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Wednesday, March 17, 2010

● HEALTH CARE

END THE MASSIVE CORPORATE TAKEOVER OF HEALTH CARE.

I'm glad to see that Kucinich has signed on to vote YES
for the health care bill, but I would've rather seen...

Health Care is a Civil Right

Health Care is a Civil Right

...but I would have rather seen the Administration sign on to a public option. People forget that the public option was the compromise, and what we really need is a single payer or Medicare For All system.

● Every other industrialized country has universal healthcare.
● At least 70% of Americans support health insurance reform that includes a public option. [Kaiser Family Foundation, Quinnipac, WSJ/NBC News, September 2009]
● Over 70% of US doctors support a public option in health insurance reform. [Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, 9/14/09]
● The largest nurses group in the US refers to private insurance as "The Real Death Panels" for denying 1 out of every 5 claims, leaving millions uninsured, and ultimately leading to the deaths of over a million Americans.
● Private insurance companies make money by dropping people when they get sick, which means, even if you currently have insurance, you have no assurance that you will have it when you need it.
● The housing crisis and the economy are connected to private insurance, since most foreclosures are due or partially due to healthcare costs. Many people have had to choose between saving a family member or losing their house.
● It's not the public option that's the problem, it's clearly the private option that's upsetting people's lives.
● 44 thousand Americans die each year because they cannot afford healthcare.
● Since Nixon began the health care scam that brings us to where we are today, more than one million Americans have died because they could not afford healthcare.


So, this bill is far from perfect. Obama and the democrats lost the opportunity to pass real health care reform, by being too concerned with pleasing private insurance, big pharma, and conservatives (being too bipartisan and too right-wing). Rather than listening to Dennis Kucinich (and his own constituents, the American people), Obama listened to conservatives such as Chuck Grassley, who put the individual mandate to buy insurance in the bill, and then complained about it as if it wasn't his (Grassley's) own idea. Grassley also was one of the biggest promoters of the death panel lie. Obama's a smart man, so why did he waste so much time listening to the hard right? ...only to ruin the bill and lower his poll numbers. The fight for decent healthcare-for-all has just begun, again.

I like Obama, but we have to pressure him to listen to the left. If he only gets pressure from the right and support from the left, he'll move further to the right, as we have seen. Let's keep pushing for Medicare For All.


http://kucinich.us/dk.html
END CORPORATE CONTROL OF HEALTHCARE

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Tuesday, March 2, 2010

● Anthony Weiner on Fox

Anthony Weiner calls out Fox & Friends
for misinforming the public on health care

Calling Out 'Fox & Friends' On Their
Lies About Health Care:


Rep.[D] Anthony Weiner criticizing the ongoing Fox campaign to "lie" and spread "disinformation" about health care reform.

Anthony Weiner: We should be honest about something here: On programs like this, there's been an enormous amount of disinformation about what's in the bill. An enormous amount.

Brian Kilmeade: Well, that's according to you. (pause) I mean, that's what you think is...

AW: Look, I think there has been an orchestrated effort in a lot of quarters to lie about the bill. We went through...

Steve Doocy: What are we lying about?

AW: Well, don't take it all personally. Programs like, ...I said programs like yours...

BK: Don't be so defensive, Steve!

AW: Let me ask you something.

BK: "Like" yours!

AW: Let me ask you something.

SD: I can get this guy in a headlock!

AW: Let me ask you something. Did anyone talk about "death panels" on this show in the last six months? Of course. Okay, that was a lie. That was a lie. The only point that I'm making here, gentlemen, is that you can't simply put your finger up in the air and say, "What do people want?" For one thing, when people ask about "the bill" ...there hasn't even been "a bill" until now.




http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/201003020011

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Thursday, February 14, 2008

● RESIST G.M. FOODSTUFF


● ● ● ...

...
● In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto.
....-Michael Pollan
.................................and
The Omnivore’s Dilemma. Author Michael Pollan advises, “Don’t Buy Any Food You’ve Ever Seen Advertised.”

Michael Pollan, one of the nation’s leading thinkers and writers on food. The author of several books about food, including The Botany of Desire, The Omnivore’s Dilemma, and In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto, warns of the processed food industry’s co-option of “sustainability” and its vast spending on marketing, Pollan advises to be wary of any food that’s advertised.

"The CDC, Centers for Disease Control, estimates that of the $2 trillion we’re spending on healthcare in this country, $1.5 trillion is for the treatment of preventable chronic disease. Now, that’s not all food, because you have smoking in there, too, and alcoholism. But the bulk of it is food." -Michael Pollan

"The most salient point is simply, [we] are not going to be able to tackle either the healthcare crisis or climate change unless [we] look at our food system. In the case of climate change, food is responsible for about a third of greenhouse gases, the way we’re growing food, the way we’re processing it and the way we’re eating. And the healthcare crisis... ...we are not going to be able to reform healthcare, which depends on getting the cost of healthcare down, without addressing... ...the catastrophe of the American diet. So we need to address it. It’s really the shadow issue over these other two issues." -Michael Pollan

omni·vore |ˈämnəˌvôr|
noun
an animal or person that eats food (or foodstuff)
of both plant and animal origin.

ORIGIN late 19th cent.: from French, from Latin omnivorus ‘omnivorous.’
. . .

food·stuff |foōd·stəf|
noun
A substance with some foodlike qualities that can be used or prepared for use as food, but generally lacks the health benefits of real food.
. . .
On Democracy Now February 13, 2008
In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto by Author, Journalist Michael Pollan on Nutrition, Food Science and the
American Diet.

Acclaimed author and journalist Michael Pollan argues that what most Americans are
Pollanweb
consuming today is not food but “edible food-like substances.” His previous book, The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals, was named one of the ten best books of 2006 by the New York Times and the Washington Post. His latest book, just published, is called In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto.
WATCH
LISTEN
Real Video Stream
More Info...
Michael Pollan, Professor of science and environmental journalism at UC Berkeley. Real Video Stream
. . .

You say potātō,
I say genetically modified foodstuff.
I agree with Michael Pollan, in that what most Americans are consuming today is not food but “edible food-like substances.” I've often said that we shouldn't even have to have the term "health food", since food by definition should already be healthy. Unfortunately, the categorizes have been reversed, where pancakes, potatochips, and cheeseburgers are considered to be real food, while carrots and celery are considered to be rabbit food, hence not real food.

I also agree that thinking about food in terms of Nutrition defined by "the experts" can be misleading. Although, I think if we redefine nutrition to mean whole organic foods (usually plants) then it does serve a purpose. Most people that I've talked to don't really care that much about nutrition, maybe for the reasons discussed by Michael Pollan. Maybe people intuitively know there's a problem with nutritional science, so they ignore the whole idea of whether or not, what they're consuming is "good or bad" for them. Or, they just don't care because culture and tradition trump nutrition almost every time. Every time, that is, until they merge, which they increasingly are. But right now "nutrition" is the dysfunctional way, in which we make these health decisions about our eating habits, if we make these decisions at all.

My opinion varies from Michael Pollan a little on a small point, where he claims that people are eating or shopping in an effort to advance their health. This is true to a degree, but from my experience, people still eat according to how and where they were raised. It's just that, culture has been taken over by capital. It is the influence of big business on culture and nutritional science that is the problem. Michael Pollan recognizes this point. The difference in my opinion from his is simply that he sees this as a turning away from culture and pleasure, where I see it as a cultural shift, and manufactured wants replacing genuine pleasure.

Most people still do eat according to their culture, but the dominant cultures in the U.S. are increasingly influenced and determined by unregulated market forces. Yet, another example of what deregulated markets should not determine. Maybe the health of our bodies is in direct proportion to the health of our economic system. With regulations that only protect capital and not consumers, seeds that don't reproduce, and genetic modification, now not even our fruits and vegetables are safe. Fortunately, there's a growing resistance to this trend and the only question is whether or not we will be informed and act in time.

Also see:
Campaign against Genetically Modified Organisms
Monsanto: Planting Local Seeds, Sprouting Global Effects


✿ > ☠

foodstuff ...

YOU SAY TOMĀTŌ, I SAY RĒSIST !

...or genetically modified edible food-like substance.

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