Category: 1st Issue

Let Them Eat Cake —The New American Way

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Nary a peep of protest on the streets. No sign waving, no marching, no anything. Yet here we are on the crest of an 8.5% inflation tsunami. The statistics are mind-boggling —gas up 38%, beef up 20%, used cars up 40%, everything the American people buy: food, fuel, rent, clothing, up double digits. How about that summer vacation that you can’t afford to take or the visit to grandma that isn’t going to happen? The biggest burden falls on the 45 million students who are up to their eyeballs in debt beholden to crooked bankers, hedge fund sharpies and, would you believe it, their own government. What happened? $1.8 trillion owed by sixty-five percent of college graduates to the tune of almost $40,000 each.. Remember the crowds on the street protesting the Iraq war? It was young Americans who got the movement going. Back in the day, Vietnam protests were student generated. But forty-five million students in debt peonage don’t have the time or energy to protest. Stifling dissent is becoming the new American way. But curbing protest is not the only reason to hog tie students with huge debts. Profit has become a constitutional right for rich Americans. Banks raking in the dough of cash-strapped students. Defense contractors and their investors pocketing billions as the Biden administration prolongs the Ukraine war with more killing machines. The oil companies take a back seat to no one when it comes to thievery. Where are the government regulators when gas prices explode? Good question. Enough corruption in plain sight to start hundreds of mass protests. But the young people are no-shows trapped in a market-based higher education system that hands out rewards to providers at the expense of recipients. Maybe that’s why both Biden and Obama made campaign promises about debt cancellation and free public college that they had no intention of keeping. It’s not just the first amendment that’s on the verge of disappearing, there’s much, much more. In Let Them Eat Cake — The New American Way, we follow the money and discover the enormous profit center forty-five million Americans have become.

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Somebody Please Tell Twitter, Google, Facebook, Apple and Amazon that the First Amendment is Not Optional

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Big Tech Censorship

“The best test of truth is the power of the thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market, and that truth is the only ground upon which their wishes safely can be carried out.” [Oliver Wendell Holmes] That was then almost a century ago. This is now at a point where free speech and a free press (First Amendment, U.S. Constitution) have become optional, regulated by the nine billionaires who control all forms of media. You would think elected representatives, up to the president, would be all over corporate censorship of free speech, using the power of the bully pulpit to force them to cease and desist. The silence from Washington is ominous. A free ride for the corporate hacks who increasingly tell us what to believe and refuse to allow contrary ideas on their sites. They even brag about sharing their tyranny with their partners in crime, the government — “We have shared information about our analysis with law enforcement, policymakers and industry partners.” Count on it, none of the political cowards in the executive or legislative branches of government are going to go toe to toe with the corporate scoundrels that keep them on the gravy train. Want to know how we got here? Why the real answer to “bad” speech is more speech not less? Check out “Somebody Please Tell Twitter, Google, Facebook, Apple and Amazon that the First Amendment is Not Optional.”

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U.S. Hypocrisy and the War in Ukraine

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Ukraine and U.S.

Not all refugees are equal in a world ruled by elites where incompetence, greed, and obeisance to wealth and power create calamitous conditions for the millions who are not wealthy or powerful. Along with their co-conspirators the mainstream media, the U.S. and its hand-maiden European countries would have you believe that there are two classes of refugees — the worthy and the unworthy [Noam Chomsky]. You can probably guess where the line of demarcation falls. On the worthy side, Europeans, in this case Ukrainians, majority white and with the patina of “civilized” stamped all over them. Here’s what’s in store for them as they flee home and country — “At the Polish border, guards hand out sandwiches to Ukrainians in waiting rooms. Polish citizens donate piles of toys and meet migrants with hot tea and free rides to where they need to go.” If you were both unworthy and fleeing war-torn Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya or Syria, you weren’t so lucky. As the bombs fell, and the refugee totals swelled, Hungarian Prime Minister Orbán announced that Hungary’s restrictive immigration policies would remain in place — “[W]e aren’t going to let anyone in.” He’s not the only leader shaping his immigration policy to the skin color of refugees: “EU, fearful of refugee crisis, delays response on Afghan asylum.” [Aljazeera, 10/15/2021] Call it what you will — disgraceful, obscene, horrendous — chalk it up to the price extracted by one nation in particular whose dreams of a Pax Americana have spiraled down into a death grip on past glories fast slipping away. People all over the world are feeling the pain of that “grand delusion.” [John Mearscheimer] Check out what happens when racism determines the fate of millions in “U.S. Hypocrisy and the War in Ukraine.”

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U.S. in the Crosshairs: Today an Empire, Tomorrow a Failed State

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WAR

Being an empire is hard work. Trillion-dollar military budgets, multiple countries to invade, sanction and turn into wastelands. For decades, it has consumed the half-wits that design and carry out what is laughingly referred to as U.S. foreign policy. As the Russia/Ukraine fiasco captures the world’s attention, it’s important to understand how the U.S. with its long history of fomenting international discord has been a major part of the momentum bringing the world to this perilous moment. Since 1945 the U.S. has embraced military solutions to world problems. It hasn’t worked out well for the U.S. or the countries in its crosshairs. Greece and Italy were among the first victims and once the CIA got through interfering, both countries were safely in the hands of rich oligarchs in business and finance. In a pattern that would be repeated endlessly, the U.S. sent troops to Korea. Much more than a losing a war, the toll included three million Koreans, 38,000 Americans and a destroyed country. It happened again in Vietnam and more recently in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Somalia and Yemen, to name a few. Not that the U.S. with its impressive fire power hasn’t put a few in the win column. Solid victories in the Dominican Republic and Panama, two little countries with a combined population of just over six million and pathetically few military resources. How good is that? Nonetheless the U.S. keeps plugging along, alert to even an infinitesimal injury to its bloated self-worth. There’s lots more to talk about but little to brag about. For an unmatched tale of villainy and ignominy, check out U.S. in the Crosshairs: Today an Empire, Tomorrow a Failed State.

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To Shield Corporate Healthcare Crooks, US Anoints COVID the Lone Perp

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Fix For US Healthcare

It’s the worst kept secret in the world. Even the clueless media have to come to grips with it.

Hospital Outsourcing Often Prioritizes Profit Over Patients. “[Texas A&M Today 8/20/2021];

 

“The Catastrophic Cost of Uninsurance: Covid-19 Cases And Deaths Closely Tied To America’s Health Coverage Gaps” [Families USA 3/4/20210];

“Push for Profits Left Nursing Homes Struggling to Provide Care” [The New York Times 5/7/2020];

The invasion of private equity and other corporate criminals into the health industry has put a deteriorating healthcare system on life support. COVID made a bad situation a shit show. With only 5% of the world’s population and the biggest healthcare budget in the world, the U.S. is also first in the number of COVID cases and deaths. It’s clear that COVID isn’t the only perp. Could part of the answer be the 89 million uninsured or underinsured Americans that have been victimized by corporate honchos chasing profits? Or does it come down to a $4 trillion healthcare market, 20% of U.S. GDP, that has motivated a corporate gold rush? With 24% of hospitals under private ownership, more than half of emergency room physicians working for private, profit-making companies, 70% of nursing homes and 47% of doctors’ practices owned by private companies, America’s healthcare woes began long before COVID and will outlast it. Want to know how America’s healthcare grifters sacrifice people to profits and spin fairy tales to hide it? Check out “To Shield Corporate Healthcare Crooks, U.S. Anoints Covid the Lone Perp”

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For-Profit Healthcare Meets the Pandemic and Collapses

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Single Payer Now

Although the U.S. has less than 5% of the world’s population, U.S. COVID cases currently (as of Jan. 18, 2021) comprise a staggering 20% of world-wide COVID cases and 15% of the world’s COVID deaths. How is that possible? It boils down to one big lack —a national single payer health care system (aka Medicare-for-all). Instead America has a for-profit healthcare industry focused on private gain not public health. The evidence is everywhere you look whether it’s the contradictory messaging coming out of government health agencies, stumbling and bumbling progress in acquiring needed equipment and supplies and the specter of all segments of the medical industrial complex from providers to institutions trying to make a quick buck off the backs of desperate Americans. How could single payer healthcare surmount these obstacles? First and foremost, end the reign of the private health insurance industry where faceless bureaucrats hold the power of life or death over their customers by denying treatment or medication. End those punishing premiums, deductibles and copays that make health insurance unaffordable for a vast number of Americans. End employees’ fear that losing their jobs will cut off their families’ access to medical care. End those narrow provider networks which rob people of the freedom to choose a provider or facility. Between for-profit medical care and rampaging COVID, it’s been a bleak winter in the U.S. To those of you who shake your heads in frustration or bow them in resignation, check out “For-Profit Healthcare Meets the Pandemic and Collapses” and prepare to be dumbfounded at how deep the rot in for-profit medicine goes.

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Liability-Proof: On the March to Big Profits, Big Pharma Leaves No Stone Unturned

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Overpatnted Overpriced

Leave it to the drug industry to work all the angles. But that’s the way it is when you’re Big Pharma and your business model is to receive billions in public subsidies, charge exorbitant prices for life-saving medicines, and withhold those same life-saving medicines from countries that cannot afford to hand over the big bucks. Think how the champagne corks are popping in the boardrooms of wealthy investors as Pfizer predicts 2021 revenues from the COVID vaccine alone will top $36 billion. Then there’s Moderna with no history of winning FDA authorization for any of its drugs now expecting 2021 revenues of $18 billion from its COVID vaccine. In fact, two of Moderna’s founders and one of its investors are among 44 new billionaires on Forbes’ list of 400 richest Americans. But that’s not the only way big Pharma brings home the bacon. Thanks to its outsized gifts to Congress and the White House, it has total immunity from having to pay for its mistakes. Unlike every other product manufacturer, vaccine makers cannot be sued for defective vaccines that cause lasting harm or death. In short, big Pharma has a total and impermeable vaccine liability shield. Even the Supreme Court gave its blessing to this monumental blunder. Why you might ask. Because big pharma like the schoolyard bully uses threats to get its way—hold us accountable for our screw ups and we’ll stop making vaccines. You’d have to be a fool or a pharma flunky to believe that a profit-hungry industry would walk away from a pot of gold, even a somewhat reduced one. What description best fits politicians under the thumb of pharma as well as the heads of federal health agencies looking to advance their careers with future employment in the pharma industry? Read “On the March to Big Profits, Big Pharma Leaves No Stone Unturned” and decide for yourself.

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Progressive in Free Fall: Compromise and Capitulation

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Not Great News
Abandon hope all ye who persist in believing that you are going to be saved by the Democrats. Their record is tarnished by a long line of democratic presidents notable for their subservience to corporations and billionaires. Case in point, William Jefferson Clinton who “felt our pain,” as he kicked millions of needy families off welfare rolls, deregulated the financial behemoths and with the help of our current president signed a crime bill that made America the world’s largest penal colony. It wasn’t long (eight years) before Obama, the consummate shape shifter, gave the U.S. another first — world’s leading producer of crude oil. His other “accomplishments” — kicking ten million people out of their homes, enacting policies that led to a significant redistribution of wealth upwards and a decline in the standard of living for people of color. Following in the footsteps of these two charlatans, enter Joe Biden who never met an oligarch he couldn’t fawn over. All the “right” people, the mainstream media, his bros in Congress, his buddies in the fossil fuel and pharmaceutical industries and assorted billionaires are over the moon at how successfully he has unwound social reforms the overwhelming majority of Americans favor. Where do the progressives stand on the fate of their “non-negotiable” programs? In the usual place, on their knees gobbling about the joys of “incremental reform” and turning their gaze away from the pain corporate gouging and billionaires in the tax-free zone are inflicting on working Americans. Take heart, our newest Democratic president is not a complete liar. The one promise he made and kept was to his wealthy benefactors — “Nothing will fundamentally change.” If you believe the congressional “progressives’ that the porridge contained in these two bills is “historic legislation [that] delivers on many of the promises that Democrats made to invest in working people across America, you really should read “Progressives in Free Fall: Compromise and Capitulation.”

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Promising to Keep the U.S. Safe and Healthy, Military Contractors and Big Pharma Executives Cash In — Part 2: Pharma Execs on the Hot Seat

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Politicians Cash In

True or false — highway robbery by the drug companies is the price we pay for innovative research? Judge for yourself — U.S. is the only high-income country that does not negotiate drug prices with big pharma. In the first half of 2019, the price of 3,400 drugs in the U.S. increased, but not in Europe. If Medicare, the largest buyer of medicines in the U.S. and together with Medicaid in the world, starts negotiating prices what are the consequences? The sky won’t fall but drug companies will be forced to do less profiteering. About that drug company-inspired myth that the end of outrageous pricing spells the end of innovation—guess where the research for the successful Pfizer mRNA vaccine originated — in drug price-regulated Germany. As a myriad of studies have found, industry’s enormous profits since the 1970s—the most profitable U.S. industry — have nothing to do with the amount it invests on R&D. What makes them rich is aggressive marketing and over the top pricing in the U.S. Two factors which cut Americans’ lives short. Even before the pandemic, Europeans lived three years longer than white Americans and six years longer than black Americans. “The greed of the prescription drug industry is literally killing Americans. All over this country, the American people are asking a simple question: How many people need to die, how many people need to get unnecessarily sicker, before Congress is prepared to take on the greed of the prescription drug industry.” [Bernie Sanders]. But feel-your-pain rhetoric won’t cut it anymore. The men and women we elect to Congress and to the White House should be answering these questions with action. Why aren’t they? Want to get the real skinny on the failure of politicians to stand up to Big Pharma when it counts? First buy a pitchfork and then read “Promising to Keep the U.S. Safe and Healthy, Military Contractors and Big Pharma Executives Cash In — Part 2: Pharma Execs on the Hot Seat.”

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Promising to Keep the U.S. Safe and Healthy, Military Contractors and Big Pharma Executives Cash In — Part One

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War is a Money Maker
“Our 20-year war was a strategic failure [General Mark Milley, Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff]. Strategic failure yes, but for military contractors, Congress members, media personalities, high ranking military officers, foreign policy “experts” in and out of the administration, think tanks, research departments of major U.S universities it was a big payday. According to folks at the Watson Institute at Brown University, the U.S. has wasted $14 trillion dollars on wars since 9/11. Defense industry contractors made off with $7 trillion of that. Much of that money has been spent on a U.S. murder spree with “at least 5.8 to 6 million people likely to have died overall due to the War on Terror – a staggering number which is still probably very conservative.” [Byline Times report]. The rot that all this unregulated money produces goes all the way up the political food chain to the White House. When Dick Chaney, former CEO of Halliburton, a defense industry contractor, was George Bush’s vice president, he racked in big bucks when his old firm collected $30 billion most in no-bid contracts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Dick Chaney’s net worth today? $105 million. When will the U.S. embrace peace? Never as long as war is so profitable for the elites. “We have a massive presence overseas…the perverse incentive to facilitate a war economy we’re giving more money to the Pentagon than ever to keep this going…It is a small elite who are making massive amounts of money off conflict or the potential for conflict and being driven by fear…” [Thomas Drake, former senior executive of the NSA and a whistleblower] Sick to your stomach yet? There’s lots more. You’ll find some of it in “Promising to Keep the U.S. Safe and Healthy, Military Contractors and Big Pharma Executives Cash In — Part One.”

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