Ted Kennedy’s words on healthcare for all..from 1980

They ring as true today as they did 29 years ago. From MoJo:

We cannot have a fair prosperity in isolation from a fair society. So I will continue to stand for a national health insurance. We must—we must not surrender—we must not surrender to the relentless medical inflation that can bankrupt almost anyone and that may soon break the budgets of government at every level. Let us insist on real controls over what doctors and hospitals can charge, and let us resolve that the state of a family’s health shall never depend on the size of a family’s wealth.

The president, the vice-president, the members of Congress have a medical plan that meets their needs in full, and whenever senators and representatives catch a little cold, the Capitol physician will see them immediately, treat them promptly, fill a prescription on the spot. We do not get a bill even if we ask for it, and when do you think was the last time a member of Congress asked for a bill from the federal government? And I say again, as I have before, if health insurance is good enough for the president, the vice-president, the Congress of the United States, then it’s good enough for you and every family in America.

It’s like he said them yesterday…sadly nothing has changed in the 29 years since he said them to the Democratic National Convention.

Time Magazine will publish a commemorative issue September 7th.

Sphere: Related Content

Ah, the great healthcare debate..

I refuse to enter into it, ‘the debate over healthcare’. It should be a no-brainer as far as I am concerned.

But the rightwingers are using lies and obfuscation. This severely jerks my chain. The talking points are all the same, and frankly, I can’t believe people are buying into them.

Even my friggin orthopedic surgeon’s office is on the bandwagon. I went to the doc’s this morning and at the end of the ‘visit’, I brought up Obama’s speechifying to the AMA yesterday.

The short of it is this:

The Physician’s Assistant (whom I always see instead of the actual doctor) used the word socialism to describe Obama’s plan. He is against socialized medicine.

What does he think the Workers Compensation system is for Christs sake? His boss makes a fortune off of work injuries..enough to finance a horsefarm…I shit you not.

Yet, he is against socialized medicine. Free Market, thats the ticket!

But The Big O’s plan allows for free market health insurance. He said so yesterday at the AMA. He said anyone that tells you otherwise is full of shit. Not quite in those words of course.

My medical provider then said we will have less people that want to be doctors and especially specialists. The years spent going to school will not turn into a huge money making empire for the students when they graduate in 6-8 years he said.

I thought most medical professionals got into it to heal and help the human race. Lofty goals eh?

Pardon the fuck outta me for being so delusional and silly to think that.

Guess they are aiming for the same things those fuckwits on Wall Street are…money money and more money.

Maybe that explains the lack of ‘bedside manner’ in most doctors I see these days. With the exception of my primary care physician..most of them are assholes acting like they are doing me a favor by seeing and/or treating me. They hate being asked questions or as one of them put it recently:

Being grilled by you Miss Taylor.

Asking a lot of questions about your illness and treatment options doesn’t go over too well with a lot of doctors these days.

I just don’t know anymore…who are the good guys and who are the bad guys.

The lines  get blurred.

Sphere: Related Content

How many military bases do we have around the world?

I was thinking about this recently and finally looked it up. From the wonderful folks at Global Research:

More than 1000 US Bases and/or Military Installations

The main sources of information on these military installations (e.g. C. Johnson, the NATO Watch Committee, the International Network for the Abolition of Foreign Military Bases) reveal that the US operates and/or controls between 700 and 800 military bases Worldwide.

In this regard, Hugh d’Andrade and Bob Wing’s 2002 Map 1 entitled “U.S. Military Troops and Bases around the World, The Cost of ‘Permanent War’”, confirms the presence of US military personnel in 156 countries.

The US Military has bases in 63 countries. Brand new military bases have been built since September 11, 2001 in seven countries.

In total, there are 255,065 US military personnel deployed Worldwide.

These facilities include a total of 845,441 different buildings and equipments. The underlying land surface is of the order of 30 million acres. According to Gelman, who examined 2005 official Pentagon data, the US is thought to own a total of 737 bases in foreign lands. Adding to the bases inside U.S. territory, the total land area occupied by US military bases domestically within the US and internationally is of the order of 2,202,735 hectares, which makes the Pentagon one of the largest landowners worldwide (Gelman, J., 2007).

The map can be seen in a larger, viewable format (pdf) here.

But..farther down the page at Global Research..there was this:

There are 6000 military bases and/ or military warehouses located in the U.S. (See Wikipedia, February 2007).

Total Military Personnel is of the order of 1,4 million of which 1,168,195 are in the U.S and US overseas territories.

Taking figures from the same source, there are 325,000 US military personnel in foreign countries:

800 in Africa,
97,000 in Asia (excluding the Middle East and Central Asia),
40,258 in South Korea,
40,045 in Japan,
491 at the Diego Garcia Base in the Indian Ocean,
100 in the Philippines, 196 in Singapore,
113 in Thailand,
200 in Australia,
and 16,601 Afloat.

In Europe, there are 116,000 US military personnel including 75,603 who are stationed in Germany.

In Central Asia about 1,000 are stationed at the Ganci (Manas) Air Base in Kyrgyzstan and 38 are located at Kritsanisi, in Georgia, with a mission to train Georgian soldiers.

In the Middle East (excludng the Iraq war theater) there are 6,000 US military personnel, 3,432 of whom are in Qatar and 1,496 in Bahrain.

In the Western Hemisphere, excluding the U.S. and US territories, there are 700 military personnel in Guantanamo, 413 in Honduras and 147 in Canada.

Map 3 provides information regarding military personnel on duty, based on a regional categorization (broad regions of the world). The total number of military personnel at home in the U.S. and/or in US Territories is 1,139,034. There are 1,825 in Europe 114, 660, 682 in Subsaharian Africa, 4, 274 in the Middle East and Southern Asia, 143 in the Ex-USSR, and 89,846 in the Pacific.

Which really set my head to spinning..then…I saw this page at Global Research. It excerpts Chalmers Johnson’s new book, “Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic”. I decided to just give it up..I was depressed enough for today. You however can check it out if you are of a very strong constitution..if you do..let me know ok?

Obama bitched today about the cost of Medicare/healthcare (video below) and the Social Security costs (cough..bullshit!) in the federal budget and after reading how much crap military-wise, we have spread around the entire friggin world..Obama can kiss my hairy ass about the cost of Medicare and Universal healthcare and his bogus argument about Social Security. Shit-can most of the military bases around the fucking world dude (keep the ones here in Amerika)..then maybe we can have single payer healthcare. It would be a start..we are NOT the worlds babysitter, we simply can not afford to do that anymore. One base per country with minimal staffing..that’s it!

I know..its not reasonable to expect our government to close all those bases..but for the love of Buddha..where are our priorities? I am tired of friends dying for lack of basic healthcare..really..I am.

Crossposted at my personal rant site, Leftwing Nutjob.

Sphere: Related Content