Tag: Bernie Sanders

A Dog that Doesn’t Bark: Silent Sentinels that Keep Us Safe

It’s not just health care that’s collapsing

The U.S. response to the Covid-19 pandemic shines a glaring light on the inadequacy of the U.S. health care system—so glaring that folks who have shrugged off the howls of critics for decades have been shocked to realize just how fragile it is. Bernie Sanders has been the highest-profile, most strident, and most consistent critic, but he has had a lot of company among progressives. and the pandemic is driving even some centrists into his “Medicare for All” camp.

The mounting crisis prompted David Himmelstein of the CUNY School of Public Health to observe, of a properly-run health care system’s response to a crisis, “You don’t see the results. It’s a dog that doesn’t bark.”*

What has saved the U.S. pandemic response from utter tragedy is the level of expertise and commitment among health professionals—doctors, nurses, nursing assistants, radiologists, lab technicians, and the like—highly educated and benefiting from leading edge research in medical science distributed among institutions throughout the country. Their sacrifices in battling Covid-19 have been heroic. But this cadre of health care professionals has to drag around the ball-and-chain of a system that is structured primarily not to promote health, but to make money for insurance companies who pry open every cranny in the structure to achieve private again. Many private hospitals and specialists also work hand-in-glove with insurance companies to drive up costs and fatten profits.

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Warren – Sanders: the non-handshake that shook progressives

Fundamentally, Bernie Sanders is another clueless male

When there was so much dust being kicked up around the contretemps between Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, at first I thought – meh, she’ll get over it, or he’ll find a way to resolve it  that will bring her around; the dust will settle and things will go on as before . . . .  Such was his expectation after Warren charged him with calling her a liar on national television . . . then, when Warren refused his handshake and waited, looking him in the eye with clasped hands, as if beseeching him to admit a wrong, he said they should talk about it later and turned aside.

It doesn’t matter if “things will go on as before” on the surface, because at a deep level the damage has been done, and given what we saw, it will continue to get done.

Reflecting on my own version of male cluelessness, I have a good guess as to what must have happened to (1) elicit Elizabeth Warren’s fury over Sanders telling her a woman couldn’t get to be president, then denying it; and (2) explain his denial.

I think it comes down to Sanders just not getting it. Whatever his exact words, she took it as an aspersion back then, and in the heat of the Iowa race felt driven to spit it out. And Sanders, instead of taking her to heart, instead of conceding he may have made a mistake, flatly denied saying it.

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Tyrant in Your Pocket: Part II of Treading into Darkness

So much of dictatorial power comes from just showing up. Everywhere.

Soon after my return from Vietnam, I was living in Boston and saw a notice of an upcoming Black Panther Party meeting.  At the time I wasn’t sure just what they were doing, but I knew one of their primary objectives was protecting the black community from aggressive policing.

In the Army I had rubbed shoulders with enough African-Americans to understand what comes of being systematically oppressed. Although I was troubled  by the shootings of police on the West Coast, the Panthers’ Boston chapter had not been accused of violence, and was  ostensibly oriented toward helping blacks with food and education—it seemed like a positive move toward peaceful support of the black community.

I went to the meeting, curious to see what was up, and even considering helping them out. I also had a notion of showing that not all white people were clueless.

But I was greatly disappointed.  It was a small gathering of young black men in a windowless room (lacking windows made sense, but it was depressing nonetheless). While I, as the only white person there, was understandably greeted with suspicion, they seemed more curious than hostile. It was a good start. But then I began asking questions, and before answering, whoever I was talking to would consult the Little Red Book (“The Sayings of Chairman Mao”) which everyone possessed.  Where the book was not actually lying out in full view on a table or shelf, it would be in someone’s pocket—pants pocket, shirt pocket, out it came.

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Hollowing out of the Middle Class: a Second Look

Middle class hollowed out? Kind of. Unhappy? It depends . . .

Progressives like Bernie Sanders and Michael Moore are fond of excoriating the rich and powerful for the “hollowing-out of the middle class.”  What they fail to mention—either for lack of information or for political expediency—is that, money-wise, more families are leaving the middle class on the upside rather than the downside.  There’s plenty of evidence for this.  Check out the following, which is similar to other reports, but I especially like it because it is based on Pew research findings:

https://qz.com/1005068/the-upper-middle-class-is-the-new-middle-class/

A larger segment of the middle class, it seems, is rising into the highest  and upper-middle class than is falling into the lowest class (the lower middle has remained unchanged), and the net effect, dollar-wise, of “hollowing out” appears to be a positive.   Is this a Good Thing?  After all, can’t money buy happiness?

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