Kyle Brady: Blog » Politics

Education Is Not A Budget Solution [OpEd]

Kyle Brady — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 08:05:35 +0000

The California Legislature has become infamous for its inability to pass timely legislation or manage a budget, regardless of deficits or surpluses, and they have recently been using the legislative magic bullet to solve their budget woes: the public education system.

Whenever states have budgetary issues, they turn to cutting expenses they see as needless rather than handling the issue appropriately, or even cutting their own salaries and benefits – raising taxes on rich corporations that jump through loopholes to be tax-free is never an option, of course, and neither is substantially taxing individuals who receive exorbitant compensation. The solution six months ago for California was to cut funding for the UC, CSU, and CCC state higher education system, which resulted in higher tuition while reducing class sizes, enforcing mandatory faculty furlough days, and cutting funding to related programs. This, they believe, was a good decision that would benefit all of California, and they’ve done it again, with a possible 32% increase in tuition with admission denied to younger students and a continuation of the “higher price, lower quality” policy.

This, quite simply, is idiotic.

America’s public school system has become something of a joke, where reading is a difficult task and remedial math is the pinnacle of most students’ academic careers – cutting budgets to an already underfunded, understaffed, drowning-in-problems system is not going to help it improve. The rhetoric in Congress, as well as from President Obama, is that education is fundamental to the nation’s future and in regaining status as the most brilliant and scientifically-minded in the world. President Obama, in fact, has emphasized the importance of true higher education, rather than handing out degrees to those that bothered to attend class.

An understanding that education is important is helpful, until the political leaders decide that education is not important enough to be worthy of proper funding. This is a problem nationwide, and it must be stopped. Granted, the tuition increases for a California state school may seem low, even with an increase, but this system provides for those that are not financially well-off enough to be able to afford the Ivy League education many may wish for. Furthermore, decreased class offerings and furlough days not only detract from the quality of the education paid for, but make a student’s graduation significantly more difficult, often extending the time needed to graduate, which, by its very nature, puts further strains on an already strained system.

Politicians need to understand a basic, fundamental truth: America will not prosper as a nation with a pitiable sixth-grade reading level that can barely do algebra, let alone understand the principles of calculus or understand philosophical ideologies. Yet this is where the future seems to lie, as educational funding has been in a downward spiral for some time with an additional, and worrying, de-emphasis of outside-the-classroom learning by many modern parents. Those who cannot read cannot think for themselves, thereby becoming political and economic sheep – the precursors of which are already being seen.

Budgets are understandably constricted at times, but funding should be increased, rather than decreased, for education, regardless of the effect it may have on other sectors. Corporations can afford to pay higher taxes, especially in the current climate of tax-free companies, and exorbitant salaries, benefits, and programs can be either cut entirely or downsized. Politicians should not a rich lifestyle make, and yet this is often found to be false.

As if President Obama didn’t have enough issues to address in the first quarter of his first term, education must be quickly added to the slate. Rhetoric is simply not enough, and action must be taken – federal-level legislation to assist in the funding of the nation’s education, as well as a mandate that educational budgets may not be downsized, would be a decent start.

On Not Tolerating Intolerance [OpEd]

Kyle Brady — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 08:05:58 +0000

The last few months in America have illuminated a large and worrisome bias like never before: citizens must respect the beliefs, lifestyles, opinions, and behaviors of others, so long as they’re legal – except when those same citizens have exclusionary beliefs that apparently allow them to criticize, condemn, vilify, smear, and generally ruin the lives or happiness of others.

This is not a law passed by Congress nor is it an Executive Order – it can’t even be found in the Constitution. The perplexing mix of “don’t criticize me, but I’ll criticize you” is based on a severe misinterpretation of a small part of the Constitution that has mutated over time into a weapon for these groups of people, most of whom have biases that can be traced to religious fundamentalism, racism, and other extremist perspectives that subjugate others for some benefit.

There is a line that divides tolerating another’s religion, political opinion, or personal beliefs, and tolerating intolerant behaviors – nowhere in modern, mainstream Christianity is there a provision that all other religions must be attacked and their people converted to a specific flavor of Christ followers, and yet this is what more and more fundamentalist Christians are coming to believe. Nowhere in any of the laws of the federal government does it state that a political party must follow the ideological whims of party leaders to the point of violence and chaos, and yet this is the behavior of the fringe-becoming-mainstream participants of the Republican Party.

These intolerant behaviors are either on a quick rise to prominence, or they are simply coming out of the dark depths, but the end result is the same: intolerance is becoming a core virtue for many Americans, and it is destroying society. In the case of the recent Fort Hood shooting, pundits were quick to jump to Islamic terrorism long before there was any public evidence to support this, simply on the premise of his name, and this is supposed to be acceptable? There is considerable media focus on the murders and destruction that those of Islamic belief create, and an extreme ignorance of the same behaviors from a more widespread religion inside America – where are the cries of religious fundamentalism when all-too-human doctors are murdered by Christians?

The tolerance of intolerance is reaching a critical breaking point, and the country, as a whole, must come to realize this. The situation is so advanced that the blatant lies and fear mongering that are spread by the likes of Bill O’Reilly, Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin, and Rush Limbaugh are often treated as truth by legitimate networks, such as CNN, and this needlessly spreads their message to others. Congressional Republicans have acted on a campaign of negation and delay, using lies and misinformation to their own benefit, ever since President Obama’s arrival in the White House, and this is accepted as normal politics by many, trickling down to the polarized citizens who mimic such behaviors in their own daily lives.

All of this has resulted in banning gay marriage by referendum in state after state, a highly vicious and partisan political atmosphere, the rise of Creationism as a supposedly legitimate counter-theory to Evolution, the justification of a newfound and spreading racism, continued rash and negligent behaviors by the very banks that almost destroyed the interconnected globe, and considerably more. If America continues on its current path of tolerating intolerance, the next decade will see both civilian and military disaster on a scale unprecedented – Civil Rights laws were enacted for a reason, and yet some fundamental rights, or even common courtesies, are continually denied to some citizens.

The solution is clear: news networks must immediately cease reporting falsehoods of any kind, all forms of religion must be once again distinctly separated from the state in every fashion, and the political leaders of the country must rise to the occasion and enact legitimate consequences for those who do not follow the basic principles of sanity and legitimate tolerance. To fail to do so, soon, will result in an ever-deteriorating climate that will inevitably, truly tear the country apart.

Healthcare Has a Glimmer of Hope [OpEd]

Kyle Brady — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 08:05:56 +0000

On Saturday night, the 7th of November 2009, a moment that is being called “historic” by some passed by without much notice to the general American population until Sunday: the healthcare reform bill was voted on, and passed, in the House of Representatives. Not in a committee or in some pre-approval vote-to-vote fashion, but the actual, legitimate bill.

This is mostly good news for the country and the issue of healthcare reform, as half of Congress has now definitively taken a stance on the issues at hand, but the battle is far from over: the Senate must vote on their own version of a healthcare bill, and there will likely be even more time spent afterward wrangling a single bill out of the two for the President to sign into law. However, the fact that the House of Representatives took a vote now is indicative of their intent, since the Senate Majority Leader has only recently stated a vote in the Senate could possibly occur after the start of 2010 – this is the House giving impetus to their slower-moving legislative counterparts.

The vote was broadcast on C-SPAN some time around 11pm PST, repackaged for CNN and other major infotainment stations, and the fifteen-minute process delivered some interesting information to the viewers: the ability to watch how long it took 30-or-so Democratic Representatives to decide where they stand was an astounding display of political dithering. Additionally, Republicans, barely after the start of the vote, had almost unanimously voted against the bill, but a lone Republican, Anh "Joseph" Cao, eventually voted in its favor, even as 39 Democrats displayed where their true loyalties lay.

Displays such as this by the Republican Party show that they truly are, at least at the representation level, the “Party of ‘No’”, their previous procedural attempts to block the vote completely notwithstanding. Despite a serious number of concessions that raise grave concerns about the legitimate impact of the bill, such as a removal of support for abortions via public option, did not seem to have any effect on how the GOP House Representatives voted – what, then, was the purpose of attempting to negotiate with them? This is likely a preview of how the Senate’s vote will proceed, with a majority of its members voting along party lines and a small handful standing as the “deciding factors”.

The bill from the House is far from perfect, but it is a decent foundation and a definitive declaration of intent to the American people – it has very little chance of becoming actual law as it currently stands, but the tone has been set, and that is almost as important as the legislation itself. It is worrisome, however, that the last six months have been essentially wasted in argument, discussion, and propaganda, thanks, in large part, to the childlike and irrational oppositional display shown en masse.

It’s important to note that the Democrats who voted for the bill were not in favor of all its amendments and provisions, but rather in support of a majority of them and the ideological force behind the bill. Republicans would have done better to vote more fluidly in this nature, with public statements on their likes/dislikes, but, at this point, such behavior cannot be expected from the party that is collapsing on itself.

The Senate must now make a push for their version of the bill to be voted on within the very near future, lest this process be extended any further than necessary without any gains, most especially since those in opposition have proven they are not interested in having their vote being swayed – Olympia Snowe does not matter. Leaving this piece of legislation to linger in the Senate past the New Year would be a crushing blow to progress, as the first few months of the year are always dedicated to financing the government and other administrative deeds. The strategy during the Clinton Administration was for the Republicans to delay until an election year, where Congressmen would be more careful of how they vote, and their current not-so-secret scheming are exactly the same.

Healthcare reform, the public option included, now has a glimmer of hope, thanks to most of the House Democrats and Representative Cao. The fate of the bill now rests with the Senate, which the American people can only hope will make the ethically correct decision to deal with the health, state, and general welfare of the country sooner rather than later.

An Open Letter to Senator Diane Feinstein [Expose]

Kyle Brady — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 14:17:23 +0000

I recently participated in a petition website that sent out letters to the Congressmen for our individual states on the issue of Net Neutrality and its importance – I’d like to it if I remembered what site it was. One of the Senators that received the letter from my California location was Senator Diane Feinstein (D-CA), who sent me an unexpected email reply, albeit a form letter.

I don’t have a problem that she sent me a form letter, and am actually glad she acknowledged my existence – my problem is in what, exactly, she said and what that means. To that end, the following is an Open Letter to Senator Diane Feinstein…

Dear Senator Diane Feinstein,

Thank you for recognizing my existence, even if it was via a form letter – it makes me feel as if I can, as a citizen, have an effect on our modern political battlefield in the age of corporate interests and corrupt legislators.

I do, however, have a problem with your response: within the same breath, you claim to support the principles of Net Neutrality, but immediately question the need for regulation and indicate that the interests of ISPs are potentially more important than those of their customers, which just happen to be the entire population of America.

Internet Service Providers, on the whole, have long since proved they have no interest in the privacy or equal treatment of their customers, with behaviors that run the gamut from traffic filtering/shaping/blocking to warrantless wiretapping. Other utilities companies in America, whether they are private, public, or a coalition project with the government, are heavily regulated and carefully monitored so as to not disrupt the daily activities of the country – in the age of the Internet, connectivity, and an increasing dependence on all things digital, why is Internet access treated any differently than electricity, water, waste management, or various other services?

You see, Internet access has become the next modern utility service. It has crept up on the country and taken both the people and the legislature by surprise, but it has arrived at this status nonetheless. Would it be acceptable for a power company, such as PG&E, to cut off power to homes that it felt weren’t using its electricity properly, or in a manner they ethically approve of? Would it be acceptable to selectively provide water to households that only use their product in amounts less than an arbitrary and unreasonable threshold on a daily basis? Or perhaps local trash pickups should only occur when the waste management company feels that your trash has appropriate ratios of paper, plastic, and biodegradable?

The answer, quite obviously, is a resounding ‘no’.

America was founded on the principles of individual rights and freedoms, and has since grown substantially to support and enhance these initial values, but it is time to take another large step in the process of liberty: a Digital Rights and Freedoms Act must be had for the American people, lest the nation devolve into unrepentant digital battles for civil liberties.

The national bandwidth has yet to approach capacity, despite what network providers will tell you, and there is much more ‘dark fibre’ to be found and used, left over from the dot-com boom, for further capacity. The problem is that for ISPs to provide the bandwidth and speeds that they advertise to their customers, essentially anything labeled as 'broadband', they would have to distribute customers more intelligently and appropriately across networks, rather than continue their current habit of overloading – this means less profits, because of the associated network costs. To accomplish this process of overloading, they employ tactics of filtering, shaping, and blocking traffic, often citing bogus claims of “network overload” or “unacceptable traffic”.

Finally, an underlying issue that will undoubtedly arise is that of copyright – the MPAA and RIAA would love for nothing more than certain types of traffic, usually classified as Peer-to-Peer, to be blocked from all networks. The honest truth, however, is that these protocols are copyright-independent, and are often used for entirely legal purposes. Yet the ISPs use these claims to shut off customers’ access, or heavily filter it, because of the occurrence of a supposedly illegal activity. Deciding whether a P2P traffic stream is legal is severely work intensive, and not something that can be accomplished by a piece of software – traffic source (such as The Pirate Bay) is not related to its legality, filetype (such as MP3) is independent of copyright, and original source (such as Shakespeare or Nine Inch Nails) is often, and rightly, ambiguous.

The point that I’m trying to make, and that you hopefully understand, is this: Net Neutrality is neither optional nor negotiable. As an AT&T customer by default, I have experienced heavy traffic filtering and corporate lies for the last three years, and I can personally tell you that it occurs when I am doing nothing even approaching illegal, yet it interferes with my productivity and workflow. If America, as a nation, is expecting to be a competitive and connected force on the global scale in the coming years, then federal legislation must be passed in order to secure the Digital Rights and Freedoms of the American people.

A lesson learned from the last two years of banking and investment institutions’ abhorrent behaviors should be that markets absolutely will not regulate themselves in a manner aligned with proper ethics, or the betterment of their customers, when there are higher profits to be had. Comcast and AT&T are both tangible examples of ever-higher prices for ever-degrading service, and such a trend will likely only continue – it is up to Congress, along with the FCC, to ensure that it definitively does not.

The battle for Net Neutrality in America is no different than any of the prior battles for Civil Liberties, as it is about the ability of all citizens to work and live in a manner that they are fundamentally entitled to. Anything short of a complete and uncompromising suite of regulations to place what has been previously unwritten into explicit law will be perceived by a large subset of the country as a failure of Congress to both understand the fundamental issue and act on behalf of the people.

Do not let corporate interests, or the Congressmen they control, sway your opinions or influence your decision.

Sincerely,

Kyle Brady

Correspondence

From: Senator Diane Feinstein

To: Me

Date: 10/29/2009

Dear Mr. Brady:

Thank you for writing to me about open access to the Internet and network neutrality. I appreciate hearing from you.

I agree with the general principles of network neutrality that owners of the networks that provide access to the Internet should not control how consumers lawfully use that network and should not be able to discriminate against content provider access to that network.

As Congress debates changes to our telecommunications laws this year, many different proposals have been offered regarding network neutrality. The question arises whether or not action is needed to ensure unfettered access to the Internet. I believe any workable solution must balance the needs of the network, service and information providers. Please know that when legislation regarding network neutrality comes before the Senate I will be sure to keep your specific views in mind.

Again, thank you for writing. If you should have any comments or questions, I hope you will feel free to contact my Washington, DC staff at (202) 224-3841.

Ironic And Fallacious Political Punditry [OpEd]

Kyle Brady — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 07:05:49 +0000

The era of the Bush Administration is clearly delineated as from 2001 – 2009, and was succeeded by the current Obama Administration, which will be in Office until, at least, 2012 – why, then, are the voices of the previous Administration being given credence for highly partisan armchair criticism by the mainstream media?

Since President Obama’s Inauguration, and perhaps even prior, former Vice President Dick Cheney has made a career out of publicly defaming, criticizing, and generally undermining the very Office he was previously sworn to assist. Regardless of the various successes and failures of President Bush, one fact has become abundantly clear: Dick Cheney was a highly skilled puppetmaster while in Office, and made many decisions based on personal preference, monetary gain, or other bias instead of acting appropriately, most of which were legally and ethically questionable.

But it is this selfsame individual that is attacking President Obama for supposedly not acting fast enough, or with enough conviction, in terms of troop deployments in Afghanistan, the removal of American forces from Iraq, and the political tightrope with Iran. It should be recognized, at this point, that the Bush Administration is the very reason focus was lost on Afghanistan, for simple cronyism politics. They are the Administration that significantly miscalculated the post-Saddam situation in Iraq, that has led to the never-ending struggle now typical of the country. The same Administration that destroyed all political interactions with Iran, specifically Ahmadinejad, by taking a hardline ideological approach that has set the entire process back by years and directly influenced the current nuclear situation.

Yet the admitted orchestrator of these events finds no irony in criticizing his policy successor, or sees even the beginnings of his own fallacious reasoning.

In all reality, such vitriolic rhetoric is likely occurring for three simple and small-minded reasons: President Obama represents everything Dick Cheney is not, and exists as a major threat to the political party that supported his every shady move; the former Vice President feels as if he has a legacy to defend, and the only way to do so, given the actual events of said legacy, is to make the succeeding President look worse; and he may be making a ploy for the Presidency based on some misguided principles and extreme lack of understanding of the modern American political situation. If even one of these reasons are close enough to his true intentions, then he exists as nothing more than a shell for pure and unadulterated sophistry, stupidity, and savagery.

Throughout all of this, however, former President Bush has kept relatively quiet – he may not agree with Obama’s policies and actions, and in fact likely disagrees wholeheartedly, but he seems to understand the need for respect of the Office of the President, something Dick Cheney has proven he cannot or will not understand from his first moments under George W. Bush.

All of the media outlets should immediately, without exception, stop featuring the real-life embodiment of Emperor Palpatine as a commentator, pundit, or even a guest – failing to do so only further propagates his insanity to the American people, and provides him a soapbox from which he can attempt to justify his past behaviors with fallacious and, many times, ironic arguments.

Democrats Finally Exert Control [OpEd]

Kyle Brady — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 07:05:13 +0000

It seems as though the Democrats in Congress may have finally realized what the thinking-person’s America has known for months: if President Obama was elected on certain ideals, and Democrats have the requisite majority to accomplish these items by themselves, then concessions to Republicans are not necessary when they’re not interested in participating on any logical or coherent level. The evidence in this can be found in any news source, excluding those that include the word “FOX” in their trademark, over the end of last week.

This long overdue exertion of control has manifested itself in the regulation of Wall Street pay for institutions still under government financing, and is likely a prelude to overall Wall Street regulation; the Consumer Financial Protection Agency, intended, among other issues, to prevent banks from overexploiting American citizens, has taken a substantial step closer to being realized; equal rights for LGBT individuals has taken its first federal step in the form of hatecrime legislation; and, most importantly, the public option has suddenly become a viable legislative option once more, after a few weeks of resounding political depression across the nation.

What has inspired the more rationally-minded portion of Congress to suddenly take such control is unknown, but their decision to do so is apparent in their actions. In these four recent issues, it could be argued that the voices of the American public have not only reached the halls of the Capitol after long being ignored, but that they’ve become too strong to ignore. Momentarily disregarding healthcare reform, it would seem that so-called populist outrage over the behavior of banks, exorbitant bonus of still-failing institutions, and continued inequality became such a politicized and discussed issue that there was no choice but to act, for fear of not being re-elected come time for midterms.

Healthcare reform is, in and of itself, a large beast – especially when the issue of a public option, Medicare-E, or any of its other names arises. Recently, however, the insurance industry may have ruined their chances at receiving government subsides as a pretend reform measure by releasing what essentially amounted to a promise to increase healthcare costs by unacceptable amounts in the near future. This report was then followed by a number of polls from mainstream organizations that showed upwards of 60%, depending on source, of the American people support a public option – not a fake public option, or a public option through subsidies, but a real, robust, legitimate federal option for healthcare.

The coming weeks will show what is truly occurring with Congressional Democrats, and just how strong their political will to accomplish true change is – change that their President has demanded. If all is for the best, the last six months of extreme minority manufactured outrage by Republicans on behalf of the insurance companies will have been all for naught, proving that even the most astroturf-laden campaigns are often ineffective.

Something that is worth analyzing in the weeks and months to come is slowly revealing itself: were the summer months of unintelligible screaming part of the Democratic plan? Was President Obama’s occasional public option ambiguity part of the ploy to manipulate the Republican Party into destroying itself? Did Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, and Joe Wilson play right into the arms of a grand political scheme?

Only time will tell, but if this is the case, the Republican Party should be scared – President Obama may be an even greater politician than America already believes.

The Re-Privatization of the American Economy [OpEd]

Kyle Brady — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 07:05:05 +0000

The modern American economy is a tangled web of corporations, various other company structures, and government financed institutions that weave among themselves and allow the public to interact with them on varying levels of inclusion – the benefit to being a corporation, after all, is being publicly traded on the stock exchange. For an increasingly worrisome number of companies, the goal is to incorporate and become public in order to reap ever greater rewards, choosing to focus on goals that will please investors en masse rather than their core products or internal structure.

For a financially safer and more secure future, this must change.

Private companies, including corporations, have legal obligations to their shareholders to perform well, just as public corporations do, but a key difference is in both who, and how many, the shareholders are. Public corporations have to cater to the whims of a very large and fickle market that’s manipulated by financial institutions for their own gains, while private corporations, or other structures like limited liability companies and partnerships, have a substantially smaller set of shareholders or investors that are often the result of personal relationships. Most importantly, private companies need only perform well enough to continue to exist and satisfy their investors, rather than continually attempting to post record profits every quarter – this can result in considerable investor leniency, market tolerance, and flexibility.

Whether these private companies are family owned or run by a group of business partners is irrelevant – it is not necessary to become a publicly traded company to be a financially successful enterprise, which a long list of examples supports. For when a company becomes focused on increased earnings rather than product quality, employee happiness/compensation, or ethical behavior, volatile behaviors begin to appear: the replacement of executives due to a single slow quarter, short term market focus, and mass layoffs.

This is not to say, however, that public corporations are inherently evil, although they often me be. There exist public corporations, theoretically, that treat their employees well, have a long term focus, and do not dwell on the daily gains or losses of their stock value, but this is far too rare of an occurrence. The current economic strife was largely caused by a lack of vision and ethics in an interest to perform extraordinarily well over short periods, without regard for the future – these behaviors are despicable, and yet they linger in the halls of most of the well-known American corporate structures. As if proof was necessary for such a claim, investment banks are seeing record profits and wishing to pay out, once again, exorbitant bonuses for short term performance, less than a year after being rescued by taxpayer money.

The solution should be quite obvious: de-emphasizing the public corporation in favor of private companies with varying incorporation structures. Neither President Obama nor Congress could likely affect such a change through legislation or decree, so it will have to come from within the private sector by those who care about the nation’s economic future. There is no true correlation between corporate success and being publicly traded, even on a global scale, so it seems entirely absurd to assume this practice is necessary - the process of an Initial Public Offering (IPO) is akin to enslaving the company itself at the hands of millions of money-hungry individuals who do not honestly care for the company’s success or integrity, but only for their own financial gain.

If such a change is to come, it will be slow and quiet, unti America will one day realize that their economy has been re-privatized, taken far away from the woes of the stock exchange, and the country is substantially more stable than in decades before. It is incumbent upon the young and future business leaders to think carefully and fully about their company’s status and structure, not to mention long-term future, rather than searching for the fastest way to become wealthy.

Because that’s exactly what landed the world in such dire straits.

The Secret Way To Achieve True Healthcare Reform [OpEd]

Kyle Brady — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 07:05:53 +0000

There’s been much debate, blathering, and false outrage by Congressmen over the issue of healthcare reform, most especially for the concept of a public option. The insurance industries have exerted extreme control over those campaigns that they helped finance, and true healthcare reform is fast approaching the point of no return, where a bill is passed that will either be irrelevant or do more harm than good. But there’s a way, a secret way, to achieve the kind of healthcare reform that the overwhelming majority of the country wants, including a public option: force all of those in Congress to relinquish their federally funded healthcare, and join the ranks of America.

The livelihood of Congressmen is largely separate from the majority of America, let alone the average, thanks to their large, built-in salaries (officially $165,200/yr), their own pension plan through the FERS, and a sometimes-free healthcare system through FEHBR. Congress has not been overly concerned with fixing the broken Social Security system that’s predicted to fail some time near 2016, because they are not effected by it – the FERS is an entirely different system with a separate set of rules that is not in danger of failing. Given the inaction on Social Security, should it be any surprise that their fundamental lack of understanding of the modern healthcare system is due to being outside of it?

Besides the influence of the insurance cartel, astute Congressmen have had to study hard to grasp the current healthcare situation in America, despite the ability of an average citizen to easily speak about it for great length. If Congressmen are inside the Capitol, they can receive substantial diagnosis, treatment, lab work, and prescription filling, all free of cost; however, if they’re outside of those illustrious walls, they participate in a federally managed group of insurance providers, which is not subject to the same level of megalomaniac freedom or profiteering so often seen outside the grasp of federal control.

Any reforms that Congress enacts on healthcare - the regulation of insurance industries, forced non-profit status of healthcare companies, public option, or other facets - will not effect their life in any noticeable fashion. If, however, members of Congress were forced to participate in the same insurance scams that the rest of America does, they would very quickly discover that which needs to be desperately rectified, and would likely pass definitive and progressive legislation within a short period of time without any further or inane squabbling.

This preeminent solution has been proposed for Social Security, for the same principle reasons and with similar predicted outcomes, and there is no valid reason why it cannot serve as a similar point for healthcare reform. Until the members of Congress are more akin to the average American citizen, legislation will continue to be slanted in favor of powerful corporate interests and those with extreme quantities of money, which was most definitively not the intention of the Founding Fathers. Perhaps a forced Congressional joining of Social Security and common insurance, along with paycuts and campaign finance reform, could produce a Congress that is more representative of the nation.

After all, Congress’ sole purpose is to emulate, protect, and act in favor of their constituents – the People of the United States of America.

LGBT Rights Are About More Than The Military [OpEd]

Kyle Brady — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 07:05:07 +0000

The concept of religious marriage should be explicitly divided from what the government recognizes as a legal union between two people, and yet the intertwining of church and state continues. Furthermore, the military has a “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy, curiously similar to many religious organizations' views on LGBT individuals, that expressly states their lack of interest in their personnel’s personal habits, so long as they do not interfere with the military lifestyle – but discovery of less-than-straight behavior often results in dismissal. President Obama has recently promised to end the policy, even as the so-called “marriage debate” rages on across the country.

What needs to be understood by so many is a simple fact: LGBT individuals are the only group in America that are still legally second class citizens. Both women and African Americans have long since been given the legal rights to which they are entitled, along with various other groups, and live without prohibitions on marriage, religion, military interests, or lifestyle. Yet it is still acceptable to tell said persons that they cannot be married, or even recognized as a legal union, in the eyes of the government, that they cannot participate in the military, and are explicitly barred from certain religions – in addition to the numerous illegal discrimination and hatred that are so often engendered.

In an era where a loudmouth public figure is scandalized over unintelligent comments about another race, and face the onus of federal-level fines and their employer, how is it legal for similar individuals to make comments about the “abhorrent” nature of gay marriage, LGBT’s are “unnatural”, or other offensive vitriol? This last front of civil rights is fundamentally no different than any of the past battles, and yet the actual rights in question are staunchly ignored by critics and commentators alike.

This is not a an issue that has opinions on one side or another – it is, very simply, ethical vs. unethical behaviors. Congressmen, Governors, or even the average citizen do not need to understand, condone, or even “agree with” the lifestyle of those in the LGBT community to legalize same-sex marriage and grant the same basic, American rights that run to the very core of the country’s foundation principles. The prohibition of same-sex marriage, along with current military policy, is akin to a public official claiming “blacks can’t be married” decades ago – this would not, and does not, stand in modern America.

The tone of this struggle will slowly change over time as younger, less judgmental generations grow into positions of power and mold the world into something closer to what it should be – the election of President Obama depended heavily on young, first-time voters that saw in him an embodiment of their own ideals, and is therefore proof-positive that LGBT rights and equality is, at this point, simply a waiting game. The aging, bigoted segments of the population can continue to rant and rave, write policy, and influence legislation, but their power will eventually wane. President Obama and California’s Governor Schwarzenegger have seen that the political power over the coming years truly rests with the vocal, politically-invested electorate, and fundamental rights will be restored for those who remain the final subjects of civil rights discrimination.

Legitimate Healthcare Reform Is Fading Fast [OpEd]

Kyle Brady — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 07:05:18 +0000

Senator Max Baucus produced a bill from the Senate Finance Committee not long ago that has since been lauded as “revolutionary”, a “win” for the American people, and, most importantly, as the bill that will likely form the basis of what Congress will actually pass as so-called healthcare reform. Not only is this ethically wrong, it’s a farce that’s been handed to the American people in the hopes that they accept its very minimal reforms as truly revolutionary and placate the 70+% of the country that is pining for change within the medical, insurance, and otherwise healthcare sectors.

The “Baucus Bill” does a number of things, but there are two central pieces to it: forcing every American, under penalty, to have some form of health insurance, and providing subsidies to private insurance companies to make it more affordable to citizens. There is no public option, or any semblance of a government-run healthcare plan. There is no extension of Medicare to younger crowds. There is no tax to pay for these subsidies. There is no forced transformation from healthcare corporations to non-profits.

Rather than put together an intelligent bill, Max Baucus chose to give in to the current Republican ideal of not instituting progress for the average American citizen, as well as not increasing the size of federal government, and this has resulted in a mashup of horrible ideas with even worse implementations. Take, for example, the way the bill is paid for: rather than having a relatively low and inexpensive federal-level tax, individuals or families with extensive healthcare plans are taxed. This means that people who prefer to have substantial coverage for themselves, essentially those who are able to afford the best care/plan in the unnecessarily expensive world of health insurance, are now being taxed on their free-market expenditures.

Somehow, those behind this bill imagine that the federal government providing money to already corrupt and money-hungry insurance companies will help solve the situation, even without any actual regulation of the healthcare system or a legitimate nation-wide option for health insurance. The bill does nothing about pre-existing conditions, those truly unable to afford healthcare, regulating the health insurance companies, or even addressing the skyrocketing cost of healthcare in America, and yet the American people are expected to support a large cashflow of their money to the companies that have caused these very problems.

Is this what American politics have become? A system so entrenched in its fundraising process that it can no longer make intelligent policy decisions that have an effect on large corporate entities?

There are rumors that some Democrats, including President Obama, are supporting this bill merely to get something on the Senate floor, in order to pull a trick in the process of Reconciliation: sticking the public option in at the last minute, while removing the pocket-lining of insurance companies. This is a risky strategy, at best, because its failiure would obviously result in millions of dollars being freely given to an industry that has already proven itself as both irresponsible and unable to behave properly. To this end, there is a growing number of Democrats that are looking at the public option as the only solution, no matter its inherent partisan nature, something that should have occurred months ago, and Alan Grayson has become the focal point of this movement by publicly decrying the “Republican plan” of denial while calling out his fellow Democrats that have thus far failed miserably.

In response to the Baucus Bill, hundreds of amendments have been proposed, most of them as inane, or worse, than the bill itself - not the least of which is the ability of states to “opt-in” or “opt-out”, depending on the proposal, from a federal public option. Among proposals such as the public option becoming a state-level enterprise, the lack of backbone by many Democratic Congressmen has been shown, since the country’s citizens overwhelming want not only healthcare reform and industry regulation, but a federally run public option - this cannot, and should not, be accomplished at the state-level or with a provision for objecting states to remove themselves from federal law. Why is this so difficult to comprehend?

As the days and weeks pass, the hopes that many Americans had for a decline in healthcare costs and the de-emphasizing of grossly self-indulgent corporations is fading. Short of a coup in the Reconciliation process or a magical unity of Democrats, which would include the self-labeled “Blue Dogs” that masquerade as liberals, the American people have lost. Not only have the American people lost, but Congress has lost – the people’s faith in not only Congress but the government itself has been visibly shaken by the recent public display of corporate influence on the future, fate, and form of this very nation.