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Co-ops a Good Idea Whose Time Has Come

http://westernperspective.blogspot.com/

Co-ops are the best option for health care reform. The nation's stated goal is to bring all age groups and income levels on board. This can best be accomplished at the local level. Co-ops have a proven track record which includes such enterprises as Land O'Lakes creamery in Minnesota, and Kimberly-Clark in Wisconsin before it became privatized, agricultural and food distribution, student accomodations at colleges and universities, and the numerous credit unions throughout the world. Cooperatives have also been successful in the medical field and competitive with private health insurance in a number of states.

The advantage of the co-op is that it can meet local needs and is more adaptable. The very fact that the members have some ownership and control in the enterprise is itself a big plus for quality control.

Medical co-ops, in addition to meeting local needs, could focus on specific age groups to better serve the community. Thus seniors could have their own medical structures which would not be taking away scarce medical resources from younger members of society. Part of the funding could still come from public sources, especially for economically depressed areas.

It will take time, but with everyone's participation, things will improve. The role of government will be indispensable to get the cooperatives functional and off the ground.

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Obamacare Only Tip of Iceberg

http://westernperspective.blogspot.com/

Health care is only the tip of the iceberg. Anger and contempt for federal and state government have been building up for decades, and all because of betrayals and mismanagement of the few in government which were distorted by mass media outlets.

Take for example the case of Terry Schiavo. There was absolutely no reason for her to die. The courts promulgated a grave injustice equal to, if not worse than, racial segregation. President Kennedy used federal marshals in 1963 to stop racial segregation despite objections by governor George Wallace standing outside the classroom door in Alabama. Why could not something similar have been done for Terry Schiavo? Either of the Bush brothers could have acted to save a woman's life. If anyone was ever deprived of constitutional rights, she was. Yet there was no action forthcoming either in Florida or at the federal level. So why should Americans believe that the government cares about their health or well-being, and stand back idly while Congress and the President set up another Draconian nightmare of bureaucratic red tape? Has this socialistic approach ever worked in the past?

John McCain brilliantly began to tap into this groundswell in nominating Sarah Palin as his vice-presidential running mate. The trouble was that he didn't follow through. McCain was overly committed to the neo-conservative agenda of Randy Scheunemann and Joe Lieberman who perceived Palin as being a major threat to war funding for Israel. McCain refused to allow her to let the genie out of the bottle by addressing the pro-life gathering in Minnesota outside the convention. Taking this subject off the table in 2008 only unleashed the anger expressed at town hall gatherings in 2009. Today, most Americans feel betrayed by Congress, the President, and the Courts, and rightly so.

It may well be that this betrayal is a manifestation of the stage of capitalism in which we are now living. Any society that takes selfishness to the extreme to which America has done, and has deliberately shunned religion and morality from public life, will be faced with big problems.

Liberals in government have dug themselves into a deep hole. Like their predecessors during the French Revolution, they are now forced to either accept a flawed agenda of more and more government sponsored killing, or put their own careers and lives in danger because their past actions are criminal and punishable by any just standard of law. Let us hope that our nation can resolve these conflicts and not fall into the cycle of reprisals for past misdeeds.

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The Price of Liberty

http://westernperspective.blogspot.com/
The most sensitive information on 9/11 will remain classified for several decades.  At that time we will get the full picture.  My expectation is that information regarding Flight 77 will prove that Barbara Olson's telephone conversation and that of the flight attendant onboard were both made between the time of the actual highjacking after liftoff and the time radar contact was lost after the plane changed course over West Virginia.  It was not picked up on radar after that because it had been shot down.  The DNA samples of the crew and passengers including the hijackers were obtained there on the ground, and not at the Pentagon which had been hit by a missile as Defense Secretary Rumsfeld stated.  Flight 93 was shot down over western Pennsylvania probably after an attempt was made by passengers to gain control of the aircraft as appears from audio voice recordings.

FBI agent John O'Neill, who died during the aftermath of the attacks, had said during an earlier interview with Barbara Newman that the biggest challenge was to balance the need for order with citizens' rights to liberty and freedom from government intrusion.  This is what brought about the wall of separation between the CIA and the FBI under the Clinton Administration as implemented by Assistant Attorney General Jamie Gorelick (no relation to the saxophone player Kenny G).  This gave the terrorists Sheikh Omar Abdul Rahman in 1993 and Usama bin Laden in 2001 pockets to operate below the intelligence radar.  The FBI had received directives not to share information at higher levels as was brought to light by agent Colleen Rowley in Minnesota.  This effectively prevented the apprehension of the terrorists before the airplanes were off the ground on 9/11, even though the hijacking plot was known at the top levels well in advance.  The CIA could not act within US borders, so the preparation for the attack was outsourced to Israeli agents who planted the explosives in the Twin Towers and Building 7 of the WTO used to blow up the structures after the terrorist attacks.  Refurbishing of the Pentagon was begun months before to reduce civilian and military casualties in case the terrorists got past airport security.  The contingency plan was to use the refurbished area of the Pentagon as a decoy target if US jets shot down any of the hijacked aircraft in midair, so that the terrorists could not use this as a propaganda weapon thereby gaining more support for their cause.   

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