9/11 and the incompetence excuse: Could a bunch of sociopathic screw-ups really pull off the crime of the century?

Many who deny government complicity in 9/11/01 maintain that some of the best evidence against official involvement in the crime of the century lies in the Bush administration's unbroken record of sheer incompetence, an argument bolstered by the perception that key members of the administration, notably The Commander Guy, spent that entire day running around like headless chickens.

On the contrary, they did no such thing. Rather, the administration was highly competent and enormously successful that day -- they just had different criteria for success than would sane people. And they've been highly competent ever since. You just have to adjust your standards for evaluating success, then view the past six years through the PNAC/neocon lens. Let's review some of their primary accomplishments -- on 9/11 and in the six eternal years since:

• They got the entire world to believe that a ragtag organization called Al Qaeda, fronted by a seriously ill guy in a cave armed with only a laptop and a phone, managed to orchestrate an unbelievably complex plan that had involved years of planning and training, much money, split-second timing and ridiculously good luck.
  
  
• They got the entire world to believe that four hijackers who couldn't fly single-engine Cessnas well enough to graduate from flight school suddenly became the Blue Angels when at the controls of large, twin-engine Boeing jetliners, and this during the most stressful moments of their short lives.
  
  
• They got the entire world to believe that the crime of the century was pulled off by 19 guys with box-cutters whose names (or any other Arabic names) don't appear on any passenger manifests and at least four of whom have been seen alive and well in the Middle East since 9/11/01, (this one even interviewed by the BBC).
  
  
• Better yet, they got the entire world to believe their evidence linking these 19 guys to the hijackings, using for proof a few cell phone calls that couldn't have happened with 2001 technology. Then there's the famous carry-on bag supposedly left behind by alleged ringleader Mohammed Atta containing, among other things, a copy of the Koran, a Boeing flight manual and his will (and that's surely something you'd take with you on a flight you knew was going to be vaporized). And then the kicker, a passport allegedly belonging to Atta that miraculously survived a massive explosion and temperatures we're told were high enough to soften steel and fluttered unsullied to the ground, where it was eventually found among the debris a couple of blocks away from what used to be the World Trade Center.
  
  
• They got the entire world to believe that the seriously ill guy in the cave had such vast control over US armed forces that he ordered four exercise scenarios -- Vigilant Warrior, Vigilant Guardian, Northern Guardian and Northern Vigilance -- which diverted to northern Canada or Alaska many of the NORAD fighter jets that would have been scrambled per standard operating procedure in the event of a suspected hijacking in the northeast corridor.
  
  
• They got the entire world to believe that this same guy in the cave was able to insert at least 11 and as many as 21 false radar blips (according to FAA administrator Jane Garvey) onto air traffic controller screens throughout the northeast corridor. As a result, controllers had no idea which blips represented planes that had been hijacked, which ones represented non-hijacked flights still in the air and which blips were phantoms. They were thus incapable of following the actual moves of the four hijacked jets and/or coordinating with the FAA to relay warnings to NORAD interceptors (most of which, again, were screwing around over the arctic wastes).
  
  
• They got the entire world to believe that the remaining NORAD forces -- which had been a perfect 67 for 67 in 2001 prior to 9/11 -- managed to fail completely in their missions four separate times that morning.
  
  
• They got the entire world to believe that it was only a coincidence that a fifth exercise was taking place at the same time, this one designed to test emergency response capabilities at the National Reconnaissance Office in the event that an off-course plane from nearby Dulles airport crashed into one of the NRO's four office towers.
  
  
• They got the entire world to believe that two planes took down three skyscrapers, WTC buildings 1, 2 and 7, and that for the first and only time in history, fire brought down reinforced steel and concrete structures and caused them to collapse vertically rather than keel over sideways and take out a few blocks of the New York City financial district.
  
  
• They got the entire world to absolve them of any complicity in "the events of 9/11," even though the above list of "coincidences" is inexplicable without the knowledge, involvement, approval and direction of people high up in the federal food chain.

And that was only the beginning . . .

• Literally overnight, they and their mass media cheerleaders turned a quasi-literate simpleton who was already tanking in the polls into an heroic "war president" who enjoyed the approval of more than 90 percent of the American public and the support of just about the entire world community.
  
  
• Suggesting the presence of a script, the administration immediately used this new-found popularity to get the public to buy insane increases in Pentagon spending; invented a war on terror to further justify enriching cronies at banks, arms merchants and fossil fuels companies; and attacked Afghanistan, murdering tens of thousands of civilians but failing to find that omnipotent guy in the cave.
  
  
• They got the entire world to believe Condi Rice when she perjured herself at the 9/11 Commission hearings by saying, "I don't think anybody could have predicted that these people would take an airplane and slam it into the World Trade Center, take another one and slam it into the Pentagon; that they would try to use an airplane as a missile, a hijacked airplane as a missile."
  
  
• They got the entire world to forget that at least 11 countries had issued warnings of an imminent attack against the US: Afghanistan, Argentina, Egypt, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, Jordan, Morocco, Russia and the UK.
  
  
• They got the entire world to forget that Bush slept on a US Navy ship in Genoa Harbor during the July 2001 G8 meeting because Italian intelligence services had intercepted communications indicating terrorists might try to use a hijacked plane to assassinate him by ramming it into his hotel.
  
  
• They got the whole world to forget about Operation Bojinka, a plot to hijack and blow up 11 flights from Asia to North America, which the CIA had rolled up back in the mid-'90s and which should have provided some hints of future activities.

And ever since, it's been the express train to hell for the US and the rest of the world. Anything's fair in the phony war on terror that 9/11 launched and sanctified.

It justifies preemptive civilian slaughter branded as "shock and awe;" blatantly looting the national historical treasures of a sovereign nation; commandeering its oil reserves for the exclusive profit of US and UK petrochemical companies; building forward bases from which to rule the Middle East militarily; privatizing everything that isn't nailed down; threatening or ridiculing any national leader who dares to differ with US hegemony; threatening Iran with nuclear weapons; the use of illegal torture to compel confessions (which are, of course, useless since they're obtained under duress) . . . all this and more cementing the US's richly deserved place as the world's most feared and despised rogue state. And that's just the foreign policy side.

Meanwhile, back at home . . .

Domestically, the official 9/11 story has justified an ever-expanding list of repressive legislation, executive orders and presidential directives; massive federal invasions of privacy regarding medical and financial records; obsessive monitoring of US citizens' electronic communications; re-targeting spy satellites for domestic surveillance; the TSA cavity search specialists (for attractive young women only; the rest are presumed to pose no threat to the state); no-fly and terrorist watch lists; Halliburton/KBR's detention camps; RFIDs in all new passports and the new national ID cards scheduled to be issued later this year; new TSA "behavior detection officers" to spot those who don't "look quite right;" all this wonderful new stuff from the DHS; private armies featuring mercenaries from companies like Blackwater and SAIC springing up like mushrooms after a light rain... All that and the Patriot Act, the Military Commissions Act, extraordinary rendition (whatever that actually means) and torture, too. (Note: the torture link is graphic and disgusting.)

Thanks to "the events of 9/11," we no longer live in a democratic republic based on constitutional law and 220 years of legal precedent. There is no due process; there is no habeas corpus; there is no right to counsel; there is no right to privacy; there is no right to speak one's mind; there is no prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment; there is no right to a speedy trial by jury.

This is the reality of America v2.0 post-9/11. Just because they're not wearing black uniforms decorated with swastikas and lightening bolts and goose-stepping down the Unter den Linden; just because Leni Reifenstahl isn't filming the sequel to "Triumph of the Will" and the boxcars are still carrying freight; just because oppression is still partly concealed under an eroding veneer of liberty while most people flatly refuse to pay any attention . . . Just because the jackboot has yet to kick in the door, we're not naive enough to believe that it can't happen here.

We look at stuff like this and can only draw one conclusion: All the pieces are in place to lock down this country like a time vault. They simply haven't gone fully operational yet.

There are dozens -- probably hundreds -- of additional outrages that have been justified by "the events of 9/11." The official 9/11 story is the lynchpin, the keystone, the catalyst for every single act of international aggression and domestic repression this administration has been able to get away with. Absent 9/11, or at least the official Bush administration version, they don't have a leg to stand on. Demolish the official coincidence theory and their entire rationale crumbles.

A united front

That's why attacking, discrediting and ultimately disproving the 9/11 myth is so critical to the continued survival of the republic. Even Ms. Nancy might find grounds to allow impeachment back on that infamous table once the 9/11 armor rusts away.

Ironically, instead of presenting a unified front to expose this preposterous lie and condemn the complicit US mass media echo chamber that has hard-wired it into the American psyche, the left/liberal end of the political spectrum is predictably fragmented on this issue and includes some of the more steadfast and adamant defenders of the official coincidence theory.

So when we see otherwise intelligent and perceptive people doing the administration's PR work for them, defending the official story with the tenacity of the religious zealot, we have to wonder at the level of internal conflict these people must experience in accepting this ridiculous official story at face value.

But fear is a powerful thing and shilling for the official 9/11 cover story -- while staunchly ignoring the most basic unanswered questions and obvious inconsistencies -- provides insulation against the cognitive dissonance and bottomless cynicism that would result from admitting that this administration is so utterly malevolent that it would plan and execute mass murder against its own citizens for purely political reasons.

There's always Operation Northwoods to provide a bit of historical perspective on governmental malevolence. Even US mass media managed to pick up on that one. Read it before it gets scrubbed.

# # #

This article first appeared in Online Journal on January 9, 2008

So . . . what's this here single-payer health care thing all about anyway?

"I�m going to tell you something -- we have fabulous health care in America, just so you know. I think it�s very important -- before people start griping about the health care system here -- and of course there�s always grounds for complaint -- just to compare it with other systems around the world." --George W. Bush, December 17, 2007, eruditely discussing his own single-payer coverage, courtesy of the US taxpayer.

Note: please pardon all the weird characters -- like question marks where there should be quotation marks. I'm a writer; not a coder. However, if you know how to fix this crap, please shoot me an email and tell me how. ALso looking to truncate posts to show the first 500 words, then show a link to the rest at the bottom of the opening section. Again, if you know how to make that work, please tell me how. And now, on with the show...

But first, a moment of silence

A teenaged girl died some time ago because Cigna HealthCare, a for-profit medical insurance provider, did exactly what it's compelled to do by law: it chose to maximize its profits by refusing to pay for a liver transplant for 17-year-old Nataline Sarkisyan, whose doctors warned that she would certainly die without the organ replacement.

And they were correct. She did in fact die, just hours after Cigna relented and agreed to cover the costs of the procedure after all. This, too, was a move intended to maximize profits, since the terrible PR that news of its denial of coverage generated could have affected Cigna's bottom line as well, as could damages awarded as the result of a wrongful death suit. So it wasn't a rekindling of the human spirit on Cigna's part that caused the company to reverse its position; that was the result of a serious internal disaster management campaign, run by corporate lawyers and high-level spinmeisters, designed to reduce the impact on Cigna's image and minimize the company's financial exposure.

By law, the only obligation of a publicly owned, for-profit US corporation is maximizing return for its shareholders. That's it. Nothing about good corporate citizenship, the public good, saving lives or anything else that isn't related to jacking up the price per share and maintaining a reasonable price-earnings (P/E) ratio.

If Cigna had been operating outside the rules, perhaps we could simply discipline that one company, levy stiff fines, jail a couple of high-ranking execs and serve notice to the rest of the industry that such behavior won't be tolerated. But that's not the case. Cigna was following the rules. The problem is that the rules are insane. That's why this profit-driven disaster of a medical system must be replaced.

We need to dump this murderous system entirely. It's too far gone to tinker around the edges. We simply have to get rid of the profit motive as the driving factor in determining who lives and who dies. We need to decouple the idea of health care from the idea of health insurance, since the two have absolutely nothing in common. For example, listen to Cigna president David Cordani defending the decision in an internal memo that was also made available to mass media.

Nataline Sarkisyan's request was evaluated on an expedited basis using "evidence-based guidelines published by independent physician and medical organizations, as well as expert scientific journals," Cordani said. Translation: We made a life or death decision based on a quick scan of "Liver Transplantation for Dummies" and we backed that up with a little reading on WebMD. Oh, and JAMA, too, and Lancet maybe . . . And don't forget Dr. Rudinski's best-seller, "The Home Guide to Major Abdominal Surgery."

Now back to our regularly scheduled programming . . .

The pinko commie plot to ruin the American way of debt and dying

Now that "Sicko" is available on DVD, millions of people will see it for the first time. If the film's run in theaters is any indicator, most of them will be infuriated as Michael Moore exposes a greedy US medical insurance system run amok, drunk on profits, willing to abandon any last traces of human decency to fatten the bottom line and adept at filtering out patients with acute illnesses that might cost the insurers real money.

The solution Moore advocates is a national health care program, funded by a modest and progressive tax, and generically called "single-payer," meaning that the insurance industry's multiple payers are replaced by a single entity, usually a state or the federal government.

This system would provide universal access to health care for all Americans without the need for private, for-profit medical insurance and the huge financial burden that currently imposes in insurance premiums, deductibles, co-pays, pharmaceuticals, non-covered procedures and "negotiated rates" which somehow never seem to cover the entire bill.

And those people are the lucky ones; they have medical insurance of some sort and, therefore, aren't usually sentenced to die (Nataline Sarkisyan excepted) or be forced to use the local ER as their primary care facility. That happy fate falls to an estimated 47 million of their fellow Americans, who have no medical insurance at all and must therefore game the system to survive.

And we're not talking solely about the chronically unemployed (although why employment is a condition for receiving medical care remains unexplained and undiscussed). We're talking about Wal-Mart greeters and checkers, burger flippers, cab drivers, the self-employed, retail clerks, waiters, bartenders, most non-union workers in most trades and an endless list of service economy employees.

These people all have jobs; many have two or three. But they work for employers who can't afford today's obscene medical insurance premiums. Or they work for world-class cheapskates like Wal-Mart, which rakes in many billions each year, whose billionaire Walton family owners occupy a special pedestal among Forbes magazine's list of richest Americans, but who just can't seem to spare a few bucks to help keep their workers healthy and free from medical debt.

The very words "single-payer" give many of our more delicate citizens the vapors and drive many more into an apoplectic rage. These magic words also cause the last of the cold warriors to dissolve into a frothy lather of anti-pinko invective about subverting the invisible hand of the free market.

Considering the massive propaganda campaign waged non-stop by for-profit medicine and seconded by stern warnings of the "evils of socialized medicine" intoned by well-insured right-wing politicians and TV pundit hucksters, those kinds of adverse reactions aren't all that surprising. The buzzwords and visual cues and code phrases are hard-wired by the time kids hit the sixth grade. Go here for a scholarly treatment of the single-payer/for-profit debate.

In the case of the US medical system, we've been taught by our leading opinion-shaping institutions -- public relations, marketing and advertising -- that health care is a privilege to be auctioned off to the highest bidder and not a universal right to be shared by and for the general welfare of society.

Single-payer butts heads with the American archetype

We're so steeped in the rugged individualist, go-it-alone archetype that the idea of making common cause with "those other people" -- working toward a shared objective of improving quality of life for all members of society, not just those who can afford it -- is anathema and, increasingly, un-American. I fully expect some gasbag GOP presidential candidate, before primary season mercifully ends, to come up with something like, "If we go to a non-profit health care model, the terrorists win." Any bets?

class="MsoNormal">In fact, our apathy or antipathy toward those who don't share our looks, background, ideals, language, income, education or culture is driving the US toward an endgame that bears an uncanny resemblance to the Friedman/GOP-style unregulated free market model, with peace for none and antagonism toward all.

We're becoming a society of 300 million disconnected, semi-autonomous city-states, constantly at war with one another for the same dwindling supply of goods and jobs, and services and money, and square feet of pavement. A society too distracted and exhausted by the process of battling each other to notice the class war being waged -- and won -- against us all by the very people who designed and sanctified this system in the first place.

They've divided and conquered very well. No surprise, given the massive resources of the entire insurance industry, along with an approving pat-on-the-back from our "representatives" in Washington; it would be odd if they hadn't done a good job of keeping us at each others' throats and away from theirs.

The insurer as friend and savior

Distraction also helps produce the suspension of critical thinking required to believe in the most illogical premise of all: that America has the best medical care system in the world and has achieved that lofty position because the most voracious, profit-hungry, inhuman corporate institutions routinely ignore their very reason for existence, as well as a file cabinet full of SEC regulations and case law precedents that demand a publicly held corporation pursue profitability with single-minded, sociopathic disregard for basic human values. This is nothing less than a case study in the impossible, but it's the core tenet of the great American health care fairy tale nonetheless.

So are these corporations portrayed in media and pop culture as the enemy, as one would expect? Of course not; they're the solution. The US, unique in the world in its child-like belief good citizenship from corporations, expects these rapacious profit machines to completely abandon their chartered mandates requiring them to churn out ever more money for their stake-holders and, instead, act in the best interests of their customers.

Never mind that those two objectives are locked in inexorable conflict. Never mind that medical insurance is a zero-sum game and, when the insurer pays a claim, that's money grudgingly subtracted from the bottom line. Never mind that the insurance industry employs an army of obstructionists -- known ridiculously as claims adjusters -- whose main job it is to find some quasi-legal way to avoid paying out any money at all. Never mind the inevitable outcome of those conflicts: that the US isn't even in the top 30 according to the landmark 2000 World Health Organization study. Nope, never mind all that. The industry is our friend and savior, and where would we be without it? Other than healthier and happier, with more disposable income, that is.

As one California psychologist who serves on several managed care rate negotiating teams in the Santa Cruz area told me a while ago, �They have become adept at providing the illusion of health care, while avoiding the messy and expensive reality of having to actually deliver it -- to the extent legally possible. And you�d be amazed at what�s legally possible. Most of the time you can�t even sue them so, at some point, the consumer literally has no recourse but to beg for his or her life. Increasingly, those pleas fall on deaf ears as the race to maximize profits obliterates what�s left of basic human kindness.�

So much for the bad news. We now need to examine the nature of single-payer, universal-access health care: what it is, what it isn't, how it compares and contrasts with the US for-profit model.

So what exactly is single-payer and why is it better than what we have now?

Well, surprise, surprise, it's not socialized medicine. The federal government won't set up shop in every doctor's office and medical facility. Unlike the current system, in which privatized pests occupy a permanent position overlooking every doc's shoulder, governmental bureaucrats won't be making harassing calls to doctors offices every five minutes to second-guess whether a patient actually needs that procedure, or that test, or that prescription.

Let's say your doc has his own small family practice, which he runs as an LLC. He probably accepts payment from a couple dozen different insurance carriers. Does that mean he works for, say, Blue Cross or Cigna or Aetna? Of course not.

Under single-payer, he would no more work for the government than he now works for an insurance company. He gets paid by the feds, but runs his own business exactly as he has for many years.

So docs and hospitals continue to operate as they always have, although for-profit facilities must convert to non-profits. The truly revolutionary change is that now the feds foot the bill via a progressive tax that hits the rich hardest and the poor not at all.

In fact, if a patient just looks at the outward signs, things are very much as they've always been. You see the same doctors and support staff. You have blood drawn at the same labs. If you're seriously injured or suddenly become ill, you end up at the same ER. You see the same specialists. If surgery is required, the same group of medical professionals handles the entire process -- from pre-op to rehab. You find that service is about as fast, or as slow, as ever. And if you want a tummy tuck or nose job, you're still going to have to pay for it out of your own pocket.

The payer changes -- from any of hundreds of private insurance companies to a single entity -- but the process of providing and receiving medical care remains the same. Actually, it improves because single-payer eliminates the armies of bureaucrats the insurance industry employs in an effort to squeeze the last mil out of every penny by denying coverage or illegally reducing benefits.

Single-payer: the basics

The following is the nature of any single-payer health care system. Simple, direct, universal, free. And having tried the alternative and found it wanting in that it's currently killing around 18,000 people a year because making gobs of money is incompatible with covering subscribers' medical costs, it seems about time to admit our errors, dismantle the current tragicomedy and move all the way into the 21st Century.

Single-payer means:

• One nation, one payer
  
  
• Everybody in, nobody out
  
  
• No exclusions for pre-existing conditions
  
  
• No doctor bills
  
  
• No hospital bills
  
  
• No deductibles
  
  
• No co-pays
  
  
• No in network
  
  
• No out of network
  
  
• No corporate profits
  
  
• No more medical bankruptcies

How to get there from here

The relationship of health care to health insurance is manufactured out of thin air by the US obsession with applying market-based, privatized solutions to nationalized, systemic problems. Therefore, it seems that to get to single-payer, we first need to abandon the propaganda and separate the idea of health care from the idea of health insurance.

Health care is what happens when patients and health care professionals interact to successfully diagnose and treat a medical condition or injury.

Health insurance is the protection money you have to pay the middleman to enable this transaction and keep you out of bankruptcy court.

Why would anyone want to give a single penny to some parasite intermediary that skims billions while doing absolutely nothing to provide health care?

Unfortunately, it takes a lot more than pennies to keep the beast fed. While Medicare, our unofficial single-payer system, runs at an annual overhead of about 3 percent, for-profit insurers typically squander between 25 and 40 percent of an estimated $2.2 TRILLION annual market. And that 25 to 40 percent -- which translates into between $550 billion and $880 billion each year -- does absolutely nothing to enable these companies to perform their alleged jobs, which is supposed to be covering medical expenses for their ratepayers.

The unbearable lightness of Democratic politicians

Equally unfortunate is the unwillingness of our elected representatives to even consider single-payer among the options for US health care reform. Among the Democratic presidential candidates, only Dennis Kucinich has advocated single-payer from the start. The rest are all talking about something called "expanded coverage," which is just code for "let's invite the single most destructive element in the old system to play a key role in the new one."

That's a bit like expecting a shark to develop qualms of conscience, renounce killing and turn vegan, despite millions of years of evolution that dictate its natural role as a rapacious, heartless, omnivorous predator. Kind of like an average American for-profit corporation.

Any new system that subordinates health care to the for-profit model carries the seeds of its own destruction. If insanity is doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting different outcomes, then allowing these soulless gatekeepers to continue preying on the people of this country is truly insane. Such a system is virtually guaranteed to evolve into a new version of the same old deadly scam once the insurers stop glad-handing and get down to the serious business of making money. They may play nice at first, promising to mend their rapacious ways and act like humanitarians, but once they're inside the tent, they'll revert to form as certainly as that shark will continue to eat seals.

But that hasn't kept our alleged representatives in Congress and on the campaign trail -- Kucinich the lone exception -- from avoiding any mention whatsoever of the single-payer option. In 2003, Rep. John Conyers of Michigan introduced H. R. 676, dubbed the United States National Health Insurance Act, in an effort to remove private insurers from the US health care maze and install a national single-payer system in their place. The new system is essentially a well-funded version of Medicare, minus the age restriction.

It languished in committee for two years; Conyers then re-introduced H. R. 676 in 2005 and, according to information gleaned from Thomas.loc.gov, it has resumed its slow fall to the bottom of the House agenda. Like impeachment, single-payer remains "off the table," despite the poll numbers that say more than 70 percent of Americans want an end to for-profit medicine and want to replace it with single-payer.

And why is it off the table? For one outstanding example, let's take a look at Hillary Clinton's campaign contributors. The probable Democratic nominee and odds-on favorite to become the next president is an insurance industry money magnet. According to campaign finance figures submitted to the Federal Elections Commission and reported by Opensecrets.org, through the first nine months of 2007 she leads all presidential candidates, Democrats and Republicans, in money accepted from the insurance industry ($2.675M). She also leads the pack in money accepted from hospitals and nursing homes ($375K); from HMOs ($247K); from pharmaceutical companies ($274K); and from medical industry lobbyists ($570K).

As Bob Dole said way back in 1983, before he became the Senate's leading recipient of special interest money, "When these political action committees give money, they expect something in return other than good government." So that just about takes care of any possibility of true health care reform in a Clinton presidency, and virtually guarantees that any Clinton-sponsored health care "reform" plan will bend over backwards to accommodate the needs of the for-profit medical insurance industry.

What about quality of care?

Corporate mass media is ever busy safeguarding the interests of their masters and advertisers, so it's hardly surprising that there's serious opposition to single-payer spewing forth from the television sets and radios of America. People who watch network and cable TV, and actually believe they're well informed, internalize and then repeat industry claims that a single-payer system would lower quality of care, create shortages of medical staff and facilities and result in long waiting lists for even the most mundane procedures. Worst of all, it would be run by demon spawn employed by the federal government.

But, as usual, corporate mass media is lying through its bleached teeth. If that vision of health care hell were true, all other Western democracies would exhibit shorter average life spans, higher rates of cancer and heart disease, higher infant mortality rates, lower birth weights, fewer average healthy years, failing mental health programs and far more serious epidemiological incidents than does the US. Since the opposite is true in all cases, it seems fair to conclude that single-payer, universal-access works, this cobbled together disaster we call a health care system is not getting the job done and that we're being ill served by US media yet again. (Go here for 2004 data on how US per capita medical spending and health care outcomes rank against three of the major single-payer countries.)

The big con: we've already got national health care but the peasants don't get to use it

Perhaps the most galling stat of all: A Harvard Medical School study showed that, back in 1999, the US taxpayer shouldered the burden for just under 60 percent of all medical costs nationwide by being forced to fund health care for federal, state and local government employees. That included programs such as the federal employees health plan and those for state and local employees as well (through state, local and property taxes); the Cadillac coverage our fine representatives and Senators enjoy (which they say we can't have); the costs of covering ER expenses for those without insurance; the costs of running the Medicare program; and the state and local costs of various Medicaid programs.

That 60 percent represented $2,604 per capita at the time, which means government spending per-person on health care in the US was higher than total per capita health care expenditures in any other country in the world -- including those with single-payer, universal-access national health care systems. So we're paying for national health care; we're just not getting it.

This must end; single-payer is the answer, a well-funded Medicare system is the model, greed is the obstacle. Eliminate profits as a factor in life and death decisions, run the entire system based on serving human needs rather than those of shareholders and CEOs, and the profiteers will go elsewhere for their money.

# # #

This article first appeared in Online Journal on January 4, 2008

Impeachment Souffle: Still off the table?

Although key to a balanced diet, House keeps impeachment off the menu

"…impeachment was something that we could not be successful with, and that would take up the time we needed to do some positive things to establish a record of our priorities and [Republican] short-comings. The president isn't worth it. He's not worth impeaching. We've got important work to do." Asked whether the Constitution is worth it, she replied, "Well, yeah, the Constitution is worth it if you can succeed."

-- Nancy Pelosi, from a 7/5/07 article by David Lindorff

The usual excuses
So much for that silly oath of office, eh Nancy? Last anyone heard, Ms. Nancy and Uncle Harry were so busy saving America through the really important legislative work they've been doing – indiscernible though it may be to the naked eye – that impeachment has had to remain on the sideboard and off the table, slowly congealing under one of those clear plastic cake covers.


As they tell us, there's no time for impeachment because it would detract from their laser-like focus on doing the people's business. Which, translated into our native tongue, is a frank admission that Congress can't walk and chew gum at the same time.

Then there's the "we don't have the votes" excuse. Keep in mind that this administration has never been called out on TV (which remains the sole or primary source of "news" for 92 percent of Americans) for its corruption, criminality, cronyism, unconstitutional power grabs, and commission of everything from the customary outrage du jour to high treason.

I have a feeling that if the American people were actually allowed to hear even a partial list of the outrages perpetrated in their names and with their tax dollars, the votes to convict would miraculously show up in the form of ass-chewed Senators whose constituents have told them to vote for conviction or look for another job next election.

My personal favorite is pleading with the more furious among us to give the investigations time to work. Never mind that subpoenas are routinely ignored, testimony is laughably incoherent, administration insiders routinely lie even on the rare occasions when they're placed under oath – and there are no consequences for any of this.

But rather than admitting they're not up to the job, we're told that these spineless incompetents in the House and Senate Judiciary committees – who managed to bungle a prima facie case for treason against at least three of these vampires, then have the nerve to wring their hands in anguished futility over those shockingly uncooperative BushCo meanies – are just keeping their powder dry for the coming showdown.

Which I suppose means High Noon on Pennsylvania Avenue is on the way, in which leading Democrats will, as is their custom, bring Neolithic tools to counter BushCo's M-4s and mobile rocket launchers.


Unacceptable but unaccountable
Meanwhile, the outrages keep on coming: impeachable offenses keep piling up; the latest figures report that our liberating presence in Iraq has murdered more than a million civilians and created between two and four million refugees; Iran is the next jewel in the PNAC's crown; Syria is in line for an oratorical upgrade in BushCo's demonization campaign; domestic repression is edging its way toward the golden age of Stalinism; and Cheney may have just become the world's newest nuclear power (Minot AFB; six cruise missiles; background here: missing nukes).

So don't buy the lies. Impeachment is the only effective way to curb this insane rush to bring about The Rapture. And despite the bleatings from the Democratic leadership, there are at least five really good reasons to impeach Bush and Cheney right now, along with the rest of this hideous administration:

1 Simple justice says they must be held accountable for their crimes, and punished to the full extent of the law.

2 Their totalitarian agenda must be exposed so that the American people understand the magnitude of their unprecedented criminality.

3 Somebody has to put a stop to their murderous agenda before they can nuke Iran or shed any more blood in Iraq or Afghanistan.

4 They must serve as an example of what will happen to the next right wing cabal if it tries to replace representative democracy with fascism.

5 Then there’s impeachment as the last means of self-defense. It’s getting a bit urgent, and all the pieces are in place to install a pure fascist dictatorship.


The Commander Guy: lord of all he surveys
Below are links to three presidential directives that the usually vigilant corporate media managed to miss, excerpts from particularly odious provisions within each of them, and articles or blog postings explaining their significance.

This is the most recent, signed July 17, 07, and sanctions property and liquid asset seizure for pretty much anyone BushCo deems a pain in the ass. Here's the text of the directive:

How to legally steal your stuff

Here's three particularly awful parts:

(c) "…the term "United States person" means any United States citizen, permanent resident alien, entity organized under the laws of the United States or any jurisdiction within the United States (including foreign branches), or any person in the United States."

(B) "…undermining efforts to promote economic reconstruction and political reform in Iraq or to provide humanitarian assistance to the Iraqi people."

Sec. 5. "I (therefore) determine that for these measures to be effective in addressing the national emergency declared in Executive Order 13303 and expanded in Executive Order 13315, there need be no prior notice of a listing or determination made pursuant to section 1(a) of this order."

And here’s comment on what this actually means in real life:

Outlawing the anti-war movement

The following is a link to two earlier directives, signed May 9, 07, both of which provide the framework and excuses for implementing martial law (which is what declaring a national state of emergency means to these swine). Note that Bush is to be the sole guarantor of the continuance of Constitutional law under these conditions, and that he’s the only one who gets to define what constitutes grounds for declaring a state of emergency.

Lock up the usual suspects

A couple of looks behind the curtain:

(b) "Catastrophic Emergency" means any incident, regardless of location, that results in extraordinary levels of mass casualties, damage, or disruption severely affecting the U.S. population, infrastructure, environment, economy, or government functions;“ (NOTE: which means Katrina II, a California quake, a flood in the Midwest, a massive power outage, etc.)

(18) "The Secretary of Defense, in coordination with the Secretary of Homeland Security, shall provide secure, integrated, Continuity of Government communications to the President, the Vice President, and, at a minimum, Category I executive departments and agencies.” (NOTE: The shadow government stays in the loop.)

(6) "The President shall lead the activities of the Federal Government for ensuring constitutional government.” (NOTE: This is in recognition of Bush's well-documented veneration for Constitutional law.)

Comment on this blueprint for totalitarianism includes this article detailing the rise of fascism under Bush:

Imperialism and fascism are on the rise in the USA

This one is specific to the DHS and National Security directives:

Bush anoints himself ensurer of Constitutional government in emergency

This one deals with fabricated "false flag" attacks ascribed to "terrorists" (more on that below) as a pretext for nuking Iran:

Bush directive for a "catastrophic emergency" in America: Building a justification for waging war on Iran?

So we’ve already seen that the events that would trigger these security state actions are pretty arbitrary, and are defined by Little Lord Hissyfit himself. Meanwhile, there has been a great deal of “buzz” about upcoming terrorist activities against “the homeland.” Predictably, our free press is all over this one, since it gives them yet another opportunity to wave their pompoms and cheer on the Bush Death Machine.

DHS head Michael Chertoff spoke of his “gut” feelings about an impending attack recently (although most attributed his stomach pangs to a pastrami and Swiss sandwich of questionable vintage). Here’s Keith Olbermann’s take on Chertoff’s intestines:

Al Qaeda in Michael Chertoff's Stomach: The Terror of a "Gut Feeling"

However, unlike Chertoff, whose resume includes his utter uselessness during the Katrina aftermath, this guy might be worth paying attention to. A former Reagan administration insider credited, so to speak, with the invention of “Reaganomics,” author and national syndicated columnist Paul Craig Roberts is no flaming lefty propagandist. And if he’s concerned, we should be as well.

My wake-up call: Watch for another 9/11-WMD experience


About those false flag ops
A “false flag” operation is an extreme act of governmental propaganda that can consist of mass violence like 9/11, or a manufactured incident – such as the Gulf of Tonkin "attack" – perpetrated by elements in the US security apparatus and blamed on the contemporary US whipping boy and his shadowy band of swarthy evil doers.

So on 9/11 Osama was immediately identified as the chief perp -- although the entire 9/11 myth is seen in more enlightened and informed parts of the world as simply a crude ploy and convenient fairy tale to enable BushCo's resource and power grabs. And that Gulf of Tonkin incident blamed on the North Vietnamese leadership? History now tells us it never happened.

The intent of false flag operations is to manufacture consent for the next governmental outrage -- like bombing Afghan or Vietnamese civilians -- further demonize the designated bad guys, scare the hell out of the public, encourage rabid unquestioning patriotism and provide popular support for actions alleged necessary to prevent similar atrocities in the future -- which generally means a military attack on the usual disposable brown people, public acceptance of things like torture and "extraordinary renditions," along with suppression of political dissidents at home. Roberts says this about the possibility of BushCo pulling off another one of these false flag black ops:

“Alternatively, false flag “terrorist” strikes could be orchestrated in the US. The Bush administration has already infiltrated some dissident groups and encouraged them to participate in terrorist talk, for which they were arrested. It is possible that the administration could provoke some groups to actual acts of violence.”

In the case of the 9/11 “attacks,” reprisals included invading Afghanistan and Iraq, occupying both, causing massive civilian casualties and incidentally providing the muscle for the US to deploy a huge, permanent military presence in the heart of oil country.

And US citizens got their own reprisals: Patriot Acts I and II, the Military Commissions Act, dozens of "signing statements" Bush uses to ignore any parts of legislation he doesn't feel like complying with, the recent executive orders detailed above, NSA spying, FBI spying, the TIPS program which seeks to deputize at least five million domestic snitches to do the NSA's dirty work for them… All kinds of stuff that so enthralls and delights the Third Reich leadership that they're doing the wave in their particularly warm corner of hell.

So… still think impeachment isn’t appropriate? Martial law, asset seizures, unending proxy wars for the benefit the petroleum industry, oceans of civilian blood flooding the Middle East, ever-increasing war budgets designed to enrich arms manufacturers while stealing money to fund what remains of the New Deal, the end of the great democratic republic experiment, terror terror all the time...

“It Can’t Happen Here,” as Sinclair Lewis titled his novel that demonstrates the exact opposite, and chronicles a rapid US devolution from representative democracy to fascist dictatorship.


Dancing to the PNAC tune
Oh, sure it can. In fact, the whole thing is spelled out in the right wing think tank Project for a New American Century's (PNAC) 2000 manifesto called "Rebuilding America's Defenses: Strategy, Forces and Resources For a New Century." You can download it as a PDF file by clicking here. Scroll down to the bottom and you'll find the link to the report.

Before you read it, it might be interesting to look at the signatories at the end of the document. You'll recognize quite a few names, such as Stephen Cambone, Robert, Fred and Donald Kagan, the ubiquitous William Kristol, "Scooter" Libby and Paul Wolfowitz.

PNCA members past and present who didn't sign that study but who pop up elsewhere in various propaganda pieces include: Elliott Abrams, Madeleine Albright, Richard Armitage, John Bolton, Gary Bauer, Bill (morality czar) Bennett, William F. Buckley, Jeb Bush, Dick Cheney, Steve Forbes, Frank Gaffney, Jeane Kirkpatrick, Charles Krauthammer, Barry McCaffrey, Richard Perle, Norman Podhoretz, Dan Quayle (for comic relief?), Zalmay Khalilzad (former ambassador to Iraq and now to the UN), Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Weyrich, James Woolsey and Dov Zacheim (credited with losing about $1.3 trillion while comptroller at the Pentagon).

The deep thinkers on these lists, judged solely by the massive death and destruction their actions have visited on the planet over the decades, are indictable as war criminals by the International Court at The Hague.

Taken together, they seem to comprise the advance force for malevolent invaders from some distant planet, coming soon to eliminate all disposable brown and black people (ongoing), demolish all interdependent ecosystems (with gusto), plunder poor countries for raw materials (check), create history's most overdrawn debtor nation (check), harness invisible rays to destroy the critical thinking capacities of Americans (see talk radio), use TeeVee to keep Americans focused on celebrity worship and sex scandals (check) and enslave the latest endangered species, the middle class, through debt and job insecurity (check).

In other words, sow the seeds for an Orwellian world based on constant war, official lies that must be believed, flexible revisionist history, the requirement for strict doctrinal and ideological conformity, banning of books, sexual repression, public displays of universal hatred for a designated demon, domestic spying as a given, super-patriotism as social control mechanism -- and the ever-present threat of a trip to Room 101, where the harshest punishments imaginable are reserved for dissenters or those engaging in "anti-social" behavior.

Does any of this sound familiar?

Just give these maniacs time to put a few more minor pieces in place and we'll suddenly find our thoughts enclosed by virtual razor wire, our savings donated to the GOP, our houses sold to pay for the voracious war machine, our jobs exported, our families broken up -- and Orwell's vision finally realized: As O'Brien says to Winston Smith, "If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face - forever."

Then imagine your face under some BushCo fascist thug's boot. Think maybe it's time to fight back?

# # #

A blast from the past

A little background...

With the Iraq disaster bankrupting the country, both morally and financially, and Iran next in line for a little tough love, it might be a good idea to revisit how in hell this country got started on this path to unapologetic imperialism, naked resource grabs, the PNAC ideal of "full-spectrum dominance," the fear and loathing of much of the planet and the gradual devolution of George W. Bush from useless blithering idiot to soul-shriveled, blood-drenched sociopath.

Below is an article I wrote in the week after 9/11/01, in which I attempted to point out the similarities between selling a product and selling a war. As I watched the lies and phony rationales unravel during the run-up to the Iraq invasion, and cringe as the very same set of unsubstantiated accusations are now hurled at Iran, it seemed a good time to revisit the influences of salesmanship and marketing on a population already pre-conditioned to accept the outrageous claims of advertising and, rather than apply critical thinking skills to the issue, respond by simply buying the product.

And because consumerism is its own reward, the cycle repeats for every single "hot" new product for which advertisers can create buzz, resulting in the itch to buy and then scratching that itch with a trip to Walmart. Return home, fondle the new gizmo for awhile, turn on the TV, watch more embarrassingly childish advertising, develop a new itch and so forth. Rinse and repeat ad infinitum.

So, without further babbling, here's a little trip down memory lane.


September 17, 2001


War on Sale: Buy Now while Supplies Last

By Warren Pease

The public is galvanized as if Hitler and Tojo had returned from hell to finish the job of pulverizing America and installing a fascist state fronted by the Japanese emperor. Polls show nearly universal sentiment to kick ass and take names – and the names don’t really matter. We’ll lash out at any wog in a pinch, even the guy we bought fresh fruit from two weeks ago at the corner market. There’s blood lust in the land and it must be satisfied.

Which is hardly surprising. We live in a country in which our primary duty is stoking the engines of commerce by consuming the fad du jour as defined by pop culture and branded by TV advertising. So when the major cable and broadcast networks run 24/7 advertising for a single product – in this case, a US war against Islamic radicals – it shouldn’t be too shocking that more than 90 percent of American consumers respond with wild approval.

In the hours and days immediately following the atrocities of September 11, Americans were subjected to what amounts to an endless branding campaign, featuring some of the most powerful images ever seen on television. Relentless, sustained, moving and graphic, television pounded home the message that America had been horribly violated and that it must exact revenge. Within hours, a suspect was named and a strategy articulated.

Using a strategy from Marketing 101, the networks first defined the problem and then sold the solution. The problem was international terrorism, personified by Osama bin Laden and his shadowy band of Islamic fundamentalists, and the only solution proposed – at least the only one not immediately dismissed as quixotic or unworkable – was massive military response.

By defining the solution along such a narrow continuum, network advertising virtually assured that Americans would buy the Bush administration’s product. Throw in the testosterone quotient – manly American men doing manly things to unmanly swarthy cowards in far away places we can't identify on a map – and the administration had a real hit on its hands.


War or widgets: creating the buzz

But simply substitute "widgets" for "war" and see what happens. Beginning at 9:00 A.M. EDT on September 11, manufacturing giant Glutco Inc., the company that manufacturers and distributes the world’s most sought-after widgets, launched a non-stop advertising campaign on all major television networks. Within hours, imbued with THE MESSAGE, Americans roared their approval, left their jobs and homes and drove directly to the nearest widget outlet. They didn’t need proof that Glutco’s widgets were superior; most of them didn’t even want or need widgets. But the clarion call of mass marketing won’t be ignored.

Shelves emptied in minutes; trucks lined up at the loading docks to deliver more widgets; those also sold out. Even though the campaign had been planned for months, mighty Glutco’s distribution system was unable to keep pace with demand. Americans simply couldn’t get enough widgets. Special edition widgets showed up on eBay at preposterous prices, then were bid up several times over. Widget collectors found themselves in demand as instant celebrities, being asked weighty questions on national television by a fawning media.

Daily newspapers and weekly magazines kept the public salivating. Publishers happily saw their pages eaten up by lucrative, image-intensive Glutco advertising. Entertainment trade rags reported a series of made-for-TV movies in the works; marginal actors and off-key singers kept themselves in the public eye for another few weeks by shilling for Glutco widgets; even Glutco’s chief competitors expressed reluctant admiration for their adversary, since the heightened popularity of widgets had expanded the market for their products as well.

True, the campaign was the most expensive marketing exercise in history, but it really wasn’t much of a gamble. After all, if American adults will fight over the last Cabbage Patch doll, even though the Cabbage Patch brand was sold primarily to kids through Saturday morning cartoons, it was reasonably predictable that they’d respond with unprecedented fervor to a non-stop harangue by analysts and experts, blow-dried anchors and "on the ground" reporters. Even with the sound off, the images were just too compelling to ignore.

And the numbers proved the hypothesis. Consumers bought $40 billion worth of widgets in the first week alone. Many ran their credit cards up to the limit and many more said they’d make any sacrifice to buy more widgets in the coming months. They took second mortgages on their houses; they spent their kid’s college funds; they looted their retirement accounts; those with disposable income bought bigger SUVs to carry more widgets. And Glutco’s major shareholders smiled the satisfied smirk of the seriously rich.

And so it goes in pop culture America, where the invisible hand of the market occasionally pops into public view -- whether shilling for widgets or war -- where allegiance is bought and sold like a used car, and where operators are always standing by.



A version of this article appeared at bushandcheneysuck.com in mid-September, 2001.

The marketplace of ideas: empty shelves and dusty aisles

...and why obliterating Rush and the thousands of wingnut motormouths he spawned -- by means such as death by sponsor abandonment -- is vital if there is ever going to be a functional marketplace of ideas in this country. Next step after that would be to assert the public's right to the airwaves -- a legal right, I'm told -- and reclaim them from the corporate oligarchs who determine the range of permitted thought in America. But first...

The marketplace of ideas assumes two non-optional components: The marketplace is free and open to all ideas, no matter from whom and no matter how weird. And the "consumers" are informed, intelligent and capable of discerning one idea from the others based on the validity of the idea itself -- no PR, no advertising, no positioning, no pandering, no spin.

The internet seems to meet the first requirement, although it's limited in that participants either own or have access to a computer, know how to use it well enough to connect to the Internet, live in a place with the appropriate telecom infrastructure, and have the means to pay for that access. Still, those barriers are falling all over the world and, as a result, there is a relatively unfiltered forum for the marketplace of ideas to peddle the full range of its wares.

However, a true marketplace of ideas capable of reaching everyone who wished to tap in would by definition have to include TV, print media and radio. Since those media are virtually all under the control of large corporations whose vested interest in the status quo makes presentation of the conservative world view inevitable, and unbiased presentation of a full range of opinion impossible, I would argue that the marketplace of ideas doesn't really exist in any useful sense, at least in this country.

As to the second requirement, polls consistently show that TV news is the sole or primary source of information for about 92 percent of Americans. So passive consumers of ideas are lulled to sleep by the continuous repetition of narrow points of view that almost universally support the status quo. Active consumers can turn to the Internet as an alternative to TV news, but the above-mentioned polls suggest that at most 8 percent do so as their primary source of information.

Add to that the hideous state of public education in this country, the diminishing time people have to do anything but work, pay bills and "put food on their family," the complete absence of "un-spun" reporting in conventional media, the horrible morphing of the press into a cheer leading corps of status quo stenographers and, to seal the deal, the absolute dominance of the AM and FM bands by Clearchannel and a couple of other media giants, none of whom are shy about hosting right wing hate speech -- consider all these factors and I suggest the average American idea consumer lacks both adequate information and the basic critical thinking skills necessary to separate spun hogwash from fact.

For example, it's a "fact" that more than 3,600 American military have died in the Iraqi invasion and occupation. Spun hogwash takes that fact, coats it with equal doses of phony patriotism and official White House fear-mongering, and if those death tolls are ever even reported on TV news, they're linked to the latest line about Iranians slipping over the border and killing US troops in Iraq. This kind of subservient, uncritical "reporting" is designed to drum up public support for BushCo's insane assertions that the US needs to exact revenge on Iran for allowing these alleged hit squads to organize and train in that country. Just fighting them over there so we don't have to fight them here, as they like to tell us undiscerning morons.

Un-spun ideas can compete successfully in a fair fight, and I'd be surprised if progressive positions didn't swamp wingnut ranting if given an equal hearing. The problem is that anyone who uses M$M as their sole source of information can go weeks, months or, on Fox or CNN, years without hearing a progressive viewpoint, unless it's voiced by that candy ass Colmes who exists solely to portray liberals as eunuchs that the mighty Hannity can whip with one frontal lobe tied behind his back.

The problem is access, and we ain't got it. We have the Internet, where progressive and regressive web sites exist by the tens of thousands. But we're non-existent as far as Ward, June, Wally and the Beav are concerned. Not wrong; not misguided -- just not heard at all, except when a wingnut talker abstracts some out-of-context half-quote attributed to a liberal and spends the rest of the hour laughing at it. And only callers who agree get to be on the radio, so there's no possibility of refuting the wingnut position.

It seems like the forces arrayed to prevent progressive/left ideas from hitting the mainstream are pretty overwhelming. In addition to nut-case radio, the Internet is getting unwelcome scrutiny from the privatization crowd. The FCC is looking to charge tolls for fast web site access (and keep the ones that won’t or can’t afford it in second gear). Some (including me) speculate that this is just a first step toward putting non-corporate web sites out of business – and in the process effectively silencing the last remaining medium available in which progressive/left ideas thrive.

TV news is, as always these days, pathetic (and I imagine that Murrow’s ghost is much disturbed). Even newspapers, long admired (somewhat more than they’ve deserved) as sources of unbiased, unvarnished information, have decided, with a few notable exceptions, that their advertisers want zero controversy and prefer a status quo-boosting venue to peddle their wares.

When GE buys Air America, expands it into hundreds of new markets, promotes the hell out of it and puts actual lefties back behind the mic, then we'll have the faintest beginnings of the sound machine the right wing has enjoyed for decades.

When people ignore TV news in sufficient number, and boycott the sponsors who pay for this garbage, then programming heads will roll and changes may emerge that include encouraging reporters to hurl actual questions at Bush and his spokespersons/apologists rather than the softball, no-follow-up scripted bit of infotainment that passes these days for a press conference.

When the US “papers of record” – the NY Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal (reporters, not editors) – learn that progressives can afford their ad rates, too…

Nah, that would be to go against their very nature as tools for manufacturing consent and coalescing public support around the policies of those running official Washington.

After all, these media conglomerates often have business before various federal regulatory agencies and they don’t want to be seen as enemies of the state.


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