Disqus - Latest Comments for Ginny_in_CO

Re: BREAKING FROM NBC: White House official calls gays "Internet left fringe"

Ginny_in_CO — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 22:45:30 -0000

John Harwood reported the comments of 'an advisor' on a national news station. Another example of why such reporting should be really restricted. The WH needs to address it pronto. The more they hear from many of us, the more likely it will be refuted.

Re: BREAKING FROM NBC: White House official calls gays "Internet left fringe"

Ginny_in_CO — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 22:39:48 -0000

Well, guess tomorrow will be phone the WH, assure them I am wearing clothes I also sleep and work in, called scrubs. That I am not GLBT, but I am active in the state and local party to advocate and push for the gay rights agenda. Just as I learned from my parents fighting for AA rights in the 50's and 60's. Then insist that the individual who made this statement be identified and removed from their job. STAT.

Ginny in CO

Re: Anthony Weiner Tears off the Mask

OldBoarder — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 23:43:47 -0000

Ginny you need to run for public office!! You have nailed these weasles at every turn! KUDOs to you! I too live in CO and came to this site to see the video of Joe "mourning" getting a schoolin'. This has been my question all along: What do health insurance companies add to patient care and atient outcome? Answer: NOTHING! so Why do they take 30+% of our health care dollars??? If every health insurance company disappeared tomorrow, would we as a nation be able to provide health care? *BTW: My wife is a 25+year RN. Mom is a retired 40year RN. Universal Single Payer's time is NOW! Call your reps. every day. It only takes a min. and they need to know that we sent them to do this for us! Thank you!

Re: Anthony Weiner Tears off the Mask

Ginny_in_CO — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 22:15:04 -0000

Jazz,

First, the studies addressed the care outcomes, a very important key to how to spend our health care dollars. The point being that you can have really good care at lower cost than is spent by the insurance companies. Second, the access problems for VA are definitely an issue for me and have been for 2 decades at least. The problem with those issues are that they directly relate to Congressional limits on funding. I totally resent that some Vets are not considered eligible because of the inability of the program to spend as much money on their health care as we do on the wars the create the need for it. I have said for most of those decades that the first debt America MUST pay is the health care for all the vets who deserve it. We have to get over the idea that our tax dollars are being wasted by this.

The budget for our House of War is, as I pointed out, the ultimate example of how much gov can achieve when it is financed so far above and beyond the actual need. Yes, it is one of the Constitutional directives for the government. On amphetamines, growth hormones and steroids. To have an annual budget 15% more than the COMBINED total military budgets of all other nations is indescribably absurd. It is the result of the Gunbelt industries that own Congress. We are way beyond the standing army the founders did not want established. I would be the first to point out the world has drastically change since then. Not that much.

Medicaid is NOT medicare. It is not as effective or efficient as the other payment systems. Because it is a federal and state funded program which is state administered. As the government has cut back on funding many programs, the states have had to pick up the differences - for more than medicaid. One of the bills contains a very intelligent plan. It would do away with Medicaid and put all those individuals on the Public Option. There are several ripple effects in this whole dysfunctional system. Cutting the excessive costs that providers incur due to the complexity of the billing (and denial) system allows more money for primary care. A statistic I used in the 2004 campaign : in Colorado 20% of the kids were on medicaid. In Colorado Springs main hospital, 50% of the kids in the Pediatric ICU were on medicaid. Due to the low reimbursement to providers, the parents often could not get care with a primary care physicians (family or pediatrician) because they could only take so many patients per practice (cost shifting the care to those with insurance). So the parents had to wait until an ER visit was necessary, which all too frequently resulted in an admission, including the ICU kind. Much more expensive in the long run than raising the reimbursement rates. Putting this group into the public option will take them out of the third class system they are currently in.

The inter-related loop of all these underpayments, cost shifting and inadequate access has been studied and solutions proposed for decades. We keep falling back on the idea that the magic market system will take care of it. The facts do not support this as much as the facts that the Government can manage a variety of health care systems quite well.

The IHS? I have some direct experience with this because as an RN in Alaska for 14 years, I saw a lot of the system. It can be just as excellent as others. There are some significant issues that have nothing to do with the government or health care that contribute to the severe, disgraceful and immoral problems there. The first is the reality of how this nation has treated Native Americans for 520 some years. The related problem is discrimination, very simply. Yeah, it needs to be overhauled, big time. The IHS is part of the PHS, which is difficult to put into that type of assessment because much of the care is directed at epidemiological problems and maternal infant care.

Your concerns about who will pay for the rest reveal some significant gaps in the knowledge base on how the whole system is so tangled and inefficient, there are many savings that could easily cut many of those costs which the CBO cannot really assess. Meanwhile, the CBO and OMB have both looked at the bills to determine what additional funds need to be raised. Obama has talked about some of the ways the bills address this and what else can be done. Seems to me that out of 544.7 million, a few million could be cut without anyone feeling much pain. Just ask Winslow Wheeler and Franklin Spinney. Full disclosure; I married into an Air Force family and lived near Elmendorf (where my brother in law worked) for 11 years, working with a lot of military wives. Ultimately, Americans have to face the reality that we also have to face up to whether we are ever going to pay for what we want through our taxes. This is particularly due to the prime contribution to the debt: WAR.

The reality is that given what most of us are already spending on health care premiums, deductables, and co-pays, the competition from the exchange is expected (per the CBO and OMB evals) to cut some of those expenses while increasing coverage for both the policy holders and uninsured.

Obama has zeroed in on electronic technology that would be a big help in decreasing health care communication costs and gaps. Another one that has been in the works and should be part of this are established health histories. Hippocrates maintained that 95% of diagnosis is (medical) history. Today I would put it at about 80% due to the amount of diagnostic testing we have available. The other pieces is a really thorough physical assessments. When an elderly person is admitted to an ER and hospital due to illness, their memory is too dysfunctional to provide a complete and accurate health history. Plus it's an unnecessary time waster to recollect the data that has not changed. If the physician can get a very complete history from the electronic record technology, they can start there and be more focused on the new signs, symptoms etc. I can't find the stats on the amount of unnecessary tests, treatments and cost of delay of appropriate treatment, but it is quite significant.

While I understand your concerns and frustrations, it's quite imaginary to accuse someone who has been involved in health care in this country as much as I have, and extensively studied the new information and statistics, to be advancing a 'unicorns and rainbows theory.' Try spending even a week in the tough reality of bedside health care in an acute care facility and see if your perspective is a little more reality based. I have worked every critical care unit except NICU, and including the 'Thermal unit in AK -for burns and frostbite. Every regular floor and a jail unit, a very small amount of ER, almost as many years of home care and enough insurance case management to know just how they think and operate.

Re: Anthony Weiner Tears off the Mask

Jazz — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 17:44:57 -0000

For Ginny in CO ...By the way... nice name. My Mom is Ginny. :-)

"For instance. Of all the insurance and health care providers in America, based on care outcome statistics, the three best are: the active military, the VA - both true socialist systems- and medicare (a single payer system). So the US Gov holds the triple crown in delivering high quality care,"

There are two major issues with your portion of the discussion to address. The first, while important, is not as germane to the topic at hand but is worth a look. Speaking as a veteran who had to make use of VA services myself and a follower of news on the subject today, VA healthcare is actually rife with problems. The level of care we deliver to our vets is often disgraceful and they deserve much better. One of the jewels in the public care "crown" you failed to mention is another govt. run system... that for Native Americans on reservations, where the conventional wisdom remains, "Don't get sick after June" because that's when the money runs out. But both of these deal with the actual delivery of health care services, not the payment for those services and private industry insurance issues.

To that, when you point out how successful Medicare and Medicaid are, for example, what you fail to tell us is the other side of the story. That's the fact - and yes, it's a fact - that the govt. does not pay the full bill required to cover the cost of services rendered, and doctors uniformly let us know that they pass those extra costs on to the people with private insurance. The Govt. covers something between 85 and 90% and the cost for the rest gets spread out over the rest of us with private insurance. If, as Weiner suggests, everyone is on govt. care, who will pay for the rest? The answer, as is so often the case with some of these Democratic proposals, is either "nobody" and it gets tacked on to the debt, or "we do" in the form of higher taxes across the board.

I understand the desirably nature of this unicorns and rainbows theory where we can all punish the evil insurance companies who dare to make a profit, but health care (even if you think it's a "right") costs money and somebody has to pay for it eventually. Top down price control attempts by governments have been uniformly disastrous sooner or later, and this one is no different.

Re: Anthony Weiner Tears off the Mask

Ginny_in_CO — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 17:21:11 -0000

Jazz I have to agree about the arguments on this issue. Given that one side has a degree of misinformation and disinformation which actually proves that ignorance is NOT bliss, while the other side has a whole lot of information that either folks won't listen to and the disseminators (media) won't give air, print or bandwidth to. The Morning Joe interview was a significant exception to the latter.

I would suggest that some of the confusion about the argument and the intent comes from folks not operating with the same information base. For instance. Of all the insurance and health care providers in America, based on care outcome statistics, the three best are: the active military, the VA - both true socialist systems- and medicare (a single payer system). So the US Gov holds the triple crown in delivering high quality care, with taxpayer dollars, for a much lower per-capita amount. Medicare was established 44 years ago, it was up and functional in less than a decade. NASA began in 61. In 8 years there were two Americans and a flag on the moon.

In 60 years, the private health insurance industry has created a 'health care' system which delivers enormous salaries, terrific ROI for investors, also being a travesty and tragedy for Americans who need health care. Instead of being effective, efficient and world respected, it is unraveling, taking the US economy with it.

A significant amount of misinformation that has been thoroughly debunked (how bad other industrialized health care programs are), yet the ideas still are trotted out by individuals and media. Without the counterbalance of debunking information or sources. Very interestingly, the 12 million health care workers are treated as though we have nothing to add to this discussion.

Don't trust anything the health insurance companies are saying. If we have to do more regulation 'to keep them honest', there is clearly a problem with ethics to a degree that government bureaucrats cannot dream of. This is grossly apparent in the financial industry as well. Which has also brought the country to its knees because they got into really high stakes gambling with other peoples money.

Ask your physician if s/he would like to go to a billing system that involved just the Federal Government. The majority will tell you YES. The stats bear this out. They are spending far more time and money on billing and appealing denials than is necessary for Medicare patients.

This amount is so much higher than what is spent on malpractice insurance and claims, it makes the tort reform argument look idiotic. Keep in mind, this is not the 27% administrative costs that the insurance companies charge over the 4% administration fees that Medicare costs. This is another significant percentage which varies according to type of practice.

It has long been considered that going straight to single-payer would involve too much detangling, restructuring and job losses in the insurance industry. The public option has been one of the transition ideas that could be implemented to eventually establish a totally single payer system, or to progress until we find a balance in the public-private mix that works well.

Just to sum up, the biggest problem with the whole debate is that people who have vested interests, or have just joined the discussion, are running them or creating too much noise to to have one. The people who have been involved in health care delivery for decades and studied the problems from every possible angle, are usually not allowed at the table or consulted by the media.

Re: birther movement continues

mannix1962 — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 11:10:16 -0000

Both of McCain's parents were U.S citizens. His father was serving in the Navy. The Secret Service does not verify citizenship they are there to protect the candidates. Besides if Obama was applying for the Secret Service his tainted past would not get him a security clearance

Re: birther movement continues

beverlyadams — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 09:17:49 -0000

Considered a us Citizen but not a Natural Born Citizen as the Consitution says.

Re: birther movement continues

franknowzad — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 08:17:04 -0000

Hey, these are the same geniuses that "forgot" to make sure that Tim "taxcheat" Geithner had paid his taxes...

Re: birther movement continues

Ginny_in_CO — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 04:29:26 -0000

Since some folks absolutely refuse to listen to the facts and put them together with how many times this has been thrown out of court, I always fall back on something very basic.

The US Secret Service has access to ALL US intelligence information. If you want to get anywhere near POTUS or a candidate, they check your record. From birth certificate on. They also have the incredible responsibility of keeping POTUS alive - even if that means physically placing their own bodies around his. Obama was put on SS detail within a few months of announcing his candidacy. The better part of a year before anyone else. The SS had figured it would cost them in the millions to provide the protection starting that early. They also clearly saw the risk and calculated it would cost billions if he was assassinated.

I personally think they have not been given the recognition they deserve for the campaign success alone. He was one candidate of many, then one of 4 on top of POTUS, FLOTUS and the VP getting SS protection. In very public venues. Someone pointed out Obama was wearing a jacket the night of the All Star Game, fully zipped in 81 degree heat. Hiding the vest most likely. How else do you allow him to throw the ball in the middle of a packed stadium?

Anyone who thinks the US Secret Service is stupid enough, or so inefficient they would provide this service to someone they could easily prove was not eligible, needs to use some facts and logic to challenge their assumption.

Just because. McCain was born in Panama. On a US military base. The Constitution doesn't say anything about that. There was fringe discussion about whether he was eligible. The SS determined he was. The US Senate also went to the trouble to pass a resolution specifically addressing the idea, supporting the reality that children born on US bases overseas are considered US citizens.

Re: Videos Of Barack Obama’s Comedy Routine At White House Correspondent’s Dinner

StockBoySF — Sun, 10 May 2009 05:43:36 -0000

Ginny, thanks for the compliment!

Re: Videos Of Barack Obama’s Comedy Routine At White House Correspondent’s Dinner

Ginny_in_CO — Sun, 10 May 2009 02:57:30 -0000

Well if anyone wants to hear Wanda's comment, you can access the video at Huffpo since the one above just brings you back to this page.

The only reason Wanda had to hope Limbaugh's kidneys fail is because he set it up. Kidney failure and lung cancer are not necessarily death. As an RN, I can assure you, a lot of people survive a long time with dialysis, chemo and radiation, and surgery. There are moments when I am also sure some wish they could die.

Having carried pepper spray in Alaska on moose hunts in case a grisly got too close, I also know it is extremely painful and can disable a huge, strong angry animal. I think the term is very appropriate.

Especially because she was up there doing stand up comedy, telling jokes. Unlike Limbaugh, who said what he meant and has been very clear since that he meant what he said.

I thought Obama's comments to the media were very truthful, and funny. Actually the best humor is that the comment is true if you think or look at it the way the comedienne has directed your attention. After the intro joke about the approximation of truth (which StockBoySF analyzed very well) he went on to some excellent comments that were appropriate and supportive of the media's role in our government and society. We do need them to be able to make this country work.

I will have to watch for "How to Shoot Friends and Interrogate People" at the library. Just in case Cheney comes to Colorado and I run into him.

Re: The Worst Inaugural Address, Some Say

Ginny_in_CO — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 13:37:27 -0000

Reaction to the inauguration address was another example for me of how poorly too many Americans understand public speeches. The reality for me is that they are too ignorant of the problems and reality we face, or they are in denial of them.

I had never been as taken by Obama's oratory as many people seemed to think all of his supporters were. I am one of many - despite the meme- that found John Kerry inspirational and excellent in his speeches. What I do like about Obama's speeches, and it was very extensive in his inaugural, is the statements and references to stuff Americans should be very aware of. That he doesn't use ideology to convey his message and ideas, but a combination of left and right brain styles. (See Drew Westen).

He doesn't use a lot of flowery stuff. I find his words more meaningful and memorable because of it. One of the really good ones from yesterday:

"...people will judge you [leaders] not on what you have destroyed, but what you build."

Obama may not be saying as strongly as some of us would like that war is not the answer, but in that statement, he shows how well he understands the essential problem behind it. Gaza is the current example of this stupidity.

Re: Obama’s success: congratulations, Americans and America!

Ginny_in_CO — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 17:13:46 -0000

A lot of people cared about his race. Partly because so many people over the centuries had made it an issue in a such a negative way it has taken that long to overcome those deluded and destructive attitudes.

No one said that the US is the ruler of the world. Just that what we do affects the rest of the world in ways many Americans are clueless about.

Going forward to get control and mitigate the crises that face the whole world, starting with respect, good will and hope helps keep the direction change from getting off track when we are so limited in time to develop the solutions.

This election may not have been a miracle to someone unfamiliar with the American Civil Rights battles of the last 60 years. The millions of us who were and know how entrenched racism and discrimination are still built into our culture and society have no delusions about how transformational this vote was.

We have overcome: one of the great barriers to erasing our under the radar perpetuation of racial discrimination.

We are celebrating with the rest of the world an opportunity to make many changes that are long overdue. Party poopers are welcome to move on.

Re: Kerry at Foggy Bottom?

Ginny_in_CO — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 16:40:39 -0000

Ed,

If you should come back, thanks for your info, I will check into it. The Neocon roles in the conflicts you cited I am familiar with. I am aware of the Wilsonian influence on foreign policy but did not realize they had gotten in bed with the neocons. Then again, it's hard to remember all the associations of so many people. At one point I tried to use an alphabetized divider to record names , associations and records. I misplaced it and have not kept up.

Did you by chance come across Peter Brock's "Media Cleansing: Dirty Reporting"? His writing, for an award winning (environmental) journalist, is unbelievably awful and the editing did nothing to salvage it. I found it difficult to come to any definite conclusions other than it would be good to have an investigation and coherent review by someone who could turn the information into a cogent piece of the picture.

I agree to some extent that the Republican cover would be a good move. I prefer to push the idea that Obama is not an idealogue, he is a pragmatist who works from an understanding of right and wrong that I use.

We need to abandon ideology for the time being and start trying to

Do the right thing for the right reasons.

While avoiding doing

The right thing for the wrong reasons

The wrong thing for the right reasons

The wrong thing for the wrong reasons.

If we do the first enough and learn the correct lessons, we might eventually develop an ideology that supports the Constitution without going through all of the pendulums swings we have over the decades and centuries.

I also think that Americans have reached a teachable moment in regards to the reality of what our foreign policy, covertly as much or more as overtly, has messed up the world and the progress of democracy. As Kinzer said, it is hard to wrap your brain around what the middle east would have looked like in 2000 if we had not covertly unseated the first democratically elected president of Iran and reinstalled the Shah in '53.

The world as a whole faces the same storm of crises and we will need to work together to figure out how to resolve them. It will be a crossroads in history that demands new thinking and given the well documented worldwide grassroots movements to do this, I have to hope and believe it will happen.

It's been a while since I read "The New War" and will probably get it out and scan it. If you haven't read it, I think you might get a better understanding of Kerry's thinking on the international issues and how some form of international legal alliances need to be formed in order to effectively fight them. He offered nothing specific other than it will be a monumental task to create something effective while not infringing on national rights.

Whatever the decisions on the cabinet positions, I think it is going to be uncharted water in going forward. What looks dangerous and futile may well turn out to be as successful as Obama's run for the presidency.

Yeah, that audacity of hope.

It's a right brain thing :). The US needs to do more right brain thinking - that is not convoluted by religious ideology. As an atheist, I am really impatient for that to gain traction.

Re: Kerry at Foggy Bottom?

Ginny_in_CO — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 16:53:37 -0000

I think what the world wants most from Obama and America is less arrogance, not threatening them with the power of our millitary to get what we (and the neocons) want, and more effort at solid diplomacy.

The only thing I want less than a return to the Clinton administration is a continuation of the Bush regime. I grew up in the 50's, Ike Was more liberal than Clinton. They all make mistakes, it is inevitable.

Your first paragraph is confusing. You imagine that the world will feel that Kerry will give in to what they want and then be dissappointed because he carries out what Obama has said he wants to do. (Kerry's understanding of narco-trafficking applied to Afghanistan?)

Obama tends to talk like he is more willing to use the millitary than I would like. It strikes me (wishfully?) as saying stuff that he is not committed to acting on, to get elected in a promilitary mindset that is not reliably changed. In office I expect him to push the diplomatic and minimize the military.

Whatever the world might be disappointed in being different from what they expect, if they are approached with the cooperative, respectful, creative approach that I think Obama, Biden and Kerry would use, it would dissapate quickly.

Re: Kerry at Foggy Bottom?

Ginny_in_CO — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 16:32:24 -0000

ed,

I 'm trying to wrap my brain around how and what has given you the notion that Kerry is going to let the neocons into influential positions.

If there really is evidence he would do such a thing, there is no way I would support him for SoS.

Danzig would be great for SECDEF. I am as leary of GOP appointments to cabinet positions as you are of Kerry to SoS. The crony appointments and neocon approach to regulations strike me as much more likely in any of those positions than Kerry.

Re: Kerry at Foggy Bottom?

Ginny_in_CO — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 16:13:58 -0000

Good grief. When has the SoS been known to be 'electrifying'? It is a position a patrician demeanor is an advantage if there ever was one. Kerry was born into the foreign service. That's a minor but not insignificant plus.

If you asked the rest of the world who they would like as SoS, Kerry would be a big favorite. They were more behind him - and not just because he wasn't Bush- than the ignorant US voters in '04.

Re: Kerry at Foggy Bottom?

Ginny_in_CO — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 15:50:08 -0000

I hope they have considered who will be available to replace Kerry in the senate, given that within a few years, Kennedy will also leave a MA senate seat vacant.

Lack of accomplishment in the Senate???? He has a strong record on the stuff that doesn't attract attention but is the bread and butter of legislation; on women's issues, small business, and much more. Kerry's knowledge and insight are deep and broad. "The New War" was not only prescient, it initiated and became the basis for a whole new line of research and policy development which continues worldwide in universities and think tanks. Still worth reading, especially for his identification of international crime as potentially the biggest threat of all. The need for a viable international justice system- an accomplishment with huge barriers.

Perhaps the key advantage to that breadth and depth is having an understanding of what problems other countries are having and how we might provide targeted help with modest expense.

No matter how many people want to claim that Kerry didn't inspire people, those of us who were active in that campaign know better. When he returned to campaigning in '06 he was even more inspiring to the people who came to hear him stumping for about 80 candidates. Until the media and some Dems (Hillary) allowed the stupid 'joke' to become yet another GOP smear that was accepted instead of rejected as patently ridiculous. (Kerry's support for Veterans is about 20 points higher than Obama's 'ok' 80% ).

If you want to see Kerry's skills in persuasion and leadership - and how young he was when he first developed them, see "Going Up River".

Kerry's long standing relationships with leaders in other countries is = or better than Biden's. Understanding the culture of those countries and knowing the history of our relations with them is essential to succesful diplomatic relationships. Kerry and Biden would be superb for the preparations Obama will need before he goes to a table.

Another millitary person in the State Department is the last thing we need. 90% of our diplomatic problems are due to the fact that in addition to a military on amphetamines and steroids, the State Department has been simply a choral backup for the DoD for decades. Kerry could rebuild it to what it should be.

There is one thing McCain has proposed that is absolutely correct. Cutting the fat and waste out of the Pentagon to use for health care and infrastructure. (Can you immagine the response if Obama had suggested it?) We are talking way more than 18 billion in pork barrel funds (some of which is actually reasonable). McCain isn't qualified - talk about an undistinguished record. But how about Hagel for SoD? Then it would be a Republican doing the dirty work. The military might be a lot more comfortable with a republican in there too.

Re: Would Biden Serve Two Terms?

Ginny_in_CO — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 11:09:46 -0000

Personnally, I have a lot of problems with the VP always being the nominee. Gore has been the only exception.

I think the GOP problems this year were the consequences of their multiple weaknesses and failures. If Biden's health is good and the team is working well, I'd rather not switch that horse in mid stream.

8 years will give a lot of strong Dems to get experience in State houses, Congress and the Cabinet. I doubt we will be lacking for good candidates.

Three years from now it may be something for Biden to consider.

Re: Going There: Politics and Friends

Ginny_in_CO — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 16:54:30 -0000

First, one of those conservatives pointed out that the country would be better off if the SC appointees likely to be appointed in the next 4 years are NOT conservatives because the bench would then be tipped for decades. Two or even three 'liberal' judges will simply maintain a balance, not pack the court with liberal ideologues who could "legislate from the bench".

True, Carter was not a good politician. If the country could have gotten off it's 'don't think about the long term consequences' attitude towards policy, we would probably have been free of our dependency on foreign oil by 2000, would have contributed a lot less to global warming and a lot more to the world economy. Conservatives are always the most 'think inside the box' group anywhere.

Generally, I distill the basic difference between the GOP and Democrats in how they carry out this purpose of the Constitution from the preamble:

Provide for the General Welfare.

The GOP is convinced that if you provide for the welfare of the elite, have mores, it will end up improving the welfare of the general population.

The Democrats prefer to distribute that support to the general population, with some thrown in for the corporations (too much for them as far as many progressives are concerned).

The later is a balance that has worked fairly well historically. The former has brought down every nation that pursued it to the inevitable end.

I think Bill Moyers' on his journal last night cited a new statistic that America is now the country in 4th place in the disparity of wealth distribution.

Although I personally reject the idea of a world government, the current economic situation is highlighting the need for some form of international regulation of finance and commerce, which would need a stronger judicial component. The legal aspect is also important in other areas: international organized crime, terrorism, public health and displaced populations. If we can get that in place, the growing issue of water resources might be kept out of warfare and resolved with negotions and enforcement at international levels.

Re: Remembering David Foster Wallace

Ginny_in_CO — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 16:30:35 -0000

"I know depression. I wish him peace in his eternal rest."

Amen.

Re: Why Hillary Lost (Guest Voice)

Ginny_in_CO — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 10:44:55 -0000

This is an attitude that is becoming more and more prevalent. Understanding that our culture values and uses adversarial negotiation almost exclusively. That it is less productive or effective, and more distructive, than collaborative and creative approaches.

Jim Rough, "Society's Breakthrough" approaches this from a community standpoint.

Others have covered it from an individual or communications perspective.

"Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life" Marshall B. Rosenberg and Arun Gandhi

My sister lived in Tokyo for a number of years and told us about a neighbor couple who were both professionals and spoke several languages. They had developed the habit early in their marriage of arguing in English - because Japanese does not allow that kind of communication. Just heard today that the longest lifespan is in Japan - 83 years.

Re: Yes, The Sisterhood is Powerful. But It’s Time To Return Those Inaugural Ball Gowns

Ginny_in_CO — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 10:26:56 -0000

Just a motivational idea. The refunded money from the ball gowns could be sent to pay off her campaign debt.

And one more time. How can anyone think that a guy married to Michelle Robinson Obama, with two young daughters, will not be a strong advocate for women's issues?

Take it to the bank.

Re: Clinton Fatigue: Bill Clinton Lashes Out At Wife Being Treated “Disrespectfully Just For Running”

Ginny_in_CO — Mon, 26 May 2008 15:25:02 -0000

"“If you notice, there hasn’t been a lot of publicity on these polls I just told you about,” Clinton said. “It is the first time you’ve heard it? Why do you think that is? Why do you think? Don’t you think if the polls were the reverse and he was winning the electoral college against Sen. McCain and Hillary was losing it, it would be blasted on every television station? You would know it wouldn’t you?"

HUH?? Bill are you totally ignorant of how the MSM works - especially since you signed the telecom bill that let them coalesce into larger, more corporate entities?

Guilty conscience?

For several months I have just been countering comments about the Clintons with "A lot of us were NOT happy with Bill and his stupid squandering of the position he was elected to. We would be very happy not to have him any where near the WH"

From blowing health care reform because of the control attitude, to losing the power of the bully pulpit due to his philandering, I can't think of what they accomplished without thinking of what they undermined (Glass - Steagle) and what they had to abandon due to the constant barage of negative attacks- which caused Bill to follow in Gary Hart's failed footsteps.

What kills me is that they kept talking about her being 'vetted' and that Barack would end up being trashed as soon as the GOP got ahold of him. That nothing new could be dug up on Hill. Well she managed to generate new ammo. And as many of us anticipated, the old stuff has just been brought out to be recycled ad nauseum.. It's like what we found out with the swiftboaters; you can refute, disprove, and defend til you are blue- the people who want to believe the lies will not be persuaded.

Hillary has not been treated any worse than she has treated others - over the years.