The pro-corporate wealthy sector has been spinning a yarn of lies in their effort to stamp out growing public support for universal healthcare in America. In that, they're also attacking 2004 Presidential candidate - Dennis Kucinich, a progressive Democrat determined to provide all Americans with guarunteed healthcare benefits. They intend to convince American voters that universal healthcare is socialist (playing on the Joseph Mc Carthy "There's a commie in your closet" paranoid mentality). They have no strong argument to oppose it, but they're working hard on building their own argument on what compares to an industrial house of cards.
The universal healthcare idea is excellent and it can benefit Americans of all income brackets. It can also help to control the spread of disease, which worsens as more Americans are unable to afford medical and dental aid, including prescription medicine.
I'm one of those Americans unable to afford to get medical treatment. Because of my low-wage labor status, added to my greedy corporate employer's new policies that prevent me from taking paid sick leave, I usually go to work when I'm ill. My immune system is not what it was when I was healthier (could afford healthcare). Since I help to produce and distribute products to the general public, what with my hands-on job requirement, I frequently cough on the product. Being forced to remain on the task with limited freedom to wash my hands, I am handling the product with unclean hands.
Keeping a roof over my head and affording what little food I can buy means more to me than fretting over how I spread a possibly serious and contageous illness. Sometimes, my food money goes to rent and I'm still left owning a portion of the month's total amount due. I know, it's selfish to put my needs first, but this is a personal-survival issues and hard times require desperate measures. It means, I'm putting managers at risk, but since they get paid sick leave, can afford insurance and are on the company's insurance plan, and they can afford the expense of being sick. So, I don't feel badly. They get bonus's for cuts they make at their low-wage subordinates' expense. But it also means that I put the general population at risk, too.
Let's say that I contract a contageous illness that ranks highly on the "this one can be deadly for some people" list. I (a person of conscience) don't enjoy making people sick, especially if the illness may cause serious health complications. However, being in the "low wage single parent" trap (I'm trying to escape it.) means that I must force myself to work even when I'm ill. It means, the product I help to produce may carry germs that don't require a living host to survive. It means that whatever I touch and breath on can carry an air-born or direct contact germ that will be handled by coworkers, including those that distribute the product around town, thereby infects my coworkers who come in contact with others. My germs can travel to the schools that receive this product or educate the students I've indirectly infected via their relatives or other people they know. My germs can travel to stores around town and vending machines that provide the product with correct change. It means that my germs will find their way to homes all over town in in surrounding communities. My germs will also be spread via mail delivery to other communities in my state, in other states and possibly outside the country.
Do you see the danger in me being a low wage earner, unable to take time off from work and also unable to seek health care?
If I could stay home from work, or if I get sick on an off-night, I'd still put the general public at risk. I'd need only to infect neighbors, the clerks and customers at the local convenience store or drug store. If more of us are infected and unable to take time off from work and get treatment, we'll make the rich people, the soldiers, the politicians and others sick. But at least they'll be able to see a doctor.
I suppose, if conservatives have their way and all healthcare clinics were closed, uninsured low wage workers could visit an emergency room. What if that meant that a seriously injured person, heart attack victim or other patient with money, especially ones that seriously need immediate treatment must wait because we non-emergency patients have finally managed to secure a bed or room. I guess, it means that the patient with a real ASAP emergency will need to wait, or be treated in the waiting area. That patient in need of immediate treatment could have been someone opposed to universal healthcare. That patient could have been a corporate boss, or a political prostitute favoring pro-corporate policy.
Consider how many people that contracted the so-called SARS illness have been seriously affected by it and how many died in Canada, a country that provides universal health care. The situation could have been a lot worse and probably more inclined to infect U.S. citizens, considering how many Americans and Canadians regularly cross the border.
Imagine that such a disease (SARS or whatever it really is) spreads throughout America. We Americans unable to afford healthcare will be the most vulnerable. That may mean nothing to Americans enjoying the priviledge of being able to rush for professional medical care over something as minor as a tummy ache and able to stay home to heal, but they shouldn't get too comfy about it. We'll make them sick, too. We are, afterall, the people that are busting our butts for low wages to clean public facilities and cook and serve food in commercial food establishment. We're the low-wage laborers that provide them with things like newspapers and magazines. We're ringing up their shopping purchases and handing back their change that's been handled by many people. We're stocking the store shelves with the products they buy. This takes me to the next issue.
Former President Bill Clinton and his side-kick, Albert Gore obeyed their corporate masters and political collegues by imposing the Welfare Reform act. It could have been okay, except they had also fattened up the political Corporate Welfare program for wealthy employers. This resulted in sending a lot of people into the job market that these people had manipulated by helping corporate bosses to bust unions by closing shops in the United States after moving them outside the country to take advantage of foreign laborers willing to work for less than $1. per hour, labor for more than 10 hours and without health and safety benefits, along with other job-related protections that have been established in the United States. They added extra goodies for the corporate welfare program to give corporate bosses more freedom to run smaller competitors out of business by utilizing all sorts of clever price fixing tactics, including corporate purchases and mergers with suppliers (manufacturers and farm produce, for example). This move was very good for the rich corporate employer and politicians that whore their votes for them, but bad for most Americans.
The result was, more job opportunites in the service sector. Even the South was in on this, especially in states with anti-labor rights laws that weaken organized labor power (Florida is one of those states). However, with the job growth came a lack of opportunity for most working class Americans to earn decent wages. With these changes, a surge in low wage part-time and temporary job opening began to replace full time workers. Added to this were corporate policy changes that denied many benefits to these low wage workers. Such benefits included paid vacation and paid personal holidays, or sick leave. Also changed were, for some industries, standards where part time workers are forced to work on holidays without being paid overtime for it. (That's rough for kids when mommy and daddy are forced to work on Christmas eve and Christmas day.)
The changes resulted in temporary gains for big-time investors and market players. Among the investors are major investors with seats on corporate board of directors and in executive offices. In the meantime, with the expansion of low wage job opportunities, another trend resulted where corporations competed for monopolistic control.
Banks were merging with, or acquiring other banks at a more rapid pace. Convenience and grocery stores did the same with Walmart taking the lead by accessing control of suppliers and shifting from the "buy American" plan, to "buy Chinese" manufactured products. Garment manufacturers adopted the foreign labor trend, with some industries exploiting enslaved refugees from China on a Pacific American Territory island. Newspapers, some of which were owned by corporations that also bought billboards and television stations. It also meant that corporations were buying out other competitors. At least one newspaper corporation also buys print shops surrounding one of its papers, either to close down, or to use as off-shoots for print jobs not done at the paper.
Newt Gingrich was one of the Congressmen (when he was Republican House Whip) that personally profited from his sell-out deal favoring Boeing's desire to move one of the corporation's plants (in Alabama) to China. In a round-a-bout way, his money was invested in Boeing stock. He rallied the House of Representatives to agree with him in voting in favor of allowing Boeing to move the plant from Alabama, to China. That put the plant workers in Alabama out of a job. This isn't just an isolated example of how both Republicans and Democrats aligned with the DLC whore their government positions to corporations and profit from it.
When you consider the direction our country's economy has taken, consider these examples of how lawmakers and corporate bosses, with help from other investors, have worked together to screw up a damned good nation. The greater their advantage over humble self-employed Americans, modest business partnerships, and working class Americans, the worse the quality of life gets for the average American.
Therefore, whenever a political candidate, like Dennis Kucinich campaigns for American workers and farmers (non-corporate, of course) and promotes programs like universal health care, you have every reason to blatently laugh off the silly nuts that are going around criticizing him and his issues. The people that are criticizing Kucinich, pro-laborers and a potential universal health care program in America can be divided into at least two groups:
One sector relies on limited information sources and their primary sources are actually performing the dual role of profiting from the corporations and political prostitutes for corporate clients (lobbyists). This sector includes a percentage of America's population that prefers seeking entertainment instead of information. This sector also includes people that have wrongfully chosen to support politicians that abuse or intend to abuse public office for personal gain and to help corporate friends gain greater control and privileges at our expense. Among these people are individuals that aren't very bright in the first place and ones that have adopted twisted ideals, such as, racism, sexism and nationalism. These people are selective blind followers inclined to parot catch phrases and catch words delivered their way for politically strategic purposes. Most are too lazy-minded and ignorant to know how to do some research before they foolishly adopt whatever propaganda they've been fed. They are easy to manipulate. These days, mention America, terrorism, patriotism and war and they'll repeat (like good little parots) every propaganda catch phrase they've recently been programmed to deliver. These people don't even know the meaning of patriotism, but they've followed their leaders in the march where they hide behind the American flag to support anti-American government and corporate policies.
The other sector assumes the leadership role combined with those that work behind the scenes. They personally profit from exploiting and oppressing foreign and America's working class, running family and other modest farms out of business, and running other self-employed Americans and small partnerships out of business. These are the people that also create circumstances (which they're still creating) that decline quality health care opportunities for all Americans. Additionally, with their attitude toward destroying America's public school system by finding all sorts of clever ways to deny teachers and the schools decent funding, as well as, with their tight-wad attitude toward funding public libraries, added to supporting the Total Information Awareness (recently renamed Terror Information Awareness because the first name revealed true intend) department's "spy on library patrons" program, they strive to keep American citizens that don't profit from the above mentioned scams, dumbed down, poorly informed, and enslaved to a destructive system.
No person of sound ethical values approves of this. No truly patriotic American does, either. So, while the pro-corporate, pro-government control freaks are spreading rumors about those of us that support universal healthcare in America, pro labor laws, laws to put corporations in their proper place by first getting rid of the big government Corporate Welfare program, people like me are here to set the record straight and to let you know who's behind the lies and why.
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