Government and Climate Crisis
This is how we can make a decision on what to do about climate change.
Pause for Lobbyists
Why are we allowing lobbyists to read it and then start their influence? Ah yes, lobbyists are always allowed to read and "comment" on bills. Why don't we the people do that? In part we don't have the money. People with more money (ahem, corporations) have more free speech. That's fine if you're an actual human but corporations have much more organized and expensive speech compared to the people.
Pat Roberts Pleads For Three-Day Delay So Lobbyists Can Read Health Care Legislation
If money is speech, what does that say about the banks whom can create money out of thin air? They even got their whole system codified by law. How's that for an example of money+speech => more power?
Can we please now remove corporate personhood? I want a government that responds to the people and not the bottom line of mega-corporations and banks.
Health Insurance vs Single Payer
It struck me this morning that if there were to be a single payer option up for vote in congress, the profits and possibly even the existence of the private industry would be in question. They would be legally obligated to protect shareholders interest by taking their profit, all reserves, and maybe even credit to fight single payer (aka, their perceived "destruction"). Private health insurance would still exist as supplemental insurance which, hopefully, would be affordable and at least some businesses would opt to pay employees with the benefit. In such a capacity it is a wonderful business and not nearly as parasitic.
Where are we?
To help you visualize one of the problems this is an excellent graph:
thanks to Finance Blog on Telegraph.co.uk
So the question is, what if the "adverse scenario" were to happen? It sounds like it's just a little bad, you know, with the innocuous "adverse." Like it may rain some day. The problem is that adverse could mean something more like warning lights, sirens, smoke, and exit lights in case of emergencies, where two trains are about to collide, called the Rock and the Hard Place. But that's the thing, without action, these signs are meaningless and if we don't know what really happened we could possibly be demanding ill-considered change... one that is to our own detriment and sold to us by corruption and influence (read: money). Sneaky.
... says Rahm Emanuel, just appointed chief-of-staff by President-elect Barack Obama.
"You don't ever want a crisis to go to waste; it's an opportunity to do important things that you would otherwise avoid. In 1974 and 1978 we never dealt with it, and our dependence on foreign oil never changed."
[BBC News, 7 November 2008]
Don't waste a crisis
That is Robert McNamara's line. It strikes me, all parties do it to enact radical ideas that potentially don't benefit the people. Are they not doing that mental calculus?
Remember the prisoners dilemma. This is that same situation. It's going to be bad but we could at least try to choose the least worst by working together. All of us. I hope that banks see the error of their way and decide that, yes, to save the system, and themselves, they need to change.