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I Was So Wrong
Even people who oppose regulation and don't mind manufacturing hamburger contaminated by E. coli deserve healthcare
OK, it was wrong of me to say last week that we should deny healthcare to Republicans except for aspirin and hand sanitizer, and thank you to the many readers who kindly took me to task. It was so wrong. And I withdraw the idea that death panels should circulate through red states searching for the obese and slow afoot, the wheezy and limpy, spray-painting orange stripes on their ankles, marking them for future harvest. That was very, very bad.
Republicans have the same right to quality healthcare as anyone else, and you can quote me on that. Even people who are crazed stark raving berserk by the thought of a president with three vowels in his last name deserve to be treated with kindness and dignity, and shot with tranquilizer darts by game wardens and wrapped in quilts and taken to refuge.
What has come along to change my mind? Fall, magnificent fall, in all its grandeur, when the maples are blazing with glory, like young romantic poets dying as they are writing their best stuff. John Keats died at 25, Shelley at 29. Stephen Crane was 28. Franz Schubert was 31, and Mozart was just a young married guy with a couple of little boys, neither of whom did much in their lives. One of them had musical talent but was crushed by the burden of his father's fame. (Great men probably shouldn't have children, so keep that in mind if you are young and wildly brilliant: Use a condom.)
The maple trees stand in the yards of we stolid Midwesterners and they cry out for unbridled passion and heartbreaking beauty and fabulous golden yellows and blazing reds, and they tell us to quit our jobs and fly away in pursuit of hopeless romance and a life of dance and poetry and spending your life creating masterpieces that the world will ignore, and of course we don't listen to the bad advice of trees, we go right ahead fixing our children's lunches and arranging little enriching experiences for them and asking them what they want to be for Halloween, and then the rain falls and the wind blows and romanticism is gone, a heap of rotting leaves on the ground. Sic transit gloria mundi, pal.
That is what fall means in St. Paul, Minn. It's maple trees telling us about mortality and that life is short and can't be put on Pause and each of us is as fragile and forgettable as a maple tree. We go racing past them fighting our petty battles for power and parking spaces, and then we die (arghh) and people glance at the obit and if you're young, like Keats and Shelley, they feel a little twinge, and if you aren't they don't, and then they go back to telling their kids about the importance of correct spelling and grammar, which every good parent should do.
In the great contest of autumn -- Art & Adventure vs. Parenthood, Hitting the Road in Search of the True You vs. Attending Parent-Teacher Conferences & Hearing About How We Need to Work On Sharing -- Republicans vote Neither. They're mostly about maximizing profit in the short run. They are the folks who buy a healthy company and then sink it under an enormous debt load that goes to pay them a vast profit even though the company is sinking, and the creditors get shafted.
They are the ones who are dead-set against government regulation and do not mind manufacturing hamburger patties contaminated by E. coli, and if someone becomes terribly ill from eating one -- a young woman in Minnesota almost died from a Cargill hamburger and will likely never walk again -- nonetheless Republicans remain staunchly opposed to G-men snooping around the slaughterhouse, and so I should never eat another Big Mac or Whopper or any other ground meat other than that ground from whole sirloin by a butcher as I watch. Never.
We are back to the 19th century so far as meat is concerned. This has been accomplished by those incredibly rude men who occupy first class on the airplane and elbow themselves ahead of elderly women in line as they yammer into dangly cellphones. They have nothing to do with art and even less to do with bringing up children. They are a danger to society and an embarrassment to their children. Nonetheless, if one of them falls down with a heart attack, he should be cared for, same as anyone else.
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59 Comments so far
Show Allthe big question is...how can a minority party (huge minority) and a few talk show hosts control the Democrat Party? I guess the GOP could filibuster now, but would they? Call the vote Reid! Stop letting "drug addicts" and "fear mongers" control the Democrat party.
I think that you're commenting on the wrong article.
q
With their domination of media, the right can filibuster the public discourse even if they can't filibuster in Congress.
You misunderstand the Democratic party. The Republicans don't control them; they're controlled by the same people who control the Republicans.
Ah...what a glorious start to a beautiful autumn morning! Thank you, Garrison, for putting things so perfectly in perspective! And I agree...everyone deserves health care. Even people I don't particularly care about. And even those I detest. Even Republicans!
You will soon be assailed by right-wing drones complaining that you failed to include Democrats in your scorn.
q
In the same breath, said drones will also accuse you of being a godless, socialist, Islamofacist, homosexual, racist freedom-hater no less than three times.
". . . so I should never eat another Big Mac or Whopper or any other ground meat. . . " - here is the solution I can believe in! Thank you Garrison Keillor.
Disclosure: I am a vegetarian, so it's easy for me to say. But for those of you who aren't vegetarians - does it make sense to eat that stuff if you know that, more likely than not, you are eating shit, and the best case scenario is that that shit has been thoroughly nuked and cooked?
Ditto..
My wife and I are now in our seventies. We got some wisdom and became vegetarians over nine years ago. Meats are contaminated with; cruelty, antibiotics, growth hormones, and improper handling. Also our environment suffers because it takes so much animal food to raise a single pound of meat. Even the food for farmed fish is contaminated....etc., etc.
It is difficult to make such a major change at our age, but it is our small part of "Living as we wish the world to be" (Ghandi)
Good for you Chuck!
Yes, "be the change you wish to see in the world" -- Gandhi
I am with you. Information is power. Good for you for making that change at your age. I'm sure you know it has benefited your health as well as the animal world and the environment.
Too few people realize that we are all connected and what we do to the environment we live in and the animals we share it with, we do to ourselves.
Cruelty is never an option.
Thank you for sharing your comments. It made my day.
Sue
Bea, I agree, but when you say "and the best case scenario is that that shit has been thoroughly nuked and cooked.." you leave open the possibility that the health risk is diminished when you thoroughly cook meats. All of the scientific evidence I have read indicate that the prions in (most?) meats that cause brain diseases like Kruetzmann, Alzheimer, and Parkinson survive cooking and even burning of the meat. Vegan and Vegetarian are the only viable nutrition options. And to us they taste better too!
Hi limburger,
Thanks for adding to this discussion.
This article mentions food poisoning from meat contaminated with E.coli. I thought I'd spell out where it comes from - fecal matter. As Eric Schlosser says in his excellent book "Fast Food Nation", there is a very good chance that when you eat a hamburger, you also eat both fecal matter and E. coli. Of course, it can make a tremendous difference if that stuff is thoroughly "nuked and cooked", or not. It doesn't change the fact that it's still there, but at least if it's cooked, it won't make you sick immediately. Will it make you sick later on? I don't know, but I imagine consuming fecal matter can't be all that good for you. I'm all for recycling, but . . . I think there are limits :-)
Like both you and Chuck rightly point out, there are other contaminants in meat that could make you sick. The difference between most of them and E.coli is that the latter acts quickly, so it's hard to dismiss. Most people don't worry that much about long term consequences of their own behavior, be it bad diet, or global warming. Of course, it doesn't help that various industries constantly bombard us with propaganda . . .
This is not necessarily true. There is a huge difference between industrial agriculture and real family agriculture, and that applies to meat as well as vegetables and grain. Vegetarianism ironically tends to support industrial agriculture, with its dependence on manufactured grain-based and protein-based food "products." Bringing this sub-thread back on topic, I doubt Keillor's kind of popular localism has much in common with industrial agriculture, be it vegetarian or not.
Are you quite happy with "...of we stolid Midwesterners..."?
Wouldn't that be a matter of our "go[ing] back to telling [our] kids about the importance of correct spelling and grammar, which every good parent should do"?
What, you don't know the word "stolid"? It means lacking in emotion or expressiveness. It's a common characteristic of Midwestern Lutherans, of whom Keillor constantly writes. Take a look at a dictionary.
I believe it's the grammar that is being criticized. The phrase should be "of us stolid Midwesterners."
The spelling was also incorrectly criticised.
And I was never much into Keillor's Midwest/Minnesota schtick, or the Maine-chauvinism sometimes seen here on CD. But, colder climates does seem to suppress right-wing arrogance. New Hampshire might be a possible exception.
The offending phrase is "...of we..."
WTF, we just had a president that could barely speak a coherent sentence without it being written out for him.
G., Sorry to say but you were RIGHT!!!!
Ah, see this is a main difference between repubs. and dems. When dems. make a statement that lacks compassion they in most cases recant, because they know what compassion is. When repubs attack someone with little or no compassion, they amp up their attack when called on it.
That was fairly generalized, but fun as hell to write!
"What laughable bullsh*t" yes, that was the idea, it's called sarcasm and requires a sense of humor to decipher. RichM, try blogging on some sites that don't ask for daily participation in the 'right' game. That would be right, as in right and wrong, just in case you need it spelled out for you. that, wasn't sarcasm, that was an unprovoked attack, but then you have already revealed that you are acutely aware of such matters.
"They are the ones who are dead-set against government regulation" --- and then there are those who provide them with all the reasons for it.
This article follows the incredibly stupid and damaging practice of arguing for "government regulation" and mocking those who are against it. The other way around is equally stupid and damaging. It's a Theatre of the Absurd. It's like arguing for or against food... There is always food, but some of it might be quite bad. There is always government regulation the question is how good it is, who benefits from it and what happens in the long run?
Have anyone read a bill in his life? There are several pending bills in congress pretending to take care of "food safety". The titles are bombastic, the content is disgusting. A few months ago I read the most popular of them, HR 875 I think, food safety in it is only an illusion, the real beef is consolidation, monopolization and giving a free reign to the GMO industry. The bills will not improve food safety, they will simply kill off the family farms and make sure everything is produced in large, crammed, disease infested, financier owned facilities. All food poisoning comes from the large PROCESSING plants, which by virtue of cost cutting and worker overload cannot take care of safety. Congress being corrupt as it is, promptly writes bills to... drive all other producers out of business. Then the simpletons start arguing for or against regulation...
Read bills people, I know it's hard, but it so for a reason, while you tolerate bills written in newspeak, don't open your mouths to defend "government regulation". The latest bill I read was John Kerry's "cap and trade", it was titled something like "Jobs, Jobs, Jobs and the Green Great American Power Act"... you get the idea. 820 pages, first 750 pages - pure fluff, then the cap and trade section starts, makes some references to the Clean Air Act but... said references are not yet in the CAA and can't be found anywhere... so I spend all this time and I can't even figure out what the bill says... It all reeks of corruption. Is this the regulation you want? Beware of what you ask for because you just might get it.
Then there is the game with lots of different versions of the same bill, most of them get tossed out, you never know what to criticize or support, bill summaries have nothing to do with the bills, then amendments rain like machine gun fire... I lost track of the health care legislation already, one can't keep up... Try to read'em bills, you'll see how it is.
Listen folks, brush the dust off your copies of "1984", we are well past that point. Being played for fools ain't gonna help you. If the government is corrupt, "government regulation" or the lack of it thereof, will be directed against you. And it doesn't matter a jot if the government is left or right - the same fig leaf, different sides. There is no other way folks but making defense against corruption priority #1.
Cicero: "Freedom is participation in power."
There is good regulation and bad regulation and the worse utter lack of it. The same goes for enforcement of regulations. But history is replete with more arguments for more and better regulation of capitalism than against it.
"more arguments for more and better regulation of capitalism"
----
this is the first part of what I was trying to say... The other part being that in the presence of corruption, you can't get the first...
"This has been accomplished by those incredibly rude men who occupy first class on the airplane and elbow themselves ahead of elderly women in line as they yammer into dangly cellphones. They have nothing to do with art and even less to do with bringing up children. They are a danger to society and an embarrassment to their children. Nonetheless, if one of them falls down with a heart attack, he should be cared for, same as anyone else."
I'm more and more taken with Keillor as time goes by! Being a Minnesotan, I used to think that he wasn't much to listen to, kind of narrow-minded, so I tuned him out.
Now, as I start to enjoy art and creative expression more and more, I find him actually quite a special person to listen to! How many people like him do we have in the US today??
Minnesotan A Higher Way,
Keillor has been hailed as this generation's Mark Twain, so vivid is his storytelling.
This cheesehead from across the St. Croix agrees with you.
Agreed - R-nuts deserve universal health care like all Americans.
However, under my plan, all R-nuts will be treated ONLY by married gay liberal minority doctors at either Planned Parenthood clinics or at the VA, in the traumatic brain injury ward.
And, of course, R-nut psychological counseling will be mandatory until it can be proven said R-nut is living in actual reality.
R-nuts deserve a 'universal politeness' implant.
Anyone offering health care to Republicans is a traitor to the people of the U.S.
Regarding "...those incredibly rude men who occupy first class on the airplane and elbow themselves ahead of elderly women in line as they yammer into dangly cellphones...They are a danger to society and an embarrassment to their children. Nonetheless, if one of them falls down with a heart attack, he should be cared for, same as anyone else."
Never fear, those guys will be taken care of. The have expensive health insurance policies, paid for by the shareholders of the corporations they run.
Isn't it ironic that this sensitive man is a Democrat?
Cicero: "Freedom is participation in power."
I don't know. I consider myself far to the left of the Democratic mainstream and a part of the progressive movement, but I've encountered so many hateful, screeching, reactionary self-identified progressives lately on this site and elsewhere it's obvious that too many of them are less sensitive than old guard liberals like Garrison.
Eh. I enjoy Keillor's older work, but his "better to just let bygones be bygones" piece decrying pursuit of past and present heinous government wrongdoing changed my opinion of the man.
I thought that atrocity might be noted in these comments, but apparently that piece didn't make waves outside Salon; in fact, I think today's headline was intentionally written to twit those who persistently asked or demanded a response from Keillor to their criticism. I wasn't one of them, BTW. But I shared their disgust.
To borrow a phrase from "Catcher in the Rye", Keillor is about as "sensitive" as a toilet seat.
Hope that doesn't come off as "hateful"
· Yr Obd't Servant
I'm with you, YOS. After reading that earlier stuff about 'bygones' from Keillor, I had to re-evaluate my consideration of him.
(I was a little irked by him earlier, when I read his dismissive reply to someone criticizing him for organizing a Norwegian "cruise" -- there was a complaint that the Norwegians were savagely killing whales, and Garrison thought that such actions shouldn't bother him in the least.)
I am now inclined to try and enjoy his humor, when I can, but to not really listen when it seems he's making a 'serious comment'. His instinct is to use humor to deflect criticism, and as 'bold' as he may seem otherwise, he is not an instrument of real moral teaching (the 'humor' comes first).
However, I know that I will always harbor a bit of distrust in his attitude, from that earlier piece, and I even have a bit of trouble appreciating anything he writes, I'm sorry to say.
Oh, and I actually read through all of these comments, just to see if anyone else had the same reaction to Keillor's cavalier attitude about the Cheney/Bush regime's crime (and lack of punishment). I was a little disappointed that yours was the only one, YOS. But thanks for mentioning it!
I regret that I have to thank YOS as well. I hunted down the article and read it. It was not an easy read--I kept trying to twist his words and his thoughts to make them seem OK, but no go.
I've been following Keillor for years. Attending a performance years ago in St. Paul has been such a happy memory for me. Some things you never forget! I still listen every week, but it's not going to be the same anymore.
Fishmael, you expressed your thoughts and feeling so well and I am in perfect agreement. It is hard to lose an old friend, but good to meet a new one.
Can you post a link to the Keillor article? I don't recall having seen it, and I didn't find it on Salon.com.
Sure John. Here it is: ttp://www.salon.com/opinion/keillor/2009/04/29/retribution/
As I said, it is a hard read. Chilling, in so many ways.
Thanks for the link, gandydancer. As you said, it's very chilling. Keillor's apology for state torture is morally despicable and logically spurious. He's a Democrat through and through.
Ah Fall in St Paul
Summit Avenue is always pretty but it is for the rich.
But Keillor lives in that part of the city.
Try the West Side where there is a still a sewer ditch
That runs right into the Mississippi that is really shitty.
Health Care for all means for all of St Paul.
Plus every corner of our nation
To get it will be a long haul.
We have to change the current situation.
Bill Brown, St Paul but not Summit Ave
Boy am I ever with Arktig in his/her diatribe on regulations.
Back in the day I was a "regulation liberal." (By the way, as an elected local official I read dozens of bills and wrote several myself.)
It is worth noting that the mendacity and boilerplating doesn't start in Washington, it just gets longer and has bigger implications. My town (pop. under 700, surrounded by corn and beans) council recently passed an ordinance outlawing any weed over 8 inches high! They also outlawed "bees." Also poison ivy, and of course chickens are also illegal. And two of the three council members are self-declared Democrats!
There is also an ordinance making it illegal to allow a vehicle to remain in one spot for more than 20 days---subject to towing even if on your property and not on the public right-of-way. If they passed an ordinance requiring everyone to be in bed by 9 pm subject to a fine of $50 for a first offense, it would not surprise me if they could get away with it.
It isn't just Washington that is corrupted by a totalitarian mentality. It starts literally in your own back yard.
***
Arktig writes:
"The bills will not improve food safety, they will simply kill off the family farms and make sure everything is produced in large, crammed, disease infested, financier owned facilities."
Most farming here is still small family farms but in the past two years a major corporation has been trying to bring in a huge cattle feedlot operation. This has people really riled up and they are fighting it. After what I've read about the environmental costs of a pound of beef, I've cut way, way back. As Garrison Keillor would say, "eat more lentils."
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Don't apologize. You were right.
I think I could understand you or anyone much better when discussing things like this if the population of 7,000,000,000 people were brought into the fray, but that is pretty much too sanctimonious to be discussing human overpopulation since there are terrific needs to protect all humans and rip the environment to shreds in doing so.
So I won't worry much about that poor soul's heart failing him because nature will set things to right eventually and it will really not be pretty and then those left will really be introduced to what an idiotic civilization humans have been but then again who's left may not change anything about the way humans are now, mentally and emotionally.
Keillor's Party beliefs come from a sense of erstwhile northern tier-state "Democrats" that reaches back to the Progressive heydays of the 1920's/early'30's; one which lived-on powerfully in some of those states into the late 1970's.
Minnesota Democrats used to call themselves the Democrat-Farm Labor Party, and during their particular state-based heyday, they were as a rule pretty decently true to the principles of Progressivism (Fritz Mondale and Hubert Humphrey, as local politicians, being the last however faltering figures of that earlier and cleaner progressive tradition.)
Keillor seems to see well enough what's happened to the Democrat Party.
But to paraphrase what he told some of us Montanans who met with him in Missoula a few years ago: it's gonna be harder to launch a new [progressive] party than it'll be to rebuild the old one.
Personally, I don't think either Keillor or his political artiste similaire, Michale Moore, is correct about what's 'harder' at this time.
I do trust their sensitivities and instincts, though; enough to believe that neither of them would ever let their Days of Yore party sentimentalities undercut efforts toward a progressive New Day.
It seems that only 'Arktig' understands the central issue of popular focus.
The elite who controls both the GOP and the Democrats dresses up each new component of tyranny, exploitation and war with gushing adjectives and nouns associated with environmentalism, compassion, love, freedom, democracy, healthy, protection... and so on.
Thus, all today's food regulations and protections are presented with love, but are designed to kill off family farmers and support GM product.
Below these important albeit superficial issues, is the bedrock factor of power... so Cicero is right on; and 'Metal' shows he understands the nucleus of all politics.
If a hierarchy imposes regulations, it will never be primarily for the benefit of the people; and it matters not if this hierarchy is elected or self-appointed.
The people will only be served well by the people.
This means each neighbourhood or village engaging in a process of informed discussion on each prioritised issue and subsequently developing consensus. This is then what the public service implements. Politicians are not needed and their contemporary roles are gross distortions of the original consensus protocol initiators, as known in the 4th to 9th centuries Ireland and Finland, as well as in hundreds of other places around the world.
Why is this new to you? First milennia democracy was proselytised by the Irish Monks, one third of whom were women, and all had families. Mysoganist and homosexual bastion of the Vatican first oppressed this cheerful period by forcing celibacy on Christians, then by burning the libraries, and finally by discouraging interest in this era of enlightenment by renaming it the Dark Ages. Of course, the real Dark Ages of enforced ignorance, burning at stakes, torture, oppression and wars of hegemony, then ensued and continues in expanded form today; and is currently escalating.
Until Americans abandon the spurious belief that democracy is about simple majorities and votes, things will just get much worse.
tonyryan, .......you are absolutely right about democracy being more than just voting. For the benefit of other readers, please allow me to elaborate.
The true nature of democratic rule is rarely discussed in the U.S. , even by democratic scholars. Our schools teach "civics", which is merely the mechanics of democratic rule. But a healthy democracy is truly an act of the human spirit. Just to plea for fairness is an act of the human spirit.
Corporate capitalism hates democracy because a healthy democracy is a synthesis for truth. A healthy democracy is about the spiritual act of public discernment. Corporate capitalism has totally destroyed American democracy by corrupting the U.S. Congress. But even worse, corporate consumer capitalism is the destroyer of spirituality. The corporate mainstream media controls public knowledge and avoids genuine critical analysis in order to restrict the national conversation to support the institutions of corporate capitalism. Thus honest public discernment is rarely possible.
The system of capitalism is as godless (anti-spiritual) as communism, and maybe even more so because it is so deceitful. Generally speaking, Christianity in the U.S. has never transcended the American capitalistic culture. In truth, corporate consumer capitalism deliberately and strategically seeks to alter human consciousness. It seeks to destroy the higher angels of our nature.
I appreciate Keillor's genteel expression of inclusion. I'm sure it is the higher ground. But, I have to admit that my sentiments run toward his previous statements.
I would like to see Congress lose its public option health insurance plan. Members of the House and Senate should have to obtain health insurance from the state from which they hail. They should have to buy it off the shelf, and the US Govt subsidy to each of them for their out-of-pocket expense should be no greater than the median premium across all 50 states. We can at least level the field between us and those who pretend to represent us.
I met three physicists last weekend, and I'm not even sure one of'em spent more than 3 min on my Goswami link and/or Penrose link (two interesting guys, though I can't go all the way with'em). Anyway, how do we know all are "as forgetable"? Forgetable by whom? And how do we know that part of that maple tree didn't go into us as inspiration and that that inspiration doesn't live on in our soul?
There's one human I sure can't forget, and this big galoot is the only person I've encountered so far here in the close of 09 who writes about the fall like she talked about it. Course it's still early down here in the south and, who knows, someone else might come along.
"...on the edge of the field
on the edge of the world..."
terry a writes---
"Keillor's Party beliefs come from a sense of erstwhile northern tier-state "Democrats" that reaches back to the Progressive heydays of the 1920's/early'30's; one which lived-on powerfully in some of those states into the late 1970's.
Minnesota Democrats used to call themselves the Democrat-Farm Labor Party, and during their particular state-based heyday, they were as a rule pretty decently true to the principles of Progressivism (Fritz Mondale and Hubert Humphrey, as local politicians, being the last however faltering figures of that earlier and cleaner progressive tradition.)"
ACTUALLY, while this quote is largely true, in point of fact those "populist-progressive" farm/labor movements grew out of the post-Civil-War era of the tyranny of the railroads and their control of Midwest agricultural products moving east. The movement precedes the 20th century. This populist-progressive movement was extremely active all the way down to Texas, where some lessers still live, but it can be said that their late Governor Ann Richards (who famously said that the first Pres. Bush was born with a silver spoon in his mouth, when she really intended a different orifice), and their last best journalist, the late Molly Ivins, both were products of this long and hard fought tradition. LBJ was raised in that tradition, hard-scrabble poor through the Dust Bowl times, those times when today's old folks can utter, still, "we didn't know we were poor."
Today, young people have absolutely no idea what FDR's "rural electrification" program meant at the time of The Great Depression. In great part this was one outcome of pressure from the various Farmer/Labor parties that had been decades in forming and practicing.
Today, their old small local printing presses are gone, replaced, one may hope, by the Internet. We shall see. I am not sanguine. If I had my druthers, I'd be collecting old printing presses. And mimeograph machines. Methinks they may come in handy in this "digital age."
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