bill.

We can debate the specifics about many of these issues all day and night. And, so long as its on the actual facts, that's a good thing. But when the debate gets hijacked by companies, we have a serious problem, for both liberals and conservatives, and those of us who refuse to be categorized as either of those. When our government no longer works for us, but rather for companies who do not necessarily share our long-term interests, we need to bum rush the show. I don't even blame the industries themselves - it's in their interests to do this. The problem is when we let this kind of thing happen.

Democracy is a very precious thing. It came with a lot of blood, a lot of struggle, and a lot of pain. It is not something we can ever take for granted. The age of Obama is, I think, a scary time, though not because he's a Kenyan Muslim baby-killing gay-loving socialist-capitalist terrorist. It's about issues like democracy itself. I fear that people are becoming complacent, just because he's in power (at least on the left). Contrary to what he says, he is just a politician. His game is to stay in power, just like Joe Lieberman and others. Just because he's in power and there are Democratic majorities in Congress does not mean things are going to go well.

If you haven't seen it, there was a fantastic documentary on this past weekend, The People Speak, which should remind everyone that the things we value the most are the things we must fight for the most, at all times. That means, even with this supposedly liberal administration, that doesn't mean things will change. We have to hold our leaders accountable at all times. The way health care reform has unraveled over the past few months is a prime example. It has become one concession after another. Many say, trust Obama, he's looking out for us on this, it'll be fine. I say, do you know anything about American history? Yes, there will obviously be differences between an Obama administration and a Bush administration (though fewer than you'd think), but this one problem, illustrated by the Lieberman affair, that Washington serves industry over the populace, will remain with us unless we are willing to confront it. It's bad news for all of us, too, from the left and the right. That sacred pledge made hundreds of years ago, to have a government for the people, by the people, is at stake. Obama isn't looking out for us, people. We are looking out for us. We cannot go silent about this, we cannot wait to see how things play out. We need to act in whatever ways we can. In Voices of a People's History of the United States, Howard Zinn and Anthony Arnove give use examples of the power of both the big and little guy/gal who stood up for democracy, freedom, and justice, throughout American history. What has happened in health care reform is indicative of what has happened in a number of other issues, and shows just how fragile our democracy is. Today, democracy, it don't look so good in America. We mustn't wait for our leadership to turn the tide and bring us back to some utopian state. We must put pressure on them ourselves. The great advances in American history only came after great pressure and struggle from Americans who saw wrong and gave everything to right it. We must follow the footsteps of those who came before us, and fight for that democracy. Let's start with health care reform.

p.s. - this has little to do with partisanship. People on the right should be angry about this trend as much as those on the left. While I think Democrats are definitely better than today's brand of Republican, they take a lot of money and allow their corporate interests to override the interests of their constituents and their country a lot, too. A website which has provided a lot of information about who's paying who (although it gets harder when we get to the loopholes, like jobs for wives discussed above) is opensecrets, which is run by the Center for Responsive Politics. Check it out!

The Failure of the Federalist, No. 10

Despite our Founders' vision of independent powers exercising checks and balances to prevent a "tyranny of the majority," every branch of the federal government acted last month to cast its lot with torturers. But even though President Obama, Congress and the Court have united to hide evidence of high-level crime, Americans of conscience continue to resist, arguing that sweeping human rights abuses under the rug is a greater threat to national security than dealing with them openly and bringing the perpetrators to justice.

This Monday, the Supreme Court ruled in Department of Defense v. ACLU that the Defense Department could maintain secrecy over photos documenting pervasive torture. While disappointing, the decision was more or less inevitable in the wake of the Obama administration's latest reversal.

After deciding to release evidence of torture in wake of court orders requiring disclosure, the administration later caved to pressure from the intelligence community, and even went so far as to force out the official whose decision antagonized the CIA leadership. Lobbying Congress to secure an amendment to FOIA, the administration bent over backward to protect torturers and keep them from facing justice.

Executive secrecy is appalling enough in the abstract, and even worse in the context of a cover up hiding evidence of apparent war crimes and torture. Authorized by an act of a complacent Congress bowing to a disingenuous administration, the Defense Department acted last week to withhold evidence of its own misconduct, based on an illusory justification citing the safety of U.S. troops abroad. And, as it must under Justice Jackson's analysis in the seminal Steel Seizure cases, the Supreme Court acquiesced.

Every branch of the U.S. government—the Executive, the Congress, and now the Supreme Court—has shockingly acted to sweep evidence of war crimes under the rug. Their collusion is a profound betrayal of our nation's historical legacy, a setback for international human rights, and a devastating defeat for democratic transparency in the face of official misconduct.

But in a democracy, even collusion among every branch of our federal government does not end the story. Last week, the Bill of Rights Defense Committee released a forceful coalition letter I wrote on behalf of nearly 30 interfaith, civil rights, and peace and justice organizations around the country to "explain why transparency and robust accountability are a strategic national security imperative, and to expose the self-interest of voices counseling against accountability."

The letter criticized the "self-serving and internally inconsistent diatribe" of the CIA leadership, reiterating that "any incident of torture or kidnapping violated international law," and also that "detainee abuse...undermined several important national security interests."

First, by forcing detainees to make unreliable statements, coercive interrogation proved to be a poor vehicle for intelligence gathering. Second, torture played into the hands of our nation's enemies by facilitating their recruitment efforts. Finally, torture sapped the morale of junior intelligence agents, as well as the experienced interrogators who complained about torture policies. (citations omitted)

Our coalition went on to examine the impact of torture with impunity on several important groups of stakeholders: (a) the men and women of our armed forces and intelligence services, whose morale has been sapped by the protection of criminals among them; (b) our nation's international allies, "many of which have voiced concerns about detainee mistreatment"; (c) civil society voices supportive of U.S. military deployments in areas where our legitimacy is contested; (d) and the "millions of Americans from all walks of life, demographics, professions, backgrounds, and communities who are appropriately appalled by the CIA's abuses."

Beyond noting the interests of these groups, our letter also reframed a number of misconceptions pervading the issue of accountability for torture, which grows only more pressing with the revelation over the weekend of continuing torture under the Obama administration despite the repudiation of enhanced interrogation techniques.

First, responding to "the self-serving ruse that releasing the photos would undermine the safety of U.S. troops deployed abroad," our coalition argues that "any potential harm to our troops inheres in the criminal conduct depicted in the photos, not their potential disclosure." Moreover, "[t]he extent to which that conduct has undermined our broader national security only reinforces the imperative of prosecution."

Second, the letter reframes the procedural posture, noting that "failing to investigate those who conceived, planned, and orchestrated violations of international law does not reflect political neutrality. In fact, the current investigation, limited to some junior agents, reflects pre-judgment in favor of alleged torturers." (emphasis in original)

Ultimately, "the Department of Defense retains--and we request[ed] that [the President] exercise--the authority to declassify and release the photos." As we argued last week, "Our safety as a nation, as well as the legitimacy of our system of justice, the integrity of our intelligence services, and the strength of our international alliances all depend on [President Obama's] willingness to restore the rule of law by ensuring its equal application to all."

This is the latest among many tests - most of which he has, so far, unfortunately failed - that will demonstrate who the President is in fact. Will he serve as the beacon of hope in government that he pretended to be throughout last year's campaign, or like other politicians, did he merely pander to the public in order to pursue his personal ambitions?

This article was originally published by Huffington Post.

Fort Hood and U.S. Foreign Policy

I've been meaning to put some thoughts down about the shootings at Fort Hood for a minute, but just haven't gotten around to it yet. There has been plenty of typical sensationalist media coverage (best exemplified by the common "terrorists in America?" theme going around), along with some crazy racist nutjob stories (the "Muslim conspiracy theory" stuff, linking this all to the plot to infiltrate Congress through interns and the military through officers like Hasan - really insane stuff). I'm going to stay away from that stuff because, well, there's not really anything there. If you want to read about the Islamophobia that arose after the attack, check out this piece. Instead, let me talk about the one angle we haven't heard much about - how this tragedy is directly linked to U.S. foreign policy.

As we find out more information, we discover that Major Hasan had serious grievances with American foreign policy in relation to Iraq and Afghanistan. Not unlike a lot of other people. Pretty legitimate beef, too...the unreal number of civilian casualties, the number of U.S. casualties, the manipulated WMD evidence, the occupations, the pliant governments, the sweet military contracts and business deals, the trampling on international laws/norms/institutions...lots of beef. The closer you follow things, the more clear it becomes that Hasan's act of violence was driven primarily by his rage at these issues. And, while his actions are deplorable and should be condemned, that doesn't get U.S. foreign policy off the hook. There are serious problems with what we've done and are doing in Afghanistan and Iraq. Hasan's anger at the situation is not dissimilar from the anger millions around the world feel about the conflicts. Had he opted for civil disobedience instead of murder, he'd be like so many Americans, infuriated by the government's foreign policy.

In fact, Hasan provides us a domestic example of what we might be doing to Iraqis and Afghanis. He worked with vets returning from the wars, many with serious mental and physical injuries. Hasan apparently had a hard time dealing with the pain he saw them going through. He obviously opposed the wars, identified with the victims of the wars (both the soldiers he worked with, and the civilians with whom he probably identified with as Muslims), and, despite attempts to be discharged because of his concern about his difficulties serving a military whose actions he could not reconcile with his own beliefs, was about to be sent over to Afghanistan. In a simple sense, Hasan clearly snapped. Post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) sure comes to mind.

Now, imagine a civilian in Afghanistan. You've seen countless neighbors, friends, and family members either killed or seriously injured in the continued war, possibly by NATO forces, bombing raids, or extremist elements running rampant in the country due to the lawlessness aided by Washington's support of an inept regime (and lack of financial backing to stabilize the country). You're in a worse place than Hasan. There is a pretty good chance you're on the verge of snapping, or just waiting for a chance to attack and kill somebody. There is countless psychological research on versions of prospect theory, social identity theory, and post-traumatic stress disorder that can be used to explain both Hasan's actions, as well as those of civilians stuck in horrific wars. Basically, if Hasan did what he did, what do you think the civilians in Iraq or Afghanistan are likely to do if they got a chance? This isn't some ideational thing...these violent outbursts are very specific to the context of the situation.

Thus, we could see Hasan as possibly a tamer version of what we might be producing abroad with policies that many inside and outside of America have serious qualms with. Um...shouldn't that be, I don't know, a pretty important angle for the press to cover on this story? It's all about foreign policy. You'd think it might even trigger some re-evaluation of our policies.

One other point...Hasan tried like hell to get out of the military. Some stories suggest he hired a lawyer to try to get discharged. His aunt says he offered to pay for his medical training in exchange for a discharge. He himself suggested the military allow Muslims to be conscientious objectors when America was fighting Muslims. No matter how you slice it, he had serious qualms and wanted out. Would you want a psychiatrist, who worked primarily with veterans who were dealing with serious physical and mental issues from the wars, to stay in such a position with his concerns? No way. Yet, they wouldn't discharge him. Why? I don't know, could it be our massive military footprint all over the globe? Over 750 bases in 39 countries (plus over 100 additional bases outside of the continental US, troops in 151 foreign countries, occupiers in two separate countries where we have major conflict still raging...yeah, we're probably slightly overstretched. And by slightly, I mean unbelievably. So much so that the Army can't really spare any soldier, including someone like Hasan. Again...direct link to our foreign policy. Are we stretched so thin that we're putting people in the field who really shouldn't be there?

Anyway, aside from the stories about the victims and the tragedy itself, it seems to me that these are really important issues that we should think about when reflecting on the Fort Hood shootings. The event has a very direct link to U.S. foreign policy, one that should be probed pretty deeply. This connection hasn't been looked at enough, but hopefully we can convince people it should be examined. It would be a way to really do justice to the memories of those who lost their lives in that tragic event, along with countless other innocents who have died in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

(For a sharper analysis on Fort Hood, check out this FPIF article. For a discussion of Fort Hood and PTSD, check out this piece by the always-excellent Dahr Jamail and this NPR article)

"I'm for gay rights but ..."

So for the past few years I've been jousting with my family and loved ones around the issue of same sex marriage and repeatedly found my argument falling on deaf ears. In fact what I most often heard was, "I am for gay rights but..." and what would follow would immediately sweep away any indication of actual support for the union of two people from the same sex. As a service to myself and those with whom I will soon have this discussion with, I'll provide some statements and my rebuttals. Instead of taking our 45 minutes on spinning wheels, let's work and see and if we can cover some different ground.

1) "I'm for gay rights but ... you can't compare being Black to being gay."

I feel you, I understand that being Black is different than being gay, but did you realize even in that statement you're implying that we don't have Black gay folk? No really, this is the part of the conversation where you keep on throwing out "they" which you might as well then say "those people." I know you don't like me bringing that up, because for so long and so often within the dominant White culture of America Black folks are referred to as "they", "those people" and even recently "that one." It's really a process of othering, trying to make a distinction of who is "in" and should receive privileges and who is "out" (pun intended).

2) No, you're not getting it, I didn't choose to be Black and I can't hide being Black.

Touche, you're probably don't remember when you chose to be Black, if you ever did. In fact, since we're talking - heterosexual to heterosexual, I don't remember when I choose to be straight, but that's besides the point. The point is that being "Black" and being "gay", as we sociologists say are both "socially constructed". Yeah, fancy academic words but definitely important. By socially constructed I mean that we create the boundaries and meanings for these categories. There is a great film that breaks this down and books, but let's be real, you ain't gonna pick up a book or watch a movie in the middle of this blog post, so let me do what I can to break it down now. While we've come to think of meaning of Blackness as something that can't be changed, avoided, and pretty much is like gravity, we've forgotten that was created. In fact, the dominant images and tropes of "What is Black", weren't even our creation. Think about it, how many people who identify as Black, would say "my skin is actually the color of Black." Very few, in fact, we respond by saying things like "I'm brown, caramel, dark chocolate, etc." all descriptors that side-step an imposed moniker. Also have we forgotten that for so many years, the oppression of being Black and not having access to rights made many of our ancestors pass? Yeah, that's right, not all of us are "definitively Black" and certainly what it means to be Black has carried consequences.

3) That's my point, almost exactly, you can tell when someone is Black usually, but you never know if they're gay! Well unless they're really flamboyant or something.

Ah, I get it, if you are gay you don't have to "look or act gay" and if you don't act gay, you'll be fine in society. Yeah, that's called passing ... well actually more appropriately covering. See, as a Black folks, I really hope we think deeply about oppression and how oppressive it must be to not be able to show your love for someone else. If I walk outside and decide to kiss a strange woman in the middle of the street I won't get many strange glares (other than folks saying "Dumi's a wild cat") but if I love someone of the same gender and walk arm-in-arm with them down the street I'm likely to get screw faces down the block. As a result, we, heterosexual folks often say stuff like, "I don't care what you do behind closed doors but I don't want to see it." Interesting... we live in a society were the physical expression of romantic love between people is common, but almost completely forbidden for certain groups. In order to be one's self we ask people not to express themselves and "pass" or "cover" for straight. That doesn't sound very equal or liberated to me. Can you imagine a community where love was the norm and hate was not what we used to regulate others behaviors? (that's rhetorical)

4) Okay, I get that, but doesn't it piss you off when they use the Civil Rights Movement for their movement?

Once again, what's up with the us and them type of thinking. Gay Black folks have been around for a long time, to act as if they are not us is to deny part of ourselves. In fact, the most prominent voice and architect of the Civil Rights Movement was Martin Luther King Jr. His work centered on non-violence which he derived from Gandhi but he learned from Bayard Rustin who was a queer Black man. Gay, Lesbian, Bi and Queer Black folks have been at the center of our movement for rights as well as our cultural and social uplift, why try to write them out of history now? Or rather why not acknowledge the central role they've played in the collective Black struggle which should include lgbtq brothers and sisters? We can only say gay folks are piggy-backing on the civil rights movement if we don't acknowledge the contribution of gay folks to the movement. Now has the equal rights movement around sexuality taken on some tropes that came along during the Civil Rights movement, absolutely! But all subsequent movements do that, in fact, a marker of a successful social movement is an adoption of some its techniques. But let's not forget what the Civil Rights Movement was about! It was fighting to make the 14th and 15th amendments real!!! Those amendments legally gave Black folks equal civil rights but when we looked at how Black people were treated and what they could do, it is seen that it's unequal. I think we can take a similar look at the Gay Rights movement which is simply fighting for the same rights that heterosexuals have, be it marriage, adequate healthcare, or to live freely in society.

5) I hear what you're saying but God made "Adam and Eve" not "Adam and Steve"! We're a Christian country and marriage is a bond before God between man and woman.

Ah, you got me with that one, I didn't realize a rhyme could break down an entire situation. Oh wait, no it can't. There is an entrenched myth in this country that marriage is exclusively a religious, often insinuated Christian, practice that the government sanctions. Not true at all, anthropologists have long observed and discussed marriage as beyond Christian and beyond the sanctioning of the state. It is true here that many associate the two, but that does not seem logical that it must also be seen as such. First, the mythos of the United States as Chrisitian nation is based on ignoring that colonies were founded out of the fleeing of religious oppression. How ironic is it that religion would then become the basis for oppression in 2009 and 1619 when non-Christian Africans arrived in captivity and quickly were proclaimed subhuman and savage. If you are going to invoke the credo of a nation, then I'd suggest you invoke the ones of equality and diversity, which means you are welcome to have your beliefs but your beliefs should not be the basis for impinging on other's rights.

Now I know by this point you likely still don't agree with me, but I do want you to see there is validity to a discussion about gay rights and the civil rights or more importantly gay rights as civil and human rights! I do want you to see that all to often we neglect and relegate a part of our people to inhumane and unjustified treatments through our active and passive condoning of covering. I do want us all to think about what MLK meant when he said, "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." I do want us to really grapple with the fact that if Huey Newton in the 1970s could see the connection, we should be able to see it in 2009. I wrote this because I worry about a people's ability to turn a blind eye to injustice in a world and nation that often has suggested the unjust is just the way it should be. For a people who have fought for existence and rights, it should only be natural to continue that fight with our brothers and sisters.

***this piece is designed to be a primer and conversation starter. there are many more things to say, but wanted to get the ball rolling and get some basic ideas out there***

On America's Moral Barometers...

So, Plaxico Burress just got a 2-year jail sentence for carrying a licensed gun into a nightclub and shooting himself in the leg, but nobody else. Michael Vick just got reinstated to the NFL after serving 2 years in jail for his role in financing a dog-fighting racket. In both cases, lots of people have voiced outrage as to the supposed leniency in their cases. I'm not saying they are necessarily wrong (though I really think Burress' sentence is kind of crazy), nor am I condoning their actions...but do these people follow the news????


I mean, seriously, is Michael Vick the guy we need to go after? I get it, he played a part in something horrible, especially if you are a dog-lover (I'm indifferent, but can sympathize), but understand that the harm he inflicted, while obviously bad, was limited...and he paid his dues by going to jail and losing his money. Same will happen to Plax, whose football career is essentially over - 2 years in jail for a wide receiver at Burress' age means nobody will sign him when he's out. Barry Bonds, the home-run king, has essentially been blacklisted by Major League Baseball, and the players in general have come under fire for their use of steroids, but nobody is talking about the owners who looked the other way in the 1990s when juice-induced homers were filling the seats and their pockets. Michael Phelps, Olympic hero (and University of Michigan grad - go Blue!), attracted so much criticism for his admission that he had smoked marijuana in the past.

I'm not sure what the hell happened to America, but since when were sports athletes our moral barometers? Seriously. I'm not condoning any of the actions mentioned above, but give me a break. I'd say, at the very least, we should hold our leaders more accountable than the guys we watch throw spirals, right? I get the outrage some people felt when Vick was let back into the league, but, again, he actually paid for his crimes. How many of our leaders have done no such thing? How many people in far more important positions involved in far more serious matters have gotten away with murder? Literally? Yet, America directs more of its outrage at NFL stars doing dumb and horrible things than Kellogg Brown and Root (KBR - a former Halliburton subsidiary), who got some sweet contracts from the US government (and who says having friends in high positions, like Dick Cheney, et. al., doesn't pay?) in Iraq, have misused a lot of the money, and most importantly, may have done such a shoddy job on electrical wiring that that this work killed 16 US soldiers due to electrocution this past year. In some of the cases, the Pentagon already announced no criminal charges will be filed. Well, of course not. Paying a company $80 million to wire facilities in Iraq, and then have a number of US soldiers die because they were electrocuted in showers in those facilities, doesn't seem to be a serious matter at all. Totally not linked, you know, wiring and multiple electrocution deaths in showers. Now, if you really want to talk about morality, let me tell you about Michael Vick...

Speculation is that Burress got a pretty harsh sentence because Mayor Bloomberg wanted to make an example out of him. Okay. So, let me see if I got this right. You want to make an example out of somebody for doing something bad. In New York city. Um...do you know Wall Street is in the area? Because, while Plax is a fool for carrying a gun into a club, and he definitely could have potentially done a lot of harm, he actually only shot himself, whereas our "great" business minds on Wall Street ran amuck and broke our economy with their recklessness, causing a hell of a lot of real harm to countless Americans. What some of them did was totally criminal. So...lets throw the book at Plax instead!

How many laws did the Bush administration break? It seems like we're still getting stories every few weeks about something insane and criminal they did to this day. What are the consequences? None, basically, because they were only the leaders of our country. John Yoo teaches at Berkeley. Dick Cheney seems ready for his own prime time television show. Alberto Gonzalez still can't remember a damn thing and will be teaching political science courses (why, god, why?) at Texas Tech. George W. Bush is putting together a think tank (no, that's not a joke). None of them are in jail. None of them went to trial to go to jail. And I doubt any of them will. While this is killing some progressives across the country (and people in general around the world), the general mood in America is, we shouldn't go after these guys. Awesome. We've got bigger fish to fry. Athletes. Rappers. Not guys who lie to Congress in sworn testimony - he totally doesn't deserve to go to jail.

Over time, it seems like the people we should be holding up to higher moral and civic standards in our country are acting in absolutely appalling ways. And, most importantly, they're getting away with it. Rachel Maddow shouldn't be one of the only people reporting on "the Family" at the C St. House, for instance, an institution that includes Congressional leaders who use taxpayer money to learn about coercion from some of the worst dictators around. Why hasn't there been wider coverage of Bobby Jindal using taxpayer dollars to fly to churches all over Louisiana to give communities checks with his name on it that came from the Obama stimulus bill that Jindal so openly deplored? How about really leaning heavily on Governor Sanford for being completely out of touch with everyone while he went down to Argentina to visit his mistress? Forget the affair, a governor of the state can't just leave town (and country) without telling anyone. By the way, he used taxpayer dollars for several of those trips before, and lots of taxpayer dollars in other inappropriate ways. Maybe he will be impeached (there seems to be some movement towards it), but political leaders sure seem to get away with a lot, so I'll believe he's held accountable when I see it. Now, if he was Michael Phelps, different story...

Charles Barkley famously quipped years ago that he wasn't a role model. Well, I think whether they want to be or not, athletes (and lots of other people in the public limelight, like musicians, actors, writers, etc.) have no choice but to be role models. That means acting responsibly, and paying the price when they don't. Oftentimes, they do get away with a lot. But sometimes they don't. On the other hand, there is no doubt our political, civic, and business leaders should be role models, far more than athletes, etc.. They are engaged in far more serious issues than entertaining us. Somewhere along the line, though, we shifted our moral barometers. Guys like Dick Cheney became untouchable, but guys like Barry Bonds became lightning rods for debates about "what was wrong in America." Well, I think the fact that the discussion has moved to that level might begin to tell us what is wrong in America.

Note: I realize I went after a lot of Republicans here...that's just because its easier, given the insane number of ridiculous scandals they've been involved with, but please don't think my point here is a partisan one. It's about the insanity of holding athletes, entertainers, etc., up to be the moral barometers of this country, while giving our actual leaders, in politics, in business, in civic life, a much easier pass.

Losing Wars We Already Won (Part I): Torture vs. WWII

Over the past century, our nation has triumphed over two sets of aspiring global tyrants: the axis powers in WWII, and the Soviet Union in the Cold War. Our victories over these foes were, in each case, world-historical in scale and importance. Yet within less than a century, we now flirt with losing the principles those successes established.

First, our recent record on torture, and more recent failure to prosecute all officials involved in enabling it, undermines the legacy of international human rights we established after the Second World War. Second, after vindicating freedom, liberty, and individual privacy in the Cold War, we now dutifully submit to a surveillance state more intrusive than any that has ever existed in human history.

In other words, Bush and Cheney succeeded in doing what neither Nazi Germany nor the Soviet Union could: eviscerate American values and undermine our grandest foreign policy accomplishments since the turn of the 20th century. And while President Obama's aim to “look forward, not backward,” may resemble a thoughtful political compromise, it is an illegal capitulation to illegitimate political interests carrying profound consequences for human rights and freedom both in the U.S. and around the world.

WWII and Human Rights...

The allied powers fought the Second World War largely in the name of human rights, which we enshrined in its wake with a series of international institutions. The United Nations was perhaps the most ambitious example; others include various treaties setting baseline standards for (among many other things) the treatment of detainees during wartime.

International institutions to ensure collective security represented a major leap forward for humankind, akin to the Apollo moon landing 20 years later. Not since the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648 had international relations undergone so fundamental a transformation. A core tenet of the post-WWII era, established by the Nuremberg Trials of former Nazi officials, held that individuals bear criminal liability for violating international human rights regardless of what domestic laws my authorize their conduct. The “following orders” defense was soundly rejected and officials up and down the chain of command faced justice for war crimes.

We Americans have been called upon to apply these principles to our own leaders only 60 years later. But our willingness to preserve our earlier achievements has proven lacking.

...vs. Torture with Impunity

Despite public pressure from voices across the political spectrum, the Obama administration continues to sweep torture under the rug. And while the Holder Justice Department has demonstrated welcome independence by recently announcing a limited investigation led by a special prosecutor, it could be worse than none at all if senior officials enjoy effective immunity.

First, investigating only junior level scapegoats would set a legal precedent that decisionmakers can violate human rights with impunity. Second, overlooking senior officials who set torture policies would confer artificial legitimacy on the range of offenses that were officially approved, despite their international illegality. While the current cover-up threatens the rule of law and real accountability is necessary, scapegoating could be even worse than doing nothing.

Failing to follow the key Nuremberg precedents--that “following orders” cannot justify war crimes and that liability transcends the chain of command--weakens them in the future. Mere omission vindicates lawlessness: sitting on our hands or prosecuting only some individuals involved will undermine the international legal framework we erected after defeating the Axis powers.

Immunity for any officials involved in torture will lead to an unfortunately predictable result: a global race to the bottom in human rights standards. Every two-bit despot the world over will claim a license to torture, maim and perhaps even kill at will.

Rather than stand accountable to the international community, any accused torturer need merely cite the Holder precedents (allowing perceived necessity to justify war crimes and resurrecting the lame “following orders” defense) to escape justice for whatever manner of abuse they might concoct. Even today, torture by U.S. officials reportedly continues at Guantanamo Bay, where Immediate Reaction Forces have killed at least one detainee while administering brutal force feedings lacking even sanitation, let alone anesthesia.

Moreover, by eroding a principle so fundamental as the prohibition on torture, underinclusive prosecution renders more palatable the full range of other international law violations. If even torture doesn't justify prosecuting everyone involved, why would, for instance, poaching endangered species or violating the ban on ozone-producing chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs)?

When attempting to justify their desire to sweep torture under the rug, apologists argue from both sides of their mouths. Accepting the “following orders” defense, they suggest that investigators ignore wrongdoing by interrogators who committed torture, yet conversely demand that senior officials who issued those orders should also escape investigation (despite their even greater culpability). Apologists wish to avoid “chilling current intelligence operations,” but given the dismal performance of our intelligence agencies, a little transparency and accountability is long overdue.

Examining other examples of prosecution offers even more reasons to pursue a robust and thorough--rather than artificially limited--investigation. Unless expanded from its initial contours, prosecutor John Durham's investigation will allow the architects of torture policy to remain free, while only other country's torturers face justice (or for that matter, while non-violent offenders in America receive prison sentences for less severe crimes). The resulting contrast and lack of proportionality could erode the legitimacy of both the international legal regime generally, and our own criminal justice system, in one fell swoop. Few discrete decisions--and even fewer omissions--could do so much damage so quickly to such vital institutions.

Our failure to apply the Nuremberg precedents threatens to sacrifice a civilizational advance as major as the printing press. Perhaps we should be less surprised, however, given that U.S. torture policy boasts a long, unapologetic history across a disappointing number of contexts. The result will ultimately turn on how much (and how sincerely) we honor the sacrifice of veterans who died in WWII--and whether everyday Americans committed to the legacy of human rights they established see fit to raise our voices.

This article was originally posted on Huffington Post.

Health Care Reform: Correcting the misinformation

For the past three years I’ve been doing health policy research with the hope of helping to inform our elected officials about both the issues in our health care system and potential solutions. With the all of the news coverage of townhalls, speeches and protests regarding health reform, it has occurred to me that many people are horribly misinformed about many of aspects of our current health care system and the reforms being debated. I am always open to discussing these and other potential policies, so let me know if you want to chat. But before a more in depth conversation, I think there are some key aspects of the debate that need to be addressed.

What is health care reform?

There are many different aspects to health care reform, which include reforming the way we use the doctor, how the doctor diagnoses and treats us, and how it is all paid for. The items being discussed in the Senate and House are less about reforming health care (the way we use the doctor and how he/she diagnoses and treats us) and more about reforming the health insurance industry and market (how is the doctor paid for the visit and how do we pay for insurance).

Why is health care reform even needed?

There are about 50 million Americans who don’t have health insurance and thus don’t have the ability to go to the doctor like you and I do. They are unable to make an appointment with a regular private physician and often either delay care or end up in the emergency room to receive care which could have easily been done by a regular doctor. This is important not just because I believe that everyone should have access to health care, but also because the emergency room costs more than going to visit a doctor in his or her office. These costs, if they are not covered by insurance or the government, are passed on to the rest of us in the form of higher health care costs.

While the costs of health care are high for each of us, they are even higher for the government. Medicare, which is the government run health insurance program for those over 65 years old (and certain other key groups), is a huge cost to our federal government. Medicare is one on the fastest growing costs to the federal government. We need to do something now to lower health care costs to ensure that Medicare is available for all of us when we retire. The longer we wait the higher health care costs will become.

What are the goals of health care reform?

The main goals are to insure those who currently lack health insurance and to reduce overall health care costs.

So what does a public health insurance option do?

The public health insurance option is a way to reign in health care costs by creating competition with the private health insurance companies. This will force the private health insurance companies to have competitive pricing and benefits for all of us, because if they don’t people will choose to purchase health insurance through the government.

This public health insurance option is a government takeover of health care, right? It means that we are going to have a system like the UK or Canada, right?

Absolutely not. Think of the public health insurance option as a Medicare type program that the rest of us can buy into, if we want to. So if I am 61 and want to retire, but am too young for Medicare but can’t buy health insurance from the private market, I’ll be able to choose to purchase it from the government. It does not mean that private health insurance companies are going to go away or out of business. Trust me, they are doing just fine. In fact, the CEO of United Health Group made more than $125 million last year. Not to mention a recent report by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office found that adding a public option will not force the private insurance companies out of business. For those of us with health insurance that we are happy with, we likely won’t see any changes, expect lower prices in the future.

I heard that the health insurance reforms will allow a bureaucrat decide who gets health care and who doesn’t, is this true?

No, that is exactly what these reforms are trying to stop. There are thousands of us, each day who receive a letter from the insurance company saying that the treatment or health care that was provided will not be covered and we are not required to pay tens of thousands of dollars for the care we received or our loved ones received. Not to mention, our doctors currently will only provide a treatment if they know it will be paid for by the insurance. These are examples of a bureaucrat between you and your doctor making treatment decisions. The government is trying to remove that bureaucrat with these reforms. Currently, health insurance companies can drop coverage when you get sick (after paying premiums for years) because of some undisclosed ailment you had when you signed up. The proposals being debated in the House and Senate are trying to stop this practice and trying to ensure that we all receive the health care that we need.

There have been several rumors about death panels and euthanasia in the recent days. These are completely false. They stem from an inclusion in one of the proposed bills stating that doctors can be reimbursed by Medicare for having discussions with their patients about living wills and other end of life decisions. So if you are enrolled in Medicare and you want to talk to your doctor about those decisions and seek his or her insight into the matters, the doctor will receive payment. This simply creates a financial incentive for doctors to encourage their patients to create living wills and have end of life conversations with our families. The government will not place a value on people’s lives and grant care accordingly.

Are these health care bills going to fix everything?

Unfortunately, no. The health care system in not an efficient system. Ultimately, we need to examine the way we reimburse doctors to ensure we are reimbursing quality and not simply the quantity of services provided. We need to provide financial incentives for doctors that provide high quality care at a lower cost, like the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota does. They provide amazing health care at a fraction of the cost of some doctors and hospitals around the country. In the United States we are paying about twice as much for health care than any other country in the world but receive far worse outcomes than most developed nations. This reform is not going to fix everything, but it is an important step in moving towards lower costs and higher quality care.

As always, feel free to spread the word.

Lies, Damn Lies, and the Health Reform Debate: Hello Insanity!

I personally would have preferred a "hello, Cleveland!", but alas, it is not to be. The health care debate has been absolutely absurd, our leaders in Washington have been absolutely moronic at times discussing it, and the media hasn't really done a great job reporting some basic facts about what is going on - though I give some of them some credit, because their showing the ignorance and straight-up gangsta behavior by people at these town hall meetings is illustrating just how looney some of these folks are. Anyway, we here at the "Spoon" decided to do a little PSA of sorts on health care reform. We hope to have a more detailed analysis up soon, but here's a quick read that we hope will be informative. (Note: this was supposed to be a quick-read piece, but damn it all, I couldn't stop writing!)

First of all, I want to address the town hall meetings and "widespread" public dissent about President Obama's health care reform. #1, a lot of these people that are disrupting these meetings are doing so on the bill of the health insurance industry. So, that tells you something. Rachel Maddow did a nice piece detailing the connections and ties behind this nonsense the other night. Straight-up Hessians, to some degree. #2, those who aren't are saying some of the most incredible things I've heard. So, even if they're actually angrily opposed to reform (as opposed to angry because a paycheck from the insurance industry tells them to be so), they have no clue what they're talking about. That's kind of the media's fault - I realize they're sort of helping by playing these incredibly ignorant comments, but maybe they could spend more time providing basic facts about parameters of the debate on a constat basis to help. "The government needs to keep its hands off my Medicare" is priceless (since Medicare is a government-run program), along with the GOP talking point that health care reform will include a provision that will essentially force euthanasia on seniors, another ridiculous statement. Craaaa-zeee. So, yeah, the "widespread" dissent is largely either being paid for, or is informed by ignorance. Oh, and while I am happy to see public discourse and dissent, "paid for by" and ignorant dissent is not good, particularly when it gets dangerous, especially in settings where the public is actually allowed to participate, as opposed to other boisterous protests where the opposition is loud particularly because it is not ever allowed anywhere near the discussion. A fight broke out at one of the town hall meetings in Tampa where cops had to calm things down, a Texas Democrat was shouted down by right-wingers who didn't even live in his district, a Maryland congressman had an effigy of him hung in opposition to reform (following the loud cheers Rep. Todd Akin received when he joked about Democrats getting lynched at these town hall meetings), and Rep. Brad Miller from North Carolina cancelled his town hall meetings after his office received a death threat. These are troubling signs, and very emblematic of where this debate has gone. Former Right-to Lifer Frank Schaeffer offers us some chilling words on what the reform debate has become.

Second, let's talk about the government role in all of this. Look, the "bureaucrat" in the system that is going to make decisions about your care isn't the government! We already have bureaucrats in the system, except they work for the insurance companies, are often called actuaries, are not health care or medical experts, and make decisions about what is and isn't covered. Again, private insurance...bureaucrat. The public option is the government part of the plan that many on the right are angry about, arguing its socialist and will destroy the private insurance industry. I've already written a little about that in an earlier post. Well, okay, so what is the public option? Its still a work in progress, but basically, it will function as a national health exchange of sorts, essentially being a plan organized and facilitated by the government, not necessarily run by them in the classic sense of the word. The various bills on the Hill right now basically put regulations on the public plan that will require the plan to meet the same benefits and cost requirements of private insurance companies. Obviously, there will be some differences, but no government bureaucrat will sit at a desk and decide what is covered.

Plus, this isn't a single payer system AT ALL! The government is not taking over health care IN ANY REAL WAY with this plan. I can't emphasize the fact that this point needs to be made clear every single time someone raises it. Again, like I said before, the public option involves more government involvement, certainly, but its primarily setting up particular regulations on the type and scope of coverage that can be offered, which is to be modeled on regulations for private insurance. There will most likely be some level of sliding scale subsidies for coverage, based on family income. So, yes, the government will be more involved. But this in no way is even remotely equivalent with government-run health care. And, by the way, I'm not sure whether government-run health care isn't better than private insurance. Medicaid, for instance, covers a substantially sicker population at relatively reasonable per-person rates. Yes, overall Medicaid spending certainly has increased over the past handful of years, but that is being driven primarily by more individuals being covered by Medicaid...largely because employer-based care has eroded. That is to say, public programs like Medicaid and SCHIP have come through to help prevent a larger increase in the uninsured than we've actually seen. Research shows that, when adjusting for health conditions and socioeconomic status, Medicaid is actually less expensive than private insurance. That is to say, if Medicaid patients were on private insurance, getting the same care, their care would cost quite a bit more. Conversely, if people on private insurance were on Medicaid getting the same care, their care would cost less. Again, the reform being postulated isn't the government-run socialist medicine "nightmare" that people are saying it is in any way, shape, or form, but if it was, that might actually not be a bad thing.

Third, about rationing...look, there is a finite supply of money and services, so care is going to probably be rationed to some extent. This is a very hard thing to deal with when the person it affects is someone you love, but understand that we already ration care. Of course, our rationing is primarily based on class. If you have money, you usually get a distinctly different type of health care than if you're not rich. So, the 55 year-old high executive at one of the major banks, who totally blew it and should have been fired on the spot, not only keeps his job, gets bailed out by the government, gets a ridiculous bonus, this person also has great health insurance coverage for the ulcers they got when they thought they were going to be fired because they completely screwed up. A hard-working twenty-something employee at said bank, who did everything right, was a model worker, got laid off, lost a lot due to all types of investments gone awry due to the economic problems partly caused by their own executives, and is now uninsured and is now facing some serious financial difficulties due to a few medical bills. So, what we have is a highly immoral type of rationing of care. I want to have a moral rationing of care, where things like medical conditions and projected health outcomes help determine who gets what. Its far more efficient and far more humane. Again, it makes it tough for those whose loved ones are on the losing end, but at least there is a method to the madness, and we're ultimately helping more people with our difficult calls. That is not the case at all right now.

Fourth, our health care system is not the best in the world. It is, in fact, a middle-of-the-pack health care system, at best. The WHO World Health Report had us at #37 in overall system performance, and #72 in overall health. Not exactly numbers to write home about. A more recent study compared us to six other major nations, and we rank last in pretty much every category. We also ranked last among 19 countries in a survey looking at preventable deaths. We do pretty poor on both issues of access to care and quality of care, and are going in the wrong direction. But, we are number 1 in one thing...spending. This tells you one thing...we are doing a terribly inefficient job. Tons of spending, mediocre (at best) results. Any argument that we need to stay away from reform because our system is already the best in the world...is crazy as hell.

Fifth (or fif...damn, do I miss Chappelle's Show), about choice. The proposed plan does not scrap the current system (which I think it should, but that's another story). If people feel their current employer-based insurance or whatever other form of health care coverage they have is good, they can stay on it. Nobody is being mandated to go onto government-facilitated (that is much more accurate than government-run) health care. Also...I'm sorry, choice is nice, but real coverage that is affordable, period, should be the main concern. I hate this line of arguing...I won't be able to see my normal doctor in this plan, blah blah blah. Yes, its valid to argue about that, but when you're looking at comparing that against not having real (i.e. no smoke and mirrors high-deductible plans, or other types of coverage that don't pay for much in the end, which, ultimately lead to patients foregoing necessary care) and affordable health care, I go with the latter as the most important point every time. And...again...if you like your current insurance, you can stay there!

Sixth, about costs and the problem of health care spending....we need to curtail our health care spending, no doubt about it. It will take up a greater and greater portion of our budget, but the problem with the system as it is is that we're not really going to get much for that spending. There are so many inefficiencies present - we need to alter incentives, financing mechanisms, etc., in order to really start seeing a true deceleration of costs, as opposed to just cutting back coverage (which, I'm sure the insurance industry would have no problem doing - I linked to it in my previous post, but please check out Wendell Potter's damning testimony against the insurance industry, which has not gotten nearly as much media play as it should have...Potter was a whistleblower from CIGNA who really spilled some beans on just what our insurance industry has been doing - here is a ton of info about him, his testimony, and a great interview he did with Bill Moyers. Because so many patients are underinsured or uninsured, health care providers often have to game the system to ensure that they don't lose money. This means they might perform a variety of tests that aren't quite necessary, but are expensive, for patients with good health insurance, in order to compensate for the care they provide to patients who don't have insurance, or whose insurance doesn't really cover much of anything. The incentives of the system, in general, are to do as many tests as possible, too. I'm not saying this is what providers necessarily do, but the way they are compensated, as well as how the system is financed overall, often doesn't help this issue. A major step in the right direction would be to alter the mechanisms by trying to lower the number of uninsured and underinsured. This would likely lead to a change in efforts to game the system. The public option, some other type of hybrid system that the Senate Finance Committee is looking at as an alternative to the public option, and expanded public coverage for the poor and low-income, would be ways to address this issue. Additionally, we do need to reconsider how we finance care overall. A real emphasis on prevention, with some money behind it, could help. But, keeping the disjointed system as-is, or simply providing "more choice" through tax credits, etc., will do nothing to lower costs. The tax credit argument has serious flaws in it, which research has clearly illustrated. We need a real change in the system in order to stave off major financial problems down the road. Yes, the bill isn't low - about $100-150 billion/year, or around $1 trillion over 10 years. This, of course, doesn't exclude cost savings that will occur from reform. Yes, it's still going to cost us money, but under 1% of a national income that grows at around 2.5% each year. That's not cheap, but that's not going to destroy the country's economy.

Finally, this is a point I abstractly discussed in my previous post, and intimated above, but here it is more bluntly: is an increased government role in health care a bad thing? Seriously, think about it. Again, the point of clarification (in case I didn't make it obvious enough yet), Obama's plan will NOT create government-run health care in any real sense of the word. According to the CBO report, the public option will NOT drive insurance companies out of business. However...maybe it should. Spend a few minutes going through the info Potter shells out in the link above. This is what private insurance is. Innovation? Hardly. Better prices and better services? No way in hell. I'd argue there is both correlation AND causation between our highly inefficient health care system and the private insurance industry. Look, I have no problem with profits. I'm generally cool with capitalism, in concept (not what we call capitalism, which is borderline socialism for corporations, in America - again, prior post!). But, here's the thing. These private insurance companies have clearly sacrificed the health of Americans to make money. I mean...that's the point, right? Its not exactly easy to regulate a lot of private insurance, due to ERISA preemption. For instance, many state efforts to require Wal-Mart to pay more of the costs of its health insurance for its employees (having done some research on this, I'll say that Wal-Mart health insurance plans were very expensive, which, combined with low pay, resulted in many employees not only not being able to afford insurance coverage, but then enrolling in Medicaid - California had a big fight over this, as did Maryland, and a bunch of other states) were attempted, but defeated due to ERISA preemption - its not easy to mess with employer-sponsored plans.

So, here's the thing...when we are dealing with people's lives, which we literally are with health insurance, is this really an instance where the private sector is appropriate if it is not easily regulated, and has not exactly been doing a good job up to this point? I mean, its one thing when we're talking about televisions, stereos, iPods, etc. It is entirely different when we are talking about lives. I'm not saying the private sector can't have a role in health care. I'm not even saying it can't have the major role. I'm saying that the private sector model of profit maximization is highly problematic in this area, because lives are at stake in a very direct way. Given the track record, I don't quite get why people are so dead-set on ensuring the health care industry survives intact in this debate. We can be a capitalist society (it would help if we actually were one, of course!) without every single thing being pure free market. Health care is an area where I'm not sure a free market is ideal. It could work, if we could get some real regulations in place that required certain conditions, such as ensuring people had access to real insurance at affordable prices that didn't discriminate against pre-existing conditions (or maybe even create a national high risk pool for people with pre-existing conditions). Let private insurance companies bid on big regional or national contracts for insurance, let them run things their way so long as they comply with a reasonable set of federal regulations, let them innovate and compete...they'll almost certainly still do quite well, simply because you're talking about an incredible number of people they get to enroll in their plans. But, if the industry is left as it is, where we don't have any real innovation or competition, but much more of an oligopoly, where it is hard to really regulate plans to ensure they are providing real coverage at reasonable rates and not discriminating, and where they profit more from cutting people off from coverage when they need it the most (this isn't some made-up highly-cynical scenario, this is what continuously happens)...why is this something to defend at all? Look, it is not the idea of private insurance, or the idea of a free market, that is problematic - this can certainly work if implemented correctly. However, what we have right now absolutely isn't working, so I don't understand why critics use terms like capitalism and the free market as abstract ideas that need to be defended against increased government involvement, when it is painfully obvious that the private insurance system we have in place has done a terrible job. We need a real debate about whether a real free market, or increased government involvement, in health care is the better option. This would be healthy and helpful to all. What we don't need is this nonsensical discussion where the government involvement is linked to the Soviet Union and fascism, and the current system we have is tied to Adam Smith. Neither is true.

And in the end, we get the insane debate that has happened thus far on health care reform. We're talking about nonsensical stuff, most of it based on pure lies and deception. We should be discussing far-more important issues, like what kind of delivery system works best, how do we best incentivize the incorporation of health IT and quality of care standards, what are the optimal levels of cost-sharing to ensure appropriate use of care, what are the best pooling options to maximize economies of scale, whether we can we find a way to regulate private insurance companies in a manner to ensure that they stay in check while maximizing their flexibility to capture the benefits of true capitalism in terms of competition...these are all really important discussions to be had by supporters and critics of the type of health care reform being proposed right now. There's plenty of factually-based dissent to be heard from all sides. I don't think Obama is going far enough, whereas some old-school Republicans (do they exist anymore?) might say we need to keep the government out, but stop protecting the insurance industry and make the system truly a free market. These are real and valuable discussions to be had. But, what do we get? Discussions about euthanasia, unfounded fears of a fall into autocratic socialism, and, of course, Senator Grassley talking about dragons and health care like a lunatic. I'd say shoot me now, but I might not be able to afford the co-pay for the hospitalization.

Swallowing the Medicine to Cure What Ails Us

Some time ago a friend of mine sent me this ABC News article about a study on men and condom use, or rather the preference to not use condoms. Given that even the most dimwitted of 7th graders knows why guys would prefer not to use condoms, this study sounded exactly like the type of thing that the Bobby Jindals of the world would attack as wasteful spending. How, I wondered, could we keep with the theme proposed by the Kinsey Institute researchers and make it relevant enough to folks on the right that they wouldn’t deem the funding to be of questionable import? The answer was quite simple.

Instead of the National Institutes of Health funding the Kinsey Institute to study condom usage, they could fund a joint project between Kinsey and the National Institute of Mental Health to study the psychopathology inherent in the inability of the religious right/family values crowd, in particular, and the Republican/conservative moment, in general to properly grasp the concept of and actually engage in tea-bagging, maintain marital fidelity, or to find their homosexual tendencies to be just as healthy as their heterosexual urges (except when they're soliciting strange men in airport bathrooms, or paying prostitutes, or acquiring Argentine mistresses those are decidedly unhealthy activities) when the first two are so central to their core beliefs and the third seems to be a regular predilection. Such a study could have wide ranging implications for our political system and even the current health care reform debate. Imagine a Republican Party transformed. Imagine them no longer being the party of “No,” but a party that could say “Yes!” Imagine, this study leading to others that eventually leads to a proper categorization and diagnosis of the illness that is conservatism. Imagine finding the genetic markers that cause this illness and being able to stop it before it fully expresses itself. Imagine, the health insurance industry no longer being able to discriminate against them for having this pre-existing condition and finally being able to get the coverage they deserve. Wouldn’t that make this a better more equitable country? Isn’t that change we can believe in? I guarantee that no less a paragon of the right than John Boehner would stand up and say “Yes, We Can!” if the Democratic caucus added such a provision to the current health reform legislation. At least until it came time to fund a study to cure what ails Democrats.

American "Capitalism" (it 'ain't quite capitalism) and the Health Care Debate

The health care debate (more on that soon) got me thinking a little about the whole capitalism/socialism thing. And my conclusion is...I wish I was a full-time comedian (no, I'm not even a part-time comedian, but I should be - you know I got jokes!), because this debate has so much ridiculous material. The central thrust is that Obama and the advocates of health care reform, or I should say, reform of his kind, are threatening to take the U.S. health care system and paint it socialist. In general, the Know-Nothings (what I call the Republicans who pretty openly shun knowledge, which, sadly, is quite a few of them) use the socialist label pretty often anytime there is any sort of discussion about corporate responsibility, progressive tax reform, etc. Well, their argument is full of holes, anyway (not surprising from know-nothings), but they seem to gloss over a major issue - America has had a lot of socialism in it, and I argue, not in a good way, either.

Okay, lets try to keep this simple, and not turn into a long-ranging discussion on political economy, etc. (which I couldn't do, anyway). A basic selling point of capitalism is that a free market pushes innovation at a greater pace than a controlled market. By making firms compete against each other, you not only theoretically get better products, you also get lower prices - everybody wants to win in the marketplace, so they make better products than the next guy, and then sell it for less. On a theoretical level, I'll say that I personally tend to favor the incentives of a free market.

So, you're thinking to yourself, this is kind of what America is based on, right? Isn't this system the basis of our economy? Isn't this one of the main points of contrast between us and the Soviet Union in the Cold War? Well...sort of. See, the problem with all of this is, we're not exactly a capitalistic society. Not for the big boys, at least. And the health care debate reminded me of that.

What am I talking about here? Simple...if America was truly a capitalistic society, it would not protect its large firms, which are among the largest and most powerful in the world, anyway. We do not have infant industries in any stretch of the imagination. The US, if truly adherent to capitalism, would limit tariffs. We would not shield these companies in any way - the whole point is to use global competition to create better products, right? Well, that's where we fall short on a lot of levels. We do indeed protect a lot of our industries. Not all, of course, but there are quite a few corporate tax loopholes, corporate welfare, and other forms of financial protection for some of our biggest firms.

So, when Bill Maher laments that America doesn't make anything anymore, there's a reason for that...we cover our industries collective behinds to a point that they don't have to compete so hard in the global economy. This hurts innovation, competitive prices, etc. Hence, we no longer lead in producing "stuff". And some of this has other real consequences, too. For instance, our protection of the textile industry here really hurts Pakistan, which can't really penetrate US markets because of this fact. Now, if Pakistani textiles could get in, they would do pretty well and generate some wealth for Pakistan, no small thing considering the major economic issues the country is experiencing, which are undoubtedly playing a big role in larger security issues. This would also push our own textile industry to get their act together as well.

Now, on the other hand, when it comes to a massive comparative advantage, we are pure capitalism, baby! Iraq is the most obvious example of this, and we see this type of thing when US aid gets distributed to other countries. Part of the condition is to open their markets to the US/buy US products with the aid money. What happened in Iraq was one of the more disgusting examples of this. Iraq, post-war, was obviously a mess (and it still is). In terms of its economy, what it really needed was a more socialistic approach. There was no way its industries could compete with foreign firms. Of course, this kind of approach didn't fly with US capitalism promotion abroad. Bremer wrote in laws that opened Iraq for foreign business early in the occupation, and not surprisingly, foreign firms came in and wiped the floor with native industries. Hooray capitalism! This kind of thing has happened quite frequently, though maybe not to the degree of the CPA in Iraq. Andrew Bacevich, a noted military and US foreign policy historian, talked about the concept a bit, referring to it as economic imperialism, something a lot of people missed during the Clinton years. We made many across the world "liberalize" their economies, which isn't bad at all, but we often insisted that they open up their markets fully, as opposed to nurturing some of their own native industries, which ended up being a major win for us. I realize this kind of goes in between imperialism and foreign capitalism, but I'm just trying to illustrate the point of open markets here.

This has some similarities to the economics of European colonialism. It's not the same, but there's a lot of overlap. Europe, coming off its Industrial Revolution, needed markets to sell these goods in, as well as markets to buy cheap raw materials. Hello, Middle East and Africa. European powers came in, made deals with rulers to open the markets, and did a killing. But wait...didn't I say earlier that global competition is necessary to improve industries? If so, doesn't that make all this foreign capitalism okay? Well...not exactly. When I talk about keeping open markets, etc., I'm talking about cases where the countries have somewhat similar economies. So, the domestic country has a chance to compete with the foreign one. This is not quite so applicable for countries with true infant industries, which need time to grow to a point where they can compete with global firms. The US, for instance, obviously has a huge economy, and should be able to try and compete with European, Russian, and Gulf companies, whereas a war-torn Iraq, which had been depleted by years of sanctions, had no chance in hell of competing with US firms.

So, yes, we are all about capitalism when we have a massive advantage, but not quite so much when we don't have a massive advantage. That's not really pure capitalism, you know. That's more like capitalism for our companies when its convenient, and kind-of-socialism when it's not. Which is why the cry of socialism by the Know-Nothings cracks me up. It's like, morons, otherwise known as members of Congress, we're not exactly a capitalist society! What we have, I'd argue, is the worst of both worlds. On the one hand, we have an exploitative brand of capitalism abroad that is unlikely to win us many allies, and could come back and bite us pretty bad one day. Nothing says revolutionary overthrow of a regime like massive economic strife caused by domestic industries killed by large foreign multinational corporations! Now that's what I call a bumper sticker! At home, we allow some of our industries to become more and more noncompetitive in the global economy by sheltering them with socialism...this is the place where capitalism is the most important thing, of course. And, where socialism would actually help, like providing a social safety net for the market failures that inevitably occur in capitalism (namely, the poor), we back away from it like it was the plague.

I'm not necessarily advocating either system here - like I intimated earlier, I think the incentives of capitalism are good, but I understand that it will ultimately fail when it comes to the poor and marginalized, so I think we need a more socialistic response there. All I'm trying to point out here is the hypocrisy in the use of these terms, and particularly of socialism by people who support its worst aspects for our own firms in many cases. I understand that great powers have incentives to exploit the economic system, which is in theory what we're doing, but when you shelter your own corporations, not making them earn their keep globally, I think it will come back and bite you in the long-run. And, I mean, look at Britain in the 19th century. The colonial aspect is awful, obviously, but in terms of their economy, unlike other European powers, they did actually keep an open market at home, irrespective of whether other countries did or did not reciprocate. I'd argue this played no small role in their becoming the dominant power of the time - their industries were forced to compete as opposed to being sheltered. Of course, brutal British colonialism abroad helped, too, but at least domestically, I think the British empire got the capitalism/socialism thing better than others.

The health care debate made me think about all of this because some are going after the public option with a cry that it will kill insurance companies - even though a recent report from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) said it would do no such thing. (For the entire report, click here). Hmmm....health insurance companies have been running inefficiently for years in the US. So providing a public option plan that might run better due to (presumably) lower administrative costs is bad - how? I mean, isn't that the point of capitalism? If you have a company that has been doing a crappy job, you want a company that is doing a better job to come in for a) production purposes; and b) to get the crappy company in line or out of the game. So, lets be very clear. The argument to protect the "poor insurance companies" at the behest of millions of Americans is, in a way, an argument for socialism.

Now, I realize a public option isn't exactly the same as another health insurance company coming in and competing, but the private health system is, in some ways, an oligopoly, and I can't fathom private insurance companies becoming more efficient without competition from a plan that limits administrative costs, return on equity for shareholders, and advertising. I agree with Howard Dean in that I don't really give a damn as to whether private insurance companies get hurt by a public option, because they are doing a terrible job. We spend more on health care than any nation, but rank, depending on what evaluation tool you're looking at, as somewhere between #30 and #60 in terms of how good our health care actually is. A major reason is the private insurance companies. The most efficient private health insurance companies spend over 20% of costs on administration...you can expect that number to be halved by a public option plan, if not more. They keep about half of your premium dollars for themselves, and sometimes deny payment on claims to make more profits. They could do business better, but have no incentive to do so, since they profit from taking additional money from their customers while not paying themselves. I mean, did you pay attention to Wendell Potter's testimony to Congress in late June? Dear god. (Click here for a transcript of the testimony). If you think the insurance companies are reforming without competition, albeit from the government to keep them honest, I have some prime real estate I'd like to sell you. You're not getting a well-functioning health care system with private health companies - we've seen the results, and they've been pretty awful. Hence, the need for some competition, albeit not exactly a private firm.

So, like I said, the argument to protect the insurance companies that have done such a (sarcasm alert) wonderful job up to this point amounts to an argument to protect inefficient and, ultimately, ineffective companies, which is pretty similar to other arguments to protect our "threatened" corporations, which smells more like socialism than capitalism. It's like pulling for King Kong Bundy as the "little guy" in a fight against Al Bundy. And...here's the best part...at the same time, Obama's health care reform itself is also socialism (it's not, but whatever) that must be defeated at all costs before it destroys America. Wow. So, basically, they're trying to win on both fronts. See, I told you, great stand-up material.

We hope to have more on the actual meat of health care reform up soon on the blog

Note: I want to clarify something here - the point of this point is not to debate whether capitalism or socialism are better systems, or what precisely comprises each. Rather, I want to highlight the problematic and hypocritical nature in which these terms are being used. Like I point out, America is not exactly the bastion of the free market, so I find the socialist argument against a greater US government role (even though it isn't remotely as big as many are making it out to be) in health care to be a ridiculous argument. The government is plenty involved in plenty of our big businesses in ways that I posit may not be all that good. In health care, the government needs to be more involved, given the many problems of private health insurance. Paul Krugman and I are clearly thinking on the same wavelength, as he published a pretty good article about this today. He must have read our blog first...ha. Anyway...so that it's clear, this isn't so much a detailed analysis of capitalism versus socialism as it is an exercise to illustrate the insanity of the way the health care debate is regressing thus far.