The public option was killed in the Senate. It was either a bill with no public option or no health care reform at all. If you think that no reform at all was the better choice I'll respect your opinion if you don't have any health coverage now. Otherwise you're willing to remain in comfort while millions of others do without.
There are only so many hours in a day and with non-stop, breathless coverage of the impending royal birth in London all other news has been correspondingly downgraded in importance.
I was in Nogales, AZ, on the border south of Tucson a couple of weeks ago. It was my second trip there in the last 3 years. I spoke to someone who's lived there for over 30 years. He used to leave work, stroll across the border and eat lunch in Mexico before heading back to work. Now that would be an hour and a half total standing in lines on each side of the border, not including time for lunch.
I visited East Berlin in the late 70s and Nogales, on a very small scale, reminds me of that experience. The wall cuts right through the town. Someone expressed surprise that people built so close to the wall on both sides of the border. I explained there used to be no wall, there was one town that grew up and the border happened to go through it. The wall was built after the buildings were already there.
While walking through the hospital in Nogales I saw an armed guard stationed outside a room, making sure someone would be deported after whatever they were being treated for. Some people climb over the wall, break an ankle or leg when they jump and are brought to the hospital.
It's more than frightening to me to compare the militarization I see in Nogales to East Germany. Yes, there's a difference. The walls in E. Germany were to keep people in and ours are to keep people out. But it looks very similar. The man I mentioned earlier, who used to eat lunch in Mexico, also spoke of how safe life in Nogales is. Phoenix has considerably more violence but the media give the impression that the Mexican border is a war zone with armed drug gangs ranging into the US. Maybe elsewhere, not in Nogales. He tells friends elsewhere about going out for hikes in the mountains and they ask if he isn't afraid of running into drug smugglers. No, it's a very safe place to live.
The idea that the US should fortify its borders and cower behind them, frightened of foreigners, terrorists, illegal aliens, is recent and one of the most pernicious ideas we suffer from.
"Ron Paul wants to do things like get out of South Korea and slash foreign aid, leaving long-time US allies vulnerable and defenseless."
I don't have any patience for most of Ron Paul's silly libertarian ideas. But South Korea is a large wealthy nation that should be able to take care of itself. It's population is twice as big as N. Korea's while its economy far, far outstrips the North's. The idea that American troops have to be stationed there as sacrificial lambs to be slaughtered in a N. Korean surprise attack is just ridiculous.
The one area I agree with him is that the US has overextended itself acting as a world military policeman/empire. Let's pull back.
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Will Lieberman's return scuttle the talks? Could happen. Don't know how he would scupper the talks though.
The public option was killed in the Senate. It was either a bill with no public option or no health care reform at all. If you think that no reform at all was the better choice I'll respect your opinion if you don't have any health coverage now. Otherwise you're willing to remain in comfort while millions of others do without.
There are only so many hours in a day and with non-stop, breathless coverage of the impending royal birth in London all other news has been correspondingly downgraded in importance.
It's Daniel Ellsberg not Daniel Ellsworth who leaked the Pentagon Papers.
Yes, we live in a police state now.
I was in Nogales, AZ, on the border south of Tucson a couple of weeks ago. It was my second trip there in the last 3 years. I spoke to someone who's lived there for over 30 years. He used to leave work, stroll across the border and eat lunch in Mexico before heading back to work. Now that would be an hour and a half total standing in lines on each side of the border, not including time for lunch.
I visited East Berlin in the late 70s and Nogales, on a very small scale, reminds me of that experience. The wall cuts right through the town. Someone expressed surprise that people built so close to the wall on both sides of the border. I explained there used to be no wall, there was one town that grew up and the border happened to go through it. The wall was built after the buildings were already there.
While walking through the hospital in Nogales I saw an armed guard stationed outside a room, making sure someone would be deported after whatever they were being treated for. Some people climb over the wall, break an ankle or leg when they jump and are brought to the hospital.
It's more than frightening to me to compare the militarization I see in Nogales to East Germany. Yes, there's a difference. The walls in E. Germany were to keep people in and ours are to keep people out. But it looks very similar. The man I mentioned earlier, who used to eat lunch in Mexico, also spoke of how safe life in Nogales is. Phoenix has considerably more violence but the media give the impression that the Mexican border is a war zone with armed drug gangs ranging into the US. Maybe elsewhere, not in Nogales. He tells friends elsewhere about going out for hikes in the mountains and they ask if he isn't afraid of running into drug smugglers. No, it's a very safe place to live.
The idea that the US should fortify its borders and cower behind them, frightened of foreigners, terrorists, illegal aliens, is recent and one of the most pernicious ideas we suffer from.
"Ron Paul wants to do things like get out of South Korea and slash foreign aid, leaving long-time US allies vulnerable and defenseless."
I don't have any patience for most of Ron Paul's silly libertarian ideas. But South Korea is a large wealthy nation that should be able to take care of itself. It's population is twice as big as N. Korea's while its economy far, far outstrips the North's. The idea that American troops have to be stationed there as sacrificial lambs to be slaughtered in a N. Korean surprise attack is just ridiculous.
The one area I agree with him is that the US has overextended itself acting as a world military policeman/empire. Let's pull back.