Category Archives: Blogs' Archive

The United States will eventually have some form of universal health care because the large and still growing majority  of the American people want it, it works  in every  country where it exists, which is  all of the developed ones at least and, despite what the insurance companies and their hired minions say, there is no downside.
Also because Bernie Sanders won in the 2016 primary election.  It wasn’t immediately obvious, and the DNC went ahead with their planned coronation, but Bernie won.  His supporters are still engaged, and energized, while Hillary’s supporters – well, I  guess some of them are still engaged, but they are few in number and dwindling in influence, as Hillary continues to make bizarre and ridiculous statements, like comparing herself to Cersei Lannister, and saying that she lost because so  many women were told who to vote for by their husbands or boyfriends.
When Corey Booker opposed Bernie’s amendment to lower drug prices, the sheer amount of scorn and ridicule he got on Twitter probably ended his political career.  Now, he’s backing Medicare for All, and playing damage control.  When Nancy Pelosi said that Health Care was not a litmus test, 10 million people, as one, said “The hell it ain’t” and it proved to be a reverse self-fulfilling prophecy.
That is a change.  Now, people are keeping lists.  Now, people are taking names.  This isn’t some vague, maybe-everybody-will-forget-about-it-by-the-next-election litmus test.  This is a test, a must pass to graduate test.  Anyone who  opposes single payer health care will have a rabid, and numerous bloc of people ready  to vote against them the next time they are running.
And there isn’t a damn thing they can do about it.

When we look out at the ocean, it seems endless.  So does Lake Michigan, but there is  a great difference in size.  The similarity is that we can’t  see across either one.  The ocean goes all the way around the world and takes up most of it.  To sail across the Atlantic takes weeks, to sail across the Pacific takes more.
And yet, ships have crossed it, we’ve mapped it, built cities along its coastlines, and we think we know it.  We don’t know it.  All that we see is the surface, that thin film across the top, that .00nothing percent which is visible to our eyes, a two dimensional blanket across a three dimensional area which goes more than ten kilometers down at some points.

Not only can’t we see the bottom without specialized craft which cost millions and millions of  dollars, we can’t even see two inches below the surface.  We know nothing.  Occasionally, though, world’s collide.  After Harvey, a very strange creature was  discovered on a Texas beach.  It’s big, dead, ugly as hell, and has needle like teeth.  The best biologists could do was “Well, it’s probably  some kind of eel,” which is sort of like “The Chupacabra is probably some kind of dog.”
The ocean has secrets, just because it’s so vast.  And as vast as the ocean is, the great world encircling ocean,  there are other things in our existence just as vast, about which we also have only seen the surface.  Space, the inner workings of our own minds, the nature of the universe, and more.  We know nothing.

As Hillary carries on with her current job, which is sitting at Barnes and Noble and autographing copies of her  nasty, pathetic, vindictive, whiny book, my Facebook feed  is  filled  with people criticizing her (like me) and other people saying “Why are you still talking about  Hillary, why can’t you just drop it?”
Well, one reason we can’t drop it is because she’s slandering the person who we’d like to be the Democratic nominee in 2020.  Yes, slandering.  It’s malicious and untrue to compare universal health care and free college tuition to ‘buying America a pony.’  Sanders was always clear and specific about the scope, and the limitations, of his programs, as well as how to pay for them.  It’s not ‘free stuff.’  It’s allocating tax revenues in a way that actually benefits the American people.
But, beyond that, there’s no reason for people to stop talking about it.  The internet is vast.   It contains multitudes.  That is the beauty of the internet.  We can talk about global warming, and the  genocide taking place in Burma, and the probability of extra-terrestrial intelligence, and Jim Carrey’s interview at a fashion show, and the potential of marijuana as a medicament, and music, and art, and sports, and pets, and kids and the proper way to raise them, and films, and still have plenty of space left over.
It’s as infinite as the night sky.  So, if you’re not interested in discussing a particular topic, keep on scrolling.  If you disagree with something someone said, feel free to reply.  Eventually, through all the hubbub and babble, ideas may be reshaped, new concepts may evolve, and we may actually figure out how to live together in a clean and sustainable environment.  Maybe not, but there’s certainly no need to limit the conversation.

Today is the anniversary of September 11th, 1973, when the U.S. CIA led a coup which ousted (and killed) the legally elected president of Chile, Salvador Allende, and replaced him with the right wing dictator Pinochet, leading to many years of misery, death and oppression all because the U.S. just can’t stand to see left wing governments getting elected in Central and South America.
Which sort of puts the charges of Russians interfering in the last U.S. elections in perspective.  The latest bombshell is that  a Russian group paid $100,000 for advertising on Facebook, and it was spent on all sorts of racist memes which basically talk about how illegal  aliens are getting all sorts of cool,  free stuff from the government while throwing their babies out of windows and stuff like that.
It’s sort of an odd juxtaposition and I’m having a bit of trouble wrapping my  mind around  it.  First, $100,000 as opposed to Hillary Clinton’s billion dollar plus war chest is pissing in  the ocean.  It’s not so much an effort to win as it is just plain trolling; trying to stir up trouble for shits and giggles.  If the Russian government was behind it, it was an  absurdly frivolous expenditure.

So, I suspect that it was more along the lines of some Trump employed internet trolls, based in Russia, where the slack-jawed yokel  in chief is known to have business interests, i.e. real estate and money laundering.  But, I don’t know.  Maybe Putin did play  a part.  If so, it’s still way  less than what we did in Chile.  The Russians did not  bomb Washington, they did not  have Obama assassinated.

Today, of course, is also the anniversary of September 11th, 2001, which we should also never forget.  It just seems to me, though, that every anniversary is used by the powers that be to reinforce the official narrative and make lots of sneering remarks about conspiracy theorists.
Doesn’t matter.  The official version is full  of  holes, and so suspicions linger.  And probably always will.

It hasn’t got a lot of press.  That could be because CNN (and presumably every other American network but they’re the only ones we get here in Prague) is just talking about Irma, Irma, Irma all the time.  If Jimmy Hoffa suddenly walked into  a bar in Chicago or North Korea was suddenly abducted by aliens, the networks wouldn’t be able to cover it because all their reporters are in Florida.
Or, it could be because the main stream media is deliberately downplaying the event, which wouldn’t be a surprise.  They barely covered it the first time.

In either case, it sure grabbed my attention.  Beck v. DNC, aka Berniecrats v. The Machine, aka the 99% v. the 1 %, aka Good Guys v. Bad Guys, is being appealed.  Of course it should be.  Its peremptory dismissal by Judge Zloch, whose name sounds like an evil warlord from a distant galaxy, was on  the grounds that “We know they’re guilty, but we’re going to let them get away with it.”

That was also, of course, the DNC’s defense.  “Doesn’t matter if we did  it, we can screw the people any way we want to, we are under no obligation to run a fair primary or give the voters anything they want, because who the hell are they, anyway, none of those darned 99%ers ever buy tickets to our $5,000 a plate fundraisers, so screw them.”
Their actual choice of the words “cigars in back rooms” was perhaps doubly unfortunate due to Mrs. Clinton’s husband’s prior experience with cigars in back rooms, but that’s another story.

The thing is, the case is on again.  I hope the press decides to sit up and take notice this time around, but I’m not holding my breath.  It’s up to us to spread the word.