Author: Bin Cur

Freelance writer, political junkie and kitchen creator/recipe honer living on the west slope of Mt. Scott overlooking Beervana.

We Must Cure or Overcome Ignorance; the Greatest Threat to Our Health

by Bin Cur

I want to address the inherent ignorance in the Republican’s health care arguments. Ignorance is the real enemy here. 


Planned Parenthood, and this is for the ignorant, is way more about prevention of women’s health crises than abortion. I didn’t say stupid, I said ignorant.  Stupid implies they’ll never get it.  Ignorance simply means they haven’t gotten it yet.  And if we think all Americans should be covered, think about that. Why, then, do we need insurance? We simply need a delivery system for health care for all. 

Insurance is really a dumb idea when it comes to health care. For a company to make a profit they need to take more money in than they pay out. Got that? Take more money in than they pay out. When they have to pay out for care and it exceeds what they take in the model fails and they pull out or raise prices. 

With single payer we pay out to care providers via taxes paid by all of us as some of us fervently believe that it’s immoral to be a healthy person and deny others the right to the same health. And if the system’s single payer it can be designed to address weight issues which is a national epidemic. And preventive care for all applicable health issues which saves money, lots of money in the long run. 

We can see this in a microcosm in our own lives. Eat well, drink moderately or not at all, don’t smoke; these things lead to a healthier existence which saves money. But when ignorance is allied with fear, distrust, religious moralizing, we get what we’ve got. And it’s not good. 

Ignorance is the sickness we must address and we’ll do it by uniting like minded people who will take control of the government from the small minded who only seem to be able to imagine a better world as one where the rich get richer and the poor get poorer and get sick and die. 


We most likely cannot change these people, but we can lead by example, unite and give them the system enjoyed by every other industrialized nation.  Arch conservative Brit, Maggie Thatcher, never railed about health care. Why? Because a member of the Labor Party in Britain post World War II stood up and made a profound statement that still makes sense in modern day America. To effect, he said if we can find the money to kill Germans we can find the money to provide health care to all of our citizens.  And they did it and regardless of what the anti-single payer forces in this country say, it works beautifully.  For everyone.  No one is denied care or sent into bankruptcy when tragic illness strikes.  They all just take care of each other. 

Think about that next time some politician insists we need more money for the nearly $800 billion we spend on defense. This is double what we spent in 2000. Please do some reading, do some research, ask questions. And stay away from the lie-peddling propaganda arms of corporate America. These are the ones that say climate change is in question, right? 

Watch Earth Under Water on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=baGrtqyWSRM). Just once. Then tell me that global warming is a hoax. Then? Question everything you think you know. Please. The health of our nation and our planet depends on you growing as a thinking human being.  And both patients need you right now. 

Thomas Jefferson said it best: “I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves ; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education. This is the true corrective of abuses of constitutional power.”

― Thomas Jefferson, Letters of Thomas Jefferson

And you know what?  We can do this.  It’s within our grasp.  But we must seize back the control of the federal government and do likewise on the state level by showing the majority of Americans who support health care for all that there is a way.  And this is it.

The Rise of Farscism

by Bin Cur

Donald Trump and Benito Mussolini have so much in common, it’s uncanny.  But perhaps less uncanny and more pure planning.  “Make Italy Great”, the theme Il Duce trumpeted as he climbed the olive oil drenched pole of Italian power; he even exhorted Italian-Americans to “Make America Great”.  True story.

He found an early talent in his twenties for journalism and pioneered “fake news”.  He knew that his falsehoods might be disproved, but he also cunningly grasped that the lies would be remembered.  Thus it has always been so for us, hasn’t it?  A lie is circulated, disproved, and yet takes on a life of its own.  And those in the media who did the disproving are branded as dishonest.  Hmm.  Hmm.

We’ve forever watched figures on the hot seat in this country distract us from their misdeeds and imbroglios, but never at a level with such strategic cunning and such a full court press effort.  Leveraging the still-developing social media tools, they’ve managed to keep everyone watching off balance, confused and distracted.  But the dust does settle sooner or later and the more dogged members of the Fourth Estate on the reporting side are charting the links, publishing the connections while opinion writers and commentators are beginning to trace out the entire picture.  And it’s ominous.

With a blitzkrieg of fake news and tech-savvy manipulation of search engine results they’ve managed to sway the American voting public in a way that would make Madison Avenue jealous, though let’s face it, they’ve helped the pharmaceutical industry and others with similar, smaller scale efforts for years.  They continue because they work.  Spread the misinformation, spread more to give it legitimacy, and keep the drumbeat going until misinfo and info are difficult to distinguish.  And to the less informed, indistinguishable.

But walls of lies, regardless of the height and width, tend to develop cracks and fissures.  And the bigger they are the more stress on the structure.  Yes, Big Lies can have supports, and in this case many voices vainly trying to shore them up with a grab-bag of alternative “facts”, but over time the supports weaken (and grow tiresome) and the wall falls.  The teetering has begun.

 

ObamaCare Update

by Bin Cur

Democrats gave us the Chevy Volt (in more ways than one). Now the Republicans, who control what we as a nation drive are telling us, hey, we’re replacing your Volt, it’s a disaster. Here! Take this, it’s your new car. The AMC Pacer. You’re gonna love it!

The Man Who Would Be King

by Bin Cur

President Donald Trump should be settling into the latest role in his storied career as the leader of the free world.  But that seems a situation beyond his greedy, litigious grasp.  Surrounded by scandals, apparent unconstitutionalities and lying surrogates, the imbroglios appear almost daily only to be eclipsed by the next embarrassing disclosure.

Leaks from inside the White House are rampant and reports that he’s not happy with his new job have emerged.  There also appears to be dissatisfaction with his staff but the word is it’s to early for wholesale change.  Really?  He’s reluctant to make changes?  Staff members are obviously the only thing in the White House he isn’t changing.  But the recent revelations about Mike Flynn and his discussions by phone, intercepted and transcribed by our intelligence services, may force his hand.

As Mr. Trump uncomfortably strains at the limits of his power, the other two branches seem to relentlessly beat upon him at every turn.  The man who invites, incites and revels in conflict has no shortage of enemies, foes and ever more reluctant supporters.  “I’ll see you in court!”  was his recent rejoinder to the legal blockades erected to his Muslim ban.  With as many judicial actions taken against and for this individual he may find himself there ubiquitously.

DJT suspiciously is reacting as if he had been elected king, not president.  His celebrated ignorance seems to spring from a decided lack of curiosity about anything not connected to building Brand Trump which includes his re-election.  His unwillingness to disclose, divest and even understand the underlying reasons why these are important is ominous.  His goals are loudly stated, but as any negotiator knows, red herrings can be dragged across the trail and easily distract the baying hounds while the true objective and the actions building toward those can be obscured and clouded as the goal is sought.

I grew up in a newspaper-rich household.  My Father owned and published The Fishermen’s News, we subscribed to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and the Seattle Times.  When my wife and I made our home in Portland we continued the tradition with subscriptions to The Oregonian, The Oregon Journal and regularly read The Oregon Times and Willamette Week.  I love our free press and find it quite curious that the constant drumbeat from Trump and the right wing about how dishonest the press is just assumed by a large part of our citizens as de facto.

This is the insidious poisoning of the well from which our vital Fourth Estate springs.  To those who buy into this trust-destroying claim I ask you: If you don’t trust the press who is it you place that most important belief in?  Government?  And by press, let’s face it, there are news organizations dedicated to reporting vetted and substantiated facts and those that deal in fake news.  Politifact is but one source battling the propagandists but they’re not alone:

https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/2016/07/20/the-10-best-fact-checking-sites/

We all are entitled as free citizens in a country where free speech is chipped into the igneous stone of the Constitution to our opinions.  And they do and must vary widely.  But at some point we must share the facts or we have literally nothing to talk about.  Any citing of reporting facts as tainted as its source is the “main stream media”, as if that river is polluted, is generalization writ large into a lie.  When a recent Facebook post noted the dishonesty of the “media” I requested some names so I could defend them.  Still waiting.

So we are left to watch President Trump and his administration seek the limits of presidential power over immigration, regulation and media intimidation.  And watch the curious attacks on corporations and individuals.  The president is simply acting in the same boorish manner he employed in private industry.  And he’s run his personal ship onto the rocks before.  His supporters might think the stories of his crash in the late eighties with billions in corporate debt and a personal guarantee attached to $900 million of it is false;  yet they’re pathetically mistaken.  It’s part of the public record.  The past is, at times, as the saying goes, prologue.

Trump’s shown a reluctance to criticize Putin.  Michael Flynn’s done business with Russian media, dined with Putin, and is now saddled with records that show he lied about his pre-inauguration phone calls to the Russian ambassador to the United States.  Paul Manafort’s record of doing business in Ukraine on behalf of the Russians is well known and documented.

Trump’s secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, is the former CEO of Exxon and signed a $500 billion dollar joint oil venture with Russia and Putin.  Flynn’s documented conversations touched on the dropping of sanctions imposed by Obama that brought that to a screeching halt.  If those sanctions are dropped, with no apparent change in Russian behavior in Crimea, Ukraine and elsewhere, the quid pro quo of helping Trump get elected will gain currency.  It should have long ago.

The reality is our president is not a king.  Our Founding Fathers intentionally designed our Constitution to prevent that.  Arbitrary, unilateral lines of action are open to the person occupying that office, but they’re far from limitless.  And no matter how deft one is at getting elected, using the power of the office gained to shield one of our most brutal enemies and aid them in economic expansion is treasonous.  But there’s more to this story and given time, that story will be told.

Who authorized the call originally and its intent will ignite a firestorm that the White House will not be able to control.  Trump’s presidency will deny, obfuscate and relentlessly attack the press for trying to thwart the will of the people.  But no presidency is immune to the law, and no presidency can survive the disclosure that it was aided in gaining the White House with the help of our arch-enemy Russia.  The poison pill’s been taken; no amount of media manipulation can stop the fatal effect of emerging facts.  Trump is doomed.

We are at our best as a nation when each one of us recognizes that none of us are above the rest.  We all are equal under the law.  And the actual monarchical power needed to keep order in a nation rests not with a king but with the Constitution.  Hail to the Constitution!  The ruler who presides over us as a nation and will when each and every one of us alive today is dead.  Long live the Constitution.