I love seeing you on corporate media since you bring a breath of fresh air. I wish Tur could have gotten to asking what you believe the solution might be. Which is, as you wrote, Universal Healthcare. That’s it. That needs to be coming out of the mouths of every democrat every day everywhere.
This is not directed at all at Anand because he doesn't do this at all, in fact he is often someone who does the exact opposite in words here and words on news shows like this, but the moral high ground the Katy Turs and others are climbing on while spending the last how many years normalizing and sane washing the harms that the first Trump Administration exacted upon all of us, and now again in just a few weeks is just breathtaking. Media wanted another Trump administration because it sells clicks and eyeballs and they got it and we will all suffer for it.
Yes, universally people are angry about the health"care" system in the United States because while Mr United Health was not pulling the trigger, he was shuffling all the paperwork that killed a lot more people. And will continue to. And if folks think that somehow this administration is going to make things better, well, I am not sure how anyone could have gleaned that in the last 9 years through its actions and its deeds. Please stop saying that thing where both sides don't feel heard and both sides are bad.
Only one political party is sending us all down a very dangerous path which not only will harm our friends and family in this country but absolutely create a crisis with our world allies wondering whether we can be trusted in any way.
There must be a way of expressing hope for the dire situation of health insurance companies that deny people coverage. Universal health care is desired by a big majority of Americans. Affordable, publicly supported housing dies not have to be shoddy, just as publicly funded schooling can be helpful and realistic. Other countries provide for dignified care for the disabled, mentally challenged and elderly. The ultra-rich must be forced to bear a proportionate share for the common good. It should not be too much to expect fairness. Socialism (government legal support) for the wealthy has been accepted for generations. A case for public welfare without negative connotations can be made, with ardent sincerity.
WARNING: The collapse of American medicine signals a looming 50% stock market crash and an abrupt economic halt in the Eurozone. France's downgrade is the first domino, with global markets on the brink. Prepare for impact. #EconomicCollapse
‘Restricting a woman’s right to choose whether to terminate an unwanted pregnancy is the same as denying her control over her own body,’ writes Melania Trump, in her personal memoir, a month before her husband, Don’s, third attempt to become President of the USA (in 2024).
“It is imperative to guarantee that women have autonomy in deciding their preference of having children, based on their own convictions, free from any intervention or pressure from the government,” the Republican nominee’s wife writes, amid a campaign in which Donald Trump’s threats to women’s reproductive rights have played a central role.
Why, I was asked, on Friday 13th (of December, 2024) for the umpteenth time, has Drumpf taken up with the religious far-right? Finally it struck me.
The story goes back a while. And crosses the Atlantic a few times too, (the ‘pond’ as the English bourgeoisie/oligarchy/billion-oracy is so fond of calling it. Bear with me ...
It starts with a 16-year old boy called Aston. Born in 1912 in Woodstock, Cape Town (?) he was a very bright, precocious child, and got an MSc in physics at the age of 21. He happened to be my father, or I happened to be his son, although I only ever got to know him in passing (either way, that’s the way the dice rolled.)
His father, Peter (?) grew up as the son of opportunist ‘hill-farmers’ / whisky (+) smugglers and vagabonds, in a small town called Branscombe in Devon, UK, where they hid the hooch they had ‘retrieved’ from the sea behind the fire-place in the living room, (after lighting false fires on the hill-sides - as one did - to lure passing merchant ships onto the rocks, so they could get their hands on the crates of booze.)
The fireplace which he proudly showed his children, including my father, when they visited his mother (one of the much exploited Branscombe/Honiton lace-makers) when they came to visit from London, some years later. By then Peter had been ordained as a Methodist preacher-man, and was doing a stint as the pastor of a huge congregation in the Brick Lane area of East London (UK.)
So naturally (the mind boggles at the effrontery of it) some years later, Aston was invited by his father, Peter, to become a lay preacher on Sunday evenings in his church/es. A 16 year old preaching morality to the wizened congregation, many of them 3 or 4 times his age. Peter had clearly escaped from the working classes by then, had invested in South African Gold Shares, and later became head of the Methodist Congregation in South Africa. His other son, Graham was wont to say, out loud, to his father that he had just swopped one kind of fire insurance (he started off in Manchester selling insurance) for another one (Christianity.)
However, in the year of our Lord, 1928, Aston got up into the pulpit in his father’s church, one Sunday, and instead of preaching to them about how the blood our Lord was shed to save us all, proceeded to explain to the congregation how he was ‘coming out’ as a proud atheist. Which he was, until the day he died in Pretoria, in 1976.
Yet somehow he remained a corner stone of the family, not to mention a prominent educationalist - even under Apartheid – though I’m sure he didn’t discuss religion with his Broederbond colleagues, who were all nominally ‘White, Christian Nationalists’.
At this stage the story arabesques to America (where Aston got his PhD in Education, at Columbia University, some years later.) It picks up with the biggest marketing con since Rockefeller’s imposition of the ‘octane’ standard / scam on the world, which made him millions of dollars: David Sackler’s con selling ‘non-addictive’ opioids to the American market, ‘legally’ with the full backing of the FDA.
Now thereby hangs the tail: In Empire of Pain, Patrick Radden Keefe’s book about Arthur Sackler’s empire (ongoing collective worth of the Sackler ‘family’ in 2024: $10.8 Billion – Entertainment News), and the Netflix’s ‘documentary’ that followed.
The end of the Netflix programme has a scene in which the ghost of David Sackler (the grand-daddy of the ‘legalised-scam’) berates his son and heir, (Raymond/Richard – take your pick) berates his son for the deal: to pay a fine of a number of billion dollars to the US Treasury, not because of the money (they will soon afterwards, as has been documented in Entertainment News, be worth far more than the Treasury ever got out of them), but because of the threat to his name – “David Sackler” which has been progressively trashed by most, if not all of the receivers of his ‘largess’(the Metropolitan Museum in New York still had a ‘Sackler Wing’ when I last visited it a few years ago.)
So, what’s the issue? How do all these dots connect? Simples, as the meerkats in the TV adds say. Immortality.
David Sackler, according to Keeffe’s meticulous book (above) was fixated on getting his name (not “Sackler”, but “David Sackler”) immortalised – inscribed all over America, and parts of the wide world’s museums and best medical institutions – many of which had refused his applications for medical school. Immortality (a la ‘Carnegie’ – another American Billionaire) was the only thing David Sackler cared about. He wanted to ensure that he was immortalised.
The opioids are, strangely, not the issue. It’s immortality. (Which is being still being chipped away; but the jury is still out on whether anyone else will refuse a donation from a family whose net worth seems to have already ballooned beyond $10.8 billion.)
So to get back to the Donald. Why would he (particularly since he is still – formally – married to Melania – see above) want to get into bed with the religious ‘right’ in America? The answer is blindingly obvious. It’s Immortality Stupid; it’s the ‘USP’ of the religious right, and religious institutions world-wide.
Why? Because it’s the simplest, oldest, and best con, ever. No contest. There is no possibility that you’ll ever get your money back. Unless you believe in immortality, which means you have already been conned. So you lose your money both ways. There has never been a better sting. And underneath it (dare I say) is the truly virtuous meme of charitable giving – in Judaism, Tzedakah or Mitzvah. Islam has much the same prescription too and the third Abrahamic religion, Christianity, used to emphasize it, but it seems to have fallen into disuse.
But immortality (still) rules - as the best, and the most fool-proof con in human history. The Donald is nothing but an opportunist, a transactionalist, so how could he resist an alliance with fellow travellers on the road to ‘immortality’? You need to be either a believer or an utter cynic to follow him, but either way, you lose. He wins, and he is still married to Melania.
(But don’t bet on her still being ‘married’ to him as soon as he leaves the White House.)
For the next four years, he has the keys of the ‘White’ House to prove it. He’s the best con man, ever, to get into the White House (twice!)
"The U.S. war on opioids has criminalized doctors and left patients in agony. Instead of targeting physicians, we need policies that support compassionate care and address the real drivers of addiction like poverty and mental health."
"Qlarant's 'Manhattan Project' for the opioid crisis is more like a 'Manhattan Project' of stupidity. Their algorithms target doctors with pseudoscience, ignoring real solutions while overdose rates soar. They're not solving the crisis; they're just creating a healthcare horror show."
I love seeing you on corporate media since you bring a breath of fresh air. I wish Tur could have gotten to asking what you believe the solution might be. Which is, as you wrote, Universal Healthcare. That’s it. That needs to be coming out of the mouths of every democrat every day everywhere.
This is not directed at all at Anand because he doesn't do this at all, in fact he is often someone who does the exact opposite in words here and words on news shows like this, but the moral high ground the Katy Turs and others are climbing on while spending the last how many years normalizing and sane washing the harms that the first Trump Administration exacted upon all of us, and now again in just a few weeks is just breathtaking. Media wanted another Trump administration because it sells clicks and eyeballs and they got it and we will all suffer for it.
Yes, universally people are angry about the health"care" system in the United States because while Mr United Health was not pulling the trigger, he was shuffling all the paperwork that killed a lot more people. And will continue to. And if folks think that somehow this administration is going to make things better, well, I am not sure how anyone could have gleaned that in the last 9 years through its actions and its deeds. Please stop saying that thing where both sides don't feel heard and both sides are bad.
Only one political party is sending us all down a very dangerous path which not only will harm our friends and family in this country but absolutely create a crisis with our world allies wondering whether we can be trusted in any way.
Thank you both, Katie and Anand, for the beginning of what I hope will become a national conversation on healthcare.
There must be a way of expressing hope for the dire situation of health insurance companies that deny people coverage. Universal health care is desired by a big majority of Americans. Affordable, publicly supported housing dies not have to be shoddy, just as publicly funded schooling can be helpful and realistic. Other countries provide for dignified care for the disabled, mentally challenged and elderly. The ultra-rich must be forced to bear a proportionate share for the common good. It should not be too much to expect fairness. Socialism (government legal support) for the wealthy has been accepted for generations. A case for public welfare without negative connotations can be made, with ardent sincerity.
WARNING: The collapse of American medicine signals a looming 50% stock market crash and an abrupt economic halt in the Eurozone. France's downgrade is the first domino, with global markets on the brink. Prepare for impact. #EconomicCollapse
https://doctorsofcourage.org/the-complete-collapse-of-american-medicine/
Trump and the Immortality of the Soul.
‘Restricting a woman’s right to choose whether to terminate an unwanted pregnancy is the same as denying her control over her own body,’ writes Melania Trump, in her personal memoir, a month before her husband, Don’s, third attempt to become President of the USA (in 2024).
“It is imperative to guarantee that women have autonomy in deciding their preference of having children, based on their own convictions, free from any intervention or pressure from the government,” the Republican nominee’s wife writes, amid a campaign in which Donald Trump’s threats to women’s reproductive rights have played a central role.
Why, I was asked, on Friday 13th (of December, 2024) for the umpteenth time, has Drumpf taken up with the religious far-right? Finally it struck me.
The story goes back a while. And crosses the Atlantic a few times too, (the ‘pond’ as the English bourgeoisie/oligarchy/billion-oracy is so fond of calling it. Bear with me ...
It starts with a 16-year old boy called Aston. Born in 1912 in Woodstock, Cape Town (?) he was a very bright, precocious child, and got an MSc in physics at the age of 21. He happened to be my father, or I happened to be his son, although I only ever got to know him in passing (either way, that’s the way the dice rolled.)
His father, Peter (?) grew up as the son of opportunist ‘hill-farmers’ / whisky (+) smugglers and vagabonds, in a small town called Branscombe in Devon, UK, where they hid the hooch they had ‘retrieved’ from the sea behind the fire-place in the living room, (after lighting false fires on the hill-sides - as one did - to lure passing merchant ships onto the rocks, so they could get their hands on the crates of booze.)
The fireplace which he proudly showed his children, including my father, when they visited his mother (one of the much exploited Branscombe/Honiton lace-makers) when they came to visit from London, some years later. By then Peter had been ordained as a Methodist preacher-man, and was doing a stint as the pastor of a huge congregation in the Brick Lane area of East London (UK.)
So naturally (the mind boggles at the effrontery of it) some years later, Aston was invited by his father, Peter, to become a lay preacher on Sunday evenings in his church/es. A 16 year old preaching morality to the wizened congregation, many of them 3 or 4 times his age. Peter had clearly escaped from the working classes by then, had invested in South African Gold Shares, and later became head of the Methodist Congregation in South Africa. His other son, Graham was wont to say, out loud, to his father that he had just swopped one kind of fire insurance (he started off in Manchester selling insurance) for another one (Christianity.)
However, in the year of our Lord, 1928, Aston got up into the pulpit in his father’s church, one Sunday, and instead of preaching to them about how the blood our Lord was shed to save us all, proceeded to explain to the congregation how he was ‘coming out’ as a proud atheist. Which he was, until the day he died in Pretoria, in 1976.
Yet somehow he remained a corner stone of the family, not to mention a prominent educationalist - even under Apartheid – though I’m sure he didn’t discuss religion with his Broederbond colleagues, who were all nominally ‘White, Christian Nationalists’.
At this stage the story arabesques to America (where Aston got his PhD in Education, at Columbia University, some years later.) It picks up with the biggest marketing con since Rockefeller’s imposition of the ‘octane’ standard / scam on the world, which made him millions of dollars: David Sackler’s con selling ‘non-addictive’ opioids to the American market, ‘legally’ with the full backing of the FDA.
Now thereby hangs the tail: In Empire of Pain, Patrick Radden Keefe’s book about Arthur Sackler’s empire (ongoing collective worth of the Sackler ‘family’ in 2024: $10.8 Billion – Entertainment News), and the Netflix’s ‘documentary’ that followed.
The end of the Netflix programme has a scene in which the ghost of David Sackler (the grand-daddy of the ‘legalised-scam’) berates his son and heir, (Raymond/Richard – take your pick) berates his son for the deal: to pay a fine of a number of billion dollars to the US Treasury, not because of the money (they will soon afterwards, as has been documented in Entertainment News, be worth far more than the Treasury ever got out of them), but because of the threat to his name – “David Sackler” which has been progressively trashed by most, if not all of the receivers of his ‘largess’(the Metropolitan Museum in New York still had a ‘Sackler Wing’ when I last visited it a few years ago.)
So, what’s the issue? How do all these dots connect? Simples, as the meerkats in the TV adds say. Immortality.
David Sackler, according to Keeffe’s meticulous book (above) was fixated on getting his name (not “Sackler”, but “David Sackler”) immortalised – inscribed all over America, and parts of the wide world’s museums and best medical institutions – many of which had refused his applications for medical school. Immortality (a la ‘Carnegie’ – another American Billionaire) was the only thing David Sackler cared about. He wanted to ensure that he was immortalised.
The opioids are, strangely, not the issue. It’s immortality. (Which is being still being chipped away; but the jury is still out on whether anyone else will refuse a donation from a family whose net worth seems to have already ballooned beyond $10.8 billion.)
So to get back to the Donald. Why would he (particularly since he is still – formally – married to Melania – see above) want to get into bed with the religious ‘right’ in America? The answer is blindingly obvious. It’s Immortality Stupid; it’s the ‘USP’ of the religious right, and religious institutions world-wide.
Why? Because it’s the simplest, oldest, and best con, ever. No contest. There is no possibility that you’ll ever get your money back. Unless you believe in immortality, which means you have already been conned. So you lose your money both ways. There has never been a better sting. And underneath it (dare I say) is the truly virtuous meme of charitable giving – in Judaism, Tzedakah or Mitzvah. Islam has much the same prescription too and the third Abrahamic religion, Christianity, used to emphasize it, but it seems to have fallen into disuse.
But immortality (still) rules - as the best, and the most fool-proof con in human history. The Donald is nothing but an opportunist, a transactionalist, so how could he resist an alliance with fellow travellers on the road to ‘immortality’? You need to be either a believer or an utter cynic to follow him, but either way, you lose. He wins, and he is still married to Melania.
(But don’t bet on her still being ‘married’ to him as soon as he leaves the White House.)
For the next four years, he has the keys of the ‘White’ House to prove it. He’s the best con man, ever, to get into the White House (twice!)
Don’t you just love America!
"The U.S. war on opioids has criminalized doctors and left patients in agony. Instead of targeting physicians, we need policies that support compassionate care and address the real drivers of addiction like poverty and mental health."
https://doctorsofcourage.org/the-united-states-black-mirror-war-against-doctors-and-patients/
"Qlarant's 'Manhattan Project' for the opioid crisis is more like a 'Manhattan Project' of stupidity. Their algorithms target doctors with pseudoscience, ignoring real solutions while overdose rates soar. They're not solving the crisis; they're just creating a healthcare horror show."
https://youarewithinthenorms.com/2024/12/12/qlarant-the-einstein-wannabees-that-have-been-rewarded-billions-of-dollars-creating-junk-science-its-now-time-to-put-them-on-the-elon-ramaswamy-chopping-budgetary-block-podcast/