R.I.P. Vic Chesnutt, Songwriter: Another Casualty of America's Health Care Insanity
By Susie Madrak Saturday Dec 26, 2009 8:00pmI'm really sad this morning. It took our FUBARed health insurance system to finally push immense talent Vic Chesnutt over the cliff of despair this week. He needed kidney surgery and faced losing his home to pay for it. A songwriting hero to people like Kristin Hersh, Michael Stipe and Patti Smith, the Athens, Georgia performer took an overdose and spent his last few days in a coma.
In a "Fresh Air" interview a few weeks ago, he talked about the impossible economic demands he faced, despite help from Sweet Relief, the musicians' health care fund. "I don't want to die," he told Terry Gross.
Imagine how many other talents are falling by the wayside, unable to deal with the constant assaults on their dignity. It's just not right:
Vic Chesnutt, a singer-songwriter of spare, idiosyncratic folk songs tinged with melancholy, died Christmas Day in Athens, Ga., after taking an overdose of prescription muscle relaxants, a family spokesman said. He was 45.
Chesnutt had been admitted to Athens Regional Medical Center on Wednesday and died surrounded by “devastated” friends and family, according to Jem Cohen, a filmmaker and friend who produced Chesnutt's 2007 album "North Star Deserter."
"This is not a story of a rock star being on heroin or even drinking themselves down," Cohen said Friday in an interview with The Times. "The real story here is about someone who struggled against amazingly difficult odds for many years and managed to transcend those odds with almost unparalleled productivity and creativity and power in his work."
Paralyzed after a 1983 single-car accident when he was driving drunk at age 18, Chesnutt had limited use of his arms and hands but nonetheless carved out a career as a songwriter, singer and guitarist. He was discovered in the late-1980s by REM frontman Michael Stipe, who championed his early recordings, and he gained the respect of music critics and fellow musicians who were struck by his darkly humorous songs.
Chesnutt tackled death and mortality head-on in his lyrics, as in "It Is What It Is," from his new album "At the Cut."
"I don't worship anything, not gods that don't exist / I love my ancestors, but not ritually / I don't need stone altars to hedge my bet against the looming blackness / that is what it is."
In recent interviews he contemplated the challenges he faced as a wheelchair-using paraplegic with inadequate health insurance and mounting medical bills.
"I'm not too eloquent talking about these things," Chesnutt told The Times earlier this month. "I was making payments, but I can't anymore and I really have no idea what I'm going to do. It seems absurd they can charge this much. When I think about all this, it gets me so furious. I could die tomorrow because of other operations I need that I can't afford."
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...than the "health-care" industry. It starts with the soil, the source of all life. Because our soil is tainted, our food is not enough to keep us healthy. Because our food and dietary choices are a problem, our bodies become fragile. When we become ill, our choices are extremely limited. Profits are being made off every step of this process.
My family has had small family farmers in it since before the Civil War. My grandpa revered the Rodales before anyone ever thought about growing "organic."
I'm the farmer in the family this generation. The good news is that change is coming, more and more conventional farmers are changing their practices to organic simply because they're sick and tired of being sick and tired. The bad news is that we may be out of time for a lot of people.
Here's my holiday message to all of you. The 20 cent per pound potatoes you buy at the grocery store CAN NOT nourish you the way my $1.50 a pound potatoes can. I build my soil, I let fields rest and become more fertile so I can produce food that nourishes the body, mind, and spirit. I have to charge more because I have to be a steward of my soil and I can't be maximally "efficient" when I do that. Trust me, no one farms to get rich in a material sense. I wouldn't trade my life for anything but that's not because of my bank balance. I charge what I need to charge to keep things going and have a little left over.
Paraphrasing the old Framm oil filter commercial, you can pay a little more now for good food or you can pay a lot more later when you lose your health.
Please chose wisely.
I wish I could come and farm with you...
The last time I planted a garden, I used the French Intensive method. In August, I worked the soil into beds with composted manure from a neighbor's horse barn (as close to organic as I could get at that time), and other nutrients (I was composting everything I could out of my own kitchen).
That spring, I used companion-planting, and advice from local old-timers about when to plant, to create a garden that yielded more English peas, spinach, leaf lettuce, carrots, corn, radishes, eggplant, okra, cucumbers, cabbage, red potatoes, yams, purple potatoes, onions, acorn squash, summer squash, zucchini, tomatoes, black-eyed peas, green beans, and various other goodies than my family needed. We ended up sharing loads of delish produce with our neighbors.
Thanks to the heavy leaf mulch I used, I never had to 'weed' my garden, and the potatoes nestled in between the leaf mulch and the soil were the largest I've ever seen.
Can you tell I miss having a garden? :)
...but for Christmas we ate the first red cabbage, there are still turnip and collard greens, and the brocolli and cauliflower were good (broc still growing side shoots.) There are lots of bags of okra and squash in the freezer. We're down to the last of the speckled butter beans and I'm not sure there are any more purple-hull peas.
The point is well taken that I was trying to make above. Our health is something that needs to be dealt with from the ground up, not simply with the end-product.
fools abound,
this is a story of a broken health care system,
make it into whatever suits your republi'con' masters
but you can not change the facts ,
fools
Are you so one dimensional that you can't see that the same people who are responsible for our flawed medical system are the ones who are destroying the soil we all depend on for our nutrition?
You can't see the connection between all manner of chronic disease conditions and food grown in soil that is dead? You can't see the relationship between obesity, type II diabetes and agribusiness food? You can't see the relationship between these conditions and huge profits for the pharma industry?
Then you accuse us of being "fools" and pawns of our "republi'con masters.?"
Wow
The gift of for-profit medicine: stories like this are brought to you by the average Joe Republican voter.
Welcome to the land of the free, your life ain't worth a plug nickel to that rich guy up in that penthouse.
Where our most important freedom is the freedom to die with inadequate health care because dying prematurely (and in pain) isn't half as bad as socialized medicine.
Thank goodness we have America's two major political parties to save us from the indignities of universal health care. I imagine Vic Chestnut breathed a sigh of relief when Barack Obama declared "single payer" off the table. At least Chestnut died knowing that the care he couldn't afford wasn't tainted with socialism.
Is this a great country or what?.
nation.
If anyone wants 'death panels', we've already got them.
I've lived outside the States for over 20 years, and have benefitted from socialized medicine (yes, that's what it is, you can dress it up with any bullshit 'single payer' euphemism you want - it's socialized health care), without which I would be paralysed myself, if not dead. The idea that the United States of America, my country, the nation that has given the world so many brilliant and talented people for generations, cares so little about its citizens is appalling - not only to me, but to those outside and watching us with more than a little sadness and fear. The greatest nation on earth, is dying from the inside out. Literally.
I voted for hope, which unfortunately had the only manifestation on offer as being Obama and his promise of health care reform. Genuine health care reform - not this bastardized, hobbled, worthless appeasement to the insurance companies who control our lives, as well as the government they financially own.
Every time another talent is snuffed out, every time a child dies, every time a life of potential is wasted out of corporate greed, societal stupidity, a corrupt media and an ineffective government, it breaks my heart. But I'm not coming back to the States, not willingly. I've managed to escape - and it certainly feels like escape - and as much as I love my country and will do all that I can from a safe distance to save it, however helpless I am, I have no intention of swimming back to the Titanic and being sucked down into the dark.
RIP, Mr Chestnutt, if you can.
We are, simply, a nation populated and governed by barbarians. We view everything as a commodity to be bought, sold, and ultimately disposed of, including human lives. We are ignorant, crass, hateful, grasping, and brutal. All is subordinate to the greatest of all sins, gluttony, for it makes us eat without stopping, until we are eating ourselves and our planet, and are left living in what remains, our own shit.
I don't know, Robert, aren't you being unfair to barbarians to compare them to what's going on in this country, where our barbarism is mixed with such towering stupidity it defies belief?
.
...unable to deal with the constant assaults on their dignity."
Talent is irrelevant and shouldn't even be mentioned in this context. Human beings, even those with no special talents at all, deserve to receive treatment and maintain their dignity.
America the beautiful . The mildest thing I can say is that I have no love for this country anymore , NONE . We are thee country of greed and selfishess , land of morally and ethically bankrupt pigs without conscience . Plenty of money for invasions and " war " , for killing and destroying , for the military industrial complex and for Wall Street fat cat bail outs , that money is in endless supply apparently but give a man , woman or child who doesn't have healthcare insurance or the money to pay for it healthcare ? Help them , save their life ? Are you fucking crazy ? No money , no profit ? Out of the question ! Just how much lower can a people and a country be ? It's past time for a revolution but we the people in this country collectively are as useless as tits on a boar , the ones unaffected for the time being could give a shit. I do believe we are going to pay , for what this country has become , for what we have become , the shame of it is that those who are sane and decent , who have a conscience and hate what is going on will have to suffer the consequences too .Excuse me , I am so pissed I gotta go get a blood pressure pill .
Your anger would be more properly directed toward the very, very small number of people in the government. That's the nature of government. A very small number of people can make a whole society mentally ill. You're actually against centralized control of society, whether you know it or not. Only with centralized control can you make one bad viewpoint or mistake or false belief or demented policy universal.
How do these people get into power? Do they win the lotto or are they voted into office by the American people? How do we get such an amoral economic system without consent? How do we let our government have such a murderous foreign policy, and this is not at all new, unless we consent to it on some level and benefit from it? The reason why there is such uneven economic development between countries, the reason why the concentration of wealth is so horrible in this country (and in any country that has followed "neo-liberal" economic policy, which always leads to furthering centralized power, it is just in the hands of private organizations Why that is somehow better is beyond me) and is getting worse as the years go by is directly connected to our foreign policy (international economic policy plays a big role in this, people didn't seem to care much or notice the looting of Asia in the late 90's, they seemed to only noticed how immoral this system is once they became the target). Why do we allow our government to interfere in the workings of other countries, steal their resources and undermine their democracies time and time again, in ways we’d never allow domestically, unless it somehow benefits us?
The nature of government, by the way, has changed. The nature of capitalism hasn't, it has just changed form. It was always based on exploitation and greed, that exploitation is increasingly financial. Investors don’t like the policies people are choosing within their democracies? Well, the virtual senate of financial capitalists will just take their money out of the country and the economy will crash. Yay, say “libertarians”, and they mutter nonsense about individual liberty and tell us why financial liberalization is fundamental to human freedom. Have private institutions proven themselves to be better at the delivery of basic social services? Not if history and reality matter to you. Private institutions are, and will always be, inherently inefficient as far as the delivery of social services and they undermined things like solidarity and compassion for other people. They take services that would otherwise be available to all and they auction it off, pricing many out of the system and placing everyone’s lives on the line if it isn't in the best interests of those who own the resources. They are also horribly inefficient (profits are waste as far as delivery of social services, as are administrative fees which are always higher in for profit private institutions, executive pay, marketing costs, dividend payments, amongst other things). If private institutions proved themselves to be better at the delivery of these services we'd have a real alternative. They haven't, they're much worse, and so we don't. What we have is an environment in which these immoral parasites, voted into office, have ideological (and self serving) objections to government and they make sure that the government is underfunded and farmed out to these far worse private, for profit institutions and they make sure that working people have no direct say in the functions of government and have no power over these politicians once in office. We wouldn’t want the “rule of the mob” or whatever. It wasn't always this way, before "neo-liberalism" set in. It also wasn't this way when we had more of a democracy, where people were directly involved in government, and not republicanism where we are ruled by out of touch, ideological fundamentalists who don't understand or care about us. As I said though, whose fault is it that this situation is what it is? There are always crooks around (who do so well in the corporate world), we don't have to give them any power over our lives. I miss the day when working people were more class conscious, not like now when they tend to lick the boots of capitalists and attack other working people who have different skin color, religion or language. When they cared about what their government did to other countries. You think working now would do something like go to Spain and fight Franco, well, the modern equivalent?
You've never seen capitalism, you've only seen, and are only citing, a marriage of government and business, which we both agree is horrible.
The answer to every ill you try to assign to capitalism or evil individuals is centralized government power. In everything you're outraged by in our society, you'll find, if you study, that the factor that's allowed it to become *universally* problematic, is the government's ability--which no other organization in a society has--to make problems universal. This is true of wal-mart, war, the medical system. Study it and prove me wrong. I dare you.
You libertarians are a riot. Completely a-historic. Capitalism has NEVER been separate from the state and never will be. After all, it was the state who privatized the commons and usually gave it to the feudal powers, people in government and the like. It was the state who protected British industry and crushed potential competition in places like Egypt and India. It was the US government which protected American business, with the highest tariffs in the world from the early 19th century to about WWII in the world, and it is the state that has since WWII that has created most of the technology people like you claim came out of the private market. Without the state/the largest socialist institution in the world (the US military) we wouldn't have computers, the internet, satellites (cell phones, cable tv, etc). The state protects capital intensive farmers in the US. Read Korean economist Ha-Joon Chang and tell me that capitalism has EVER been separate from the state. It hasn't been and never will be.
"that the factor that's allowed it to become *universally* problematic, is the government's ability--which no other organization in a society has--to make problems universal."
The "free market", turning over government services to private, for profit institutions is the fault of the government. The "virtual senate" of financial capitalists have anything to do with the government, other than giving them too much freedom to rape and pillage? Ayn Rand called capitalism the "unknown ideal" for good reason. She realized that her philosophy has never existed. The economist Karl Polanyi wrote an amazing book explaining why it never will, thank god, called the "Great Transformation".
Again, in what way have private institutions proven themselves more competent as far as the delivery of basic services?
Right now I live in a poor, developing country. You have no clue how abstract and academic your argument is, how divorced it is from reality, especially the reality of working people in the developing countries who are the victims of policies you favor. A philosophy of suburbanites sheltered from the real world, doing well enough that they can get lost in utopian philosophies.
Many libertarians I meet are intelligent, well intentioned people but they allow their philosophy to consume their very being, to the point that they can't questions the basic precepts of the philosophy, they can't see how flawed it is. There are people attached to other philosophies that do the same, but nothing like I've seen with the Murray Rothbard/Von Mises crowd.
My basic point, that I don't believe you addressed, is that what's allowed universal problems to arise is the marriage of government and business. I think, actually, you agreed with that point. You just think the fault is business corrupting government, right? That is, again, exactly my point. You try to draw the conclusion that business, or private enterprise, is therefore evil, but you're forced to return to my conclusion, that it became an unrestrainable evil when it was coupled with government.
The statement that we wouldn't have computers or the internet, etc., etc., without the State is unprovable. I'll show you your logical flaw. That's like saying that without Edison we would never have the light bulb or the telephone. Someone else wouldn't have invented it? An entirely separate set of circumstances wouldn't have produced the same result? Whether or not--and I don't entirely believe it but I'll use your premise--government bureaucracy happened to produce this positive technology is an entirely separate issue from whether or not it wouldn't have been produced more effectively and efficiently with the government out of the way. The idea that one thing leads to the other is very poor reasoning.
Take cars. They were developed and the technology rapidly improved with individuals competing free, at the beginning, from government interference. But going back 80 or 90 years, you have the marriage of our auto manufacturing empires and government. Smaller companies vanished (Tucker's an obvious example). The end of railroads and mass transit followed and the government began putting in freeways to serve auto industry lobbyists (this is all covered in the opening to Fast Food Nation). Anything except false, token competition vanished. So, with government involvement automotive technology has basically been frozen since, what, the '30s? The model T got 24 MPG, which is an acceptable fuel usage rate by today's standards!
So there, for your consideration, is an example of private industry offering an excellent product that serves the very basic need of transportation, and it almost certainly would have become infinitely more excellent and varied had not the government granted unfair protection to profiteers. If everyone was forced to compete, of course, our basic transportation choices wouldn't be limited to what are essentially elaborate Model Ts one hundred years later.
Not to mention that all incentive or capability to develop practical mass transit has been destroyed by the marriage of the auto industry and government.
Just one obvious example off the top of my head.
The argument isn't whether government can produce positive results. It can, occasionally. I happily admit that. The argument I'm making is that there's a severe cost in freedom and possibilities, ultimately, and that government is infinitely more dangerous when it goes wrong than any private enterprise (which can be challenged by other private enterprises. Duh.). I'm sure I don't need to cite fascist governments in modern history, or all throughout history. Or fascist policies, unjust wars, violations of human rights, perpetrated by the best governments in modern history. Government isn't noble by nature, as you seem to think. It's just power that's always up for grabs, and that's dangerous.
Do the above examples counter-balance your reverence for the postal service or the FDA? I don't know. But my principle statement, that to assign magnificent possibilities to bureaucracies (which is what this thread is about)is asinine, remains untouched.
I think if you reread your statement, you'll find you're grasping at scraps of information, making fairly incoherent, pseudo-scholarly arguments, not in an attempt to support your fondness of bureaucracies and centralized power, but just to discredit me either by hasty labeling, or by proclamations that you're smart.
Regarding where you live, you do of course understand that the centrally controlled world monetary system enslaves and controls "developing" countries like you're in with debt, don't you? Another example of a basic need--a unit with which to exchange goods--being used as a weapon against working people by the few who are able to control it via government.
"My basic point, that I don't believe you addressed, is that what's allowed universal problems to arise is the marriage of government and business. I think, actually, you agreed with that point. You just think the fault is business corrupting government, right? That is, again, exactly my point. You try to draw the conclusion that business, or private enterprise, is therefore evil, but you're forced to return to my conclusion, that it became an unrestrainable evil when it was coupled with government."
No, my point was obvious and beyond arguing. Capitalism has never existed without massive state intervention and never will. I gave you two economists who proved this without a reasonable doubt. Ha Joon Chang has a book called “Kicking Away the Ladder” about this subject. In modern economic history he found two countries that can reasonably claim to have developed along “free market lines” (the Swiss and the Netherlands) and they still had parts of their development that were against what they teach in school (like lax control of intellectual property). Every other country in the world, without exception, that has “developed” has used massive state intervention. America and Britain were protective and had massive state intervention to the extreme, and they’re thought of as “free market” marricles. Nothing of the sort. Britain went so far that it was, during the 19th century, impossible to bury someone unless it could be proven that the coffin was developed locally. South Korea, the “capitalist” alternative to countries like China, used massive state intervention, far more than in the US and they copied Japan, who did the same. Chang and economists like Robin Hahnel have written about this if you’re interested.
“The statement that we wouldn't have computers or the internet, etc., etc., without the State is unprovable.”
In the same way that we can't prove that communism wasn't usually horrible in practice because certain conditions could have existed to improve it's performance. Are you interested in what happened or what COULD have happened? If you took to the time to study this you’d realize that it has nothing to do with logic. It happened, it is not arguable. The military did invent the internet. Some private companies had a role, but they existed almost without exception entirely off of grants from the government. As you know, satellites were created by the military, as we computers. These techonologies are created by the government then turned over to private business to profit off of. Japan had the famous MITI which did the same thing. Thomas Friedman had his famous book, “The Lexus and the Olive Tree” about how wonderful “free trade” is. Did he mention that the Lexus itself was a creation of Toyota in Japan, and that Toyota WAS basically the Japanese government for almost 30 years? Japan ignored the arguments for comparative advantage and protected Toyota (including bailing the company out numous times, protecting it in ways I’ve never seen elsewhere, high tariffs, etc) for about the first 25 years. It essentially was the Japanese government, like the banks are now in the US. For years the car made no money. Over time, after about 25 years, it started to make money. The Lexus itself was no different. It only flourished as a result of massive governmental protection. This is the reality on how the economy has functioned in “developed countries”. In South Korea it was a CAPITAL OFFENSE to export financial capital for a while and I don’t need to (I hope) detail the massive protection for domestic industry, the widespread use of state companies and the large percentage of militant and unionized workers. Again, these were the “capitalist” alternatives to China and Vietnam. The countries who were closer to “free trade” have never developed and are exporting mainly raw materials, since “free trade” and financial liberalization has kept them poor and they don’t have enough factories to export finished products.
“So, with government involvement automotive technology has basically been frozen since, what, the '30s?”
You’re right. Matter of fact, the companies bought up the public transit systems (the commons) and dismantled them. As I’m saying, nothing new in capitalism.
“that government is infinitely more dangerous when it goes wrong than any private enterprise”
Nonsense. We have been living through a monopoly phase of capitalism, dominated by monopoly financial capitalists, since at least WWII. There is competition in some industries but most are at best oligopolies. Competition, especially in regards to health care and the delivery of basic services, does nothing to correct the deficiencies in systems run by profit and private institutions. There is still massive waste and always will be. Profit and private entities guarantee this. There is no argument, facts are not arguable. How to interpret them is, but facts are facts.
Do the above examples counter-balance your reverence for the postal service or the FDA? I don't know. But my principle statement, that to assign magnificent possibilities to bureaucracies (which is what this thread is about)is asinine, remains untouched.
“I think if you reread your statement, you'll find you're grasping at scraps of information, making fairly incoherent, pseudo-scholarly arguments.”
You have got to be kidding me. I have a background in economics and know what I’m talking about. You are denying well known economic history and are trying to argue from an “Atlas Shrugged” view of the world, which has no history and can’t explain reality. I will say what I’m saying one last time, just so I’m as clear as day. Capitalism has never existed without massive state intervention, most of the time because the state has to protect the system from the people of the countries, often at gun point. Capitalism has existed with somewhat less state involvement but 99% of the time it has been a disaster for the people. We can exist in a world without the state but if we do it cannot be within a capitalist system. If we did, as Polanyi said, “Our thesis is that the idea of a self-adjusting market (ie free market capitalism) implied a stark utopia. Such an institution could not exist for any length of time without annihilating the human and natural substance of society; it would have physically destroyed man and transformed his surroundings into a wilderness."
really, I appreaciate the conversation. Lemme see here.
Citing one's education, or anyone's education, as proof of anything, is the logical fallacy known as "appeal to authority," right? So saying that my point is false, or yours is automatically right, simply because you have a background in economics is nonsense. A lot of people with backgrounds in economics have created the present system that's falling to pieces around us. Considering what the experts have delivered, the case can certainly be made that a background in economics--that is, a schooling in the "accepted wisdom"--is an anchor around your neck.
I see some glaring inconsistencies. You argue against capitalism, and in the next breath say the world has never seen capitalism, because business has always meshed with the state. We agree on this, but you're stating that you're arguing against something a) that you've never seen and b)that your main argument against is that you've never seen it.
You also say nonsense to the idea that government is a horribly dangerous force, and follow with an outline of government-empowered monopolies that run, and ruin, the modern world.
As an argument in favor of the State you offer the idea that it has time and again created effective monopolies on certain areas of technological research and advancement. This is really pathetic logic. This says the VW Beetle, a very neat little car, in some way justifies Nazi Germany.
But what you're trying to say is that free trade doesn't produce technological advancement--that technological advancement *only* comes from a degree of fascism. This can't be proven either way if we agree that we've never lived without a degree of fascism. I don't buy it at all, but let's leave it at that neither of us can prove it either way. It should be pointed out, however, that I'm arguing against fascism and you for it.
Also, I don't know that I ever argued in favor of capitalism as you understand it, or the whole canned "libertarian" philosohpy you've pinned on me. Rather, I'm coming from kind of an instinctive anti-government perspective and expanding on that. So far, every example I can find resoundingly supports the theory I'm operating on, which is that every major problem in society can be traced back to centralized control and its corrupting nature.
This seems like a very simple equation and watertight conclusion to me: The free market, as I take it, means people acting with no authority present except that which can be activated to protect them from harm, fraud, or other violations of their free will. As I understand it this can't really be argued against unless you're arguing in favor of forcing people to do things against their will, under the threat of violence, which is, in the final telling, what you're attempting to justify.
"I see some glaring inconsistencies. You argue against capitalism, and in the next breath say the world has never seen capitalism, because business has always meshed with the state."
No, what I'm saying is that capitalism requires, or at least historically has required, massive state intervention. I argue that the definition that so called "libertarians" have of capitalism has never existed. I don't understand how you can see inconsistancies in what I'm saying, other than using it as a means to ignore that obvious argument I'm making.
I'm also not arguing in favor of "fascism", I'm saying that state activity in the economic system is a necesity in capitalism. Citing Polanyi again, he said that Stalinist Russia and Nazi Germany (both obvious extremes of this) are a result of the same thing, which he called the double movement of capitalism. There are moves to hand over functions of government to private hands, to privatize the commons, by elites. The policies cause mass hardship, because private entities don't do as good a job and IN NO WAY ARE MORE EFFICIENT (unless you define that as the ability to make a profit) and so society try to protect themselves from the horrible effects. The government wants what amounts to "free market" policies and the people move to protect themselves from this. The US is a great example. De-industrialized and wealth concentration going through the roof, people on the left and right are trying to protect themselves from these effects. The right by attacking other working people with skin color different to themselves, who speak different languages from other countries, the left by trying to organize the people together against a common enemy, the profit system and the parasites who profit off of it.
Once again, you are ignoring my obvious points because you can't counter them, they're facts, they happened, there's nothing you can say. There IS massive waste in private institutions, you can't say there isn't. You're simply picking apart the way I articulate the obvious, so split hairs if it protects you emotionally.
I'm also perplexed about you ignoring the concentrated power of capitalists, especially private capitalists. They, without question, are much more powerful than most governments. Of the top 100 largest economies in the world, the majority are freaking corporations.
Whatever though, I'm done with this. Think what you want, even if history stares you in the face and says just the opposite.
Before you point out more nonsense about who gave them power, provide a single example in modern times of a mass privatization that wasn't corrupt. When you can't, think about the plausability of your pet philosophy. Even if you don't do it in a corrupt way, how do you privatize the services that governments currently provide and not make wealth concentration even worse? You privatize a resource or the delivery of a service and who can buy it but people who already have large amounts of capital? When they buy it they're even richer and can, in the future, buy even more privatized governmental services. This is the BEST case scenario, forget the actual delivery of the services. There's no logical way out. Again, if you can cite a good example of this in practice, give it.
Beyond abstract notions of individual liberty, I ask, once again: What services has the private market delivered better than the government? Pensions? The military? Water? The fire department? National Parks? Parking meters? Give me some examples.
"So far, every example I can find resoundingly supports the theory I'm operating on, which is that every major problem in society can be traced back to centralized control and its corrupting nature."
I wouldn't disagree with this. However, there is no way that business, the market, a system based on profits, market based environmental measures even (althoug much better than the present still not enough) can replace the current economic system and do a better job. They especially can't since we don't live in a system dominated by competion, the majority of industries are dominated by a few firms. We have an economic system dominated by large firms, especially financial firms. There is no way to break them up without the evil government, or some other organization that reflects popular will, doing it. The economics of scale make anything else impossible. There is no way a private institution that is not under the democratic control of those effected by that institution or the workers who produce tangeable things for society and who, as a result of competition and the profit motive, have interests the opposite of anyone who don't own that institution can possibly be the answer. They aren't and that system is not sustainable. I don't want to get into why because I've taken too long on this thread and we've already gone on too many damn tangents.
Another question, on top of what I asked bellow. Can you give an example of an unregulated market in modern times that didn't lead to domination by one or a few firms? As I said, I'm not aware of one. So, what are the alternatives, other than replacing the system all together?
I still don't see that we disagree significantly. Maybe it's a question of definitions. You seem to be fond of a lot of canned definitions, and we all know Orwell warned against this. Lemme try a different approach.
Look at it like this and I think you'll go over to my viewpoint. GOVERNMENT IS A CORPORATION. Get it? Same exact thing. It's a fictitious person or entity calling itself The People, with dirtbags (most often) running it for personal gain and the fulfillment of personal agendas. That's how it works. The only difference is that the government corporation is, or tends historically to become, completely unstoppable, as I'm sure you don't need me to elaborate on.
You have this fantasy that government has some brain or conscience. It is, by definition, a collection of control devices written down by who knows who for who knows what purpose and enforced with however much violence is necessary, every time.
Is the lesser evil a potential murderous totalitarian regime--which, I could argue, all governments have slid into in some respect--or potential monopolies or oligopolies in segments of the marketplace, which at least can be challenged in that same marketplace, or in the courts, if they don't have government protection?
Regarding free markets and history, I never attempted to cite any pure examples, I'm merely referring to an obvious principle. Competition provides incentive for better results. This is absolutely inescapable. You're using faulty logic in arguing that something being unprecedented is therefore impossible. This same logic would say that any new or novel thing must be a hallucination, not even worth contemplating in fact, for the very reason that it's new or novel. This is circular and silly reasoning. And on the reverse side I'm referring to an equally inescapable set of ideas: Centralized control will end in abuse of that control, so break it up. The biggest centralized controller possible is very obviously government, which makes it the biggest danger. This statement is certainly supported by any study of world history right up to the present moment.
Finally, before you build any other logical card houses for yourself you need to address, for your own understanding, the table that you're building them on. That is: the nature of money and the destruction of working people's lives that results from its creation and circulation being centrally controlled. Why is valueless paper money, or just credit even, created as public debt? Why has the government delegated the creation and control of money flow to private institutions, when a government can create the same for free using very elementary math, and have virtually no public debt or interest attached to it? Here you have the most vital question in all economics, because control of money availability and usage and arbitrary control of interest rates (not to mention the ability to plunge whole populations into debt without a word of conversation beforehand) is more power in the marketplace than any corporation could conceive of holding.
Bet you can't give me a non-convoluted reason why private parties are able to make the public pay, and pay with interest, in real labor, property and savings, for units of currency those private parties invent from their imaginations.
likely get more care than Vic received. And it won't cost him a dime.
I believe he is at the University of Michigan Hospital, one of the finest facilities in the world.
The criminal justice system of Michigan will pay for his care.
insurance, do we end up in prison and get it for free?
You will.
I believe Vic was actually a quadraplegic with only limited use if his hands, yet he was still able to pick and strum. It's a tough disability having a spinal injury that high up. It affects ALL aspects of your life and is a heavy cross.
Sad to hear.
Government regulations already dictate the terms of US health care, practically from beginning to end. Government programs pay for nearly half of US medical bills. Did we forget that? Not to mention that government micromanagement--done to help us of course--already controls who is allowed to practice and what hoops they must jump through, and what treatments they're allowed to offer. And don't insurance companies already dictate, through their collusion with our government, how much doctors charge?
So, the government killed Mr. Chestnut! Someone call the government! Competition, which forces quality and innovation while driving down prices, could have offered better care for less!
How many more sensitive musicians must we lose?!?
Let's think about what people like you want and what the effects have been. People like you claim that unions are evil, I can cite endless quotes from "libertarian" greats saying as much if you'd like. Well, far less workers are unionized than in the past. Has this proven to be a good thing? Have workers wages frozen or declined, for a majority of the population, since the early 70's? Yes, could this have anything to do with less unionized workers? Of course. We are told by people like you that financial liberalization is fundamental to economic freedom or whatever the hell (there are many rules in finance. Ever study what TYPE of rules they are? There are many rules in place in order to protect private property and to expand the definition of what is or should be private property. So yes, there are many regulations...protecting capital). Has financial liberalization not undermined endless democracies? If investors, big banks (ie rich financial capitalists) don't like policies that democracies choose, bye bye. Does this have anything to do with governmental policy becoming and more at odds with public opinion (which is well to the left of governmental policy, and you apparently)? Of course. We were told private institutions could deliver these services so much better than public institutions? Has that proven to be true? In which freaking world? Private, for profit, institutions have, and will always, more waste than public institutions. Profits are waste as far as the delivery of social services, as are marketing costs, administrative costs (always higher in private systems), dividend payments, executive pay, etc. All waste. Chile's privatized pension system is a great example, cited by groups like the freaking Heritage Foundation. The CONSERVATIVE candidate for president, during their last presidential election said that the system was fundamentally flawed and called for many more workers being put onto a pention system run by the government. Why? Because the system, which he acknowledged, was pretty much a disaster.
Latin America as a whole tried your type of policies, often against the wishes of the majority of people. Have the results been good? I mean, if they were, people would be in favor of them, right This is from about 11 months ago?
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N144...
According to the annual Latinobarometro survey, more than 80 percent of those living in continental Latin America and the Dominican Republic -- a region of 400 million people -- believe the government should control and oversee public services such as pensions, health and education, the annual survey showed.
...In Argentina, Chile and Uruguay, some 90 percent believe that pensions should be in the hands of the state. All currently have private pension systems. Seventy-eight percent of respondents in Chile also believe the telecoms system, privatized 20 years ago, should be in state hands.
“So, the government killed Mr. Chestnut!”
What a slimy comment. Don’t let ideology get in the way of a logical, convincing argument now. The profit motive in health care didn’t kill him. Nope, just like it doesn’t kill countless other people. How people could deny this is honestly beyond me. Nope, there are rules by the government in health care (because again private institutions have proven themselves as far as the delivery of these services and they’ve proven they can police themselves, haven’t they?), so ipso facto, the government killed him. So let’s keep profit and get rid of anyone having any say I’m totally happy knowing that some service I need might be denied because it isn’t profitable to cover, that some rich executive might receive a lower bonus (since it is tied to profits) if people like me get covered and I will hereafter have a pre-existing condition. Pre-existing conditions are perfectly rational as far as profit making, but the evil government might create another rule outlawing this, which I’m sure you’ll explain will kill more people somehow.
Your crystal ball has misinformed you. I'm all for people organizing of their own free will, all day, every day. I'm against strong-arm tactics used by or against the unions. And I'm against the government being employed in favor of unions or in favor of the employers. That's precisely the point at which everything goes to hell.
You're arguing against the knee-jerk assumption that I'm defending any version of the status quo, and you're therefore arguing against your own statements.
I agree with everything you say, I just add to that the understanding that there's a mechanical function at work and it isn't anything so vague as "greed" or people trying to make a profit. It's the fact that a government can institutionalize greed and the crass pursuit of profit, and silence, imprison, and kill off opposition. Once you get your brain around that age-old truth, proven time and again all throughout history, you'll find that you and I are on exactly the same page.
The problem that is impossible to do anything to change the status quo without changing the existing institutions. There is no mechanism that can do this but government. IF it were to be abolished it would have to be gradually and it would have to be preceeded by a social revolution that evened out the massive differences in wealth that capitalism has created. Getting rid of government in the world we live in is basically saying that you're in favor of a non-changeable class system. IF you get rid of government you have to replace it with SOMETHING, and that something will never be private businesses and a society in which the only property is private. I don't ASSUME a damn thing, I'm simply aware of the consequenses of the policies you seem to back. They lead logically to things you may not be in favor of.
I am, by the way, the closest to social anarchism. I know what you're saying. Again, simply doing away with government in the world we live in is to cement the class/caste system that is our current world.
An attempt to characterize my viewpoint as wanting to get rid of government. I'm just trying to point out, for those on this page, the gaping hole in their reasoning.
Separate from proposing a specific solution, I'm naming the problem, which is government's nature: corruption and inefficiency. You can't get rid of government. People in an area would instantly establish ground rules for themselves and there would be another government, so the idea is absurd. But you can understand what government can and can't do. It can provide mechanisms to protect us from very basic forms of fraud, violence, etc., but when you give it the right to *preemptively* pursue problems, be those problems homelessness, lack of medical care, economic panic (study the Federal Reserve) or potential terrorism in the Mid East, you've just created POWER that can't be challenged, and that is up for grabs by pressure groups, crooks, whoever. Safer that this power wasn't created. I think the entire 20th century in America illustrates this.
The notion that people will be stumbling around without plans or schemes, drooling and bumping into each other, or that people will be indiscriminately clubbing each other to death without the government to hold our hands or babysit us is a pathetically stupid idea. Not that this is your idea. Just speaking generally. People will organize, of their free will, for their own and the common good, very quickly and very efficiently. If there's a negative force which is not the government terrorizing society, then people can and will organize a counter force, and will cancel it out or limit it. They will in fact, bring the government into play against it. But if that negative force is the government itself, what do you do?
the idea that all problems fall back on government is ridiculous, especially given that private, for profit businesses have been given increasing control over the delivery of basic services, fighting wars, managing things like national parks, etc and doing so at a time of declining living standards and an increasing gap between public opinion and the policies of government. Are marginal tax rates higher or lower than the early 70's? Corporate taxes? Is capital more or less mobile than that time? Are there more or less unions? Are there more or less rules regarding trade and finance (again, I'm not talking about more rules protecting "private property")? Are currencies easier or harder to convert now than years ago? Has this benefited anyone but a small minority of people? I could go on and on, directly opposite to the past when government, more controled democratically by the people, had a far more active role in society and the economy. I agree that government and business works together. One last time, welcome to capitalist reality. Have you been asleep for a few hundred years? Socialize costs, privatize benefits. If the state steps back in a market economy that is dominated by competition and greed, I'm sorry self interested parties (enlightened or otherwise) it could only get worse. If you care to study history, ie reality, you'll discover this. Latin America is a good example. Good night.
You just shot yourself in the foot. Exactly as you say. Private, for-profit businesses have been GIVEN control over things. By the GOVERNMENT. The problem therefore lies in the government seizing the authority to control finer details of people's lives and interactions. You have illustrated my point, that that authority will be appropriated by the wrong people and misused, sooner or later, and ever increasingly so. The problem, once again, is traced back to centralized control and its corrupting nature. "Capitalism" and the other buzz words that you think summarize people and schools of thought still don't trump common sense. Call it whatever you want. I call it not fascism.
are you really such a fucking moron, or are you just pretending for the sake of discussion?
As I sit here contemplating this poor individual's personal choice to end his life, I feel compelled to share that I've been close to the same decision.
I have a back injury that causes chronic pain, and I can't afford to have an MRI to determine exactly what the injury has done--and what needs to be done to fix it. Meanwhile, I must be cautious of any housework or exercise that might exacerbate the injury. I am fearful, since I've felt my back 'go out' completely, making normal movement impossible for many scary, pain-filled moments.
I have carpal tunnel in my left hand so bad that I frequently awaken with severe pain. I have to shake my hand vigorously back and forth to alleviate the tingling and/or the excrutiating pain. If I write, make art, or type for too long a time, my left hand goes numb, and I have to massage it to get the feeling back. (It's tingling right now, so I know I'll have to stop typing soon...)
I have been experiencing tinnitus for the past two years, but none of the doctors I've seen (for other ailments) have responded to my requests for information, or help in addressing this. My research tells me that I will just have to cope with this incessant high-pitched noise.
And, just in the past four months, I've had a huge filling fall out of one of my molars, and I've had almost half of a molar on the other side of my mouth sheer off completely. I am prayerful that neither tooth becomes too painful before I can get them fixed...
Sigh... sounds grim, doesn't it? I have no insurance, so I cannot address any of these issues without incurring massive debts (the dentist I saw for the lost filling will need over $3000 for just the one tooth).
Still, I am determined to hold on until I get another contract (I'm a teacher), and I will address each problem as soon as I can...
AND, I am mindful of the fact that many, many other US citizens are in similar or worse straits.
At times, I am overcome with fear and sadness--knowing that the Corporate Megalomaniacs have so completely usurped our nation, relegating so many of us to poverty or near poverty. But, I refuse to let them usurp my spirit OR my joie de vivre! Now, when the fear or sadness threaten, I go to the park or to a bird sanctuary with my poo-poo doggie. I highly recommend this to anyone else out there in a similar challenging spot...
as I struggle daily with illness I can't get treated. Pets work wonders, don't they? I'm glad to hear your able to cope and remain optimistic. I wish we all could do so well.
And of course, have the government actually pass some care that would take care of it's citizens.
Eventually the Corporations that own this country will have no customers with any money to buy their products. I am waiting for that day and it is coming soon. We, the people, without any money, will figure out how to barter for goods and services and live without the latest electronic gadgets.
that a truly great talent was taken from us, I'm super pissed off that the for profit insurance companies allowed this to happen.
Yes, he was taken from us from very greedy people that only see the dollar as the bottom line.
Damn the insurance cartel!
whose role should have been strictly *regulating* profits or taking the place of the insurance companies. I have to wonder if Chestnutt was hanging in there expecting real reform finally from the govt with a Democratic administration (per campaign promises), then threw in the towel when he realized it wasn't coming.
The government knows about the practices of health insurance companies and the end results of said practices. And does Nothing about it.
Great job douchebag, killing yourself on Christmas. Sorry for sounding harsh but i have no sympathy for him.
Did you ever thought about the ones you left behind. Bah, what a selfish act.I know after i have experienced two suicides in my family to see what kind of grieve they cause.
You have no idea what it is like to be lobotomize under pain medication, because you can't think clearly with this stabbing pain in your side. I have never thought of suicide, but when my kidney were failing I knew I could not keep living like this.
Most people commit suicide when under the influence of drugs, but there are no drugs strong enough to handle a kidney failing, and the stronger drugs can also make it worse for the kidney to filter. Top it off he was wheel chair bound which also means that exercising enough to use sweat to excrete toxin from the body was hard to do to bypass and assist normal kidney function.
I soak the bed and my shirt daily from the kidney pains, until I got help. I have been told that being burn is the most painful experience, and I have been badly burn long time ago, and I would have to disagree, and say that kidney pain a 100 times worse.
is truly touching.
I realize this being my first post on here (I thought I had signed up and posted before, but perhaps that was Raw Story), this is going to perhaps be viewed as a troll like post, but I assure you it's not. I am a pretty sympathetic person, but I have a hard time feeling REAL sorry here.
I mean, 90% of his health issues were of his own making. He drove drunk and as a result he was in an accident and was paralyzed. That's messed up and I feel bad for anyone who has to live while in a wheelchair, but as someone who was in a car accident and had a loved one die because of a drunk driver, I can't really draw up a lot of sympathy for him on that aspect.
And then he kills himself. I acknowledge that it was probably painful and I don't pretend to know what that specific pain feels like, but once again...90% of this seems to be of his own making.
I also can't really draw up any sympathy for someone who kills themselves. I feel bad for his family who has to live without him now.
Health care needs to be fixed and hopefully the Reform bill can be passed with a public option or something similar so that those without health care will get it. But this guy killed himself because he couldn't deal with his own self-made circumstances.
I know that sounds harsh and I'm realizing it does, but still. I feel bad for his family and will pray for them, but I'm not going to celebrate a drunk driver who kills himself.
..I have sympathy for the family as well but this guy lived in a world of his own making and then ended his own life. Yes, health care needs to be reformed especially after this past week's "triumph" in the best senate money can buy.
The man just died, please shut up out of respect for his family and those who loved him.
it's about a human being who could not afford medical care.
The reason does not matter.
Are you fat?
Do you drink alcohol?
Do you drive fast?
What limits would we put on YOUR self-imposed activities in order to deny you care for medical conditions?
When that Clue Bus hits you, I hope you have good coverage.
It doesn't matter how he got there. That's irrelevant. The issue of DUI is separate. He was sick. He needed care. He couldn't get it in the richest, most resourceful country on the planet. He became despondent. Many of us have not committed suicide but have certainly contemplated it, so it is not beyond the realm of possibility to many of us.
Robert Fuller,
The government is not the problem. It is simply the vehicle by which the elite make laws that benefit the few and deny the many. You libertarians are so shortsighted.
Virtual: What about all the people on here and the other sites that were savaging Oral Roberts and other conservatives who died? I didn't care for Oral Roberts at all, and regularly mocked him when he was around. But people on here and other sites routinely made pretty disgusting comments about him when he died.
Not comparing the lives of Vic and Oral but just saying. It seems that people only pull the "have respect for the recently passed" when it's someone we care about. And I'm certainly guilty of THAT as well. I'm not perfect and not holding myself up as that.
Trantorian: I politely disagree that the DUI is separate. A lot of his medical issues stemmed in part from his being in a wheelchair. He was put in the wheelchair due to his driving drunk. You can't really dispute that, can you?
As I said I'm not trying to be an asshole here, just pointing out the obvious. I feel bad for his family, though.
As for contemplating suicide, I've definitely dealt with depression and the such, so I can wholeheartedly understand the thoughts and desires. I have the problem LESS with that, then the DWI aspect to it.
I respect both of your opinions though.
I never realized Vic's situation had gotten that bad. For some reason I have always associated this song from his latest album (edited: did not realize he had released another album after Dark Developments) with the debate for HCR. Not sure why, maybe it is something about the mournful tone and the lyrics that reinforce how screwed we are.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3pL_ua0eCE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u3tfwLJdtq0
The title and lyrics are not safe for work, but let's just say I thought he was talking about GWB and not himself on first listen.
is what the Easter Islanders shouted from the tree tops.....
So the we the people( who collectively would have the power and can force change at " central control ") ,society , the Hospitals , the Doctors etc. are therefore relieved of any responsibility or accountability , after all "central control" did not make a law that we should be compassionate , ethical and moral and put peoples lives first , profit and the $ second ? Bull shit . That's the some kind of rationale , same that the Nazis and their sympathizers who took part in the slaughter used after the war . Blame it on "central control" , they call the shots and make the rules but this is not a dictatorship yet , those A holes have to be elected to office , hell , the Vietnam war would still be going on with the Americans of today and your reasoning . It's in vain alright but my anger sure isn't "misdirected" .
I had an double kidney operation 5 years ago on Dec 23rd, and before that I was under tremendous pain indescribable, and nothing you can do to sooth it. Pain pill will only render you semi-conscious with a cement hard stool when you shit because it would dehydrate your bowel movement, which end up giving you another pain. I watch my tumor grow from a coin to a Grapefruit size mass, until one hospital decide that I was close to death.
That's the ER care that Republican are talking about for the poor without insurance. Wait till you are close to death before you get that operation. Similar to this guy, I really have to be careful because I now have a remaining of a partial kidney which is more prone to organ failure and less lattitude for creatinine level for toxicity in the body to build up.
Normal level is 1.2, and mine been at 1.6 at best. At that level over a period of time can break down other organs. Fixing at the early moment possible would have left me with a bigger kidney, and waiting till your close to death is just patching up a situation, cobbling a body together haphazardly.
All this funding for a war with no hesitation, and yet to cover the damages from the war is a fight to the battle to get it done. Going to be a lot of soldier coming back needing care, and we can't care for the one we have now at the home front.
I don't think I saw this anywhere above in the post, but Kristin Hersh set up a page for people to donate to Vic's family to help defray the costs of his medical bills:
http://kristinhersh.cashmusic.org/vic/
There are a lot of things to spend your money on, some more crucial than others, and I'm not trying to persuade anyone to give to this fund. I just thought it should have a link somewhere here, since some fans who read this might not know about it.
Vic has been a favorite of mine since the mid-90's. I've seen him several times and got to talk to him quite a bit once, too. I'm not rich, but I'll be giving some amount at least comparable to what I likely would have spent on his albums in the next ten years, had he stuck around.
He has a pre-existing condition. Quadraplegia. And because of that he cannot buy health insurance.
Well..actually..he can buy hospitalization insurance for $500 a month and then ALL other costs go to him.
GREATEST COUNTRY E-V-E-R.
Say it again ya'll...
GREATEST COUNTRY E-V-E-R
American Exceptionalism. If you don't understand the concept, ask a republican.
Hey, but Obama says he got 95% of what he wanted, so it's all good! /snark
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