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Democracy Under Assault
Theopolitics, Incivility and Violence on the Right

Michele Swenson

Government-of-the-Highest-Bidder

Washington, Media & Lloyd Blankfein Corporate Elite to the People: "Let Them Eat Cat Food." The budget deficit narrative continues to facilitate evermore wealth transfer upward, even as corporate media and CEOs fail to relate to people with less than $250,000 income, the newly-defined "middle class."

Tyranny of Plutocracy: Holding People Hostage Over a Fiscal & Climate Cliff Corporate plutocrats who have bought government write policy to benefit their bottom lines, even as the people and the planet pay for their greed.

Debate This: False Deficit Narrative Perpetuates Wealth Redistribution Upward Washington consensus holds that $4 trillion in tax breaks for the wealthy over the previous decade will be paid for by spending cuts affecting the working/poor over the next decade, including Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.

Clean, Sustainable Energy vs. Fracking Colorado The "Halliburton Loophole," inserted into energy legislation by former Halliburton CEO Dick Cheney in 2005, created an unprecedented oil and gas industry exemption from 8 federal health and safety laws, including the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts.

Republicans (& Some Democrats): Killing Medicare to "Save It" Washington & Corporate media have embraced the deficit narrative, prioritizing reducing the deficit over creating jobs, and slashing entitlements over fair taxation of the rich, resulting in a $4 trillion wealth shift upward.

Two-Party Economic Betrayal of Working Class: The Need for a Progressive Grassroots Campaign Washington is broken, purposefully derailed by big-money, accelerating the growing disparity of wealth and the destruction of democracy, disenfranchising the masses.

Washington Disconnect Perpetuates Wealth Shift Upward Washington dialogue is misdirected toward deficit reduction, instead of job creation, portending a worsening economy and unemployment.

Obama dealing away Democratic Party principles, complicit with Republican race t A historical perspective of manipulation of U.S. economy and the faux deficit crisis to shift wealth upward.

America held hostage to two-party failure: government of, by and for the corporations" There is no correlation between those who have driven the U.S. economic crisis and those required to pay the price. The fake deficit ceiling crisis provides cover to shift evermore wealth upward while cutting domestic programs and wages.

The Great Wealth Shift Upwards: Corporatists' War on the Working Class "Balancing the budget" and "deficit reduction" are code for shifting benefits of government spending to corporations and Wall St., away from workers, as corporatism has steadily gained dominance and subverted democracy...

The Urgency of Toxic Coal Ash Regulation and The Move to Clean Energy Toxic coal ash remains unregulated two years after the largest U.S. industrial spill. 7 EPA hearings in September 2010 take testimony requesting strong federal regulation. European countries lead U.S. in conversion to safer clean energy.

"Counterfeit Public Option Holds Americans Hostage to Inflationary Private Insurance Costs Contrary to promised competition, so-called 'Public Option' will likely be run by private insurane companies.

'Public Option' a Shadow of Its Original Intent - Dr. Marcia Angell Advises Optional Medicare Buy-In The 'public option' has been effectively neutered. Legislators should adopt optional Medicare buy-in as the health care reform public option.

The Tyranny of Wall St.-Run Health Care: No CEO Left Behind Health insurance bureaucrats make multi-millions by prioritizing stakeholders over policy holders and dropping the higher risk.

Blue Dogs Should Demand CBO Report of Single Payer Savings 'Blue Dog' Democrats expressing concern for deficit reduction should demand the Congressional Budget Office report on the substantial savings with a single-payer system -- estimated at $400 billion annually.

Bizarro World of Health Care Reform: Standing Language On Its Head The health care reform debate has been short-circuited and distorted by corporate interests, exacerbated by failure of media to question corrupted language.

Democrats Start With Compromise on Health Care Reform Rather than make the best case for Health Care Reform, Democrats started the reform debate with a poorly defined compromise position.

Dems & Repubs on Health Care: 'Love a Lobbyist' K Street lobbyists continue to wield inordinate financial influence over Congress, and remain at the center of discussions regarding health care reform.

'Sick Around the World': Contrasting U.S. Health Care with 5 Other Capitalist Countries Documentary by journalist T.R. Reid contrasts U.S. profit-centered health insurance with health care in Japan, Great Britain, Taiwan, Germany and Switzerland, where they spend half as much and have better health outcomes.

Corporate Profit Continues to Define Health Care Reform & the U.S. Race to the Bottom Corporate framing prevails in the health care reform debate, as the profit-first insurance-pharmaceutical industrial complex holds the megabucks and the megaphone.

Frequently Asked Questions about Single-Payer Health Care Contrasted with the current "Free-Market" health care model only a Single-Payer model of "public payer, private provider" offers comprehensive coverage & true choice of providers and hospitals, as well as cost-savings for all, including businesses.

Why Not a 'Bailout' That Restructures Health Care to Benefit All? Real health care reform would provide immediate economic relief for all - for families, individuals, and small and large businesses. General Motors is not alone in carrying a large burden of rising health costs for retirees - city, state and federal

Like Wall Street, Current Health Care Policy Privatizes Profit and Socializes Risk The U.S. network of over 1200 private for-profit health insurances is fragmented and cost-ineffective, resulting in greater costs and risks shifted to families and individuals as out-of-pocket costs rise and coverage declines.

The New Gilded Age: Survival-of-the-Fittest Capitalism Generates Bad Policy
e.g., Medicare Prescription Drug Reform Grover Norquist and other architects of the K-Street Project, defunding the left, and tax cuts for the rich are key actors of the New Gilded Age in America.

Losing Democracy in Inches Efforts by conservatives to privatize all public services, eliminate taxes and create economic chaos in order to usher in a U.S. theocracy.

U.S. Health Care Reform -- Corporatize or Nationalize? The drive to privatize for profit Medicare, Medicaid, and all health care. Government-of-the-highest bidder ushers in the medical-industrial complex.

Unsurance: Growing numbers of underinsured in the U.S. Corporatized health care, driven by private insurance companies numbering over 1200 in the U.S., are abandoning the insurance principle of shared risk in favor of individualized risk that increases health and financial risk.

Big Lobbies Control U.S. Health Care Insurance and pharmaceutical lobbies hold U.S. hostage -- the unsuccessful attempt in Minnesota to regulate health insurance

The illusion of 'free-market' health care Proponents of privatizing everything for profit, ignore the failure of the market place to control health care costs, as profit-centered health insurances game the system to inflate their bottom line at the expense of health care access.

Why commercial health insurance no longer works Profit is a perverse incentive for health care - insuring the healthy and denying those who need care as 'pre-existing conditions.'

January 15, 2008 Report on long wait lines at U.S. Emergency Rooms Constrasted with other industrialized nations with overall better health outcomes, NPR reports on particularly long wait lines for health care at U.S. emergency rooms.

Needed: The political will to overcome the influence of the insurance lobby in order to achieve meaningful health care reform Just as the insurance lobby wrote Medicare Part D, prescription drug reform with billions of dollars of taxpayer subsidies and inflated profits to benefit their bottom line, so, too, do they continue to write the script for U.S. health care reform.

U.S. Conference of Mayors passes resolution in support of national health care, HR 676 Read the resolution overwhelmingly adopted by the U.S. Conference of Mayors at their annual meeting June 20-24, 2008

Failure of U.S. profit-centered health insurance The U.S. is the only industrialized nation that treats health as a commodity, and operates its health system like a car dealership

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Democracy Under Assault Theopolitics, Incivility and Violence on the Right

Government-of-the-Highest-Bidder

Democracy Under Assault
Theopolitics, Incivility and Violence on the Right