Morning everybody!
I posted this on Facebook but I figured everybody would find this one interesting.
Terrorism: the most meaningless and manipulated word
by Glenn Greenwald at Salon.com
The fact is that flying a plane into a building to advance a political agenda through violence is terrorism, just not with a capital T according to Fox News. While the cost of lives between this and 9/11 are not even comparable, what Joseph Stack did was terrorism, cut and dry.
I've been harangued by commenters at the Daily claiming that not being racist is political correctness at its worst. Tell me how not calling this man a terrorist is not political correctness run amok. Not saying that I subscribe to the college of "stop being so polite and call a spade a spade" in order to promote racism, but it shows the hypocrisy in the message if you ask me, which none of you did.
Enjoy your day, and learn something.
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Friday, February 19, 2010
My Opinions are in a Newspaper (And Other Tragedies)
Good morning everybody.
First, the obligatory apology for my absence the past week. I'm sorry, can we move on?
No but seriously, I recently received a position at the Iowa State Daily as an Opinion columnist. A lot of my content on this blog will stem from my pieces there.
The theme in the coming few weeks will be an attempt to paint an accurate picture of the American nobility pulling the strings of our democracy. If you have any pieces you would like to submit or discussions you would like to see on the topic, feel free to email me or leave a comment in the cleverly named "comments" section.
Several of you saw my first piece, but I'm posting it here again to immortalize myself the way that only the internet can. All the best, sorry it's so long.
Ian J Barker
Senior in Chemical Engineering
First, the obligatory apology for my absence the past week. I'm sorry, can we move on?
No but seriously, I recently received a position at the Iowa State Daily as an Opinion columnist. A lot of my content on this blog will stem from my pieces there.
The theme in the coming few weeks will be an attempt to paint an accurate picture of the American nobility pulling the strings of our democracy. If you have any pieces you would like to submit or discussions you would like to see on the topic, feel free to email me or leave a comment in the cleverly named "comments" section.
Several of you saw my first piece, but I'm posting it here again to immortalize myself the way that only the internet can. All the best, sorry it's so long.
Ian J Barker
Senior in Chemical Engineering
The health insurance reform (HCR) bill waits for sentencing, but regardless of what happens, one thing is clear: Americans have had little say in how they feel about reform. In the face of errant misrepresentations, public opinion for this cost-cutting legislation has soured. Well-funded special interest groups, in their unique position to create and shape public perception, have played a large role in the faltering public opinion of HCR.
The moderating force behind representative democracy is that citizens perceive the actions of their representatives through felt consequences and, in the following election cycle, repay the favor by ousting miscreant legislators. The problem with this model in contemporary society is that the most prevalent forum of public discourse is now television; a one-way conversation monopolized by the wealthiest of economic elites. The cost of entry is simply too high; a 30-second television commercial, run in 1999, cost an average of $343,000 according to the New York Times.
The editorials that you write, the conversation that you have in class, the consequences that you feel from your government’s actions; little of it so much as ripples the ocean of national opinion any longer. The public’s capacity for leveraging its own political power to affect change relies on discussion, which rarely occurs when television dominates the conversation.
Special interests, with their massive financial coffers and unique position to put messages out in the open for public consumption has hijacked our system of government – in this case, health insurance reform - and threatens to cripple the republic as our founders envisioned it: with unfettered public discourse contributed to by all members.
Once these well-funded groups have secured television time, they report perception as fact in a way that serves their agenda, regardless of their authority. For example, on September 11th, 2010, the group Conservatives for Patients’ Rights (CPR) ran an advertisement during peak television hours that contradicted each of President Obama’s talking points in his speech the night before. The group stated each of their points without reproach, citing no facts or passages of the bill, yet many Americans accepted them as an authority, swinging public opinion polls against reform by playing to public fears of a government takeover. The strategy was well calculated, since 51% of Americans fear government above health insurance according to a Rasmussen poll. However, CPR's credibility comes seriously into question when one examines the Justice Department's account of Rick Scott - CPR CEO - and his 14 felony allegations for Medicare fraud at a for-profit hospital chain.
There is no doubt to anyone that health insurance reform poses a real threat to the record-breaking profits of health insurance and pharmaceutical companies. The most profound tragedy in the current discussion is that Americans, despite this conflict of interest, remain unconvinced that the opposition to health insurance reform stems from elite economic interests.
From “death panels” to “socialized medicine”, each counter-attack claims to come from some unknown corner of H.R. 3200. The problem is that an alarming number of these attacks have been misrepresentations of the real bill. If one reads H.R. 3200, one wonders how Section 123's Health Benefits Advisory Committee, for example, headed by the surgeon general who quote, "recommend[s] covered benefits," became an example of a "government's takeover of health care". Certainly a representative, Democrat or Republican, could accurately interpret this language, but instead citizens have to dig into the bill themselves in order to determine the truth.
Americans trust their representatives to make the best decisions for them. Our reliance on representative democracy has streamlined the process of legislating. However, it has also, via one-way political dialogue, removed citizens from the legislative process to a degree that prevents all but the most informed and educated from comprehending what our representatives perpetrate.
So, in an effort to establish a connection between the economic interests involved and the message of the bill’s opposition, I present the following facts. Humana, one of the largest health insurance firms in the country, saw their stock hit a yearlong high the day of Scott P. Brown’s election in Massachusetts according to Google Finance records. Pfizer pharmaceuticals saw a year-high close on the exact same day. In fact, the entire sector of stocks under the classification of "health care" saw a year-high (since January 2009) spike in closing stock prices the day of Brown’s election. Scott Brown ran on a platform promising to be the filibuster-breaking vote in the Senate debate on health care.
The fact is that the savings of the proposed legislation are passed down to us; those of us on this campus who will soon take up the burden of skyrocketing health insurance costs and the astronomical price of prescription drugs. Despite this vested interest, our needs are not being heard while Humana’s are.
If you wish to get involved, there are opportunities to make your voice heard. Call your representatives, write in to your local newspaper, call in to radio programs, and saturate the local media with your opinions. It is only through the last bastions of public discourse that we can begin to make our voices heard.
Sunday, February 7, 2010
HCR: A Cynical Point of View
I decided to respond to one of Organizing for America's calls to action by writing an editorial piece about the state of health insurance reform. I sent it off to the Ames Tribune, Daily, DM Register, and NY Times so if any of them know what's good for them, they'll all reject it.
For when they do, I"ve decided to immortalize my opinions (because I can) here on my blog. Let me know what you think.
by Ian J Barker
We find ourselves at a crossroads in the health care debate. The clash of Dems vs. Reps has reached a fever pitch and now that the fate of the legislation is uncertain, I cannot say I am surprised. The rise of special interest groups in this country and the demonstrated effectiveness of well-funded campaigns that threaten to jeopardize our democracy sit poised to – predictably – claim another innocent victim: health insurance reform.
Without going into too much background, allow me to lay out the groundwork for my cynicism. Public officials run for office in order to influence policy decisions and represent their constituents. By the basic mechanics of democracy, any public official who fails to represent his/her people would be voted out in the next electoral cycle through conclusions reached in open discussion of felt consequences from representative’s decisions.
Fundamentally, a representative’s desire is to be re-elected. It is illogical to argue that politicians seek election for the paycheck when one considers that jobs in a myriad of other sectors are far more lucrative even at the most basic levels. Therefore, we can accept two things: that public officials wish to be re-elected, and that, if democracy is allowed to function by its most basic principles, the best way to achieve re-election is to govern with the interest of one’s constituents in mind.
Now, the founding fathers established these governing mechanics with the assumption that ideas, both complaints and hurrahs, would flow freely through the marketplace of ideas made possible by the printed word. This idea held clout largely because, at the time, most people had access to the printing press, which meant that virtually anyone could present their ideas to the reasoned vetting of public discourse.
The problem is that, in our day, a new medium of public discourse has replaced that original marketplace of the printed word. What was once a two-way conversation has become a one-way barrage of special interest advertisements and factually unchecked political campaigns via the mass distribution of television. Furthermore, with no built in system of accountability, entities with sufficient funds can reproduce outright lies seven days a week, three-hundred and sixty five days a year for the unquestioning digestion of the American people. What was once a lively public forum of discussion has become a View-Master of sensationally presented “facts” with no response permitted from the ones whose opinions shape the republic: the people.
In the wake of this development, we have been force-fed talking points ranging from the sketchy to the outright false. From “death panels” to the dreaded “socialized medicine” – whose absence still does not prevent Republicans from touting the bill as a government takeover – each “threat to our freedom” has received the backing of some wealthy and targeted interest group. The “Center for Patients’ Rights”, for example, aired an ad the day after President Obama’s speech directly contradicting each of his talking points.
Now of course it is natural to argue that, despite the prevalence of political ads, surely the strength of the public’s collective reason could weed out the facts from the falsehoods. Unfortunately history has proven to the contrary. Declining popularity for the current legislation would suggest that the CPR claimed victory over reason, thanks to the absence of any accountability. Furthermore, the CPR ad is just one in an army of ads that subvert the truth for niche gains at the expense of broader progress.
The machine continues its march onward, consuming fact and claiming victims as quickly as it identifies the next set of truths to derail at the behest of those wealthy enough to hold the reigns.
The worst of it is that our representatives enable it. The quest for re-election has one demonstrated path these days: a well-funded campaign. Since few single citizens possess the wealth necessary to fund these campaigns, the main sources of funding are limited to the special interests who dominate the public discourse. The desire for re-election, the need for funds, and the possession of funds by interest groups boils down to one, all too prevalent truth in our politics: elected officials must vote in ways advantageous to special interests or risk falling in subsequent elections, a prospect they cannot bear.
Our legislation has been hijacked across the board and it appears that the next victim is health care reform. As a perfect example of the state of our discourse, health care reform actually started and continues to be health insurance reform, however it now bears only the label that advertisements and sound bites have allowed it to carry.
Despite my cynicism, I still recognize my vested interest in the proposed legislation. So, all history aside I ask that if my congressmen and women cannot hear my daily frustration that they read in my words here:
As a student, ready to accept the burden of my own health insurance, reading the federal study that health care costs continue to skyrocket, and pleading for a breakthrough in the progress of the American republic, I compel you to listen to the needs of the American people for a step, no matter how large or small, toward containing the corporate monstrosity of health insurance and pharmaceuticals.
America has never been so close to relieving the burden of rising costs and broken promises whose sole responsibility rests on the shoulders of unethical and inhumane money-mongering business practices perpetrated by the health insurance and pharmaceutical industries. Trumpeting concern for national debt while obstructing progress on progressive, cost cutting legislation serves no one while perpetuating the special interest strangle hold on the men and women we trust to make the best decisions for us.
So now that the back-and-forth discussion of politics has all but evaporated, to what do representatives turn for substantiation when claims are raised that they have abandoned the republic they served? The new “populism”, which rises from faux grass-roots, manufactured outrage sparked by television advertisements and radio pundits. But my question is, with even populism shanghaied by the media, how is one to get their concerns enacted in policy? With true populism based in fact and human experience?
Well then, if you want true populism, here it is: listen to the cries of those whose family members have died under the yoke of health care costs and pre-existing conditions, listen to the concerns here written, and listen to the numbers that demonstrate the crisis we face. If the millions of families losing their well-being to unethical business practices do not constitute a great enough number of citizens to receive the mantle of populism, to demand the attention of our legislators, then I fear that our republic has lost the fight, both for our reforms and for the preservation of our government as it was conceived.
For when they do, I"ve decided to immortalize my opinions (because I can) here on my blog. Let me know what you think.
by Ian J Barker
We find ourselves at a crossroads in the health care debate. The clash of Dems vs. Reps has reached a fever pitch and now that the fate of the legislation is uncertain, I cannot say I am surprised. The rise of special interest groups in this country and the demonstrated effectiveness of well-funded campaigns that threaten to jeopardize our democracy sit poised to – predictably – claim another innocent victim: health insurance reform.
Without going into too much background, allow me to lay out the groundwork for my cynicism. Public officials run for office in order to influence policy decisions and represent their constituents. By the basic mechanics of democracy, any public official who fails to represent his/her people would be voted out in the next electoral cycle through conclusions reached in open discussion of felt consequences from representative’s decisions.
Fundamentally, a representative’s desire is to be re-elected. It is illogical to argue that politicians seek election for the paycheck when one considers that jobs in a myriad of other sectors are far more lucrative even at the most basic levels. Therefore, we can accept two things: that public officials wish to be re-elected, and that, if democracy is allowed to function by its most basic principles, the best way to achieve re-election is to govern with the interest of one’s constituents in mind.
Now, the founding fathers established these governing mechanics with the assumption that ideas, both complaints and hurrahs, would flow freely through the marketplace of ideas made possible by the printed word. This idea held clout largely because, at the time, most people had access to the printing press, which meant that virtually anyone could present their ideas to the reasoned vetting of public discourse.
The problem is that, in our day, a new medium of public discourse has replaced that original marketplace of the printed word. What was once a two-way conversation has become a one-way barrage of special interest advertisements and factually unchecked political campaigns via the mass distribution of television. Furthermore, with no built in system of accountability, entities with sufficient funds can reproduce outright lies seven days a week, three-hundred and sixty five days a year for the unquestioning digestion of the American people. What was once a lively public forum of discussion has become a View-Master of sensationally presented “facts” with no response permitted from the ones whose opinions shape the republic: the people.
In the wake of this development, we have been force-fed talking points ranging from the sketchy to the outright false. From “death panels” to the dreaded “socialized medicine” – whose absence still does not prevent Republicans from touting the bill as a government takeover – each “threat to our freedom” has received the backing of some wealthy and targeted interest group. The “Center for Patients’ Rights”, for example, aired an ad the day after President Obama’s speech directly contradicting each of his talking points.
Now of course it is natural to argue that, despite the prevalence of political ads, surely the strength of the public’s collective reason could weed out the facts from the falsehoods. Unfortunately history has proven to the contrary. Declining popularity for the current legislation would suggest that the CPR claimed victory over reason, thanks to the absence of any accountability. Furthermore, the CPR ad is just one in an army of ads that subvert the truth for niche gains at the expense of broader progress.
The machine continues its march onward, consuming fact and claiming victims as quickly as it identifies the next set of truths to derail at the behest of those wealthy enough to hold the reigns.
The worst of it is that our representatives enable it. The quest for re-election has one demonstrated path these days: a well-funded campaign. Since few single citizens possess the wealth necessary to fund these campaigns, the main sources of funding are limited to the special interests who dominate the public discourse. The desire for re-election, the need for funds, and the possession of funds by interest groups boils down to one, all too prevalent truth in our politics: elected officials must vote in ways advantageous to special interests or risk falling in subsequent elections, a prospect they cannot bear.
Our legislation has been hijacked across the board and it appears that the next victim is health care reform. As a perfect example of the state of our discourse, health care reform actually started and continues to be health insurance reform, however it now bears only the label that advertisements and sound bites have allowed it to carry.
Despite my cynicism, I still recognize my vested interest in the proposed legislation. So, all history aside I ask that if my congressmen and women cannot hear my daily frustration that they read in my words here:
As a student, ready to accept the burden of my own health insurance, reading the federal study that health care costs continue to skyrocket, and pleading for a breakthrough in the progress of the American republic, I compel you to listen to the needs of the American people for a step, no matter how large or small, toward containing the corporate monstrosity of health insurance and pharmaceuticals.
America has never been so close to relieving the burden of rising costs and broken promises whose sole responsibility rests on the shoulders of unethical and inhumane money-mongering business practices perpetrated by the health insurance and pharmaceutical industries. Trumpeting concern for national debt while obstructing progress on progressive, cost cutting legislation serves no one while perpetuating the special interest strangle hold on the men and women we trust to make the best decisions for us.
So now that the back-and-forth discussion of politics has all but evaporated, to what do representatives turn for substantiation when claims are raised that they have abandoned the republic they served? The new “populism”, which rises from faux grass-roots, manufactured outrage sparked by television advertisements and radio pundits. But my question is, with even populism shanghaied by the media, how is one to get their concerns enacted in policy? With true populism based in fact and human experience?
Well then, if you want true populism, here it is: listen to the cries of those whose family members have died under the yoke of health care costs and pre-existing conditions, listen to the concerns here written, and listen to the numbers that demonstrate the crisis we face. If the millions of families losing their well-being to unethical business practices do not constitute a great enough number of citizens to receive the mantle of populism, to demand the attention of our legislators, then I fear that our republic has lost the fight, both for our reforms and for the preservation of our government as it was conceived.
Saturday, February 6, 2010
Swiftboating the Deficit
Burgeoning social programs, massive injections of funds into work programs, and nationalist calls for a rallying around a common purpose: rebuilding America. These three components highlight the recovery of 2009-10 in much the same manner that they did in the New Deal, the extensive reconstruction of the American economy after the Great Depression.
John B has expressed on several occasions the ways in which President Obama's programs mirror the New Deal in both aim and execution, but suddenly there's trouble afoot. The same ideals that crowned the policies of FDR now threaten to nurture the greatest threat to our Democracy since the election of the president himself: the deficit.
You cannot turn on the news anymore without hearing some talking head comment about the ballooning deficit. In their defense, the prospect seems attractive: ballooning debts and deficits are no way to run a business so why should America be exempt from the rules of the market? When are lenders just going to quit lending, sensing that there is no end in sight? Surely large swaths of the global community will see us as a joke and our national identity will suffer, right?
The problem is that, according to an article by Paul Krugman in the NY Times, the deficit and national debt are far less serious problems then we are being lead to believe. I admit, even I was concerned with the concept until I read Krugman's outlook (he likens current tactics to the kind of fear-mongering that lead us into Iraq).
Now, it's not my job to sit here and point out where the right fails like a glorified (?) watchdog. Shoring up national debts and relinquishing ourselves from the grasp of the Chinese economy sounds like a perfectly respectable thing to do. However, the constantly repeated talking points and misinformation of the political right in this country is clearly in full swing on this matter, convincing average Americans that the goal posts of health insurance (!) reform and job creation are not nearly as important as "fiscal responsibility", now a concrete pillar of the Republican line.
Yet we do not challenge it. The deficit was never in question when President Bush manufactured consent for two wars, the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act, and tax cuts to the wealthiest 2% but when Obama's well-vetted programs (whose recommendation come from the godfather John Maynard Keynes himself) threaten to temporarily increase government spending en route to a reduction in the national debt, it's time to rally that Tea Party "populism".
Some of you may think that you can't make a difference on the matter, but when "experts" are out there claiming that a necessary run of deficit spending is endangering our standing as a nation, it is time to put out what word we can and convince whoever may read our words that they are being lied to. This stands to become a big issue in the coming election, which means its our time to be citizens.
Write as you see fit, agree or disagree, and remember that America was founded on the open forum, the polis, of the printed word.
John B has expressed on several occasions the ways in which President Obama's programs mirror the New Deal in both aim and execution, but suddenly there's trouble afoot. The same ideals that crowned the policies of FDR now threaten to nurture the greatest threat to our Democracy since the election of the president himself: the deficit.
You cannot turn on the news anymore without hearing some talking head comment about the ballooning deficit. In their defense, the prospect seems attractive: ballooning debts and deficits are no way to run a business so why should America be exempt from the rules of the market? When are lenders just going to quit lending, sensing that there is no end in sight? Surely large swaths of the global community will see us as a joke and our national identity will suffer, right?
The problem is that, according to an article by Paul Krugman in the NY Times, the deficit and national debt are far less serious problems then we are being lead to believe. I admit, even I was concerned with the concept until I read Krugman's outlook (he likens current tactics to the kind of fear-mongering that lead us into Iraq).
Now, it's not my job to sit here and point out where the right fails like a glorified (?) watchdog. Shoring up national debts and relinquishing ourselves from the grasp of the Chinese economy sounds like a perfectly respectable thing to do. However, the constantly repeated talking points and misinformation of the political right in this country is clearly in full swing on this matter, convincing average Americans that the goal posts of health insurance (!) reform and job creation are not nearly as important as "fiscal responsibility", now a concrete pillar of the Republican line.
Yet we do not challenge it. The deficit was never in question when President Bush manufactured consent for two wars, the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act, and tax cuts to the wealthiest 2% but when Obama's well-vetted programs (whose recommendation come from the godfather John Maynard Keynes himself) threaten to temporarily increase government spending en route to a reduction in the national debt, it's time to rally that Tea Party "populism".
Some of you may think that you can't make a difference on the matter, but when "experts" are out there claiming that a necessary run of deficit spending is endangering our standing as a nation, it is time to put out what word we can and convince whoever may read our words that they are being lied to. This stands to become a big issue in the coming election, which means its our time to be citizens.
Write as you see fit, agree or disagree, and remember that America was founded on the open forum, the polis, of the printed word.
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
The Only President in the Room
It took me forever to post, but I sure am glad I read it.