Health Care Talkie Thingy May Have Done Some Good
March 1, 2010 by Alien Trucker · 1 Comment
“I think Jesus was a compassionate, super-intelligent gay man who understood human problems. On the cross, he forgave the people who crucified him. Jesus wanted us to be loving and forgiving. I don’t know what makes people so cruel. Try being a gay woman in the Middle East — you’re as good as dead.” -Elton John. Parade Online Edition Sunday February 28, 2010We know that we do not — we absolutely do not have incentive for prevention. And I’m not talking about creating walking paths – I’m talking about paying people who actually do a good job to do prevention; talking about changing the school lunch programs where it meets the needs, nutritional needs, of Americans; changing the food stamp program where it incentivizes people to eat the right things, not the wrong things. We actually create more diabetes through the food stamp program and the school lunch program than probably any other thing because we’re not feeding — offering and incentivizing a great response.”
Show a Spine-Pick Up Support
February 12, 2010 by Jolly Roger · 1 Comment
I think maybe the President’s finally understanding.
He flat-out told beady-eyed closet queen “Mooch”McConnell that he was tired of his bullshit, and -*poof*- a whole bunch of stalled nominations shot through the Senate.
Overall, he’s been more willing to articulate his displeasure with the Rushpubliscums lately, and look at what’s happening here.
In order for the Rushpubliscums to get to their holy grail of full dominance of the 2010 cycle, they have to not only hobble the President-they also have to do it with clean hands. Since the Rushpubliscum “leaders” in the House and Senate are both stupid men, they haven’t gotten past the “hobble” plan yet, so they’ve got nothing to offer as an alternative vision for the country. And everyone knows it.
Maybe, just maybe, a few things might start moving forward again. These are hopeful signs, but we know how the system works-or in the case of the Rushpubliscums, fails to work.
At a time of deepening political disaffection and intensified distress about the economy, President Obama enjoys an edge over Republicans in the battle for public support, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll.
While the president is showing signs of vulnerability on his handling of the economy — a majority of respondents say he has yet to offer a clear plan for creating jobs — Americans blame former President George W. Bush, Wall Street and Congress much more than they do Mr. Obama for the nation’s economic problems and the budget deficit, the poll found.
They credit Mr. Obama more than Republicans with making an effort at bipartisanship, and they back the White House’s policies on a variety of disputed issues, including allowing gay men and lesbians to serve openly in the military and repealing the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy.
The poll suggests that both parties face a toxic environment as they prepare for the elections in November. Public disapproval of Congress is at a historic high, and huge numbers of Americans think Congress is beholden to special interests. Fewer than 1 in 10 Americans say members of Congress deserve re-election.
As the party in power, Democrats face a particular risk from any wave of voter discontent; unfavorable views of the Democratic Party are as high as they have been since the Republican takeover of Congress in 1994, though Republicans continue to register an even worse showing. The percentage of Americans who approve of Mr. Obama’s job performance, 46 percent, is as low as it has been since he took office.
Still, the poll suggests that Mr. Obama and his party have an opportunity to deflect the anger and anxiety if they can frame the election not as a referendum on the president and his party, but as a choice between them and a Republican approach that yielded results under Mr. Bush that much of the nation still blames for the country’s woes. That is what the White House has been trying to do since the beginning of the year.
That is pretty much the choice, isn’t it? I don’t think we really want to reward the architects of The Republican Depression of 2008.
The President should be getting the message by now-he needs to stick to his guns. Repeal the Chimpy money spigot for the rich, put some regulatory authority back in the financial world, and get healthcare reform moving again-piecemeal if it must be done that way. Come November, people will respond accordingly.
The 2010 election cycle is an opportunity only for the President, because the Rushpubliscums aren’t going to come up with any ideas beyond “let’s cut taxes for the rich and privatize everything.” We know how that approach has worked, it can be easily proven, and the President can make his case.
I should have said… if he continues to stare down the obstructionists, he can make his case. We’ll see.
Crossposted at Reconstitution 2.0
It’s Time To Talk
January 25, 2010 by Jolly Roger · 3 Comments
The deliberately-driven discord in American politics makes it hard sometimes to remember that there is a broad mass of people who are ready to try to work together. Not a broad mass of POLITICIANS, who have an interest in polarizing us. But except for the fringes on either side (admittedly more on the right wing, but the left has some whack jobs too,) I believe we could find ways to get together and actually hammer a few things out.
A lot of Americans want healthcare reform, but they don’t want Government control. As it happens, that also happens to be my position; I want MEDICAL control. I’m sick to death of a private insurance bean counter handing out death sentences, and I wouldn’t care to have a Government bureaucrat second-guess a medical professional’s best judgment either. So it seems that we could surely find some solid ground together on this issue.
A lot of people to the right of me are sick and tired of watching American jobs and prosperity leave the country, but they don’t seem to understand that trade policy is a rigged game. The promise of free trade has always been that without restrictions like tariffs and quotas, eventually trading partners will find their niches and everyone will prosper. They don’t understand that “free” trade as practiced by our country is kinda like someone asking you to arm wrestle-but first insisting that they be allowed to smash your hand with a hammer. We are hobbled, but not by any tariff or anything of the sort; we are hobbled by our commitment to fairer labor practices and environmental consciousness. The fact that “free” trade is practiced by places that allow employees to be treated like slaves and ignore the fouling of the air, water, and soil essentially makes us the ones who got hammered. We will never be able to compete, no matter how good we are-and we DO have a worldwide reputation for quality products, in spite of the idiotic blatherings of some right wing politicians. So why couldn’t we work together to achieve a minimum standard for considering a free trade agreement with another country? In the long run, it will only benefit us; as they can tell you on the US west coast, all that pollution we exported to Asia is coming back into the US alongside the imported products. Washington, Oregon, and California are seeing their air quality deteriorate due to clouds of “free” pollution wafting over from Asia.
I also think that as reasonable people, we can agree that energy policy is both economic and national-security policy. A lot of people love those big boat SUVs, but driving them around is not a personal choice; the energy they use has to come from somewhere, and it is coming from places that mean us no good. It is insane, in my opinion, to keep sending money to people who would like to use it to kill us just because we don’t want to give up that Excursion. We have to be smarter; we must be more efficient, and we must be more innovative. Bullet trains, hybrids, electric cars….. all of these things are pieces of the solution. Don’t you suppose we could achieve some broad kind of a consensus on how to go forward?
There are no issues before us that we cannot iron out, if people are willing to put aside ignorant talking points and actually discuss things. But we have to decide, among ourselves, that the time has come. Given that the present Administration seems to be willing to sell out just about every initiative that the broad mass of people want to see be implemented, it is my conclusion that this Government’s days are numbered, and I’m not just talking about the Obama Administration; I believe the Federal Government, itself, is doomed, and I think that the SCOTUS sellout a few days ago put the Federal Government on a death watch. When the demise finally comes, will we have done any talking to each other-or will we still be ignoring each other because that’s the way that the “one percenter”/Government combo wanted us to be?
The difference could be the difference between a peaceful transition and a Yugoslavia.
What If There Was a Public Option?
January 21, 2010 by Jolly Roger · 6 Comments
Rushpubliscums are painting the Coakley loss as a repudiation of attempts to fix the obscene, immoral, and murderous privatized healthcare system in this country. DINOs (led by their piece of shit standard-bearer, “Holy Joe” LIEberman) claim that Coakley’s loss “proves” that Americans do not want real healthcare reform.
That’s easily disproven, of course, just like all other DLC mantras are usually easily disproven. But you don’t have to take my word for it. Just ask the Brown voters themselves.
MoveOn, Democracy for America, and the Progressive Change Campaign Committee commissioned a Research 2000 poll of more than 2,000 Obama voters in Massachusetts after the polls closed last night. Among the findings: Of the 500 Obama voters who voted for Scott Brown, 82% said they preferred a choice of a public option, only 36% said that the health-care bill goes far enough, and only 31% believe Obama and the Democrats in Washington DC are delivering enough of the change Obama promised.
Yet, as Ben Smith points out, the poll doesn’t exactly prove that a lack of a public option was the reason why these Obama voters for Brown. (Indeed, what the poll did find is that only 13% of these Obama/Brown voters said Martha Coakley did a better job on the issue of the economy.)
Here’s perhaps the most interesting result from the poll: “2774 Obama voters from 2008 who voted Tuesday were reached — of which 2274 (82%) voted for Democrat Martha Coakley and 500 (18%) voted against her.”
*** UPDATE *** PCCC’s Adam Green responds, “What this poll definitively does prove is that the conventional wisdom held by many scared Democrats on Capitol Hill is wrong. Voters who supported Obama and then supported Brown absolutely did not do that because the health care bill over-reached — 82% want the public option and 57% say Obama and Democrats are not ‘delivering enough on the change Obama promised.’ People are angry, sure…but they are angry because they want more populism, not less of it. Democrats are on the verge of learning exactly the wrong lesson from this election. The right lesson: They need to be bolder.”
The dems ALWAYS learn the wrong lesson. They morph themselves until they are so close to the Rushpubliscums that the Rushpubliscum-in-waiting can just walk right in and take office, because progressive voters get fed up and sit on their hands.
Is there a chance in hell that the President will learn the correct lesson from this? Actually, there are 2 lessons here. The first lesson should have been learned in New Jersey and Virginia, but somehow the dems missed it: STOP getting behind POS candidates. Deeds is a DINO abomination, Corzine is a Wall Street tool, and Coakley thought she was a princess waiting for her seat on the throne, rather than a candidate for office.
The second lesson is that voters like to believe that their preferences will actually be noted by someone.
Would a strong public option, fought for by the President, have been enough to save Coakley? I honestly do not know. But looking at the percentages, you have to wonder how many Brown voters might have flipped. 5% is not a huge margin, after all.
Crossposted at Reconstitution2.0
My Darling…. Would You Join my HMO?
December 27, 2009 by Jolly Roger · Leave a Comment
We’ve all heard of “shotgun weddings,” but here in the USofA, our first-rate, employment-based private insurance system has led to a whole new form of marriage-the “stethoscope” wedding.
The writer of this CNN article lays out why she found herself becoming a “Mrs.” I will say that this is indeed an act of love, and I will personally vouch that it isn’t an unusual catalyst; my own worries about a red-headed girl’s health was a factor in my own mind for moving up our wedding date (and I’ve never told her that, and I expect you to STFU as well 
) In my own case, I’d definitely have done it anyway, but I have to wonder…. how many people are doing this PRIMARILY because our system sucks so bad? How many of them will wind up divorced later?
And isn’t it a damned obscenity that gay people cannot do this for a loved one in most states?
I’d never been one of those girls who’d dreamt about her perfect wedding. The white wedding dress, the exorbitant costs, the fuss over a big, shiny rock — none of it ever appealed to me.
I wanted to find a lifelong partner, and a family sounded nice, too, but honestly? I never cared much about that piece of paper.
So why did I just marry my boyfriend after pondering it for a mere two hours? One reason: health insurance.
My now-husband is a bartender and a student whose school’s insurance is exorbitant. The man hadn’t gone to the doctor in years, living in fear of a major accident or illness.
We had lived together for about eight months when I got a job as a reporter for a newspaper with a kick-ass medical plan. According to my job, a domestic partnership affidavit was standing in the way of my partner having awesome coverage and escaping $8000 worth of retroactive hospital bills. It was a no-brainer. Onto domestic partnership!
Problem is, the state of Illinois doesn’t let you get domestic partnership if you’re hetero. (“If they could, no one would get married!” the City Hall employee informed me smugly, as if 1) that fact was actually true and 2) rampant domestic partnerships would mean the end of the world.)
Apparently you can’t be a part of the “system” if you’re queer, and you can’t opt out of the “system” if you’re straight. It started to seem so ridiculously arbitrary — and unfair! Did I really have to choose between leaving my honey vulnerable to unthinkable medical costs and a measly $50 certificate?
The choice was clear. We went ahead and got married. The weird thing wasn’t the actual City Hall wedding (it was actually sort of fun!), it was watching people react to the news. Some were angry — “How could you have gotten married without me there?” my best friend implored, crushed. Others were confused –”Really, Nona? I thought you weren’t into that sorta stuff.”
Yep. I heard this and more. One of my co-workers was absolutely stunned that I got married “so fast.” TOO stunned. I was sort of glad to leave that job for another one, if you know what I mean.
The healthcare “reform” being shopped now only kinda-sorta addresses this. Health insurance does not belong on the employer, and the worst mistake we’ve made is to not try to decouple it. Americans are anything but free to pursue their happiness, as doing that can leave you vulnerable to bankruptcy, or even death.
Or looking to get hitched.
Sphere: Related ContentIn Teddy’s name, they will get it done tomorrow.
December 23, 2009 by Dusty · Leave a Comment
I just watched the Senators wax poetic about the healthcare bill they are about to pass. Harkin did bring a lump to my throat when he spoke about Teddy and his assistant that still carried the torch for healthcare for all after Teddy died.
I do not call it a ‘reform’ bill because it does so fucking little in that regard. I still consider the bulk of it to be corporate welfare for the insurance companies. Fucking bendejo’s do not need another handout..they have more than their share of those sumbitches.
Invoking Teddy’s name really kinda pisses me off too..this bill is that shitty.
So kiss my hairy ass you bunch of fucking bought bastards. You do not honor Kennedy’s legacy with this friggin bill. Not even close.
Sphere: Related ContentAttention, Stupid American Voters
December 17, 2009 by Jolly Roger · 2 Comments
I came across this item in a story about a poll that suggests that Rushpubliscums are “poised to retake power” in 2010. That’s a pipe dream I’d bet my dog’s tail against, and in any case I expect the MSM to do what they can to try to help their masters regain a footing…. that’s all beside the point. This is the thing that got me when I read it.
The survey also reveals a “disconnect” between what most voters would like to see in healthcare — controlling the cost of medical care — and what they view as the president’s priority: insuring the uninsured.
“Only 28% said their priorities match Obama’s priorities, and 64% said they do not,” Goeas said. “There’s a disconnect.”
No, the disconnect is in the wiring of these idiotic voters. Guess what you CANNOT do without reducing the number of uninsured?
The President, himself, is to blame for a lot of this. He should have been pounding the point home all along that the uninsured represent a significant part of the costs of medical insurance for everyone else.
Sooner or later, all politicians bump up against the selfishness of a wide swath of the American electorate. The only way you are going to convince them of ANYTHING is to show them why THEY are impacted. The President has utterly failed to do this, although the effect of the uninsured using hospital ERs on the cost of health insurance is well-documented. Hospitals have to recoup those costs somewhere. Guess where they do that?
Yeah. The selfish idiots who are just beside themselves that the President is worried about the number of uninsured draw the knife across their own throats AGAIN.
Makes my damned head hurt. Oh well…. if I blow a blood vessel, at least I have insurance. Of course, when I blow that vessel, everybody’s premiums will go up. Damned selfish morons.
Sphere: Related ContentHere’s The Story
August 21, 2009 by Distributorcap · Leave a Comment
Here’s the story of a man named Obama
Who could govern with an iron will.
Then the Congress decided they knew better,
And decided to craft their own confusing health care bill.
Here’s the story, of a dork named Grassley,
Who was busy with Death Panels of his own,
Then the finance committee, they got together
and decided they would toss no one a bone
Till the one day when the our Prez met this Grassley
And knew he had much more than a hunch,
That this gang of six would form an awful policy.
That’s the way they all became the Health Care Bunch.
The Health Care Bunch,
That’s the way they all became the Health Care Bunch.
The Health Care Bunch.
Crossposted at DistributorcapNY.
Sphere: Related ContentBecause it is hard…
July 19, 2009 by Angry Black Bitch · Leave a Comment
“We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.”
President Kennedy 1962 at Rice University
Shall we?
Many years ago, when discussing the NASA space program with some fellow students, I questioned why a nation struggling to feed it’s hungry and clothe the poor should invest so much money, time and energy into the exploration of space. My history teacher overheard my speculation and joined our conversation with an answer – that beyond the scientific benefits and technological advances garnered through the NASA program, beyond the space race Cold War ramifications (a bitch is dating myself, but there was once a Cold War and my ass was in high school before it sorta-ended)…beyond all of that is the lesson that we as a people can make possible what was once held to be impossible if we commit to the task and reject failure as an option.
I was 15 years old at the time and didn’t truly grasp what my favorite history teacher was telling me. I was born into a world where space travel was reality and we no longer paused in wonder to observe launches and landings. But it struck me last week, as I traveled back home from Washington D.C. having lobbied Congress in support of healthcare reform, that the 40th anniversary of humans landing on the surface of the moon and the dedication and determination that got us there holds some serious lessons some folks are overlooking today.
I’ve listened to all the reasons why healthcare reform might not happen.
I’ve observed television news anchors and pundits gleefully point out the cost, the enormity of the task and winced at the lack of political unity and personal courage.
And I can’t help but think of President Kennedy’s speech at Rice University in 1962 and of that one amazing phrase regarding why we set goals like putting a human on the moon “…not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills…”
Pause…allow to mentally marinate…continue.
That’s what I was pondering as I flew back home having pounding the hotter than hell D.C. pavement to advocate for healthcare reform that protects and expands access to essential community providers and for coverage of the full range of reproductive health services.
And I moved forward from questioning when we as a nation became a people afraid to try shit for fear of failure because in reality many a person was afraid to strive for putting a human on the moon and that shit probably wouldn’t have happened if the then Soviet Union hadn’t been trying to do the same shit at the same time.
I moved forward into a place that recognizes that sadly human beings landing on the surface of the moon isn’t an accurate analogy to healthcare reform…people had never been to the moon but many a nation has created healthcare systems that provide coverage for their citizens.
And I arrived at the understanding that healthcare reform is more akin to America sending a human into space.
I see trees of green…….. red roses too I see ‘em bloom….. for me and for you And I think to myself…. what a wonderful world.
We did not get a human into space first but that didn’t distract us from wanting to get there too…rather, it made us want to get there all the more.
And we learned a lot of shit from getting an American human into space…from the process, the quest and the achievement of it all.
I see skies of blue….. clouds of white Bright blessed days….dark sacred nights And I think to myself …..what a wonderful world.
So when the time came for us to set the goal higher…to announce that the goal was the moon and us putting a human on it then safely returning that human back to earth…we turned our backs to fear and walked purposely toward getting that shit done.
The colors of a rainbow…..so pretty ..in the sky
Not because it is easy.
Are also on the faces…..of people ..going by I see friends shaking hands…..sayin.. how do you do They’re really sayin’……i love you.
But because it is hard.
I hear babies cry…… I watch them grow They’ll learn much more…..than I’ll never know And I think to myself …..what a wonderful world
Almost seventeen years ago…the Clinton administration announced that the nation’s healthcare system required reform in order for it to serve the people instead of the profit margins of corporations and the campaign coffers of politicians.
That’s damn near ten years longer than the time that past between President Kennedy’s speech at Rice University in 1962 to the moon landing in 1969.
As President Kennedy said during that speech “we meet in an hour of change and challenge, in a decade of hope and fear, in an age of both knowledge and ignorance. The greater our knowledge increases, the greater our ignorance unfolds.”
And he also offered “…I think we’re going to do it, and I think that we must pay what needs to be paid. I don’t think we ought to waste any money, but I think we ought to do the job.”
We must catch up to others in this race too and then look to the moon in regards to healthcare…to treatment and cures, advancement and discoveries, early detection and prevention.
Not because it is easy, damn it.
But because it is hard…
Crossposted from the Angry Black Bitch.
Sphere: Related ContentObama’s Surgeon General..fantastic pick!
July 13, 2009 by Dusty · Leave a Comment
She rebuilt her clinic at least three times..after hurricanes and a fire. She has spent her entire career taking care of patients without money or access to health insurance. She is one smart female to boot!
I love this woman:
An African-American, Dr. Benjamin is nationally known for establishing a rural health clinic in Bayou La Batre, Ala. – a small, medically underserved shrimping village along the Gulf Coast. Hurricana Katrina destroyed the clinic in 2005, and then when it was rebuilt, the clinic burned down on the eve of re-opening.
In 2002, she became the president of the Alabama Medical Association, making her the first African-American woman to be president of a state medical society in the United States. In September, she was one of 25 recipients of the $500,000 “genius awards,” awarded by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.
Another voice for comprehensive healthcare..universal healthcare I hope. A good person and a wonderful human being, Dr. Regina Benjamin is. All women should be proud of her nomination and her grit.
Sphere: Related ContentThe Operation Was A Success, But The Patient Died
June 30, 2008 by Diva Jood · 5 Comments
Four million people were admitted to California hospitals last year. That’s a lot of people. And of those 4M, 1,002 cases of serious medical harm were disclosed by California hospitals between July 2007 and May of this year.
Officially, these cases are called Adverse Events. They are also referred to as “never events,” because they should never happen. In California, patients are being seriously injured at a rate of 100 per month.
Examples range from technicians placing a CT scan of one patient into the electronic file of another; The result: physicians removed the wrong person’s appendix; to nurses giving incorrect medications (unprescribed medications) causing death. The father of one of my co-workers went to have a fairly simple operation; during surgery, his kidney was perferated causing infection. The original operation was a success, but the patient died.
In California, Insurance Companies are considering not paying Hospitals for these accidents. Yet Hospitals are for-profit businesses; I wonder if we will be forced to pay extra for these non-services? Pay in advance and take it up with our insurance companies later (if we survive at all?)
Did the woman who died from the wrong medications have to pay a co-pay on those medications? Who covers her bill? On the wrong appendix, did he have to pay out of pocket for a surgery he didn’t need? Because his insurance probably didn’t cover him for this bit of cutting and sewing – it hadn’t been pre-approved.
Our system is broken on so many levels, not the least of which is patient care, that I cannot begin to cover it all. I am mad as hell. Beyond angry, I am appalled at rising costs and sinking care.
Sphere: Related ContentMcCain’s healthcare plan; created by the healthcare industry
April 29, 2008 by Dusty · 4 Comments
I know McCain isn’t stupid..but for the love of Buddha wtf is the deal with asking healthcare industry lobbyists to craft a plan for him? From CAF we get this lil tidbit:
McCain and his handlers knew they had to say something about health care. So they turned to their friends (and financial supporters) in the health care industry and the conservative think tanks. And they have adopted the most extreme right-wing ideological approach, premised on the idea that the big problem in health care is that Americans have too much insurance – in their words, we don’t have enough “skin in the game” – and that only when we have to buy health care with money that comes directly out of our own pockets will consumers force doctors, hospitals and insurance companies to become more efficient.
Tax credits…the asshole wants to give us all tax credits so we can buy our own insurance. Of course many of us have pre-existing conditions..so McCain will make the states set up an insurance pool for people like me. As for his tax credits..here is the amount he is offering from a CNN writeup:
Sphere: Related ContentOne in four soldiers suffer from..
April 6, 2008 by Dusty · Leave a Comment
per a WaPo writeup..signs of anxiety, depression or acute stress, according to an official Army survey. Of course these are soldiers that are sent to Iraq for the third or fourth time..which is the bulk of them. As I noted in another post on the topic this weekend on troop strength, Bushie has promised to shorten deployment times from 15 to 12 months.
Somehow, I do not see that doing a lot to help the soldiers cope with the PTSD..does anyone else with two fucking brain cells to rub together? From the WaPo writeup:
Sphere: Related ContentAmong the 513,000 active-duty soldiers who have served in Iraq since the invasion of 2003, more than 197,000 have deployed more than once, and more than 53,000 have deployed three or more times, according to a separate set of statistics provided this week by Army personnel officers. The percentage of troops sent back to Iraq for repeat deployments would have to increase in the months ahead.
Lives and Families Destroyed-Part 1
March 16, 2008 by PraetorOne · Leave a Comment
Continuing from yesterday, another installment in Lives and Families Destroyed from those wonderful folks at the Coalition for a Democratic America, including Uncle Abe, Siren’s resident historian~Dusty
BY Abe, Donatra, PraetorOne, and Kyle
PART I: GETTING BACK IN THE SADDLE AGAIN WHEN YOU SHOULDN’T
In the early 1800s they called it “exhaustion.” In World War I they called it “Soldiers Heart,” “the Effort Syndrome,” and finally “Shell Shock.” In World War II it was called “Combat Fatigue,” only to undergo yet another transformation in 1952, when the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) referred to it as “Stress Response Syndrome” caused by “gross stress reaction.” During the Vietnam conflict, in 1968, it was melded into a section about situational disorders. And, as an interesting side note, it should be stated that those Vietnam Veterans who suffered from “Stress Response Syndrome” actually suffered from a preexisting condition if that condition lasted longer than six months–a slick way to avoid paying Veterans benefits. It wasn’t until the 1980s that the third edition of the DSM (DSM III) used the current term of identification, and in 1994 the DSM IV categorized it as new type of stress disorder, still listed under the heading of Anxiety Disorders.
We are of course talking about Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, a condition which the overstretched military currently and conveniently believes can be cured by taking traumatized Iraq veterans and pushing them back into combat situations. Translated into modern English, Military psychiatrists seem to have confused PTSD with phobic reactions and are foolishly encouraging young veterans to get back in the proverbial saddle again.
Imagine if you will, that you have eaten a bad hotdog and have become violently ill. Imagine further, that you go to your doctor and that your doctor has told you to eat another hot dog. Well, that’s what is happening in Iraq as Military Doctors are using traumatized soldiers as psychological guinea pigs in a thinly disguised effort to maintain troop levels, and quite possibly to prevent Iraq War Veterans from cashing in on deserved benefits here at home. In either event this so called treatment flies in the face of morality and rational thinking and it certainly makes a mockery out of the Hippocratic Oath.
To understand how foolish this controversial treatment really is we might want to take a look at the highly varied symptoms of the beast that we refer to as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder:
Sphere: Related ContentIt’s more important now: The world we want for our child
Donatra and PraetorOne had a lovely baby boy this winter. They have named him after BibleBelted, their dearest friend who is also currently undergoing Chemo for inoperable cancer. Love and hugs to all four of them~Dusty
By Donatra and PraetorOne
Having a baby can change one’s perspectives in ways that one never would have suspected. Throughout the summer, fall, and winter we knew that we did not want our child to be raised in the Republican cuckoo land that has become the United States, and now that our child, a healthy baby boy named Jeffrey Michael, has arrived in the world we are more determined than ever to turn this country around while there is still a country left to actually turn around. I don’t know if any of you out there are new or expecting parents, but as far as my husband, PraetorOne, and I are concerned we are even more dedicated to changing this country than we were during the run up to January 13th, the day that our first child was born.
So what do we want? That is a loaded question.
First and foremost we want to see an end to the war in Iraq–as quickly as possible. Thanks to George W. Bush we are now stuck in this quagmire and if John McCain has a say in the matter we’ll be there for at least another decade or two with even more American involvement. That is not a thrilling prospect. I suspect that on some level, McCain, who is well known for his occasional outbursts of temper, is STILL bitter about the time he spent as a POW during the Vietnam War; and far from making him more sympathetic to the horrors of war, I suspect that he believes on some level that since HE had to suffer that OTHER young men and women might as well suffer too. In other words, we need a Democrat in the Whitehouse who will do more than issue half-baked platitudes about how much he or she supports the troops. We need a Democrat in office who will support the troops so much that he or she is willing to stop the open bleeding and bring them home right now.
Sphere: Related Content
