Health Care For All

Courtney McNamara

Courtney McNamara — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 02:45:38 -0500

Bailed-Out AIG Forcing Poor to Choose Between Running Water and Food

Philip Palij — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 02:15:34 -0500

Thanks to AIG, some of the poorest residents of rural Kentucky learned you can always be made poorer by corporate villains.

Rumpelstiltskin and the Democratic Leadership

Jonathan Walker — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 18:20:43 -0400

The leadership of the Democratic party reminds me of the classic fairy tale Rumpelstiltskin.

In 2002 and 2004, the party's leadership was like the miller's daughter. Trapped in the castle tower with the seemingly impossible task of trying to spin straw into election gold. In desperation, they turned for help to an ugly dwarf (the young, ideological, progressive grassroots). While the miller's daughter only promised Rumpelstiltskin her first born in exchange for his aid, the party leadership promised much more. They promised the progressives almost anything and everything: Ending torture, closing Guantanamo, repealing Don't Ask Don't Tell, universal health care with a strong public plan, the Employee Free Choice Act, troops out of Iraq, etc.

To the surprise of almost everyone, the progressive grassroots succeeded beyond anyone's expectations. They turned the pile of useless straw into political dominance gold. The netroots raised on unprecedented level of political donations with small online contributions. In four years, the Democrats went from 45 Senators to 60, won a huge majority in the House, and elected the first black president with a large mandate.

Now that the Democrats are at their most powerful in a generation, their Rumpelstiltskin has come to claim his prize. Like the miller's daughter, the elected Democrats are doing everything they can not to pay the price they promised. They are struggling futilely to guess the dwarf's true name (or find the proper PR spin to justify their broken promises and complete sell-out compromises). They hope some magic phrase will make their commitment go away.

The Democratic senators say:
“We can't pass the EFCA we all co-sponsored, how about a compromise that makes big business happy?”
“We can't give you the public plan we promised, how about useless co-ops instead?”
“We can't provide full federal benefits to same sex couples, how about help covering your partner's moving expenses?”
“We don't feel like dealing with Don't Ask Don't Tell right now, how about maybe in five years?”

The biggest difference between our current political reality and the classic fairly tale is that there is no magical out. The party leadership can't just say “Rumpelstiltskin” and have all debts canceled. The progressive grassroots expected to claim their prize, and party leadership has decided not to pay. In real life, debts unpaid are rarely forgotten or forgiven.

Crossposted on The Walker Report

Central America: An Emerging Role in the Drug Trade

Philip Palij — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 19:15:23 -0400

While the United States remains the top destination for South American-produced cocaine, and Mexico continues to serve as the primary transshipment route, the path between Mexico and South America is clearly changing.

Roger Peterson (Pete)

Roger Peterson — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 18:44:05 -0400

I graduated from the University of Maine with a B.A. in Psychology in 1970, after serving almost five years as a medic in the Air Force.

In June 1970, I started The My Corporation to distribute My Sauce and My Wine Sauce, two products I developed while attending school. I wanted to become rich so I could help the world change for the better because I didn’t like it the way it was. To that end I developed the concept of the Living Label. It involved a hooded figure with a staff walking across a bridge from the darkness into the light. The figure’s movement across the bridge was meant to coincide with positive change in the world. As he moved toward the light, he would gradually lose his robe until he was completely naked on the other side. A nice idea but it didn’t fly. I refused to add preservatives to my formula and early product spoilage brought an end to The My Corporation after three years.

1973: Moved to California with my wife and two children and lived in San Francisco until 1980.

In 1976, when my children were attending John Swett Elementary School in San Francisco, I served on a special, “Blue Ribbon” committee of parents, teachers, and administrators appointed by the then Superintendent of Schools, Robert Alioto. The purpose of the Committee was to completely reevaluate public education. At our first meeting I asked the question, who are we? One young male teacher looked at me and said, “That’s not our job, that’s up to philosophers to figure out.” My response was, If we don’t know who we are, how can we make effective decisions about education? When I saw the Superintendent’s Assistant pull out a stop watch to time our discussions, I turned and walked out, knowing this committee, like many others I’ve served on and observed, was a waste of time. I realized that if I wanted to know who we are, I’d have to figure it out for myself since no one else seemed to see the importance of doing so.

In 1978, after being inspired by the book Seth Speaks by Jane Roberts and Robert Butts, I started publishing Coordinate Point, a magazine that explored questions like who are we, what’s reality, and what’s the purpose of life? When I began to pay attention to my Inner experiences and experiment with the nature of my own consciousness, I began to see and experience things few of us do, or remember. To survive, we let waking events take priority over the more subtle, inner or intuitive experiences we all have. Even so, many of us do remember unusual dreams, imaginings, and waking experiences that are worth sharing. By pooling and sharing these unique experiences we can stimulate the development of our inner senses and intuitive abilities and, thus, redefine who we are.

If we want to change the world for the better we need to understand who we are and what reality is, otherwise, we will continue to recycle tired old ideas like we do now in government, business, education, and our own private lives, ideas that have proven time and again they only create revolution (going around in circles), not evolution (transformation into something more desirable). There is no doubt we are very clever but more than clever, we need to be wise. To change the world for the better, we need to change ourselves for the better!

For me, nothing is more exciting, or worth doing, than changing myself and the world for the better.

Pete

Maureen Allmendinger

Maureen Allmendinger — Tue, 06 May 2008 21:43:32 -0400

John Lopresti

jlopresti — Sun, 09 Dec 2007 17:30:56 -0500

I have two jobs. The world must change, so must we.