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Today's
Stories
March 17, 2008
Pam Martens
The
Fed's Wall Street Dilemma
Sasan Fayazmanesh
The US, Iran and the Policy of Dual Containment
March 15 /
16, 2008
Patrick Cockburn
How
to Destroy a Country in Five Years
Mike Whitney
Bearly
Alive: Investment Giant Rushed to ICU by Panicky Fed Chief
Ralph Nader
Of
Laws and Men
Robert Pollin
It's Still the Economy, Stupid
Diane Christian
The Poetics of Perversity: From Boccaccio to Spitzer
Wajahat Ali
Faking the Hood: a Conversation with Ishmael Reed
Tom Wright
/
Therese Saliba
Rachel Corrie's Case for Justice
Alan Farago
Back to Florida: Where Bushtime Began
Greg Moses
Raiding the Family Room in Texas
Michael Hudson
A Grand Global Bargain?
Martha Rosenberg
Why Hillary's Favorite Chicken Company is Eying China
John Goekler
Fourth Generation Warfare in a Fifth Generation Conflict
Uzma Aslam
Khan
A Letter to Barack Obama: Where's the Change, Barack?
Oren Ben-Dor
The Silencing of Gilad Atzmon
David Underhill
Mammon, Morals and the Mobile Tanker Deal
Fred Gardner
The Education of Eliot Spitzer
David Michael
Green
Why Spitzer Should Have Resigned (and Why He Shouldn't Have)
Rev. William E. Alberts
Jesus, Entombed in Heaven
Gail Dines
It's All About the John: Prostitution and Male Power
David Yearsley
Conducting, Anarchy and the Problem of When to Begin
Chris Clarke
Walking with Zeke: the Luckiest of Dogs
Poets' Basement
Anderson, Lodge & Subiet
Website of
the Day
Deviant Art
March 14, 2008
Paul Craig
Roberts
Watching
the Dollar Die
Don Santina
Vichy
Democrats: Pelosi and the Politics of Collaboration
Patrick Cockburn
Iraqi
Mother Vows Revenge on US: How She Lost Her Husband and Her Sons
Tim Rinne
StratCom
Rules! The Next War Will Start in Nebraska
Robert Fantina
In
Torture We Trust
Saul Landau
Letter
to the Presidents-in-Waitings
David Macaray
Common
Myths About Labor Unions
Franklin Lamb
Is
the Bush Administration Switching Horses in Lebanon
Michael Neumann
The
One State Illusion: Reply to My Critics
March 13, 2008
Paul Craig
Roberts
Republicans
and "Free Market" Zealots Bring Disaster to America
Mike Whitney
Meltdown
Looms Larger As Credit Markets Freeze
Assaf Kfoury
"One-State
or Two State?"- Sterile Debate on False Alternatives
Andy Worthington
Afghan
Hero Who Died in Guantánamo: The Background to the Story
Adam Federman
From
Autopia to Autogeddon: Cars Reach the End of the Road
March 12, 2008
Dave Lindorff
Bringing
Down Spitzer: It's the Big Brother Who Should Bother US
R.F. Blader
The
Spitzer Backlash
Yonatan Mendel
How
to be an Israeli Journalist. Never Write "Murder" or
"Palestine"
Jonathan Cook
One
State or Two? Neither. The Issue is Zionism
Bill and Kathy
Christison
Fallon
and Gates -- At Least One Cheer
James J. Brittain
Was
the U.S. Involved in Killing the FARC-EP Leaders
Ron Jacobs
"All
the Money You Make Will Never Buy Back Your Soul"
March 11, 2008
Paul Craig
Roberts
How
to End the Subprime Crisis
Ed O'Loughlin
How
Israeli Troops Invade Homes in Gaza, Brutalize, Smash and Steal
Ramzy Baroud
'Unwavering
Commitment' to Inequality
Kathy Christison
One
State or Two? The Debate Over Israel and Palestine
China Hand
PRC
Plays it Cool, as U.S. Tries to Amp Up Pressure on Iran
John Joslin
Thank
You, Nafta! Welcome to Weirton, Home of the Discount Cigarette
Mike Averko
Serb
Politics, Kosovo and the Moscow-Washington Divide
Ben Rosenfeld
Gavin
Newsom's Kneejerk Plan
Thierry Paquot
High
Rise, Low Spirits:The Curse of the Tower Block
March 10, 2008
Uri Avnery
"Kill
A Hundred Turks and Rest": The Five-Day War in Gaza
Col. Dan Smith
Scoring
the "Surge" and What Lies Beyond
R.F. Blader
Why
"Lock Them Up and Throw Away the Key" is Losing its
Sheen
Michael Neumann
The
One-State Illusion: More is Less
Bob Fitrakis
and Harvey Wasserman
Did
the Republicans Give Hillary Her Victory in Ohio?
James J. Brittain
Anti-Uribe
Protests in Colombia and the World
Missy Comley
Beattie
The
Passion of John McCain
March 8-9,
2008 Weekend Edition
JoAnn Wypijewski
The
Only Way to Fight the Clintons
Mike Whitney
Sorting
Through the Rubble in Post Bubble America
Peter Morici
Fed
and Treasury Fiddle as Economy Plummets
Ralph Nader
The
Silent Violence of Gaza's Suffering that Candidates Ignore
Jonathan Cook
The
Meaning of Gaza's Shoah
Steve Niva
Behind
the Israeli Escalation in Gaza
Bill and Kathy
Christison
Crisis
over Teheran's Alleged Nuclear Plans Nearing Climax
Hervé
Do Alto and Franck Poupeau
Bolivia:
Morales is Checked
Eric Walberg
To
Leave and Stay at the Same Time: Putin to Medvedev to…?
Scott Johnson
City
of A Thousand Foreclosures
Mark Scaramella
James
Brown's Gate
Bill Clinton
President
Clinton's Remarks on Naming William M. Daley as NAFTA Task Force
Chairman
Poet's Basement
St.
Thomasino, Engel, Davies and Willson
Website of
the Weekend
Hillary
Blackens Barack
March 7, 2008
Patrick Cockburn
Why
Iraq Could Blow-Up in John McCain's Face
Robin Blackburn
Question
for Barrack Obama: Why Afghanistan is the 'Right War'?
Saul Landau
The
Stupid Economy
Binoy Kampmark
When
Competition is Good: McCain and the Muddled Democrats
Chris Floyd
Crushing
the Ants: Admiral Fallon and His Empire
Andy Worthington
Spanish
Drop "Inhuman" Extradition Request for Guantánamo
Britons
Will Potter
Before
the Smoke Even Clears in Seattle: Bringing Out the T Word
March 6, 2008
March 6, 2008
Vincent Navarro
The
Next Failure of Health Reform
Forrest Hylton
High Stakes in the Andes: Colombia's Cornered President
Peter Morici
Why the Dollar is So Cheap
George Ciccariello-Maher
Counter-Attack of the Bureaucrats
John Ross
Taxi! Taxi! The Dark Side of the Oscars
Jacob Hornberger
No Standing to Lecture on Justice
Paul Watson
Illegal Japanese Whaling by the Numbers
Dan Bacher
Off the Deep End
Website of the Day
A Katrina Reader Online
March 5, 2008
Cockburn /
St. Clair
A
Great Day for John McCain (and Maybe Nader)
Joanne Mariner
After Guantanamo
Fidel Castro
The Raid on Ecuador: Underestimating Rafael Correa
Christopher
Brauchli
The Turkish Invasions
Steven Sherman
Obama and the Prospects for a Renewal of the Left
Dave Lindorff
Busting Bush & Co. in New England
James Murren
Bombing Somalia
Adam Engel
Necropolis Now
Website of Day
Remember Song
March 4, 2008
Wajahat Ali
Mumbo
Jumbo: Naming Names with Ishmael Reed
William Blum
How Could Hillary Have Known?
Bill Quigley
The Cleansing of New Orleans
Ralph Nader
The Prince Harry Solution
Patrick Irelan
Oil and Health in Venezuela
James J. Brittain
/
R. James Sacouman
Uribe's Colombia is Destabilizing a New Latin America
Norman Solomon
The War Election
Jacob Hornberger
Hillary in Waco: the Missing Apology
Andy Worthington
Guantánamo and the European Parliament
Mike Averko
Kosovo and the Press
Website of the Day
Tex-Mex Primary
March 3, 2008
Jennifer Loewenstein
Gazan Holocaust
Alan Farago
American Politics and the Faltering Economy
Richard Gott
Colombian Deaths in Ecuador
Wajahat Ali
Who Speaks for a Billion Muslims? Analyzing the World Gallup
Poll with John Esposito
Paul Craig Roberts
The Mukasey Conspiracy: a Bi-Partisan Attack on the Constitution
Robert Weissman
When Multinationals Say Adieu
Uri Avnery
Good Morning, Hamas
Martha Rosenberg
When Your Meat is a Downer
Eva Liddell
Leave the Next Dance for Bill
Michael Donnelly
Will Ferrell Does Flint
Website of the Day
Muddy Waters: Train Fare Home Blues
March 1 / 2,
2008
Alexander Cockburn
The
Race Card
Paul Craig
Roberts
The
Political Trial of Don Siegelman
Kathleen and Bill Christison
Nader the Best Antidote to American Imperialism
Nelson P. Valdés
Cuba After Fidel
Christopher Brauchli
Meet Mr. Nursultan Nazarbayev: Friend of Bill, George and Dick
Ron Jacobs
Inside the Secret City: Bomb Making at Oak Ridge
John Ross
The New Conquistadores: Spain's Reconquest of Mexico
Robert Fantina
Posturing Over Patriotism: Obama and Those Lapel Pins
Robert Weissman
Hidden in Plain Sight: Human Rights Hypocrisy
Mohammed Omer
Fear in Gaza
Remi Kanazi
Barack Obama and the Politics of Xenophobia
Bob Jackson
Why is Yellowstone Destroying Its Bison Herd?
Richard Rhames
Casual Threats: Loaded with Mercury
Franklin Lamb
Lebanon Awaits the Arrival of the USS Cole
Rannie Amiri
Showboat Diplomacy: US Warships Steam Toward Lebanon
David Michael
Green
The Three Faces of Hillary: the Politics of Flim-Flam
Conn Hallinan
Notes from the Southern Cone
Faheem Hussain
Prince Harry of Afghanistan and the Meaning of Normalcy
Poets' Basement
Gibbons, Orloski, Gardner and Ford
Website of
the Weekend
The Palestine Chronicle Needs (and Deserves) Your Help!
February 29,
2008
Matt Gonzalez
The
Obama Craze
Jonathan Cook
Academic Freedom? Not for Arabs in Israel
Joshua Frank
Obama and Israel
Anthony DiMaggio
The Unilateral Presidency: Signing Statements and the Rollback
of American Law
Linn Washington, Jr.
Cop Abuse in America
Binoy Kampmark
Hubris and Nemesis
Robert Bryce
Energy Efficiency May be a Good Thing, But It Won't Cut Energy
Use
Sonja Karkar
Australia's Government Continues Its Love Affair with Israel
Dave Lindorff
A Manchurian Candidate in the White House? Obama or Bush?
Website of
the Day
Olduvai George
February 28,
2008
Patrick Cockburn
"Iraq"
Falls Apart
Fred Gardner
The Birth of NAFTA
Michael Levitin
The Crisis in Kosovo is Just Beginning
William S.
Lind
The Fake State of Kosovo
David Macaray
A Ray of Hope for Organized Labor
Stephen Fleischman
Nader's Latest Run: Monkey Wrench or Cattle Prod?
George Wuerthner
The Myths of Forest Health: Why Ecological Logging is an Oxymoron
Laura Carlsen
The North American Union Farce
Carl Finamore
Why the Delta-Northwest Deal Hasn't Taken Off
Michael Dickinson
The Day I Bombed the House of Commons
Website of the Day
Plane Stupid
February 27,
2008
David Rosen
Playing
the Race Card: Obama, Love Across the Color Line and Political
Dirty Tricks
Vijay Prashad
Bomber John: McCain and the 100 Year War
Harvey Wasserman
Incident at Turkey Point: Did Florida Go to the Radioactive Brink?
Andy Worthington
Guantánamo's Shambolic Trials: Pentagon Boss Resigns,
Ex-Prosecutor Joins Defense
Wajahat Ali
Pakistan for Sale: an Interview with Ayesha Siddiqa on Pakistan's
Military Economy
Peter Morici
The Auction-Rate Securities Fiasco: a Drama of Greed and Betrayal
Stephen Philion
Conspiracy Theory, Fears of Betrayal and Today's Anti-War Movement
Michael Donnelly
Obama by Unanimous Decision
Erica Rosenberg /
Janine Blaeloch
After the Land Deals: Will There
be Any Wilderness Left to Protect?
Website of
the Day
Dress Blues
February 26,
2008
Debbie Nathan
Confessions
of a Gitmo Guard
Alan Dershowitz
v. Frank Menetrez
On Finkelstein
Harvey Wasserman
How Ohio Got Nuked
Michael Colby
Ralph Nader vs. the Fundamentalist Liberals
Gary Leupp
Condi vs. Putin on Bullying Belgrade
David Orchard
The New Conquistadors: Canada in Afghanistan
Martha Rosenberg
The Big HRT
Fran Shor
The Electoral Circus and Nader's Sideshow
Serge Halimi
The Dom Perignon Socialist Manifesto: Bernard Henri-Levy's Plan
for the French Left
Global Balkans
Neo-Liberalism and Protectorate States in the Post-Yugoslav Balkans:
an Interview with Tariq Ali
Website of
the Day
Texistentialism
February 25,
2008
Roger Morris
A
Death in Damascus
Anthony DiMaggio
Military
Bases, the Media and the Democrats
Ralph Nader
Why I'm Running
Patrick Cockburn
Iraq Broils
Paul Craig Roberts
Kosovo and the Empire Crazies
Peter Morici
Bernanke's Failing Policies: a Long Recession Looms
Dave Lindorff
General Welch's Whitewash: What We Still Don't Know About That
Minot Nuke Incident
Saul Landau
/
Farrah Hassen
Fanatics, Mountebanks and Drillers: a Bloody Oil Film
Heather Gray
James Orange, Civil Rights Legend
Robert Weitzel
Accomodating Torture
John Halle
Kucinich Goes Down
Website of the Day
Do the Trunk Monkey!
February 23 / 4, 2008
Alexander Cockburn
The
Mushrooming Clouds That Hang Over McCain
Paul Craig
Roberts
Obama
and Global Trade
Wajahat Ali
Omissions of the Commission: an Interview with Phillip Shenon
on the 9/11 Commission
Ralph Nader
Neutering the FDA
Jürgen
Vsych
"What Was Ralph Nader Thinking?"
Fidel Castro
Watching the US Presidential Campaign from Havana
Andy Worthington
Britain's Guantánamo
David Macaray
Unions Under Assault
Jeremy Scahill
The Real Story Behind Kosovo's Independence
David Krieger
Stanley Sheinbaum
Caging the Cold War Monster
Ron Jacobs
Building for the Future
Michael Garrity
The Last, Best Hope for the Northern Rockies
Brian McKenna
Higher Ed's "Civic Engagements" Get Dumbed Down
Missy Beattie
Over the Hill with John McCain
Fred Gardner
American College of Physicians Takes Pro-Cannabis Stand (Mostly)
Boris Kagarlitsky
The Growth of the Russian Labor Movement
Mike Ferner
Kick That Barrel
Dan Bacher
On the Trail with the Border Angels
Christopher
Ketcham
Hillary Goes Where Obama Fears to Tread
Poets' Basement
Davies and Buknatski
Website of
the Weekend
Obama
Mariachi
February 22,
2008
Mike Whitney
The
Bonfire of Capital
Jason Hribal
Elephants and the Circus: The Story of Janet
Liaquat Ali Khan
Arresting Musharraf
Joshua Frank
That Obama Glow: the Nuclear Industry's Golden Child
Dave Lindorff
Vicki's John: Ask Not What She Did for Him, Ask What He Did for
Her!
Liliana Segura
When Torture is Old News: McCain's Blonde Diversion
Robert Fantina
Castro, Bush and Cuba: a Fiasco Waiting to Happen?
Yifat Susskind
The ABCs of Death: Bush vs. Africa's Women
Norm Kent
Pushing 60 with Pot
Website of
the Day
Bush Gets Down in Liberia
February 21,
2008
Saul Landau
Fidel
Steps Aside
Elizabeth Schulte
Left Behind, With No End in Sight: America's Long-Term Unemployed
Helen Redmond
Health Care as a Human Right
Benjamin Dangl
Undermining Bolivia
Michael Levitin
Kosovo's Dilemma
Liam Leonard
Fear and Loathing on the Emerald Isle
Patrick Irelan
Land and Food in Venezuela
Linn Cohen-Cole
Poor Ohio: a Second Letter to Hillary on Her Ties to Monsanto
Michael Simmons
Daydream Believer: John Stewart, the Miles Davis of Folk Music
CounterPunch
News Service
A Message from the Women of Okinawa to US GIs
Website of the Day
Cop Abuse in Shreveport
|
St.
Patrick's Day Edition
March 17, 2008
Taking Down Big
Pharma
Beyond
Progressive Malpractice
By RONNIE CUMMINS
Progressive Malpractice [noun] ignoring the fundamental economic
and political roots of a crisis; taking a single-issue, band-aid
approach in hopes of gaining mainstream support.
Libertarian Narcissism [noun] promoting individual solutions
for collective problems; believing that market pressure alone
can bring out-of-control corporations under control; ignoring
the plight of the poor; pretending major problems can be solved
without serious grassroots organizing and government reform.
Welcome to Sicko Nation: Swimming in
a toxic soup of 100,000 synthetic chemicals--carcinogens, neurotoxins,
hormone disruptors, immune suppressors, excitotoxins ... Worn
down by corporate junk food, tainted consumer products, air and
water pollution, incessant advertising, infectious disease, synthetic
drugs, cigarette smoke, and alcohol. Zapped 24/7 with electromagnetic
radiation. Stressed out by poverty and economic insecurity, fear
of crime, rampant consumerism, and a murderous work pace. A growing
corps of Americans is chronically sick and dispirited.
Aiding and abetting this massive
assault, mainstream medical practitioners, the corporate media,
and elected public officials ignore or cover-up the toxic roots
of Sicko Nation. Money-grubbing politicians offer band-aid solutions,
and then proceed to collect their rewards in the form of campaign
contributions from the pharmaceutical industry and HMOs (Health
Maintenance Organizations). Big Pharma spends more on lobbying--$855
million between 1998 and 2006-- than any other industry in the
United States, according to the Center for Public Integrity.
In addition Big Pharma feeds the insatiable appetite of the mainstream
media, spending more than $70 billion dollars a year on advertising.
Last but not least, U.S. doctors make more money than any other
medical practitioners in the world, though they typically pay
a steep price in terms of a 70-hour workweek, skyrocketing malpractice
insurance, and indentured servitude to HMOs and giant hospitals.
The Emperor of ill health has no clothes, but very few of our
so-called leaders are talking seriously about what to do about
it.
American consumers and employers
will spend over two trillion dollars this year on health insurance,
pharmaceutical drugs, and medical bills, yet we will remain--mentally
and physically-- among the unhealthiest people on Earth. Forty-eight
percent of U.S. men and 38% of women can now look forward to
getting cancer. Eight percent of our children suffer from serious
food allergies, 17% are diagnosed with learning or behavior disabilities,
and a third of low-income preschool kids are already overweight
or obese. Heart disease, diabetes, mental illness, cancer, and
obesity are spiraling out-of-control among all sectors of the
population.
The fundamental causes of most
of our chronic health problems are not genetic or inherited,
but rather derive from couch potato/commuter lifestyles; over
consumption of highly processed, high-cholesterol, nutritionally
deficient, and contaminated industrialized foods; and an increasingly
polluted, stressful, and toxic environment. These, of course,
are problems that even the most expensive prescription drugs
and high-tech medical procedures cannot cure. Unfortunately the
worst is yet to come. Within eight years, according to the Kaiser
Family Foundation, America's health care costs will soar to $4.1
trillion annually, bankrupting Medicare and millions of American
families and businesses. Unless we quickly change our priorities
from "maintaining" our Sicko Nation to universally
preventing disease and promoting overall wellness--including
cleaning up our food supply and environment--America's health
crisis will become terminal. This means we must put an end to
tunnel vision, single-issue health care politics and roll up
our sleeves to take on the real culprits: out-of-control corporations,
politicians, and technology.
With millions of Americans
mentally or physically debilitated, permanently hooked on the
world's most expensive prescription drugs, Big Pharma, HMOs,
and insurance tycoons rake in billions. According to Dr. Marcia
Angell, former editor in chief of the New England Journal of
Medicine, in 2002, "The combined profits for the ten drug
companies in the Fortune 500 ($35.9 billion) were more than the
profits for all the other 490 businesses put together ($33.7
billion) ... Over the past two decades the pharmaceutical
industry has [become] a marketing machine to sell drugs of dubious
benefit, [using] its wealth and power to co-opt every institution
that might stand in its way, including the US Congress, the FDA,
academic medical centers, and the medical profession itself."
To put it bluntly we must put
the "fear of the grassroots" into the minds of Congress
and the nation's 172,000 elected public officials. But we will
only be able to accomplish this if can move beyond progressive
malpractice and libertarian narcissism. The critics of corporate
health care and Big Pharma must stop quibbling, close ranks,
and mobilize a massive united front of the progressive single-payer
health care movement, representing the 100 million Americans
with no or inadequate health insurance; reinforced by an army
of radicals and libertarians, the 50 million alternative heath
consumers who have rejected Big Pharma's trillion-dollar drug
and heath maintenance scam altogether. Unless we bring together
liberals, radicals, and libertarians, and mobilize this new majority,
we will fail.
The toxic side effects of Sicko
Nation are poisoning the body politic. With much of the population
fixated on their health and psychological problems, worried about
losing their jobs or their health coverage, doped up on prescription
drugs or alcohol, and, for many, compensating for their alienating
jobs with rampant consumerism, politicians and corporations run
amuck. National and global mega-crises--climate change, peak
oil, and endless war--steadily grow worse. Outgunned and out-maneuvered,
public interest organizations have defensively barricaded themselves
in their respective single-issue silos--competing rather than
cooperating, seldom if ever making the crucial links between
food, environment, lifestyle, work, tax policy, military spending,
and health. Intimidated and/or bought off by Big Pharma and the
medical industrial complex, few of the nation's elected public
officials--and none of the major Presidential candidates--dare
talk about the obvious solution to our national health crisis:
universal health care with a preventive and holistic focus.
We need universal, publicly
funded health care because millions of sick and disadvantaged
Americans are suffering and dying. We need universal health care
because Big Pharma, HMOs, and insurance companies are gouging
consumers for two trillion dollars a year, profitably "maintaining"
their illnesses, rather than curing them, steadily moving the
nation along a trajectory that, combined with out-of-control
military spending and corporate tax evasion, will eventually
bankrupt the economy.
In every industrialized country
in the world, except for the United States, medical care is considered
a basic human right, alongside food and shelter, which a civilized
society must provide for all. Of course it's very difficult for
a corporate-indentured government like the U.S. to afford universal
health care, if big pharmaceutical companies and HMOs are allowed
to jack up their profit margins at will, while the rich and the
corporations are allowed to evade taxes. Health care reform in
the U.S. must be coupled with price controls on drugs and medical
costs, as well as tax reform, whereby the corporations and the
wealthy are forced to pay their fair share of federal taxes.
In the U.S. corporations paid almost 40% of all federal taxes
in 1943. Now they pay less than 10%. In 1960, millionaires were
taxed at the rate of 90%. Now the top rate for millionaires and
billionaires is 35%. Putting an end to this institutionalized
tax evasion is a prerequisite for being able to afford publicly
funded universal health care--without raising taxes for the middle
class and the poor.
The
Cure: Disease Prevention & Complimentary Medicine
But government funded universal
health care (exemplified by John Conyers' currently stalled bill
in the House, HR 676 ("Non-Profit Medicare for All")
is not enough. We need non-profit universal health care that
promotes wellness and prevents people from getting sick--before
they end up in the hospital or become permanently addicted to
expensive prescription drugs with dangerous side effects. Simply
giving everyone access to Big Pharma's overpriced drugs, and
corporate hospitals' profit-at-any-cost tests and treatment,
will result in little more than soaring health care costs, with
uninsured and insured alike remaining sick or becoming even sicker.
To cure Sicko Nation and revitalize
the body politic, we will need to build up a comprehensive not-for-profit
public health system that not only guarantees everyone access
to health care, but makes the life or death connections between
food, diet, and health; exercise and health; exposure to toxics
and health; stress reduction and health; and poverty and health.
As fifty million organic consumers
and alternative health consumers can attest, complimentary and
preventive medicine, utilizing natural herbs, minerals, food
based supplements, organic whole foods, lifestyle changes, and
holistic healing practices is safe, affordable and effective.
Preventive health care, natural medicine, and proper nutrition
have been linked to a broad range of health and social benefits,
including disease reduction, increased academic performance,
and lower health care costs. Unfortunately, a large percentage
of the U.S. population lacks access to health care, complimentary
medicine, and healthy foods. The only solution to this unacceptable
situation is to shift to a single-payer, publicly financed, prevention-based,
universal health care system. The $350 billion in savings that
will occur by eliminating the profit motive and moving to a single-payer
system will allow us to insure and promote the health and wellness
of our entire population.
In addition, scientific evidence
is mounting that Americans' daily exposure to 100,000 different
synthetic chemicals (less than 10% of which have ever been safety
tested) in our food, water, medicines, body care products, cosmetics,
toys, home environments, etc. are undermining our health and
fueling an epidemic of debilitating and deadly diseases including
cancer, heart disease, asthma, allergies, obesity, and chemical
sensitivities.
Of course we still need conventional
medicine and practitioners: hospitals, diagnostic tests, surgeons,
and specialists, as well as preventive and holistic healers.
I am a vocal advocate for organic food and integrative medicine,
but if I suffer a heart attack, break my leg, or get shot in
an anti-war demonstration, I want to be taken to a well-equipped
and staffed hospital, not to a health food store or my local
acupuncturist. But after my hospital treatment I don't want to
become a prescription drug junky or be driven into bankruptcy
court by a $100,000+ hospital bill.
To restore public health and
bring Big Pharma to heel will require, as a minimum first step,
that we organize a broad united front between the nation's 100
million supporters of single-payer health insurance (many of
whom have an outdated or conservative belief system regarding
the relative effectiveness of conventional versus alternative
medicine), and the more radical, often libertarian, 50 million
alternative health consumers and practitioners--who typically
hate Big Pharma and the entire medical industrial complex with
a passion.
This united front will require
us to move beyond current "progressive malpractice,"
whereby single-payer health care activists work in isolation
from alternative health consumers, often dismissing complimentary
medicine and its advocates as "snake oil salesmen."
Similarly "libertarian narcissism" is just as counter-productive:
alternative health enthusiasts who basically say "to hell
with all government programs" and "socialized medicine,"
in effect ignoring the plight of 50 million poor and low-income
Americans who have little or no access to healthy food, nutrition
and health information, or access to quality health care. Beyond
uniting liberal, radical, and libertarian critics of Big Pharma
and the medical industrial complex, the entire activist rainbow,
including environmentalists, trade unionists, tax reformers,
peace activists, and other progressives will have work hand in
hand to treat and cure our profoundly sick nation.
Forty-seven million Americans
currently have no health insurance, while 50 million more of
us are woefully underinsured. Unfortunately, being able to afford
conventional health insurance yourself or getting it through
your employer may not help you very much, since Big Pharma and
profit-obsessed HMOs and hospitals are focused mainly on selling
you overpriced (often hazardous) prescription drugs ($300 billion
a year), running expensive tests, and basically keeping you on
permanent health maintenance, rather than preventing and/or curing
our most common ailments such as cancer, hypertension, heart
disease, lung problems, diabetes, obesity, stroke, and mental
illness. Rampant medical malpractice and the failure of conventional
medicine to address our serious ailments is the primary reason
that 50 million alternative health consumers are taking matters
into their own hands and paying $30 billion dollars a year out
of their own pockets for complimentary medical supplements and
practitioners.
Even worse than just expensively
maintaining--rather than curing--chronic illnesses, the collateral
damage of Big Pharma's business as usual can only be described
as catastrophic. As an AMA (American Medical Association) publication
admitted a decade ago, drug related "problems" kill
... 198,815 people, put 8.8 million in hospitals, and account
for up to 28% of hospital admissions." Over the past decade
this carnage has increased. Newsweek magazine, among others,
has reported that side effects from prescription drugs are now
the fourth leading cause of death in the U.S. As medical analyst
Gary Null warns: "A definitive review and close reading
of medical peer-review journals, and government health statistics
shows that ... the number of people having in-hospital, adverse
drug reactions (ADR) to prescribed medicine is 2.2 million ...
the number of unnecessary antibiotics prescribed annually for
viral infections is 20 million ... The number of unnecessary
medical and surgical procedures performed annually is 7.5 million.
The number of people exposed to unnecessary hospitalization annually
is 8.9 million.
The problem is clear. The solution
is obvious. The trillion-dollar life or death question is whether
we can overcome our sectarian divisions and mobilize the grassroots
power of the 150 million Americans who are sick and tired of
living in a Sicko Nation. Can we heal the perennial split between
proponents of conventional medicine and the alternative health
consumer movement? Can progressives and libertarians reach out
to the economically disadvantaged and stressed-out majority to
create a massive grassroots pressure that will literally force
the politicians to "do the right thing?"
The time for action is now.
To begin the long overdue process of "pressing the politicians"
please join thousands of other consumers and taxpayers and go
to www.grassrootsnetroots.org
where you can click a button to send a comprehensive Universal
Health Care Candidate Survey to your state and federal elected
public officials and candidates running for office in 2008. Once
you've "pressed the politicians," an on-line organizer
from the Grassroots Netroots Alliance will contact you.
Ronnie Cummins is director of the Organic
Consumers Alliance. He can be reached at: ronnie@organicconsumers.org
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