I found it difficult to stomach the intellectual gymnastics and mental legerdemain Thom engaged at the close-of-business on Friday. Damned me if I’m going to allow him or any other white person get away with that outrage he and all these other white “liberals” and “mainstream” media types have been making to justify the conduct of that Cambridge police officer. Henry Louis Gates supplied the proof of his innocence of any crime to that officer. That officer knew a mistake had been made. Yet this officer arrested him--because he had the badge and the gun—in other words, he had all the power to use and abuse, which he did; Gates was the sole person in this situation who was powerless, and his position as a Harvard professor and possession of the moral high ground was completely immaterial. But far worse than any of this is the idea that you must be completely subservient to police, meaning you cannot say anything that a “sensitive”—especially with the trigger finger—cop might construe as “disrespectful,” even if you are clearly innocent. Must we assume upon encountering a cop that they are all bullies and thugs, just waiting to show you how “courageous” they are? You as a law-abiding citizen have no First Amendment rights when it comes to confronting police abuse of power, especially if you are a racial minority. You can even be beaten or killed, and an all-white inquest jury will always find your death or near beating to death “justified.”

The criticism of Barack Obama over his initial comments over this matter are particularly mendacious, given the many subtle and unsubtle racial attacks he has been the target of daily. Have we really digressed as a society to the point where even the president cannot speak honestly on the issue of racism? Must he grovel to hyper-sensitive members of “master race”?

And yes, Gates along with black commentators did see this incidence as having a racial-motivation (if Gates was a white woman and the accusation was sexism, we would discover the real power that “majority” opinion has over “minority” opinion). When you say this cop was less racist just because he taught some racial-profiling seminar, we (minorities) may well ask “Just how racist are cops then”? Cops will always profile by race; the point of such “training” is how to avoid the appearance of racial profiling—such as calling in a person as white when he isn’t. All this he shouldn’t have said this, or he shouldn’t have done that is patronizing in the extreme. You are going to have to, however reluctantly, wrap your mind around this concept: We may live in the same world, but in separate realities.

'Short, very interesting article in the current The Week magazine with new tidbits about "The Family", including (surprising) names of other members, their goals, etc.

http://www.theweek.com/article/index/98841/DCs_invisible_army_for_Christ

For example, I didn't know they were actively against unions:

"What does the Family believe?
Its theology is vague, elastic, and focused on power. The basic precepts came to Vereide in a vision in 1935, according to the group’s literature. Living in Seattle, he came to believe that union organizing in the city was communist-inspired. Jesus appeared to him in the form of the president of U.S. Steel, who told him to gather “key men”—prominent businessmen and political leaders—to beat back the unions in His name. Vereide’s recruiting efforts spread eastward, and in 1941 he arrived in Washington, where he began cultivating friendships with powerful people and setting up prayer groups. By then, Vereide was convinced that conventional Christianity had it backwards: Instead of ministering to the down-and-out, Jesus wanted believers to tend to the “up-and-out”—members of America’s elite who lacked intimacy with Jesus. In Vereide’s worldview, free-market capitalism is divinely ordained, and unions and regulations are a form of blasphemy."

Beautiful letter, Loretta! If you don't mind, I would like to use parts of it in my healthcare emails.

Please forgive me, but I need to mention that there is a typo ("recluse" s.b. "recuse.") 'Just a note for those who would also cut and paste...

Thanks for sharing this. I can think of several legislators who should see parts of it!

Re: jaymur,

Those 2 websites Thom mentioned are:

2) The Aden Forecast

http://www.adenforecast.com/

(The blog format only allows me to type one URL per post.)

Re: "Thom,

I just wanted to thank you and Shawn for sending me your book..."

Louise, my comments have been bugging me all last evening. Thank you so much, too!

Did anyone catch the two websites that Thom mentioned after the Batra interview? They were in response to a caller and Thom said he did not want to give investment advice, but did provide 2 websites. Thanks

Bill Maher articulates "The Commons" in a funny and easy to understand article:

How about this for a New Rule: Not everything in America has to make a profit. It used to be that there were some services and institutions so vital to our nation that they were exempt from market pressures. Some things we just didn't do for money. The United States always defined capitalism, but it didn't used to define us. But now it's becoming all that we are.

Did you know, for example, that there was a time when being called a "war profiteer" was a bad thing? But now our war zones are dominated by private contractors and mercenaries who work for corporations. There are more private contractors in Iraq than American troops, and we pay them generous salaries to do jobs the troops used to do for themselves ­-- like laundry. War is not supposed to turn a profit, but our wars have become boondoggles for weapons manufacturers and connected civilian contractors.

Prisons used to be a non-profit business, too. And for good reason --­ who the hell wants to own a prison? By definition you're going to have trouble with the tenants. But now prisons are big business. A company called the Corrections Corporation of America is on the New York Stock Exchange, which is convenient since that's where all the real crime is happening anyway. The CCA and similar corporations actually lobby Congress for stiffer sentencing laws so they can lock more people up and make more money. That's why America has the world;s largest prison population ­-- because actually rehabilitating people would have a negative impact on the bottom line.

Television news is another area that used to be roped off from the profit motive. When Walter Cronkite died last week, it was odd to see news anchor after news anchor talking about how much better the news coverage was back in Cronkite's day. I thought, "Gee, if only you were in a position to do something about it."

But maybe they aren't. Because unlike in Cronkite's day, today's news has to make a profit like all the other divisions in a media conglomerate. That's why it wasn't surprising to see the CBS Evening News broadcast live from the Staples Center for two nights this month, just in case Michael Jackson came back to life and sold Iran nuclear weapons. In Uncle Walter's time, the news division was a loss leader. Making money was the job of The Beverly Hillbillies. And now that we have reporters moving to Alaska to hang out with the Palin family, the news is The Beverly Hillbillies.

And finally, there's health care. It wasn't that long ago that when a kid broke his leg playing stickball, his parents took him to the local Catholic hospital, the nun put a thermometer in his mouth, the doctor slapped some plaster on his ankle and you were done. The bill was $1.50, plus you got to keep the thermometer.

But like everything else that's good and noble in life, some Wall Street wizard decided that hospitals could be big business, so now they're run by some bean counters in a corporate plaza in Charlotte. In the U.S. today, three giant for-profit conglomerates own close to 600 hospitals and other health care facilities. They're not hospitals anymore; they're Jiffy Lubes with bedpans. America's largest hospital chain, HCA, was founded by the family of Bill Frist, who perfectly represents the Republican attitude toward health care: it's not a right, it's a racket. The more people who get sick and need medicine, the higher their profit margins. Which is why they're always pushing the Jell-O.

Because medicine is now for-profit we have things like "recision," where insurance companies hire people to figure out ways to deny you coverage when you get sick, even though you've been paying into your plan for years.

When did the profit motive become the only reason to do anything? When did that become the new patriotism? Ask not what you could do for your country, ask what's in it for Blue Cross/Blue Shield.

If conservatives get to call universal health care "socialized medicine," I get to call private health care "soulless vampires making money off human pain." The problem with President Obama's health care plan isn't socialism, it's capitalism.

And if medicine is for profit, and war, and the news, and the penal system, my question is: what's wrong with firemen? Why don't they charge? They must be commies. Oh my God! That explains the red trucks!
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bill-maher/new-rule-not-everything-i_b_244...

I should have said "at this point 70 % are against it" Because facebook polls are spread by word of 'wall", more conservative friends may be linking to other more conservative friends first, perhaps. Maybe the numbers will change, hopefully, to reflect the actual majority on facebook, liberal voters who supported Obama.

So I guess we need to take over the Facebook health care poll, too. Thom, maybe you should post the poll on your wall on Facebook, ? But if it is rigged in some way that might not be a good idea? Not sure.

Lots of young voters read these things so I think it is important.

Facebook is doing a poll on health care reform and to my surprise 70 % are against government run health care. I suspect something about this is rigged but there are currently over 40,000 comments and it is very interesting to read through them to see the false information people are sharing with each other and believing.

Reading these comments is a good way to get read for debates we are going to run into while door belling this weekend.

I think you have to be a facebook member to read this but here is the link

Comment on The Universal Healthcare Poll
Source: http://apps.facebook.com/realpolls/results/m2ew25myl?_fb_q=1

RE: The Professor Gates Incident

This policeman does not want to apologize to the Professor because cops who like to be feared don't apologize. And, on the ground, police who like to be feared bring us closer to an all-out corrupt police state.

As their EMPLOYERS, we give them authority. The policemen themselves do NOT have to add BRUTALITY and FEAR to that to increase their authority. Actually brutality and fear DETRACT from the effectiveness of that authority by polarizing the relationship between the public and the police, and reducing cooperation..

Police ARE just people, and can be impractical, cranky, take things personally, and can be bigots or whatever. Therefore, we should not treat them as infallible. They are not infallible, And we should not accept as 'the way it is' this growing necessity to fear and kow-tow to cops. The Professor Gates incident shows that, today, we are not allowed to talk to a policeman like one would speak to another human being, but instead must limit our words to total subservience of fearfulness. "Yes, sir. No, sir." have their place for efficiency. But as the Gate incident shows, it is getting out of hand. We give police frightening power these days to brutalize. But shouldn't that change? We are headed in the wrong direction; more and more the in-you-face authoritarianism of today's police is growing -- and the way people of color are treated in particular is an indicator we ALL should find troublesome.

Side-line Conversation: What does the “twin bathtubs in the wild” have to do with limp body part pills (Cialis)?

@Food Fascist,

The only program that makes sense from a risk management basis and economies of scale point of view is a true single-payer fully paid by popping the FICA cap.

Barack Obama, the human being, lost his mother early due to health insurance company shenanigans . . . In Barack Obama’s heart, I am sure that he has zero love for health insurers.

President Obama started with mandated health insurance for all and has been drug up kicking and screaming to a public option . . . It may be calculated pragmatism betting that folk will more readily accept something that he and the government got drug into OR it is well documented that he defaults to the just-right-of-center choice when left to his own devices.

If I were running the healthcare campaign, I woulda started with all out socialized medicine and government 100% paying for training anyone desiring to be a medical professional . . . But I’m a unabashed laissez-faire capitalist with Socialist leanings. I woulda came out with sledgehammers swinging . . .