The Question for our Time

On the question of healthcare:

If we think outside the box--pull from the inventive, from the unconventional realms of our thinking, aren't there some alternatives that would allow us to be less dependent on a large and distant, faceless, impersonal, unapproachable, and impervious system (whether corporate for-profit or public) to control and provide for our most intimate and personal needs? (Like what about the possibility of supplementing healthcare payments with local alternative/complementary currencies that would put "relationship" and "community" back into healthcare?)

Can anyone explain why in the 50's, 60's and the first part of the 70's we could afford to pay out of pocket for our healthcare needs, only needing insurance for catastrophic illnesses? I know I paid for both my Caesarian births and hospital stays with very little supplemental insurance. Could the main problem we're experiencing have more to do with the structure of our economy and our tax system being geared to gathering and preserving the wealth into the top .1% of our population (whose income rose 296% between 1979 and 2005 while that of the median household only rose 13%--Krugman's blog below)?

Hasn't this resulting loss of prosperity, of financial security within the broad ranks of the middle and working classes contributed to unaffordable healthcare? How about runaway corporate crime in partnership with political leadership? Dependency on an oil economy? And what about an unthinking large number of baby-boom investors (and 401K's) supporting this system of greed through its economic dependency upon it (investment in stocks and bonds--hedge funds)?

Shouldn't we be considering restoring progressive income tax and other reforms that would redistribute the wealth and its availability to the middle and working classes? Wouldn't that make "personal" healthcare affordable to the majority of "we the people"--(supplemented by insurance for catastrophic conditions)? And certainly, for those in circumstances of poverty and those who give or have given unpaid services to family and community there should be Medicare type provisions.

But shouldn't we mainly be asking the question why we would allow our economy to be debt-based, since this form, by its very nature, creates poverty and sustains it through policies supporting constant economic growth (which requires continued debt creation)? I admit I'm not at all educated in the field of economics, but some very simple explanations by Bernard Lietaer (one of the developers of the Euro-dollar currency) in his book, "The Future of Money", made this situation quite clear to me.

I've been claiming "it's the economy, stupid" for a long time, but I was glad to see today Paul Krugman's (NYT) blog, "The Conscience of a Liberal" pointing to the economy and major economic shifts being the primary and immediate issue needing to be addressed by us all--and to hear he's writing a book on the same subject. Here's the intro to his book:

"I was born in 1953. Like the rest of my generation, I took the America I grew up in for granted – in fact, like many in my generation I railed against the very real injustices of our society, marched against the bombing of Cambodia, went door to door for liberal candidates. It’s only in retrospect that the political and economic environment of my youth stands revealed as a paradise lost, an exceptional episode in our nation’s history."-from http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/?th&emc=th

And here's an excerpt from the intro to a book I began last year pointing to the same issue (with my own twist to the plot):

"My generation, seeded in the sixties, recklessly wrought their brave-hearted assault up the walls from the path of least resistance, only to reach their peak at the ridge where reluctance and relapse dramatically drew them back into the vibration of the host mother’s economy of placental charm. Here all her mesmerizing material, emotional, and psychological seductiveness has held them where they languish still, deeply entangled in their dependency on her failing economy. Addicted they are to her homing frequency which lulls them into an illusion of false security and freezes them into a pattern that can only end in death.

It is not a death, however, in which they currently sleep, but a deep and drug-induced dream that locks this beauty in her tower of captivity. Here, she has been unwittingly, steadily, and deviously drained of her life-blood by an economy that ruthlessly feeds off her essence while paralyzing her with poisoned perceptions of reality..."

It's my premise that a generation awakened to conscience and to maturing consciousness, "Our Generation", the baby-boom group that through its sheer numbers has altered the culture at each and every stage of its development, is now empowered and so should feel compelled to make the changes that will sustain us all (humanity, and what we value as human beings) for the future. It is time to envision and activate, as "elders", wise and responsible economic and political leadership, and for the generation behind us, Gen-X, to join full-force into that mission, and for Gen-Y and those following, to responsibly hold our feet to the fire 'til we get it done!

Doesn't it just make sense that if our economy were working for the good of all people, there would be affordable and personable healthcare? And that we would be taking care of the environment on which we are dependent for the survival of all life? So isn't the economy the bigger issue? How do we wean ourselves from what is poisoning us and restore ourselves to the "pursuit of health and happiness"? That's the big question for our times. And there's a link below to a chart from Krugman's blog showing major economic shifts over the last 90 years--he says:

"The chart shows the share of the richest 10 percent of the American population in total income –an indicator that closely tracks many other measures of economic inequality over the past 90 years, as estimated by the economists Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez. I’ve added labels indicating four key periods."http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/?th&emc=th

OK, so shoot me, I think like a weirdo!

Axis of Weevils – Don’t Nuke ‘em, Freeze 'em

Apparently there is some dispute these days about the source behind and the composition of the entity known as the “Axis of Evil”. The phrase lives on in infamy for those of us who are still just as bowled over every time we hear it as when it first rolled flamboyantly out of Bush’s mouth in the State of the Union Address on January 29, 2002. And clearly, the intention and the force behind its fabrication, has not faded in the least. News is the Bush-Cheney team is still pandering war propaganda to the American people and to the world—this time in preparation for an all out forced regime change in Iran (one of the “big three” which includes Iraq, Iran, and North Korea, if you didn't know).

But because of a better informed and more skeptical American public, there is realization by the war-marketers that something stronger than the Bush-Cheney claims of Iran’s “open desire” for nuclear weapons might be required to press public opinion in favor of such a move against Iran. So now Cheney is calling for smaller-scale strikes at suspected training camps in Iraq run by the Quds force, a special unit of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps. Some believe this might edge Iran into a show of their “evil” intent and so give just cause for the U.S. to make a bigger and more hostile move. But if not, anything that looks suspicious after such strikes could be taken as a retaliatory move on Iran’s part-a move that could be used just as easily for justification.

Knowing that the U.S. has found a loop-hole in the nuclear proliferation treaty so that they are now building an arsenal of lesser nuclear missiles, is anyone out there but me fearful of that nuclear holocaust we were all so worried about back in the 50’s? Remember “On the Beach”, the end of the world scenario following nuclear war and radiation fall-out creeping ‘round the world to eventually kill all remaining survivors? Seen any pictures lately of the devastation following the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945? Or of the maimed and dying from radiation disease or genetic mutation in later generations?

I worry that those younger than us baby-boomers who've never known and haven’t been told about our early childhood experiences of having to dive under our desks at school in 1st grade for bomb drills (duck and cover, it's been called)--and see movies growing up like “Dr. Strangelove, or how I learned to stop worrying and Love the Bomb”--don’t have a realistic fear about nuclear warfare. Do the younger generations just think of these accounts as tales reflecting overly exaggerated fears of their elders, or worse, drug induced stories from flakey hippy-dippies? I’m scared, folks! There are 40-something neo-cons out there that don’t have a clue—and they are directing traffic these days!

We knew at some level as first graders that getting under our desks and putting our hands over our heads was not going to save us in a direct hit. Wasn't that what gave us our initial experience, our first reason to doubt and mistrust authorities—especially those who were trying to manipulate us into believing their lies or pacify us into doubting our own feelings? Is there any wonder that many of us more “progressive” thinking baby-boomers doubt and mistrust the claims of the Bush-Cheney team (who, together with Rumsfield, have been called by some, the “Axis of Medievals” to describe their dark age dogmatism and inquisition-like torture tactics). Yes, readers, some have even claimed that the U.S., Great Britain, and Israel have been the true powers in the “Axis of Evil”.

If this is so, then who would we ferret out as the Source of that evil axis?

I propose it is the Weevil in the Axis of Evil—and I have the culprit’s picture posted on this page! Now, upon checking out household remedies for rooting out evil, er, I mean weevils, the weapon of choice is not the microwave, but the freezer. Yes, I must tell you, readers, even nuking those evil weevils doesn’t work. House spouses report finding these slightly discolored bush bugs still walking around in the microwave after nuking infested flour.

So, the gist of all this, my friends, is to propose my way of ridding our country of evil—

I say put ‘em in the slammer, yep—pack ‘em in the freezer—then maybe we can all sup in peace!