Crazy Health Care

It drives me crazy every time I hear someone utter the factually incorrect statement that the US has the greatest healthcare in the world. I heard it again today on a radio talk show and the comment wasn’t even challenged. Of course this didn’t surprise me, because this assertion is never challenged.

Now, to be fair, there are certain ways that the USA could be ranked number one in health care. If by “best” we mean “most expensive,” then we might be in the running. However, if we would measure quality of health care as a function of healthy outcomes then the USA is not even close.

If we start by making the assumption that the goal of having a good health care system is to prolong life we might start by looking at the list of countries ranked by the number of deaths in a country per 1000 people living in the country. By looking at this list we see that the US is ranked about the center of the list ranked from highest to lowest -- 94th with a rate of about 8.1 deaths per 1000 out of over 200 countries. ( 2009 List by the CIA World Factbook) This does not tell us everything, but it does tell us that countries like Mexico have rates much lower than ours. Why?

There could be other problems just looking at this number, because some countries have younger populations than other countries. A younger country should have a lower death rate than an older country by the mere fact that everyone eventually dies. So, lets assume that the goal of health care is to allow people to live as long as possible. The measure of success then would be the life span of the average citizen in the country. If we rank countries from the longest life span to the shortest, we find the US ends up at 50th out of over 200 countries with an expected life span of 78.11 years, while Japan finishes near the top of the list with 82.12, Australia has 81.63 and Canada 81.23. With these numbers how can anyone still argue that the US has the best health care in the World?

What exactly is a person thinking when they claim that the US has the “best” health care in the World? How do they measure best? It is true that within the borders of the USA there exists some very good health care. And, it is true that if someone has unlimited resources they would be able to have access to some of this very good health care. The problem is that many people in the US do not have access to this care. And, hence these people pull the average life expectancy of the US down.

So, if someone asserts that the US has the best health care in the World they must be asserting that their own health care is part of the elite few that have access to this advanced health care. They are also asserting that they really don’t care what happens to the population that does not have access to this elite care. Of course this is sad and selfish, but in the USA we do not have laws against being selfish and most people are numb to the suffering of others.

But, even the assertion that a person has access to the elite health care that exists in the USA is suspect. This is because many people are covered by insurance that they have only rarely used. This is because many people in the US never go to a doctor for a yearly physical. Insurance companies don’t see any benefit in having people see a doctor on a yearly basis, because it costs them money and they are in the business of collecting revenue and figuring out ways to avoid paying any money out. Insurance companies are in the business of making a profit, and any layout goes against the bottom line. It isn’t in the interest of the insurance company to care about the health of its customers. In fact, it is in their interest to see that their customers die in the cheapest way possible.

A person normally doesn’t learn the effectiveness of their insurance until the insurance is needed. And, when the insurance is needed its too late to change coverage. And, when the insurance is needed the trauma of the situation clouds ones vision of the financial picture. Many people with what they believed to be “good” insurance find themselves bankrupted and embarrassed by finding out how poor their coverage was when they needed it. This embarrassment prevents them from sharing this with their family and friends.

The silent killer in the US health care system is the fact that health care costs have been rising over the last 20 years. People may have had favorable experiences with their insurance companies over the years, but their current situation may have changed over the years. Many procedures and drugs are no longer covered under some plans. Employers are buying cheaper coverage that covers less with higher deductibles and co-payment options. This means that more money comes out of your pocket before the insurance company pays anything.

Eighteen years ago the US was already a very expensive health care system. I know this from personal experience. My daughter was born in Germany in a private hospital. I was working for a US company and therefore my US insurance would cover the hospital and delivery costs in Germany. I just needed to get the bill and send it to the insurance company. As my wife went through prenatal care and through the birth of my daughter I submitted the bills to my health insurance company. The total at the end of the process was completely covered by my health insurance. And, the company could not believe that I had submitted all of the bills in total because the cost of my wife spending an additional three days in the hospital “should cost much more” as the insurance company wrote to tell me. The German bill noted each procedure and expense in meticulous detail -- even to the extent of pointing out that I was being charged an inflated cost because we were covered by private insurance.

The question we should be asking is -- Why was there such a disparity in cost between the US system costs and services and the German system? I would assert that it must be greed in the US system. I would also assert that greed itself is not illegal, but it preys on people when they are in very vulnerable situations. Greed in health care pushes suppliers to encourage patients to over spend. The emotional situation urges the loved ones of the ill to “do whatever is possible.” There is no natural limitation to this spending except the bottom of each person’s money supply.

I know that this greed is real from another personal experience. I was involved in a project to develop one of the first MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) machines. At that time we called it NMR (nuclear magnetic resonance), because the technique actually causes the atomic nuclei to resonate. When we talked with doctors they told us many quite interesting things that gave me insight into the health care industry.

The first thing they told us was that the word nuclear needed to be dropped, because nuclear was a scary word and people would not want to subject themselves to a machine that used nuclear anything. Of course, MRI is one of the safest forms of imaging, applying a magnetic field and electric field and measuring the magnitude of the resonance signal of particular nuclei in order to map the density of water in the body for example. This is much less dangerous than using X-rays that can cause mutations when they hit the DNA in a cell.

The next thing they told us was that the MRI pictures were three dimensional and multi colored. The colors did not look like the colors in the body, so it would be much better if we could make them look more like X-ray pictures. Obviously the doctors could not recognize the advantage of the new technology and they would prefer that the new technology was only slightly better than the older technology so that the doctors would be more likely to adopt the new technology. Obviously this is something to keep in mind whenever one takes a trip to the doctor.

And the most frightening revelation of all was that the doctors told us that they were happy that the new technology was cheaper to operate than the previous technology. But, it was new technology, therefore they could charge more for it. The most important implication was that the profit margin would be larger with the new technology.

The summary of this is that the doctors were willing to make the technology less effective, they were willing to lie to the patients by changing the name of the machine and they wanted a higher profit margin. I have to tell you that I have had a very skeptical view of all doctors because of this experience. I think that we should all be more skeptical.

When I was in Germany I noticed that the doctors were much more friendly and willing to share what they didn’t understand as well as what they did understand. I felt more connected with the process. I felt like my questions were listened too and thought about. In the US this is much less frequently the case.

Anyway, I am still very confused at the assertion that the US has the best health care in the World. If anyone knows of any evidence that supports this I would love to read it. Please tell me what you know I am all ears.




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Don't forget what Stephen Colbert said, "Reality has a well-known liberal bias."


Cross Posted @ Bring It On, tblog, Blogger and BlogSpirit



Reflection

Multiculturalism

In order to understand multiculturalism we need to understand culture. Culture is a word that gets thrown about by the common man and has a specific definition by anthropologists. But, culture is a confusing concept to understand from a member of a culture. And, of course, everyone of us is a member of our own personal culture.

Culture is a collection of beliefs, traditions, shared attitudes, values, goals, and practices that characterize a group of people. Sometimes that group of people is an ethnic group. Sometimes that group of people is an organization. Sometimes that group of people is a nation. Culture can be referred to as a positive attribute when it is addressing the finer things of a self proclaimed “advanced culture.” Culture can refer to an attribute of a particular culture. But, no matter how we look at it we are immersed in our own culture and we are bias when we compare our own culture to other cultures.

Since culture is a collection of shared beliefs -- shared by the members of our own culture it is difficult to find members of our culture that disagree with these “shared” beliefs. With this in mind it is quite well understood in abstract how difficult it is to change a culture.

When two cultures come in contact with each other it should be clear to understand how conflicts will arise. Lets look at two cultures -- jocks and nerds. I chose these two cultures because I know that most of my readers are not members of either of these cultures and therefore will not be biased by their personal membership in one class or the other. If you are a member of either of these cultures, then you may need to skip this example. In a typical jock culture we could easily understand that the way to solve a problem is with brawn, muscle or strength. And similarly we could imagine that the credo of the typical nerd is to solve every problem with brainpower. With this in mind we can easily imagine that working together to solve a problem might not work out so well. And in addition we can also imagine that creating a fair way to solve conflicts might also run into trouble. Any measure of strength of culture will be greeted with calls of cheating from the other side. Any member of one of these groups will find difficulty in understanding the values of the other group.

Most of us might actually realize the value of both muscular strength and brainpower. This might be a cultural value shared by many westerners -- the value of power and strength no matter what kind it might be. This might be extended to the power of money, the power of learning skills, the power of knowledge… And now we see the problem with understanding culture. No matter what the issue, when we look at different cultures we are always comparing them with our own culture. Even if we don’t identify ourselves with jocks or nerds we still have our own cultural values. We might have decided our own “best strategy” for dealing with problems. We might have a priority list of ways to deal with problems. We might believe that the best way to deal with a problem is how we feel like dealing with it when we meet it head on. We might have already concluded which culture is superior to the other based on own culture.

Ironically, one cultural attribute is the value that a culture places on cultural beliefs and traditions. Some cultures value these above common sense or scientific studies. Other cultures are willing to adjust these values. And, then there are cultures that see these beliefs and traditions as old and outdated. In the United States currently there is a “culture war” based on the value of cultural values themselves.

In light of the “culture wars” it might be interesting to think about the origin of cultural values themselves. If we think about it, people are always telling stories about their personal experiences. When these experiences offer life lessons, then the stories will be repeated again and again. Life lessons are important ways to learn about the dangers of the world. Repeat the good things and avoid the bad things. But, just because it appeared that a story turned out one way because of an action or inaction does not mean that there really was a connection. And, the stories that proved on repetition to be wrong will eventually be dropped from the list of useful stories. Over time a culture of stories emerges and propagates. But, because the story exists does not mean that the lessons are the right ones. The evolution is always in progress. Jumping up and down on the left foot before battle does not always insure victory. But, the story and tradition might continue “just in case.” However, storing food for winter tends to work more often than it doesn’t.
After the end of the Second World War the world was poised to accept a huge number of scientific breakthroughs and studies. Many traditions were proven false and brought all tradition under scrutiny. Science could be applied to many aspects of our lives. Scientific method was used to break down additional traditional ideas. The zeitgeist suddenly questioned tradition in general. Traditions suddenly needed to defend themselves. The World War II soldiers came home after being exposed to a world of different cultures. The time was ripe for change.

Traditions don’t change quickly. The older people were brought up with the older traditions and the like what they know. Even obvious problems, like segregation, don’t change easily. The act of embarrassing the southern tradition with live broadcasts of civil rights demonstrations might have brought attention to the inequality in this foreign society as seen from around the world. But when one is brought up in this culture biases are still hard to overcome. The spirit of the 1960s was a powerful force, but it was by no means universal. As the traditions of each cultural group came under attack these groups reacted as expected -- to defend the traditions of the group. Society became divided into the traditionalists and the progressives. Traditionalists sought to propagate tradition regardless of the reasons for those traditions. Progressives sought to change traditions. Each group has a different problem. The traditionalists needed to defend their traditions in the light of scientific inquiry. Progressives needed to invent new traditions to replace the old if they could. This is because when a tradition is removed, then something new usually is needed to fill the void.

As time has progressed the situation has become more clouded. In the beginning the traditions like segregation and discrimination were easy targets for progressives. The next obvious target was the tradition of polluting the environment. It turned out that this was much more difficult to fight. Some traditions seem to be stupid and easy to fix, but for every tradition there is a group that the tradition belongs to. And that group will always fight to retain the tradition no matter how stupid it looks to the rest of us. As laws were written to clean up pollution in the 1970s, they also included loopholes intended to preserve the traditions of dumping and destroying as much as the public would tolerate.

Traditions can limit our freedom. But, traditions can also provide a time to go wild and allow chaos in a controlled way as well. Progressives have often been branded as having loose morals, because they have often fought to introduce additional forms of families, including divorced couples, same sex couples and multi-generation families. But, progressives have also fought to reduce drunken driving accidents by questioning the traditional holiday party culture. Some of these activists may not have considered themselves to be progressives, but anyone who fights tradition is a progressive. Ronald Reagan was a progressive when he determined that the tradition of a balanced budget wasn’t as important as borrowing money to pay for military programs even though building the most powerful military possible might be his tradition to trump all others.

Some people do not understand the scope of traditions. Some traditions encompass very small groups of people down to the size of an individual family. Other traditions cover people living on the entire planet. Some traditions cover religious groups while other traditions cover entire nations. Each individual orders the traditions he is exposed to by personal importance. When a person that values traditions differently or has different traditions altogether, then conflicts may arise. When individuals value these differing traditions very highly, then these conflicts may become very serious, resulting in wars and death. When one values their own traditions above all others, then these conflicts may be unavoidable. So, it should be clear that traditions are quite important.

Now, the United States is not one culture. In fact, in reality no country is just one culture no matter how hard people try to create one. The problem is that each individual has a choice in honoring each tradition. The existence of a tradition does not determine its value as a tradition. The observance of a tradition is what gives a tradition value. Just because Martin Luther King Jr. Day is on the calendar doesn’t mean that Martin Luther King Jr. Day is observed by the majority of people in the US. Where are the parties and the celebration?

Tradition is more than its very existence. Tradition can not be forced on anyone. But, when one tradition replaces another it surely scares people, because it signals that thing are changing and they may be left behind.












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Don't forget what Stephen Colbert said, "Reality has a well-known liberal bias."


Cross Posted @ Bring It On, tblog, Blogger and BlogSpirit



Reflection

Value, Time and Money

In the innocent times of childhood we once believed that money was the reward for hard work. Based on the idea that the more hours that you worked then the more money you earned.

But, those were innocent and naïve times. Many have come to believe that fortunes were made by other means. Making a quick buck by buying a lottery ticket and having your numbers selected is one of these ways, but the same principle applies to day traders, real estate speculators and even opportunists hoping create the next marking fad. None of these characters remotely care about the social good of their actions and many destroy our society bit by bit with their actions.

In America today we still have many people who dream about working hard and creating wealth through the sweat of their brow. However, the reality of this picture is people like Bill Gates who happened to be in the “right place” at the “right time.” Microsoft products were there first and captured a huge market share, but they have never been the best products on the market. Similarly clever slight of hand was able to create a good deal of wealth in the real estate market by providing cheap high risk loans to people and lying about the actual risk of the loans. The cheap supply of cash created a demand for real estate and drove property prices to unrealistic values. The property wasn’t actually earning value. The value was created by the demand of people who didn’t make enough money to actually pay for the house that they wanted. Everyone saw their house value increase and they advised to borrow money against the equity in their house. The initial lie about the risk of these loans propagated through the economy. Risk could no longer be trusted, but everyone was happy because they saw the value of their houses increasing over time.

No one asked themselves where this extra money was coming from. Everyone assumed that money in the form of value in their houses was a “good” thing. People believed that they were richer than they actually were. This is because the value of their house was based on what people were willing to pay for their house if they were to try to sell it. And, people were willing to pay lots of money that they didn’t actually have because banks were willing to loan tons of cash to people who could never really keep up their end of the bargain.

In America we have a belief that those who scam the system will pay the price and demonstrate to the rest of us the folly of their ways. People will see the risk and will no longer be tempted to repeat these activities. Unfortunately time is involved in this process. There is always a window of opportunity in which people are able to game the system, make their money and get out before the activity becomes illegal. Some people are able to amass great wealth and pass it down to their heirs for many generations. Once one has this wealth one is able to live off the money “earned” from the principle itself and hard work is no longer required. Money earned in this way and propagated through the generations is actually contrary to the American ideal of working hard to become successful. But, the protection of this capital in this system allows people to take very low risk and earn a high return if enough capital is put into play. Special laws have been written to protect these special fortunes. We can look at the Disney empire as an example of how copyright laws have been changed to protect the Disney interest in Mickey Mouse because Mickey is still such a cash cow. Special laws continue to be written to protect other industries as well – mainly to assure that these wealthy families like the heirs to McDonald fortune will never really need to work at a McDonald’s restaurant.

The whole system works in such a way that creating a perceived value for a commodity which is much higher than the actually work involved in creating the commodity. So, creating a demand for a virtual item by advertising and marking an imagined device without actually creating the device is one way to create an artificially high value. Even if the object does not really exist one could create demand for it based on hype. A quick fortune could easily be made by selling an envelope filled with sand if the hype is great enough. Maybe many people won’t buy their second envelope of “magic sand,” but then again some people will continue to believe the hype well into envelope number ten. Imagine how much money could be made if one percent of all Americans are convinced to buy one envelope of “magic sand” for $29.95. Should the “hard work” and “innovation” of the “magic sand” dealer be praised or punished?

The free market system tells us that the people will learn that magic sand is just ordinary sand and they won’t buy it any more. But the magic sand dealer knows that he can make some money and move on to magic tonic and magic rocks and continue to make money by exploiting the gullibility of the people. Regulation is one way to put a stop to this. And, arguments between free market advocates and regulation advocates continue while the magic sand dealer figures out new ways to sell his wares cloaked in new ways until he amasses enough money to never need to sell any more. Then he passes his wealth to his children and he can loan his money and demand extremely high rates of interest until there are regulations. Those who have no morals or sense of guilt will find ways to take advantage of the free markets and live perfectly comfortably while those of us who espouse to be caring members of society will continue to be taken advantage of while the regulation free market debates continue to waste time.





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Cross Posted @ Bring It On, tblog, Blogger and BlogSpirit



Reflection

Paris

Last week I took a trip to France. When I got home I proceeded to tell people about my trip. As I was telling someone about the trip she had a very bipolar response. “How wonderful to have the opportunity to visit Paris -- not that I like the French.”

France, in my opinion, is a wonderful country. On the other hand the French actually prioritize a bit differently than the good ol’ USA. It seems like from the time that I could understand money I was taught through social interactions that money was the most important thing in life. Some people actually put God first, and others might say love or health are more important, but in practice Americans tend to behave as if money is goal number one. In fact, people who say that health is more important continue to reward those with the most money by giving them the best health care available. Those who say that love is most important continue to look down on the wealthy person who chooses a poorer lover than themselves. Women continue to seek money over love in our entertainment media. A happy ending in our culture is when everyone has enough money. Money can buy lovers, comfort, health, homes and businesses to make more money. How could anything else be more important?

Go to France and look around. Now, don’t get me wrong; money is still important in France. Fancy restaurants and hotels still cost money. But, people tend to find happiness in other things as well as money. For example, the simple ease to move around the country is subsidized by the government. The government decided that for the greater good of the society money would be collected from taxpayers and spent on an organized collection of connected transportation systems. In the USA the patchwork of inefficient transportation shows how non-directed capitalism fails at the higher level. Maybe after a thousand years the US system will evolve into something more efficient, but simply thinking it through at the beginning could have resulted in something much better. In this case efficiency ranked above money on the priority list, and it was a good thing.

Now, France is not Germany and efficiency does not always take priority. Many have argued that the French transportation system is not as efficient as the German one. All I can say is that both are much better than the US system. In France one thing that stands out above everything else is the regard for aesthetics. In the US many people do not even know what this word means, because it has been given such low priority in our culture. But, in France aesthetics ranks quite high among considered priorities.

One simple example of this contrast came at lunchtime the first day I was in France. The reason for my trip was to attend a biotech conference. I have attended many conferences of this sort in the US and Canada. A free lunch is usually served to encourage the participants to eat and wander around the booths belonging to the various companies specializing in biotech supplies. A typical lunch in the US consists of a cardboard box with a sandwich, chips, fruit, brownie and a set of plastic utensils. Lunches in Canada tend to have sandwiches stacked on a table, a fruit bowl, a couple of side dishes and a fancy desert table. In France, at least at this conference, there were place settings on a large number of tables. The plates were ceramic; the glasses were glass. Water was placed in the tables and the food was excellent. The difference between these lunches has to do with the value of aesthetics in the given cultures. Each culture defines the value of putting in the little extra effort required to make things pleasing above the practical value of nourishment alone. If the goal is nourishment and money takes priority, then we end up with the cardboard boxes filled with sandwiches.

Most people that complain about French socialism have never experienced French socialism. Socialism is a contract between the people and the government to do what is best for the people. American conservatives believe that laissez faire government is the best form of government. Of course the French actually invented the term laissez faire and the meaning has drifted over the years. Conservatives tend to think that laissez faire means let businesses rob the customers at will, and if they go to far, then the customers will realize it and stop doing business. The balance has to do with the amount of robbery a customer is willing to tolerate before the business loses that customer. Government regulation on the other hand draws lines in the sand as to where profit becomes robbery and cheating. Poisoning your customers is no longer limited by how fast they die, but by a reasonable expectation that customers should not be poisoned. After all, the government holds a stake in the outcome of businesses poisoning their customers, because the government pays for the healthcare of these poisoned customers in France.

The balance in France is between efficiency, aesthetics, social contract and laissez faire capitalism. And, because there is a balance there they don’t have the nightmare shortages of Soviet era socialism. Instead, France is actually a vacation place for many of the American wealthy who are willing to enjoy the French aesthetics, while they are unwilling to pay the small price in their taxes to have the same aesthetics at home in the USA. Its funny how that works.

Money certainly motivates the animal needs in a person. If you don’t have money and you live in the United States of America, then you could certainly find yourself living on the streets. Without money, food may only be found at a religious organization that will give you food if you listen to their pitch for their religion. Without money, you may get sick and die before you are able to get a doctor to help you recover from your illness. To a conservative, the threat of living without these basic needs should be the motivation to live the conservative lifestyle -- because it is safe.

Even after one has all one needs there are people who want more power, more things and more money. These are the people who value money very highly. And, in American culture it would be strange not to value money highly.

Another value that is often prioritized higher than money in France is education. The pursuit of knowledge for the sake of knowledge instead of for the sake of earning power after graduation is evidenced in France by the number of bookstores doing a brisk business. A large number of titles were concerned with philosophy and art rather than business and investing. Obviously this is not a scientific study of what people study in school, but it seems apparent from bookstore displays that a large number of people seem to be interested in philosophy and art -- subjects not especially high paid or even desired in America. In the 1990s America lost the will to build the Superconducting Supercollider. Europe on the other hand has just completed building the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) as they spend money simply pursuing the question: What is matter?

America was not always like this. John F. Kennedy told us that we “…do not do these things because they are easy but, because they are hard” in his speech about landing a man on the moon. This was not the pursuit of knowledge for the sake of wealth and riches. Instead America went to the moon in an adventurous trip to appeal to the human imagination. Since the 1960s America has decided that the value of money trumps the value of discovery and exploration prompted by the pursuit of knowledge. Our American culture continues to suffer on these accounts as well. Slowly money has become value number one -- above knowledge, aesthetics, efficiency and even human compassion.

When I look at France I see that there is another way to order our priorities. Money does not need to be the number one issue at the top of our agenda. After all the greed that we allowed to percolate through Wall Street and the financial industries are the result of putting money ahead of everything else. The result was a few extremely wealthy people and the rest of us paying for their success. We are blamed because we wanted to be able to afford a home for our family, and they are praised for their imagination in creating new and exciting financial instruments. It only makes sense that a situation like this was bound to happen when we put money above all else. I hope that we learned our lesson.

Financially France is suffering like the rest of the world. Sales are down and people can’t afford everything that they might desire. But, I found that they are not suffering as much as we are, because they don’t place money at the top of the list. Instead they still have the love of family and friends. They are still able to share moments and build relationships. And, these things mean more to them at a cultural level than the money that they might have lost in the stock market or in the paper value of their home. In fact I witnessed a wonderful sight on my visit that proved to me that money was not the top priority -- at least for French students. I saw hundreds of students gather on the banks of the Seine a couple of hours before sunset to sit, eat and enjoy each other’s company. No one charged them to sit there. The police were not shooing them away so that the local businesses could make money off these hungry and thirsty students. The counterparts to these students in the USA are sitting around the computer or TV watching videos or playing video games -- they are working on their anti-social skills as opposed to their social skills. But, that’s what we can expect from a culture that is driven by the almighty dollar.



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Don't forget what Stephen Colbert said, "Reality has a well-known liberal bias."


Cross Posted @ Bring It On, tblog, Blogger and BlogSpirit



Reflection

Trial and Error

One of the major assumptions that we have in a capitalist free market system is that people acting in their self-interest will react for the greater good of our society. This assumption is flawed in several ways.

Let us look at an interesting example. During the 1970s an interesting phenomenon occurred with the birth of the Pet Rock. An entrepreneur discovered that he could market and sell rocks packed in little boxes and make millions of dollars. He acted in his self-interest to create a fad that basically moved rocks from one place to new places across the country. What greater good did this provide for society? We need to admit that this fellow was clever and creative, but his activity must also be described as a great waste of resources as well. In the end I am almost certain that very few of these rocks have been placed anywhere other than the backyard, and the container in the dump.

We could argue that people don’t buy pet rocks any more, so the system worked. Maybe we should overlook the great waste of resources created by this venture as part of the price that is paid for progress. However, pet rocks are not the only venture that wastes time, money and resources. In fact, the idea that people can make gold by selling rocks is alchemy made real today. With the modern idea that economics isn’t about the product, but only about the marketing we realize that this alchemy is the rule not the exception.

If we take a step back and try to look at the big picture we should realize that there is more to life than trying to figure out how to put more cash in your wallet. If this were the entire story then, why do we waste time following the laws? Why don’t we just go around and rob people at gunpoint? The fear of violence and jail might have something to do with that, but I would hope that people actually know that working within the system is good for our society. Even so, many people opt to take the easy way out and rob people but by hiding behind the rule of law. The seller of the pet rock didn’t break the law, but he broke the contract with society in which we try to make society better with my contribution to it.

There are so many ways that people do make society better through their area of business. Businesses make these decisions every day when they determine how they are going to develop their product. Do they consider safety, efficiency, and impact?

We only need to compare the Windows operating system to just about anything else out there to prove the point. The superiority of Apple computers to Windows PCs does not match the number of computers of each type sold. But, Apple learned its lesson when it marketed the Hell out of the iPod when Creative Technologies already had a much better product on the market. All, of the capitalist arguments for a free market don’t seem to prove the point. Instead, example seems to suggest that the biggest player with the largest backing comes out the winner, not the best product. Patents have been infringed upon and stolen from much less affluent people. Not, many people are willing to put in the same effort as the inventor of the intermittent windshield wipers was.

The point of this piece is not to argue the free market system, only to point out a weakness in it. In a fair world the free market system would most likely be a better system. In a world where people valued products that were good for society above products that were a waste of resources the system could work to make the world a better place. If people were rewarded for making society better rather than being rewarded for making a clever comment on the stupidity of the average person people would work for a better world instead of working to think up new ways to cheat the gullible out of their money.

Whether you believe it or not the average temperature of the Earth is increasing. There is clear data showing this. Similarly, whether you believe it or not more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will trap more heat. This is also clearly proven with data. As we burn more carbon based fuel that was trapped out of the atmosphere millions of years ago the thicker the blanket we have over our world. Only an idiot would not see that this is a bad combination.

Of course, a supporter of the “free market only” system would conclude that when people got too hot they would realize that there was a problem and they would no longer buy the carbon-based fuels that are causing the problem. There are several holes in this reasoning. First, how do we know when we are “too” hot? Second, how do we switch to something new when we do realize that we are “too” hot? Third, a lot of the problem isn’t the final result, but the chaotic weather patterns that result from the sudden heating of the Earth, how do we prevent the destruction? Finally, when a customer has the option to pick between keeping the world just a little bit cooler or buying a new H2 Hummer -- what prevents the customer from rationalizing that the world won’t get “that much” hotter?

The purpose of the government is to protect us. No matter what your political persuasion is I am certain that I won’t find many people arguing with me on the assertion. The problems arise from the implementation of this idea of protection. Conservatives are the first to insist that a strong military will protect us from foreign threats and a strong police force will protect us from internal threats. Imagine if conservatives followed through on their idea that markets should be allowed to work to protect us. Everyone would put up as much money as they believed should go toward external and internal threats. Or, they should invent and improvise new ways of protecting ourselves. The markets would decide the best ideas. The best ideas would get the most money -- because they would be able to attach the highest level of support.

We all know that this would not work. Criminals would refuse to donate to the police force, because a weak police force is in their personal best interest. Many would refuse to send money to the military on ethical grounds as well as personal financial self-interest. Those who own the most property obviously demand the most protection, so the wealthy would need to beef up the various agencies and branches of the military. We would have everyone walking around armed because it would be cheaper to carry a gun than to hire a policeman to protect ones property.

If the job of government is to protect its people, then why is there a continuous argument about what the government should do? This is because the question of what protection of the people consists of. Should people be allowed to starve to death because they can’t afford food? Should people be allowed to die of a curable disease because they can’t afford the cure? Should diseases be allowed to spread through a community because the community can’t afford to pay for vaccinations? Should companies get money from the government to encourage development to spur job growth? What is protection and what is control?

Why should the government pay for education? What kind of protection is this?

With the election of Barack Obama there is a lot of talk about the new “New Deal” that this liberal Democrat is about to impose on us. I have seen people writing about the USA becoming the USSA -- The United Socialist States of America. Obviously I don’t agree with that. But, I do believe that there is a role for government to lead us as well as protect us.

If you are old enough to remember George H W Bush’s defeat to Bill Clinton you will also recall that he had a problem with “the vision thing.” In fact, if a country does not have leadership, then the country will grow in a random haphazard way. People need to be lead in a direction that will result in benefit to the common good, instead of benefit to the individual pocketbook.

Just think of the creativity that went into the creation of the Pet Rock. Or, for a more recent example, the Collateralized Debt Obligation (CDO) and the pooling of high risk mortgages. The creation of these financial instruments was meant to benefit the creators and the cost to society was not even considered. The lack of government concern resulted in the collapse of many of our financial institutions. Because of the web woven by these institutions the government has finally realized that allowing nature take its course is much too high a price to pay for this selfishness.

I hope and pray that the last eight years has finally taught Americans a lesson in what the role of government should be. Government needs to lead its people. In order to lead a government leads vision and perspective. Government should not force and demand what its people should do, but rather it should lead by encouragement. Based on his campaign, Barack Obama’s vision includes a new green country and a lot of work that is needed to get us moving in that direction. With the proper encouragement there are many opportunities for new ideas, new jobs and new money to be made.





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Don't forget what Stephen Colbert said, "Reality has a well-known liberal bias."


Cross Posted @ Bring It On, tblog, Blogger and BlogSpirit



Reflection

Guilt By Association?

One of the fundamental differences between eighteenth century European Law and American Law is the presumption of innocence until proven guilty. The Bush administration has fought continuously over the last seven years to erode this fundamental right.

The Bush crew has used fear to gradually work the American public into accepting the idea that the government knows better who is guilty and who is innocent. You would think that people on the right who fear that the government might take their weapons away would also fear this new threat. However, the conservatives’ self-righteousness has been able mask this fear. Conservatives tell themselves that they are above the law because they are good patriotic Americans. Obviously they should not fear that a government might choose to arrest them and hold them indefinitely.

Progressives know this fear a bit more personally. This is because progressives and conservatives don’t always show their opposition to the government in the same way. Progressives most notably tend to gather great numbers of people to stand outside events where the opposition is gathering. Progressives like Amy Goodman who is a reporter for a “real” left wing media program “Democracy Now - The War and Peace Report” have experienced guilt by association directly. She was reporting at the Republican convention during August when she had heard that her producers were beaten and arrested. She promptly dropped everything and ran to the site of the protests where her producers were arrested and she was manhandled and thrown into jail with some of the protesters. She was with the protesters, therefore she must be one was the attitude of the police. This was a sad day in American history, and it got very little coverage in the mainstream media. How liberal is this media?

Any American from the left or right should shudder at the telling of this story. Eventually she was freed and not considered a terrorist. That may have been because she was palling around with liberal protesters and not a former 1960’s radical. Obviously there is some standard for this guilt by association that I really don’t understand. Are you guilty if you aid and abet a person who bombs abortion clinics, the Atlanta Olympics and then hide in the woods for a number of years? Are you guilty if you meet with a man that had been found guilty of a felony, served his time, changed his life and has become a force for good in his community? In the first case many pro-life supporters helped a wanted fugitive hide from the authorities while in the second case people are urged to question a presidential candidate’s ulterior motives.

Guilt by association works both ways so it makes sense that this form of slander should not be assumed to only work against your enemy. If we also consider the six degrees of separation that suggests that we are separated by as few as six contacts from any person in the country or perhaps the world we have a further need to worry about this dangerous concept of guilt by association. Where does it end? If someone you know has “palled around with terrorists” does that make them a terrorist by association. If they are a terrorist then doesn’t that make you one too?

In Biblical times guilt by association was one of the rules. People believed that they were punished directly for their sins. For example when we read about the man who was blind from birth Jesus is asked what sin he or his parents had committed. Isn’t this another form of guilt by association? Today’s Christians should remember that not only did Jesus heal this man, but he also pointed out that this man was not born blind as a punishment for either his sin or his parent’s sin.

And, what types of groups do we consider a danger to our national security? For example, a group that seeks secede portions of the country threatens the very makeup of our country. These groups exist around the country with various motivations and ideologies. Some of these groups lament the fall of the Confederacy and would like nothing better than for a new South to rise again. It would be hard to argue that a group that seeks to tear the fabric of the country apart would not be a terrorist group. After all, the main motivation behind this group is the destruction of the country, our country -- The USA.

A similar group exists in Alaska where a group would like to make Alaska an independent country. And interesting point here is that Sarah Palin, governor of the state of Alaska and current Republican Vice Presidential candidate has a husband that not only pals around with this group of secessionists but he is an active member. Perhaps we should not condemn Sarah Palin as a member of this group for merely associating with her husband. However, we should also consider the fact that Mrs. Palin does not just pal around with these people, but she also supports their cause as evidenced by her address to the secessionist party’s convention. Shouldn’t question Sarah Palin’s terrorist connections to these people?

The point of this diatribe today is to point out that it doesn’t matter if you talk to a liar, it does not make you a liar by association. If you share a meal with a thief as Jesus did, it does not make you a thief by association. If you have a business meeting with a former radical that has repented and served his punishment it does not make you a radical. The only way to prove that you are guilty of a crime is to prove it with the evidence -- Like a speech in front of radicals supporting their cause.






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Don't forget what Stephen Colbert said, "Reality has a well-known liberal bias."


Cross Posted @ Bring It On, tblog, Blogger and BlogSpirit



Reflection

Tough Times

When times get tough, the tough get going.

This truism might be just be right, or it might be another piece of dogma used to summon the unity of the people to work together. Either way, it would be nice to have one of leaders step up and tell us that we need to work together to solve this mess.

In reality I don’t worry about the value that I lost in the stocks I own or the house that I own. The value was based on arbitrary amounts of money that people were willing to spend to buy similar items. Actually the value was based on the arbitrary amount of money that banks were willing to lend to people who were willing to invest that money in bad mortgages that were used to fuel the economy on all of that borrowed money. People took this artificial value out of their houses to pay for vacations and home entertainment centers. The money fueled manufactures of automobiles and other big ticket items that people buy on credit. But in this world of buying everything on credit we still have the last shoe to fall -- the easy credit line of credit cards. As our credit markets get tighter the crisis won’t be over until we stop getting those damn credit card offers in the mail.

The value of the stocks of all of the companies on Earth have been based on the future earning of these companies. These companies could have huge future projections when all of those earnings were based on people running up their credit card debt into the thousands of dollars. Reality won’t strike home until banks begin to put realistic limits on the credit that they extend.

In tough times people behave in erratic ways. That might be part of what we see in John McCain’s erratic behavior as of late. But, just because some people behave in erratic ways it doesn’t mean that we want our leaders to behave that way. In fact the test of our great leaders is based on what they do in tough times, not what they do when times are easy. In tough times people act erratic and we need our leader to calm their nerves and get them to behave like civilized people. That is the difference between civilized behavior and stoking the flames of rebellion and revolution that leads us to the destruction of our civilization. When John McCain stokes the flames of his frustrated supporters at his rallies he is reacting to them and not being the leader that we need.

In tough times we need a calm and cool leader who is willing to look the problem over, consult with the experts and make the wise decisions. And, as far as I can tell that leader is Barack Obama.





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Don't forget what Stephen Colbert said, "Reality has a well-known liberal bias."


Cross Posted @ Bring It On, tblog, Blogger and BlogSpirit



Reflection

Both Sides of the Greed Equation

I have written about greed before, and I am sure that I’ll write about it again. In capitalism the central motivation is the magic belief in self-interest.

I have been told by the loyalists on the right that greed is somehow magic. Greed drives the markets and those markets will be driven by greed to correct themselves. I have argued forever that greed AND information are needed for a market to work properly. However, disclosing information is often contrary to the greed incentive.

Let me try to illustrate this with a recent example. Suppose for a moment that you would like to upgrade your lifestyle and move into a bigger house. Normally this means that you would need to pay a higher price in order to move into that new house. However, when a real estate agent tells a potential buyer that one can afford this new house at a lower monthly payment (albeit temporary) one is easily persuaded into buying a house by using one of these sub-prime mortgages. Many of those tempted by these dangerous loans know about the adjustment of the mortgage interest rate -- but that’s three or five years down the road. When people are living month to month, how can they realistically think about three to five years down the road. And, perhaps they are even thinking: “What’s the worst that can happen? I’ll be kicked out of my house and I’ll either find a new low rate loan or I’ll go back to living in the apartment.” Greed in this respect is obviously encouraging people to get what they can for the moment and disregard any future consequences. In this case, most of the information about the consequences of the loan are right there for the home buyers to see, but the worst case scenario is a net gain. They buyers get to live in a nice house for a few years and then they are kicked out into their old situation when the interest rate jumps. The possibility of the house value falling is inconceivable and never mentioned. In this case greed encourages bad social behavior.

Conventional wisdom has it that one person’s greed is blunted by another person’s greed. If someone is trying get something for nothing they most likely have their hand in someone else’s pocket. That person should be motivated by greed to prevent that hand from removing any property. However, the principle of “time dilation” adds distortion to the picture. The problem is that greed also plays a role on this side of the relationship.

In a loan relationship the person loaning the money is expecting to receive additional money in the form of interest and fees in return for that loan. The motivation to loan money at a low interest rate comes in the form of a promise to get that higher interest rate some time later in the relationship. In other words, the initial rate is the bait used to lure in the prey that will pay higher rates over the majority of the life of the loan.

In this case the greed and patience of those who loan the money are believed to be rewarded when the interest rates readjust. However, those who make the loans are motivated by short-term greed to sell these loans and make the money up front, instead of waiting for the interest rate to adjust. Technically these loans are expected to be repaid -- but greed prevents the true risk of these loans from being communicated to the new owners of these loans. Without knowing the true risk one who purchases these loans can not assess the values and will often pay too much for the loans. If the information was there, then the purchasers would pay the proper price, or the loans may never had been made in the first place. The problem is the lack of information transmitted in these relationships.

This current crisis is only the most recent aberration in a system that has lost its moral compass when the regulators cease to regulate. Greed motivates industrial giants to have little disregard for the community around them. Greed motivates secrecy and deception when a troubled company is trying not to let the stockholders find out the truth -- the shareowners would jump ship and the stock price would plummet.

The point is greed is a force of self-interest, but we certainly know that self-interest is not always good for the community. Markets may be a mechanism that converts self-interest into community interest -- to some limited extent. But the markets do not automatically extend to making community life better, making the environment better, making health care better or even making our culture better. It is true that we work harder for our own self-interest. It is also true that fear of being caught breaking laws is often enough to modify anti-social behavior. But, there are people who have very little fear and they may take huge legal risks in dangerous market situations. And, this same lack of fear may also result in taking serious illegal risks as well. Without serious regulation these people will always take advantage of the system -- be it real or perceived.

On the other hand regulation sends a shiver of fear down the spine of most conservatives. They imagine regulations as the “know nothing” government setting out to “fix” the business of the country. It is quite obvious that a government bureaucracy can not do good things on the microscopic level where there are more exceptions than rules. But, government regulations do not have to dictate every action that business wants to take. Government regulations need to protect the honest business person from the dishonesty that greed temps in every person. Why should a businessman remain honest when he sees his fellow businessman rake in the cash because he disregarded the spirit of the law?

Regulations and the enforcement of those regulations are meant to keep the playing field even for all those who participate in the markets. Under that premise regulations and a free market can share the stage. The greed that drives these markets will still exist, but it will be tempered by regulations that will force legal creativity slightly less profit instead of the illegal creativity that allowed people to pillage the ignorant with loans that could not be afforded by those that were just as greedily seeking short term gains and ignoring the long term repercussions.




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Don't forget what Stephen Colbert said, "Reality has a well-known liberal bias."


Cross Posted @ Bring It On, tblog, Blogger and BlogSpirit



Reflection

Trust Me

I don’t know if there really was a time when our government actually worked for us and not for the special interests. But, I do know that there were times when national security took precedence over those lobbyists that were putting all that money in our leader’s pockets. There always seemed to be an unwritten rule that congressmen would do what they wanted in an effort to allow the American people to get something out of the wheels of government. But, when it came to national security then the entire congress would make the effort to be cooperative and get something done in a positive way for the American people.

Of course, this effort to work in unity requires a bit of trust. A congressmen needs to make the assumption that the rest of the congressmen had the same desire to get the “right” thing done for the American people.

After 9/11/2001 the country had a rare moment of unity. We all believed that only the most unpatriotic person would desire to take advantage of a situation of national emergency. At the time we were under the impression that our president would learn what he could about the situation and do the “right” thing.

Only years later did we learn that the president and his administration had his own personal agenda. We have since learned that the George W Bush administration made an effort to distort the facts and present the best case for war in Iraq. Instead of a healthy public debate on this serious endeavor we were told to trust the president and hurry forward with this urgent solution. Similarly the so-called Patriot Act was named in an order to cloud the true nature of this bill. The Patriot Act is known to take away the liberty of many patriotic Americans -- but it was urged by the president for congress to pass the bill without actually debating it. Ironically the Patriot Act was undemocratically railroaded through congress resulting in the loss of some American liberty. And, this effort was only possible because the congress trusted the president to have the security of the American people at heart.

As the old Chinese Proverb says, “Fool me once shame on you fool me twice shame on me.” And congress has learned its lesson; it will be a very long time before the congress will trust the word of a president and act on his word alone without debate or supporting evidence.

Is it any wonder that when the Secretary of the Treasury asks the congress for $700 Billion dollars that he can do whatever he deems necessary to fix whatever problems he happens to find with the financial banking crisis that we should view his motives with suspicion? Of course we should worry that a treasury secretary with only a few months left before he gets back to his area of interest -- the financial banking industry -- he just might be planning a bailout for himself and his friends. There currently isn’t any reason that we should trust the Bush administration or anyone associated with them to do the “right” thing. In fact it is more prudent to expect that they have some other motive than national security. Of course it is up to us and the media to find out what that motive is.

This crisis illuminates a few things.

First, in order for any government to work there needs to be a level of trust between those in the government in order for any swift action to take place. When that trust is broken the government can no longer function. If the citizens understand this, then they can vote in new representatives that share some level of trust. But, when the trust disappears then we have an adversarial system destined to do nothing at all. As long as the rule of law continues without trust then we are stuck.

Second, if we have a lack of trust in our government, then imagine the level of mistrust in Iraq where many members of the government have lost family members and the enemy is sitting across the aisle. How can trust be restored in a government like that?

Third, Republicans have always recited than mantra of Democrats equal special interests. But, Republicans have their own set of special interests -- the financial banking industry.

Fourth, our economic system needs a set of rules that are enforced to protect the average person from being swindled. These laws shouldn’t allow the temptation of cheap money now for an expensive repayment schedule in the future be allowed. This, after all, is the kernel of the issue that brought the financial industry to begging in the streets. And, begging in the streets is so unbecoming.

Fifth, if the capitalist system is to work then there needs to be a significant loss for those that took the risk of creating these adjustable rate mortgages and conned people into buying them. The people that made these decisions should be thrown out on the streets and replaced by a whole new group of people that are willing to revamp the system. Allowing these people to walk away without losing their shirts will encourage them to try something just as ridicules again in the future. If these people don’t feel financial punishment for taking a stupid risk, then they will risk our economy again.

How can our capitalist economy survive without trust?

When we go to the store to buy a CD we trust that the CD will have the music we want on it. When we buy food at the store we trust that we won’t be poisoned when we eat the food. When we buy a new car we trust that it will work for a significant amount of time before we need to buy a new one. Trust is how our economy works and how our country runs.

But, there is an undercurrent in our country that puts weight on deception. In some circles people believe that one is clever for selling something that isn’t worth the price paid. Keeping the truth a secret is the key to making as much money as one can from this deception. Once the truth is out, then the product can no longer be sold for a significant profit. However, the clever person is sure to be up to the next great deception that will earn another tidy profit until its discovered as well. The justification for this action is that no one will pay more than the market will bear. If people are willing to pay more then there must be some value that they are paying for. The untold truth is that the premium is due to lack of information flow. And a market without access to the truth is not a fair market.

Imagine bundles of adjustable rate mortgages sold for the potential premium increase once the teaser rate expires. The purchasers are expecting a large future payoff, while the people making the payment are not prepared to pay the new rate when mortgage payment doubles or triples. It is a train-wreck waiting to happen. And, these bankers have the Republicans in congress in their pockets because the have been financing their campaigns for years. The sad thing is that the people who created this junk no longer bear responsibility because they sold these bundles to unaware investors who believed the ratings of these loans. Once again fundamental trust was lost.

We will one day recover from this mess. Hopefully it will be sooner than later. However, it will take a long time for us to recover the naïve trust that we once had in our financial system, our government and our country.








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Don't forget what Stephen Colbert said, "Reality has a well-known liberal bias."


Cross Posted @ Bring It On, tblog, Blogger and BlogSpirit



Reflection

Myth and Magical Thinking

Since the nomination of Sarah Palin as the new standard barer of the Republican Party I have been struggling with a way to collect my thoughts and express them in a coherent way. I have been struck with many emotions and thoughts as the activities have played out over the last two weeks. Each time I considered writing something, but I couldn’t quite express the problem that my intuition told me was there.

Well, I don’t know if this will be any better than the collection of all those thoughts, but at least I believe that I have a context in which I can discuss them.

In order to explain this let me bring you back to 2003 and the first few weeks of the Iraq invasion. During that time the administration and the defense department were searching for heroes. If they didn’t find them, then they seemed to create them and put those stories out there with very little truth in advertising. Recall the story of Jessica Lynch. The first story put out by the US military and hyped by the administration was that Jessica Lynch was a determined fighter firing her weapon until it was empty defending the rest of her convoy until what she assumed would be certain death. What a great hero story for the military and the administration to use to defend their invasion of a sovereign nation (similar to the Russian invasion of Georgia a few weeks ago). Would we be more willing to support the Russian invasion if we were told of heroic Russian soldiers doing what this mythical Jessica Lynch did in Iraq? What if we heard about another heroic Jessica Lynch fighting along side the Russians in Georgia? What if we were told that the Georgians were terrorists and not the fledgling Democracy being attacked by the great bear Russia? I am not suggesting any of these things are true, but rather that we have a tendency to believe what our leaders tell us whether they are true or not.

Eighty percent of the American public now recognizes that the Bush administration lied to us about something during the last eight years. I am being generous here to make a point. I don’t want to argue these statistics, but rather the fact that the majority (over 50%) recognize that their leaders have lied to them about something during the last eight years. I could guess that the other 20% might agree that Bill Clinton lied about something during his administration. Therefore I would put forward the postulate that everyone in America agrees that their leaders have lied to them at some point in the last 16 years. I would like to conclude that we should expect them to lie to us in the future -- whether they are from your favorite political party or the other one.

So, if we know that our leaders lie to us, then why do we succumb to these lies so easily when they seem to be so outrageous on the surface? Obviously American culture, like many cultures, is romantic toward the hero and is open to stories of the true hero. We desire a hero at every level as some type of supernatural identification. We were all drawn to the story of Michael Phelps winning those eight record breaking gold medals. Wasn’t he just as heroic in Athens when he won six gold and two bronze? Imagine if his teammate Jason Lezak, whom gets very little recognition compared to Michael, wasn’t able to beat the French swimmer Alain Bernard. Imagine if Michael hadn’t been able to out touch Milorad Cavic by that hundredth of a second? Would he still be on the talk show circuit? These tiny intricate details are the evidence that makes an American Hero authentic.

America loves their heroes! But those heroes certainly need to be authentic. Imagine a mythical America where the news of the Olympics was filtered through the Republican Party. Imagine Michael Phelps losing those two races in the real world - would the Republican Party be tempted to create the Michael Phelps hero by altering the Olympic information? If politics depended on those results, then perhaps they would go that far.

We can look at the current presidential race and see those actions in play. The Republicans found the unfamiliar Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin and they have opted to mold her into the hero that the American people are so easily drawn to. Since so little is known about her they can paint a picture of her with little chance of Americans learning the truth. Some of the things they tell us are bound to be true. Every true thing they tell us lends credibility to the lies that they tell.

This is like the story of Jessica Lynch. There was a thread of truth in the story. She was in a gun battle and she was taking from the scene of the battle. The lies of her story hang on these loose threads. It was more exciting to tell us about her gunfight. There were no witnesses to tell us that she didn’t fire her weapon. Even when she regained her senses, she didn’t remember any gun fight. When the Iraqis finely told their story we learn that she was taking to a hospital -- not kidnapped. No one guarded her except the doctors, and she wasn’t held against her will. Those lies, however, were necessary to paint the picture of the hero.

Well, Sarah Palin is not really the hero that the McCain campaign is telling us that she is. She was a mayor of a small town. She was elected governor after defeating a corrupt Republican in the primary. That corruption might have played into the election win. And, Alaska isn’t exactly a bastion of liberals, so her win in the general election wasn’t all that surprising. But, the McCain campaign is creating a hero out of the clay of this little known politician. And they are doing this by putting forward outright lies and deceptions. They tell us that she was against that notorious “Bridge to Nowhere,” when she actually supported it until the national media picked up on this huge pork barrel project. And, what is even more dishonest is that fact that she tells us that she said thanks, but no thanks to that federal money implying that she wouldn’t accept the federal money. However, she took the money anyway, and put it into the general fund. If the issue is wasting money, then this means that she is just wasting it on some other pork project instead. And now we don’t even know where our money went.

This dishonesty about the McCain-Palin ticket builds on so many other threads of truth. The image that they wish to build is a duo of heroes fighting for America -- but the truth isn’t that simple. John McCain may have been heroic in Vietnam, but that doesn’t mean that he has always been heroic. Republicans might like to believe that John McCain has always stood up for America, but the falsehood and deception that his campaign is currently hurling at the Obama campaign tarnishes that image. Doesn’t an American hero triumph by virtue of his truth over the enemy’s deception? I believe that the maverick that I have admired in the past has currently succumb to the seduction of political power. The illusion of heroic honesty and straight talk is no longer valid. I believe that the lesson he learned from the 2000 Republican primary was that honesty is no longer the best policy.

The truth is that the Republican political machinery is inherently dishonest and deceptive. John McCain may have won the Republican primary in an honest battle for the nomination. But, now that he is the nominee he has inherited the smear machine. And, as evidence of his non-maverick stature he hasn’t done anything to temper this evil in the Republican Party.

Barrack Obama offers us another version of the American Hero. Barack was a hero that sacrificed for his community in another way. Instead of being a military hero that fought in a foreign war, he went to battle against the status quo. When society found itself comfortable keeping the poor in their place he went out to organize that community. In these poor neighborhoods many people do manual labor for minimal wages. Opportunity in these places like the south side of Chicago are extremely rare. Gathering consensus and fostering leadership grants political power to these people. When the people do not know that they have rights, then they are less likely to seek them. Barrack Obama sacrificed his personal wealth for this community. He obviously didn’t sacrifice to the same extent that Mother Theresa had in her lifetime, but he also hasn’t claimed that he has sacrificed to this level.

In the end the choice is a collective decision of the American people. In the past we have made both good and bad choices. We have a tendency to look for the hero to fight the good fight for us. Barack Obama has demonstrated that he is willing to sacrifice his personal wealth for his community and in an extension of that sacrifice for his country because our country is a collection of communities. John McCain has sacrificed earlier in his life when he fought in the military for his country. In reality both McCain and Obama are offering us an opportunity to choose that hero. The job of the American people is to determine which vision offered is the Authentic American Hero.








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Don't forget what Stephen Colbert said, "Reality has a well-known liberal bias."


Cross Posted @ Bring It On, tblog, Blogger and BlogSpirit



Reflection