Comments by "Xyz Same" (@xyzsame4081) on "Rebel HQ"
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And what qualifies Cuomo ? Having survived LONG in N.Y. politics means you know to play the game (of power), and that he is cozy, very cozy with the party establishment (never mind which party, in his case it happens to be the Dems) and the DONORS (who finance BOTH parties).
He may have more experience - but WHAT does he use that for ?
Nixon will need some good advisors (who know what is going on behind in the backrooms) but WHO work FOR the people (admitted they are not easy to find). And Nixon can expect a lot of traps waiting for her (again having the right kind of people on your side can help).
Public policies are NOT that complicated - standing for some basic principles (with a spine) and having some goals FOR THE COMMON GOOD is. And for the tricky details and the reality check you have staff and experts.
When they decided to have the "Race to the moon" the president did not need technical expertise. And his advisors could only say that they were confident it could be done (NO ONE could know for sure then, the technology had not yet been invented).
It was the POLITICAL commitment to a goal (not the SPECIFICS of how it would be done) and setting aside enough money to pay for the experts who would find out what to do about it.
(Before the Sputnik shock in 1957 Eisenhower had dismissed projects of that kind because of the exorbitant costs). After the Sputnik shock "costs" stopped being an issue. (a lot of lessons to be learned in that as well, COSTS are NEVER the issue, if "they" really want something, be it military expenditures or war).
Half the "qualification to serve" is having a good B.S. meter while GENUINELY and with a SPINE acting in the interest of the regular folks. Being open to look what solutions other large cities found (I know it is not all urban, but the urban factor is overwhelming in N.Y.). And for the details and the snakes waiting for you GOOD and honest advisors. - Everything else can be learned by an intelligent, devoted person with self-discipline.
I would like to remind you that the mediocre actors / celebrity athlete Ronald Reagan and Arnold Schwarzenegger were seen fit to govern CALIFORNIA (resp. become POTUS). Never mind Donald Trump. Reagan did not need much experience or intellect to undermine affordable college education for minorites in California. having some bias and skewed economic ideas were sufficient.
And no one asks the other "players" in politics how they became "qualified". (usually they have to pass the donor test and be sufficiently presentable, if possible well spoken. Really important is the ability and discipline in dialling after dollars and being good in fund raising. (Especially the call center style phone calls to the donors are very unpopular - but there is no escape for the "regular" donor dependent politicians.
Above all a lack of original thinking and a willingness to absorb and to DELIVER eloquently the talking points given by the thinks tanks (financed by the donors.) is crucial. And the ability to do "politician deflection speak" in the rare case their talking points are challenged.
Having your own ideas, critical thinking skills, empathy with the voters or a spine would be major disqualifying traits.
It would not be rocket science to protect the citizens from being priced out of the housing "market" for instance (just as an example of a policy that would be important for New Yorkers). it has nothing to do with "experience" or political power - or lack thereof - that these policies are not implemented.
Integrity, willingness to serve, having good people help you avoid the traps (I mean collusion, backstabbing, being dragged into pointless fights) beats whatever Cuomo has in experience, education, information or "the boys club advantage".
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+ JNagarya You are so rabidly anti Sanders that you use a derogatory word against L B - really ? (as 70 - 80 year old person - since you claim to be a civil Rights activist for 60 years). So Sanders shifting the discussion, refuting time and again the think tank talking points, and putting pressure on both Republicans and the Clinton wing of the Democratic party does not count ?
It seems to me that US voters who follow politics not that intensely did not even KNOW how much more cost-efficient other well working systems (single payer) work or how MUCH more medical drugs cost in the U.S. - Well that has changed, you cannot escape a Sanders interview w/o hearing that.
The Civil Rights Act, also ending the Vietnam war, the vote for women, gay marriage, legal pot - all those achievements were not reached by negotiating across the aisle (or even within the party). Activists CHANGED public opinion and they - often under great sacrifices - put on pressure. And then the laws and the parties (or at least one party) followed. THEN there may have been the processes and some compromising involved - after it was clear the big demand would be met.
The big shifts happened elsewhere - and that is true for every major turn. (I guess when they threw the tea into the sea they did not negotiate much either).
And FDR is said to have twisted the arm of the members of the Democratic Party who did not want to vote for the New Deal. He sure had to compromise - but before he not only put up a good fight - the things he fought for were INTENDED to HELP the regular citizens.
The Civil Rights movement FORCED the presidents to take a stand, I assume JFK and LBJ was sympathetic to the cause - but would they have spent political capital on it ? No - they tried to preach "patience" to the Civil Rights movement and to MLK. Well the movement did not put up with "it is not the right time - yet" anymore.
The achievements of Bill Clinton: he got the the neoliberal agenda through. Easy to get the Republican vote for that (and for those things not even Obama had a problem - see TPP fast track - ACA just was not neoliberal enough, there were some "social" elements the rabid GOP despised, and of course they did not want Obama to have a signature achievement, a good healthcare bill)
Bill Clinton fulfilled what the GOP would have done - and then some.
Remember NAFTA ? - Bush Sr. could not get it passed and would likely also not have been successful with the massive welfare cuts.
Nothing like a fake liberal to screw the low and regular income people. Nothing like a honorary black president to start mass incarceration targeting minorities. And to take welfare from kids - against hitting the minorities more.
He also got major deregulation for the financial sector passed (it was the last nail in the coffin - but it was essential). Having watched Nafta play out, he signed in 2000 the Chinese trade agreement - costing millions of manufacturing jobs in the U.S.
Indeed Bill Clinton got a lot done - see 2007/2008. Alan Greenspan (the Ayn Rand fan) called Clinton a good Conservative.
Hillary Clinton did not achieve much as Senator (she made a good effort as First Lady for Healthcare, but did not continue that fight after the first defeat - that alone would have won her the presidency). And the things she "achieved" as Secretary of State ? Libya, Syria, Ukraine, (Victoria Nuland her confidante - you can inform yourself if you want).
Bill Clinton also intended to privatize SS - that would have been great in 2007 - thanks to Monica Lewinsky they gave up on that battle. (SS was again a negotiating chip for Obama, but there was considerable resistance as well.)
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TRANSCRIPE please UPVOTE both parts - 1/2 - A book that I can't recommend highly enough to folks out there, it's by a guy named Anand Gopal and it's called No Good Men Among The Living, which is a Pashtun phrase that he liked and that he used as his title.
What he describes in the book it is rather startling. Shortly after the U.S. invaded after September 11th, 2001 the Taliban put up a fight for a few days, in some places a few weeks, and then they melted away.
Commanders across Afghanistan fled, threw down their weapons, and went back to civilian life. Mullah Omar that Taliban leader tried to fight on for a little while, held held a huge meeting in Kandahar with a lot of his top of top officials, and lieutenants, and and urged them to continue the fight. And they said no. They said this fight is over. They witnessed the disparity of the force that the United States had versus the Taliban.
When you have air power it is simply impossible to fight a conventional war if the other side doesn't - if you don't have any. In other words you'd have these long lines of Taliban trucks, you know those these famous white Toyota's that you see in conflicts all all over the world. And they'd be heading from one town to the next, and you can't hide these convoys.
U.S. fighter jets would see them and just annihilate them. It only took a handful of those moments for the Taliban leadership [to] say you know what: this is over. We are done.
Now for centuries, maybe millennia in Afghanistan when one power, or one faction kind of took took power, or won a conflict against the rival, they would then surrender, negotiate. And they would share power going forward. Sometimes that share would be 99 to 1 or 100 to zero.
But they wouldn't leave the country. You know these are you know these are clans that have been in Afghanistan since time immemorial. Ad so when you're at war with your neighbor, and the war ends, your neighbor doesn't leave.
The U.S. eventually - we'll leave as we left Vietnam, and as one day we'll leave Iraq. But to take the Iraq example Shia and the Sunni aren't leaving.
They're there, they are neighbors, they live there.
So the Taliban assumed that this process was going to go the same way that it had gone for centuries before. That they would surrender, they'd come to the table, they'd negotiate some some sort of immunity from prosecution and getting hanged or whatever it was.
And they were they were completely rebuffed. The United States said no, we will not accept surrender terms, and anything less than unconditionally. At times the senior Taliban figures attempted to unconditionally surrender and the warlords and the United States were so disorganized that they couldn't even find people to accept their surrender.
This is all spelled out in Anand Gopal's book No Good No Good Man Among The Living which I recommend everybody check out.
So after after a long time of this happening eventually an insurgency did start again.
But why did it start ?
Okay, the United States had refused to accept the surrender of the Taliban, so therefore in the mind of the United States the Taliban was at war with the United States Army and with the Afghan government there.
The problem was that wasn't actually true even though the surrender wasn't accepted Taliban gave up anyway. They went back to they went back to civilian life, they went back to the towns where they came from. Or some of them fled to Pakistan.
They were not fighting back against US forces for about a year so after we were in there. But the US forces needed body bags they knew to be able to show that they were making progress in the quote-unquote War On Terror. So how do you kill terrorists if there are no terrorists left in the country.
Well, if you have money to buy dead terrorists - you know demand has a way of creating its own supply. and so you had these Afghan warlords who were allied with the US Army over there, and then they'd say: "Oh five thousand, fifty thousand, a hundred thousand dollars for information on a Taliban ? Okay guess what, that guy over there he's Taliban."
He wasn't Taliban, but he was some type of a rival with whatever warlord the US was associated with. And so boom they would kick in the doors of this guy that was just knocked out to them as being Taliban and the original guy would get the hundred thousand dollar reward or whatever it was.
Now that guy's brother is mad at the original warlord and he'd go to the US Army say: "Hey that warlord that you're working with - guess what he's actually Taliban."
The US had no understanding whatsoever of the of the culture, or the language, or or the players in the deeply complicated politics.
They like: "Oh really, okay ! ", and then they'd go get that guy, too.
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+ Paul What do you mean, not adequate for the position ? He is an organizer it is important to have support to get things done.
Expertise can be hired, advise can be sought - but if the INTENTIONS are not good - being polished, a well connected networker, and having expertise will not help. And even good intentions are for nought if the candidates has no spine.
Cuomo would be a good governor for New York - I do not doubt he knows to play the game, knows the right people, the tricks, knows to network, likely is not stupid.
Now ..IF he would put that to good use FOR the voters instead of serving the donors, the party establishment and his own interests .....
At least Cynthia Nixon spoiled a potential 2020 run for him. One neoliberal selfish shill down.
A grassroots candidate that has to thank the volunteers for winning the seat is more likely to react to the pressure of the base - course corrections - in case he wants to give in to corruption, pressure or goes against widespread opinion.
Sanders had backlash in Burlington, that was about a waterfront real estate porject. I think in general he got good grades (as proven by the wins with increasing majorities). The Corporate Dems he had unseated (the mayor and his buddies in the city council) continued to not like him (at all) so he worked on a case to case base with the Republicans in the city council.
They had agreed on the project maybe he was doing them a favor (to reciprocrate for support for other cases, green energy, youth center funding, etc.).
Well, the citizens of Burlington were not having it - support for mayor Sanders or not. And he had alerted them to organized grassroots resistance. The fight continued for some years, eventually the project was dropped. It is a watefront park now, open to the public, real estate there is not going to happen.
Ben Jealous might be stubborn enough to push things through.
The current governor seems to be beholden to big money interests, and the track record is not good.
So why not give Ben Jealous a try ?
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+Rose what you describe is SHAMING for going lower than usual in politics (which says something). In case you haven't noticed, constituents did not harrass politicians and members of the admin like that. The first Supreme Court nomination (fairly right wing and stolen from an Obama appointee) went through without much ado. (the Dems should have resisted, the Republicans in their place certainly would have - but that aside - no fuss was made, when Gorsuch got the seat that should be Garland's - which is fairly conservative anyway).
However: When the Republicans just try to eliminate a healthcare system (flawed) w/o having ANY provisions what to offer instead, they should get used to public anger. The cowards did not dare to show their face in townhalls in spring 2017.
That is when public shaming started.
Kavanaugh lied multiple times under oath in Senate hearings for life long appointments. In the 2nd Bush term 2008 he denied to have gotten certain hacked mails when he was asked about it - since last summer we KNOW he did have them, he was one of the few who got them.
He brazenly lied about it. And Kavanaugh LIED again in 2018 about his drinking habits and conduct and about drinking age in MD. Which shows a character / maturity problem. Admitting he was a 17 year old fool and not denying the obvious would not really have changed things, he would have been confirmed anyway.
(Which begs the question - are there no other CONSERVATIVE judges qualified that have NO baggage - like Gorsuch ?)
Admitting the obvious would have the claims of Ford more plausible, but it still not prove anything. He it is either very conceited or a brazen liar (well yes, that too) or foolish to insist he did not drink heavily and often. Or that he talked dirty with his buddies about sex and females or that they glorified excessive drinking (with vomitting, or taking in alcohol anally - it seems that is a perverse way of getting very drunk very quickly). He is not the first and last 17 year old to do so.
Oh, and he LIED about underage drinking. It was raised in MD while he still was 17, His friend Mark was grandfathered in (he was already 18) but Kavanaugh continued for several years to drink illegally.
Again many drink underage - I think it is much worse that he now as plus 50 year old man tries to lie about it. When it is in the books how and when the laws were changed and when the day after his "testimony" shocked former drinking buddies came out and offered to the FBI their testimony that contradicts his statements (that includes people who were positive about his nomination). People that like Kavanaugh made a good career, come from the same circles and have no reason at all to be against him ("One of us made it to the Supreme Court ! "). And they would generously disregard the bygone nonsense or excesses (they likely did the same). What they do NOT want to see is a plus 50 year old liar getting one of the highest positions in the country - for life.
he already has a life appointment - and he lied his way into that as well.
(never mind the sexual assault claim - but that can never be proven, although there is a good chance he did that too)
Or when the admin w/o need starts jailing people asking for asylum. Or when they crossed the border. (former admins mostly treated it as misdemeanor to avoid an adminstrative clusterfuck). That meant they put adults together ! with children into detention centers. The adults could take care of the children. When the decision was made (deportation or allowed to stay) - at least the children and minors were with the adults.
The Trump admin intentionally started that policy. It is cruel, expensive and an adminstrative nightmare. The court had to order them to unite the children. They did not even take down the details in the beginning. Adults were deported, children are still in the U.S. Some children are left in the system, who knows where the adults are (that could have been people who either abducted the children OR they wanted to bring them to the parents staying in the U.S. and they do not dare to show up to claim the children.
There is no good reason to handle it - except for grandstanding. And to scare people that flee from threat poverty. Stealing their children from them. Without the public outcry - who knows what they would have done with the little ones. (They did not expect the fuss they thought they could pull this off).
The judge: If you take a wallet from someone they will get a receipt - and ICE took children from parents and did not have any PAPERWORK about the children ?
There was not need to start the "no tolerance" policy except that Trump wanted to announce at rallies how many people they had put into jail (never mind the COSTS). The law says they are not allowed to jail innocent minors for more than 21 days - so former admins (Bush, Obama) only jailed the adults if they suspected criminal activities. Crossing the border was not treated as a crime - and asking for asylum is legal anyway.
In short there was a way to reduce the red tape and even if they would be deported to maintain a minimum of decency.
Or there is the Trump admin: traumatize little children and their parents (mostly mothers) - the more the better.
But with "jail them no mattter what" the admin needed to separate children from parents (and they did not even bother to make sure they could FIND the children after the decision regarding the adults was made.
Civil servants that participate in schemes that are ineffective, cruel and senseless deserve to be yelled at. They should not have undisturbed meals in nice restaurants.
There is a time for politness and being moderate - and a time to call a spade a spade. Loud and clear if necessary.
These crooks think they can act with impunity. Well at least they should feel very uncomfortable when they show their face in public.
Humans are social beings and react to that. They should feel stress, it is only a small payback for what they unleash onto the population.
Btw: a Stanford or Yale study: lawmakers are not responsive to the wishes of the electorate.
Issues that poll well with the upper 10 % but not the bottom and middle - 50 to 60 % chance to get it passed.
Issues that poll well with the bottom and the middle (the vast majority of the country) but NOT with the "elites" , the 10 % - almost zero chance it will become the law.
Politicians - and the voters - are meanwhile completely used to it that politicians do the will of the Big Donors and do not give a damn about the voters (which is true for most Democratic policians as well. almost all of them take the Big Donations and they grovel before them, damned be the people).
But Trump and the Republicans really have stepped it up.
Which is as well, finally the sheeple are awakening, time to get the pitchforks.
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Japan is a very small country?? Japan has over 6000 islands, 127,3 million inhabitants, USA 322 millions, the ratio is 1 : 2,54. Space Ratio is another story 1:26. That means per capita the US has 26 times more space for their citizens than Japan (there are no vast empty plains like in the US) and it shows, the US having by far the hightest energy consumption in the rich countries and the Japanese the lowest. (I do not know if the US hold the records, Saudi Arabia or Dubai might beat them, Japan and USA are very much on the opposite ends of the spectrum). And one of the reasons for the high energy consumption of the US is the settlement policies (zoning), highest rate of shopping malls (space per capita), the necessary infrastructure constructions (like streets, water treatment, distribution of goods), the size of houses (both for building and for heating or cooling them), transportation.
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+User2718218 - I recommend to listen to JOHN BOLENBAUGH, former marine, oil spill clean-up worker turned whistleblower and nightmare of the industry. The oil that IS GOING TO threaten the water is not MEANT for US citizens. It will be sold elsewhere. The company makes the profit, the citizens WILL suffer (you have to think in time frames of 10 or 20 years). All politicians and CEOs and regulators will be elsewhere when the water of 18 million people will be poisoned (and there are a lot of other pipelines - same scenario). Do you think they will DO ANYTHING for the citizens then ?? They are unable or unwiling to even solve the lead crisis in Michigan. And that WOULD be solveable with money (in a technical sense). The pipeline is buried UNDER the water body. How do you get the oil out of the drinking ! water once it poisoned such a large water body.
High pressure, highly agressive fluids to help keep the stuff flowing. The material INEVITABLY corrodes., they are negligent on maintainance (big spills are covered by the insurance, regular repair not). Repairing often requires shutdowns - in case of big spills they will get compensation for lost revenue. The people making the money are SAFE, their children and family members are not getting sick (think seizures, cancer, etc.), their property will not be devalued. EPA is a joke. The corporate shills have successfully dwarfed it. They are either intimidated or bribed. And since the public does not have the back of the EPA and they never know if the agency will still exist and what budget cuts will be next they are likely to be silent. the 5 or 6 media outlets (for profit owned by rich people) are keeping silent as well, they get the ads from the industry. So it's not worth risking your job, likely no one will pay attention. and good luck with finding another job.
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No the EU DOES NOT ensure fundamental rights. Nor does it promote peace. Both existed in Europe without the dominance of the EU - it was an economic cooperation, no more. On the contrary by following and enabling neoliberal economic policies ( example mass unemployment and TTIP, CETA, TISA for crying out loud !!) it created the surge of right wing parties. The governments dominant in the EU follow more and more neoliberal principles, so of course the EU does the same - only with much more impact. The EU is the dream of every red-tape loving bureaucrat and even worse it gives ENORMOUS leverage to lobbyists and big biz. In the old days big biz had to work the politicians in all countries (many of them are very interesting markets, because they are rich and have a lot of citizens). They had to deal with conservative and left-leaning governments. Politicians and citizens were watching what was going on in the neighbouring countries. It was really hard (or impossible) to get things passed that would screw most of the citizens of Europe.
Now the lobbyist can quite easily and efficiently leverage their bribery in a market with around 520 mio people = EU + Norway + CH (the US has around 318 mio).
In the EU countries are pitted against each other (Germany vs. France, Germany vs. the Southern European countries) Did you follow the Greek debt crisis? German Finance Minister Schaeuble, the economic illiterate, started the beginning of the end of the Euro then. I come from a rich "lender" country, this and the insane pursuing of the "free" "trade" agreements (despite massive criticism) made clear to me that the EU is NOT MEANT as a project to help the average citizens, it is a neoliberal project of and for the elites. Even within rich countries like Germany there is a lot of (not quite visible) inequality.
There is a reason right wing parties are on the rise all over Europe.
People somehow sense they are getting screwed, many - the majoritiy - are not nuanced in their analysis and are only getting the economic establishment talking points of mainstream media. Many of those now supporting the "Right" are xenophobic and narrow-minded to begin with. When the economy worked better for ALL citizens many of them even voted left (wich then made the believeable claim that they worked for the "little guy").
Occasionally the EU helps with civic rights (it may prevent the worst deviations in Poland and Hungary) . It might have brought improvements in the UK (which subscribed very much to the neoliberal route) when other European countries still followed Social Democratic and Civil Rights principles. Most countries had pretty good protection of their citizens. Had ! - mass surveillance anyone ?? On the other hand: the UK is still a somewhat functioning democracy. I would count them in in the club of rich European countries - if the citizens could be bothered to stand up to the political machine they could and would have quickly protection that is worthy of a modern democracy - EU or not.
I admit that the European Court has in some cases made landmark decisicion that protect citizens Like the right of a person to blow the whistle vs. the right of an employer to the loyaltiy of the workers. A case where a German caretaker in a home for elderly people (publicly financed !) blew the whistle and got fired. The German Highest Court confirmed the right of the employer to fire her - even when her reporting was true and was within some months confirmed by an official commission initiated by the scandal. The court in The Hague overthrew that decision.
In the case of the debt crisis and bail-out and ECB dealings and also regarding mass spying the European court did NOT challenge the status quo. (Or when Goldman Sachs was allowed to hide the details of their derivatives deal with Greece. The deal where GS helped Greece to cook the books so that they would be allowed to join the EURO. The deal that was really costly for Greece and exceptionally profitable for GS.
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Sam Seder explained it well - single payer means you take out the for-profit middleman that provides no value in delivering healthcare. Feinstein muddies the waters with right wing talking points. Got the instructions form the donors obviously. - My country, Austria has single payer, we have a public non-profit insurance agency that gets the MANDATORY payroll deductions that must be matched by employers. Plus some extra funding for the hospitals by taxes.
They have privacy laws to obey, while they are a legal public entity they are not a part of government and are also not allowed to disclose data to them (or for instance to corporations for "marketing" or to employers). And I think every industrialized nation (except the US) handles it more or less in that manner, Germany our large neighbour organizes it in an almost indentical manner.
The agency negotiates prices and contracts (for pharma meds, the retail prices and locations of pharmacists who are heavily regulated, the contracts with the doctors ( for profit small entrepreneurs) and the hospitals (non-profits run by muncipalities or private groups - then usually church related groups). The contribution depends on your wage/income (family and health status, age gender does not matter). Kids and spouses are insured as well. Plus provisions for those w/o a job. Everyone has the SAME coverage, every corporation - small or large matches the contribution of the employee - it is a % - so it is a contribution according to financial power, NO payments or bills WHEN you get the treatment. No surprises.
Choice or product differentiation is meaningless with healthcare . When I need treatment I can usually decide where to go (most doctors and almost all hospitals are in the public system, so it does not matter). Of course there may be referals or a hospital has a good reputation for a department or is specialized. Then it is no choice or a no-brainer - you go where they do the job all the time - meaning a lot of experience with the procedure and cost-efficient for the system. This is usually for treatments that can be planned.
But there is no differentiation or choice in the treatment - I wouldn't know and I want only ONE treatment - the ONE that helps best and nothing that is NOT necessary.
Nor is there differentiation in the cost at the point of treatment (Zero in every case, it is not this co-pay under that plan, and no or less co-pay under another plan).
The system intends not to give incentives for over treatment.
The system is very streamlined, and since everyone gets the same treatment, the affluent and middle class people will keep it good and the payers (corporations AND workers) keep it cost-efficient and the doctors (lobbied of course by the industry) keep the medical procedures and drugs up to date. And the politicians feel that they would be blamed if it does not function (on all levels local to federal government) so they are eager to sort out hiccups (or at least voice their support - they would not want to be found negligent with the positive statements - lol).
When something systemic does not work it is an agenda for hundreds of thousands of people. Since the conditions are completely comparable and since there is NO differentiation people will quickly band together and demand improvement. That does not happen when people have different plans, co-pays, risks that are excluded. "Differentiation" takes it to the individual level - and then it is you as a single consumer/patient against powerful players. In our system it is a hord of patients/voters relating to an institution that does not need to make a profit but is expected to deliver good and reasonably priced service (not that we notice the costs directely, but they have to stay within the budget, with rising wages or employment their budget rises as well).
Differentiation is good for the for-profit players, that is why the Status quo people bring up variations of it in their "argumentation" (young people would be allowed to choose ! a more "economic" plan, or different co-pays, or caps, or special pools - or it is a generic bow to the "advantages of choice". Who wants to chose which fix for a broken arm (either a x-ray is necessary or not) or chose which chemotherapy. We do not have the expertise anyway.
You may want a second opinion ON MEDICAL Questions, but not on the economic - the healthcare plan.
Only people who cannot afford the better plans "choose" the higher deductibles and exclude certain risks (which may bite them later). So the "choose" the unexpected payments that come WHEN they acutally need treatment. And usually that means they cannot really afford the higher monthly plannable premiums or they would have better coverage to begin with. So they resort to the coverage they CAN AFFORD and HOPE that they are not hit. Healthcare Roulette instead of Russian Roulette. On the indivual level some will be lucky (and stay healthy). On the politicial level: take 100,000 lower income people and calculate how many of them will be hit by unplannable costs they cannot afford.
Only affluent people can afford to take a risk and chose plans that do not cover everything. And these people usually have very comprehensive plans.
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Since 1776: Citizens not subjects ! Being arrested is a shock to every orderly citizen. When the police does so frivolously, it is a violation of the rights of citizens. It gets even worse when the police obviously intends to protect the establishment from well deserved critique AND it gets to a whole new level of wrong, when the citizens complain about being poisoned while the police - and this councilman - feel the necessity to protect those who fail the citizens.
That councilman and many other suffer from the idea that the citizens have the duty to obey authority. Not always. Like I said, they are not subjects. The citizens DELEGATE more than usual power to the police and the laws the citizens have given themselves (via the representatives) allow the police the use of force in order to SERVE the communities.
Note that the police (mis)used their privilege (use of violence) to frivolously arrest people.
Situation for police: they are getting paid and wrongful arrest does not have ANY consequences for them, they do not lose time (they are doing it while paid), their rights are not violated, even if a lawsuit against the police comes out of it - they will testify while being paid and they will neither have to pay for the lawyer nor the fine ( the muncipality that those cops do not serve well, have to pay the fines and compensations on top of it. And of course the citizens pay for the justice system, that is clogged up with such overreach of police authority on behest of those who are inconvenienced by legitimate protests.)
Situation for the citizens that protest against a severe grievance: Deal with the loss of time, money, dignity and further loss of trust in the institutions (I thank the latter is important). And of course you could not make your point about the poisoned water.
Or even wrose: try to resist the wrongful arrest - and see what happens. You are lucky if you do not get shot.
If there is a good chance that you can be wrongfully arreste, it has a chilling effect on the citizens - it limits them to exercise their rights. The responsible people do not want having to deal with rightfully upset, loud people (public shaming works). You bet they want to shut up people when they cannot altogether avoid the townhalls.
all the disadvantages for the disenfrenchised, all the the advantages for those who transgress.
1776 anyone ?
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