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Maher Socks it to the Profiteers - Why hasn't everyone else?
How about this for a New Rule: Not everything in America has to make a profit. It used to be that there were some services and institutions so vital to our nation that they were exempt from market pressures. Some things we just didn't do for money. The United States always defined capitalism, but it didn't used to define us. But now it's becoming all that we are. - Bill Maher, Huffington Post, July 23, 2009
In my last blog, about Walter Cronkite, Frank McCourt and Molly Ivins, three totally different communicators who made an impact on me and on my own writing (truth be told), I said, "A writer who can also speak off the cuff is rare. (Of course it helps if you're either Irish or Southern or Bill Maher.)"
I don't know why Maher came to mind when I wrote that sentence. There are plenty of writers who can talk in public. They used to call them "raconteurs", and they used to appear on Jack Paar's "Tonight Show" and on "The Dick Cavett Show". Now they appear on "Charlie Rose" but I can't stay up that late at night anymore to watch them.
But when I wrote the above, Bill Maher's was the only name that came to mind. It was as if I knew he was going to post this absolutely brilliant and incredibly important New Rule on Huffington Post last night.
There are so many quotable quotes in that one piece that if I began posting my favorites I would be posting every single paragraph. So here are a few terrific truths, and then you can go on and read the rest for yourself:
"A company called the Corrections Corporation of America is on the New York Stock Exchange, which is convenient since that's where all the real crime is happening anyway. The CCA and similar corporations actually lobby Congress for stiffer sentencing laws so they can lock more people up and make more money. That's why America has the world's largest prison population -- because actually rehabilitating people would have a negative impact on the bottom line."
"In the U.S. today, three giant for-profit conglomerates own close to 600 hospitals and other health care facilities. They're not hospitals anymore; they're Jiffy Lubes with bedpans. America's largest hospital chain, HCA, was founded by the family of Bill Frist, who perfectly represents the Republican attitude toward health care: it's not a right, it's a racket."So many of us have said for so long that this isn't the America we've known and loved. We've shouted until we're blue in the face that letting the obscenely rich get obscenely richer by sacrificing the entire middle class MAKES NO SENSE.
"If conservatives get to call universal health care "socialized medicine," I get to call private health care "soulless vampires making money off human pain." The problem with President Obama's health care plan isn't socialism, it's capitalism.
We've screamed at the top of our lungs that sending American businesses offshore to hire workers at slave class wages in order to reap huge profits is wholly un-American.
We've watched the lies go on about health care, but the truth is, people are sickening and dying because nobody cares enough.
We elected a president we thought would pull us out of this by smacking down the profiteers. On election day, November, 2008 we went mad with sheer joy when Barack Obama said the dark days were over and a new light would shine on truth, justice and the American Way.
As much as I want to go on cheer-leading for our new president, I still see us wallowing in quicksand. We can't wait forever. We've got to get out of this NOW.
Shut those Republicans UP. They're the reason we're in this mess.
Blue Dog Democrats--you sully the very party name.
Wall Street, K Street, C Street--put a cop on every corner. Arrest those bastards!
And keep the comedians commenting. Bill Maher and Jon Stewart--the voices of the people?? Okay, it's a start. Anyone else?
Ramona
(Crossposted at Ramona's Voices here)
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Ramona, I do not get HBO and PBS up here does not show Charlie Rose.
This post really hits me this AM. I mean prison population and health care.
The repubs including the NRA and the evalgelical right always wish to put more people in prison.
It has been this way since I was a little kid. And 'they' won. Our prison population which I have written about as an amateur has increased so much over the last 40 years that now 2.5% of OUR ENTIRE POPULATION is either in jail, prison, on probation or on parole.
Great take, great find, great post.
July 24, 2009 10:13 AM | Reply | Permalink
DD, the beauty of the internet is that you can watch Bill Maher or nearly nearly anyone else any time you want to. Have you seen HULU? http://www.hulu.com/
It's great!
July 24, 2009 12:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
Oh, and good point about the NRA and the Christian Right. Their power is baffling--what good have they ever done for any of us?
July 24, 2009 12:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hmmm. This is a bit of revisionist history, DD.
It took a democratic president to put 400,000 cops on the street and escalate the War on Drugs to the point the modern prison industrial complex became a reality.
It was a democratic president who pushed for legislation that shipped millions of jobs overseas and created a huge tech bubble that need not have been.
It was a democratic president who ideas of welfare "reform" and financial deregulation led to much of the devastation in our inner cities and most vulnerable populations today, driven to epidemic proportions by the aforementioned War on Drugs.
This problem that Maher and Ramona are bringing to our attention is not a republican or democrat issue, though your continued insistence that it is just show how fucked we truly are if we can't even come together at the grassroots to affect change.
Far right special interests groups have much to account for and must be ultimately expelled from the republican party by republican moderates, but that doesn't absolve democrats from the co-starring role they played in our national devolution.
July 24, 2009 4:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
Care to elaborate so we can respond? You might want to look, for instance, at who was the most avid proponent of deregulation. A hint: His initials are RR.
July 24, 2009 5:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
You might want to look at the president who actually followed through on those neoconservative ideas. A hint: His initials are WJC.
July 24, 2009 5:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
And YOU might want to have a look at the majority party for most of his presidency. Where did they stand on those issues? How hard and how dirty did they fight to win one more for the party of the Gipper? WJC's major problem was that he wanted everyone to like him. He actually thought he could work with those people. Obama thinks so, too. That's bad.
July 24, 2009 6:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
I am mot holding the republicans blameless, just offering a reminder of who's signature was on the legislation.
Newt wasn't powerful enough to override that many vetoes, but instead cowed Clinton with the bully pulpit. A president's rightful place, no less.
Add to that a long history of democratic support of endless war making and crime fighting and perhaps the situation isn't so cut and dried. Until democrats accept the part their party played in our current woes, it is going to be very hard to get moderate conservatives to rally around some smart progressive causes.
As the majority party, it is easier to get conservatives to admit their faults by highlighting the mistakes that may have been made by your own party rather than treating any criticism of that party as totally unjustified.
No politician from the last forty years is without blame for the mess we are in and many of those Old Warriors are even now on the front lines of both parties continuing to fuck things up at every turn.
July 24, 2009 6:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yikes! 3rd rail around here. The sins of Clinton must not be acknowledged or bespoken. Try and approach extraordinary rendition sometime.
This partisan crap is why nothing ever changes. The reason Old Warriors always win is because they were always in cahoots. Make the people think they have a choice and set the two sides fighting - then sell them all guns. If they get too antsy, switch parties and let the good times roll again. Been a hell of a racket. Probably always was.
July 24, 2009 10:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
I have no illusions about the sainthood of Bill Clinton. He was pretty good at selling us out to special interests, too. But I'm not going to sit back and say nothing when the subject of deregulation comes up. Ronald Reagan was the champion of all champions for deregulation. It became a household word under his watch. It was always a bad idea, but you wouldn't know it by the hero-worship of the president most likely to sell the entire government out to special interests.
(Privatization--another Ronnie fave. That worked well, too. . .)
July 25, 2009 12:02 AM | Reply | Permalink
But that just isn't true. Clinton deregulated way more than Reagan during his two terms and was just as much a fan of privatizing public function.
Reagan was mostly the champion of beating the Soviets at any cost, though ideologically he was happy to kill anything that had to do with the new deal and wasn't opposed to privatizing, there was really no opportunity to start massive deregulation or privatization until Clinton was in office.
In fact, the size of the federal government grew exponentially under Reagan, as did our national debt, which really belies your claims that the republicans are mostly to blame for the position we find ourselves in. The need to blame one side over the other is why thing keep reeking of shit in this country. As long as both sides are convinced that the other side is to blame, we are well and truly fucked.
At a certain point, everyone needs to take responsibility for the part they had to play - including rank and file voters - and move on toward a bright day.
July 25, 2009 9:27 AM | Reply | Permalink
Right you are. They're all to blame. But I still contend that Reagan was the one who popularized both privatization and deregulation.
This from Encarta:
You can read the rest here: http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761560259_2/ronald_reagan.html
But none of this addresses the real problem today, and that is the refusal of our leaders to change the way they view the system. We can't let special interests run the country. The White House and Congress have an obligation and the power to see that they don't. All we can do is protest against their inaction and make them see the error of their ways. That's a big enough job.
July 25, 2009 10:00 AM | Reply | Permalink
Never dispute his administration's economic theories as having cause this crap to start, but it was both parties who undermined the middle class through short-sighted policies that did nothing to stem the tide and actually made it worse.
As to your final point, the only way to make Washington do out bidding is to vote in primary elections in larger percentages than the pathetic 16% average we have now. Until that fundamental flaw is changed, it won't matter how loudly we protest when quiet money bypasses the voters behind closed doors.
July 25, 2009 11:15 AM | Reply | Permalink
Sure is a helluva racket. Convince each group of voters that the other group of voters is their enemy and then laugh all the way to the bank while the "rubes" duke it out. Worked like a charm for over forty years.
July 25, 2009 9:29 AM | Reply | Permalink
This does get to the heart of the matter. If capitalism is so great, why not outsource the Pentagon? The water works? The police? Give the police force to a publicly traded corporation, and sign a contract to pay them a certain fee for every arrest. Sound like a good idea to you?
Let's say you discover that your child has cancer. You are dealing with profound concern and worry for their survival and well-being. You pray for their recovery constantly. You subject them to your healthcare organization, whatever it may be.
Let's say, on the otherhand, that I am the CEO of your publicly traded Healthcare organization. I see your child's cancer as an opportunity to make money, accumulate capital, and pay a dividend to stockholders. I am grateful your child has cancer, and want to manage the situation for maximum profit. Do our interests coincide? You need medical care for your beloved child. I need to make money. Should I be permitted to leverage your need for healthcare to grow my wealth?
Isn't that question really at the heart of the matter? What would be fair compensation for the service I provide? Should shareholders get a piece of that action?
July 24, 2009 10:59 AM | Reply | Permalink
Ah, "fair" is the operative word here. Since "fair" hasn't been in corporate health care's vocabulary for a very long time, it's time to bring it to the surface again.
"Fair" would be ensuring that all Americans have adequate health care.
"Fair" would be provider compensation in line with care given, along with compassion and common sense.
But here's a question: Why do health care providers have to worry about shareholders in the first place? Why are shareholders even in the equation? We're talking about health care for human beings. American human beings. Their health shouldn't be at the mercy of big business and shareholders.
That's not "fair".
July 24, 2009 11:57 AM | Reply | Permalink
Agreed. Is there NOTHING that can be exempted from capitalism? If my wife has breast cancer, should everyone looking to make a quick buck line up hoping to capitalize on her treatment?
The notion of a marketplace works fine for selling chickens, rhutabegas, and hand woven carpets,--but I don't see it working so well for healthcare. Hospitals actually compete with one another, so, they won't share data regarding their success at controlling bacteriological contaminants, such as MRSA, and then routinely spread the problem when the transfer the patient--knowing that they require special handling.
This is absurd.
That is one small example.
July 24, 2009 12:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
Diogenes, I like the idea of capitalist exemptions. Actually, "protections" would be more like it, but we'll go along to get along.
Exemptions:
Health Care
Education
Military
(Add your own)
July 24, 2009 1:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
We already have a form of that type of arrangment with public utilities, public transportation, even the mail system. I am a firm believer in the value of competition for services and products--but there are some areas, like the ones that you mention, healthcare, education, defense, law enforcement--and I would say energy, where competition does not seem to produce a better situation. In those areas something like game theory would make more sense.
July 24, 2009 2:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hmmm, energy as an exemption from capitalism. I LIKE it. But you don't want to say that out loud. Armageddon will seem like a sandbox fight if the oil folks get wind of it.
July 24, 2009 2:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think Cheney, Rummy, and Dummy did outsource the Pentagon!
July 24, 2009 8:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
Soldiers still draw their pay from Uncle Sam instead of a publicly traded corporation. The military still conducts Courts Martial. Corporations just fire your ass and take away your medical coverage.
July 24, 2009 10:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
Soldiers still draw their pay from Uncle Sam instead of a publicly traded corporation. The military still conducts Courts Martials
But now we have the company formerly known as Blackwater and laws that exempt anyone from prosecution for actions taken in Iraq, unless, of course, they were in Abu Ghraib.
July 25, 2009 2:12 AM | Reply | Permalink
Jiffy Lubes with bedpans. Perfect
Great post
July 24, 2009 12:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
This is precisely what I have been saying lately. All the undesirable characteristics of a monopoly enterprise are in evidence, big time, and our lawmakers and regulators have chosen to simply ignore this most obvious fact. We have laws against this kind of monopolistic conduct but like with so much else that goes on in this country the right palms are getting greased so government looks the other way. You can't tell the criminals from everyone else in Washington anymore.
July 24, 2009 12:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
This is exactly what we need to focus on. We DO have laws about these things, but what good are they if nobody even tries to enforce them? Where is the shame in NOT trying to enforce them?
July 24, 2009 1:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
There is shame but only for people with a conscience.
The real problem is a blantant failure to enforce the laws because of a powerful interest group which makes big political contributions. This is precisely the same condition that caused the financial collapse. Rates for healthcare and abuses by insurers are the norm.
The FBI in 2004 raised a red flag about abuses in the mortgage industry. They stated in their report that the conditions are going to lead to a catastrophe much worse than the S&L crash. Nothing was done for the same reason nothing has been done about healthcare.
This is about official corruption of our government in every way. No doubt about it.
July 24, 2009 3:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Official corruption" Ominous but unfortunately true.
July 24, 2009 6:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
Excellent post! I love the president but he is just one man and I think 'we' are going to have to push back hard to change the way things are and make them better!
July 24, 2009 1:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
YEZ!!!!!!!!!!!!!
July 24, 2009 1:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yez!
(Pokes all and sundry with pitchfork)
July 24, 2009 8:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
It takes many voices and a lot of time and hard work. Are we up to it? We HAVE to be. I'm not getting any younger, but I'm getting stronger--every day.
I won't shut up until I'm shut down.
July 24, 2009 1:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
The Republicans,Capitalism,greed ... are all reasons we`re in this mess,but the overwhelming reason is that Capitalism is an addictive system that fosters dishonesty,denial,and delusion as well as fear and shame.
I like the idea of exemptions,but it will be a tough fight.Addicts don`t give up easily.
July 24, 2009 8:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
Awesome post. I do sort of wonder how much Obama can actually accomplish on his own. So many people are looking for him to essentially perform the tasks of all government branches - which is kind of unrealistic (and well beyond his constitutional mandate).
Successive administrations and batches of legislators (from both parties) have pretty much driven the middle and lower classes of America to the edge of disaster. Nobody in the political class has clean hands. This may be what reengages the electorate to hold feet to the fire and improve circumstances to the point where we can survive.
One positive sign: it's the middle of the summer and the citizens didn't just go back to sleep after the inauguration. Under normal circumstances, the political establishment would be ignored by this point and free to do whatever the hell they wanted. Instead, the citizens are going toe-to-toe with the lobbyists and actually making quite a scrap of it. The legislators are clearly in shock. You can see it in their faces when FDL's Mike Stark puts them on camera demanding they take a position on the public option, and in their indignant protests when a HuffPo correspondent shows up at their fundraiser and starts reporting on who's lobbyists are showing up (a complete taboo for the normal press). It is kind of fun to watch.
If we are ever going to wrest control of our nation back, all citizens are going to have to keep focus and remain engaged. Ironically, the intensity of the teabagger fringe is doing wonders to keep this focus. Will we win? I'm not sure. But it sure is nice to see so many people fighting so hard.
July 24, 2009 10:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
You're right! I hadn't thought of it, but you are oh, so right. Usually by this time all the fight has gone out of us. What's giving us the momentum?
Bush is gone, Obama's in, he hasn't screwed up too badly yet, and the wolves are at the door getting ready to chew us to pieces.
Hope and fear, mixed with a healthy dose of adrenalin. Powerful combination, that.
July 24, 2009 11:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
Maher and Stewert are great. They both say what others inside the beltway are thinking but are too chicken sh** to actually admit.
C
July 24, 2009 11:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
Don't I recall a lawsuit filed against Bill Gates/Microsoft ... something about a monopoly? What keeps the same from happening to the greedy buggers in oil, health care, pharmaceuticals, media...?
July 25, 2009 1:06 AM | Reply | Permalink
And don't I recall (speaking of media) Bill Maher having had a show on public television? Right up until the moment he criticized Bush? And suddenly was no more? Then resurfaced on cable? Just a random thought...
Great post, by the way...
July 25, 2009 1:12 AM | Reply | Permalink
It always comes down to class warfare. You have to pick a side, you can't be for both. Obama has tried too hard to be for both - saying what everybody wants to hear. NAFTA will be renogotiated before MI,OH,IN primaries, but he was just kidding afterwards. Obama knows the only solution to our healthcare costs in a universal system, but he says that would be too hard. He is trying to compromise, and we are getting left in the dust. Obama backs Lieberman, and Specter against Dems that are more liberal (?Sestak?). I think Obama thinks he is so smart that he can triangulate, and we won't realize it. Torture is wrong, but he won't prosecute criminals, demanding that torture isn't really illegal, so just look the other way. He says the financial system screwed up, but no meaningful reforms are demanded. Obama knows the war on drugs is a lost cause, and a huge financial drain, but he laughs off the most popular question on his website about legalizing and taxing pot. He speaks against the Iraq war, but then will keep troops there forever.
What I worry about is what fights he actually cares about: politicizing the Justice Dept to keep protecting Bush's torture regime, preserving state's secrets abuses to keep the public ignorant about illegal spying, indefinate detention, cap and trade that is a joke, clean coal BS, taking universal h/c off the table, occupying Afghanistan, giving our money to the rich banksters, etc. I didn't like Clinton because they ruined the manufacturing sector with their trade policies, and now I see we are just in for more of the same. I don't think Obama is on my side, not at all, not even in his words anymore. His approval rating is dropping because of people like me.
July 25, 2009 2:20 AM | Reply | Permalink
Like him or not, John Edwards was right when he said: "You can't nice these people to death."
Unless and until Obama and what Howard Dean called the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party openly fight, completely discredit and smash both the Republicans and their allies in the Democratic Party we will not see progress in putting the forces of predatory wealth back in their place. The Democrats in Name Only who variously call themselves "moderates", "Blue Dogs", "centrists", members of the DLC or whatever are the Achilles heal of the Democratic Party and the real force holding our country back. Each and every one of these swine need to have primary challengers and they need to be defeated and the party needs to be rid of them for good.
July 25, 2009 3:52 AM | Reply | Permalink
1.) Re:"Wall Street, K Street, C Street--put a cop on every corner. Arrest those bastards!" What effect would such measures have on the prison population?
2.) Whatever you armchair revolutionaries do, please don't deprive John Doe and/or Jane Doe on Main Street of the right to go out and do business and make a few bucks. That is true capitalism. Whatever measures you enforce to regulate the fat cats, try not to totally destroy "capitalism" as we know it, because
3.) Some of us in America are not expecting the government to bail us out, because
4.) We sense that the US Treasury and the Fed are running on fumes of money that once was there but no longer is there, except perhaps as electrons such as the ones you see on this page, or greenbacks such as the ones in your wallet that will soon not be worth much compared to one square meal. Therefore,
5.) Start tending a garden or a small business enterprise instead of looking to the myriad of overstaffed governmental agencies and zombied financial industries that will pontificate into perpetuity about how they will rescue or enable us, when in fact they have no power to do so. Sorry, but this is reality-check time.
6.) This is not about class warfare. It's about community. What can you (and I) do to improve the well-being of those whom we love and with whom we live and work?
July 25, 2009 7:36 AM | Reply | Permalink
Carey, I appreciate your comments, but it's far too late to be tending gardens and creating small businesses in order to get out of this fix.
You must know that we're not fighting all business owners here. Many people on this site own their own businesses, but most of us recognize that our economy is in the tank largely because of unregulated, runaway greed. It's still going on, no matter what the outcry or the threats from the government--the only body big enough and strong enough to control them.
I'm constantly amazed at the numbers of people who will go on defending those practices. It's not capitalism that's the problem, it's the ABUSE of the capitalistic system. How many millions more have to suffer before we come to our senses as a nation and recognize that favoring the greedy rich will only destroy us all in the end?
July 25, 2009 9:16 AM | Reply | Permalink