Arizona

Our southeastern neighbors have done it. They've decided to turn their entire police force into and immigration agency. If the governor signs this bill into law, what it will mean is no less than open season for crimes against immigrants. Undocumented workers, here trying to make a living and escape the drug violence in Mexico, will feel too intimidated to report any crimes to the authorities. As if a young woman who has just been raped doesn't have enough fear of reporting the crime, now she'll never do it, thinking that if she does, she'll just be sent back to Mexico where, in the nearby state of Chihuahua around 300 young women disappear every year. So where will they turn to for protection? I'm guessing to organized crime. I'm betting that drug cartels, the very people responsible for so much violence, will quickly enter the 'protection' racket and extort the poor for their 'services'. So, the drug runners will grow even more powerful. 
I've heard there all calls to boycott Arizona. I don't know what kind of shape such actions would take, but I'll definitely be looking into it. Huh, divestment from Arizona. It might really teach them if all the latinos, immigrants and citizens, just left the state.
Let's just hope the governor decides to veto the bill.

hannity

So I was watching a recent Daily Show last night and Jon was talking about how Obama wants to reduce the number of nuclear weapons in our arsenal. Then he showed a clip where Sean Hannity and Newt we stating glaring falsehoods about the details of the new START treaty. I guess this is nothing new, though the amazing starkness of their lies continues to shock me at times, but this morning I saw an older middle aged woman at the gym reading one of Hannities books and I thought to myself, how can one subject themselves to such mindless drivel? So I've resolved to read some of their books. Maybe one by Hannity, one by Beck, and I should probably throw in some Coulter. I don't know how far I'll get in this endeavor before I wretch and give up, but maybe I can learn a bit about their thinking. Oh and don't worry, there is no way in the world I'll be buying any of these books. Maybe I'll steal them, or get them from the library. But stealing seems the better option here.

Wow

So today president Obama signed it into law. I think there are still some little hurdles to be, well hurdled, but it looks like we finally got a bit of health care reform. It's not all that I was hoping for, but it's sure better than nothing.I just want to tell all the people who feel like the bill was rushed through to please shut up. We've been waiting for this for 50 years. Too bad FDR just didn't get it done properly back during the New Deal. Oh well. Still plenty of work to do. Maybe the best part is that now I can stop writing about this and get to an issue that I really care about. Palestine. Stay tuned.

this page

I haven't posted for a week or two and certainly no one has been stopping by to read this blog and I have to tell you that it's certainly no surprise. I mean, this stuff is pretty boring. All I write about is health care, used to be that all I ever cared about was foreign policy. The bush years sort of left a bad taste in my mouth when it comes to that subject, especially since when you really look at the democratic positions, they're just about the same. America's sense of exceptionalism and its love affair with Israel continue no matter the administration. Health care was a place that I once, perhaps naively, felt that we could all come together. It's good for business, good for the middle class, rich people don't care (or shouldn't) what's the problem, right? Yeah, well that turned out to be illusory. Now I'm all for reconciliation. Just stuff the best bill possible (probably not very good) down the throats of the republicans and let the tea party wackos work themselves into such a frenzy that everyone will see them for who they are, ignorant, uneducated weirdos. I'm sure I'm being overly harsh. They must have some intelligent contributions to make,they're just overshadowed by such opportunists as Bachman and Palin who want nothing but power. I understand libertarianism, I just think its a bit of a utopia, i.e. unobtainable. Well, I'm rambling now so END POST.

http://act.credoaction.com/campaign/good_vs_bipartisan/?r_by=7864-2230382-LEau4Fx&rc=comment_paste

Here's an interesting petition that I decided to sign. I've been trying to be a little bit more centrist in my thinking and attitudes about politics (see my earlier post about how I think Obama should play the health care issue) but CREDO makes some good points. There's also this interesting piece by James Surowiecki where he describes how once we all agree that outrageous rate hikes and coverage denials for pre-existing conditions are wrong, health insurance ceases a good for-profit industry. Then we can decide between having a public instutution to administer health insurance, or, like Switzerland, make health insurance a non profit industry. If the later is a more acceptable solution to conservatives than the former, then I'm ready to embrace it. However, I think we have learned that having for profit companies administer health insurances is good for no one but shareholders and CEOs, and quite frankly, they can all go take a long walk off a short pier as far as I care. Everybody will still have jobs if health care is a non-profit industry, but their jobs will be to help people get the coverage they need at a price they can afford, rather than maximize their companies profits.

bi-partisanship

Well, I just read a headline on yahoo news stating that despite Obama's efforts at bi-partisanship, partisanship is alive and well. I think that the best thing that Obama and the Dems can do right now is to continue to try and be as bi-partisan as possible. Let's face it, they do not play well as the dominant party. They just split themselves up between liberals and blue dogs and kill any momentum that they gain in elections. Maybe they can be better as legislative mediators since they obvioulsy can't push any bills through on their own. The more they invite the republicans into the mix, them more the Republicans become responsible for governing. I can think of strong arguments against this course too, but they all seem like unobtainable ideals. They shouldn't have been unobtainable, but after watching the Dems squander a 60 vote majority, it's awfully hard to have faith in them to get anything done.

Those who deserve death

Ok, yesterday I mentioned my feelings on greed and today I came across this article about a man who is far more concerned with making money than he is with human life, and to an absolutely obscene extent. What an amazingly horrible or stupid person, or both I guess, they're not really mutually exclusive.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/newsnight/8471187.stm

Read it and weep, or get really angry and snap at a co-worker like I did. It's your choice, though I recommend the former option.

a brief ramble

After a weekend free of news input, it's hard for me to blog about anything in a constructive manner this morning. I feel the pull to complain about the usual grievances of course, but like I said, it would not be very constructive. I did recently have a discussion with one of my co-workers who said that while he is strongly against abortion, he doesn't think that legislation is the way to get rid of it. 'Get rid of it' is probably a poor choice of words, I mean he doesn't think that legislation is a good or effective means of ending the practice of abortion. Rather he believes that what we really need is a change in our culture. I agree with him, now its just a matter of pin-pointing what exactly is wrong with our culture and then deciding what the best way to rectify the situation would be. My interests in the matter are becoming a bit more vested as recent changes in my life are disallowing my earlier tendency towards nihilism. I would like to see our culture change for the better. I think one place where we seem to have lost our way a bit is greed. The constant drive for more and bigger is having a serious de-salutary effect on our society. But how does one eliminate greed? Answer me that internet.

Dear Parties, I hate you. Sincerely, Aric

I don't even know where to direct my anger anymore. Agri-business? Politicians? Coal companies? Wall Street? Yes, they all deserve my enmity, but they're part of the system. They argue for what they believe or want and though I think they're wrong and occasionally stupid or evil, at least their goals are clear. Open disagreements are a natural part of the political landscape and I certainly am not so naive as to think that everyone is going to reach the same conclusions as I do. The best I can hope to do is to align myself with people of like ideas and try to argue our points to the best of our abilities and win elections so that we can send representatives to government to establish the policies we think best for the nation. That should be the raison d'être of political parties. But I don't think that's what we Americans are getting from our parties. I don't think we have groups of people who share similar goals and philosophies, what we seem to have instead is two gigantic corporate entities trying to keep their executives employed and rich. To meet these goals, they seem willing to say or do anything, regardless of how it affects the country.
I wish I was writing about how wrong-headed Republicans are, but that would require my party ideal to be reality. I can't bring myself to really argue against one party when I think the other is trash, and if the Democrats have proven themselves to be anything, it is just that: Trash. They are the most ineffectual, contradictory, worthless bunch of people around. They had complete control over the whitehouse and the senate and were working to pass hugely needed widely popular health care reform and they let themselves be stopped by fox news, some noisy protesters and that jerk Lieberman (are there any good Liebermans? Between Avidor and Joe I'm sick to my stomach, I'll have to search the web for a decent one). Those protesters probably wouldn't have been so much of a problem if the Dems hadn't given wall street everything it wanted as soon as they came into power, which is exactly what the republicans were doing when they were losing power. Lest this seethe on as nothing more than a rant, I'll close out the post. Here are some lyrics from Funker Vogt:

You can look to the left
You can look to the right
In the end there's no difference,
who has the power

Changing the point of view
Promising a better nation
This is nothing new
Just a cosmetic alteration

The Value of Nothing

Last night I saw Raj Patel on The Colbert Report talking about his book The Value of Nothing. I've yet to read it but I found that I strongly agreed with some of the things he was saying. What really caught my attention was his observations about how the low prices we pay for products at the store really mask the costs that we pay outside of the store. This has been the direction I've been leaning when talking about health care. There are many problems when trying to insure everyone in America (understatement?). One that jumps out at me is why should I pay for the coronary bypass of some slob who drinks 6 big gulps a day and eats nothing but taco bell. I think this part of the problem is addressed quite well by Michael Pollan who points out all the subsidies and government interference that keeps the prices of these ridiculously unhealthy foods so low. So, just because it only costs a dollar to buy a soda, doesn't mean that your finished paying once you drink it. There are many more 'hidden' costs to be considered, costs to the individual and to society as a whole. Maybe my leftists big-government leanings are wrong, perhaps what we really need is some libertarianism. It seems obvious that if we ate healthier then health care costs would fall and we wouldn't be having such a huge problem. Then again, going towards libertarianism means giving an even freer rein to other big businesses like insurance companies who seem to be motivated but nothing other than corporate greed. So, we need government to regulate some industries more, and we need them to subsidies others less. It can really shake ones faith in capitalism and democracy.

Late

It's been a while since I've checked in. I suppose that I've waited long enough though and that its finally time to post again. This was designed to be a political blog, and I imagine that it will continue to be so, but too tell the truth I've been rather politically lazy of late. I think that part of the reason is that I have plenty to be angry about, but it hardly seems worth airing my complaints as long as I have no good solutions to suggest. Most of my ideas are too underdevelopmed for me to express them with any confidence. Perhaps part of the reason for that is a lack of writing and a lack of thinking things through. Also, some of the solutions that I feel more confident about seem to be impossibly far from any possible reality of which I can conceive. I'm rambling. Of course that's to be expected when you as out of practice as I am. So, time to practice!