Those who invalidate reason ought seriously to consider whether they argue against reason with or without reason.
(Ethan Allen, 1738-1789)
Matt Taibbi of “Rolling Stone” magazine has, in his own inimitable way, given us both a farcical and disturbing chronology of our unraveling health care reform debate and by implication the real possibility of the unraveling of America itself. The upcoming climate/energy debate, in many ways far more complex, may prove to be equally as dismal.
Man will never be free till the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest.
(Denis Diderot, 1713-1784)
Probably it's about time we finally stopped thinking of America's pseudo health care system just in the abstract sense.
It might be more productive to focus on the specific names of those who actually run health care America; in the meantime of course let us not forget those members of Congress that consistently grasp the "rubber stamp" of benightedness.
The economic model has broken, for good. It's time to stop pretending it describes our world.
(Douglas Rushkoff, writer and media analyst)
Whenever I hear someone claim that capitalism or the free market is the pinnacle of economic development and is really the “natural” state of humankind, I can't help thinking of the once sacrosanct divine right of kings.
If we Americans truly believe we want a sustainable society, we're going to have to create a functioning health care system now. There is no such thing as being a "little bit pregnant" or waiting passively another 60 years for something to possibly happen.
Go to The Trap 2.
Go to The Trap 3.
Adam Curtis, the documentary filmmaker, wrote and produced The Trap for the BBC in 2008. Whether or not you agree with his viewpoint, the documentary is engrossing.
Curtis has created an intriguing and oftentimes disturbing history about modern political realities, beginning at the end of World War Two and working up to the present. As this 3-part program develops it's as though, in many ways, one has opened a door and stepped into the world of Kafka. It is however not fiction.
Remember, capitalism doesn't have an intrinsic morality.
(John Robb, Global Guerrillas)
We can't win—we don't win—without earning their trust, and providing alternatives to the violent lives many are choosing right now.
(Admiral Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, referring to Afghanistan)
I went to Senator McCaskill's health care town hall at the University Missouri Kansas City this past Monday, not because I thought I'd learn anything about health care proposals in this venue but because I was curious about the political theater, not unimportant.
The Swinney Recreation Center has a seating capacity of some 1,550 seats and pretty much every seat was filled on Monday. Once we got through the requisite prayer in this taxpayer funded institution the senator answered questions that the audience had written down on cards.
