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Health Insurance Giants Arrest Children While Senators Arrest Seniors, Nurses, Doctors
Frankie, 11, and eight others were arrested in July in Des Moines, IA, as Blue Cross felt a little too much pressure to answer questions about their denials of care and their profits:
In the offices of Senator Diane Feinstein, D-CA, eight senior citizens were arrested in July because they wanted just a few minutes of the Senator's time -- by telephone, not even in person -- to make the case for some sanity in healthcare reform.
http://cbs2.com/video/?id=110325@kcbs.dayport.com
And we all know about the nurses and doctors and single-payer advocates arrested in the Senate Finance Committee hearings in May. They were asking for a seat at the infamous table where the big boys and girls get to play -- err, I mean where the stakeholders who have given enough in campaign contributions get to sit while the health insurance industry, the big pharmaceuticals and the huge for-profit hospital corporations design our reform to make sure their profits grow ever larger and that Frankie in Iowa, the seniors in California, the nurses and docs in DC are silenced by whatever means necessary.
Are we hearing this? Are we seeing it? Are we holding this government, under Barack Obama and his allies in Congress, accountable for arresting 11-year-olds and seniors and nurses and doctors simply because they speak out and ask for their own human rights accountability?
Pro-life? Give me a break. Pro-family? Not hardly. Healthcare as a human right? Nope. We are so far from that point that every one of us ought to be preparing for the time and the issues we hold dear to be targeted and to have its discourse and potential outcomes so orchestrated and controlled that we'll see ourselves handcuffed and locked away for simply whispering an alternate option.
You see, while each of these groups of arrestees were advocating for healthcare for all -- publicly funded and privately delivered -- reform as the most ethical, moral and economically sound reform for this nation, the frightening reality is that in 2009 in these United States, our freedom of speech and expression has been bought and paid for by the same people the President wants us to trust with our life and death healthcare decisions.
And, every single one of us will be forced to buy the defective product that they sell -- a product sold to insure our health which neither insures that we'll get needed healthcare nor that we'll be protected from financial ruin as policyholders.
Frankie, I am so sorry they arrested you. You are a brave and wise girl. I promise you that I will fight to make sure your voice is not silenced and that your right to grow up and thrive with healthcare when you need it will be achieved. Thank you for caring enough to tell us what we already knew.
Arresting 11-year-olds? Come on, Mr. President, Mrs. Pelosi, Mr. Hoyer, and Senators Reid, Baucus and Kennedy. You cannot possibly believe that is the right way for this nation to go to protect the healthcare industry even if they did buy your loyalty with $18.5 million in campaign donations to Mr. Obama alone and millions more to the rest of you.
Are your daughters and elders safe at that price and just not the little ones in Iowa? For shame.
- Posted in
54 Comments so far
Show AllI shall send this to the President as a birthday card.
Thank you Donna Smith
Unfortunately, most Americans are too lazy to research the facts and are content to accept the refried stories the mainstream media (msm) dishes out 24/7.
Consequently, very few Americans can tell you what single-payer is, let alone whether or not they support it.
The msm has convinced most Americans that single-payer is a radical concept devised by extreme leftists in basements in Berkeley, Madison and other alleged left wing enclaves.
You hit the nail on the head. Fat, dumb and lazy Americans who never learned to think are being brainwashed. But by who?
FreedomWorkers, Americans for Prosperity, Republican Brooks Brothers suits are sent to town hall meetings to disrupt civil discussions on healthcare. Aggressive ignorant dummies being manipulated by healthcare Insurance giants who are behind this sort of disgusting behavior. Riots produce death. If they don't stop we will have violence. People want to talk healthcare and do not want to be shouted down by a big dumb MOB!!!!!!!
Wake up everyone FASCISM starts in little townhall meetings. They have no right to stop discussions of healthcare.
You know you've lost your democracy when corporations are getting an upper hand on public policy. More than ever, President Obama needs the encouragement and push of many Americans in all states to advance the noble cause of a single payer system to break the strangle-hold monopoly of the for profit health care industry. Mixing profit with health care creates a toxic stew!!
YES, Profit and healthcare and profit and education. No one should be making money off the health and education of our citizens and end personhood for corporations.
Arresting children to protect your profits. How far must we sink into overt Fascism before the people rise up? I do not think the insurance giants ralize that they are sitting on a powederkeg with this. Americans are angry over getting screwed over by thier leaders and corporate sponsors. Their anger is growing every day and as you can see many Americans are sick of talking. Our leaders will keep listening to the money at thier own peril. Soon people won't just obediently let themselves be dragged off by the US Gestapo.
History has repeatedly demonstrated that there is no limit to what corporations will do to protect profits.
It could have been worse. A little over a hundred years ago corporations used to hire thugs to machine gun (well back then, gatling gun) people who disagreed with them.
Zmann
Perhaps this is what the major corporations are banking on, that the media and the American people will think that as compared to what happened during the labor strikes of the 1930s, the police are not mowing down those who protest authority with sub machine guns. Instead they are "only" arresting children for speaking out against the health care industry and wanting to make sure that every person in this country has his or her basic health care needs met. But perhaps if enough television stations were to carry that brief speech by Frankie, then enough people in America might finally come to the realization that the police and insurance companies will stop at nothing in order to crush dissent.
I agree. But just about all television stations are owned by corporations...and all the news show hosts have excellent private insurance policies.
Well I shouldn't really say that, after what Olbermann did on Monday.
This is what comes of thinking you can effect change by "holding their feet to the fire."
Yesterday you were a citizen.
Today you're a terrorist.
THAT'S change you can believe in.
Which raises the question...have Obama and the Deomocrat-controlled Congress restored the right of habeas corpus to "enemy combatants" yet ????
Stoke those fires; we've found a nerve in those feet.
Let's not pretend that people who violate laws aren't arrested. Even though we support the arrested's opinions and actions, let us not act ignorant as to the consequences of the attempt to grab attention. We know that if we do not leave private property we will be arrested; this is the point, the arrest generates publicity. The author here is sadly acting the fool and it turns my stomach. We do not need such stupidly self-righteous dribble. Continue to get arrested for standing your ground. Don't play dumb about the consequences.
No playing dumb here -- those persons and corporations who choose to push for the arrest for citizens over discourse, debate and other means of resolving the issues are the ones who are forcing people to believe the only way to be heard is to risk arrest. There would be no reports on arrests if these situations were handled diferently and more wisely. There are self-righteous fools at work here. You are right about that.
Donna Smith, American SiCKO
Not everyone who breaks the law gets arrested.
It depends upon who is benefitting from the arrest.
Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfield will never be arrested for their crimes, even though their treasonous crimes resulted in the deaths of millions of people.
But children will be arrested because they threaten the profits of our corporate stakeholders.
At least this demonstrates the separation of church and state; the USA is about as far as it can get from being a Christian nation.
Yep.
We live in an Empire now folks , one run by $$$ for $$$. If you think other wise your the one living in la la land. Every four yrs. we have the right to vote for a new Corp. front guy.
If your goal for health care reform is to see insurance and pharma stocks rise, you will be handsomely rewarded.
If your goal for health care reform is to see medical services provided for those in need at an affordable price, you will be very disappointed.
There are two sides to the healthcare "debate" (as if the majority in Washington give a damn about listening).
#1. People who want healthcare to be available to all people because it is proof that we are more than predatory beasts.
#2. People who love money and love making a profit off of the suffering of others.
Anyone who works for private healthcare (and this includes the vast majority of both sides of the corporate party in Washington) is in the group #2. Truly, they lack decency.
Where's the outrage! It's recovering from the last outrage that happened five minutes ago...
I don't think we'll get anything decent done in this country until we, as a people, all 70+ percent of us, are willing to shut this country down. Shut it sown and tell these arrogant kkkorporatists, "this country is not yours, it is all of ours." Include the animals, plants, bugs, et al in "ours."
lord_buckley August 4th, 2009 3:50 pm..........Absolutely and precisely. This is the only way to change. It does not have to be violent. Problem is, no one has the courage, time or caring to participate. It's that simple. Most citizens use one excuse or another, but as my friend, Doc Tom Tvedten, of the 911dvdproject.con says: "You cannot awaken a person pretending to be asleep". It's not complicated. HOW to awaken the populace from a self-imposed stupor is the ongoing question.
Facsism is like that. It's time to bury corporate personhood.
YES YES YES YES YES UM...YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It is our Congress and the White House that need to be arrested and detained. For all the prisons that are being built, it would be a hell of a lot better if the White House and that stupid dome shaped building were replaced with prison cells so that politicians would find themselves forced to do their job for we the people and not the monied lobbyists ! Plus, the longer one wants to stay in office, the longer they're in prison. Ok, probably sounds a little insane but at least term limits would come naturally. After all, who wants to stay in a dungeon and actually work hard for the American people when instead they could sit in their comfy chairs, eat and sleep like a bunch of fat farts, allow the lobbyists to tickle them with money, and live in total ignorance at the expense of bankrupting the public ?!?!?
We are all proud of all of you, especially you Frankie!
As for you weasels that sit in OUR seats in Washington, and the boardrooms in Blue Cross & the others--you are pure scum (with apologies to scum.)
Let each pledge today that they will NOT buy any health "care" from the private for-profit insurance industry--NOT ONE PENNY!
Thank you.
I'm in.
Good and then when they go to emergency rooms to be treated they will run up thousands of dollars to which no one will be able to pay because they can't. Then they go bankrupt.Whoops! Now what?
my thoughts exactly.
ER, pharmacy, and hospital prices have little to do with costs.
But those costs are real, and assuming the improbable - that circumstances could actually devolve to a point where doctors, hospitals, and insurance companies were going out of business - do you imagine that no social change would transpire?
Let's see:
- A large majority of the US electorate favors single payer.
- A narrower majority of doctors also support single payer
- Hospitals would certainly favor single payer before going broke
- Insurance companies would have less money to lobby, and might more reasonably divest.
No. I doubt the proposition plays as you suggest.
More, there's a principle here, one that works despite the authentic good will of medical professionals. Corporations move to maximize profits, not just to survive. As long as all these entities are corporate, they will continue to extort from the defenseless sick. As long as they are corporate and not human, the only pain they feel or intelligence they garner will be financial.
Sure, cooperation will be smoother, but so far consumers have "cooperated" alone. That's not cooperation; it's the worst of options.
you'll go broke waaaaaaaaay before a hospital will and shiva help you if you have outstanding credit card debt when you miss the payments on those hospital bills. Credit score drops, interest rates turn the screw and the screws put to you.
I pledge not to buy a defective product (health insurance) even if it becomes law for me to have it. If they want me to have it so bad, they can provide it for me.
Single-payer or go home.
This story "highlights" one point that has always bothered me, even back in the early 70's when I was active with the anti-war and pro-pot protests.... WHY do people continually bring children to protests? Irrespective of what the 'intent' of such an action is, there is always a danger that some loonie-toon will do something stupid and the "excrement will hit the oscillating wind generator" so to speak. There are other ways to teach children about direct citizenship other than putting them in danger of being arrested or worse. Just my opinion, but adults should keep their children safe at home, and not bring them to civil rallies against (or for) a contested issue.
Although children need to be exposed to participatory democracy, the state has no qualms about taking the children away from "unfit parents" who bring their children to demonstrations.
Hey Bystander, No name huh? Unfit parents bring their children to demonstrations? Who are you to judge them? Children have opinions and sometimes it is out of the mouth of babes that change happens. Children should be not seen and not heard? They are people too. And being arrested for asking questions was disgusting!!!
"unfit parents" was in quotes to indicate special meaning, as in other than what is commonly understood as unfit parents. He made the statement in a manner to indicate his disapproval for the governments definition of unfit parent. You two probably agree about this. Calm down, we're mostly friends here, not a lot of right-wingers come in to this site.
P.S. They weren't arrested for asking questions. It was a protest, they refused to leave, arrests were inevitable, it happens all the time. I just wonder if the 11 year old girl believed they were gonna go ask the big company questions (which means her parents deceived her) or she knew she would be arrested and then later played the "we just wanted to talk - ah shucks" when on stage there.
Hi marcie331,
Sorry that my post was ambiguous. Yes, I have brought my children to demonstrations so I am one of the "unfit" parents. But the fact remains that our government is extremely powerful and has the authority to cause both us and our children great harm in an effort to shut us up.
That is but one reason of many why demonstration have lost much of their effect. Besides the reduced number of demonstrators because of intimidation, there is the closing of public areas so that demostrators are never seen. And of course the desonstrators are made invisible by the media. When tens of thousands demonstrate against the war, the media gives as much attention to the dozen or so counter-protesters.
I do not know the solution, but I do know that there are sections of our government that are totally out of control.
Marcie331,
Since I posed the question I'd like to explain my position.... I do not think that people who take children to 'contested' protests are "unfit", but I do think that they are irresponsible. I'm nearly sixty years old, still participate in public demonstrations and STILL question the wisdom of bring children out into harms way. I've seen the police use tear gas and water hoses on totally peaceful demonstrations, just to break them up. People usually get hurt in the scramble to get away from the gas and water, and not as a direct result of the actions of the police.
As for children getting arrested....must be some proud parents there. Adults using children to make political statements. The children "WILL" carry that around for the rest of their lives. To believe that arrests that happened when one was a minor went away when they reached the age of consent is naive.... go for your "Top Secret" clearance and you'll discover quite rapidly that NOTHING is ever erased totally. I had to account for a three day suspension from junior high school.
YES, children ARE people, but they are NOT adults and can not give informed consent to be political pawns. Children's opinions are most often the reiteration of what he/she has heard mom and dad speak over the dinner table, or in some cases down right prompted to say. Yes, being arrested for asking questions IS disgusting, but one must always consider the venue where such an occurance takes place. SHOULD the responsible ADULT in charge have had reasonable belief that such an event could have occured, if so the ADULT should not have had the child at the event.
I respect your position, and suspect that you too would not bring a child to a "contested" rally where there is a reasonable suspicion that some form of confrontation could occur. THOSE are the types gathering that I originally refered to. Now days however, even "town meeting" events, once respectful, are becoming battle grounds for the extremists.
Still, what doesn't cease to amaze me is the utter hypocrisy and temerity of the government of the US daring to critize the government of Iran for jailing their oponents! And here we are, with our very own government, the biggest hypocrisy in the world, doing exactly the same thing to people that oppose their corporate owners.
I so wish that Americans had only half the ballz of those oppressed people in third world countries!
Seriously,
The POINT of these people was to get arrested. That is what they were there for. Corporations do not negotiate, discuss, or publicly contemplate what protesters have to say. We know this. The protesters (they weren't there to actually talk to anyone) went to bring attention to the situation. They wanted to be arrested and its not in anyway shocking that they were. This story is from the viewpoint of someone who acts like these situations never turn out like this. Cheer for the protesters. This article is terrible though.
"The POINT of these people was to get arrested. [...] The protesters ... went to bring attention to the situation. [...] This article is terrible though."
Is it possible that there might be a contradiction or two in that assessment?
Please site the specific contradictions you find.
From looking at your quotes you seem to think that either:
"protesters getting arrested" does not fall within "bringing attention", which is incorrect since that is how many people generate publicity.
"This article is terrible" violates my approving opinion of the cause and actions since the article brings attention to the cause, this is incorrect since many bad things bring attention to important causes (see Ghandi Murder).
I believe I have stated why this article is terrible though in detail. Just wish we could have progressive news without substandard reporting.
Sorry, but I don't have time to provide a Logic 101 course. Try syllogisms as a starting place. Suffice it to say that the exclusive assignment of a singular purpose ("the POINT") to any action does not then admit or subsume another primary purpose.
sorry, thought you were refering to some meaningful contradiction. The caps were there to emphasize my exasperation with those that seem to be shocked that protesters are arrested and those that act as if the protesters went there to have a discussion. I should have said the purpose was to bring attention and they went there knowing they would get arrested. My apologies.
A few specs doth not a semester make.
We actually don't need children to be arrested by giant "healthcare" corporations to know that they are despicable, greedy constructs that have one purpose in life and that is too make as much money as possible from the sick bodies of their policy holders. They actually creep me out. Forsythe and his equally immoral minions need to be ostracized from polite society. They are the reason for the despair so many families endure.
We can make stronger protest if we all do it in unison--like not pay for things we don't get--like peace, justice, freedom of speech, health care, free choice for happiness, etc.etc. How fast would we get their attention if we completely ignored all our financial obligations untill things really changed???
birdbrain, bystander, et all--to my mind the issue boils down to those that have an empathic-imagination vs. the ilk of the Orin Hatches of the world; who not only have no empathetic imagination, but are unabashedly naked in their anti-empathetic-sensibility advocacy, lacking the shadow of a shred of sensitivity, yet alone compassion for the humanity of their fellow-Americans.
they say; "kill the health bill", "resist the temptation to be constructive", "it will break Obama"------This is the same ilk that frothed at the mouth, a la 'Hatchites,' when Pres. Obama stated that he valued a sense of empathy as a positive character trait in a supreme court jurist---the right went into caniptions of fulmination.
a stark clear contrast between opposing camps (to be politic)
There is not even the whisper of a shadow of a hint of an empathic imagination & let this condemnation be the challenge we hurl at these anti-humane-ers!
UNFORTUNATELY THERE ARE PEOPLE IN THE WORLD WHO JUST DON'T CARE FOR THEIR FELLOW MAN. THEY JUST PRETEND THEY DO. THERE ARE ALSO AN AMAZING AMOUNT OF STUPID AND BRAINWASHED PEOPLE WHO NEVER LEARNED TO THINK, THANKS TO OUR WATERED DOWN SCHOOL SYSTEM.
EVIL PEOPLE DO NOT CARE IF OTHERS HAVE HEALTHCARE. (EVIL MEANING THE ABSENCE OF LOVE.) I SWEAR IF SOMEONE FROM AN ALIEN CIVILIZATION CAME TO VISIT US, WE'D BE VAPORIZED IN A SECOND!