The Public Education Analogy for Healthcare

In the raging healthcare debate that currently dominates the American news cycle, it seems like everybody has an analogy that they claim proves or disproves the future viability of the as yet unformed healthcare reform legislation. Republican/conservative fearmongers compare it to socialism (Soviet, not Swedish). Over on the left, Democrats, scrambling to find some type of purchase in the painfully thin topsoil that is America's collective attention span, can't really compare it to anything substantive because they haven't yet decided how much they're going to give up in the face of Republican obstinance, although they have made weak efforts to point out that their various plans are similar in various ways to various existing programs like Medicare and the VA.

In all fairness to the American public, you can't really blame them for buying the Republican bullshit, because at least it's something to buy. The Democrats talked a big game about single-payer universal coverage (without explaining it to people) before the election, but quickly jettisoned that idea as soon as Max Baucus and Kent Conrad got their campaign checks from the healthcare and pharmaceutical industries. Then they babbled about the public option (again, without clearly explaining it to Ma and Pa Kettle), half-heartedly flung co-ops against the wall to see if they would stick (what is a co-op you ask? Exactly!), and now are mumbling stuff about pasting a few legislative band-aids on the suppurating wound of American healthcare.

The frustrating thing is, the Republicans couldn't care less about the plight of the "mythical little people." The Democrats are the ones who push legislation and policy that benefits society rather than the individual or the corporation, and in a country of 300 million people, logic clearly dictates that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. Or the one. In the words of George Costanza, "we're living in a society here!"

The Dems are responsible for some of the most important social legislation in history, from the Social Security Act to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to the Americans with Disabilities Act to Title IX, but these days, they seem unable to make the case for healthcare reform or anything else to the American people.

Republicans are great at coming up with neat little Goebbels-like slogans that reduce complex, subtle, critically important policy debates down to bumper-sticker slogans. From "the Moral Majority" to "Contract with America" to "entitlement programs" to "the death tax" to "socialized medicine" to "death panels" and now "the death book," Frank Luntz, Karl Rove, and the rest of the sinister Republican brain trust have got distracting abstraction down to a science.

It works for them because Americans don't want to "read the bill," they want the Cliff's Notes version. The shorter the better, and bonus points if it has a touch of snark to it, too. Democrats, weak-kneed and conviction-challenged as they are, hem and haw about the fine details of policy, nibbling off arcane portions of legislation and then trying to sell them to the American people as legitimate game-changers. Most of the time, most Americans don't know what the Democrats are trying to argue, what their positions are, how the proposed legislation would affect them, or why something needs to change. It's much simpler for the public to absorb a bold, confident, 30-second Republican sound bite than it is to try to figure out what the hell John Kerry just spent seven minutes and 15 appositive clauses trying to say.

This is one reason why the public doesn't buy the Democratic spiel, and frankly, Page A-26 can't blame them. To help the Democrats find their way out of the rhetorical paper bag in which they're currently lost in the healthcare debate, Page A-26 offers two helping hands.

First, a five-word bumper sticker slogan. "Universal healthcare -- for everybody's future"

Second, a simple analogy for single-payer universal health care or the public option. The public education system.

Republicans/conservatives and their town holler proxies are all bent out of shape about universal healthcare and/or the public option for a variety of disingenuous reasons. Oh sure, some of the more undereducated town hollers might actually believe that universal healthcare or the public option would result in rationed care or whacking grandma for the fun of it or socialized medicine (uh, you mean like the VA, hoss? Yes, my little mental midget, just like the VA), but the puppetmasters pulling the strings know that these reasons are just distracting flak thrown into the public discourse to confuse and mislead.

One of the favorite warhorses that Republican leaders trot out in opposition of universal healthcare or even a public option is that such a plan will drive private health insurance companies out of business because they won't be able to compete with the government's economy of scale. (Let's just suspend for the time being the counterargument these same Republican leaders spew out of the other side of their mouths: that a government-managed system would be horribly inefficient and ineffective.) Because the government would be able to offer better coverage at a lower price, reasonable Americans would abandon their overpriced, undercovering private health insurance for the public option. Alas, the poor private health insurance companies, how will they ever survive?

If only there was an example of an existing system in which a critical service was provided to the American public concurrently by the government and the private sector. If only.

Ah, but wait, there is. It's called the American educational system. First sketched out in the Northwest Ordinances of 1785 and 1787, the public education system in the United States is one of the most beneficial and successful systems in the history of the world. Using tax revenue, the federal government, in conjunction with local governments and municipalities provides free education to anybody who wants to attend. And right alongside the universal single-payer government-run, socialized public education system hums a vast network of highly successful and profitable private education institutions.

Just like it would be for universal single-payer healthcare, Americans right now, today! have the right and the opportunity to send their kids to whatever school they want. Parents can choose to send their kids to tuition-free public school or they can choose to send them to private schools for a fee. It's entirely their choice. The government doesn't force them into either option, but it does make an option available for those who cannot afford the high cost of private schools or for those who simply choose to participate in the shared experience that is American society.

So there it is Democratic leaders, your ready-made, easy-to-understand analogy for universal single-payer healthcare, or at least the public option.

One last thing about the public education-universal healthcare analogy. Republicans have been trying for years to get rid of America's public education system. From attempts to dissolve the Department of Education to private school vouchers to unnecessary tax cuts that intentionally leave no money remaining for public services like education, the Republicans/conservatives are hell-bent on privatizing one of the shining lights of American history and American government.

This is an important point, because the Republicans would like to privatize everything, including Social Security, the armed forces, and even the Post Office. Why? Because corporations don't profit from government services, unless they're the ones providing them. So with regard to Republicans/conservatives, the healthcare debate is really about profit and greed, not what's best for individual Americans or America as a whole.

That's one more simple message the Democrats should be trying to make clear to the American public.

Fear Groupthink

Today's topic is the moronic town hollers and the misinterpretation of them by America's beloved media types.

Yes, of course the Republicans/Conservatives/Neocons/Birthers/Deathers/Teabaggers/Minutemen/Swift Boaters/town hollers/et al are driving us crazy here at Page A-26, but as usual we're almost more distressed by the media coverage than we are with their actual antics. That's because, the flaccid "reporting" on the town hollers, instead of being a spotlight of truth that shames these dead-enders and their big-money enablers into something resembling reality and morality, only serves to mislead and distract by sending those still paying attention down the wrong path like sheep into a loading dock.

Like rattlesnakes, the disingenuous Republicans/conservatives can't really be expected not to do what they do. Just as one wouldn't expect a rattlesnake to suddenly turn into a snuggly pet, one doesn't expect Republicans/Conservatives/Neocons/Birthers/Deathers/Teabaggers/Minutemen/Swift Boaters/et al to suddenly turn into rational, thoughtful, caring beings capable of reasonable discussion on any topic. Like it or not, it's who they are and what they do. Apparently, in modern American society, there is always going to be 25-35% of the population who refuse to accept reality and will ceaselessly continue bleating on and on about Obama's birth certificate or God's views on homosexuality and abortion, guns, or the evil incarnate that is taxes and, gasp, government.

So screw 'em. Those people are unreachable. However, that still leaves 65-75% of this country who theoretically might listen to reason. Except. Except the media proves itself on a daily basis to be either a megaphone for intentional disinformation and propaganda (yes, Fox News, we're looking at you) or an echo chamber of babbling sycophants.

Exhibit one in today's media lambast is the industry-accepted reason for the town hall disruptions: fear.

Sometime in the past few weeks, it was decided by the media types that fear was going to the be the universal descriptor to describe the mind-bogglingly stupid antics of the town hall disruptees. Everybody from Brian Williams to Jon Stewart to Keith Olberman to Rachel Maddow to Bill Maher has been beating the fear horse to death ever since. So much so that the fear explanation has become firmly entrenched in the media's conventional wisdom on the topic and nobody even questions it any more, just simply repeats over and over again that these idiot town hollers are driven by fear, fear, fear! All town hall news stories and commentaries are now built on this thematic foundation.

For Page A-26, it has become useless groupthink, very similar to the "Saddam Hussein is a butcher with WMDs that gassed his own people, is a threat to the very existence of the world, and must be taken down immediately" groupthink that every public commentator and politician (with some exceptions: Bill Maher, Barbara Lee, Dennis Kucinich, Howard Dean) was mindlessly parroting in the months preceding the U.S. invasion of Iraq in March 2003. This groupthink is why nobody in the media really questioned Bush's bullshit "evidence" and why Bush and his thugs were able to use the media to convince the American public that the Iraq war was necessary.

After reading and considering Joe Bageant's excellent book, "Deer Hunting with Jesus," a piercing explanation of why poor, rural Americans act against their own self-interests by supporting Republican candidates and policies, Page A-26 has developed a different theory about why these town hollers are acting the way they are.

It's not fear that is motivating them to act out, it's empowerment.

These morons are not scared, they are emboldened. The pundits are asserting that the town hollers are afraid of coming changes to their lives that will leave them on the outside looking in. That's totally bass-ackwards thinking. As Bageant points out, these people are already on the outside looking in. They are forgotten nobodies in the age of celebrity worship, their lives just dreary, empty shells of the American dream and they know it.

The Republican/conservative puppetmasters know it too, and they have tapped into the empty lives of these people and offered them a raison d'etre. They get them all riled up on talk radio and Fox News with a lot of lies and misinformation about Obama, Nancy Pelosi, the Democrats, and policy issues like healthcare reform, then offer them an opportunity to turn their anger into action through abortion clinic demonstrations, town hall disruptions, and the like.

For the poor dopes who buy into the Republican/conservative crap, they feel like this is their chance to be part of something, to make a difference, to be heard -- to feel powerful.

This is evident in the vehemence and total lack of introspection with which the town hollers proffer their ignorance in public. They feel they are part of something that wants and needs them. This is the same principle that drives people to join gangs -- and churches. The Republican party represents something that loves them, has a place for them, and has a mission for them -- or so they think.

Of course, they are being cynically manipulated by Republican/conservative idealogues who prey on these desperate lost souls and hire PR and marketing firms to shape and sell their messages to the very people who will be most hurt by them: Joe the Plumbers, hockey moms, and the town hollers themselves. In the cruelest of ironies, the town hollers are like ants who take poisoned bait from an ant trap back to the nest and end up killing off their entire colony, themselves included.

So it's not about fear, it's about empowerment. And these town hall fools have been empowered and enabled by the attention they are receiving for their public antics. You can see them growing in confidence, vehemence, and righteousness every second they're in front of a camera or a microphone. Their expressions similar to those of an eight-year-old who looks to his older brother for approval before doing something he knows to be wrong but wants to do anyway to impress the brother and his friends. Seeing that their buffoonery generates the right reaction -- attention -- they forge ahead, louder and dumber and wronger.

This is the kind of artificially invested self-importance wielded by security guards and vice principals, as if somehow their rumpled uniforms or polyester ties give them the right to exert social control well beyond their wisdom, intellect, and morality. Of course, it's the power of the superorganism standing behind them that gives them their arrogant righteousness.

So the town hollers are willing to suspend disbelief and logic to be a part of the Republican/conservative superorganism because it gives them a voice and a role in an American society in which they would otherwise be nameless, faceless drones. The Republican/conservative puppetmasters feed them lies and validate their misconceptions and ignorance, then give them a mission as God's warriors on the front line of patriotism and rugged individualism and point them towards the issue of the moment (abortion, Terry Schiavo, gay marriage, gun control, elective war, healthcare reform).

The town hollers are basically social/political/moral suicide bombers outfitted with explosive ideological vests by the Republican/conservative puppetmasters and loosed into the crowded open-air markets of American public discourse. And the town hollers carry out their missions with the same unthinking certainty and misguided prestige as the manipulated martyrs in Iraq.

But American media thrives on fear and so fear is the reason they have chosen to explain why these town hollers are acting out. Fear of change, fear of black people, fear of losing their place in society, which is something they don't even have to lose because it's already gone.

Too bad it misses the mark. Nope, these town hollers are fueled by the sense of purpose that comes from years of being told by the Republican/conservative puppetmasters that their ignorance is truth and that they can make a difference if only they will force the rest of society to see things as they do.

The vociferousness of voice and action of these town hollers and their ilk, at the behest of the Republican/conservative puppetmasters, has gotten steadily more aggressive in the last 25 years and will continue to do so until two things happen:

1) The Democratic/liberal/progressive leaders understand the disenfranchisement of the town hollers and find a way to reinspire their lives. Page A-26 doesn't have that answer yet, but we can sure as hell tell you it won't happen through condescension, derision, complicated philosophical Senate speak, or the inability to stake out a clear position and then stand behind it with the courage of conviction. Something more akin to rolling up their figurative sleeves and getting into these communities and showing how government programs like Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, the VA, public education, and so on directly and positively benefit the lives of the town hollers. It will only work if it's as simple as A + B = C. The Democrats/liberals/progressives must find a way to make the town hollers feel just as important and empowered as the Republican/conservative puppetmasters make them feel.

2) Somehow the American media has to be reclaimed from the MBA and Chamber of Commerce crowds. There is no way that Americans can hope to understand what is going on behind the scenes in Congress and the corporate boardrooms when the media is controlled by the very corporate boardrooms that are carving up this country for their own gain. So long as editorial decisions are made based on spreadsheets, political ideology, and ego, there is no hope to pass meaningful healthcare reform or any other publicly beneficial legislation. The media is the only spotlight the American public has, and without it, the roaches will multiply in the dark and end up eating us out of house and home.

A Theory on Autism

Page A-26 has long been on its soapbox about the total and absolute capitulation of America to China. Setting aside the political, military, and economic chokehold China already has on us -- yes, they could roll us right now three ways to Sunday if they wanted to; believe it -- public health and safety is the issue d'jour.

Page A-26 theorizes that there might be a correlation between the skyrocketing rate of autism in the United States during the last 15 years and the similarly staggering volume of Chinese imports brought into this country during the same time period. No, we are not claiming that the mere act of importing cheap goods from China is the cause of autism, but we are questioning whether there is a relationship between the high volume of these poorly manufactured goods and current public health issues.

Doctors and scientists aren't sure what causes the spectrum of neural disorders generally called autism, but theories are legion. From medical professionals to parents to ranting paranoids like Page A-26, autism theories are like, well, autistic kids -- seems like everybody's got one. Theories range from genetic predispositions to mercury in vaccinations to statistics and reporting.

Currently, the medical profession is fixated on the idea that autism is congenital. Their collective theory is that, as with many other diseases, there must be a certain gene or gene sequence that predisposes some people to autism.

Page A-26 has a whole new theory on the causes of autism, a theory that has major repercussions for not only public health in the United States, but also for the international economy.

Page A-26 theorizes that the sharp rise in autism in the United States over the last 15 years is a direct result of the massive increase in Chinese imports brought into the country during the same time period. We further posit that the search for genetic markers is a wild goose chase, because we believe that every human has the genetic markers for autism -- it's not about the markers, it's about the triggers. Specifically, Page A-26 believes that chemicals exhausted and leached from cheap Chinese imports made with substandard and outright dangerous materials are the triggers which activate the autism gene markers.

Now before you go off screaming Sinophobia at the top of your lungs, don't. This isn't an attack on the Chinese people or culture. China is the focus of our theory because it is now the world's supplier of cheap, plastic, and poorly manufactured goods. It could just as easily be Mexico, Bangladesh, Vietnam, or Romania (in fact, their products are also probably suspect), but as anybody who has done any shopping in the last 10 years will tell you, just about every damn thing for sale in this country was made in China.

In the last three years, there has been no shortage of news stories about recalled Chinese toys, food, and other products found to be too dangerous for human consumption. Each time we are bombarded with propaganda telling us that it was just a manufacturing anomaly and not the result of any kind of systemic deficiencies. And then it happens again. This is no accident. The corporations selling this stuff know damn well that the materials and processes being used to make these products in China aren't safe, but they don't care about safety, they care about profits.

Whether it's lead, arsenic, polyvinylchloride, and mercury in children's toys or radiator fluid in pet food or simply bisphenol A and phthalates in everything from baby bottles to car upholstery, dangerous chemicals are in everything we buy that says "Made in China" on it.

And not just a little contaminated. Lead levels in toys and other products have been found in some cases to be 116,000 PERCENT HIGHER THAN THE ACCEPTABLE LEVELS SET BY THE US GOVERNMENT. Nobody knows exactly what has been causing the elevation of autism rates in this country over the last 20 years, but it is very telling that NONE of the current theories makes any mention of contaminated Chinese imports as a possible line of investigation.

Again with the China, Page A-26? Yup. But China isn't really to blame. Like Colombia, they're just fulfilling a ravenous demand in the American market. Instead, blame the American corporations and politicians who intentionally put Americans at risk in order to increase their profits and power. You see, the European Union has already figured out that these cheap Chinese imports are dangerous and its politicians have set very stringent safety standards for consumer goods. So stringent that most Chinese manufacturers have separate facilities. One set of facilities produces high-quality goods for the European market's tough safety standards; the other set produces cheap, dangerous goods using harmful chemicals and substandard manufacturing practices for the American market. Don't believe us? Look it up and start paying attention, because its real.

But back to the autism discussion. Page A-26 did a cursory statistical survey to see how the increase in autism tracks against the increase in Chinese imports to the United States over the last 10 years. Now granted, Page A-26 is not a credentialed scientific organization, and also granted, the information we used to create our comparison was grabbed at random off the Internet, so don't get caught up in the methodology. In fact, Page A-26 feels that because we randomly pulled data off the Internet from different sources, the results are more objective and credible than some study commissioned by the US Chamber of Commerce or the American Chemistry Council or the goddamn White House.

When we graphed the two sets of data from two different sources for the years 1995 to 2003, we found that they were nearly identical. Both sets of data reveal strikingly similar year-on-year percentage growth as well as similar growth arcs for the entire eight-year period we looked at. Coincidence, or . . . ?



As we suspected, our theory has met with everything from goofy grins to outright annoyance as people wave off such out-of-the-box thinking as the ranting of a radical left-wing wackjob. Guess what? You better start thinking seriously about this theory, because it's not just autism, it's pancreatic cancer, overian cancer, MS, ALS -- these cheap products made with dangerous chemicals are everywhere and you are kidding yourself if you think that they're safe just because the corporations and manufacturers profiting from them and the corrupt American politicians who are beholden to the corporations say they're safe. In fact, the latest recall of toys were actually replacements for previously recalled toys.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/27/AR2007092702160.html?hpid=moreheadlines
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/27/AR2007092700231.html?tid=informbox

These products are not safe -- they are killing us. In fact, you can just assume that every single thing you purchase, from food to clothes to toys to medicine, contains ingredients that are harmful to the human body. It's all contaminated.

As mentioned, our theory has met with much resistance. Nobody wants to acknowledge that the cheap crap they buy at Wal-Mart might be why they have asthma or why their kid has autism. Americans long ago made the decision that they prefer cheapness over quality, convenience over health. And speaking of health, Page A-26 wonders if a comparison of pharmaceutical company profits and the rise in autism over the last 15 years would yield similar statistical results. We're thinking yes.

Page A-26 first started thinking about this link between dangerously manufactured Chinese imports and autism after seeing several news stories that reported the mysterious rise in autism rates and how it's one of the great mysteries of our times. Gosh darn, it seems like nobody can figure this out.

So, unlike the medical researchers who insist that the answers can only be found by deciphering the Human Genome, Page A-26 feels that the answer lies in the environmental factors that activate the genetic markers for autism. If we were running the research, we would start looking at historical, environmental, economic, and scientific factors that have occurred simultaneous to the huge spike in autism in the U.S. over the last 15 years. Could be the increased exposure to harmful chemicals from cheap Chinese imports, could be global warming. The point is, doesn't it seem a bit easier to investigate and address the human-created conditions that might contribute to conditions like autism rather than trying to figure out the inner workings of the human genetic code?

It could be that the powers that be don't want to figure it out -- just like the same powers that be don't want to acknowledge global warming. Those making money off cheap Chinese imports don't want that gravy train threatened and those in the medical and scientific community are too arrogant to consider something they hadn't previously considered. Oh yeah, and one more thing: if a legitimate study was to be done, and that study was to determine that there was a link between the dangerous chemicals in cheap Chinese imports and the explosion of autism in this country, it would shake the very foundation of the US and the world economies -- and the powers that be are never going to let that happen.

For example, yahoo.com has a bunch of links on its site for shopping for baby toys and consumer reports tips on buying baby products, but none of them mention anything about chemical contaminants or say anything about China. This content is certainly intended to drive commerce, not to inform the public about the things they really need to know about.

Go ahead, shout it out: it's a goddamn conspiracy. Actually, it's two conspiracies. First is the conspiracy among governments and corporations not to protect the consumers from harmful products in order to make greater profits. Second is the conspiracy to overlook the connection between these harmful products and the recent, sharp rise in medical conditions like autism.

Because the American economy is totally dependent on cheap Chinese goods, nothing will ever be voluntarily done that could possibly jeopardize that relationship or profit margin. In fact, China has the US economy so securely by the balls that last year, Mattel issued a groveling apology to China!

What will happen is that the US retailers and Chinese manufacturers will make incremental changes to move the toxicity of the products right to the edge of acceptable contamination levels, but will make no effort to complete clean up their products. As soon as the American public stops complaining and this latest wave of recall publicity dies down, it will go back to business as usual. (For example, one PR line that retailers are using is the design flaw versus chemical contamination angle -- http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2007-09/29/content_6810132.htm)

And hey, save some of that blame for yourselves. The next time you read a story in the news about some type of recalled Chinese import or see something on TV about how nobody can figure out what causes autism, maybe you will take a couple minutes to really think about whether there might be a link between the two. And then ask yourself why nobody is interested in investigating a link between the two. And then ask yourself if anybody besides you actually cares whether you and your family get sick and die from these products. And then ask yourself whether you really need that Thomas the Tank Engine toy for your son or that nonstick cooking pan or any of the other crap you were thinking about buying at Wal-Mart.

Only we have the power to protect our health -- by not buying these contaminated, dangerous, and unhealthy products. Don't buy them. We know that it's hard to find anything that isn't made in China, but that's part of the point here.

We are being poisoned by the omnipresence of these goods in our lives.

Until we put pressure on the retailers and branded companies that KNOWINGLY sell us these contaminated products, why would they ever change their practices? They are making huge profit margin at the expense of OUR HEALTH.

Don't buy this stuff, and tell the merchants that you buy from that you won't buy any products made in China. If we all took this kind of stand, however difficult and inconvenient it might be (please note that the title for the jumplink to the second page of this article is titled, "Boycotting Chinese toys 'impractical'" -- a subtle but clear message to the American public that they need to shut up, bend over, and take it), the cheap, dangerous products wouldn't sell and the corporations would be forced to replace them with something that will, like maybe the safer, healthier products they produce for the European Union.

It's our health America.