Kathryn's Comments

So I was reading Steve Benin on John McCain’s stupid defense of Joe Lieberman. He quoted McCain’s tweet:

Joe Lieberman — standing up for his principles on health care is being viciously attacked by the liberal left…what a disgrace!

Silly John McCain. Lieberman doesn’t have any principles, but then neither does McCain. This was demonstrated during the last presidential election in the case of McCain, and during most of his career in the senate by Lieberman.

So I’m reading James Hansen’s Storms of My Grandchildren, which is about global warming. He’s an optimist and believes that people in power will eventually do the right thing, or that they care about billions of people that aren’t them.

I used to be optimistic. I do believe that it’s possible to avoid seriously dangerous climate change, but I don’t believe that we’ll do it. There are too many short-sighted people out there. We’re going to lose our continental glaciers, arctic sea ice, and the Greenland ice caps. If we’re really stupid, and I think we are, we’ll lose some or all of the West Antarctic ice cap.

I rather suspect that we’ll see this happening by at least 2050 and likely sooner in the case of arctic sea ice. Some of it is happening now.

We are so cooked.

According to Brad deLong, who says it approvingly.

See Brad deLong’s website.

I read The Baseline Scenario every day. It’s James Kwak’s and Simon Johnson’s blog.

Okay, I have pretty much given Joe Lieberman the benefit of the doubt until recently. But now (see TPM) he’s threatening to filibuster a bill that contains the Medicare buy-in.

He’s basically threatening to filibuster positions that he supported before 2006. I think the analysts are right who say he’s angry and bitter. He’s upset about losing the 2006 Democratic nomination.

I’ve been angry and bitter before, but I am not one of 100 senators, charged with helping govern the country. He needs to get over it. Or the Democratic leadership in the Senate needs to get over him. If he can’t support key Democratic bills, then they should kick him out of the caucus.

There’s no value in having 60 seats if you can’t really prevent a filibuster. And don’t get me started on Ben Nelson or Blanche Lincoln. Or, to a lesser degree, Mary Landrieu.

Joe Lieberman is the main enabling jerk in the Senate.

See this Michael Sokolove article in the NYTimes magazine:

Later, in North Carolina, we sat down to dinner, and he said: “You ever see that Danny DeVito movie, I think it was Danny DeVito, where he says big shots never order off the menu? They just say what they want.” We were at an On the Border, a Tex-Mex restaurant chain and not the type of place I imagine many big shots patronize, but he pushed the menu aside without reading it and told the waiter what he wanted the kitchen to cook up for him.

What a jackass. If it had been a non-chain restaurant it would have been slightly less awful, but only slightly.

“Our health care system is the best in the country…”

Oh, really? I guess if I were to go to any country, their health care system would be the best in the country.

The problem is that he seems to have no sense of humor, no self-awareness, and no sense of irony. And he’s dumb.

Of course, lots of politicians are dumb. You don’t have to be smart, just electable.

I don’t really get it. The man is pretty moderate, especially when compared with European or Canadian politics. Or anywhere, really, that’s not a fascist state.

Yet there are people out there who think he’s a marxist, a socialist, and even a usurper. (Do these people understand about elections?)

Okay, I didn’t like George W. Bush. In fact, I hated everything that he stood for, and I felt like the 2000 election was decided in a questionable fashion. But once he was inaugurated, he was the President and I respected that.

However, as I said, I hated his policies, and some of them were, I believe, illegal. I’m thinking of the detention of Americans such as Jose Padilla, the torturing of prisoners, and invading Iraq on trumped up charges. Okay, that last wasn’t illegal under US law, but it might be under international law.

What do these people think Obama has already done that they want him impeached?

I don’t get it. Is it just because he’s black? Or a Democrat?

Okay, so President Obama is recognized “for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples.” Fine, but I think it’s too early. Having an attitude is easy. Getting things done is what counts.

I understand giving the prize to Wilson, who despite some antediluvian domestic policies (and being a racist) did create the League of Nations. I understand giving it to Carter and Gore.

If in ten years time, or even two years time, Obama’s foreign policy has born positive results, and I suspect it will, then maybe he deserves the prize.

For me, it’s just too soon. His domestic policies so far don’t impress me. He’s not nearly progressive enough, though we’ll have to see how things play out.

I was reading Roger Cohen’s New York Times editorial this morning. It made some pretty good points. I particularly liked a point from Friedrich Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom, where he said:

“Where, as in the case of sickness and accident, neither the desire to avoid such calamities nor the efforts to overcome their consequences are as a rule weakened by the provision of assistance — where, in short, we deal with genuinely insurable risks — the case for the state’s helping to organize a comprehensive system of social insurance is very strong.”

In general, Cohen, being originally from Europe, has a good understanding of the European bewilderment at the lack of universal health coverage in the US. He’s also a US citizen and has lived in this country for a number of years and mostly “gets” the US.

But a point from another reader is just slightly shy of the mark, in my opinion:

“In Europe generally the populace in the various countries feels enough sense of social connectedness to enforce a social contract that benefits all, albeit at a fairly high cost. In America it is not like that. There is endless worry that one’s neighbor may be getting more than his or her “fair” share.”

I think that the use of the term “neighbor” above is off the mark. I think the problem in the US is that many Americans don’t consider certain other Americans to be their neighbors. I refer, of course, to the race issue.

I am of the opinion that if we had not had slavery in this country, we’d have universal health coverage. The real problem is that at a deep level, possibly non-conscious, many white Americans don’t really see black Americans, or other Americans of color, as truly American. I noticed a reference from The Daily Dish, to an article in Scientific American, basically an opinion piece, in which David Mirsky cites

At a talk she gave in October 2008 to a group of science journalists, [Harvard University psychologist Mahzarin] Banaji discussed research she did with Thierry Devos, now at San Diego State University, that examined bias against Asians. They found that volunteers linked white Americans more strongly than Asian-Americans with, well, America. Banaji and Devos then decided to do what even they thought was a “bizarre” study: they had people gauge the “American-ness” of famous Asian-Americans, such as Connie Chung and tennis player Michael Chang, versus European whites, such as Hugh Grant.
The study found that white Europeans are more “American” than are nonwhite Americans in most minds.

Yep. That accords with my experience of white Americans. (I’m a white American.)

I think that the reason there’s opposition to many social programs in this country is partly to do with our pioneer heritage, but also a lot to do with not seeing many of our fellow Americans as truly American.

Do I really need to say more? See Steve Benin for more commentary. I saw this on Countdown last night and was appalled.

It is simply impossible for him to literally have never met anyone outside of paid liberal lobbyists and members of Congress who is in favor of the “public option”.

Approximately two-thirds of the country is in favor of some sort of public option.

Let me be clear. I buy health insurance on the private market because I’m self-unemployed, to use my old friend Ron Burk’s phrase. It’s expensive and they might cut me off for some spurious reason if I actually contract some serious condition.

So yes, I am in favor of a public option to create some real competition for the insurance companies. Failing that, we need serious regulation, which doesn’t happen in this country.

We are the only developed country that allows its insurance providers to be run for profit. This doesn’t work. Health isn’t a commodity like soap, or television sets. You don’t know your provider is scum until it’s too late.

At a minimum, we need an individual mandate. Everyone must have insurance to spread the costs around and make the playing field level. Companies cannot be allowed to refuse coverage. And they must be made not-for-profit.

Personally, I’d buy Medicare if I could.