From the Ridiculous to the pathetic

                   

OK, so the good Southern Baptists at Hobby Lobby don’t want to have to comply with the Affordable Care Act (ACA)requirement that specifies that an employer’s health care plan must cover all prescriptions that her (or his) doctor   might deem appropriate. Their primary objection (in addition to the ACA being an Obama initiative) centers on the fact that while they are ok with 12 of the birth control methods that an employee might use, they consider IUDs or the morning after pill as "abortions." First of all; do we think that Southern Baptists took the regional descriptor as a badge of honor, or did regular, sane,  Baptists assign it as a disclaimer?  In my opinion, that could go either way, remembering the hate filled tradition of the Southern Baptists through this century. You know, cross burnings,  attack dogs, water cannons, lynchings,  all in the name of Christ.

In cases where the sanity of one side of the argument is questionable, the technique called reductio ad absurdum can be useful. This just might be such a case. Here’s a definition and an example of this logic tool.  “A mode of argumentation or a form of argument in which a proposition is disproven by following its implications logically to an absurd conclusion.  Arguments which use universals such as, “always”, “never”, “everyone”, “nobody”, etc., are prone to being reduced to absurd conclusions.  The fallacy is in the argument that could be reduced to absurdity -- so in essence, reductio ad absurdum is a technique to expose the fallacy.”

Now the example:  “If everyone lived his or her life exactly like Jesus lived his life, the world would be a beautiful place!”    We first assume the premise is true: if everyone lived his or her life like Jesus lived his, the world would be a beautiful place.  If this were true, we would have 7 billion people on this earth roaming from town to town, living off the charity of others, preaching about God.  Without anyone creating wealth, there would be nobody to get charity from -- there would just be 7 billion people all trying to tell each other about God.  After a few weeks, everyone would eventually starve and die.  This world might be a beautiful place for the vultures and maggots feeding on all the Jesus wannabes, but far from a beautiful world from a human perspective.  Since the world cannot be both a beautiful place and a horrible place, the proposition is false.   Of course, this itself is subject to further reduction, in that, to many mainstream Christians, Jesus was essentially asexual, ergo, there would be no one left on the earth, a fact that many mammals would applaud, if capable!

A more testable, yet equally fallacious statement is: “I am going into surgery tomorrow so please pray for me.  If enough people pray for me, God will protect me from harm and see to it that I have a successful surgery and speedy recovery.”   We first assume the premise is true: if “enough” people prayed to God for her successful surgery and speedy recovery, then God would make it so.  From this, we can deduce that God responds to popular opinion.  However, if God simply granted prayers based on popularity contests, that would be both unjust and absurd.  Since God cannot be unjust, then he cannot both respond to popularity and not respond to popularity, the claim is absurd, and thus false.

Now that we know the ground rules, let’s  look at some possible outcomes of allowing insurers or their carriers to refuse or moderate what they will or won’t cover (and other ridiculous actions based on belief) , based on either the carrier’s or employer’s personal religious beliefs.

A Jewish or Muslim employer might fire employees for eating pork. (wanna bet they could find a Baptist lawyer to sue the employer?)

 Jewish stockholders might pressure Red Lobster to stop selling clams, oysters and lobsters.

Any Biblical literalist could stone adulterers, refuse to serve a customer with a crippled hand, prohibit 

employees shaving, and buy slaves and will them to their children as property.

A Catholic employer might  have, until recently, fired an employee for a clandestine Friday hamburger.

A Seventh Day Adventist hospital (and there are many) could refuse to insure non-Adventist employees (and there are many) for an accident suffered while working on Saturday.  An Orthodox Jewish employer might seek to do the same.

Southern Baptists might be, ought to be,  militantly against the death penalty (but the vast majority are not! I mean, go figure – these are the people who want to thrust the Ten Commandments into secular buildings)

Imagine the uproar if a Muslim owned company even considered disciplinary action against a non-Muslim employee for eating during daylight hours during Ramadan!

Or a real favorite, right out of Leviticus, mistreating foreigners – “the foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born” So any self styled Christian who treats immigrants badly is sinning.

Oddly enough, In all the Bible, there is no verbage that makes abortion (let alone birth control) a sin, as there is for all the  above mentioned acts, many of  which Southern Baptists wouldn’t  even think twice about. There is no Biblical definition of when life starts other that doesn’t involve breath. Even later, Thomas Aquinas arbitrarily picked 44 days after conception, as the time the fetus (somehow) acquired a soul.

The point is that Christian tradition as exemplified by the only writings considered scriptural by the vast majority of believers, and especially for Baptist literalists like the Hobby Lobby owners, does not ban abortion, and certainly would have nothing to say about the “morning after pill” which is at the crux of the law suit before the Supremes. This isn’t about freedom of religion as they would have it seem, it is about freedom from having to conform to an arbitrary standard having nothing whatever to do with the job or the workplace, but which may well have a great deal of importance to the employee and their doctor.

In a setting which, by law, is inviolable, that of doctor patient privacy, the idea that an employer owns some stock in their employees’ reproductive privacy is a throwback to the mentality prevalent across the South in the 1830s, when slaves were bred, or not, according to a master’s wishes. One wonders how strenuous would be the Hobby Lobby owners’ objections if the exact same legislative requirement was a Republican initiative.    

A "Flood" of Misinformation!

     Just when I thought people couldn’t get much goofier! Now we will be treated over the next weeks to both Fundamentalists and other Christians/non-Christians providing the producers with much needed free publicity regarding the, soon to hit a theater near you, film “Noah.”

     Muslims are pissed, because of a fact the vast majority of Christians don’t know, which is that the Qur’an  considers Noah as a prophet, and making images of prophets for profits (or any other reason) is forbidden. So some Muslim nations have banned the film. So, do ya still want to live in a theocracy?

     Fundamentalist Christians are pissed because they say the producers filled the film with inaccuracies. Back away and consider the nature of that statement. This is essentially saying that this oral history, no more or less than any other civilization’s creation/annihilation story, which has been dated differently  every time geology proves the previous version impossible, has details which can be classified  “right” or “wrong.” 

For Fundamentalists, the story is word for word as described in whatever version of the Bible they are currently using. Scientific contradictions (and they are legion) aside, they subscribe, similarly to Muslims insistence on the immutability of the Qur’an,  to the belief that the Bible constitutes nothing less than the immutable,  literal word of God.  If the Bible said Noah saved the animals (and himself and his family and 76 other righteous persons  (most of you never heard of them, either huh?) in the trunk of a 1948 Packard, it has to be regarded as divinely revealed truth.

     In reality, which never seems to infringe on the mythology of Fundamentalist Christians, The Genesis flood narrative is one of a number of similar flood myths. Many scholars believe that the Noah story and the Biblical Flood story are derived from the Mesopotamian versions, predominantly because Biblical mythology that is today found in Judaism, Christianity, Islam and Mandeanism shares overlapping consistency with far older written Mesopotamian stories of The Great Flood, and that some of the early Hebrews were believed to have lived in Mesopotamia, for example during the Babylonian captivity. The earliest written flood myth is the Sumerian flood myth found in the 'Epic of Ziusudra’.  Later and very similar Mesopotamian flood stories are found in the Epic of Atrahasis and Epic of Gilgamesh texts.

     What the vast percentage of modern theologians except for  reality  challenged Fundamentalists now believe is that just like almost every Bible story, including many of the New testament, the Flood story is allegorical in nature.  Thomas Jefferson calculated that there could never be sufficient water to actually “cover the world with water.”  I mentioned this to a semi-relative who immediately said that all the extra water was contained in a globe of water called the “firmament” which God had placed around the earth (just in case he needed it, I suppose) I then asked the logical question, “If that were so, how did sunlight get through to make the trees grow so Noah could build the ark?” Silence.

     Reality poses far simpler solutions. The Tigris and Euphrates rivers have between them  lands which have been, for thousands of years, subject to flooding when the snow melt in the Turkish mountains combines with spring rains. This is mirrored in the Mississippi/Missouri system in North America.  For civilizations in the fertile crescent (modern day Iraq, where Noah would have lived), large floods were common, but a “1000 year” flood would appear to residents to be the entire world covered with water. Even the Missippi system, with all the flood control measures in place, neared 40 miles in width during the worst floods, and that was in the late 20th century. Small wonder that Neolithic herdsmen, who probably travelled less than ten miles from their home lands during their lives thought the world was covered with water, because to their limited understanding, it was! Of course what is missing from the region, at least today, are the forests capable of producing the sort of timbers necessary to build the Ark to biblical specs. 

     Other problems include the distribution of species. If you are a Fundamentalist, then based on the Creationist “manifesto” you must believe that Noah wrangled T-Rexs, Polar Bears, and all the North American fauna (which never existed in the fertile crescent) across the Atlantic and into the ark. Based on the 150 days of rain and 220 days of drying version, he also must have been towing a prodigious barge filled with food.

     One more issue is simple biology. In the most restrictive version, all of Noah’s  issue after the flood were the products of second degree incest (at best). If all the “Arkians” were Noah and his peers, there is no explanation for the proliferation of human races today. In other words, a literal Flood Story interpretation has more holes than a tennis racket, so to lambast it based on “inaccuracies” is sheer insanity.  

     As a rational believer in Geology, Archeology and Anthropology, there are also reasons to criticize the film. Availability of wood is a first problem, although not insurmountable, until you consider that Noah and his immediate family couldn’t possibly really lived long enough to obtain the wood and do the construction. And, please don’t give me that bullshit about Methuselah and the other alleged long lived patriarchs in period when any infection was a potential death sentence, not to mention that every single human remain from the period has shown 40 as an advanced age. 

    

     An even better reason is the appearance of the principals in the movie. Just like “Son of God”, which features “Sven Christ” (my obviously ironic reference to the Scandinavian looking six foot two male model  playing Jesus) in a period when the average  man was lucky to hit 5 foot 6 inches (again, by actual remains). If “Son of God” is accurate, Jesus and the Apostles would have looked like the LA Lakers compared to the rest of the residents of Galilee. In like manner, Emma Watson, the divine Hermione Granger, a far more realistic casting, bears zero resemblance to even any current resident of the region, let alone a contemporaneous one.

      The final straw is tidal waves and water spontaneously shooting up from the ground in geysers, rather than simply raining down. Clearly this is a gross contradiction to the Bible version, and is reminiscent of the artistic license taken by the producers of “2012” and others of the slew of fictionalized apocalyptic films in vogue.  

     Debating the “realism” or “accuracy” of Biblical allegory (at best, fiction more likely)  is reminiscent of the recent tempest in a teapot when Faux News talking heads debated the ethnicity of Santa Claus!

If the film were to be realistic, you’d have Noah portrayed by Shelley Berman, with his sons, Shecky/ Richard Belzer,  Morty/Jackie Mason, and  Moshe/Gene Wilder with their wives,  Bea Arthur, Linda Lavin, and Barbra Streisand. Now that, I’d pay to see!  

Things That Make You Say " Huh?"

        Every so often one reads a statement that is so ridiculously misinterpreted that you just go …"Huh?" Ever happen to you? It happened to me this morning in the Villages Daily Sun (not a statement by the paper, but a letter to the editor).

      The writer was quoting Saul Alinsky’s 1971 “Rules for Radicals.” The ludicrous conclusion was that all these things were the program of the progressive/liberals to lead the nation to revolution. For those who are too young to remember, Alinsky was  a Chicago born (a fact placed right up front, since if you want to present things as the fault of a single man, in this case of course President Obama, make sure you tie it to his home town) radical who died in 1972. Alinsky, like Noam Chomsky was one of the “blue work shirt philosophers” who believed that the continued enforced poverty of minorities was a recipe for revolution.  He is generally considered to be the founder of modern community organizing. Over nearly four decades of political organizing,  Alinsky received much criticism, but also gained praise from many public figures. His organizing skills were focused on improving the living conditions of poor communities across North America. In the 1950s, he began turning his attention to improving conditions in the African-American ghettos, beginning with Chicago's and later traveling to other ghettos in California, Michigan, New York City, and a dozen other "trouble spots".

  

    His ideas were adapted in the 1960s by some U.S. college students and other young counterculture-era organizers, who used them as part of their strategies for organizing on campus and beyond. Time magazine once wrote that "American democracy is being altered by Alinsky's ideas," and conservative author William F. Buckley said he was "very close to being an organizational genius."   He believed that the white middle class in America was angry and ripe for revolution, as the rich got richer and the poor got poorer.  He prefaced “Rules for Radicals” with “What follows is for those who want to change the world from what it is to what they believe it should be.”

      Right up front, then, anyone who cites “Rules for Radicals” literally , instead as simply a satirical social commentary of the 1970s, clearly believes things are fine the way they are!  Alinsky lists several “strategies” (for want of a better word) which are in many ways inverse  examples of, not how to change things for the better, but how to maintain what Alinsky believed to be a very un-democratic  status quo. I had intended to address this to the editorial page of the paper, but the 300 word limit makes that an impossibility, so let’s begin to address the “rules” as described verbatim in the misguided letter writer’s own limited prose.    

1.  “Health care. Controlling it controls the people” I am sure that writer believes this to be an indictment of the Affordable Care Act, which of course is diametrically wrong. Quite the opposite of rationing, health care, the ACA is no more or less than an effort to broaden access to health care.  Far Right propaganda grossly overplays federal interface here, since all health care purchased under the Act, while possibly subsidized in part, is administered by private insurers.  Apparently the writer believes anything that makes health care more widely available and tries to curtail Medicare/Medicaid fraud is a bad thing. Go figure.

2.    “Poverty. Increase the level of poor and provide everything. Will be easier to control and won’t fight back (sic)” Other than due to the  2007 Bush Recession, there hasn’t  been an increase in the poverty level more significant than the Reagan years since “Rules” was written! Likewise the have/have not gap has increased markedly, and is almost the greatest, proportionally in the world. This is the legacy not of liberal but of conservative policies. 

     3.      "Debt. Increase it, then increase taxes. That will produce more poverty.” Again. Look at the record, record deficit increases under Reagan, Bush and Bush, with an 8 year period of reduction under Clinton, followed 8 years later by Obama struggling under the double whammy of a punitive war deficit for a war we shouldn’t have fought, coupled with a bail out which, while probably necessary (we can agree or disagree on that) was the legacy of Bush 43. Of course no one has offered a “magic bullet” to reduce the debt without reverting to recession, rather the Far Rightists simply stand on the sidelines throwing stones and undermining good-faith efforts by centrists of both parties 

    

    4.    “Gun Control. Remove ability to defend themselves (sic), allowing government to create a police state.” Once again the “self defense” lie is told. As I have so often written, there is not, and never has been any effort to limit access to guns for legitimate sportsmen. Period. The “Nugents” of the world apparently believe it is part of legitimate sport to use assault weapons as hunting guns.  This flies in the face of even Ronald Reagan who supporting assault weapon bans. There is a huge disconnect between legitimate gun ownership, and allowing any psychopath to buy rapid fire weapons and thousands of rounds of ammunition which then is used on helpless civilians.

    

    5.    “Welfare. Control their lives with food, housing and income.”  Again, the writer hasn’t the ability to perceive that this is actually a criticism of a society which forces the poor into that situation. As with almost all of the statements taken without context, this is what Alinsky believes that the “haves” do or should do to keep the “have-nots” in “their place.”

    

    6.    “Education. Take control of what children learn in school.” Where to start, here?  OK, begin with “No Child Left Behind (NCLB),” a Bush 43 really bad idea to punish schools which are struggling to educate kids who start life behind the eight ball. Interestingly enough, this came from a president who, by his own admission “wasn’t a reader,” meaning perhaps, that he would have failed his own mandated “must read on grade level” statute! This was a Republican initiative to forcibly create a statistical impossibility – reshaping the statistical bell curve of human mental acuity. 

           There was no “common core, or NCLB when Alinsky wrote, and again, this was written as irony (as was the whole piece) as a list of ways to keep the lowly low, which was what Alinsky believed all these philosophies would do. Common Core, so vilified by some, represents an effort to, if we are to be beaten up based on NCLB,  at least uniformly define what the standards are, and how to attain them. The alternatives are children supposedly achieving academic sufficiency  in Alabama, only to find out when they move to Florida, that they  are woefully underprepared.  

    

7.     “Religion. Remove belief in God from government and schools.” This one is truly interesting, since Alinsky, to the end of his life, self identified as both an agnostic and a Jew.  Of course, historically, there has never been a greater single implement of societal control that religion. If one truly wishes to control the state, and by extension, the activities and thoughts of its populace, the one provably effective single thing to be done is to create a theocracy. Where the people fear the supernatural, obedience to its priests follows. Look at the Saudis, look at Iran, and reflect back at essentially all of Europe until the 1700s. Religion has cost more lives and been the instrument of more social repression and individual suppression of liberty than any other single force in history. Alinsky’s point was that removal of this fear of the supernatural and its mechanism for control of society would free men’s minds. If this was a recipe for control, Alinsky would have recommended a theocracy (can you say “Taliban?”  Unlike the rest of “Rules…” Alinsky was making the point with irony.

    

    8.    “Class warfare. Divide the people- wealthy and poor – creating discontent. Tax the wealthy with support of the poor.”  Citing this is interesting, obviously coming from someone who obviously has zero historical perspective. First: nothing will ever produce class warfare  as effectively as being slapped in the face by all media with daily examples of how much difference there truly is between the well to do and the underclass of society. As the rich get richer (a phenomenon accelerated under Reagan, and perpetuated by the “Bush tax cuts”) discontent is predictable.

  

        Alinsky here is not advising social stratification, he is decrying it, and its results. Since the writer obviously is of a Far Right persuasion, it would behoove her to understand a lot more about taxation before she shotguns the current administration or progressives/liberals in general. Even if the “Bush tax cuts” were repealed, personal and corporate tax rates will still be significantly (a lot!!) lower than under Eisenhower, Nixon, Reagan, and Bush 41.  This is not opinion, this is simple a factual statement of the rates at those times. Under Richard Nixon, tax rates were about 70% on highest earners, under Reagan, just over 50%. If the Bush tax cuts were repealed, high earner tax rates would still be about 36%. So let’s be clear, here, If any political group was adhering to the (tongue in cheek, for the most part) advice of Saul Alinsky, it would be those who had historically supported the highest tax rates. Of course, it’s easier to blame the current administration, saddled with trying to lessen the gap, ergo the political discontent, created by rightist policies of the past 50 years.    

In summary, while Alinsky’s writings seem extreme, they must be contextualized. There are many of the middle class, who with no real sense of history,   labor in ignorance of why they are where they are. “The Bully Pulpit: Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and the Golden Age of Journalism",  by Doris Kearns Goodwin, does a far better job than I could ever do of really analyzing the true societal crises created by runaway corporate greed and individual malfeasance during the post Civil War industrial consolidation of the Morgans, Rockefellers, etc.  The conditions alleged to be Alinsky’s prediction if government grows larger already existed to a far larger extent purely because government turned a blind eye. Conservative estimates place at a minimum forty U.S. Senators in the pockets of corporate interest! Commodity and basic food item prices were set by huge corporate trusts which cared little for any individual except their stockholders and managers. While Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft and Woodrow Wilson made inroads into this corporate stranglehold of America, they did not greatly narrow the societal gap, but did improve the lot of society’s underclass sufficiently to avoid revolution, or at least nationwide social unrest.

          World War I, fought on the soil of most of our industrialized world trade competitors, left the US as the top industrial producer in the world, and even that status didn’t protect us from the collapse in 1928 of the economy for many reasons, not the least of was huge unpaid debt by those nations to which American bankers had loaned billions during the war. Other factors, including overuse of credit and overproduction, left the under classes in dire straits and the government fearing revolution. 
         “Fortunately” WWII once again brought full employment as well as huge corporate profits. Post war, rather than deal with quality of work life issues, corporations flush with wartime profits and turning record profits overseas in a ravaged Europe, threw money at many of the social issues of the workplace, along the way, catering to some unreasonable demands of unions, once the only means of worker advancement, now essentially corporations themselves. This resulted in the largest increase in the middle class in our (or anybody else’s) history. 
       As the world economic equation slowly began to rebalance in the 1960s, 70s  and 80s, the US lost its lead in numerous areas, among them auto manufacturing and other heavy industrial production, electronics, clothing manufacturing. Reasons include scarcity of raw materials, “Boomers” entering the workplace, and corporate decisions to move manufacturing and assembly overseas, maximizing the corporate bottom line, while putting increasing numbers of Americans out of work.  Many of today’s adherents to the Tea Party were raised during that 25 year “bubble” of middle class upward mobility and job plentitude. Unfortunately, having no geopolitical sense, they are stuck there, ignorant of the change taking place year by year.   

          The tragedy here is that those who made these decisions simply kept cashing dividend checks as profits remained high. One of the most tragic, and to me mysterious, phenomena of the last 50 years is that as they watch their middle class status diminish, many Americans choose to remain ignorant as to why this is true. When a lower middle class white Christian supports a Mitt Romney because “he’s like us” or a George Bush for the same reason, it is simply an example of what a con job corporate America has done of many of our fellow citizens.  Neither Mitt Romney, the Koch brothers, Donald Trump,  nor George Bush (41 or 43) has anything significant in common with the “average” American. They are not "like us!" They are products of the arrogance of wealth, and job one is keeping it, and supporting their wealthy friends in keeping theirs. That is not to include all persons with wealth , since Gates, Buffett and Zuckerberg clearly don't identify with their crowd, nor does their financial stewardship or sense of social responsibility reflect it..

          When Far Rightists bemoan “government regulation” in their non specific way, there is a reason for it.  The specifics regarding why the government has exercised regulatory authority in areas such as the environment, drug and food safety, auto safety, etc.  are too numerous and obvious to refute, so the corporations simply shotgun the issue with platitudes and generalities, since some regulatory measures might cut dividends. Again, read Kearns-Goodwin’s   book to see what conditions truly were in the pre-Progressive period of 1870 - 1900. Laissez- faire was great for JP Morgan, Andrew Carnegie, JD Rockefeller and the other “robber barons” but it sucked for the rest of us. It still does.     

          If you are a sycophant of the Far Right, ask yourself what you and they really have in common. While it may come out as some sort of “religious, God fearing, feel good, rugged individualist” drivel, reflect, then, on how your life would be better with acid rain, no health insurance, essentially slavery to your employer, unregulated credit institutions and banks, etc.  That’s the real cost of laissez –faire, and it existed, and persons of all levels were worse off for that, except of course for the Romneys, Bushes, and other beneficiaries of institutionalized wealth.  Totally contradictorily to the alleged  philosophy of Saul Alinsky, the things listed in the letter referred to at the beginning of this essay, are almost absolute guarantors of greater oppression of those who labor in life’s margins, not their success. 

Another Day, Another Untruth!

Another day, another series of twisted illogical assumptions, this time in the form of a blatant copyright infringement on the Charles Schultz

“Peanuts” franchise. Let’s take the lies one by one. Pro-choice, at least to most sentient humans, implies that an individual should have the right to choose or nor choose to do a certain thing as long as his choice doesn’t infringe on the rights of others. 

That sad, let’s start with lie #1. Smoking is dangerous, but so are many things, many of which involve occupations which serve society, such as being a fire fighter or policeman. The difference is that smoking has clearly identified negative health consequences which cost all of us, smokers and non-smokers alike, millions of dollars in health care costs. As long as my tax dollars are being used to cover medical expenses for those suffering from what amounts to self induced heart and circulatory and respiratory diseases clearly linked to smoking, then I certainly have the right to oppose the continued use of tobacco products. Now, if I can get smokers to sign a waiver clearly stating that no matter how grievously ill they are, no public monies will be spent on their care………! But, alas, that’ll never happen.  

Second lie: While there is (was) a lunatic mayor in NYC who attempted to ban large sodas, this is not a political issue of either party, but of an independent NYC mayor. End of statement.

Third lie: Neither party has ever sponsored an initiative to ban gun ownership by any responsible person. Of course to the NRA, that has come to mean that any psychopath, even if severely autistic and anti-social, or clearly identified by a mental health professional as dangerous, should have easy and immediate access to handguns and ammunition. Once again, the twisted logic of the far right has turned what is a public safety issue for the many, into a cry for protection of the lunatic few. Neither party has ever attempted to ban ownership of sporting guns by those who use them for legitimate reasons, but even former president Reagan openly and strenuously supported the ban on sales of assault weapons. There is no coherent argument to be made for the sale and possession of AK-47s, yet the Ted Nugents of the world scream “personal liberty’ when anyone mentions curtailing their availability. This is, of course, the same Nugent who created a fictitious resume claiming to be an auxiliary sheriff and participating in numerous drug raids (all lies, and so proven), diametrically opposed to measures advocated by essentially every police chief in America.   Only a lunatic sycophant of the Far Right could rationalize holding those two absolutely contrasting positions!    

Fourth and fifth lies:  Incandescent bulbs and coal. This barely deserves a response, but what the hell. Coal’s off-gasses, the products of its combustion, are a litany of carcinogens; those that don’t cause cancer contribute to acid rain and global warming. Over 60% of non Tea-Party Republicans acknowledge the reality of global warming. The death of sugar maples in New England and fish kills in the same region in the 1970s, and the recovery of both as EPA requirements and stack gas scrubbers radically reduced C02 emissions of rust belt power plants are self evident. Regulation in the public’s environmental interest is a Republican issue, as history reveals in the careers of Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft. The EPA was created by legislation signed into law by Richard Nixon. What’s the beef? Regarding light bulbs: Please, find a real issue!

 Sixth lie: Of course anyone can choose to honor (their) God. Also, of course, by extension it must also mean that if that’s what they “really” mean (they don’t)   Republicans/Tea partiers /Democrats alike must also honor the acts of worship represented by the 9/11 acts of terrorism. Oh, hold on now, Mike, how can you…….!!!??? So now we come to the crux of this lie; it’s misstated. What those of the ultra conservative side really mean would be stated more like this: “Can I choose to honor God as I choose to see him, in a manner I choose to worship, in any public place I wish to, to the exclusion of all other forms of religious viewpoint and practice?” To the lunatic Right, the answer to that is a resounding “Yes!” To the rest of us, the answer to the question as originally stated is, “Of course, but remember, just as I wouldn’t dream of thrusting my Buddhist, Hindu, Sikh, agnostic, atheist, or Wiccan point of view into your schools, workplace, or town square, I have the right to not be hit over the head with your fundamentalist Christian point of view either. If seeking Biblical confirmation of this point of view, here are several helpful hints:

Matthew 6:6 ESV “But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.”

Matthew 6:1-34 ESV “Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven. “Thus, when you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you. “And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others.”

Luke 5:16 ESV “But he would withdraw to desolate places and pray.”

I am the last person to ever claim that the Bible forms a basis for any decision or action, since so many decisions and actions contained therein are genocidal, fictional, militaristic or just downright silly, yet when speaking to true believers, there is little else to do.  Institutionalizing of religion by the state has had disastrous consequences, justified state persecution, and sparked rebellion essentially everyplace it has been done. What don’t the far rightists get about that?

The final lie: Abortion as a public concern. The words have been turned here. What is (or should be), truly a personal choice, has been manufactured by a segment of society into a societal issue.  Just as one’s personal relationship with whatever  supernatural sky spirit they choose to follow should be personal and private (at least, insofar as it doesn’t infringe on the space of others) a woman’s right to make or not make the choice to terminate a pregnancy should be private as well. In the fringe, here, I would not support the use of federal funds to pay for such an act, as this, just as the public displays of religion so cherished by Rightists, constitutes  public funding of a private decision.  

Unfortunately, it is a common failing of the ultra-conservatives to only observe issues such as this from one side, so smoking, polluting, amassing hordes of ammo and guns by essentially anyone (all of which by the way, can be clearly linked to negative public impact), are to be fiercely protected private rights, but the most private decision of all, the decision to terminate a pregnancy, is a public matter? Sound stupid doesn’t it. That’s because it is.    

Click Your Heels Three Times.......

Just an observation to start the week. We seem to be constantly bombarded by the words "Liberal Media" from the folks on the right, usually followed by a comment that "they" lie and/or spin the truth, which is why Faux News serves America by providing "the truth."  To check this assertion, I just took a look at "Punditfact" (a subset of the conservative fact checking, "Politifact" which fact checks talking heads from many sources. The first page has statements from 21 sources and the truth ratings thereof.  Five of the statements are apolitical, and rated “true” or “mostly true”, but don't  have identifiable partisan points of view.

 Of the 16 remaining, seven are statements from either centrist or liberal pundits, from Rachel Maddow to Wolf Blitzer. Of these seven, four are rated “Totally true”, two others “mostly true,” and one “half true”. Interestingly enough, the last one, a statement about chained CPI budget increases, is only rated half true because of a difference in opinion regarding amount saved, not the principle involved.  So, in plainest terms, none of the “liberal media” pundits was untruthful or deceptive, as charged by the far right.

On the other hand, of the remaining nine statements, four,  by Far Right sources, from  Bill Kristol,  to Kai Ryssdale, Ralph Reed and Rush Limbaugh are rated “totally false” (lies);  statements from several conservative bloggers and Ted Nugent are rated “Pants on Fire” (lying sons of bitches), two (Dick Cheyney, and Michael Reagan) are rated “mostly false” (deceitful), and the only one rated ‘half true” was from Sarah Palin, and the part of that statement which was false, was, of course a backhand slap at President Obama.  When the most reliable you have  is Palin, you are truly mired deep in the swamp of misinformation!

All this raises the valid question, if you as a political conservative claim that the “liberal media”  lies about and spins issues, why does the Pulitzer Prize winning and self proclaimed “conservative” fact checker prove that your statement is, in their words, “Pants on Fire?” It feels like Dorothy trying to get back to Kansas, by hoping that wishing it to be  true will make it so. How pathetic.

 On a personal note, I am aware that several self styled conservatives read my posts, and sometimes offer differing opinions of their own, which is cool, but why do I never hear anything in mitigation, contradiction, or explanation on this particular topic? It's almost as if the "liberal media" construct is just a dirty little conservative family secret, sort of like: "Yeah, we know it's bullshit, but some of our adherents are dumb enough to believe it, and that's how we keep 'em on the team."

It Makes one Wonder!

Here's a factoid to reflect on. I must confess I'm not sure why it is as it is, but it has been verified by Politifact that these numbers are correct:

"61 percent of non-tea party Republicans actually agree . . . there is 'solid evidence the earth is warming,' . . . [but] 70 percent of tea partiers, contrarily, say there is 'no solid evidence' the earth is warming."

What is the central nature of Tea Partiers which makes them tend toward science doubting and race baiting? It might be a disproportionally large percentage of ignorant followers, who have drunk the Kool Ade being sold by the sycophant leaders of the movement, although race hating is a very nasty and decidedly un-Christian attribute.

 

 It might be that there is just a general level of "acceptance of whatever you're told" if the teller has some particular single attribute they find attractive. As an example: "Rick Santorum is anto-abortion (even though his wife has had one), and so am I, ergo everything else he says has merit." While not my position, I assure you, being Pro-life is a legitimate point of view as a political position, but that doesn't mean that one should buy everything someone says just because you agree with one of their viewpoints! John Wayne Gayce was a scout leader. He was also a mass murderer. Jerry Sandusky ran a respected youth football program. He also was a pedophile.

 

If you agree with me that we should balance the federal budget, it does not necessarily follow that I am correct if I refer to Creationism as "Science" instead of the humbug it truly is. The "no solid evidence" part of the factoid is truly troubling, since by implication, it means that the true believers have eschewed essentially every legitimate source of information in favor of Faux News, or its equivalent. It troubles me to see any person make any decision on such a small slice of the whole data pie.

If the percentages in the statement are true, and assuming 60% of the Republican Party are not Tea Party loonies (it's probably more) , it means that well over 70% of Americans agree that global warming is factual, regardless of the cause. this means that Faux News and the other far right media sources are serving less than 29 percent of Americans, yet Faux news is pandering to this super minority around the clock, pathetic behavior in a media outlet which presumes to call itself a "news" source

Partisanship and the Birther Hypocrisy

      In the media driven world of political sectarianism and or cultism, it’s really tempting to reflect back to the wisdom of George Washington. In his farewell address, at the completion of his second term, Washington voiced  several concerns. Elected, as he was, unanimously, he had seen the nation slide from a post war (relative) unanimity of political thought into the beginnings of more divisive elements in national political philosophies. His successor, John Adams, a Federalist, already elected, was saddled with a Vice President, Thomas Jefferson, with whom he had serious differences of opinion in many areas. Jefferson, having resigned as Washington’s Secretary of State, was a  Democratic-Republican (essentially an  Anti-Federalist), which put his viewpoint squarely in opposition to Adams’ Federalist outlook.

      In the speech, Washington said, among other things:  “Let me now take a more comprehensive view, and warn you in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the spirit of party generally” …. “It exists under different shapes in all governments, more or less stifled, controlled, or repressed; but, in those of the popular form, it is seen in its greatest rankness, and is truly their worst enemy.” ….. “ The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism”…...  this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism.” ….. “It serves always to distract the public councils and enfeeble the public administration. It agitates the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms, kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments occasionally riot and insurrection.”

“There is an opinion that parties in free countries are useful checks upon the administration of the government and serve to keep alive the spirit of liberty. This within certain limits is probably true; and in governments of a monarchical cast, patriotism may look with indulgence, if not with favor, upon the spirit of party. There being constant danger of excess, the effort ought to be by force of public opinion, to mitigate and assuage it. A fire not to be quenched, it demands a uniform vigilance to prevent its bursting into a flame, lest, instead of warming, it should consume.”

     Unfortunately, by the time Washington delivered the speech, the horse was gone and the barn was aflame. Partisan squabbling between the two increased during the Adams presidency (1796-1800) with Jefferson spending most of his time at Monticello, vice Philadelphia ( the US Capital until 1800).

     Although there is a tendency to relegate nasty campaign tactics to the modern media driven period, the campaign for President in 1799 was an early harbinger of just how dirty partisan politics can be. As is the case today, the primary issues driving the spitefulness were legitimate   differences of political philosophy, but tainted by personal animosity. Lest we think there was a more genteel approach during this early period, here are some quotes related to the candidates, spread by their opponents:

Jefferson's camp accused President Adams of having a "hideous hermaphroditical character, which has neither the force and firmness of a man, nor the gentleness and sensibility of a woman."

In riposte, Adams’ supporters responded with this description of Jefferson: "a mean-spirited, low-lived fellow, the son of a half-breed Indian squaw, sired by a Virginia mulatto father."

     Not surprisingly, race and/or sexuality had a place in the bile spewed by both sides. This should sound familiar, as little has changed on that score.

     As some have today, Jefferson hired flacks to run a “news” paper, (reminiscent of Faux News??) which was, in actuality, a propaganda sheet paid by the candidate to smear his opponents and their supporters. While Adams was a bit more genteel, refusing to personally engage in mud-slinging, he made few attempts to curb it, and after his defeat, attempted to pack the court system with federalist judges who, he hoped would thwart Jefferson’s legal attempts to alter existing structures. Jefferson’s ultimate victory, in what some historians have called the “Revolution of 1800” established not only a new standard for partisan sniping, but to the surprise of most European powers and some Americans, it also showed that there can be a smooth transition of power even with major partisan differences. How little we’ve  changed!

     As we “progressed?” dirty politics did too. Andrew Jackson, running in 1823, faced slurs such as: "General Jackson's mother was a common prostitute, brought to this country by the British soldiers! She afterward married a mulatto man, with whom she had several children, of which number General Jackson is one!" Of course, given Jackson’s foul temper (he once killed a man in a duel!), we may be grateful he didn’t simply shoot his opponents.  

     Central to at least many of the smears over the years have been accusations regarding condition of birth, ethnicity, and loyalties. Following the Civil War, and through the 20^th century, such issues assumed a relatively distant backseat to larger and much more relevant matters. World Wars, civil/social reforms, Business/Labor/Government relations and Soviet vs. US world aims for world dominance became huge campaign issues, and the personal sniping, while ever present, seemed a distant background whisper. Even Warren Harding’s open relationship with his mistress Nan Britton, seemed a backseat to tariffs, “a good five cent cigar,” and Teapot Dome.

2007, however, and the nomination of Barack Obama, saw a reawakening of this  seamier side of politics. We were treated to the imbecility of those such as  Orly Taitz and Donald Trump, with the   “birther”  movement, as well as those who questioned the religious affiliations of candidate Obama. Those who hadn’t given a rat’s ass that Ronald Reagan was relatively irreligious or that Billy Graham, that counselor to Presidents, was revealed by  the Nixon tapes to be a racist anti-Semite, were flummoxed, not by any overt act of candidate Obama, but simply by his name! The fact that his racial heritage is mixed was, of course, the true subtext for all the hoo-hah. In the absolute absence of any significant reason other than ethnicity, every association was called into question.  If candidate Obama even happened to be in the same place at the same time as a “bad” guy, he was a bosom pal. Orly Tait and others, aided by a flood of bigots, began to manufacture claims of faked passports, Social Security numbers, birth certificates, etc., all with the intent of derailing Obama’s quest for the White House.

The election victory and inauguration of 2008 failed to dampen the ardor of those whose bigotry couldn’t accommodate a mixed race president. Ms. Taitz, temporarily deterred by a $20,000 fine for just one of many frivolous lawsuits, continues her diatribes, having branched out from the original “birther” scam to other claims such as:

  A number of homosexuals from Obama's former church have died mysteriously.     Obama has dozens of Social Security numbers, and his passport is inaccurate. Taitz claims that a person who was cooperating with the FBI in connection with Obama's passport died mysteriously, "shot in the head".    A Kenyan birth certificate with the name "Barack Obama" is authentic.     Obama's first act as President was to donate money to Hamas, which she claims will be used to build Qassam rockets.   Obama is having the Federal Emergency Management Agency build internment camps for "Anti-Obama dissidents.”    Osama bin Laden was killed years ago, with his body kept on ice, and the announcement of his death was timed to divert attention from an upcoming court case she is litigating challenging Obama's citizenship.

The best example of Taitz’s lunacy and hatred may be this, however: regarding the  Sandy Hook shooting : " Adam Lanza was drugged and hypnotized by his “handlers” to make him into a killing machine as an excuse as the regime is itching to take all means of self defense from the populace before the economic collapse?"

Why, one might ask, is this woman so anti-Obama? It turns out there is a reasonable and plausible (at least in light of her mental status)  explanation. Orly Taitz is, by birth, an Israeli citizen and ardent supporter of the nation of her birth. Good! It seems she also despises any inference that Israel may be, in any part, co-responsible for Israel’s enmity with its neighbors.  A more even handed outlook (stated as part of general pre-election platform stance) regarding what has been an almost slavish willingness to support any and all, or at least most, Israeli actions in the region, was simply unacceptable to Ms. Tait. Regardless of one’s personal feelings regarding US support for Israel, it remains indisputable that some of our difficulties in the Mideast stem from our 60 years of unilateral support for that nation. Any modification of this relationship is, of course, anathema to Ms Taitz.

What is more interesting to me is that the entire “birther” movement is blind to several interesting facts:  Two candidates, one past and another seeking nomination, have hugely more controversial issues regarding citizenship and eligibility to be president.

The first was John McCain. In the most detailed examination yet of Senator John McCain’s eligibility to be president, a law professor at the University of Arizona (Mr. McCain’s home state, by the way) concluded that neither Mr. McCain’s birth in 1936 in the Panama Canal Zone nor the fact that his parents were American citizens is enough to satisfy the constitutional requirement that the president must be a “natural-born citizen.” The analysis,   by Prof. Gabriel J. Chin, focused on a 1937 law that has been largely overlooked in the debate over Mr. McCain’s eligibility to be president. The law conferred citizenship on children of American parents born in the Canal Zone after 1904, and it made John McCain a citizen just before his first birthday. But the law came too late, Professor Chin argued, to make Mr. McCain a natural-born citizen.

The second case, even more interesting, because of  his frequent vocal attacks on the sitting President, is Senator Ted Cruz. One does NOT automatically become a U.S. citizen at birth because one's parent, or parents, are U.S. citizens! In addition to that, one needs to show that the parent or parents meet strictly defined requirements regarding age and time of residence in the United States.

The Unites States is actually much more generous than most countries in according citizenship. But it always has had strict rules that require some kind of close ties to the country in order to gain citizenship. Under the nationality law in effect at the time of Ted Cruz's birth in Canada in December 1970 (the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, as amended, part of Title 8 of the U.S. Code), in order for Ted Cruz's mother to automatically confer citizenship on him at birth, these requirements need to have been met: For persons born between December 24, 1952 and November 14, 1986, a person is a U.S. citizen if all of the following are true:

1.    The person's parents were married at the time of birth ( AND)  2. One of the person's parents was a U.S. citizen when the person was born ( AND) 3.  The citizen parent lived at least ten years in the United States before the child's birth; (AND)  4. A minimum of 5 of these 10 years in the United States were after the citizen parent's 14th birthday.

There are two problems for Senator Cruz about which, which interestingly enough, neither he, nor Orly Taitz, (or Donald trump, for that matter) have had anything  to say. First,   Ted Cruz , even though he has stated his intent to change it, is still a Canadian by birth, and as of this writing,  hasn’t renounced his citizenship, a simple process requiring a 12 question form and a statement of desire to renounce. . Secondly, and of much more significance, is the apparent refusal by the Cruz camp to produce his mother’s birth certificate, and papers proving she met the requirements  (3) and (4) above. No one knows (or will tell ).

Meanwhile, President Barack Obama, born in Hawaii, ergo a “natural born citizen” as defined in the US constitution, continues being the subject of the chain e-mails, and conspiracy theorists, most seemingly centered around the circumstances of his birth and his ethnicity. Go figure!     

Stupid human tricks

       I recently wrote on the topic of prescription drug naming and advertising. Of special concern to me is that we are bombarding persons with information which many can’t effectively process, since the prescription of specific medications also requires intimate knowledge of possible drug interactions, the bastion of protection of which is the pharmacist, if the doctor misses it. Even these pros sometimes get it wrong, but the self prescription continues.     

       We’re not much better with our pets. It is less dangerous, but more humorous to reflect on what the object of pet product advertising is and  how owners are manipulated by advertisers.  I cringe every time I see the words “Home Style” on a can of dog food. What the hell is a dog’s home style?  For some dogs, it’s cat poop, a flavor preference which I believe has been woefully underappreciated and  underexploited by  pet food manufacturers.

     “Purina,” (pure!! Who wouldn’t like that?), Beneful (must be beneficial, it's in the name!), Sirloin (sirloin??!!) Burger, Prime Slices, Alpo Chop House, (Really? Most chop houses won’t let dogs in!). At the cost of prime beef, there would be about 15 dog owners in the country if the word "Prime" accurately described the product!

The list following is simply a collection of some of the most laughable dog food brand names  if you really consider their literal meanings:  Bow Wow Butler, Addiction Dog Food, Aunt Jeni’s Home Made, Canine Caviar (sturgeons beware!), Cesar Gourmet Filets, Chicken Soup for the Dog Lover’s Soul, Darwin’s Natural Selections (lol),   Earthborne Holistic Moist Dinners, I  Am Love and You Nude Food, Oven Baked Tradition [grain free!].

  But, as amusing as the above are, the prize winner has to be the three following gross affronts to the nature of the animal: Pet Guard Vegan canned dog food, Wysong Vegan dog and cat food, and Natural Life vegetarian Dry Dog Food. I would humbly submit that there nothing natural about a vegan dog or cat! It has been my experience, on the other hand, that vegetables (mainly grass) is what these animals consume when they want to puke! I can imagine two feral dogs finding some three day old road kill and one asks the other “Hey, man, wanna split this raccoon?”, and the other responds, in his best Tommy Chong "man" voice, “No thanks, man, I’m a vegan, I'm not into meat.”

The word is anthropormorphisation, and it’s what humans do when they assume their pets to have human characteristics. As a dog owner, I’m sometimes as guilty as the next guy, regarding the way I talk to my dog, and we certainly treat her better than some kids are treated, more’s the pity,  but I also look at what’s in the dog food can.  I have yet to see filet mignon, sirloin burger, “deli snacks” or any similar human food, nor should I.   Pet food manufacturers base advertising on what they think we, the owners, find appetizing and peddle it to us who, in turn, feed it to an animal which licks it's own ass for no apparent reason.

You know the pet food industry is playing both ends against the middle when the same store sells a dry food whose bag proclaims, “No Wheat!”  Of course, this is simply a repeat of the current “gluten free” advertising craze which takes advantage of sheer consumer ignorance. If you’ve grown to adulthood and have never experienced any of the effects of celiac disease, than you’re one of the 99% of us for whom gluten is just another nutrient factor in wheat. The same is true for your dog!  Right beside the “no wheat” premium food is the Grain based food. Who’s right? Neither. We may feed our dog differently than if they were in the state of nature, but don’t you dare call it “natural” I’ve seen what dogs eat if left to their own devices – essentially anything including, unfortunately, their own (or others’) feces. Now that’s All Natural!

By Any Other Name

So, I am offering my services to the Big (and small) Pharma companies as the guy who invents the names for new medications (as well as making up better names for some established brands. Obviously the drug companies don’t want you to buy just any old “dabigatran etexilate mesylate” capsule, so they invent a name, in this case,  Predaxa.

Usually the name has zero to do with the compound and everything to do with making you feel good about taking it because the name sounds semi-reassuring. If your doctor prescribes “Eszopiclone”, you might say “What?”  But called Lunesta, it sounds so benign and peaceful - Luna as in “moon” and nesta (as in “nesta?”) sound so tranquil and downright sleepy, doesn’t it.  Heck, it’s all so soothing that you might not even read the enclosed warning regarding: “Allergic reaction: Itching or hives, swelling in your face or hands,  swelling or tingling in your mouth or throat, chest tightness, trouble breathing, abnormal thinking and behavior, anxiety, aggressiveness, confusion, depression, or dizziness, burning while urinating, fever, chills, cough, sore throat, and body aches, lightheadedness or fainting, numbness, tingling, or burning pain in your hands, arms, legs, or feet, rapid weight gain, swelling in your hands, ankles, or feet, seeing, hearing, or feeling things that are not there, severe diarrhea, severe pain or bleeding during menstruation. thoughts about hurting oneself or others, altered or bad taste, decreased interest in having sex. depression (sadness) or agitation, difficulty in coordination, dry mouth, nausea, or increased thirst, enlargement of breasts in males, headache, memory loss, rash or redness on your skin, swelling, stiffness, or pain in your joints.”

          It seems that there are many substances we (“they”) rename to make them sound so much better. Senokot sounds sort of like an Indian tribe, huh? Phloe Powder sounds like, oh, I don’t know, maybe a plant food?  Another fave is Benefiber. In fact “Bene” is tacked onto many products, including dog food (“Beneful”), probably because it is the first two syllables of “beneficial.” Of course all the above are laxatives, but renamed to have more consumer appeal. Why not just “Bob’s Colon Cleanout?” simple, direct and we all get it! Maybe “Gut Buster,” or even “The Eliminator” ( Not Just a Monster Truck!)  Oh well, the list is endless. The issue with branded drugs is the effort (exhibited by Big Pharma to get people to self- diagnose based on a 30 second TV spot, and ask their doctor for a specific drug by name. 

Prescription drug prices are cited as one of the three top reasons for Medicaid expenditure growth, and prescription drug costs have increased by an average of 15.4% per year between 1994 and 2004. Meanwhile, spending for direct-to-consumer drug advertising has increased more than 330% in the last 10 years.    Restating this in an easier to understand example, using a simple rule of 72 calculation, that is a doubling of prescription drug costs every 4.67 years!!!

          Ready for a surprise that proves my point?  There was no consumer (media) advertising whatsoever for Clopidogrel Bisulfate (Plavix) from 1999 to 2000. Then, from 2001 to 2005, U.S. spending on consumer advertising for Plavix exceeded $350 million, an average of $70 million per year.  Data from Medicaid programs in 27 states shows that, despite all of that advertising, the use of Plavix by patients in those states' programs did not change. However, the price of a Plavix pill increased by 40 cents, or 12%, after the ad campaign began. Overall, this change resulted in an additional $207 million in total pharmacy expenditures. Multiply the example of Plavix by the seemingly endless number of “new/better” drugs hyped by media advertising and the sum is staggering! Remember, there has been no correlation shown between advertising and actual increases in usage by prescription, so this truly amounts to expenditures by the manufacturers which are reflected in increased costs for your meds, whether or not you use that particular product!.   

Simply put, while we are seeing a large increase in media direct advertising of prescription meds to consumers, the most significant result is higher cost to consumers to pay for advertising which doesn’t seem to have much effect on the frequency of prescription by doctors! But it sounds so good! I know plaque on artery walls can be bad, so Plavix, must be great, I mean it has the first three letters of “plaque” in its name, doesn’t it?   

Those who are in favor of direct-to-consumer advertising of brand-name drugs (Big Pharma) argue that advertising makes patients more knowledgeable, allowing them to ask for treatments from their doctors, while opponents of this practice claim that more often such advertising misleads consumers about the benefits and risks of many drugs. Neither side ever questioned whether ads would increase medication use or not.

          Most countries in the world don’t allow advertising of prescription medications directly to patients. Period! Meanwhile, we  Americans spend more than all other nations on health-care - 16% of U.S. GDP in 2007. It seems that both sides in the direct-to-consumer advertising debate are wrong in their estimates of the effect of drug advertising on use. But the research does support what both sides agree on -- that consumer advertising costs contribute to that higher American health-care bill.

          I would maintain that, as in other really bad [non]science - (homeopathy, the entire “toxin” scam, mega vitamins, “purging’) which has found an audience in America, we now are conditioning a wide spread portion of the populace to self diagnose and demand brand name prescription drugs which previously would be the option of their doctor/pharmacist - you know, someone actually trained and competent to do so.  

And the Lies Continue

 If you wonder why some Americans exhibit uninformed  aversion to the Affordable  Care Act, here are a couple of  reasons why.  In each case, the source is either lying by direct misstatement, by implication, or by contextual error. Both of these are fact checked by Politifact. I’ll just put the statement and the analysis for brevity.

1.    “Advocacy group stirs Michigan senate race with ad featuring leukemia patient”

"I found this wonderful doctor and this great health care plan. I was doing fairly well fighting the cancer, fighting the leukemia," Boonstra said. "And then I received the letter, my insurance was canceled because of Obamacare. Now the out-of-pocket costs are so high, it's unaffordable. If I do not receive my medication, I will die. I believed the president, I believed I could keep my health insurance plan." Congressman Peters, your decision to vote for Obamacare jeopardized my health."

Politifact’s  investigation:

Boonstra receives oral chemotherapy to treat her leukemia. She is still receiving the same medication on her new policy. The cost of the medication and other prescriptions are undoubtedly more than they were before, since she previously had no out-of-pocket costs aside from the monthly premiums.

But just like medical treatment, prescriptions are included in the annual cap. Meaning once she reaches $6,350 in out-of-pocket expenses for the year, she will no longer have to pay for her medication.

Boonstra turned to the Michigan Farm Bureau and applied for a new policy through Blue Cross Blue Shield. This plan cost much less — $571 a month, which would cut her insurance costs in half. The difference between her previous monthly premium of $1,100 and her new plan is about $529 a month. Over the course of a year, that’s savings of $6,348.

 (Ed note:Note: while this makes the change a ‘break even’ for this woman who has a catastrophic illness, it would mean about a 50% health care cost savings for a normally healthy individual!)

The Affordable Care Act requires caps on out-of-pocket expenses paid by policyholders, and says for an individual it can’t be higher than $6,350. Some of the pricier plans have caps that are even lower, so at most, Boonstra would pay $2 more over the course of the year under her new policy. And if the annual cap is lower than $6,350, her new plan could actually save her money. It's also possible she is receiving more benefits under the new plan, but the two plans were not provided to compare.

Politifact’s Analysis: That said, the ad is, at worst, misleading and, at best, lacking critical context. It leads viewers to believe that Boonstra lost her doctor along with her insurance and her life-saving medication. The fact is, she has kept her current doctor and still receives the treatment she needs. Further, the ad said the new plan is unaffordable. While the plan does create less cost certainty, annual caps will limit her bills. At most she will end up paying about the same for her health care as before.

2.    From a bit closer to home: “Rick Scott says Medicare rate cuts will affect seniors’ ability to keep their doctor, hospital and prevention services."
 
 He claims, "We already know that 300,000 people in our state were told they are going to lose their insurance, but now under Medicare we are seeing these dramatic rate cuts. It’s going to have a devastating impact on their ability to one, get the doctor, look they rely on their doctor, get to go to the hospital that they trust, make sure they get prevention services that they deserve. These Medicare cuts that the president has caused are the wrong thing for Florida seniors."
(Ed. Note: This from a man whose Major Healthcare company was convicted of defrauding Medicare of billions while he was CEO, a crime for which he somehow escaped culpability, claiming ignorance, a claim which is getting easier to believe with each passing day, here in Florida).

Politifact’s investigation: Scott’s ad posted a few days after the Obama administration announced a proposed rate cut to Medicare Advantage -- but Scott didn’t specify in his ad that he was referring to only those seniors on that particular type of Medicare. (Ed Note: Medicare Advantage was a Bush administration plan, allowing seniors to purchase health care coverage through private insurers who would then become the recipients of those Medicare premiums.  Like other hare brained Bush privatization ideas (SS?), this one failed, and is costing all of us money.)  Politfact’s analysis is: “The health care law tries to bring down future health care costs of Medicare largely by reducing Medicare Advantage, a subset of Medicare plans that are run by private insurers. President George W. Bush started Medicare Advantage in hopes the increased competition would reduce costs. But those plans are actually costlier than traditional Medicare, so the health care law reduces payments to private insurers. Margaret Murphy, attorney and associate director Center for Medicare Advocacy, said that Medicare Advantage plans have always had a limited network of preferred providers and that changes in networks happen every year. Traditional Medicare has no networks, so participants can go to any Medicare eligible provider. (Ed note: This means in plain speak that seniors using Medicare vice a private plan have more choices of doctors, vice fewer!) “Medicare has a broader provider network than many Advantage plans, so even if plans cut benefits and caused someone to go back to traditional Medicare their access to doctors likely would not erode and might actually improve," said Jonathan Oberlander, a health policy professor at the University of North Carolina.

A key issue here, not being mentioned by ACA opponents is that to compete with each other, many Medicare Advantage plans offer extras, such as rebates on premiums, routine dental care, gym memberships and rides to the doctor, in order to compete for business. Medicare requires all Advantage plans to cover all Medicare-covered benefits, which means if a prevention benefit such as a mammogram is covered by traditional Medicare, it would also be covered by an Advantage plan, Neuman said. However, Advantage plans could cut the extras which aren’t covered by traditional Medicare such as a gym membership. (Ed. Note: Apparently Rick Scott believes that the intent of Medicare was to provide all these extras and that we taxpayers should be glad to pay for gym memberships, etc. While some of the extras offered by Advantage plans may be of value to Advantage payers, the cost is shared by all of us, many of whom live many miles from gyms, and provide our own transport to doctors, etc. In fact, while being trumpeted as triumphs of privatization, Medicare advantage plans are subsidized extras for those who buy them, with the extra cost shifted to all of us.) 

Politfact’s Analysis:  "We are seeing dramatic rate cuts," to Medicare that will have a "devastating impact" on seniors’ ability to get their doctor, their hospital and prevention services”, Scott tells seniors in an online campaign ad. Scott omits that the recently announced rate cuts were only for Medicare Advantage plans, a privatized subset of Medicare. Those plans represent about one-third of Medicare plans in Florida and nationwide, and are more costly. (Ed note: although enacted as more economical)

The proposed rate cut won’t be finalized until April, and if it is, health care experts say we won’t know the full impact for a few months. That means it’s too soon to predict if the rate cut will have a "devastating impact" on seniors' ability to keep their same doctor and hospital. It is possible that some seniors on Medicare Advantage will lose or have to change doctors, but the impact could vary from county to county. Seniors on traditional Medicare are not affected by the cuts.

Scott’s ad is a scare tactic that omits several caveats. We rate this claim Mostly False.

My summary and editorial opinion: With lies and half truths such as these, reported by Faux News (both were) and other far right pundits, it is small wonder that many well intentioned persons who only get their “news” from one source are scared and critical of a law which they don’t understand. Irresponsible scare tactics, couched in such terms as to make the uninformed believe that the President alone is solely responsible for the ACA,  are bad enough. When such lies are simply for political gain of the liars, it is the worst sort of political chicanery.

We are led to believe that every insurance misfortune experienced by any American health care consumer is the fault of the ACA. What short memories we have! Long before 2008, America was rife with health care disaster stories. Everyone knew someone who either had to keep a job they could no longer really do or continue working longer simply to keep healthcare. Most of us can cite such cases. Many of us who could do so, now simply turn our national proclivity for complaint in the direction of the ACA. Yes, there are problems, as there are with any startup system involving hundreds of millions of individuals. As I have written elsewhere, several nations do the same level of care or better (by actual health care consumer surveys, not urban myths) for about half the cost per capita. Can you imagine a Federal budget with a cost savings of 50% on health care? Of course you can imagine it, but major players don't want you to, since they currently charge about 4 times as much for admin costs as in many single payer systems.

One simple factual example will suffice, and remember; unlike Faux News, I don't invent information. In Massachusetts, Blue Cross and Blue shield employ around 4,500 persons to administer health care for somewhere in the vicinity of 1 1/2 million customers. Canada uses just under that same number to administer a nationwide health care network for 28 million widely scattered citizens!    The great lie is that privatization results in more efficient operation and competition reduces price. If only that were true, but Medicare Advantage's failure to perform proves otherwise. The crime here is, that while they could act to ameliorate the bumps in the road, some health insurers and several states’ governors are being obstructionist, costing clients and constituents dollars in furtherance of their own political agendas.

 

Acceptance of the concept of a minimum acceptable standard of health care for all our citizens should be an easy sell in our society, but unfortunately, it isn’t. we are presented daily with those Pharisees who proclaim their faith, whatever it be, while acting contrary to its dictates. All major prophets and the religious concepts which they espoused are pretty specific regarding believers’ responsibilities to those less fortunate among us. Why then do we constantly hear the loudest protests regarding this issue from those who most vociferously proclaim their faith? It makes one wonder. Many Tea Partiers no doubt wear (or wore, while they were the fashionable Christian fashion accessory) WWJD bracelets. The answer to those of that persuasion is probably that he would shake his head and wonder how it all went wrong.