End The War on Drugs – Russell Brand’s Documentary

Russell Brand End The Drugs War

YouTube.com
By Dark Politricks

As someone who has been around drugs all my life in the UK it is interesting to see different people’s perspectives on drugs.

You can read my own thoughts on drugs and the war on it here: The Drug Laws Need Re-Thinking.

If you know my history and my current conitions then you will know I am on Fentanyl for my chrionic pain condition, a drug 100 * stronger than Morphine and many times more potent than heroin. It’s a drug that they cut heroin with and has caused many deaths in the USA.

I am not committing a crime by taking this strong opiate because I am being prescribed it by my GP for my pain.

It’s given to me in patches I stick on my body where the drug is slowly absorbed over 2 days . It’s supposed to be 3 days but I am on the highest dose and the GP has overruled NICE rules on medications due to the severity of my condition.

When I go to the chemist to collect my supply they have to get it from the Controled Drugs Supply where I then sign an extra part of the form. It is a strong drug, one that I was told by a girl I met who worked at a homeless centre when I was in iceland (where heroin wasn’t available) that if I threw one of my patches into the middle of a crowd of homeless addicts they would fight to the death over it. Apparently due to the lack of heroin any Icelandic addict would cook these patches up, extract the Fentanyl and then inject or smoke it.

Basically though it doesn’t touch the sides on me and I get no buzz at all from taking it through a patch. This is probably why I am prescribed the maximum amount and over 2 not 3 days plus other prescribed pain killers, and of course taking other strong drugs as well to ease the pain.

For me to be on a drug that is legal because a GP gave it to me and for another person to be a criminal for using it because they bought it off me in the streets is madness in my mind.

Why is it ok to take a mind and body altering drug when it is supplied by the “system” but not when you buy it to take it for recreational purposes.

Why is it okay to ease the pain of the body but not of the mind?

You can see how the Goverments involved in cracking down doors in the morning and locking up junkies are two faced by the way they keep the drugs flowing.

From Vietnam and the Golden Triangle, Columbia and Mexico and their own internal wars and to Afghanistan where opium and now Heroin production has increased hugely since the most recent war started.

Let’s not forget that it was US policy to let Opium be grown in Afghanistan when the Soviets were at war in the same country 30 years ago to get their soldiers addicted and demoralise them as well as use the funds from the sales to pay for weapons for what is now al-Qaeda.

You can read all about the CIA’s involvment in the production and selling of drugs in this 4 part article and the most amazing quote comes from the biggest heroin producer in the 1980’s from Burma, Khun Sa, who when interviewed claimed that the the CIA were one of his best customers.

“by 1986 he was refining 80 percent of the opium harvest in the Golden Triangle. The king of opium trade, Khun Sa had risen to become the world’s largest single heroin trafficker by controlling 60 percent of the world’s illicit opium supply.”

“In 1986, Bo Gritz went to Burma with White House approval to meet with Khun Sa who supposedly had information on American MIAs. Khun Sa said that he wanted to end the opium and heroin traffic in his territory and to expose American officials involved in the drug smuggling. Gritz claimed that he took this message to the United States government and was told by Tom Harvey of the National Security Council that “there is no interest here” in the Khun Sa overture. Gritz had in his possession 40 hours of video tape of Khun Sa who “charged American officials, both past and present, with being the chief buyers of drugs produced in that part of the world.” He also claimed that he wanted to stop drug trafficking, but that the United States government would not let him. Khun Sa said that the CIA were some of his best customers. He offered support to the DEA to alert them of drug movements, but this was rejected at the headquarters level.”

For more information about the CIA’s involvement in drug smuggling please read the following articles:

http://www.darkpolitricks.com/cia-involvement-in-drug-smuggling-part-1

http://www.darkpolitricks.com/cia-involvement-in-drug-smuggling-part-2

http://www.darkpolitricks.com/cia-involvement-in-drug-smuggling-part-3

http://www.darkpolitricks.com/cia-involvement-in-drug-smuggling-part-4

You might aready know that the rulers of our world have no interest in stopping the war on drugs just like they have no interest in stopping the war on terror.

They are benefiting from it.

They are earning good money from the misery of others and it just shows what kind of people we are being controlled by when they would rather make another billion to add to their existing hundreds than stop people living in squalour taking heroin to ease the pain of the existence these overlords have created for them.

What a world.

As I sit here and write this I am watching Russell Brand’s documentary on the war on drugs on BBC3.

He is an ex addict and I recommned reading his book Revolution at the same time.

It discusses the fact that we are all tring to escape reality because reality is so crap.

As some ex addict says “Drugs and Drink are the answer to reality” – It’s true. When reality is so crap that it doesn’t give you anything more than cheap consumerism, materialism, banksterism and a lack of jobs and free training for people who want it. Why wouldn’t you want to escape it by going up the pub, taking drugs, watching TV or other mind numbing activities.

I suggest you watch his documentary as he interviews politiicans, goes on drug raids, speaks to addicts and politiicans and visits drug clinics in Switzerland where people are allowed to bang up and smoke crack.

Russel Brand – End The Drugs War

This is the blurb above the video on YouTube.com.

Russell Brand: End the Drugs War BBC Full Documentary 2014

The documentary Russell Brand made for BBC Three in 2012 concluded with him giving evidence to the Home Affairs Select Committee. Drawing on his own experience of drug taking and recovery, he advocated treating addiction as a health issue rather than a criminal problem and underlined his own belief that abstinence is the best way to help addicts.

Since then the Committee has reported its findings, concluding that the British drugs laws were failing and that it was a ‘now or never’ moment to reform them. But David Cameron didn’t agree, insisting that the drugs policy is working in Britain and that we should ‘stick at it’.

In this personal journey for BBC Three, Russell Brand sets out to challenge that point of view. He wants to find out how other countries are tackling their problems of drug abuse and to explore how the framework of criminalization implicit in the ‘war on drugs’ produces enormous harm in the treatment of addicts. Russell believes that ‘a shift’ is happening in the way that people view drug addiction. But to really change things he needs to persuade those who have power.

Russell starts on the frontline of the ‘war on drugs’ by joining the Met Police as they carry out dawn drug raids, and ends up sharing a police cell with a young addict who has been in and out of prison since she began taking drugs aged 12. He witnesses the dangers of street addiction in Birmingham, but is as shocked by what he sees in the legal ‘drug-consumption room’ he visits in Berne, capital of conservative Switzerland.

At a drug recovery conference, Russell is drawn into an argument about abstinence versus government methadone programmes, but also finds an unlikely ally for his campaign in a Tory lord. At a UN drugs conference in Vienna he meets the politician who in 2001 decriminalized drugs in Portugal. What Russell discovers from him informs his impassioned plea at the end of the conference that drugs should be decriminalized.

As he takes his argument public, Russell finds his views are challenged by those who say that the public fear that lifting criminalization will also lift drug use. But a second encounter with the young addict he met during the Met drug raid (who, since then, has been in prison, been released and is back on drugs) bolsters his belief.

Russell meets the deputy prime minister, Nick Clegg, who surprises him by agreeing in principle that the ‘war on drugs’ is futile and unsuccessful, but then frustrates him by explaining the lack of political will to move forward quickly to change things for the better.

Presenter Russell Brand
Executive Producer Liz Hartford
Producer Ross Wilson
Director Ross Wilson
Production Company Matchlight Ltd

View the original video at YouTube.com.

View the original article on the main site Russell Brand End The Drugs War – By Dark Politricks

What is going on with our NHS system?

What is going on with our NHS system?

By Dark Politricks

With the recent sad story of a World War II hero having to sell his medals to pay for his care in his old age I thought I would write about my own experience with the NHS.

Whilst I have found it to be excellent when you are wheeled in unconscious from an ambulance into accident and emergency, if you have a long term health issue or require non emergency treatment I have found it to be slow, unresponsive and at times down right ridiculous.

Labour tried and failed to introduce a multi-billion pound national health database to be used by all hospitals and doctors surgeries that was then scrapped due to technical and userbility failures amongst various other issues.

As a computer programmer myself I know how easy it could have been to write a system that would be secure, allow enough flexibility for doctors to add new information as well as give patients access to their own health records.

I cannot see why an Internet based system could not be created that had a secure log on for doctors and different levels of security to stop the GP secretary from reading your personal health history. All whilst allowing a doctor at the hospital to add notes and upload scans and files one minute and for them to be instantly accessible by your GP the next.

There is nothing more ridiculous in my eyes than having a scan in the ultra sound department at the hospital then being given a scanned copy of the files and told to walk 50 metres down the hall to another department and hand them over to another doctor. All the while computers sit on top of desks. Does every department within a hospital have it’s own IT system? It seems that way and if so why?

If you know me, you will know I have had serious health problems over the last few years and it has certainly been an eye opener for me in how the NHS works.

I have to see multiple doctors all at different locations. From my GP at my local surgery, to consultants at the pain management clinic and the hospital and counselors at other locations.

If one of these doctors recommend a course of treatment or a new drug or examination I have to literally wait weeks whilst the doctor in question writes down the details or dictates into a microphone recorder the details which are then copied to paper. The details are then sent in the post – sometimes only hundreds of metres up the road (I kid you not, one place I visit is less than 200 metres from the hospital!) before arriving at my GP‘s surgery where it sits until a receptionist opens it and transcribes it into their own local computer system.

If I make an appointment for a month from the initial visit I “might” be lucky enough for the details to appear on my doctors own computer system when I finally get an appointment with her and if not I have to wait another week until they do get transcribed and copied onto their own computer system.

It has got to the stage where I frequently demand that they copy the letter out there and then and I take a physical copy by hand to the other doctor in question rather than wait so long.

On one occasion one doctor wanted to prescribe me a stong pain killer for my pain and I took a hand written copy straight to my GP where she read it and prescribed the drug straight away. If I had left it to the normal method I would have had to wait weeks at the very least.

Apparently email is out of the question due to the legal implications of opening the Royal Mail opposed to intercepting electronic communications. The sentence for the crime of opening the Queens mail is seemingly stronger and that is why they use the post and not email! A basic website as I previously mentioned would do the job – I would even write it for them if they wanted and I wouldn’t charge £20 billion for doing so!

Now I respect the NHS, unlike the USA we don’t let the poor die due to lack of insurance and we don’t expect to pay before we are treated. We also are not faced with huge crowds of people using the local accident and emergency room as a doctors for minor ailments due to laws that state they cannot turn a patient away. We also don’t have to take out huge loans or pay massive chunks of our salary towards health insurance that may OR may not cover you for your current problem.

I’m pretty young, yet I already have a pre-existing condition. That would mean I would have to pay lots to get insured and if I didn’t work I don’t know what I would do. In fact I would probably already be dead if I couldn’t get cheap insurance to cover me.

There have been times I have been jobless and broke. I have also had to go to hospital. How I would have paid for insurance or a large hospital bill I have no idea!

It seems the NHS is screwed.

They have separate procurement services – why don’t they bulk buy as a national company and get everything cheaply?

Gordon Brown’s PPI may have built lots of nice new hospitals but it has also loaded them up (and the country) up with debt and forced hospitals to use private companies for minor maintenance whereas having a full time odd job man on the pay roll would have been much cheaper in the long run. Instead they have to hire specific companies and pay stupid inflated amounts of money just to change light bulbs – £70 is the figure I have heard.

Our policy of adhering to the hippocratic oath is admirable but it also means we have become a target for health tourists who come halfway across the world to claim expensive medical care paid for by my tax money.

Whilst I lie here in severe pain, waiting months for my next appointment to come through the post someone from another country who hasn’t paid tax or even worked towards funding the NHS is taking up resources that should be dedicated to the people who pay for it i.e. you and me.

Our parents and grand parents fought two World Wars to get our social safety net that includes a pension, dole money and a health service. We are supposed to pay for it out of our National Insurance contributions but instead the money has been diverted over the years to fund military campaigns and other huge wastes of tax payers money.

Our National Insurance cards should have to be displayed before any social security and health services are delivered. It doesn’t mean we are loaded and have paid in more than a certain amount but it does mean we are a tax paying resident citizen of the UK and entitled through our own and our parents contributions to be put ahead of those who are costing the service billions due to over crowding and health tourism.

Stop paying to have NHS and Social Security leaflets printed up in 20+ languages and for interpreters to be present at the cost of cancer medication to a 90 year old UK citizen.

If we are having doctors making life or death decisions due to cost restrictions then UK nationality should be at the top of the list far above factors such as whether you smoke (and pay billions into the NHS), drink (and do the same) or are obese or unfit.

These are all factors which should be combated before a person gets ill from them and pre-emptive health care is always better than fixing a puncture once your lung or heart goes “pop” anyway. Start young, start at school, stop the kids getting fat and ill in the first place by teaching them how to cook healthy tasty food instead of letting them just go down the chippy at lunch.

The same goes for an “integrated” social care policy. Currently because of the lack of any foresight or planning our hospital beds are merry go rounds for OAP’s who are sent home before they are ready and then end up back in hospital within the week. Either that of the lack of proper social care in a home means they stay in hospital beds longer than they should be and deny them from people who require them.

The actual implementation of an integrated travel system, where airports, major train stations and roads are all linked instead of being miles apart would help grow our economy and bring people and wealth to all parts of our country. An integrated health and social care system would prevent the mis-use of hospital resources and stop them being used as replacements for proper social care. The same goes for using prisons as storage facilities for the mentally ill, the homeless and the addicted.

Labours and now the Tories ideas of introducing “internal markets” within the health service is just another foolish way to introduce “privatisation” into something that is owned by the people. It is another area where capitalism is not going to work to drive down costs and deliver better services.

Just like trains that cannot physically run on the same tracks and makes a mockery of true competition on the railways where prices rise every single year. A true market cannot be created in our health system due to the nature of the beast. Are you going to ask the ambulance to go to the nearest hospital when you’re having a heart attack or stroke or are you going to risk travelling an extra 20 miles just because another hospital has a better survival rate?

Should we turn our hospitals into shops bidding for our business and send bills out for treatment, putting people into debt to pay for them. Or should we try to cut waste, combine resources and limit the users of our service to those who deserve it, saving money and using it more wisely by reducing managers and back office staff many of who’s jobs can be automated.

The number of receptionists at various hospital departments that could be automated with touch screen computers that tell the relevant doctor or consultant you have arrived probably runs into the thousands.

The amount of time and money that is wasted by transcribing notes so that they can be posted when they could be spoken directly into a computer system using speech to text technology probably runs into more than a few thousand per month.

And the cost in stamps or pre-paid postage that could be saved by having a simple website that allows all doctors concerned with your case to see your notes, upload digital screenshots of scans and write comments for other doctors to see probably runs into the millions.

Just by limiting the resources of our precious health service to those who actually deserve it and who own a national insurance card would save millions again. We cannot afford to be the preferred free health care destination for the world.

For those people who don’t like the idea of turning away illegal immigrants then private charities and religious organisations can combine their resources to pay for their own hospitals that are open to those who are not national insurance contributers.

There are so many things that could be done to cut waste and automate procedures it wouldn’t be hard apart from unions kicking off when jobs are lost due to the cut backs.

However I am tired of waiting 3 months just to get an appointment for a pain removal injection and then wait another month until the actual operation.

I am tired of having to convince one doctor to give me a copy of  their letter to me so I can personally deliver it to another doctor so I don’t have to wait a month to get my presecription.

I am fed up of having X-Rays that show something wrong with me but because my GP is on holiday and the locum doesn’t know me I am being told to just wait until she comes back whilst kidney stones are causing me imense pain.

I am pissed off at having to spend an hour in the morning trying to get through to my local GP surgery to find that all the appointment slots for the day have gone and that I cannot book an appointment with my GP until next week.

I am seriously fucked off that I am paying for someone who has never worked a day in their life or who has no right to the NHS to enjoy better health care whilst I have to suffer in pain and still go to work to pay for the National Insurance that pays for their treatment.

Our system is certainly not perfect and when compared to the USA I would pick the NHS any day of the week. However we need to sort out the whole system so that it survives into the future and we don’t end up turning to a private insurance based system as some kind of fix.

When 90 year old War hero’s are having to sell off their medals then something is seriously wrong with our social care system and we need to fix it fast before Cameron and Co chose another war over looking after their citizens health.

View the original article “What is happening to our NHS” at Dark Poltricks.

The Grand Bargain will prove Obama is no progressive and that it’s business as usual in Washington

The Grand Bargain will prove Obama is no progressive and that it’s business as usual in Washington

By Dark Politricks

There has been a lot of talk lately about the “Grand Bargain” that is going to be made between Obama and the GOP to try and balance the books and prevent the government’s having to deal with the “deficit cliff” that would massively reduce spending and raise taxes.

This is something Cenk Uygur talks about in this video. About how the real aim is to let the right of centre President Obama make a deal with the Republican party in the lame duck session so that business can continue as usual. The real aim being to once again lett the poor and the middle class suffer by giving away cuts to their services and benefits in exchange for tax cuts to the wealthy. Once again the poor get screwed so the rich can get richer.

This is something that Cenk’s math’s shows is totally unnecessary and can be avoided just by letting the George W Bush tax cuts expire by kicking the ball into the long grass and waiting for a Democratic controlled house.

Although Cenk is obviously a liberal he is someone who attacks both Obama for his non progressive views and his right of centre beliefs.

As I previously stated if Obama WAS a true liberal he would not be doing any of the following:

• Allowing the Federal government to go after State legal pot dispensaries for medicinal marijuana.
• Also threatening the new states Colorado and Washington who have recently legalised recreational marijuana with the DEA. Both wasting time, money and ignoring the wishes of the states population. See the Anti State Rights Pledge here.
• Continuing the war on terror in a more forcible way than his predecessor George W Bush. Including drone strikes that kill 49 civilians to every 1 terrorist.
• Letting soldiers based in America use Playstation controllers to kill people halfway across the world as if it was just another version of Call of Duty. Then already de-sensitised by not having these soldiers in the “kill zone”, seeing the carnage they have wrought first hand, they use a double tap method to kill anyone else who comes to the aid of the victims whether they are women, children or other non combatants.
• Introducing blatantly anti-liberal laws such as the NDAA, continuing the State of Emergency enacted after 9.11 and letting the PATRIOT ACT continue on harassing and spying on citizens and journalists alike who are trying to bring some accountability to the government.
• Allowing his much “celebrated” health care act to become a piece of legislation that both liberals and conservatives hate in that it forces people to pay for a product they may or may not want or use. He modelled it on a Republicans health care plan (Mitt Rommey) and is basically forcing people to become customers of the health insurance companies. A true liberal would have gone for a public option or none at all not giving an already rich sector of business a market that is compelled to buy their product.

Also if Obama was NOT an establishment stooge he would surely be doing all of the following:

• Locking up the banksters that brought the USA and then the world to it’s knees financially.
• Not allowing the FED to continue printing money and devaluing the dollar in a race to the bottom that is killing savers and de-meaning true capitalism.
• Not appointing neo-con and right wing ministers to head up agencies in Homeland Security, the DEA, the CIA and the Department of Defence.
• Cutting and not increasing the Department of Defences already bloated budget and using the money to fund projects that help middle class Americans NOT the military industrial complex.
• Reeling back the intrusive surveillance state that has seen a million Americans become holders of top secret intelligence clearance and introduced huge city sized databases such as the one being built under UTAH. All to hold all the information gained by spying on American and Europeans bank records, phone calls, text messages, CCTV footage (see TRAPWIRE) and Internet usage.
• Allowing big business and well funded lobbyists to dictate his policy instead of trying to take corporate money out of politics.
• Following the right wing pro-Israeli line that all American Presidents seem to take. Forgetting all their breaches of international law, illegal wars, assassinations in foreign lands, illegal settlement buildings and illegal blockades that Israel constantly inflict on Palestinians and their neighbours.

However Obama is not a true liberal.

He is a centre right politician who is both an establishment stooge and someone beholden to big business and the banksters who robbed the country.

He is also someone all too willing to compromise what little beliefs he has to get bi-paritsan support in Congress whether or not that means sacrificing whatever little principles he may or may not hold.

As Cenk says:

“First of all, let’s establish that no one in Washington actually cares about balancing the budget. If they did, they would love this so-called Fiscal Cliff. It raises taxes and cuts spending, so it would massively reduce the deficit. Isn’t that what all of Washington has been pretending to care about all of this time?

Second, understand that this so-called compromise they are talking about in order to avoid this supposed calamity is a trick. In fact, it’ll be the greatest robbery in American history. Think about it — they say they are worried about all those tax increases and spending cuts. But that’s not true. The Grand Bargain would dramatically increase spending cuts, not alleviate them. So, in fact, the only thing they care about is paying less taxes, as always.“

Watch Cenk explain his maths and the unfairness of the “Grand Bargain” below.

Watch uploaded videos from the The Young Turks here.

Follow me on Twitter at twitter.com/darkpolitricks

View the original article on www.darkpolitricks.com here.

End the war of terror and cut the deficit!

By Dark Politricks

The USA is about to enter what my country, the UK, started a year ago with it’s slash n burn policies that aim to cut the public deficit and ward off the bond villiganties as well as all those nasty rating agencies threatening to cut their triple AAA rating.

The UK has just released it’s latest growth figures which were a shockingly poor 0.2%. Our political leaders which shamefully include liberal democrats in their ranks believe this is the only way forward.

Our interest rates are as low as they can go and our inflation rate is climbing steadily higher each month as the price of petrol, food and other commodities increase rapidly.

Our government has started it’s plan to “rebalance” the economy by cutting government departments by 20% or more in the hope that the private sector will rush in to fill the job gap which in turn means that thousands of of public sector worker jobs will be lost.

The fact that some parts of the country such as Wales, Scotland or the North are totally reliant on public sector jobs seems lost on them and as of yet the private sector jobs haven’t come flooding in to these areas and the only thing that has risen is the number of people out of work and claiming the dole.

On top of this they are raising taxes and  slashing local government budgets which in turn lead to the closure of public services vital to local communities such as health centres, parks, playgroups, libraries, sport centers, bus services and all the rest. All the time it continues down this path it does so with it’s fingers stuck in it’s ears, ignoring all other opinions that say their actions are going to actually cause more harm than good. There is no plan B we are constantly told.

Whilst both the UK and USA share common charecteristics in that their economic downturns were made worse by huge amounts of public and state debt and an over reliance on the financial sector, it seems we are both going to be linked in our approaches to “fixing” the problem as well. On both sides of the Atlantic the common man and woman is going to be forced to pay for the mistakes of the rich and powerful.

Whilst the amount of US debt runs into double digit trillions as a percentage of GDP we both share similar sized deficits and we also share a common characteristic  in that the people that should be paying off the debt aren’t. Instead the poorest and worst equiped are being asked to shoulder more than their fair share of the burden.

As it should be clear to anyone by now our politicians are all basically hypocrites and liars and recent policies from political parties on boths side of the Atlantic show that the standard labels of conservative or liberal no longer have any real meaning.

To those of you that call yourself a Liberal I ask how can you support a President who has not only carried on the worst of the Bush era excesses in relationto the rise of the Amerikan Police State but has also increased the number of wars your country is now fighting in. As bad as they both may be it seems he is now ignoring his base and is actually now pushing for large cuts in social security when even the opposition weren’t demanding it during recent deficit reduction negotiations.

If you were against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan then logic and reason dictates that you should be against the wars in Yemen, Pakistan and Libya. The colour of the President or the name of the party he represents should have no relation on your core values.

If they do then you are a hypocrite.

To those that call yourself Conservative how can you support spending a quarter of your yearly GDP on war mongeringwhilst neglecting the millions that are now homeless or hungry because of the financial crisis. If you’re from the “religious right” then your bible dictates that you should be looking out for your neighbour and not murdering foreigners.

To want your tax dollars spent propping up Middle Eastern dicators, safe guarding illegal settlements inIsrael or spreading the American empire is not conservative in the slightest. Your department of defence has become a department of attack and it spends more than every country on the earth combined.

Believe it or not most people don’t want you to be the world’s police man especially when it means you spend billions fighting al-Qaeda in one part of the world only to recognise them as a legitimate government in another.

That is not conservative that is wasteful, hypocritical and an affront to most religions I know of.

Not only that but many conservatives claim to be against handouts yet they are happy to see their government give huge handouts to military related companies such as Blackwater/Xe and Haliburton or bankster run companies such as Goldman or Bank of America.

Why are you against helping your fellow Americans by having a national health service or a well funded social security safety net but perfectly happy handing over billions to vested interests and corporate bad guys?

The amount of money wasted on foreign wars over the last decade would pay for free health care for every man, woman and child in America.  Surely the best way to have a healthy capitalist run society is to have a healthy workforce. How is it morally right to chose death and destruction over health and life?

This whole deficit sharade is nothing more than an excuse by those in power to cut back the amount of help they give to those who deserve it the most you the tax payer.

You pay the taxes you should derive the benefit from the combined total of those taxes through good social services, health care, schools and social amenities.

You may quibble about the size of the government and what duties it should perform but most people would agree that in these current hard time the losers should not be the old, the weak, the disabled and the infirm and the winners should most definitely not be the people that caused the mess in the first place!

Why spent billions creating terrorists of the future by blowing up villages across the world when instead you could be helping your fellow Americans who are in desperate need. The hundreds of thousands who are now living in tents or on the streets because of foreclosures or the multitudes forced into a life of a crime just to make ends meet.

You may want to live in a society where your own hard work leads to success and personal reward that is not taken away by the state but living in a society that is loaded towards the fraudsters and war makers is going to effect your standard of living whether you want it to or not.

By ignoring your fellow man you are building up trouble down the line through increased crime, higher numbers of people addicted to drink and drugs and higher insurance premiums for everything. If you really want to live in a country with no government jump onto the next plane to Somalia and see how long you last when the gangsters really run everything.

However much logic may show otherwise our respected governments are ignoring those who really need help and pushing the burden onto the middle classes by increasing taxes either directly as in the UK through VAT, National Insurance hikes and rises in Pension contributions or indirectly through rapidly rising inflation.

Our governments are more concerned in helping their real constituents, the people that “really matter” to them which are the banksters and military industrial complex companies that are in fact the real drain on our economies.

Just imagine how many schools or hospitals could be built with just a months worth of Tomahawk missiles ($400,000 each) that are fired repeatedly into Afghani mud huts or Libyan houses.

Is it really logical or moral in these times to be supporting Muslim extremists in a civil war when the money could be better spent back home? No it’s not and there is one simple solution to the deficit problem.

Stop the war of terror.

Bring the troops home.

Close those huge multi-billion dollar bases that are dotted around the world and sell the land to make back some money.

Stop propping up dictators and stop propping up Israels illegal occupation in Palestine and gain some international respect by becoming a proper honest broker instead of the pro-Zionist big brother that pulls out a veto every time someone criticises Israel in the UN.

Not only will your national defense be strengthened by these actions you will stop turning multitutdes of people who are relatives of innocents caught up in drone attacks into future jihadists and “terrorists” out for revenge.

As well as that easy win you should also put all those banksters in jail instead of rewarding them with bailouts and then allowing politicans to walk into jobs at Goldman Sachs once they leave office.

It should be made illegal for any politican to work for any company they had any interest in whilst in power. If you voted to bailout Goldman then no job for you when you leave office! If you voted for the War of Terror then you shouldn’t be able to walk into a job at Xe or a security company that has benefited from the rise of the high tech surveillance state afterwards.

Add to that any bankster who earns multi-millions whilst working for a bank in receipt of tax payers money should be forced to pay a much higher rate of income tax than the norm.

Remember these are not “wealth creators” or “job makers” as some like to put it they are asset strippers and vultures that lie, cheat and “borrow” from your pension fund so that they can gamble on the stock market drive up the price of food causing starvation around the world and then if they lose their bet they go cap in hand to the government for another hand out from the tax payers.

The fact that hardly any banksters have gone to jail is a sign of how utterly corrupting their influence is over your political system.

In fact there is no need to make the poorest in society pay when so much money is being wasted propping up the top few percent.

UKUncut has the right idea when it comes to big companies escaping paying their fair dues. If you are a 9 to 5 blue collar worker you cannot afford fancy accountants to move your money around from shell company to offshore accounts to avoid paying tax so it should be made illegal for the richest in society to do the same.

Just by ensuring all the big fortune 500 companies and FTSE 100 companies pay their rightful share of corporation tax it would mean that the amount of money that is being scraped back from public worker pensions and cuts in social security would be less than minimal.

Ever notice how our papers in the UK are full of stories about people cheating the dole, claiming benefits they shouldn’t or making out they are sick or single just to claim an extra £10 or so a week?

There is a reason the papers want you to concentrate your righteous anger on the poor and not the wealthy and that’s because the papers are all owned by Murdoch types who pay as little tax as possible and in any world where the size of the fraud fitted the lines printed about it would be filling their own papers up week after week.

In fact there are so many things wrong with this current situation I could go on all night but I won’t bother you know it’s wrong the question is what are you going to do about it?

The Evolution of Health Care Control

Paul Murdock
Campaign For Liberty
Friday, January 29th, 2010

The Evolution of Health Care Control: America to Forgo Liberty by Following the Pattern of Canada

In Canada, one of Alberta’s most prominent ex-Premiers boldly called for a two tier health care system. Here in American, politicians are secretly finding ways to force it upon us. Typically, we only hear about how universal and efficient public health systems are. However, if we examine the evolution of the Canadian Health Care system, we can see why we should be scared here in America.

First, it is important to note that provinces and territories are generally responsible for administering their own public health care plans. The federal government acts as a partial financial partner and enforcer of basic uniform, national standards. Sound familiar already? Progressively minded individuals wanted to provide care to the “poor” and the federal government naturally assumed there was a constitutional right to become involved. In Canada, the federal government has questionable constitutional authority over health care, except over specific populations including First Nations, Inuit, and military personnel. Yet, a clause providing authority in times of crisis allowed the government to justify itself. Anyone hear of a health care crisis lately?

The power of the citizen’s vote was quickly diminished by the intruding federal government. Our ability to quickly remove politicians by popular vote and thereby influence events is key to our liberty. This is why the sovereignty of the state is essential. Our vote counts most at the local level such as municipalities, counties, and states. Thus, if you are liberty minded, it is important to keep laws and regulations as close to your vote as possible. Canadians lost this power as they ceded power to the federal government. The result was not pretty.

Prior to the 1940s, health care services were predominantly provided by private or charity hospitals and clinics. Canadians, generally, paid for their health care services out of pocket, through charity, or private health insurance. Doctors were in a similar position that we find here today, either in private practice or associated with a particular hospital or clinic.

In 1966, the federal government of Canada introduced the Medicare Act. Under this legislation, it committed to sharing costs with the provinces for all physician services, regardless of whether they were provided in a hospital. Moreover, the Act stipulated certain criteria which a province would have to meet in order to gain this federal funding. This was no accident, and the government was aware that no province could afford not to comply. The introduction of the national Medicare Act firmly established the federal government in the center of health care policy. Moreover, health care policy, like Medicare in America, quickly became the center of political power.

This is similar to what would occur in the United States. Obama promised that you can keep your current insurance and health care providers. Similarly, the federal government in Canada can also claim that it does not choose your health care services or the care you receive from your health care providers. However, the government’s ability to indirectly influence policy through the conditions it attached to Federal funding insures compliance to federal mandates. Like in Canada, the power lies in money, which is controlled by federal law and regulation. Whom do you think will control this in the United States? Not you!

Naturally, the power of the federal government was quickly revealed. As a result, tensions grew between provinces and the federal government. Shockingly enough, this occurred after the Federal government informed the states that it COULD NOT AFFORD to live up to its end of the bargain. Provinces were left to foot the bill. Provinces were also furious about the health plan criteria the federal government now required.

In an attempt to make a reasonable living, physicians began charging fees and extra-billing to supplement the low reimbursement fees paid by the government. The federal response was to change the criterion in which funding was provided to provinces. In 1984 the government introduced the Canada Health Act. The legislation re-established conditions that the provinces would have to follow in order to receive federal health care funds. Central to the Act was the prohibition of user fees and extra-billing, and the establishment of other criteria deemed essential for the operation of provincial health care services.

Here is an obvious lesson in point. Once you give federal government the power, they are free to change the rules. Moreover, all socialist systems of health care including Canada and Europe have struggled to pay the increasing costs. This is no different than America. Yet, why increase government involvement to pay for health care, when every country who has tried, struggles?

In 2002, a federal commission on health care proposed even greater expansion of official power. The commission sought a relationship where each level of government was an equal partner in the public health care policy. Here we see the federal government seeking direct power from the Provinces. Additionally, the Commission recommended enacting a Health Covenant which would have set out a national vision and framework for public health care, and be binding on all governments. It also recommended that a Health Council of Canada be created, with the goal of fostering collaboration between levels of government. The end result is that the federal government now controls health care and the provinces are left with no sovereignty.

The laughable commission finally recommended the federal government increase its share of federal funding for health care to a minimum of 25 percent of provincial/territorial costs. Of note, this is half of the original proposal, made to entice the public, by the federal government decades earlier. Like the proposal in Canada, we have a government promising to fund health care by the billions. In the end the fate will be the same; too costly. The end result the same; less quality, restricted access, longer waits, and no way out. As we all know, federal projections fall significantly short, and the true cost will be in the trillions. The government will not be able to pay, the states will have to comply with federal rules, and your taxes will be increased. The true fate lies in the loss of your medical freedom and the erosion between state and federal powers.

The problems mentioned above are not restricted to Canada. Hundreds of thousands in Britain must wait for some type of medical care, with thousands waiting six months or more. France is in a similar situation. In Ontario, Canada, 1.5 million Ontarians (or 12 percent of that province’s population) can’t find family physicians. Health officials in one Nova Scotia community actually resorted to a lottery to determine who’d get a doctor’s appointment.

As a result, the goals in Europe and Canada are the opposite of the United States: Increase privatization and access to care. The Provincial Court of Quebec ruled that Canada’s restriction on private care violated an individual’s right to care. Consequently, doctors are leading a bold charge against Federal regulations. In addition to businesses arranging care for Canadians in the United States, Dr. Jacques Chaoulli organized a private Quebec practice. This is rare, but many believe it will become the trend.

Sir William Wells, a senior British health official, recently said: “The big trouble with a state monopoly is that it builds in massive inefficiencies and inward-looking culture.” In 2007, the private sector provided about 5 percent of Britain’s nonemergency procedures; Labour aimed to triple that percentage by 2008. The Labour government also works to provide vouchers for certain surgeries, offering patients the choice of a private provider. And in a recent move, the government will contract out some primary care services, perhaps to American firms such as UnitedHealth Group and Kaiser Permanente.

Sweden’s government, after the completion of the latest round of privatizations, will be contracting out some 80 percent of Stockholm’s primary care and 40 percent of its total health services, including one of the city’s largest hospitals. And modest market reforms have begun in Germany; increasing co-pays, enhancing insurance competition, and turning state enterprises over to the private sector (within a decade, only a minority of German hospitals will remain under state control).

Although American media outlets continue to praise health care in other countries, they neglect the important facts about American hospitals. In The Business of Health, Robert Ohsfeldt and John Schneider factor out intentional and unintentional injuries from life-expectancy statistics and find that Americans who don’t die in car crashes or homicides outlive people in any other Western country. Other statistics also support American superiority. For leukemia, the American survival rate is almost 50 percent; the European rate is just 35 percent. Esophageal carcinoma: 12 percent in the United States, 6 percent in Europe. The survival rate for prostate cancer is 81.2 percent here, yet 61.7 percent in France and down to 44.3 percent in England.

If we use the Canadian health care system as an example we can see progressive losses of freedom as health care has expanded. Not only do they lose personal freedoms, but they have become deluded about their own system. In a recent survey found on the Canadian governments own website, more than 80% of all Canadians approve. As an expatriate Canadian, I do not, neither should Americans.

Time for an American Health Care solution

Empower Patients — Not Government and Insurance Companies.

David McKalip, M.D.
Campaign For Liberty
Sunday, January 24th, 2010

The dust is settling on the rejection of President Obama’s government and corporate takeover of American Medical care. But lovers of liberty must remain vigilant for attempts to compromise that will actually create the same problems for Americans. Obamacare was always about one thing only: control of medical care and medical spending by parties outside of the patient-physician relationship. Sadly, there are many in the Republican party who support the same thing: control by third parties. They will be now be tempted to pursue these “cost control” measures — to satisfy their own special interests and to appear to offer “solutions” for political reasons. They will be making a mistake and the American people must reject compromises of principle for political expediency.

Obamacare’s core elements fell into two broad categories: 1) covering the “uninsured” and 2) controlling medical costs. “Universal coverage” has been a holy grail of Statists for decades and this version was an adoption of the failing Massachusetts model: a mandate to purchase insurance for every American. That was coupled with increased enrollment in Medicaid and wealth transfer to 60% of Americans to subsidize purchase of insurance. While private corporations would hold the money, the state would set the terms of health care financing and what would be “covered”. Thus there is practically no difference between a single payer system and the corporatist model of health care financing.

The second key element is alive and well: cost control. Massachusetts policy-making elitists lament that they expanded coverage in 2006 without controlling costs. They now face budget shortfalls and upheaval as hospitals sue the state to recover losses in the new system, patients wait longer to see doctors and the state begins to create and implement rationing. It is the rationing model that is likely to remain and be supported by many Republicans. In fact, it was under the Bush administration that talk of this became prominent, with terms like “quality and efficiency”, “pay for performance” and “value-based purchasing” and “transparency”. These strategies must be just as soundly rejected by the American people now as they have always been part of the Obamacare proposals and have no redeeming value. In fact the data is clear that not only do they not improve quality, they usually harm patients and control costs only through committee controlled rationing — also hurting patients.

Under these “value-based purchasing” models, doctors will be put on a budget. They will have to be paid by so called “accountable care organizations” which can be described only as HMO’s on steroids. All service payments (for medical tests, hospital care, nursing home care and physician fees) will be “bundled” together and doctors will have to fight for their “fair share”. The doctor will be “rewarded” for spending less of the budget by receiving financial bonuses (incentives). In other words, they will be paid more, get more patient referrals and have a better public profile if they spend less money on the patient (essentially serving as rationing agents). That means ordering fewer tests, procedures, medication, hospital stays and all the other things people expect to receive from their health insurance premium. This “pay for performance” model can better be described as a “penalties for physicians”. When doctors are punished for spending “too much” corporate and government money on the patient, the patient will not be able to trust the doctor. This will end the concept of the patient-physician relationship: the hallmark of American medicine for decades that has lead to the best medical care ever seen in the history of man.

So how can we control costs and increase access to care? It is true that health insurance premiums are too high. Medical services seem to cost more than is reasonable (e.g. $80 Tylenol in the hospital). Medicaid patients must drive hours to find a specialist — if they are lucky. Medicaid patients (even though they are “covered”) are still twice as likely to go to the ER than those with private insurance since they can’t find doctors who can afford to pay to take care of them. Worse still, many people go without medical care. All of these problems can be solved if we reject the very structure that has gotten us to this point so far: control of every health care dollar by third parties, especially for routine annual medical care. When insurance companies and government hold the money, patients come to feel entitled to receive every dime’s worth of care they can possibly get to make sure they get their “fair share”. They don’t ask about cost or even necessity. They don’t ask if they really need an MRI or a 5^th medication or a spinal surgery with titanium implants. However, when consumers hold the money for routine, annual medical care (coupled with a 100% coverage catastrophic medical insurance plan) they begin to ask questions and shop for best price. They demand (and deserve) more time with their doctors. Since 2003, this model of health savings accounts and high deductible health insurance has been shown to drive down costs as patients make sure they are getting the most for their health care dollar. Patients with this means of paying for their health care are more likely to get preventative medical care, engage in healthy behaviors, ask questions about medical necessity and basically hold their doctors and hospitals accountable.

In other words, it is by application of free market principles that we can drive down health costs, increase access and increase quality. Just as market forces keep down costs and allow innovation and growth of new features for computers, cars, dental care, plastic surgery, and laser eye surgery (the later medical services are not covered by insurance). But many will ask: what about the poor? The poor are always better served when the market drives down costs for all as they can then find more affordable services. In addition, it is easier for government assistance and the charity dollar to go further when prices have been held down by the market. Of course, there will always be a role for the government — but it must be targeted only at the poor. But more importantly, when there is a vibrant and prosperous health care sector operating in a free market, it will be easier to provide the best form of assistance to the poor: charity. Charitable organizations once had a prominent place in American health care and many great hospitals started in this way. It is time to rebuild charity as a means to provide medical care for the poor while helping them achieve financial independence in a greater free market economy based in liberty.

Likewise, it is time to begin a 10 year transition of Medicare from a government run system to a system where people own their own health savings that will be used in their later years. It is clear that Medicare can’t last and has failed as much as other Great Society experiments like welfare, public housing, and food stamps. The proof of Medicare’s failure is in its $35 trillion unfunded debt, the coming rationing and the assault on independent doctors that will occur no matter what happens this year. Doctors will leave the system as Medicare will be no better than Medicaid. It is also essential to restore the right of Americans to keep their Medicare benefits if they choose to see a doctor who has left the Medicare system. They should also keep their Medicare benefits if they want to enter into a private agreement with a doctor to pay a rate in addition to the Medicare benefits agreed to by both parties. Congress removed the right to privately contract from Medicare recipients in the late ‘80’s and has created a government Medicare rationing cage that neither doctor nor patient can escape. Creating an ownership right to the Medicare dollars that were essentially stolen from decades of workers’ paychecks would be the best way to serve current Medicare patients while transforming the program for future generations.

It is essential for Americans and lovers of liberty to reject any fake Republican compromises that will impose more government and insurance cost control strategies. Pay for performance, value-based purchasing, accountable care organizations, bundling and “efficiency” are the exact same central economic planning tools that those in power would love to wield. Central economic planning failed the Soviet Union, is failing Europe and only succeeds in China due to their willingness to deny liberty and property rights to their citizens. Central economic planning enriches the arrogant power-holding elite, denies liberty, demands higher taxes and relies on a fiat currency that ruins economies as it loses value. We need an American solution for health system reform, and that means a free market solution of patient economic empowerment, a resurgence of charitable care and a small but strong government safety net.

View the original article at Campaign For Liberty

Health Bill Can Pass Senate With 51 Votes, Van Hollen Says

Jonathan D. Salant
Bloomberg
Saturday, January 16th, 2010

Even if Democrats lose the Jan. 19 special election to pick a new Massachusetts senator, Congress may still pass a health-care overhaul by using a process called reconciliation, a top House Democrat said.

That procedure requires 51 votes rather than the 60 needed to prevent Republicans from blocking votes on President Barack Obama’s top legislative priorities. That supermajority is at risk as the Massachusetts race has tightened.

“Even before Massachusetts and that race was on the radar screen, we prepared for the process of using reconciliation,” said Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

“Getting health-care reform passed is important,” Van Hollen said in an interview on Bloomberg Television’s “Political Capital with Al Hunt,” airing this weekend. “Reconciliation is an option.”

Using reconciliation would likely force Democrats to scale back their health-care plans. The procedure is designed to make deficit-cutting easier by reducing the number of votes needed to pass unpopular tax increases and spending cuts. Lawmakers can’t include policy changes that the parliamentarian deems have only an “incidental” connection to budget-cutting, and senators would need 60 votes to override those rulings.

Van Hollen also said he expects Democratic Senate candidate Martha Coakleyto win in Massachusetts.

‘Pure Hallucination’

Van Hollen said Republican predictions that the political climate had changed so much that they can capture the 40 seats needed to regain control of the House was “pure hallucination.”

“Why would you hand the keys to the car back to the same guys whose policies drove the economy into the ditch and then walked away from the scene of the accident?” Van Hollen said. “For the Republicans to say vote for us and bring back the guys who got us into this mess in the first place, I don’t think it’s a winner.”

He said Democrats expect to see their majority shrink this year because the party that occupies the White House traditionally loses congressional seats in the first midterm election.

At the end of a week dominated by images of death and destruction after the Jan. 12 earthquake in Haiti, Van Hollen said lawmakers likely will approve whatever relief money the president requests. Obama has already asked for $100 million.

“We want to help people who need relief immediately, and so to that extent I support it,” Van Hollen said.

Haitians in U.S.

Separately, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano announced yesterday that Haitian nationals now in the U.S. will be allowed to stay for an additional 18 months because of the quake devastation.

On other domestic issues, Van Hollen said Congress won’t raise the gasoline tax this year to fund a new long-term construction program for roads and mass transit. The current six-year, $286.5 billion transportation legislation is expiring.

Jobs legislation passed by the House includes $50 billion for construction projects, Van Hollen said. Longer-term legislation with a gas-tax increase will require “some kind of bipartisan consensus before you more forward,” he said.

On the decision to call Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner to testify before the House Financial Services Committee, Van Hollen said that while he didn’t believe Geithner was in political danger, it was appropriate for him to come before Congress.

New York Fed

Lawmakers want to know why the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, which Geithner formerly led, agreed to payments of 100 cents on the dollar to companies that held American International Group Inc. credit-default swaps tied to subprime mortgages.

Van Hollen said the New York Fed’s decision was wrong and the U.S. needed to “understand how that decision was made, because that kind of decision should not be made in the future.”

As Democratic congressional leaders worked with the White House to meld House and Senate versions of the health-care overhaul legislation, Van Hollen said there was no deadline for completing the measure.

“Our more important goal is to make sure we get it right,” he said.

While polls show opposition to the legislation — a Quinnipiac University survey found 58 percent of Americans opposing the way Obama was handling the issue — Van Hollen said the individual components were popular and most people will support the measure once it clears Congress.

“It’s been subject to a lot of demagoguery, a lot of misinformation,” Van Hollen said. Once the measure is finished, “people will see the benefits.”

View the original article at Bloomberg

Amish families exempt from insurance mandate

MARC HELLER
Watertown Daily Times
Monday , January 11th, 2010

Federal health care reform will require most Northern New Yorkers — but not all, it turns out — to carry health insurance or risk a fine.

Hundreds of Amish families in the region are likely to be free from that requirement.

The Amish, as well as some other religious sects, are covered by a “religious conscience” exemption, which allows people with religious objections to insurance to opt out of the mandate. It is in both the House and Senate versions of the bill, making its appearance in the final version routine unless there are last-minute objections.

Although the Amish consist of several branches, some more conservative than others, they generally rely upon a community ethic that disdains government assistance. Families rely upon one another, and communities pitch in to help neighbors pay health care expenses.

View the original article at Watertown Daily Times

Barack Obama was Against Health Care Taxes Before he was for Them

By Doug Bandow

Former Obama supporter Lee Stranahan points out the president’s egregious flip-flops on health care.  Check out Stranahan’s video:

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The political battle is not yet over.  Every congressman needs to hear from Americans outraged over what the politicians are threatening to do to our health care.

Doug Bandow

View the original article at Campaign for Liberty

Obama Repeatedly Promises Open Meetings on Health Care

Further proving (as if there was any doubt left) that for all his rhetoric, Obama should have campaigned on “Status Quo with Better Pronunciation” rather than “Change You Can Believe In.”

View the original article at Campaign for Liberty