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Engineering Death, Shortchanging America

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Permalink Reply by Dorris Journeay on March 8, 2012 at 8:35pm

The trillions of dollars spent on the war in Iraq could have paid for lifelong healthcare for every man, woman, and child in this country, with billions left over. And let's not forget about the bank bailouts - trillions squandered there, too. But no....Repubs don't even want insurers to have to pay for the most basic health care for women. That there's your family values, right there. God, guns, and greed.

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Permalink Reply by Steph S. on March 11, 2012 at 11:35pm

Right Dorris - I agree.

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Permalink Reply by Pat on March 9, 2012 at 6:48am

Map of countries where the US has military bases. But, hey. We're not an empire!

Click here for Peace Pledge Union website

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Permalink Reply by booklover on March 9, 2012 at 8:26am

Makes me sick. Glad I have private healthcare! I wish EVERYONE in America could have healthcare!

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Permalink Reply by Jim DePaulo on March 9, 2012 at 2:41pm

That is a truely a depressing chart. Our country has gone from world leader to world cop to world bully to war mongering asshole. The only ones that benefit are the MIC and their investors.

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Permalink Reply by Melissa Wells on March 9, 2012 at 11:48pm

This whole situation, in my humble opinion, is a direct result of the insane fear most Americans have of socialism. The slightest mention of universal healthcare in America sends idiots into a McCarthy-esque frenzy, it also tends to make them want more fancy guns to keep the evil socialists and their free antibiotics at bay.

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Permalink Reply by Michael OL on March 10, 2012 at 12:49am

You're absolutely right. It's remarkable how in America, the word "socialism" is just dripping with all sorts of nefarious and odious connotations. But what is rarely realized, is that our semi-private form of health care is already "socialized", because medicine is practiced not according to a free exchange between consumers and providers, but according to entrenched interests looking after themselves. A genuinely free market is impossible when one party (the patients) has a desperate need, and the complementary party (the medical establishment) can charge prices at will. The veneer of "choice" in our health care system reeks of the corruption of 20th century politicized socialism without any genuinely socialized benefits.

Closely related to hatred of socialism, is hatred of national governmental authority. The local government is great, the state government is OK, but the federal government is a bunch of incompetent, thieving and perfidious assholes; or at least, that's the "conservative" view. Americans are enthralled with doing everything locally. National action is reflexively equated to tyranny. What the conservative spin-machine found so hateful about Obama's healthcare initiative wasn't the mandate to purchase insurance, but that this mandate came from the federal government, instead of at the state or local level.

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Permalink Reply by booklover on March 10, 2012 at 3:55am

Yet they don't mind public roadways, mail-delivery, public schools, libraries... etc. All pretty much socialist ways of doing things. Why does just public healthcare freak them out?

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Permalink Reply by James M. Martin on March 10, 2012 at 7:34am

Possibly because the insurance lobby is against it? After all, prior to Obamacare the carrier could reject you because of a pre-existing condition. If you lied about it to get the insurance, they would drop you the moment they found out. Now, they cannot reject you for that reason, nor can they deny coverage when your "maximum coverage" runs out. Make no mistake, the new healthcare is a VAST improvement over what we had. But the GOP is beholden to the lobbyists employed by those who give them funding for re-election. We should have term limits.

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Permalink Reply by Sentient Biped on March 10, 2012 at 1:20pm

This shows an incredible lack of leadership by the United States. A true leader knows how to collaberate and influence, working together with allies to promote mutual trust and mutual safety, mutual defense and mutual benefits. Instead, the US squanders the work of Americans to fund military industrial complex, bully other countries, go to war for no good defensive reason, buy off allies with military goods and services, and present a supposedly impenetrable fortress wall. Meanwhile we bankrupt the American people and imprison record numbers of Americans for no good reason, due to fear.

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Permalink Reply by James M. Martin on March 10, 2012 at 7:20pm

Unafraid of using troops as pawns in their international daring do at others' expense. The buzz now is that invasion of Iran is inevitable. Because the munitions and materiel industries are pumping out new gimmicks as I write, new wars must be found to use the product. It is the same in the clothing industry. Fashions are established in order to keep the suits and dresses moving off the racks. Humans are nothing if not consumers, and the small boy who buys a model plane in Hobby Lobby has his adult double in the international arms business. How do all those European countries get away with spending so little? Easy, they rely on the U.S. to police the world. Unfortunately, the decisions made to go to war are too often counter-productive and self-defeating; the collateral damage extensive and a major breeder of future jihadists. GWB belongs in prison as much for the elaborate lies told to get us into the war as much to fill the coffers of his major campaign supporters in the arms and materiel industry as to get rid of Saddam. Sadly, the only candidate to take a military-isolationist position is Ron Paul, and too many of his other ideas are not appealing to me.

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Permalink Reply by Sentient Biped on March 10, 2012 at 7:45pm

An invasion of Iran would make invading Iraq and Afganistan look like a walk in the park. One of those kiddie parks with the ground up rubber tires under the jungle gym. Cant we just let them blow themselves up with an "oops" when one of their nuclear bomb assemblers accidentally wires the switch backwards? "We didn't do it! They did it to themselves. So unfortunate, so very unfortunate. Tragic!". Naaah. That wouldn't enrich Halliburton, the Bush cronies, weapons manufacturers, military services contractors, gravestone and crypt manufacturers....