While the conservatives yesterday wasted valuable time re-victimizing rape and incest victims, to force those women to endure violent pregnancies inflicted on them against their will, they wonder idly (and I suspect disingenuously) why it is that they are accused - quite accurately - of waging culture war on women.
Today, as health care benefits for 47 million women improve, the right wing nuts, the right wing women-hating extremists who view women apparently as expendable, are trying to repeal the Affordable Care Act, for what........the 36th time, the 37th time?
Here is an excellent piece from CNN yesterday about the new provisions coming into effect today:
Some women get new benefits under Obamacare
The right wingers want women to continue to pay MORE for their health care coverage than men, to make it more costly for women to obtain contraception. Because of course any woman must be a slut, in their eyes, if they wish to engage in sex with their partner - including husbands - without risking pregnancy. Women are supposed to lie their passively, shut up, think of anything other than enjoying sex, and just get pregnant - preferably, in the eyes of the right wing religious fundamentalists, while being appropriately submissive.
Never mind that stuff about pap smears testing for cervical cancer, never mind the breast cancer screenings, or any of the other many and important kinds of health care for women that SHOULD be inexpensive - better, free -- and readily available to ALL women in this country, including rural women.
The reality is, we in the United States are NOT number 1 anymore in anything except imprisoning people. We have slid down the slope to - AT BEST - the middle of the pack, often LOWER - in important metrics of our society. That would include health care, education, pretty much anything that involves a societal and governmental organization and expenditure. EVERY country ahead of us, in every single instance, has a more socialized and more successful mixed economy, and a better result with more but fairer taxation (especially of the rich) and more government involvement, especially in safety nets, RESULTING IN A BETTER RESULT THAN WE ACHIEVE.
Hollow and empty claims of 'American Exceptionalism' have not improved our rankings in any category, nor has relatively unfettered capitalism or lack of regulation.
Our 'pure market capitalism' system is NOT all that effective; it is less effective, less efficient. Countries with better - and larger - government and taxation have better results - happier, healthier, longer living, more successful people than we are. THEIR SYSTEMS WORK BETTER THAN OURS DOES. We should evaluate what works - and what doesn't - by merits, by results and outcomes, instead of relying on knee-jerk hysterical ideology that was outdated when it was fresher back in the dark, cold era of the 1950's.
Simply, mindlessly mouthing the word socialism, as if is a bad thing is stupid. Socialism, as for example practiced in the early days of the Soviet Union, where it was a euphemism for a totalitarian regime, is not how socialism is practiced in the rest of the civilized, developed world. Socialism is not Un-American, it is not horrible. It means efficient and productive use of resources for people -- PEOPLE, not corporate welfare and a few rich people. The absence of those institutions like universal health care mean we have a weaker, sicker, less long-lived and less productive population. PERIOD.
We are not more free; but more of us are dying who should not even be sick.
In mid-July there was an opinion / commentary piece that makes the profoundly important distinction, that ran in the STrib, originally from the New York Times, written by the director of "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest", director Milos Forman titled :
"Americans shouldn't fling the 'socialist' label so casually" Millions lived -- and still live -- under the brutality of its truly totalitarian form.
When I was asked to direct "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest," my friends warned me not to go anywhere near it.
The story is so American, they argued, that I, an immigrant fresh off the boat, could not do it justice.
They were surprised when I explained why I wanted to make the film. To me it was not just literature but real life, the life I lived in Czechoslovakia from my birth in 1932 until 1968. The Communist Party was my Nurse Ratched, telling me what I could and could not do; what I was or was not allowed to say; where I was and was not allowed to go; even who I was and was not.
Now, years later, I hear the word "socialist" being tossed around by the likes of Rick Perry, Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum, Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh and others. President Obama, they warn, is a socialist. The critics cry, "Obamacare is socialism!" They falsely equate Western European-style socialism, and its government provision of social insurance and health care, with Marxist-Leninist totalitarianism. It offends me, and cheapens the experience of millions who lived, and continue to live, under brutal forms of socialism.
...Whatever his faults, I don't see much of a socialist in Obama or, thankfully, signs of that system in this great nation. Obama is accused of trying to expand the reach of government -- into health care, financial regulation, the auto industry and so on. It's fair to question whether the federal government should have expanded powers: America, to its credit, has debated this since its birth. But let's be clear about how frightening socialism actually could be.
Today, as health care benefits for 47 million women improve, the right wing nuts, the right wing women-hating extremists who view women apparently as expendable, are trying to repeal the Affordable Care Act, for what........the 36th time, the 37th time?
Here is an excellent piece from CNN yesterday about the new provisions coming into effect today:
Some women get new benefits under Obamacare
Beginning Wednesday, all new health insurance plans will be required to provide eight preventive health benefits to women for free.10 lesser known effects of the health care law
The benefits include contraceptives, breast-feeding supplies and screenings for gestational diabetes, sexually transmitted infections and domestic violence, as well as routine check-ups for breast and pelvic exams, Pap tests and prenatal care.
The services are a requirement of the health care reform law Congress passed in 2010. A new report released Monday by the Department of Health and Human Services estimates 47 million women are in health plans that must offer the new benefits.
“Women will be able to have access to essential preventive services that will provide early detection and screening for those situations where they’re most at risk, and also provide opportunities to care and services that they need as wives and mothers,” Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Maryland, said at a press conference Monday.
An additional 14 free preventative service benefits for women have already taken effect as a requirement of health care reform, including mammograms to screen for breast cancer in women over 40 and screenings for osteoporosis in women over age 60.
Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius trumpeted the need for the reforms.
“Before the health care law, many insurers didn’t even cover basic women’s health care. Other care plans charged such high copayments that they discouraged many women from getting basic preventive services. So as a result, surveys show that more than half of the women in this country delayed or avoided preventive care because of its cost,” Sebelius said Monday. “That’s simply not right.”
Never mind that stuff about pap smears testing for cervical cancer, never mind the breast cancer screenings, or any of the other many and important kinds of health care for women that SHOULD be inexpensive - better, free -- and readily available to ALL women in this country, including rural women.
The reality is, we in the United States are NOT number 1 anymore in anything except imprisoning people. We have slid down the slope to - AT BEST - the middle of the pack, often LOWER - in important metrics of our society. That would include health care, education, pretty much anything that involves a societal and governmental organization and expenditure. EVERY country ahead of us, in every single instance, has a more socialized and more successful mixed economy, and a better result with more but fairer taxation (especially of the rich) and more government involvement, especially in safety nets, RESULTING IN A BETTER RESULT THAN WE ACHIEVE.
Hollow and empty claims of 'American Exceptionalism' have not improved our rankings in any category, nor has relatively unfettered capitalism or lack of regulation.
Our 'pure market capitalism' system is NOT all that effective; it is less effective, less efficient. Countries with better - and larger - government and taxation have better results - happier, healthier, longer living, more successful people than we are. THEIR SYSTEMS WORK BETTER THAN OURS DOES. We should evaluate what works - and what doesn't - by merits, by results and outcomes, instead of relying on knee-jerk hysterical ideology that was outdated when it was fresher back in the dark, cold era of the 1950's.
Simply, mindlessly mouthing the word socialism, as if is a bad thing is stupid. Socialism, as for example practiced in the early days of the Soviet Union, where it was a euphemism for a totalitarian regime, is not how socialism is practiced in the rest of the civilized, developed world. Socialism is not Un-American, it is not horrible. It means efficient and productive use of resources for people -- PEOPLE, not corporate welfare and a few rich people. The absence of those institutions like universal health care mean we have a weaker, sicker, less long-lived and less productive population. PERIOD.
We are not more free; but more of us are dying who should not even be sick.
In mid-July there was an opinion / commentary piece that makes the profoundly important distinction, that ran in the STrib, originally from the New York Times, written by the director of "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest", director Milos Forman titled :
"Americans shouldn't fling the 'socialist' label so casually" Millions lived -- and still live -- under the brutality of its truly totalitarian form.
When I was asked to direct "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest," my friends warned me not to go anywhere near it.
The story is so American, they argued, that I, an immigrant fresh off the boat, could not do it justice.
They were surprised when I explained why I wanted to make the film. To me it was not just literature but real life, the life I lived in Czechoslovakia from my birth in 1932 until 1968. The Communist Party was my Nurse Ratched, telling me what I could and could not do; what I was or was not allowed to say; where I was and was not allowed to go; even who I was and was not.
Now, years later, I hear the word "socialist" being tossed around by the likes of Rick Perry, Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum, Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh and others. President Obama, they warn, is a socialist. The critics cry, "Obamacare is socialism!" They falsely equate Western European-style socialism, and its government provision of social insurance and health care, with Marxist-Leninist totalitarianism. It offends me, and cheapens the experience of millions who lived, and continue to live, under brutal forms of socialism.
...Whatever his faults, I don't see much of a socialist in Obama or, thankfully, signs of that system in this great nation. Obama is accused of trying to expand the reach of government -- into health care, financial regulation, the auto industry and so on. It's fair to question whether the federal government should have expanded powers: America, to its credit, has debated this since its birth. But let's be clear about how frightening socialism actually could be.
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