Right, there is a LOT of corporate poison being pushed, and especially being marketed to parents via their kids, which is sickening in itself. But they also play on parents' and the ignorance of the general public in this regard by attempting to obfuscate the facts, do they not? And one of the main psychological ploys that the cigarette pushers use, is the ego factor. They say: "use our product, and assert your independence, show how mature and grown up you are; after all, you have a right to smoke!" (Virgina Slims anyone?) And the gullible swallow it.

If we just tax soft drinks and other foods that are high in sugar or fat, we may indeed hurt the poor. The sad fact is that eating healthy seems to be more expensive than eating processed "unhealthy" foods. Any food tax would be regressive, unless there is a way to offer a healthy alternative. Even then, a soft drink or bag of chips now and then is not harmful or addictive. You are right, though, the issue is indeed complex. However, better education may be of benefit here, and more restriction on marketing these products to children, which is just plain indefensible and sharkish.

What strikes me in these types of discussions, though, is the inability of many to separate the health issues from other aspects and to project or accuse those who bring them up as moralizing. If a high fat and sugar diet or smoking is shown to have adverse health affects, then why defend their consumption in any way? There are many people who indulge, but themselves admit these things are harmful, and recognize the corporate exploitation factor. They are at least being honest.

Many of those being exploited enable their exploiters due to ignorance. Just look at all the lower and middle income people who voted for Bush in last election, voting against their own best interests in doing so? Many were brainwashed by their churches, who promoted George Bush as being a "man of god." And the sheep went bleating all the way to the poles. Blame and denial plays a big role in maintaining ignorance, and in the promotion of exploitation. I strongly feel we all have some personal responsibility here, at the very least to examine the facts before flying off the handle.

I'm angry at all of the moralistic wordage about smokers. If you want to talk about public health, why not include soft drinks, alcohol, fast foods, chemicals in our processed foods and cleaning products, etc.

Our hold health system is in a mess. While I'm not against funding children's insurance by cigarette taxes, it is a band-aid fix for a far larger problem.

For myself, I am 71 years old. I grew up in a very poor household (another sin in this age of social Darwinism), worked hard for my education, was already financially helping my parents when I was in my 20s. Now, my older sister has had a stroke and I look after her and do all of the work in our small house.

I'm still very healthy, take no prescription drugs, eat organic as I can afford it. Yes, I do smoke. I started when I was 16. I got a job. When I got dizzy from all of the cigarette smoke where I worked, people just told me to start smoking myself and I wouldn't notice it. I've quit a number of times. When times get hard, cigarettes work better than anti-depressants.

My supplemental insurance (which I have yet to use) now costs over $2000 a year. It's doubled in the last 5 years.

Right now, I'm afraid of this administration and what it will do next. Half of my income comes from social security. After paying into it for 46 years, I feel I have a right to it. Worrying about it leads me to sit down and chain-smoke.

You would be much happier in a place where twenty percent of the populace (mere pawns in your game, apparently) could be stripped of any right to personhood by the mere exercise of the divine right of kings. And where any churchman could punish those who would willfully indulge in sinful behavior despite the rules imposed from above.

--No, puffin, and that shows how much you misunderstand me. I'm looking at it from a purely practical point of view. Sure, I do believe it's idiotic to smoke, but not immoral. There are many many ways to be self-destructive, though even that is irrelevant. I mean, if someone wants to grow pot in their backyard to use it in their home, it's really no one else's business. On the other hand, if you smoke around me and it harms MY lungs, now that is a different matter, is it not? That's largely why I think smokers are being ostracized. Additionally, it has been proved that smoking decreases when the price rises: more people quit and less take up the habit. That's really a no-brainer, isn't it? I believe that Canada has high cigarette taxes for this reason, and it's probably not a bad idea to use as part of the funding for a national health care system, since smokers would be expected to use it more than non-smokers anyway. Just common logic here, puffin. Big tobacco is just another corporate poison pusher, so I have NO sympathy for them seeing a marked reduction in profits. Therefore, I'm all for higher cigarette taxes.

For me, it's simply a public health issue, and if we were social buddies, I'd still make you light up outside like I do all my smoking friends who visit my home. Sure, in being a real friend, I'd also encourage you to quit. And do you accuse the people who care for you and encourage you quit as being self-righteous baptists? If so, maybe it is YOU who has made smoking into a religion. Think about it.

Ayumanbean, you get right to the point. This is exactly how the wealthy elite think. I can use examples from my own family. My sister is a millionaire and is quite morally righteous. She does indeed believe that her wealth and social standing are "proof" of her higher ethics. She is absolutely convinced of the superiority in her character.
I wonder: if I had "made it" wouldn't I search for justification too?
The problem is systemic. The problem is that we allow some people to become incredibly rich and others to languish. As long as working people are not being paid fairly for their work and there is no adequate income redistribution in the form of well-funded social services, public works, then there cannot be acknowledgement of the real equality of man/womankind, of the fact that all people contribute to the general economy and that each person has their own unique moral voice, their own standing.
A Zen master once cried out upon experiencing a great enlightenment: "There is no common man!" This is a great truth. But only a few will see it.

Ah, Chessgame, you're in the wrong century. You would be much happier in a place where twenty percent of the populace (mere pawns in your game, apparently) could be stripped of any right to personhood by the mere exercise of the divine right of kings. And where any churchman could punish those who would willfully indulge in sinful behavior despite the rules imposed from above.

In the time and place where I live, however, minorities may not be imposed upon unfairly, regardless of the highminded excuses given.

Lest you think that being anti-smoking is new, you might want to consult any Southern Baptist friends you may have, who signed pledges at baptism to abstain from smoking, drinking, gambling and dancing.

The prigs are running the country and the only thing they haven't figured out how to tax yet is the dancing.

Smoke away, puffin. While your habit cannot be defended for any of its supposed benefits, I wholeheartedly defend your right to indulge in it. As far as I'm concerned, they can raise the price of cigarettes another dollar or two if it will reduce or wipe it out. Believe me, you'd live just fine without cigarettes. I'm sorry you feel persecuted, but the tobacco companies are laughing all the way to the bank at you and others whom they've hooked, and a cigarette tax can never be considered regressive. If it's not enough to support the child care bill, then another provision will simply have to be made. And, hey, if it takes away the guilt some smokers feel for their self-destructive behavior, so much the better. So what's your beef?

Chessgame, you're absolutely right. I fully intend to continue smoking for the sake of the children.

And, of course, to piss off the priggish types.

But considering that there's already some smoke coming from your direction, you should take it up yourself. After all, it's for the children.

You do care about the children enough to cough up some bucks of your own, don't you? Or is all that concern only when I'm picking up the tab?

chessgames56

You might bring in the fact that the tobacco industry, along with Big Oil, is one of the most politically regressive players in U.S. electoral activities.

Because these industrial oligarchs want to spread the addiction to their product, they usually place their boys on foreign affairs committees in the Congress and Senate.

In that way, they can force Third World and Second World governments to open national markets to their death dealing and land stealing products...all in the name of free markets, or course.

Sorry, puffin, you'll get no sympathy from me here. I happen to think funding the program this way is an excellent idea, and a win-win for all. Here's why: If you or someone else quits smoking, and especially if a child refrains from picking up the habit as a consequence of higher cigarette prices, that is a benefit. Additionally, if more parents quit smoking as a consequence, children will benefit from a reduction of exposure to second-hand smoke. Now I do think there should be an alternate provisioning plan to support the program given that the tobacco revenues do not provide enough, due to a reduction in smoking. Perhaps you will be thankful in the long term, as well, if an increase in cigarette prices inspires you to quit.

I saw the news about Hillary's $20 billion bill for children's health care and I saw the attacks from Republicans. Anyone stop to think that we will be paying $15 billion a month for Iraq. Five to Six weeks in Iraq would be enough to fund this bill. So Iraq oil is more important to Bush / Cheney than our children.

And the apalling level of hypocrisy doesn't stop there. Bush's education program is called "No Child Left Behind" as if he couldn't care less. And the first five years of life are critical for children growing up and learning effectively. It is the period of time where significant development and health problems will impact children for the rest of their lives starting with compromised learning capacity.

Why, oh why, do we in this country continue to just nibble away at this whole health care problem? Why do we force those who are employed (and their employers) to pay for SOMEBODY ELSE'S healthcare thru mandatory payroll taxes but - when THEY actually get sick or hurt and cannot afford THEIR OWN health insurance - simply tell them to "go to the nearest emergency room" and essentially beg for help? Why do we continue to think that any government-controlled healthcare policy for ALL of it's citizens is essentially a communist manifesto of some perverted sort - but then think that ANY person who manages to remain healthy enough to reach a magical age of 65 is "entitled" to government-backed and supported healthcare for the rest of their lives? Why do we argue about the immorality of not providing healthcare for our needy children and ignore the obvious fact that children in need of healthcare would also very likely have parents and other family members (who have not reached the magical age of 65) who are also in need of healthcare? What society that pretends to have such a moral authority as ours (to the point of forcing it onto others at the point of a gun) could feel it is right and just to dole out guaranteed healthcare to only a select few of its citizens and tell the rest to "simply go to the nearest emergency room" - and, "oh by the way, on your way to this emergency room - please cough up the money needed to pay for these other select individuals"...

This is just part of the Bush Crime Family vision of New World Order. It started with Prescott Bush being a money man for Hitler. GW is just helping move the dream along. You see...only superior people should have a say in how the world runs.Obviously they are smart or they wouldn't have money...right? How do you know who is also morally superior? Easy...those with money. That they have money is proof of their superiority. The more money, the more superior they are to those who don't have it. Those who don't have money don't have it because they are either lazy or dumb. This is how Bush and his base feel about their fellow Americans

Congress just approved another 85 billion to continue a failed war we are losing that he should have never started. But, he can't find a few measly billion to cover health care for American children? How calloused can you get? But, we all know how calloused this man is! When hell freezes over I might vote Republican again!

Sandronsky on Counterpunch has an interesting article. He quotes an expert who says that while factory workers and other semi-skilled and skilled workers have had their jobs outsourced or taken by foreigners with visas, there are those with a protected status:

"For instance, he suggests standardizing rigid licensing and professional requirements for physicians. Of course the American Medical Association opposes that. Meanwhile, some 800,000 U.S. doctors earn double and more versus their European counterparts. If the licensing and professional barriers to foreign doctors practicing stateside ended, U.S. health care would become more affordable for those with low and middle incomes, Baker argues. As he makes clear, high-wage earners such as doctors get government protection. The vast bulk of the U.S. labor force is on its own."

If a doctor is licensed to practice in Europe, he/she should be allowed to practice here. Let 'em all in--as many as want to come. We could have an affordable clinic on every corner, and they might actually bring civilization with them when they come.

Puffin, you have it right. The article fails to mention the method of funding as do so many other articles I've read recently. I hope Bush does veto the bill because of the way it is funded. When people say we have money for war and other things, they should remember that all taxpayers pay the bill. It is no way fair for smokers only to pay for this Insurance Program.

I wonder how the public would feel if Congress would have put another tax on alcoholic beverages instead? You've have more than 20% of the people there.

Health care for poor children is very important. You want to hear something even more important health care for poor children and their parents. What good is health care for children if their parents are to sick to work full time.

Another thing, this is just a bad bill, plain and simple. If the people on this board and the country thinks that health care for poor children is so important than everybody should be taxed to support it. Taxing smokers to do it isn't right especially when smokers are already taxed to much.

#
pundit October 1st, 2007 5:41 am

Being that so little of our Constitution is observed these days, can anyone explain what would stop Bush from bypassing Congress and going directly to the Treasury and/or the Federal Reserve and withdrawing the money he needs to continue the war? In like manner why can't he just refuse to spend $$ allocated to childrens health care? Possibly all it takes is a signing statement.

I don't think even Bush can go to the treasury and withdraw funds. He has however already refused on occasion to spend funds that have already been allocated.

Lobo Gris

Being that so little of our Constitution is observed these days, can anyone explain what would stop Bush from bypassing Congress and going directly to the Treasury and/or the Federal Reserve and withdrawing the money he needs to continue the war? In like manner why can't he just refuse to spend $$ allocated to childrens health care? Possibly all it takes is a signing statement.

POLITICAL PAWNS? Yes, let's talk about political pawns. How about the 20% of Americans who smoke cigarettes? The ones who are being singled out to pay for SCHIP at sixty-one cents per pack?

I'm totally in favor of SCHIP but clearly the Democrats wussed out in funding it on the backs of a maligned minority. The war they'll fund from general revenue...but not children's health care.

HERE'S A PLAN: ALL MY FELLOW DEMOCRATS SHOULD SHOW THEIR SUPPORT FOR SCHIP BY SMOKING...AT LEAST A PACK A DAY...IT'S THE LEAST WE CAN DO FOR THE CHILDREN.

We've heard the president say he's gonna veto SCHIP
expansion. When he actually does so, let's hope a real veto override vote is actually conducted, not just
hall-counted. Everyone needs to be on record on this. There are no troops or national security to be endangered with SCHIP.

Oh whats the big deal, its only health care. Sheesh.

SIOUXROSE---I know exactly the feeling you describe when our favourite president shows his face somewhere (and don`t you love the cute waving)?? Bush is all for right to life for embryos until they see daylight and then they can go to H____.

NORM VINCENT--- I believe I would put the expression as an urge to "retch at the sight of the wretch".

"When the vast majority let a small minority do their thinking for them, the tyrants take over"...peaceman

This country really started the 'new millenium' off with a bang, didn't it?

Americans will have to learn the 'hard way'. We don't own this planet. Period!

NORM VINCENT: I am making the probable leap that you would agree with me that this whole administration and its enablers makes the conscious citizen feel like a character in either a remake of one of Orwell's novels-as-film come to life, or Kafka's trial. Without CD as a community where we can vent and share our observations, the erosion of sanity in our leaders and what it is and will cost this nation does NOT SEEM POSSIBLE. It does not seem that this could be happening, and by this, I mean one egregious program after another. A treasure spilled into a consciously devised war inferno. Weather begging for restraints in fuel usage and related conservation measures as the US, like the band, just plays on as the Titanic sinks. There are SO many stupid things going on, so many senseless aspects of policy that profit the already bloated at the DIRECT expense of so many million others that unless this is some kind of massive karmic bonfire of the vanities, it would seem too much of the human race has collectively lost its mind.
For what it's worth, given my interest in supersensible topics since the age of 14, I have met three trance mediums in my life. ALL provided very authentic experiences in terms of transitions of voice & persona. The last one I spoke with said, "A great many people want oblivion. An end to it all." This would explain the fascination to the point of thraldom to the End Times "prophecy." This group, Bill Moyers stated 50 million readers (of Tim Le Haye's "Left Behind" series that really entertains the notion all these AWFUL things HAVE to happen to summon the great "ascension" of the new "chosen," who identify themselves as believers. Note what they believe in condemns everyone else to utter hell and chaos, how very "Christian" of this group) is courting Armageddon and given the obscene WISH to escalate war into absolutely INNOCENT Iran, the still mentally stable among us beg, ask, inquire, pray regarding what we can do to stem this gushing tide of madness that threatens to push mankind over the proverbial edge into an already forming abyss. If Edgar Allen Poe were alive, current events would surpass his capacity to tell a macabre tale.

When it comes to corporate welfare, pork barrel projects and the needs of the military machine, the coffers are always open, ready to go, and require little oversight.

What? No money! Don't worry about the guv'mint hav'n no stink'n money. We'll always scrounge it from somewhere. Probably from the bottom feeders and the printing press. It's always in mint condition.

Gee. If the U.S. politicians (and their whore-masters, the economic elite) made welfare pick'ns that easy for the rest of us, this economy would start pumping iron.

Next, puhleez Mr. Prez make Sallie forgive and forget our student loans. If you did, it would take a heavy load off a lot of people's asses.

Just think of all the newly printed cash we, the loan-forgiven, would flush into the economy. Some of us would even spend it to git more education to git them good jobs we heard so much about.

Hell, lookee what happens when you bail out your rich bubble bust'n buddies. In a matter of no time, they flush it down some shithole. Later, we have to wipe their butts clean again.

That's a lot of paper made from crunched, squished and flattened out trees.

I know that ain't going to do them greenhouse gasses no good.

Siouxrose... Amen to you Sister. I can't look at a likeness of this turtle-spawn either, without feeling like wretching.

marctileston:

Good point.

Did Ms. Perino say scarce federal dollars? Did she mean scarce profitablilty? To pretend that federal funds are scarce while spending ten billion of them a week on a futile effort to control a culture that we don't understand and in fact have infuriated through murder, oppression and lifestyle disruption is, well, exactly what we've come to expect from our government. To say that they are blatantly disconnected from reality would be to assume that they are just making poor decisions based on the responsibility they assumed by reading their oaths of office. But nothing could be further from the truth. This is another example of using our treasury to generate profit for the elite while refusing to spend taxpayer dollars on taxpayers. To answer Hellodarling's question, what will be left is a society that has no voice, no rights, no representation, and no hope in a land of senseless greed. If the christian right is so opposed to socialized medicine, but so supportive of socialized murder, why don't they spend their tithe money on both. Even though they can afford to purchase their own insurance it is still socialized. Insurance by nature is the sharing of risk, by pooling resources, and using it to address the smaller percentage who have actual needs. Why does this concept become so contemptable when it applies to the poor. The poor pay their taxes, so the neo-crooks can have a power grid and an interstate system on which to operate their gluttonous SUV's, and to pay law enforcement personnel to incarcerate their poor enemies. Isn't that all socialized? What has already become of the common man is taxation without representation. Couple that with the bigotry and greediness of the elected and you have a recipe for the Roman Empire...The collpase is underway.

SIOUXROSE:

The apostrophe is correct.

I also agree with you and chessgames56, wholeheartedly.

Bush is a heartless p***k. Healthcare coverage for children whose parents are knocking on the door of middle-class? No way. He'd rather kick them to the bottom so they can "qualify" for the benefit. And what's wrong with helping the middle-class? He's helped the very wealthy (his "my kind of people, the 'haves' and the 'have mores'") with his tax cuts. The very poor get to suffer the indignity of Medicaid, etc, etc. The middle-class? We should feel fortunate to work, work, work so that we don't qualify for any entitlement programs, nor make enough to qualify for the tax-cut entitlement. Meanwhile, we live with the certainty that our financial security is one serious illness or one corporate downsizing away from poverty. This S-chip is only the tip of the iceberg on health care. Children are not the only ones at risk -- all the rest of us who think we're insured could have another think coming (see SiCKO).

when this administration and all of it's unpunished war-criminals finishes dismantling the constitution and plundering the treasury, what is going to be left to the common man besides the ruins of what once was a great nation?

LEE ANN: If you read this, I have a grammatical question for you. As in my above commentary, should the word ONE receive that apostraphe or not? I never remember some of the odd specifics and anomalies of English grammar. Gracias, amiga.

CHESSGAME: Right on! All the PR in the world can't spin this shit into gold. As I have remarked time and time again, the ONLY priority behind Bush is a homage to the dark twin gods of Mars/war and Mammon/corporate profit/privatization. Even his own party sees the insanity of this 'decision.' I can neither call him a man or our president, his evolution is so low on the Homo Sapien Scale as NOT to qualify as either. And that the Supreme Court, that purported bastion of superior wisdom put this fraud into so central a position at the all-important cusp of a new millennium only to have him turn the clock back on every progressive position, while nature burns. The Lords of Karma have a lot of work ahead of them in rendering the accounting which bypasses flawed human systems of justice. Letting children die slowly either through war weapons or having their names cut from medical programs must qualify as THE greatest of sins. As if this piece of work ever had a talk with God, Jesus or any superior being besides his psychopathic ego and its distorted utterances. To look on his face is to get sick to one's stomach.

turtleroom:

Notice how he wages war against his fellow countrymen?

Maybe there's some magic power in the grips of those pistols found on Sadam Hussein that Bu$h now has as his Iraq war trophies. Maybe he coveted them for this power... to openly poison, "disappear" disstentors, and otherwise rape a country with impunity and evacuation of conscience-if it was in the person's possession to begin with, tha is....

Another fine example of compassionate conservatism. Bush demands money for his failed war, and grants tax cuts for the rich, but refuses to support a children's health care program. If it isn't already, it should now be abundantly clear what this administration is all about. But what does it say about those who gave him a second term?

This is so sadistically sickening. To think that our government will not let Americans care for their own children without first paying tribute to George Walker Bush's corporate (Insurance) sponcers.
This is so stomache turning that I'll move my assets offshore and put my savings into Euros before George's brokeback dollar falls any farther.

scarce federal dollars?

perhaps those dollars wouldn't be so scarce if we ended our $500,000 PER MINUTE war in iraq.

idiots.

And you expected something different from this shameful 'resident after his long track record of astonishingly abhorrent actions similar to this?

I can't remember even one so called socially responsible action taken by this administration, even those we initially perceived as "helpful". Those policies that seemed good in the beginning were quickly turned into the exact opposite of what we were led to believe they were, repeatedly.

Even those unemployment reports that are initially presented as "proof" that the bush policies are "working" and "good for America" etc. are quietly reassessed and a much different reality is later documented for the record but not widely reported so that people can actually see that the misinformation is later corrected in secrecy. This has happened with nearly every "progress" implicating report on the economy, education stats, and the unemployment rates-which are a farce anyway.

Obviously the people who sit in the white house haven't got a clue as to what's going on, socially, in this nation. It's their way or the highway and that's that.

Isn't feudalism fun?

Michael Moore for President!

Just think of what would happen if Bush and Cheney and Rove could be turned into Fletcher Reede (Jim Carrey's character in Liar, Liar) each for a day? How far down the chain would you like to go?