Holte's corner

Stupid is as Stupid does

I was switching from source to source. It's like listening to two planets. One is planet earth. The other is planet Faux BS. The trouble is the sources with the realism are all scattered over the net, and the unreality is mainstream TV, Radio, and yes Faux news.

Stupid is as stupid does. And when an entire society acts like goose-stepping lemmings we are all in real trouble.

Reforming Healthcare means fighting systemic fraud

Our Scrooge-McDucks on the right would have you believe that squeezing out malpractice claims, fighting individual medicaid fraud, or Individual Medical Savings accounts would solve our problems. They would have you believe that paying attention to Christmas Future, Christmas Present, and Christmas Past, would cost more money and be "socialism" -- but all of that is a pack of lies and deceptions. Still it might work. GOP analyst Frank Luntz wrote up an article that has been a source for goose-stepping attack ads, columns, and orchestrated attacks on health care reform, designed to keep the corrupt in line, scare the moderately corrupt (the real meaning of "moderate") and make it difficult for the majority of the people of the country to get the kind of basic health care that they need and deserve. It's simple really, he advises using scare words, and seizing on the language used by liberals in such a way as to make them scare words.

The idea is to divide the people up into a "us versus them" mentality. Those who have lousy health insurance, to be convinced they'd lose that to even worse insurance. Corporations who might actually benefit from a Federalized Single payer program to be convinced that they'd lose money from their insurance investments. Those who have good insurance, to be convinced that they'd have to pay more. And those who have no insurance to be painted as evil, lazy scofflaws. Result? People voting against their own best interests convinced that they are protecting their pocket books.

http://wonkroom.thinkprogress.org/2009/05/06/luntz-memo/

Basically the liars and Tazmanian spin devils of the far right will tell you "I'm all for reform, but not for the Gubbornment taking away people's insurance and making them go to a State Run system." The idea is to scare people into thinking that the Government is going to "Socialism."

Fire Departments and health care

To my previous post Robin responded:

"There are some fundamental flaws. Insurance is, by definition, a transfer of a risk. You pay an insurer a premium; they assume your risk. Put another way, we buy insurance "just in case." Forty years ago, people bought health insurance 'just in case' they had an accident or caught as serious disease. It was intended to pay for hospitalization and the medical treatment of disease or injury."

and:

"I am not saying we should not finance routine care. I am saying that insurance is probably the most expensive possible way to finance it."

You are right on this. We went to insurance to provide health care because it is a public good that benefits society in manifold ways. Our conservatives have traditionally conflated 'public good' with socialism. It has been tremendously difficult for almost the entire history of our country post Civil War to accomplish anything for the public good. Private good no trouble. Public good verboten. Nevertheless we have accomplished setting up a few programs that actually benefit the public good. When our powerful interests can't sabotage such programs they generally seek to loot them.

Principles and Vision

I love Buddhism. But I'm no more attached to any particular religious solution offered by modern Buddhists than I am to any Judeo-Christian-Moslem religion. I am attached to basic Buddhist Principles -- where they validate.

Religious practices are many. Basic principles are few. We only need one vision.

The following is a rough draft of a basic idea:

Corporate Welfare and health care rip offs

The Right is waging a massive, well financed, campaign to demonize the Obama administration, to rule out single payer, and to paint reform efforts as "socialist", but the fact is that the biggest drain on our medical system is its for profit members. At the very least we should require all basic insurance companies to be non-profit. If you want to have genuine reform support HR 676. If you want to see these things improve, call your Congress-critters. If you don't do it, you might be able to get up on a pitty pot later, but you can only thank yourself for the state off affairs when Congress proves it is the best Congress money can buy once again.

It is up to us to make Democracy work. We have to fight/struggle against those who have declared themselves enemies of democracy whether they are corporatists, economic royalists, or simply shills for anti-democratic groups.

The battle isn't "socialism versus capitalism" -- the health care insurers and big businesses don't want competition, they don't want free markets, they want to profiteer and get paid by both the taxpayer, out of our payrolls, and by denying us benefits, treatments, and providing shoddy service. The Government can run the insurance portion of our health system cheaper, more economically, and better than for profit businesses. It is as simple as that, they want to loot the commons.

http://www.pnhp.org/news/2003/june/tax_subsidies_for_pr.php

The highest medical costs in the US are in McAllen Texas, where Malpractice payments are capped at 250,000, and lawsuits are almost non-exstent:

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/06/01/090601fa_fact_gawande?currentPage=all

However, what is operative is corporate greed to such an extreme that it filters down to the physicians ordering procedures simply for the sake of boosting revenues. As an alternative, we could pay physicians a salary (a good salary) and go to the Mayo Alternative; not for profit. Single payer is best, but if we can't have single payer we need trust busting and non-profits.

The Metaphysical Elephant

I wrote this back before 1999. It has been on my website since then. I don't recall the exact date I wrote it.

Getting Angry at the Wrong People

This foolish person who attacked the Holocaust Museum is an idiot. We all can be idiots from time to time. Heck I do my share of idiocy from time to time. But a real idiot digs a hole, constructs a box, climbs in it, and then starts poking with his shovels at the side of the hole. I don't feel sorry for him. He hardened his heart and made himself a tool of forces of hate and greed, a long time ago. I do feel sympathy for those he killed, and for those he terrorized.

Terrorism in my back yard

The trouble with the focus on Al Qaeda, is that our most dangerous terrorists are all home grown; more likely to be connected with the military (McVeigh and the Anthrax attacks), fundamentalist Christian Taliban then to be Arab or "leftist."

The irony is that the people in this country promoting terrorism all claim to be promoting a war on terrorism. The targets; Jews (just now) (forever and always a target for left and right), Obstetricians (Tiller) as O'Reilly calls him "the baby killer", Arabs (Cheney's campaign, Faux news), "Gays," people charged with enforcing the law (McVeigh again) and "liberals" (the anthrax attacks).

http://thinkprogress.org/2009/06/01/oreilly-tiller/ And yes Faux has it half right, they are to blame for that incident.

I used to think the security at the Holocaust Museum was excessive, now I see it is just enough.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/livecoverage/sections/metro/ James Von Brunn

Views, Science, Mirrors, and Elephants

I was listening to David Horowitz justifying his persecution of Social Sciences departments. He made a comment that a particular course was not factual, but expressed opinions. He justified his attack on the professors truthfulness on the grounds that the views expressed were "false". He claimed that the views were false because they were similar to ones expressed by Karl Marx. His reasoning was that if the view was discredited that the view must therefore be false.

I can't find the URL or I already would have posted on this earlier. His reasoning is wrong and his facts are wrong.

However, I'm glad I waited, because it turns out this is a larger issue than some right wing (or left wing) ideologue playing ad-hominem politics. After chewing on it a while I'm glad I couldn't find the URL because it doesn't matter the exact wording of his attack, this is a much larger issue that goes to the heart of how Science and human understanding march forward.

This all goes to the classic "blind man and the elephant" conundrum.

In my opinion; David Horowitz acts like a man wearing blinders. Like a donkey with a carrot dangling in front of him, and blinders to block any other view, he's charging ahead on his crusade to "get back" at all the people he thinks lied, betrayed, or hurt him, and he doesn't even realize that the issues are larger than the carrot dangling in front of his face and the faceless people hitting him with a stick as he moves forward.

Waiting for Godot

I read the screenplay and watched the play one time called "Waiting for Godot". The point of the play is that the main characters come together to wait for Godot every day, and he never shows. They then part saying "well, he'll come tomorrow." Personally I think waiting for Godot is about two very naive people, but of course, there are all sorts of reactions to the story and on some level it seems pretty profound. An author of a book on Kaballah once likened the Kaballist attitude towards God to that play.

(I saw it elsewhere but Its on Broadway:http://www.godotonbroadway.com/news.htm)

Why we need single payer

http://www.pnhp.org/facts/singlepayer_faq.php#socialized

My libertarian acquaintances will tell me that "Gubbornment" can't do anything right. Usually loudly and in a way that drowns out argument. I think they protest too much and too loudly. The fact is that in some areas the only organizations that can meet a need are those dedicated to meeting that need. Government, sometimes fails to meet needs because it is responsible for a wide variety of goals and objectives, and because it is often corrupt.

But private for profit companies have demonstrated their incompetence to meet such social goals as better education, delivery of health insurance, or even printing money; because their primary objective is not to deliver services well -- it is to make money. If a system is fashioned so that someone can only make money by delivering service, they will deliver that service. I only wish that were possible all the time.

But usually they will find a way to make money by not delivering that service. And that is the problem with our current health care system. It has all the worst attributes of socialized medicine without any of the benefits. The reason is simple. They currently think they have to pay their investors and executives large sums of money in order to deliver health care. Which means they skim anywhere from 25% to 50% of our insurance premiums and turn them into executive salaries or bureaucratic waste. And they make money by not delivering service.

Anyway, what we absolutely need is to fix Medicare and do away with private for profit companies in providing primary health care. They'll still make money; They can provide insurance to pay for single person recovery rooms or cosmetic surgery. But they will no longer be ripping us off and then telling us bald faced lies on the TV.

Contract on America II

The Republicans also had a list of legislative proposals that went along with the rest of their contract on America. Most of these were bad to middling.

Contract on America

Newt won election by creating a reasonable seeming list of propositions and gathering together a group of Congressmen to run on them as a plank. He called it is "Contract for America." We've called it his "Contract on America." The plank was a mix of good ideas and really conveniently bad ideas.

The shame continues....

Jeremy Scahill reporting at http://rebelreports.com/ is covering all the things that I don't have time to cover. And unfortunately we elected a man who needs to be pushed to do the right thing. He wants to "move on."

Among others, stepping to the plate is Jimmy Carter (from Scahill's blog entry http://rebelreports.com/post/116356736/jimmy-carter-charges-obama-doesnt-want-to-punish)

Progress and Progressives

The fact is that the word progressive is always relative to the times and the spiritual and conceptual wisdom of those times. The Democrats before 1908 ran on planks that were populist, free market, anti-corporation, and largely rural, in fact corrupt, and in the South deeply racist. The first progressives in cities were mostly Republicans, largely because the Democratic machines in the cities were incredibly corrupt. Eventually these attributes switched somewhat.

In 1912 Woodrow Wilson tacked "left" and embraced some elements of the progressive cause of the time. Progressive in those days meant economic fairness, judicial reform, and massive industrial policy. It didn't mean desegregation, fairness to minorities or blacks, and in fact Woodrow Wilson was overtly racist. Scientific racism was a credo of the atheist, and religious racism of everybody else. He watched the movie "Birth of A Nation" and applauded, and he instituted Jim Crow for the first time in the Federal Government, where, for all their corporatist and elitist faults, the Republicans had kept true to Lincoln's promises up until then.

While this racism was a severe fault of Wilson's, it also was a severe prejudice, delusion and key source of degredation in the events of the times. Wilson wasn't alone, the system was at fault almost as much as he was. His character flaw was key on this because he had the power to start change and didn't. Franklin Roosevelt, to his credit, at least was aware of the flaws of racism and tribalism and willing to break with previous concept and start changes -- though he didn't end segregation. It took Eisenhower, Kennedy and Johnson to do that.

At the same time other Democrats embraced all of progressivism enthusiastically and resisted him half heartedly. The Democrats have always been a party that harmonized people with different concepts. At that time Suffragette women were afraid to side with blacks because they'd loose followers, and blacks were afraid to side with women for the same reasons.

These attitudes didn't really strengthen them as much as they thought. On the contrary allowing prejudice and self interest tends to corrupt concepts. And failure to be willing to unite over common purpose and to see common purpose just meant that those whose motives were insincere, selfish, and even perverse could take advantage of them. Just as now.

Some people broke those rules because they perceived they were false. They were willing to take on the suffering that comes from going against societies norms because those norms were erroneous and counterfeit. When people first break rules based on observation of reality it is very dangerous for them. They are like the Child in the Emperor's New Clothes yarn. The Emperor is naked, but for anyone to notice is death.

Samuel Clemens argued against annexing the Philippines after the Spanish American War (and against war in general). He was too famous or he might have been jailed. A socialist, Eugene Debs, ran against Wilson. Wilson later locked him up and had him charged under the Espianage act (which is still on the books). In the USA people have been jailed, lynched, or run out of the country for telling the truth. These people paid a price for their opposition to norms, it was as much because they raised unpleasant questions and spoke the truth that they were attacked. Wilson was wrong, but so was Roosevelt. The great majority of the people were wrong, but it was hazardous to even notice it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugene_V._Debs

The result of the lack of clarify of purpose and consistency of principle was felt across the board. Wilson embraced universal rights, but then compromised when "brown people" were involved. Wilson's racism provided him a lens that made him oblivious to the rights of common folks in places like the Middle East, Latin America, and Mexico. He practiced a kind of "missionary diplomacy" that consistantly offended potential allies, picked favorites on faulty premises, and let the European Powers move into areas of the world (specifically the Middle East) where they were incompetant to execute any of his principles of human freedom and equality -- all on the basis of the faulty notion that those principles only applied to white people.

The point is not to trash modern or older progressives, but to point out that conceptions change, and even evolve. Conserving faulty strategies often ends up undermining the very concepts they were originally supposed to promote. Modern progressives are still about, and maybe even more than former ones, progress. They are also about the Constitution, preserving its integrity, and human rights, but we also embody a shift in perception of how the bill of rights and the constitution applies to people. We no longer think that people are faulty or inferior and are held down by some sort of genetic original sin, but recognize that environment, genetics and nurture interpolate. We recognize the brilliance of the absolute statement, and the appropriateness of the concept that "All [sentient beings] men are created equal" all the better for this. Even so, like the progressives of old personal prejudice and self interest get in the way more often than they help. Concepts evolve as people challenge the old. Those who maintain that every document means exactly what it means ignore the fact that what it means to them is a matter of their own perspective -- no matter how obvious the meaning may be. An old Robin Hood story talking about his merry band being happy and Gay has a very different connotation from what a more recent reference to Gay would be saying. One reason "privacy" is not in the Constitution is that the word once had the connotation of "using the facilities." They used the expression "secure in one's persons and effects" instead.

Integrity is the integral of human behavior and the degree to which it stays within defined lines of principle. Principles have fractal dimensions. That is some rights seque or derive from other principles, others define, refine, or limit each other. Property is a right that derives from the principle of freedom and liberty. To be free one has to be able to move within a space. To be free one has to be able to own that space. Property rights are an expression of a legitimate need and are universal and are inalienable rights -- but not absolute ones. This is because the property rights of some people can become oppressive to others. An absolute right over property can mean that someone can't get from point a to point b. Being able to own "common necessities" (the commons) enables people to deny life and liberty to others. For property rights to have integrity they can't infringe on freedom more than is necessary to protect the freedom of one against the other. Thus Property limits liberty, and liberty limits property, and the principle of equality derives from the need for property and liberty to be distributed.

Just as Civil Rights activists of yore were divided by an unwillingness to clarify principle, so our modern activists are divided on the core issues that corrupt us by personal interest, the desire to get along with others, and the goal of "moving on" or "getting things done." So how does one combat this?

Out the Door

I walked out the Door
and wandered out into the night.
I looked up at a star so far away
and felt alone

Peace, Security and Enlightenment

"If the nation is destroyed and people's homes are wiped out, then where can one flee for safety? If you care anything about your personal security, you should first of all pray for order and tranquility throughout the four quarters of the land, should you not?"

(WND, 24)
On Establishing the correct Teaching for the Peace of the Land
Submitted to Hojo Tokiyori on July 16, 1260

The thing I admire about Nichiren, and the thing I don't admire about many spiritual leaders before and after him, was that he made the connection between public ethics and spiritual salvation. The fact is that the two are linked. Spiritual corruption and political corruption are linked. And counterfeit religion and counterfeit politics and political advertizing (otherwise known as propaganda) go hand in hand. The word "con" isn't in "neo-con" for nothing.

To move forward, clean the garbage!

To move forward, sometimes we first have to clean up the garbage. From the politicization of the Justice Department to torturing inmates at Guantanamo, to grand theft campaign donations, financial corruption, and procurement violations, the United States is in such a state that we can't move on unless we clean up the current mess. We have to investigate. We have to prosecute.

Obama, Passion and Guantanamo

I've seen it happen so many times. When someone powerful moves in a certain direction, sometimes one can see the outcome long before anybody else does, just by looking for what is happening behind the scenes. This is especially true in politics, where passion counts more than either reality or justice.

The passionatly foolish concept will often beat better ideas, simply because those holding the better ideas acquiesce. Both Justice and Injustice require passion to achieve, largely because injustice flows from passionate feelings. In a truly just system justice is boring. There are people who are up-front with their goals and motives, and people who are sneaky, but most people are somewhat in between. There is nothing wrong with passion, nor with folks working behind the scenes to accomplish things. But because passion is often decoupled from accuracy, and even where people hold accuracy as a personal principle that accuracy is so hard to get, the result is that passionate injustice often wins out over legal principle, written laws, or even common sense. Fiction, such as the tv series 24! wins the day, even if it is based on false premises and complete spin.

This is true in the case of right wing ideology, where influential libertarians and right wing politicians have been able to push their ideas on an often skeptical majority for more than 30 years.

But it takes passion to fight back. And I applaud Obama for publicly debating (Darth) Dick Cheney.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/21/AR2009052101748.html

Dirty War!

I was at a birthday party for a friend. He's doing pretty well actually. But he told how as a young student he lived in Chile during the Repression. He was lucky actually. He took a song, written by a famous poet and put it to music, and then sang it on the campus. It's a lovely song. But the song was a criticism of oppression, and that was wrong. He was fortunate. All they did was to expell him from school and force him to flee to other countries. He wound up in the United States and eventually married a lady lawyer who fell in love with him. Years later he's alive, and Pinochet is dead. He's fortunate. He survived the ConoSur (Southern Cone States of South America) based "dirty war." He celebrated with a Mexican writer and poet, and we all ate fish and feasted and listened to his songs.

We like to think that we don't oppress, that we are champions of democracy and that we enjoy unique freedoms. And all my life I've known such champions of democracy. Some of them democrats, some democratic socialists, and of course some of them people who once gave their allegience to communism. I learned the discipline of talking to people in the Gakkai. We were trying to do Shakubuku, but I was told the best way to do that was to dialogue with people. After a while I realized that trying to convert people required a level of presumption I couldn't afford spiritually, but I never gave up the spirit of talking to people. And I'm richer for it. My friend sang lovely songs.

Living solutions and dead ones

Well at least I'm not alone. I was looking at the Washington Post, and there is a quite public dustup going on between Charles Krauthammer and Dan Froomkin in which Krauthammer with characteristic obtuseness refers to Froomkin as "occasionally stupid". To his credit Froomkin just keeps doing his old fashioned job of reporting facts. Krauthammer is trying to make the "ticking bomb" case for torture as if the fact that torture is illegal, immoral and not guaranteed to get good information doesn't matter. He uses an Israeli horror story where the IDF violated their own laws in a hurry to free one of their own people, Israeli Cpl. Nachshon Waxman. Krauthammer uses this to argue the efficacy of the ticking bomb scenario. The trouble is that Nachson Waxman died.

Krauthammer is slamming Froomkin, but to do it he has to stretch the truth to the breaking point.

Never Disparage and Trust

The key to survival for our country, to reaching enlightenment, to winning out a successful life; is to be able to believe. The key to being able to believe when the evidence is not obvious is to be able to cultivate wisdom. Belief and understanding are keys to being able to navigate the murky paths we often have to tread. But what do we do when people are untrustworthy, tricky, treacherous, or base? Do we give up? No.

The story of Bodhisattva Never Despise illistrates this. It is in the Lotus Sutra. It depicts a fellow who never gave up on his people or his country.

http://lotus.nichirenshu.org/lotus/sutra/english/watson/lsw_chap20.htm

So what does this have to do with trust? Well the point is that, regardless of how nasty a person is, somewhere inside is going to achieve Buddhahood. If Government is corrupt, it is because we let it be corrupted, especially in a democracy, but monarchy and oligarchy both only exist when people let them exist. If we all let our Buddhahood shine, the words of the lotus Sutra will come to us, and we can transform this land into a Buddha land. There is no inevitability to Mappo. As long as people uphold a spirit of never disparage.

Chris

Single Payer Schmayer

So far, the health care reform effort is turning into a big Kabuki dance. All the usual corporate suspects are suddenly onboard for "reform" -- as long as single payer and measures that would actually and really bring costs down are taken off the table.

For more on this visit: http://www.healthcare-now.org/hr-676/

After diverting hundreds of millions, billions even, of dollars to their own pockets, the big boys are willing to try to cut costs. At least so they say. And they should be, our health care system kills people. Maybe not directly, but the uninsured, underinsured, and scammed; regularly die from neglect, late diagnosis, poor treatment, under standard treatment, and from denial of claims leading to economic ruin and inability to afford medical care. We have the worst system money can buy, and we are already paying for it.

The government will never do the right thing unless we push it to.
http://www.democracynow.org/2009/5/13/baucus_raucus_caucus_doctors_nurses_and

An Answer for Greed

I have an answer for Greed, Let go.
I have an answer for fear, lets go talk
I have a message for all of us.

The answers are all out there.
I'm not inventing anything new.
Sages in many places,
have shared the same point of view.
The answers are all there,
Our problem is not asking questions

When Peter becomes a pirate

A simple poem:

Why Holder might not prosecute

Ring of fire reports:
http://ringoffireradio.com/blogengine/post/The-Raw-Roundup-Joe-The-Plumber-Quits-the-GOP.aspx

On the one hand:

"According to a new report released this week by Human Rights First, US interrogators killed nearly four dozen detainees during or after their interrogations. In all, 98 detainees have died while in US hands. Thirty-four homicides have been identified, with at least eight detainees — and as many as 12 — having been tortured to death. Most of those taken captive were killed in Afghanistan and Iraq, and at least one was wrongfully arrested and detained. The CIA claims that it had medical personnel on hand during all of the torture sessions, which they referred to as interrogations. "

On the other hand:

"In a related story, Attorney General Eric Holder announced this week that he authorized rendition during his time with the Clinton Administration. Cautioning Holder that any potential investigation into the Bush administration’s torture program could result in Democrats being roped in, Republicans Lamar Alexander of Tennessee and Richard Shelby of Alabama pressed Holder on the CIA’s ‘rendition’ program that moved terrorism suspects from one country to another in the cover of darkness. Despite frequent condemnation of the practice around the world, rendition — the secret capture, transportation and detention of suspected terrorists to foreign prisons in countries that cooperate with the U.S. — remains in the CIA’s playbook, thanks to a Jan. 22 executive order issued by President Obama. "

Why didn't this come out during his confirmation hearings?

There ought to be a law!

Most problems come from people jumping to conclusions, jumping to solutions, and as a result "jumping to contusions." To resolve real problems in real time, we have to slow down, analyze, define missions and principles, and then figure out how we can use those principles to solve those problems within the scope of our organizations mission. The irony is that valid principles are practical things. The problem with using them isn't the principles, but the realism of how they are put to practice.

Boomers and our Grandparents

I noticed a long time ago that things go in cycles. Most of us don't make the mistakes of our parents. We usually make the mistakes of our grandparents, great-grandparents, or even their parents. This is a real shame, but it is reality. Long after I noticed this phenomena I learned about Kondratiev waves and realized that my observation was not my own alone. Our Grandparents and great grandparents suffered some horrific effects that came entirely from bad business, Government and banking policies. They experienced something called a "Great Depression." They also took steps to avoid a repeat of the Great Depression. Unfortunately, my generation and the ones that have been following it, decided that they'd done such a good job, they could afford to dismantle it. We got folks like Rush Limbaugh promising to "do something about that" in regard to those policies. And they did. Now we are facing a disaster.

Telling on oneself

Robin writes:

"Hi Chris, Are you going to delete this too? I realize that you will call me all kinds of names; but I shall just take that as a test of my patience and compassion. I do confess I am tempted to retaliate; but then I would become what I do not like."

First I didn't name names in that post. I quoted, cited sources that prove the article I was quoting were wrong, said the material was wrong and showed why. I could have been quoting quite a few yahoogroups. But in this case it came from BDG, which used to actually have actual dialogues. Someone is telling on himself!

Second, I think the main reason that Robin doesn't retaliate is that he's already gone after me as much as he dares to out in the open. I've left the Buddhist Dialogue Group. I've left the Buddhist Moderators Group. Both groups I used to think I co-owned. He was moderating most of my posts there, and ones he didn't agree with were just disappearing. He could probably go after me more, he's already tried. I just hope he doesn't try. Such behavior is unseemly.