Health Care, in Today's News 12.26.09

Health Care. The leadership of Catholicism in the United States should be held responsible for the passage of the catastrophic health care legislation. They could have stopped it and they didn't.

The Bishops and the leaders of Catholic organizations did not recognize that the legislation intended to replace compassionate health care, the great Catholic legacy, with a government-controlled, cost-cutting, rationing approach. The Catholic leaders had the power (support of the faithful) to stop the legislation. They failed to do anything to effectively preserve the overall health interests of the faithful and the rest of the population. The passage of the legislation was all the more easily assured with the Catholic voice thus neutralized. 

The selling point of the health care legislation is that it expands health coverage. But, this was only a selling point. The reality of the legislation is that it institutes a de-humanized, bureaucratic method of providing health care. 

The leaders of Catholicism primarily took the stance of insisting that the legislation not provide funding for abortion. This was noble and correct, but the problem is they gave the impression, intended or not, that if the abortion provisions were acceptable, then the legislation as a whole would be okay. But the legislation as a whole is retrograde and an assault on the basic health rights achieved by centuries of struggle, led primarily by the Catholic Church.

There are many, many things wrong with the legislation. Here are a few:

The Senate bill establishes an Independent Medicare Advisory Board, composed of permanent, unelected and, therefore, unaccountable members. This body is explicitly empowered (sections 3403 and 2021) to deny medical treatment based on cost considerations. This Board will greatly expand the rationing practices that already have been introduced into medical treatment.

Section 6301 of the Senate bill creates new comparative effectiveness research programs. Such programs have been used in other countries (United Kingdom) as rationing commissions. Medicare's ability to refuse medical claims will be strongly enhanced by this provision.

In short, the legislation sets up a system where the government will be a permanent participant in doctor-patient relations. And as the participant with the money, it will have the decisive voice and vote. It's vote will be directed by cost-cutting above all else.

The legislation lays the basis for developing profiles for every medical treatment method or procedure. Such profiles will introduce a whole new world of health care. For example, if one does not meet the profile (because of age, weight, or another factor) the treatment can be denied. If the person still wants the treatment, he or she will have to pay for it. Similarly, if a doctor provides or recommends a treatment outside the profile, he or she will be subject to penalties, including reduced medicare payments.

This legislation is truly diabolic. The legislation represents the cryptocracy's dream to drastically cut societal medical costs by minimally providing medical treatment and to provide treatment in a completely mechanical (and therefore cost-predictive) manner. The great achievement of the Church in beginning and developing compassionate health care for all will finally be displaced, to the great joy of the Christ-hating cryptocracy.

Many, many statements by Church leaders on the health care legislation passed over this desk in the past few months. Not one of them addressed the fundamental issue of compassionate versus cost-control approaches to health care. The Church leaders appear to have been totally and naively taken in by the hype that the legislation would expand coverage. They then limited their intervention to the abortion issue (and a few others, such as conscience provisions). 

The Church leaders failure to recognize what was occurring will have lasting and permanent negative effects on the faithful. 

The great crime is that the Church leaders have the power to stop the legislation if they would only use it. There are 67 million Catholics in the United States. This is an organized grouping that is larger than any other in the country. Moreover, the great majority of Catholics would follow their leaders in action if asked to do it.

The Church leaders should have simply said "NO!" to the legislation. They then should have backed up their resolution by mobilizing the faithful in campaigns of lobbying, prayer, and even direct action. Especially prayer to God for help in stopping something that must be an abomination to our compassionate God, would have been effective. Sixty-seven million people could stop anything if they are properly educated and led. Yet this great force for the betterment of humanity was left dormant by the Catholic leaders.

There have been many dark days in the Catholic Church in the last few decades. Time and experience will show that the failure of the Church leaders to defend a great legacy of Catholicism, compassionate health care, will be among the very darkest days.

Blog Update, 12.24.09

Blog Update. Strother Burrell's elbow is still broken. More frequent blog publication should resume in a couple of weeks, or early January. Thank you for your patience.

Bank of America, in Today's News 12.03.09

Bank of America. The Bank of America was one of the central targets of the cryptocracy when they precipitated the economic crisis. From the beginning, enormous pressure was put on the BoA to change their ways and, in particular, to get rid of Kenneth Lewis, the chief executive officer.

One can only speculate on why the BoA was put in this position. It may have something to do with the fact that the BoA, a central and mammoth financial entity, is not one of the big stock-holders in the privately-owned Federal Reserve. And thus, the Rothschilds had a somewhat reduced ability to control the BoA through their machinations in the Federal Reserve.

Whatever the motivation, the cryptocracy succeeded in forcing Lewis to resign. 

The task then became to find a CEO to run the BoA, who would be an exclusive Rothschild man. And here the cryptocracy was hoisted on its own petard. They had gone to great lengths to limit and reduce the salaries of some financial companies, particularly BoA, in an effort to pressure the companies to better toe the line. But now, the salary-limitation rules got in the way of hiring the new BoA CEO. There simply was not enough money to attract the candidates they wanted.

What to do, what to do? Again, it was simple for cryptocracy. Just change the rules. Today, it was announced that the BoA was the first financial institution to reach agreement with the government to repay the bailout money and escape the pay restrictions imposed by the government.

Amazing, isn't it? The cynicism of these people defies definition. 

General Motors, in Today's News 12.02.09

General Motors. When the central planners decided to take over General Motors, Frederick "Fritz" Henderson, a veteran GM executive, played a key role. He turned on his boss, Chief Executive Officer Rich Wagoner, a man who had been central to Henderson's advancement in GM, and joined the cryptocracy attack brigade. 

Henderson stepped forward and took the job of CEO, repudiating Wagoner, the GM policies of past times, and, in effect, his own history. He worked hard to play the game and do what his masters wanted, all with a smirk on his face.

And so, what was his reward for such craven loyalty to the cryptocracy? Yesterday, the government-appointed GM Board of Directors forced Henderson to resign!

Moral of the story: If you are going to play along with the cryptocracy you better know what you are doing. Appreciation for loyalty and work done is not the cryptocracy's strong suit. Their mode of operation is to cynically use people until they are used-up, and then just dump them.

Afghanistan, in Today's News 12.02.09

Afghanistan. "Obama Bets Big on Troop Surge," Wall Street Journal lead headline on page one today.

Well, he tried everything. He tried to get rid of Afghanistan President Karzai. He tried elections in Afghanistan. He tried to snooker the Taliban. He tried to ignore the problem. He threw the issue to his advisors. He tried to get the "allies" to take more of the burden. He hoped for a miracle. He procrastinated and procrastinated. 

In the end, nothing worked. And Obama is right back where he started, except the situation has worsened. He faces an Afghanistan government that is at best less-than-friendly. The Afghan government has little-to-no support in the Afghan public. The Taliban has gained strength to a surprising extent to the point where they are actually challenging the government in significant military battles. He has a split in his own political party, with the left, who were critical to his election, alienated. The 'allies' are none too fond of the predicament Obama puts them in when he requests more aid and troops. And the American public is war-weary.

And so, Obama is forced after all to follow the advice of the military, toning it down a bit and setting an impossible deadline. He says he will send in 30,000 more troops and begin withdrawing them in 18 months.

Obama knows full-well that 30,000 troops will do nothing to change things. Today's news' coverage says little about the military strategy to be followed. But, a week or so ago, the reportage was that the reinforcements will come with a new strategy: to isolate Kandahar and to secure the roads. This is not a strategy to pursue the war and try to win. It is a strategy to hopefully keep Afghanistan from blowing up in Obama's face.

And why 18 months from now to begin withdrawing? Eighteen months is getting close to the next election. If Obama thinks that withdrawing a few troops before the election will help his re-election prospects, he is seriously deluded.

Afghanistan will not go away. It will continue to haunt the Obama administration. This is so because the war is a proxy war, not in the interests of America foreign policy. The war is fought because Israel wants it fought. Israel's interest is for the US to keep Israel's enemies bottled up. American forces being bogged down in Afghanistan and Iraq suits Israel just fine. 

Israel's ultimate plan for Afghanistan lies through Iran. The idea is that Afghanistan will take care of itself when Iran is chopped off at the knees. In other words Israel is looking to a major mideast war to establish Israel as the predominant power that all other countries in the area will be beholden to.

Obama and his zionist advisors and backers are not necessarily opposed to this strategy. It's just that the timing is off. A war with Iran right now would get in the way of all the other Obama plans, not the least of which is to make Obama the world's most influential politician, which then would make the war on Iran easier to pull off.

Obama is caught in a dilemma in Afghanistan. He is stuck where he is until some bigger pieces of the world strategy fall into place. It is not likely that those pieces will occur soon. And so, Obama tries to hang on in Afghanistan hoping that Afghanistan won't fall apart.

Needless to say Afghanistan is at the center of world politics. It goes right to the heart of all the current issues, because Israel's need to dominate is so well demonstrated. 

The Church leaders, however, seem sublimely oblivious to the whole thing. They say very little about it, and show no indication that they have any understanding of what is involved. There was a time when the Church leaders were on top of what is happening in the world and endeavored to keep the faithful informed. Now, it seems that the Church leaders are too interested in being accepted by the media and others to have any desire to learn about the objectives of the world powers.