Humans need regulation

It’s not that we’re all evil. It’s just that we all think about our own welfare first. It’s probably instinct imprinted in our DNA.

But it’s why we have laws, social rules and governments. Why religions evolved. Why we need regulation.

So when free-marketers proclaim that businesses, corporations and investors should be completely unregulated, they’re ignoring human nature. They’re disregarding thousands of years of history. They’re either kidding themselves or lying to us.

The Godfather Speaks

The Godfather of one of America’s most ruthless organized crime families, George H. W. Bush, called his son's critics names on morning TV.

He singled out MSNBC personalities Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow calling them "sick puppies."

"The way they treat my son and anyone who's opposed to their point of view is just horrible," he said. "When our son was president they just hammered him mercilessly and I think obscenely a lot of the time and now it's moved to a new president."

All I could think of is Don Corleon complaining how the newspapers treated Michael Corleon badly.

People tend to say harsh things about a man who let a city full of people drown, started an illegal and unprovoked war, condoned torturing his enemies and established secret prisons… who confined his critics to fenced off enclosures out of view and then illegally tapped their phones… and who incited fear among Americans to seize absolute power.

Does the Godfather expect that we’re going applaud his son’s illegal tactics?

Healthcare Hijack

The healthcare insurance industry has a lucrative racket, and they don’t want anything messing it up. So, they’re doing everything they can to scuttle the idea of a public option.

Their lobbyists and propagandists have been working overtime to protect their interests. Make no mistake about it; they’re playing to win.

Their paid PR mules are spreading lies, calling names and making up facts -- in short using every tool in the propagandist’s tool box to thwart any government involvement in healthcare. Even though the most successful social programs like Social Security, Medicare and the Veterans Administration are government run. And even though other countries have successful government-run healthcare.

As a diversionary measure, they’ve gotten their Congressional patsy, Max Baucus, to present a self-serving counter-proposal. The Baucus Plan was carefully structured by the insurance industry to guarantee them a multi-billion dollar windfall.

Here’s how it works. The government passes a law that the 40 million uninsured Americans must purchase health insurance. The law is added to the Internal Revenue Tax Code and calls for a $1900 “excise tax” if you don’t buy insurance. In other words, the IRS comes after you if you don’t pay, and it can attach your assets and put you in jail.

Under the pretense of solving the healthcare problem, The Baucus Plan uses the IRS to blackmail 40 million Americans into buying his benefactors’ insurance. It’s no different than any other organized crime protection racket.

Who will pay the price? The working poor who can least afford it.

Unless enough Americans see through this con and raise some hell with their Senators and Representatives, this legalized extortion could become part of the US Tax Code.