Book Argues 'Obama Zombies' Will Destroy America

Originally published at Campus Progress

It appears I must have missed the portions of President Barack Obama's inaugural speech where he announced he would emancipate the workers from their ruthless capitalist overlords.

Lucky for us, many conservative commentators have been able to warn us against Obama's plan to make a rapid transformation to a Stalinist-style planned economy. Jason Mattera, the recently hired editor of Human Events, adds another book, Obama Zombies: How the Liberal Machine Brainwashed my Generation, which warns of Obama sinister plans to destroy America.

Mattera's offering differs from other books from conservatives since Obama's election, as it takes a specific look at young voters and activists—dubbed the "Obama Zombies"—who, he argues, have become unknowing minions in Obama's socialist army, having been lobotomized by the media and Obama's aggressive youth outreach efforts during the 2008 campaign.

For those who are not familiar with Mattera, he is a rising star among young conservatives who worked as communications director for the Young America's Foundation, a conservative youth organization, for several years before landing his latest gig as the editor of Human Events, a long-running far-right magazine. He is often seen on cable news or YouTube aggressively confronting progressives and Democratic politicians on film. He is a sharp-tongued commentator and satirist who loves to use exclamation points. And in case there was ever any doubt, he doesn't like progressives or liberalism orCampus Progress very much.

Read the rest at Campus Progress.

Rebuilding Media

This article was originally published by Campus Progress, an online magazine for the Center for American Progress.

In the face of a rapidly changing industry, two books offer bold visions of what the future of media could look like.

The final edition of The Ann Arbor News, which ceased operation last year after almost 200 years in print. (Flickr/banlon1964)

There can be no denying that the state of the news media today is a full-blown crisis. Newspapers, now working with a broken economic model, are clearing out newsrooms with layoffs at a rapid rate, closing foreign andWashington bureaus, and spending less on investigative reporting. Cable news is dominated by Fox News Channel whose viewers are shown to be grossly misinformed while most TV channels focus on horserace political coverage (often with the help of corporate lobbyists serving as analysts) andtrivial entertainment issues. Freelancers are paid less than ever—if at all—and prospective young journalists attending college and graduate school, while not abandoning the craft, are facing a frightening landscape to carve out careers in the field.

Often books about the state of media focus on how to tweak the economic model to save media we have. Two recently published books, however, look at ways to create media that is focused not on making journalism profitable again, but rather, on making journalism the valuable civic tool that is required for a functioning democracy.

Robert McChesney and John Nichols in The Death and Life of American Journalism: The Media Revolution that Will Begin the World Again make the case for significant public intervention in the industry, which they argue can sustain wide-ranging, editorially independent outlets focused on producing quality journalism, not on making a profit. Meanwhile, Jessica Clark and Tracy Van Slyke, in Beyond the Echo Chamber: Reshaping Politics through Networked Progressive Media, focus on sustaining and improving upon what has been a rare media bright spot in recent years: The rise of a community of progressive media outlets that have shown a remarkable ability at bringing like-minded activists and writers together to make change. While each book has a different focus, both offer bold ideas as to how media can thrive.

Read the rest here.

Jim Cramer's Mad Memory

Jim Cramer's Mad Memory (A book review published by Campus Progress)

One of the more disturbing aspects of American punditry is that failure and poor analysis are so often rewarded. Pundits who were wrong about the war in Iraq, for example, were routinely given promotions, space on the country’s most read op-ed pages, and face time on television. William Kristol took the term wrong to new levels in 2002 and 2003, yet was granted plum gigs withthe New York Times and the Washington Post. There is an entire Wikipedia page devoted to Times columnist Tom Friedman’s woeful miscalculations on Iraq. Peter Beinart, New Republic editor and a staunch supporter of the war, snagged himself a fellowship from the Council of Foreign Relations and a book deal. And on it goes. Everywhere you look in the world of media, those who got it wrong have stayed on as dominant voices in the public sphere.

So it only makes sense that, in the waning days of the global economic crisis, on goes the reign of Jim Cramer, CNBC’s wild-eyed investment advisor and one-man circus show. Not only has Cramer’s stock advice, often screamed loudly on his program Mad Money, been notably horrendous, his shady business dealings, lack of ethics, and failure to stand up to Wall Street greed have all been very publicly exposed (thanks, Jon Stewart).

And yet the degree of arrogance Cramer continues to maintain is downright staggering. Consider his latest book, Getting Back to Even: Your Personal Economic Recovery Plan. (One assumes the title is talking about leveling readers’ stock portfolios, but, given Cramer’s history, perhaps it should be referencing his credibility.) Claiming that, with the help of his tome, readers will not only survive the crisis, but "thrive" and make “what’s essentially free money,” Cramer has proven again that, while his wallet is brimming, his senses of history and reality are bankrupt.

See the rest here.

Trying to make "Sense" of Glenn Beck

(Originally published by Campus Progress)

The conservative icon’s latest book blends Beck’s typical hyperbole with a gross misrepresentation of Thomas Paine’s political views.

Glenn Beck is a particularly egregious example of the larger-than-life conservative punditry class that gained almost regal status during the administration of President George W. Bush. The host of popular shows on Fox News and radio, Beck’s daily musings are so heated and fiery that he often reaches the verge of tears, his voice squeaks in anger and his inaudible words cease to sound like they come from a human. (For those with the stomach for it, YouTube offers many treasures highlighting this tendency, including this clip where Beck actually threatens to "vaporize" a caller who disagrees with him.) It is precisely this attempt at populist rage that led to his latest book, Glenn Beck’s Common Sense: the Case Against an out-of-control government, inspired by Thomas Paine. It just may be the perfect symbol of his hyper-ambition and the outlandish anger that is reflected by many of today’s conservatives.

In Common Sense, Beck’s nonsense goes way beyond misguided right-wing talking points and resorts to a grotesque distortion of American history. His goal, by his own admission was to “re-write” Thomas Paine’s Common Sense—one of the most influential pieces of political writing in American history—and start a new conservative revolution. "Make no mistake," he writes, "a (non-violent) revolution is needed to restore America." It is ambitious endeavor no doubt and has proved to be a major hit; it tops on the New York Times‘ best seller list. But intellectually the book is an abysmal failure. This is because Beck’s efforts to channel Thomas Paine—one of the great progressive thinkers in U.S. history—are patently absurd.

Beck’s 174-page book (the last quarter of which is a reprint of Paine’s pamphlet) is mostly a tirade against government spending. His main targets are social welfare spending, progressive taxation and the occasional rant against the destruction of America’s pious roots. These very themes contrast mightily with the views of Paine, turning the book into something of a bad joke before one page is actually turned. While Paine did view government as a necessary evil, and warned against excessive debt, he was by no means a modern-day libertarian—in fact, quite the opposite.

Paine in his own time was radically progressive—in some ways socialist—and on most issues would be way to the left of the typical parameters of debate in Washington D.C. In the 1775 writing Agrarian Justice, Paine became among the first in the colonies to advocate for a "guaranteed minimum income." Sounding a lot more like Eugene Debs than Beck, Paine’s proposal was to "create a national fund, out of which there shall be paid to every person when arrived at the age of twenty-one years … for the loss of his or her natural inheritance, by the introduction of the system of landed property."

Paine wrote:

Taking it then for granted that no person ought to be in a worse condition when born under what is called a state of civilization, than he would have been had he been born in a state of nature, and that civilization ought to have made, and ought still to make, provision for that purpose, it can only be done by subtracting from property a portion equal in value to the natural inheritance it has absorbed

.

Paine made it clear that he thought freedom was infringed by unmerited inequity—what philosopher Sir Isaiah Berlin refers to as "positive liberty," or having the power and resources to act to fulfill one’s own potential. Beck, like most conservatives, unambiguously defines freedom in the mold of "negative liberty," or freedom from government restraint.

"Wake up America!" he writes. "Capitalism isn’t about money, it’s about freedom—the freedom to try and fail that made the United States the richest industrial nation in the world." It is also interesting that, given that Beck’s book pays homage to Paine—who published the first essay in America advocating for abolition— Beck makes no mention of the role of slavery had the early development of the U.S. economy.

Indeed, Beck fumes over most any kind of progressive taxation or shared services: Chapter 5 is actually titled "The Cancer of Progressivism." He constantly rails against the evils of universal health care, minimum wage hikes, welfare, and small tax increases on the rich. In Common Sense, he writes that it’s unfair that those who "worked, hard, lived prudently, spent wisely,” must be bailed out at the expense of the poor.

"The rich are being vilified and targeted because they are rich," Beck writes of Obama-era "class warfare." He has a particular concern about the nation’s youth, who have become increasingly skeptical of modern-day capitalism in recent polls, decrying them as the types that "prefer to be led and fed by the state for free." They are, he insists, "sheep willing to be shorn and molded by their master—yet their ranks are likely to swell as the economic crisis worsens."
With such sharp language one might assume the United States under Obama has implemented a Soviet-style planned economy, but, alas, Beck’s major gripe is that the Democrats implemented a large, but desperately-needed stimulus package, which was gladly received by conservative governors across the country, save a few ideologues.

During the 2008 presidential election Beck threw regular tantrums about how Obama was a socialist for wanting to allow Bush tax cuts to expire on those making more than $250,000 a year. These are marginal tax increases, comparable to what the rich paid under Ronald Reagan’s tax plan. So surely, if Paine was a guest on Beck’s show in 2009 and advocated for a guaranteed minimum income—a direct transfer of wealth from the rich to the poor—an infuriated Beck’s eyes would pop out of his head as he smeared Paine as a French-loving, socialist “little pinhead."

Beck’s strong affinity for the need for an increased role of religion in society also further emphasizes his fundamental differences with Paine. Progressives, Beck writes, "recognize that religion is a unifying force and a counterbalance to state power, so they believe that it must either be harnesses by the state or destroyed." Putting aside his ridiculous assumption that all progressives wish to destroy unity through the use of state power, what is telling about his chapter on religion and morals is that Paine’s words are nowhere to be found. Clearly, this is because, including Paine’s actual thoughts on the matter would further reveal the book’s fatal flaw.

Paine was a staunch critic of religion and Christian doctrines, arguing that they thwarted free-thinking and logic to the detriment society. "All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian, or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit," Paine wrote in The Age of Reason. It is no wonder that Paine’s utterances on the subject are entirely absent from Beck’s version of Common Sense.

Beck’s book is more evidence of a resurgence of conservative populism aimed at channeling public anger. Progressives would be wise to take notice. As crazed as Beck seems, it must also be acknowledged that his voice is heard—and often. For strategic reasons, his existence simply cannot be ignored: progressives must take great pains to counter his blather. For it is true that Glenn Beck has a large and enthusiastic audience; it is also true that America can learn a lot from Thomas Paine. But Common Sense dictates that the possibility of these two realities becoming in any way morphed together is beyond frightening.

Michael Corcoran is a correspondent for The Boston Globe’s metro desk and graduated from Emerson College in 2007.

Marty Peretz and the Left: Not Bedfellows

Marty Peretz has recently noted that The Nation ran a critical review of The Israel Lobby.

And for some reason he thinks that this vindicates his own antipathy for the book (or the original 2006 piece, which is available here)

But the idea that the left would disagree with the W/M piece, is hardly unusual. And in fact, Noam Chomsky and Norman Finkelstein, to name just two of many, were indeed quite critical of the piece when it came out.

Chomsky wrote:

But recognizing that M-W took a courageous stand, which merits praise, we still have to ask how convincing their thesis is. Not very, in my opinion. I've reviewed elsewhere what the record (historical and documentary) seems to me to show about the main sources of US ME policy, in books and articles for the past 40 years, and can't try to repeat here. M-W make as good a case as one can, I suppose, for the power of the Lobby, but I don't think it provides any reason to modify what has always seemed to me a more plausible interpretation. Notice incidentally that what is at stake is a rather subtle matter: weighing the impact of several factors which (all agree) interact in determining state policy: in particular, (A) strategic-economic interests of concentrations of domestic power in the tight state-corporate linkage, and (B) the Lobby.

This should not be a real surprise. Realists like Walt and Mearsheimer have a very different view on geopolitics than does most of the anti-imperialist left. And indeed, the left, including Daniel Lazare, who wrote The Nation's review, agree that the lobby is disproportionately powerful, and that critics will be unfairly labeled by the Dershowitz types. They disagree, however, that the lobby is the main force behind US foreign policy decision making, which, they would argue (and so would I) is motivated by efforts to obtain and maintain geopolitical and economic power. Hence, the War in Iraq, which W/M say was driven by the lobby, was actually designed to make sure that the untapped oil reserves in the region were controlled by US Multinationals, and not to economic rivals in China, for example.

But no, Marty, these critiques of the Israel Lobby does not mean your hysterics over these issues are any less cartoonish and simple-minded.

Book Review: Stephen F. Hayes' Cheney

This was originally published at Campus Progress

Worshipping Dick

Michael Corcoran

These days it is not an easy task to write a 500-page biography on Dick Cheney and make him look good. The man is the least popular vice president in recent history; the war in Iraq, which he will always be remembered for, is viewed as an unambiguous failure in the eyes of most Americans; and the administration he serves in has been mired in scandals: warrantless wiretapping, the politicization of the Department of Justice, the leaking of the name of an undercover CIA agent, and on and on. Cheney even managed to shoot an old man in the face, but at least that was merely a reckless accident, in contrast to all the harm he has caused intentionally. So it is only natural that when Dick Cheney needed an official biographer to put something pro-Cheney into the annals of history he would look for someone who has shown an ability to portray falsehoods as truths—someone who could make “non-fiction” out of nonsense.

Enter Stephen F. Hayes.

Hayes is a senior writer for The Weekly Standard, the country’s most vociferously pro-war magazine. Cheney has always been a fan. According to The New York Times, Cheney sends someone to pick up 30 copies of the magazine each week. "Reader for reader, it may be the most influential publication in America,” said Eric Alterman of the Standard, which is owned by Rupert Murdoch. “Anybody who wants to know what this administration is thinking and what they plan to do has to read this magazine."

Hayes played a crucial role in the Standard’s notorious cheerleading for the war in Iraq, writing two high-profile articles asserting the now-discredited claim that there was a connection between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda. The first of these, 2003’s “Case Closed,” earned public praise from Cheney himself, who called the article the “best source of information” detailing a relationship between Hussein and Al Qaeda. Hayes even extended these falsehoods into a 2004 book called The Connection: How Al Qaeda’s Collaboration with Saddam Hussein Has Endangered America. Clearly, if your goal is to present a truly distorted perception of the post-911 world, Hayes is the right man for the job.

While it would be a nearly impossible task for Hayes to follow The Connection with something even more absurd, Hayes gives it a valiant effort with Cheney: The Untold Story of America’s Most Powerful and Controversial Vice President.

The book is a wet kiss that portrays Cheney as a shrewd, measured, and respectful deal-maker. Filled with glowing praise from cover to cover, Hayes writes of a Cheney who “enjoys an unusually high reputation for competence,” is a pragmatist “rather than an ideologue,” and whose expertise is unmatched. “The staff members understood that Cheney would often know more about a particular issue than they did even if it was an issue they had been working on for years,” writes Hayes about Cheney’s tenure as chief of staff to President Gerald Ford.

Moreover, the title is quite misleading. Due to Cheney’s penchant for secrecy, the book reveals very little new or “untold” information. Hayes’ reporting reveals more about Cheney’s affinity for fishing—the last chapter includes 25 consecutive paragraphs about the topic—than it does about the most pressing issues of the Bush presidency. In the book’s preface Hayes pointedly admits that Cheney answered many of the author’s questions with lines such as “”Yeah, I can’t really give you anything on that.”

While Hayes does a respectable job outlining the less controversial early years of Cheney’s career, such as struggles to get through college and his rise through the government ranks with the help of Donald Rumsfeld, the area that is presumably of most interest to readers—Cheney’s ongoing tenure as vice president—ends up being the part of the book that is most lacking in interesting or revealing information.

Despite spanning more than 500 pages, Cheney: The Untold Story tells us far less about the vice president’s role in the White House than The Washington Post did with its 4-part series on Cheney in June. The least flattering and most controversial aspects of the Bush years are barely mentioned in this book. For example, the discredited 2002 National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq’s alleged weapons programs is referenced only once. And Hayes essentially places the blame for this debacle, which was central in leading our country to war, squarely on the shoulders of George Tenet and the CIA, just as the White House did. To be sure, Tenet deserves plenty of blame, but the way in which Hayes refuses even to address Cheney’s complicity in using this flawed NIE in an aggressive push for military intervention in Iraq is, sadly, emblematic of the rest of the book.

The wiretapping scandal involving the National Security Agency’s Terrorist Surveillance Program warrants a bit more attention, but Hayes uses his platform mostly to discredit opposition to the program. One Senate Intelligence Committee “official” is quoted as saying the Democrats “thought it was a pretty good program” up until it was made public, though Hayes, it seems, did not bother to ask any Democrats if this was true.

“Cheney’s view is simple,” writes Hayes. “Acts of Congress that interfere with the president’s ability to carry out his functions as commander in chief violate the Constitution.” Hayes’ analysis of Cheney’s position is awfully simple as well. Allowing virtually no room for nuance, Hayes does not bother to quote one lawyer or legal organization that viewed the program as unconstitutional. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978, the law that many consider the White House to be breaking, is mentioned only once.

The rest of the book follows this pattern. Bush’s unprecedented use of signing statements to undermine a law’s intent is not broached at all. The CIA leak controversy, including the trial and subsequent conviction of Scooter Libby, is portrayed as a circus act, with the White House merely the victim of a partisan witch hunt. Regarding the White House’s justifications of the use of torture (a word Hayes avoids mentioning) on foreign detainees, the most aggressive opposition quoted is Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), who supported the Military Commissions Act that took away habeas corpus rights for anyone the president deems an “enemy combatant.”

If the book successfully (if unwittingly) illustrates one noteworthy element of Cheney’s view on government, it is his complete disdain for the democratic process in matters of foreign policy. When it comes to war and peace, Cheney sees the American public as a two-year old child who is not yet ready to learn that Santa isn’t real and therefore must be shielded from the truth.

For example, in the buildup to the 1991 invasion of Iraq, Hayes glowingly notes that Cheney—making arguments “based on principal and practicality”—did not think the White House needed to seek congressional approval “for using force” in the Persian Gulf.

“The Constitution gives the president, as commander in chief, wide latitude to use the U.S. military,” writes Hayes. “Approval from Congress was unnecessary [Cheney] said.” And throughout the book Hayes champions this “principled and pragmatic” view as an asset, never once giving a serious look into the how radically undemocratic this interpretation of the Constitution is.

Another problem is that Hayes falsely portrays Cheney’s views on foreign policy as merely a reaction to 9/11 and completely ignores the geopolitical aims of neoconservatives after the end of the Cold War, long before the 2001 terrorist attacks. It was in 1997, after all, that Cheney signed the “Statement of Principles” letter from the Project for a New American Century, the radically hawkish think tank that would, a year later, urge President Clinton to overthrow Saddam Hussein. Hayes completely ignores geopolitics in this book, instead deferring to the oversimplified platitude that “9/11 changed everything.” In fact, the book only mentions the word “neoconservative” two times. Scooter Libby calls the word “anti-Semitic,” and Cheney himself refers to it as “silly shorthand.”

This hagiography ends with the phrase: “And the war goes on.” And, as Hayes’ work so aptly shows, so does the defense of its architects.

Sweet Victory: War Made Easy

This week's Sweet Victory is up. It is about the new documentary film based on Norman Solomon's book War Made Easy. The film is being screened by progressive organizations across the country, in an effort to bring activists together to help end this war. If you are interested in attending or hosting a screening, click here.

Summer Reading Part 1: Hitchens on God

Now that we are in the midst of summer I have been trying to catch up on my reading. I don't have the time or the inclination to review all the books I have recently read in detail, so instead, starting today, I will be providing very short commentaries on some of the books I have been digging into lately.

One note: I do not subscribe to the theory that only newly released books are worth discussing. Sometimes the value of a book is much more clear after time has passed, especially in the case of non-fiction books about policy or foreign affairs. Sometimes I even think that reviewing books after the paperback comes out can be more fruitful for the readers and reviewer alike for several reasons. So I reserve the right to comment on older books as well as new releases.


Christopher Hitchens, God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything

First of all, I must say, I am no fan of Christopher Hitchens. Even in some of his work before 9-11 ( when he famously changed his world view) he was starting to drown in his own increasingly cartoonish polemics.

His 1999 book "No One Left To Lie To" about Bill Clinton is a good example. I am no fan of Clinton, and Hitchens rightly took Clinton to task for his twisted view of bipartisanship, and his absurd triangulations. Hitchens, however, then ruined the book by wasting mountains of space on Clinton's sex life and (an entire chapter on) unproven accusations of rape. It turned what could have been a smart and important little book into a bizarre exercise in personal hatred.

As most reasonable people have long since figured out, in the realm of foreign policy Hitchens has simply lost his mind. It is one thing to be wrong, but watch his debate with George Galloway from 2005 again, and notice how far his geopolitical assertions stray from any semblance of reality. He simply invents an international order that does not exist, and paints the peace movement of the last generation (and himself, since he was once an active participant) to be the worst of all evils. It is actually painfully frustrating to sit through. He has similarly absurd commentaries on Libby, Haditha and his own reflections on his support for the Iraq War, that, likewise, are devoid of any sensible logic. It is tragic, really.

So I am put in the odd position, now, after reading "God is Not Great" of not only agreeing with Hitchens, but of enjoying his work. I have even found myself defending Hitchens when the issue of God comes up. His book is erudite and witty, sensible and unafraid. Sure, it is not nearly as good as The God Delusion, in dismantling the argument for God, but it flows from page to page with a little more ease. Hitchens does spend too much time disproving the absurd stories written in religious texts -- the point is made, made again and then some -- but this does not detract much from the book overall.

It is frustrating that in discussion, critics of Hitchens can point to his recent abhorrent distortions of reality and ask: "How can I trust this man to be credible?" They are indeed right to ask such a question. My response -- that Hitchens has a Prima Facie case, here, and has been consistent on this issue throughout his career -- sometimes leaves them unconvinced. So it goes when dealing with Mr. Hitchens in 2007.

Still, despite all that I know and dislike about Hitchens, I think he serves as a useful and important ally with me (and with atheists and humanists in general) on this issue. In a country with extreme prejudice against atheists, and with opponents who believe the case for God is above intellectual scrutiny, I welcome this book and believe it has a place of importance at this moment in history. A moment where several books are taking on religion and God in unambiguous and fearless ways. We can only hope they can help us -- the humanists, non-believers and freethinking skeptics -- push back in the face of extreme censure.

UPDATE:

Just read this piece by the great Norman Solomon in which he makes an interesting point about Hitchen's decision to take off one hat (his role as nonsensical, hawkish madman) and put on another. (Emphasis is mine)

Perhaps no journalist was more shameless in echoing President Bush's fatuous claims about the invasion than Christopher Hitchens.

"Many Iraqis can hear me tonight in a translated radio broadcast, and I have a message for them: If we must begin a military campaign, it will be directed against the lawless men who rule your country and not against you," Bush said on March 17, 2003.

The next day, Hitchens came out with an essay declaring that "the Defense Department has evolved highly selective and accurate munitions that can sharply reduce the need to take or receive casualties. The predictions of widespread mayhem turned out to be false last time -- when the weapons [in the Gulf War] were nothing like so accurate." And, Hitchens proclaimed, "it can now be proposed as a practical matter that one is able to fight against a regime and not a people or a nation."

More than four years -- and at least several hundred thousand Iraqi civilian deaths -- later, the most reliable epidemiology available confirms that those claims were more than misleading. They were fundamentally out of touch with human reality.

If you had engaged in such cheerleading for the launch of the Iraq war in early 2003, by now you might also be eager to change the subject and argue about God.

Coming soon: Summer Reading Part II: Howard Friel and Richard Falk: Israel-Palestine on Record

On Michael Moore

*Moore goes to California: the heart of the single-payer health care movement.

Michael Moore was recently in Sacramento, where Sen. Kuehl along with the help of a tireless and committed group of health care activists, are continuing to fight for a single-payer model. (SB 840 the Californians Health Insurance Reliability Act). Katrina and I wrote about this recently.

When I spoke with health care activists in the state, I was truly impressed with how smart and devoted they were to pushing the bill. Though it was vetoed by Gov. Schwarzenegger they are going to pass it again and are pressuring him to sign it. That is unlikely but even if vetoes it again, and are coming up with override strategies. If that fails, they plan to simply keep sending the bill back over and over again. The bill has massive popular support, In fact, does any type of health insurance plan have any grassroots supports other than single-payer. When is the last time you saw a rally on the street for the individual mandate? Furthermore, Schwarzenegger has put a lot of chips on the table by saying he will fix the health care problem. No legislator, however, will back his flawed plan and he will be under tremendous pressure to get something done. If if he ever werr to sign the bill, he could say he was responsible for guaranteed universal health care to the entire state -- and overnight he is an iconoclast on the issue. Indeed it would piss off his GOP buddies, but he has been willing to do that before with his stances on gays, climate change and immigration.

There are also faint whispers he may try to challenge the popular incumbent Barbara Boxer for a senate seat in 2010 and this could make him far more appealing to voters if this race were to ever happen. (Again, I have only heard whispers)

Back to Moore: The filmmaker' new movie Sicko comes out this month (it has been seen in select places). It will be interesting to see how if he mentions the Massachusetts plan or the hybrid concept in general. My guess is that he will, and he will oppose them. Moore's movie will inevitably lead to two debates: 1) How the US should handle its health care problem (I know of nobody who does not call it a problem) and 2) more tiresome arguments over Moore's credibility.

There is no doubt that Moore's in-your-face interviews with corporate PR staffers and his occasional childish jokes are often pretty off-putting and step on his some of his good points. On top of that, Moore also misses some key points by using weak examples. Consider what Robert Jensen said about Moore' segment on Bush's trampling of civil liberties in his 2004 review of Fahrenheit 9/11.

The other example of political repression that "Fahrenheit 9/11" offers is the story of Barry Reingold, who was visited by FBI agents after making critical remarks about Bush and the war while working out at a gym in Oakland. Reingold, a white retired phone worker, was not detained or charged with a crime; the agents questioned him and left. This is the poster child for repression? In a country where hundreds of Arab, South Asian and Muslim men were thrown into secret detention after 9/11, this is the case Moore chooses to highlight? The only reference in the film to those detentions post-9/11 is in an interview with a former FBI agent about Saudis who were allowed to leave the United States shortly after 9/11, in which it appears that Moore mentions those detentions only to contrast the kid-gloves treatment that privileged Saudi nationals allegedly received.

But he is far more credible than the right tries to paint him out to be. Bowling for Columbine was a smart film with a well-deserved Academy Award to show for it. Roger & Me and the Big One both highlight the very real anxiety working class people must live through in an age of outsourcing. And Moore has posted sources for all of his facts in Farenheit 9-11 online.

Others , such as Andrew Sullivan, try to paint Moore as the Ann Coulter of the left. He wrote the following not long after Coulter's infamous CPAC speech.

I'm not being an hysteric about Coulter. Republicans, if they are serious about reaching the people they lost in 2006, need to start distancing themselves from her. She's their Michael Moore.

I responded to this in March:

Now, there are certainly plenty of valid critiques of Michael Moore's style, and reasonable people can disagree about his politics. But to say that there is anything close to a moral equivalence between Moore and Coulter -- a racist, homophobic, simpleton -- is beyond absurd.

The Decline of the Book Review

Among the many depressing developments in the demise of the daily newspaper that has gone largely unmentioned is the downsizing of Book Review sections, as Michael Connelly notes in the Los Angeles Times.

The Chicago Tribune announced last week that it was moving its books section from Sunday to the less-read Saturday paper — an edition that becomes almost obsolete by noon, when the early Sunday edition hits the stands. At the Raleigh News & Observer, the book editor's position was recently cut. At the Dallas Morning News, the book critic quit rather than face significant space reductions. Books coverage has also been cut at the Orlando Sentinel, the Cleveland Plain Dealer and other papers.

Even at the Los Angeles Times, the fine newspaper at which I am proud to have once worked as a reporter, the attention devoted to books is changing. Gone is the stand-alone Book Review. Two weeks ago, Book Review was merged with Sunday Opinion as part of a plan to save pages and save money.

This was a concern back in 2001 as well, as Salon noted in a series about media consolidation.

And it's not the only metropolitan daily to trim its book coverage this year. The Seattle Times, the San Jose Mercury News, the Chicago Tribune, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and the Boston Globe have all put their papers on a diet by cutting back on book reviews. Even the nation's most influential Sunday book supplement, the New York Times Book Review, killed two pages, resulting in the loss of six "In Brief" write-ups and one full-page review.

This is unfortunate as book reviews allow for a nuanced exploration off ideas, which, simply due to the format of a daily, is not often seen in the rest of the newspaper. Moreover, it helps writers and books that would have otherwise gone unnoticed to be heard. And of course, the book publishing industry is also facing uncertainty in light of new technology.

And so it goes

Vonnegut was a Luddite, to be sure. And for good reason. As he noted in Cat's Cradle (and Player Piano, among others) technology may well bring about the end of this big accident we call humanity. Nonetheless, the YouTube Tribute is apt.

I have a message for future generations: please accept our apology.

Apology accepted, Kurt. And so it goes.

Sick: the Debate

If you are a health policy wonk, it is worth checking out what is a substantive debate at TPM on Jonathan Cohn's latest book Sick.

Kurt is up in heaven now

"I am, incidentally, Honorary President of the American Humanist Association, having succeeded the late, great science fiction writer Isaac Asimov in that totally functionless capacity. We had a memorial service for Isaac a few years back, and I spoke and said at one point, 'Isaac is up in heaven now.' It was the funniest thing I could have said to an audience of humanists. I rolled them in the aisles. It was several minutes before order could be restored. And if I should ever die, God forbid, I hope you will say, 'Kurt is up in heaven now.' That's my favorite joke.

Kurt Vonnegut Quotes

On Writing

"What is literature but an insider's newsletter about affairs relating to molecules, of no importance to anything in the Universe but a few molecules who have the disease called 'thought'." Bluebeard

"Still and all, why bother[to write]? Here's my answer. Many people need
desperately to receive this message: "I feel and think much as you do,
care about many of the things you care about, although most people
don't care about them. You're not alone." Timequake

"I want to stand as close to the edge as I can
without going over. Out on the edge you see all the kinds of
things you can't see from the center."

On Bush & Iraq

"I know now that there is not a chance in hell of America's becoming humane and reasonable. Because power corrupts us, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Human beings are chimpanzees who get crazy drunk on power. By saying that our leaders are power-drunk chimpanzees, am I in danger of wrecking the morale of our soldiers fighting and dying in the Middle East? Their morale, like so many bodies, is already shot to pieces. They are being treated, as I never was, like toys a rich kid got for Christmas." Cold Turkey

"Can I tell you the truth? I mean this isn’t like TV news, is it?
Here’s what I think the truth is: We are all addicts of fossil fuels in a state of denial, about to face cold turkey. And like so many addicts about to face cold turkey, our leaders are now committing violent crimes to get what little is left of what we’re hooked on." Cold Turkey

On Religion

"Say what you will about the sweet miracle of unquesting faith. I consider the capacity for it terrifying and absolutely vile."

"For some reason, the most vocal Christians among us never mention the Beatitudes. But, often with tears in their eyes, they demand that the Ten Commandments be posted in public buildings. And of course that’s Moses, not Jesus. I haven’t heard one of them demand that the Sermon on the Mount, the Beatitudes, be posted anywhere. "Blessed are the merciful" in a courtroom? "Blessed are the peacemakers" in the Pentagon? Give me a break!" Cold Turkey

"Anyone who cannot understand how a useful religion can be based on lies will not understand this book either." Cat's Cradle

"The sermon was based on what he claimed was a well-known fact, that there were no Atheists in foxholes. I asked Jack what he thought of the sermon afterwards, and he said, "There's a Chaplain who never visited the front." Hocus Pocus

"If there is a god, he sure hates people. That’s all I can say." -- Timequake

On Life

"I still believe that peace and plenty and happiness can be worked out some way. I am a fool." Jailbird

"True terror is to wake up one morning and discover that your high school class is running the country."

On Nationalism

"1492. The teachers told the children that this was when their continent was discovered by human beings. Actually, millions of human beings were already living full and imaginative lives on the continent in 1492. That was simply the year in which sea pirates began to cheat and rob and kill them." Breakfast of Champions

"You hate America, don't you?" she said.
"That would be as silly as loving it," I said. "It's impossible for me to get emotional about it, because real estate doesn't interest me. It's no doubt a great flaw in my personality, but I can't think in terms of boundaries. Those imaginary lines are as unreal to me as elves and pixies. I can't believe that they mark the end or the beginning of anything of real concern to the human soul. Virtues and vices, pleasures and pains cross boundaries at will." Mother Night

Kurt Vonnegut Dead at 84

So it goes.

Our Broken Healthcare System: Prospects for Change

growing concern

The good news: America is concerned about healthcare above all other domestic issues, supports a single-payer system, and is ready to cover everyone -- even if its means paying higher taxes. The bad news: the reason the country is so ready for change is that the current system is so horrifically flawed. As I wrote in the Globe last year.

Given that an estimated 18,000 Americans die each year from lack of health insurance, it is clear that reform is long overdue.

Even with the growing concern, and the fact that healthcare is gaining traction in the news cycle, there are reasons to be skeptical about the prospects for positive change. For example, the President's dead-on-arrival proposal didn't even pretend to provide universal coverage.

“Bush’s reform plan - fiddling with the tax system and peddling skimpy private health plans - will fail miserably,” said Dr. Oliver Fein, Professor of Medicine at Cornell University in a statement released in response to Bush’s State of The Union speech. He also noted that, like Massachusetts and California proposals that rely on private insurers, “it would leave millions without coverage.”

the 'individual mandate'

While we expect the president to offer nothing of substance on this issue, one would hope that state legislatures or Democrats may. That reform is overdue, however, does not mean it will come -- and it certainly doesn't assure that whatever plans are proposed will result in adequate care for all Americans. For example, the "individual mandate" is an idea that is gaining traction, and this is very troubling. The plan passed in Massachusetts last year, for example, is horribly flawed, and as Steffie Woolhandler told me, it is "pure fantasy" to claim it will result in universal coverage.

Still the bill was covered as if it were some kind of miracle solution. The New York Times ran a front page story that did not bother to find one source to counter the endless praise bestowed on the bill. The Globe also ran an editorial praising the "healthcare heroes" behind RomneyCare. (Thankfully a week later columnist Joan Vennochi countered with "Mitt's myth of healthcare." )

Perhaps the overly optimistic coverage of the Massachusetts plan could explain why other politicians have warmed to the idea. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has proposed his own plan which also works of the concept of an individual mandate, just a few months after he vetoed a bill that would have resulted in a single-payer plan saying he "cannot support a government-run health care system.”

While presidential candidate John Edward's was bold enough to suggest that we should roll back the Bush Tax Cuts to pay for universal coverage -- a step Clinton and Obama have not said they would be willing to make -- his plan is still at its core is, as Len Rodberg said, an "individual mandate with a pretty face." And indeed, Edwards is a skilled rhetorician which makes his plan sound much sweeter than it is.

a voice of reason

But fortunately there are some sharp experts on the issue of healthcare. One is Jonathan Cohn, the senior editor of the New Republic. He applauded some aspects of the Edwards proposal but rightly noted the big problem (emphasis provided by The Soapbox).

The new Edwards plan is not as far-reaching as some plans now circulating in Congress including plans that call for remaking the health care system top-to-bottom by creating a single-payer system modeled on Medicare. Precisely because the Edwards plan comes from the candidate positioning himself as the voice of working-class populism, that makes the final product just a tad disappointing.

Of course, Cohn has shown an embrace of radical change on healthcare, that most do not. In 2002, when Al Gore surprised the world by advocating for a single-payer system -- not exactly a risk-free move at the time -- Cohn came to his defense.

Is Gore nuts? Not on policy grounds. In a single-payer system, the government becomes the nation's health insurance company. Instead of paying premiums to an insurer (either directly or through an employer), each American would pay that money to the government; in turn, the government would pay the providers of medical care--i.e., mostly private doctors and hospitals--in the same way insurance companies now do.

Make no mistake: It's a radical overhaul. But single-payer also has clear virtues: As a general rule, the more people who belong to an insurance pool, the more thinly you spread the financial burden of illness, which can be devastating if you face it alone or within a small group. By definition, single-payer spreads the risk pool across the largest number of people possible--namely, everyone in the country. In addition, while people may associate government with excessive bureaucracy, single-payer systems devote far less money to administrative overhead than private insurance.

[...]

And, of course, single-payer systems by definition make coverage universal--i.e., they give insurance to every citizen as a birthright, regardless of employment status. This isn't just fair: It may also be more efficient, since it would allow people more freedom to change jobs and pursue better opportunities.

Another strong point by Cohn, whose TNR article on Gore was a strong enough defense of single-payer to be be republished by Physicians for a National Health Program, was that no matter how business-friendly a politician tries to make a universal healthcare plan --(see HillaryCare) --they will inevitably be attacked as radical socialists anyway. So why bother trying?

The lesson is that even if you don't actually propose a radical overhaul of the health care system, critics from the right will still have an easy time denouncing it as medical socialism. Indeed, critics from the right have been known to level that charge at even piecemeal health reform measures--from the State Children's Health Insurance Program (S-CHIP), which merely allows states to subsidize coverage for kids living at or near the poverty line, to HMO reform, which doesn't expand coverage at all but simply regulates the way insurance companies make treatment decisions.

So if you're going to propose a large-scale change to the health care system and invite the "socialized medicine" charge anyway, you might be better off endorsing a single-payer system, which at least has the virtue of being easy to explain. Unlike, say, a hybrid public-private system, which involves all sorts of convoluted regulations, which then require all sorts of tortured explanations, the essence of single-payer can be reduced to three simple words: "Medicare for all."

I noted Cohn's vision six weeks ago when I said:

Cohn’s suggestions for implementing universal health care, which are laid out in the book’s conclusion, are unambiguously and impressively bold. He has high praise for Medicare calling it “remarkably efficient.” Moreover, he speaks glowingly about many foreign governments’ health care systems. He has high praise for France’s system (where all legal residents have insurance and the government subsidizes around 75 percent of all heath care costs), which he says may be “the best showcase for what universal health care can achieve.” He also defends Canada’s single-payer system and says stories of long lines in Canadian hospitals are “wildly exaggerated.”

Given Cohn's perceptiveness and principle on the issue, it is good to see that he is featured in the Times twice this week. As this debate moves forward, having a senior editor of TNR, who is a respected, non-divisive figure handling the issue of healthcare, is a huge improvement to the early 90s when then editor of TNR, Andrew Sullivan, helped to kill the Clinton plan with an assault from the right. Of course he has a lot of help from then Republican operative, William Kristol, but TNR's role was substantial in the pre-Internet days, when they really did drive debate in Washington.

the role of business

Today, the Times has book review on Jonathan Cohn's new book Sick: The Untold Story of America’s Health Care Crisis — and the People Who Pay the Price. In February I reviewed the same book for Campus Progress.

That the reviewer, Sally Satel, is from the American Enterprise Institute made some the critiques predictable.

Cohn is himself being unfair when he sweepingly denounces “the principles of modern conservatism” for being “conspicuously short on ... comfort or hope.” In truth, there is nothing inherently pessimistic in choice, self-reliance or limited bureaucracy — the values that underlie a market-based proposal like the one introduced by Senator Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat. In this plan, employers would no longer provide insurance and would instead convert those costs into a bigger paycheck, enabling workers to buy private insurance from providers who would then be forced to compete for business by offering better plans.

But still it is telling that even someone from the ultra conservative think tank (the AEI's fellows include Mary Cheney, Fred Kagan, John Yoo and Newt Gingrich) also seemed obligated to acknowledge the tragedy of our current system as highlight by the book.

The timing of this book is perfect. An epidemic of anxiety over the cost of health care has catapulted reform back onto the national agenda, and states from California to Massachusetts are now experimenting with universal coverage. It also promises to be a key issue in the 2008 election.

In “Sick,” Jonathan Cohn, a senior editor at The New Republic, lucidly shows how America’s system for financing medical care helps determine who gets proper medical attention — and who doesn’t. He tells this story through the experiences of ordinary people ...

By the end of Cohn’s narrative we’ve run the gamut of woes: the hopeless fragmentation of the mental heath system; staggering medical debt; the dependence on job-based insurance; frayed social safety nets; lousy (or no) guarantees of preventive care; selective access to medications.

In his article in last weeks New York Times Magazine, Cohn also illustrates a growing consensus on healthcare amongst strange bedfellows, big-business and the left, who for different reasons are being squeezed by the rising costs of care.

Is all of this indicative of a broader shift in the politics of health care? Perhaps. As health care has become more expensive and even middle-class Americans have become anxious that their hold on employer-sponsored coverage is precarious, politicians have been talking seriously again about making health insurance a birthright, just as it is in every other developed nation.

[...]

But it is corporate America’s interest that is most striking. For many years, the only business leaders openly calling for universal coverage were mavericks like Howard Schultz, the chairman of Starbucks, who has long preached the need for business to show greater social responsibility. The C.E.O.’s rallying to universal coverage now — particularly in the last few months — are acting not so much out of social solidarity as out of financial necessity, as the burden of financing workers’ premiums has become ever more onerous.“The refrain from business was, ‘We can’t afford to do universal health care,’ ” says Wyden, whose plan calls for shifting responsibility for buying insurance from employers to individuals. “Now the refrain is, ‘We can’t afford not to do it.’ ”

Now, that the business community has a reason to support healthcare reform does not mean that change is inevitable. They have been woefully short on specifics but would seem to be motivated to support some kind of individual mandate plan, and not what would a far better plan: HR 676 -- Medicare for All.

In the early phases of the last great debate about health-care reform, during the early 1990s, prominent business leaders sent out strikingly similar signals — suggesting they were ready to embrace universal health care, for the same essential reasons they cite now. At one point, a coalition of business leaders put out a “play or pay” proposal that would have required corporations either to insure their workers or to pay into a common fund for the uninsured. But as President Clinton’s health-care plan lost political momentum, the business community’s support for universal health care faltered and, eventually, collapsed. Is its support any more reliable now? “This is precisely the political equation the Clintons bet on,” says Jonathan Oberlander, a health-policy scholar at the University of North Carolina. “Sorry to say this may turn out to be another mirage.”

And as the Massachusetts plan is likely to show, the mandate plans -- which make health insurance, like car insurance, something one must buy -- the reason why triangulating on healthcare only perpetuates the main problem: the fact that health insurance is controlled by the pharmaceutical companies, who are paying wasteful administrative costs, turning in a profit and giving money to politicians in both major parties.

And this has some within the single-payer movement conflicted. I attended a forum for PNHP METRO in late February and there was some dissension on how to approach the Edward's plan. While virtually no one there thought the Edwards plan would pass, or for that matter would be an efficient plan even if it did, there were still questions? Do you attack the plan for its obvious flaws, and its inability to address the root of the problem (private insurance companies and a lack of a single-payer system)? Or, do you hold off on harsh criticism, knowing the plan will never be implemented anyway (even if Edwards won the presidency, the sausage making fest that is the legislative process would either kill, or alter the plan greatly,) and try to use the momentum to help build the single-payer movement?

medicare for all

It seems, the majority of members preferred the former. There is simply no question that (HR676) The United States National Health Insurance Act which calls for "Medicare for All" is the best proposal in Washington -- and the only one that aims to take down private insurers and give the US with what every other developed country in the world has: a national universal healthcare plan.

But still, there are good signs. Aforementioned polls show that 56 percent of the public has said that they prefer a plan "like Medicare" to our current system and that healthcare is the countries top domestic priority. HR 676 now has 78 cosponsors and labor is on board as well; the AFL-CIO Executive Committee has endorsed Medicare for All.

Sure the Democratic Candidates, sans Kucinich, are predictably and sadly failing to represent the will of the country. But let us not choose the candidates, let them choose us. As an editorial in The Nation said.

Voters have to demand more if they want more. Obama at least recognizes the frustration of Americans for whom meaningful healthcare reform has been a dream deferred at least since the collapse of the Clinton Administration’s bureaucratic proposals of the mid-1990s. The Clinton plan rejected single-payer and embraced a complicated hybrid that relied too heavily on the same insurance companies that had failed to make healthcare affordable and accessible. “We can’t afford another disappointing charade in 2008, 2009 and 2010,” says Obama. He’s right. But he and his fellow front-runners should recognize that as long as they avoid talking about single-payer and continue to tinker around the edges of the current system, they are players in the charade.

Something is brewing out there. Recall two years ago when virtually every Democrat currently running for President, sans Kucinich, was opposed to a timetable in Iraq. What seems a more likely cause of the latest shift? Was it that they all has some moral epiphany, or did they begin to realize that the public will not allow them to keep walking, willfully, down the road that is destroying us. Politicians don't make change unless it becomes a political liability for them not to. Right now, the winds are at our back.

Book Review: Jonathan Cohn's "Sick"

Published at Campus Progress

Why are we "Sick?"

A new book reports on healthcare from the frontlines.

By Michael Corcoran
Wednesday February 21, 2007

The number of Americans who currently do not have health insurance, now more than 46 million, is so staggeringly high that there is a tendency to focus on what it means to society rather than the individual. With all the talk of cost controls and managed care, it is easy to forget how our broken health insurance affects the care that millions of Americans receive—or don’t—every day.

Jonathan Cohn, however, makes no such mistake. His new book, Sick: The Untold Story of America`s Health Care Crisis—and the People Who Pay the Price, is not merely about policy, but about people. This work of non-fiction is the byproduct of five years of first-hand reporting, and it brings moving stories to light.

In the introduction to Sick the reader learns the story of Cynthia Kline, a 55-year-old woman who had a heart attack in her home in Cambridge, Mass. Kline maintained enough awareness to ask to be taken to nearby Mount Auburn Hospital, which is well known for world-class cardiac care. But the hospital was over-crowded, a fairly typical problem in America, and the ambulance was redirected to Cambridge Hospital instead.

If a back-and-forth between policy wonks, or the (often empty) rhetoric from a legislator does not move the average American, the haunting cries of Ms. Kline, who yells “I’m going to die, I’m going to die,” as she rides in the ambulance, surely will.

Ms. Kline’s prediction, sadly, turned out to be true. She passed away soon after arriving at the hospital. That Mt. Auburn Hospital would have been able to perform “cardiac catherization” and perhaps save her life—something Cambridge Hospital was not able to do—is sure to enrage readers and rightfully so.

Kline’s story is not unique; it happens all over the country. Other first-hand accounts of Americans from Los Angeles to Gilbertsville, New York, show, in painful detail, the dysfunction of our system and the nearly impossible hurdles many face in trying to find adequate health care. And these problems, as Cohn illustrates, are not just the concern of those without insurance.

For example, another of the book’s subjects is Russ Doren who as a public school teacher for many years had health insurance for him and his family. But when his wife, Gina, a longtime sufferer of depression and personality disorders as a result of sexual abuse as a child, required long-term impatient care, his life started to unravel. Their coverage only paid for a portion of in-patient care for mental illness for only 45 days per year. Paying for the remaining coverage put the family into massive debt.

In one of her many suicide attempts—one of which would eventually prove fatal—Gina, clearly feeling guilt for the financial strain placed on her family, included a note that said “No more debt.”

These stories are interspersed in Sick with a fairly nuanced history of health care in the United States, leaving the reader with not only a sense of anger at the plight of the book’s subjects, but also with a good understanding of the origins of our failed system.

One element that Cohn could have addressed more pointedly is some of the lingering questions on “hybrid solutions,” such as the plan passed last year in Massachusetts that decreased the numbers of uninsured by requiring more employers to pay for health insurance. Moreover, while Cohn is justly critical of President Bush’s health care record, he could have done a better job of pointing out how much money Democrats also receive from private insurers and the pharmaceutical industry. At one point he writes, “But the Democrats didn’t win in November. George W. Bush did.” Such a statement gives the oversimplified impression that health care can be dramatically improved simply by electing a new president. If only it were that simple.

Still, Cohn’s suggestions for implementing universal health care, which are laid out in the book’s conclusion, are unambiguously and impressively bold. He has high praise for Medicare calling it “remarkably efficient.” Moreover, he speaks glowingly about many foreign governments’ health care systems. He has high praise for France’s system (where all legal residents have insurance and the government subsidizes around 75 percent of all heath care costs), which he says may be “the best showcase for what universal health care can achieve.” He also defends Canada’s single-payer system and says stories of long lines in Canadian hospitals are “wildly exaggerated.”

Moreover he sharply criticized Health Saving Accounts, which were first established in 2003 as part of a Medicare bill. The idea behind these accounts, which conservatives often push to expand, is to have taxpayers donate money to a tax-free account, not unlike the Social Security Individual Retirement Accounts President Bush pushed for in 2005, which they can then use to purchase health care. Cohn calls the logic behind these plans “dangerously naïve” and argues that these types of accounts, championed by the right as “consumer driven health care,” will only work for people who are already healthy and will therefore not face enormous premiums. The people who most need healthcare—the sick—will benefit the least.

In short, while Cohn is open to varied solutions in reforming health care, he is unafraid to widen the parameters of the debate to include drastic overhauls of the current system—and Sick, above all, is a passionate and persuasive plea for just that.

The timing of the release of the book is fitting, as health care has become central in policy discussion. Seventy-eight Congressional representatives have cosponsored a bill that would expand Medicare to cover all Americans.

“Universal Health care is really about finding collective strengths for our individual vulnerabilities—about helping a family member, a neighbor, or a fellow citizen,” Cohn writes. “One day people will realize this and make universal health care a reality.” It is up to us to make sure that day comes soon.

Book Review: War Made Easy

This was originally published at Spare Change News. (No link is available at the SCN site right now)

Book Review: War Made Easy by Norman Solomon

It is often said that the left does not have enough voices in today’s political climate. While this may be true of the Democratic Party, in truth, the progressive community does indeed have an impressive list of intelligent writers in their midst, available to those who know where to find them.

One of these voices is Norman Solomon. While he may lack the bombastic demeanor of Michael Moore, or the iconic stature of Howard Zinn, his twice-weekly syndicated columns which run in many alternative publications and Web sites, offer refreshingly independent, rational critiques of today’s press. As a result, he is becoming one of the most trustworthy media critics of our time.

In War Made Easy, Solomon exposes the manner in which leaders manage—largely through a compliant media—to sell war through the same, fallacious arguments; the results are frightening, often deadly.

The books structure is its greatest asset. Each chapter is titled with a classic justification or myth about war such as: “This guy is a modern-day Hitler,” or “Withdrawal Would Cripple U.S. Credibility”

Each chapter details how presidents and pundits use these rhetorical techniques to validate and continue war efforts. Focusing largely on Vietnam, Gulf War I and Iraq, Solomon chronicles how similar patterns emerged in each conflict, from the buildup, to the conclusion. No matter the decade, no matter the enemy, he argues, our leaders tell the American people the same things: that this war is a last resort, that it is in the interest of human rights, or that America is fighting for freedom abroad, not natural resources.

The fact that these justifications are used systematically, like clockwork, for seemingly every war, is quite damning to their legitimacy. Furthermore, as Solomon points out, the talking points often drastically conflict with reality.

To progressives and scholars, the thesis of War Made Easy is not new. What this book provides to those are already on board with Solomon, is a sharp, thoroughly researched academic tool that should benefit students and teachers who study propaganda and the relationship between US foreign policy and the media.

Where the book may prove to be most valuable, however, is with those—and there are many—who do not already have a healthy skepticism of how and why the US wages war. Many Americans, to give one example from the book, would be shocked to find out that in the three weeks leading up to the Iraq war in 2003, only 3 percent of American television sources opposed the invasion. For, if statistics like these became common knowledge, the next war may not be so easy to make.