For generations the delivery of medical care has been a highly disputed and controversial issue in the United States. In general, the left side of the political spectrum continuously attempts to develop government run health programs on the state and federal levels, while the political right often resists these attempts. There are many variables to consider about this trend, including political fervor and expediency, profit motives, special interests, and human inertia. Though it is impossible to define unified positions for the Left and Right, the conclusion can be drawn that the size, complexity and often the cost of healthcare systems have all increased. Over the years we have seen the development of national programs such as Medicare and Medicaid, while individual states have also implemented varying government assistance programs for those in financial need. Currently, we are witnessing one of the biggest pushes for health reform in our country’s history, with the goal to make healthcare available to all people. While many of these programs have successfully delivered healthcare to their target populations, the fact remains that insurance companies are still heavily involved and make a profit at the expense of the tax-payer. Cigna, Aetna, Blue Cross etc. all contract with state governments and the federal government to create plans for eligible citizens to choose from, which creates a profit that can be distributed among shareholders in the company. This is the inefficiency that VermontHealth seeks to address, using the cooperative model of business to provide the citizens of Vermont with a local, not-for-profit healthcare option with the sole purpose of benefitting its members. The mission is not to eliminate insurance companies completely or discourage the use of government resources; rather, it is to streamline the most effective components of those two to supplement the co-op, while keeping both the capital and control of the business within the state and in the hands of community stakeholders.
February 3, 2010
Secession and Football…
The Super-Bowl is coming up (so I’m told), and in the spirit of the game I though I’d repost a selection from DumpDC that I encountered on Green Mountains Homesteading:
We are only two weeks away from the Super Bowl. After watching the Minnesota Vikings make mistake after mistake in Sunday’s Championship game, and give away the game to the New Orleans Saints*, I think back to my high school football experiences.
After an embarrassing loss like the Vikings had, our coach would have told us, “Boys, we’re going back to the basics and re-learn the fundamentals of football.”
Favre reacts to another fumble.
(Photo by Ronald Martinez/Getty Images)
The fundamentals of football are:
• blocking and tackling
• holding the football tightly and not fumbling the ball
• keep doing your job until the whistle blows
• score more points than the other team
• work as a team, not as individuals
• winning gets you more girls than losing
What could this lesson possibly have to do with state secession, you may ask?
The Secession War of 1776 pitted the English colonies against motherland England and King George. The Declaration of Independence declared the colonies as sovereign nations…as sovereign as England herself.
Soon after the colonial victory, the states ratified the Constitution, which instituted a very strict few duties for the new Federal Government that the states created, and retained all other power to the states and to the People.
Those are the fundamentals of the game.
Over time, the Federal team began doing things for which it had no power or authority. The People’s team began fumbling the ball…and the Federal team always recovered the fumble. The People’s team gave up yardage (sovereignty) on every series of downs. And the referees…the courts…kept throwing flags against the People’s team and hitting them with the penalties.
The game has ceased to be fun to play. The refs have left the field to the Fed team, and now the Feds play however they want. The Fed team makes up its own rules, and the game doesn’t even resemble the fundamentals. And insult above all insults, the Fed team tells the People that they have to keep playing and cannot leave the field.
The whole concept of state secession is to return to the fundamentals. No state would ever consider seceding unless the Federal Government that it helped to create was doing things it ought not do. The fundamentals require that the Federal Government operate within its Constitutional restrictions.
Nullification will not be able to be effective, since there is no American state with a Militia in place to enforce any nullification challenged by the Feds.
Then, you must factor in the reality that the US Constitution has no authority to bind any two persons in any way, and that no legal status exists between the People and the Federal Government. Read Lysander Spooner’s “No Treason.”
So, it is time for the People’s team to walk off the field and stop playing this no-win game. But to do so, seceding states had better revitalize their Militias first.
By the way…free men get more chicks than slaves. Lighten up, Francis!
Secession is the Hope For Mankind. Who will be first?
*Even though I was rooting for the old guy, Brett Favre (a Mississippi boy), the Saints are a Southern team, and the South is where my heart is. Geaux Saints!
DumpDC. Six Letters That Can Change History.
© Copyright 2010, Russell D. Longcore. Permission to reprint in whole or in part is gladly granted, provided full credit is given.
January 31, 2010
The Steele Campaign hits TIME Magazine!
I was quite stoked when I saw this article on the front page of TIME Magazine’s website. As the campaign continues to roll forward, hopefully more positive press like this will be forthcoming. Best quote:
With 20 or so mostly middle-aged attendees looking on, the candidates each stood at the podium to deliver a remarkably unified message: The U.S. government, they said, was an immoral enterprise — engaged in imperial wars, propping up corrupt bankers and supersized corporations, crushing small businessmen, plundering the tax-base for corporate welfare, snooping on the private lives of citizens — and they wanted no more part of it. “The gods of the empire,” Steele told the room, “are not the gods of Vermont.”
“It’s an abusive relationship we have with the central government,” says Peter Garritano, a square-jawed 54-year-old Subaru sales manager who is running for lieutenant governor. “We know it’s scary to leave the abusive nest. It’s a comfort zone in its own way. But we think we’ll do better leaving.”
Imagine… Free Vermont! And just in case you missed it, my endorsement which landed me the role of Dennis’ campaign manager can be found here.
January 25, 2010
A Devastating Piece From “The Nation” on California
It’s been clear for quite some time that California’s an economic basket-case, but this article really brought home the subjective reality of it. The descent from first-world privilege to third-world destitution ain’t a pretty prospect…
“The outlook for next year and the year after is worse,” says veteran California observer and journalist Peter Schrag, over a BLT lunch at a casual-but-chic cafe in the Berkeley foothills. “The stimulus money goes away. The tax increases [passed in February 2009 after weeks of acrimonious debate] expire. If we’re up shit creek now, we’re going to be further up shit creek two years from now.” Since the state, unlike localities, cannot declare bankruptcy, if its tax revenues continue to wilt it will have no choice but to dramatically scale back its spending on big-ticket items such as education, healthcare and prisons.
January 22, 2010
ASR 1-17-2010
In which Miles read “The Song of the Vermonters, 1779,” we interview Emily Peyton about her platform and advocacy of the Common Good Bank, and Paul Elsasser graces us with his musical stylings…
January 16, 2010
A bit of history…
The below video was shot on March 31, 2009, when myself and a few other folks picketed Citizens Bank in protest of its parent company’s receipt of $3.3 Billion as a counterparty of AIG. Unfortunately, Linux lacked a decent video editor at that time, so the footage has been languishing on my hard-drive ever since. That all changed recently when I was introduced to OpenShot video editor…it’s still under development, but already is head and shoulders above anything else the platform has to offer. To celebrate, I cut together the below video: enjoy!
January 13, 2010
The Vermont Independence Candidates hit the MSM!
The Associated Press just published an article covering the recent developments in the secession movement, and its being carried in literally hundreds of newspapers!!! This is a great primer for the official announcement on Friday; if you’re not yet familiar with the campaign, check out gubernatorial candidate Dennis Steele’s webpage, and read my endorsement.
January 11, 2010
Venezuela’s currency devaluation
Remember the show “Who wants to be a Millionaire?” when contestants had three life lines at their disposal, to use if they didn’t know an anwser. I was always impressed by the consistent accuracy of the ‘poll the audience’ lifeline, indeed it was almost a giveaway to the player. I agree with the argument that when a large group of people try and work on a problem collectively, the result is often obtained inefficiently and with more error; in the show however, each person was able to think about the problem individually and vote with their hand held device, so the collective audience was almost always right. The people of Venezuela can relate to this concept, because today the value of every bolivar in their wallet was halved. Hugo Chavez announced that the 5 year currency peg would be changed to make each US dollar worth 4.3 bolivar, up from 2.15.
His expectation was that everyone would trust his decision and believe his claim that exorbitant inflation would be offset by the economic contraction of their recession. Well, let’s say that Mr. Chavez is the contestant and that reasoning is answer A, which he votes for and unfortunately loses his chance at a million dollars. If only he had polled the audience (Venezuelan citizens), who unanimously knew the answer to be B, which is that inflation is never good for the majority of a society and they should flood every retail store in the country to buy things that their leader can’t cut in half. This is exactly what happened.
The people of Venezuela should be offended that this surprised Chavez, for clearly he assumed they had no common sense whatsoever. His quotes in the Wall Street Journal include, ”I don’t understand why people are standing in line. They are victims of terrorist media campaigns creating fear that prices will rise” and “We will seize any businesses and shops that are participating in speculation and raise prices.” That’s good Mr. Chavez, point a gun at any small business owner who does not sell everything at half-off to the 60 people standing in line at the checkout, beautiful economics. On the bright side this is good news if you word for the State, because oil revenues just doubled which the government can spend on all sorts of projects and new employment. It is unlikely that this will be good for the long term.
A couple other notes about this news is the currency rate for ‘necessities’ was only raised to 2.6 bolivar/dollar, so poor people at least can still eat. Bond raters have also been skeptical about giving Venezuela a positive rating, despite the recent cash infusion.
author: Marek Hirsch
January 8, 2010
The “Bank Users Strike” meme starts to gain traction…
…under a different name. From the Huffington Post:
Make a New Year’s resolution to move your money out of big banks? To that I say: Right on! Without question, financial consumers are angry at — and have lost their loyalty to — big banks. Late-night comics routinely make fun of the banks; there’s even a new iPhone app in which players try to stop “cash-hungry” bankers from wheedling more bailout money from the U.S. Treasury, according to a recent report in American Banker newspaper.
But if consumers do indeed move their money out of big banks, they would be well advised to look not only at community banks, but at the nation’s credit unions. In fact, consumers are already voting with their wallets in favor of credit unions. The data collected by my organization, (the Credit Union National Association — the industry’s trade group) shows that credit unions are on pace to post 2% membership growth in 2009. This is the fastest rate we have seen since 2001 and double the rate of U.S. population growth, bringing total credit union membership to nearly 93 million Americans. We think disenchantment with banks explains at least part — and probably a large part — of that growth in new members.
Let it be known that we did it in Vermont first 
!
February 5, 2010
Prohibition and the Authoritarian State
I recently encountered a reference to the film “Collapse”, and spent part of my afternoon today viewing it. Essentially a long, wide-ranging interview with a fellow by the name of Michael Ruppert, the movie covers Ruppert’s view of the interconnected nature of peak oil, the financial crisis, and the series of wars that’ve been fought over the last twenty years. Some of it I found riveting, some I disagree with, and I’ll be mentally chewing on the remainder for quite a while; it’s definitely worth a watch.
Though not the focus of the film, one thing I found particularly fascinating was the beginning of Ruppert’s career as a dissident. An LAPD narcotics officer in the late 1970s who’d graduated from the top of his class at the Police Academy, Ruppert, while on the verge of a promotion, was forced off the force after he was invited to help sell drugs for the CIA. He blew the whistle and, it seems, was at the center of a rather intense scandal. I’ve heard of the government selling drugs before, but I’d never really looked into it very closely. After encountering Ruppert’s narrative, however, I came to reflect upon the role of drug trafficking and prohibition for a police state.
It is exceedingly rare for an authoritarian government to be totally up front as to its oppressive nature; with the possible exception of North Korea, virtually all repressive regimes hide behind a veneer (however thin) of popular support expressed through the political process in addition to an affirmation of “rights” and the “rule of law”. Even archetypal authoritarian regime of Nazi Germany had courts and a seemingly predictable set of laws. That the Gestapo and SS could violate those laws with impunity was not flaunted, and there were even certain moments when, after being publicly confronted by outraged citizens, those organizations backed down in order to preserve the regime’s respectability.
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Tags: CIA, Drug War, extra-legal, police state, prohibition