katmeyster's Comments (184)

“Sorry, our society relies on endless war. Between the huge arms sales, the huge defense industry, the military-i­ndustrial-­complex, and the fact that we have soldiers all over the world -- we need to keep it up to remain economically stable. Otherwise we would need another way to succeed as a society.”

“We can all easily connect the dots -- you would have to be pretty st*pid to not see the connection between donations to politicians and the public policy decisions they make.

What continues to amaze me is that the solution, public financing of campaigns, is never touted in this supposedly progressive atmosphere. All reform -- health care, finance and banking, defense contractors, prisons and criminal justice, etc. -- is compromised by the amount of money in politics. The effect of money could be drastically diminished with the reform of campaigns and a severe reduction in monetary influence.

But no, we will continue to whine and complain, and connect the dots -- but never attempt to actually change anything. Politicians will calculate that they can take a little bit of heat, compared to millions of dollars of donations because people don't really pay that much attention. Only changing of the laws, demanded by the people, will change anything. And this format is doing nothing to help.”

“Everyone needs to watch (or re-watch) the Enron movie. The taped conversations of the traders showed the depth of avarice and greed -- without shame -- that pervades the sense of doing business. These people are almost sociopathic in their lack of concern for any possible consequences to their actions -- it does not matter who gets destroyed. They are short-term risk-takers who have no qualms about taking us all out with them. Shame means nothing here.

Of course maybe we, the American people, should be ashamed for not noticing, not participating, not investigating, not holding Congress accountable when they did NOTHING after Enron. Or we should be ashamed, while we were feeding at the trough, and we knew about the tendency toward greed, and we did not demand regulation because it might impinge on our potential for wealth. I think all thinking people are culpable in some way.”

“What I really want is a mac netbook. I guess that would include a real keyboard so I can use Word and Excel as effectively as I do at home. Something that automatically syncs my documents when I get home. Oh, and also works as as an ipod. I'm not so sure about the phone. Anything in the works like that? I would buy it. Not sure about a Tablet since I already have an ipod Touch.”

“I have been making this point for awhile now, but some people here to not want to hear it. Definitely go to

www.ssa.gov/history

-- an incredible resource that I use in my government classes.

For those who say single-payer or nothing, they will get nothing. And more people will go without health care, and more people will go bankrupt, and more people will die. With nothing.

Of course I do not like the current legislation, of course I believe there will be attempts at watering it down further, and of course there will be attacks by conservatives on a continual basis. But we do need something to work with as soon as possible. Something to fix, something to revise, something to strengthen. Re-read this post -- something IS better than nothing. We can continue the pressure, continue the hard work, and get at least some people the health care they deserve.

Don't be such an ideologue that you can't see the very important message of Chris Weigant's post. Thank you.”

“More evidence of the emerging corporatocracy.”

“Excellent point. I have been stating all along that Barack Obama is a pretty centrist, maybe slightly to the left, kinda guy. That his policies will not be radical and his message of change was more about repudiating George Bush than anything else. But all in all, I do prefer him over the alternative. But it is funny to watch the right calling him a communist, and the left shocked that he is not one. It's all about rhetoric these days, but our under-educated, fear-driven, society seems to believe whatever you tell it.”

“OK, you're right. Dennis Kucinich is right. And while you are right, thousands of people die because they have no access to health care. The health insurance companies suck, and this is a gift to them -- but right now their are people who can not get any health insurance because of their pre-existing conditions. And right now insurance companies can cut people off just as they enter the operating room for life-saving surgery. And right now people are losing their homes because they are struggling to pay medical bills. My friend died because her employer kept her 1 hour below full time so they wouldn't have to pay for her health insurance. She was denied by every company she applied to trying to buy her insurance herself. If she had had a chest ex-ray when she started to cough, it may have been discovered that she had lung cancer earlier, and she may have lived. But since she had never smoked, the clinic she went to did not think that was necessary. And she continued to cough and not go to the doctor until finally she did go -- and was diagnosed with end-stage cancer. One story of thousands. People are dying, so something must be done now. And if this bill is not very good but it covers people, and the horrible insurance companies make money, so be it. People are dying now.”

“No amount of "personal responsibility" can overcome structural inequities and social injustice. When the game is rigged, when the playing field isn't level, when everything is set up to maintain the power structure -- it is cruel to blame everything on the victim.”

“This is not a completely new concept as the church attempted to keep any one but themselves from reading, and slave-owners would punish their slaves who were caught reading -- because uneducated people can be more easily manipulated to follow the ruling class. We have learned here to provide just enough education and welfare to keep the masses from revolting, and hold up the myth that (just work hard enough and don't ask much from us) there is no class division and you too could become wealthy. And yes, the media is mostly corporate-owned and needs to maintain the structure as well (even the esteemed HP and MSNBC). How ridiculous is it to have an elite educated person make fun of elite educated people? To encourage the idea that education somehow makes you "unamerica­n." It would be funny if you didn't see it every day.”

“No matter how good your ideas are, or how many of us agree with you, it is all for naught when the political system is so corrupted by corporations' wealth. Until we have public financing of campaigns, get rid of co-opted politicians, and make decisions based on what is best for society (not multi-national corporations), nothing will change. Why all the HuffPo columnists do not call for this obvious change that must come first, I do not know.”

“Medicare is fairly efficient, although they need to find a way to stop fraud. It does have a funding problem because there are way to many old people -- but it does seem to be run well. Many veterans' hospitals are run well also. Government doesn't suck at everything.”

“Robert Reich always makes great points, but I'm not sure why we don't pound the Internet waves for campaign finance reform. If everything that happens in health care legislation, as well as all other good-for-society reforms, is related to the money in Congress, then we need to get rid of that money. This is the root of the problem and yet it is always left on the back burner. How long will we allow the money of the corporations to dictate what happens in this country? We got rid of slavery, we got rid of the robber barons, we regulated banks for awhile, we did have regulations on monopolies -- it is not impossible to move the immovable. I understand why Congress would not want to eliminate its own meal-ticket, but we do vote for them, remember?”

“There are plenty of examples of democracies around the world who manage to take care of all peoples' health care without becoming communist. They spend less per person, and they are healthier. The alternative is to keep our capitalistic system for those businesses not involved with health care, and yes, eliminate health insurance companies. In some countries, they have become non-profit and continue to exist. Doing what is best for a country sometimes means that there are areas where profit is not acceptable -- especially when the profit comes from NOT providing the service. This is us vs. them. When insurance companies only profit by denying care, when the executives make billions of dollars, when 45,000 people die each year due to lack of health insurance then it is us vs. them. If you believe that we are a society that takes care of each other, then single-payer, or a hybrid like Germany or Switzerland, makes the most sense. For many people who have great health insurance, this is like a game to them. But there are a lot of people dying and/or going bankrupt who deserve better than to be pawns in the game.”

“I would like to start a bill in Congress eliminating for-profit health insurance companies. Who can we get? Bernie Sanders, Dennis Kucinich? I'm serious; let's start this idea going around.”

“Actually I think the insurance companies are making the case for single-payer. The health insurance companies either need to dissolve or at least become non-profit entities. There is no need for our precious health care resources to be stolen by a paper-shuffling middle-man whose only goal is to profit by denying care to those who sorely need it. And anyone who receives money from them, or owns stock, should recuse themselves from the debate (that should be a law).”

“Progressives need to be smarter than their Republican counterparts in our rhetoric. Of course some of us are not going to agree with Barack Obama because we are farther to the left than he is. He did make promises he has yet to fulfill, but he ran as a moderate Democrat, not as a progressive like Dennis Kucinich (he never would have got elected). We should pressure him to move in our direction, and yes dissent is always good, but we should not sink into the abyss of negativity and inaction. Imagine a John McCain/Sarah Palin war machine. Imagine every agency run by conservatives: EPA, FDA, Interior, Homeland Security, Department of Justice, Elections Commissions, etc. Imagine the Supreme Court with more conservative justices. There is a difference between Republicans and Democrats in all the various departments and agencies and how policies are implemented. We are much better off with Barack Obama. He may not be perfect, but we should support his good policies, and only complain about the policies we have problems with. Ideologues on either side are not helpful.”

“I have no problem with the premise that government should spend more money to stimulate the economy and create jobs. But we should not funnel the money to large corporations, to contractors who pay minimum wage to the workers, to local governments who do not follow fair bid processes, and to pet projects that do not benefit the community at large.

If the jobs created were in industries that produced products with creativity and innovation to lead us into the future, or to much-needed infrastructure, or to educating our children and workforce for the 21st century, then the benefit would be great and lead to a long-term solution.

When we remain under-educated and run by crony capitalists, no amount of government money will help.”

“I love the character of Jack McCoy. He is complicated and flawed. He is passionate about his beliefs, but those beliefs can be changed by his experiences. He can take on the big issues like torture, but will accept the reality that he can't fix everything -- and that he may have to compromise to get elected. One of the best characters on television.”

“I would add that the elite created the laws to support their long-term dominance. The highly vaunted "rule of law" is great when you created that rule of law to structurally benefit your own wealth creation. The scales of justice are unfairly tipped toward those who sculpted them.”

“I agree with you completely. And for those who have other than ethical arguments, there is no evidence that it works -- even the interrogators know that torture does not result in any reliable information. And, we just piss off the terrorists more, create more enemies, and make the US less safe. But besides all that, I still agree with Norther that evolved human beings would never consider torture for any reason.”

“I could kiss Bernie right now -- especially for bringing up the potentially broad Supreme Court decision that most are ignoring. And to add insult to injury, the mainstream media are also corporate-owned, advertising paid-for, and mostly no longer in the watchdog business. Years from now people may say "if we only knew." But we do know now, and with the Congress, media, and the Supreme Court in the pocket of big business, we may not be able to do anything about it. But at least we have Bernie.”

“It's too bad I won't get to watch it until it comes out on DVD. Remember that some communities will never show this movie -- especially if there would be a small turnout in a rural 3-theater town -- and the movie theater owners are Conservative.”

“This is one of the best articles I have read on HuffPost. Thank you.”

“I used to say that the answer was campaign finance reform, or public financing of campaigns. Once money was removed from the political process, and time and process constraints were in place, we could finally have politicians who were more devoted to their actual constituents, rather than the money and influence of lobbyists.

But now, with the conservative, corporate-­dominated, Supreme Court in place to decide that any campaign finance reform is unconstitutional, I truly do not know how we will move forward. Once we awoke to find we were taken hostage by corporations and their lobbies, our remedies, and our Supreme Court, were taken hostage too.”