From The Half-Red House

I look forward to seeing Bill Moyers’ Journal’s program on health insurance that aired last night (I haven’t seen the program itself yet, because of a certain digital-TV problem mentioned elsewhere), but in the meantime, the comments on the program’s blog at http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/blog/2009/07/assessing_a_public_option_for.html are well worth reading. The short segment on Sicko can be viewd on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mv1FwOCNoZ8 .

Moyers interviews a health insurance whistle blower named Potter who talks about, among other things, how industry lobbyists spent vast sums discrediting Michael Moore’s accurate and funny documentary “Sicko” and are on the verge of killing all prospects for a “public option” in the Obama health plan. Without a public option, the health insurance industry’s profits will remain high and people will continue to sicken and die unnecessarily to prop up those profits. If the “public option” is defeated, I will consider it proof positive that our system of government has ceased to have any significant democratic element and has become a thoroughgoing corporatocracy as cruel and class-divided as Dickens’ England if not more so.

I’m not really for a public option: I’m for universal basic coverage first and foremost. I got an email from a left-wing lobbying group recently that asked whether I demanded “health-care choice”, and my first reaction was that I want tax-supported universal health insurance, and if there’s only one flavor of insurance, so be it. Choice is way down my list… If generic cornflakes is all the supermarket offers, I’ll gladly take it and happily forgo the “choice” of a dozen brands of corn flakes. Same thing with health care. I want single-payer; nothing else makes sense.

Here is an excellent video news report from “The Real News” featuring footage of recent events in Honduras and commentary by a Honduran Human Rights activist Bertha Oliva on the scene:

http://therealnews.com/idirect.php?i=3967

The people who staged the coup last weekend are led by politicians/military officers trained at the School of the Americas (SOA, now officially called WHINSEC) at Fort Benning, Georgia. Father Roy Bourgeois pointed out on yesterday’s episode of “Democracy Now” (http://www.democracynow.org), that the SOA trained its students in, among other things, staging coups like this. Whatever justification the coup leaders may have thought they had in removing a political opponent from office, they chose not to follow peaceful constitutional processes of impeachment, but to send soldiers to kidnap and deport him. Zelaya is the duly-elected President, and virtually all nations of the world officially recognize him as such. The coup-leaders claim to have legitimate power and threaten to arrest Zelaya when he arrives for a number of alleged “crimes”. High officials from the OAS, the UN and Argentina plan to accompany him. The sooner he arrives, the less-well-prepared the coup-leaders will be to assert force against him.

Some media commentators are buying into the coup-leaders’ rhetoric and repeating many allegations that appear to be outright lies. Don’t confine your reading to the opinion pages, but pay attention to the people who know the country, the region, and the political players well, people like Bertha Oliva and Roy Bourgeois. If you speak Spanish, you may want to visit My radio co-host Lindolfo’s blog http://nuestrasvocesradio.ning.com/