Author: R J Adams

The media today is full of the spat between America and Israel; the falling out of two close friends who can’t quite agree on what’s right and what’s wrong.

In Britain, Finance Supremo Darling (yes, that truly is his name) sweats profusely over a budget that must grip the present economic crisis by the short and curlies, while wooing voters in a general election now only weeks away.

Here, in the land once known as ‘the colonies’, three babies suffocated last year while lying in faulty slings. A million of the products are now being recalled, as the media discovers the story and parents panic.

Still, it takes the heat off Toyota.

The ‘Healthcare Debate’ rumbles on, like a runaway hearse commandeered by a corpse refusing to lie down and be buried.

One matter not hitting the headlines in the media today is climate change. Since the ill-fated summit in Copenhagen, global warming is out of fashion. Humankind is way too involved in its own petty, irrelevant, problems to bother about such issues right now. Besides, it’s not like we’re being inundated by weather issues.

Climate change can wait until the Palestinians have their own state, the British economy is back on track, babies stop being suffocated, and Americans are all endowed with free healthcare.

There was, however, one climate change story to be discovered this morning, hidden well away at the back of the BBC website. It seems an island in the Bay of Bengal, approximately two miles square, has vanished.

South Talpetti Island, a couple of miles off the Bangladeshi/Indian coast, has fallen victim to rising global sea levels and no longer exists, except perhaps as a threat to navigation.^[1]

Maybe, after all, global warming isn’t prepared to wait until human beings solve all their other issues. Like the Bengal tiger it silently stalks its oblivious prey, and one day our petty squabbles and introspection could prove our undoing.

^{[1] “Disputed Bay of Bengal island ‘vanishes’ say scientists” BBC, March 24th 2010}

Filed under: What global warming?

The arrival in the US of that latest King of the Jews, Benyamin Netanyahu, has sent a thrill of anticipation through the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). He’s come all this way to address them and offer his support.

It’s AIPAC Week in America, folks!

Beginning this morning, 7,000 or so members will be descending on Washington, holding around 500 meetings designed to lobby (read, ‘bully’) Congress into maintaining that special, loving, relationship with all matters Israeli.

‘Bibi’ will, of course, be paying a courtesy visit to the White House. He’ll no doubt choose the most gracious of language to tell Barack Obama where he can stick his demand for the Israelis to stop building in East Jerusalem.

Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu has recently changed his mind about a ‘Two State Solution’ in the Middle East. All his political life, he’s opposed the idea bitterly. Now, however, he’s in favor of granting the Palestinians a State of their own – well, almost.

‘Bibi’ is a ‘No’ man: NO right of return for Palestinian refugees; NO sharing of Jerusalem with the Palestinians; NO weapons of any kind in a new Palestinian state, and certainly NO military.

On his arrival in America he declared:

Jerusalem is not a settlement, it’s our capital.”^[1]

What’s wrong with Tel Aviv, then?

What Netanyahu is suggesting resembles more of a ghetto than an independent state. Isn’t that what the Palestinians have now?

Europe is presently decidedly cool towards its Middle East ally – so much so that an opinion piece in today’s Jerusalem Post stated:

Beyond assisting us to retain technological military superiority against bitter foes seeking our destruction, the US is the only power capable of preventing the dominant Islamic Conference and its acolytes – including the Europeans – from imposing international sanctions against us. Without the veto power of the US at the UN Security Council, we would already be facing extraordinary problems.”^[2]

The recent revelations concerning Mossad’s involvement in the assassination of Hamas leader, Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, in Dubai last month, and the supplying of cloned British and Irish passports to its operatives, has chilled the relationship between Israel and Europe considerably.

So much, in fact, that the British government, in keeping with its wimpish reputation, has today ordered the expulsion from the country of a minor Israeli diplomat.^[3]

It’s not known which diplomat is effected. Rumor has it the official second-in-command of urinal sanitization at the Israeli Embassy is the most likely candidate.

The US clings precariously to its favorite ally, urged on by the good Jewish ladies of AIPAC. President Barack Obama strives to resolve the Palestinian problem, battling with his own countrymen and women bitterly opposed to any Arab concessions following the shock and awe indoctrination meted out to them by the previous administration of George W Bush & Co, following 9/11.

This, of course, had nothing whatever to do with the Palestinians.

Meanwhile, in a collection of no-man’s lands that could be labeled, ‘Palestine’, life – of sorts – goes on.

^{[1] “Obama to hold talks with Netanyahu amid Jerusalem row” BBC, March 23rd 2010}

^{[2] “Netanyahu must get his act together – Isi Leibler” Jerusalem Post, March 22nd 2010}

^{[3] “Britain expels Israeli diplomat over Dubai passport row” BBC, March 23rd 2010}

Filed under: God’s chosen

While many Americans will consider the passing of the healthcare bill yesterday a great step forward, and others wring their hands with dismay at the death of democracy (as they see it), the overall effect of this legislation is likely to be minimal for the vast majority of US citizens, and yet another profit-spinner for the insurance companies.

Today, rank and file Republicans may feel they’ve lost the battle against Socialism in America, but there’s little need for them to mourn. The ‘public option’ didn’t even make it to the battlefield, and without it this bill was never more than a reworking of the privatized, capitalist, system of healthcare coverage that has failed so many for so long.

The average member of US society pays four times as much for healthcare coverage as their opposite number in Europe. Despite the lies and distortions dished out by the right-wing media over the last year, universal healthcare in these countries is at least on par with America’s system, and for phenomenally less cost.

The insurance companies stood to be the real losers, had a public option remained in the bill. For the first time they’d have been up against true competition. This was why they made certain any public option was assassinated before the actual battle began.

Yet, surely, Capitalism is all about competition?

Not any more. In today’s America, Capitalism equals monopoly. Only by monopolizing the marketplace can the consumer be relegated to the ranks of the unimportant. Eliminate the competition and you eliminate choice. When the consumer finds he has no choice, he’s forced to buy whatever’s available, at a price determined by the monopoly.

Price fixing is rife throughout this nation. It’s illegal, and just occasionally a major perpetrator is discovered and punished, as happened with the giant conglomerate, ADM, back in the nineties, but mostly it goes unnoticed like so much of the corruption underlying the US Capitalist system.

The healthcare industry is not exempt. Insurance companies are out to make the biggest profit and they’ll be burning the midnight oil to optimize the consequences of this latest legislation, and meld it to their advantage.

Without a public option, there’ll be no-one to stop them.

As she was walking into the House yesterday afternoon, Nancy Pelosi said to the waiting journalists, “We’re going to do this one for the American people.”

She may, or may not, have been sincere. In reality, she should be doing every one for the American people. So, perhaps she wasn’t so sincere, after all?

All told, it’s proved a win-win situation for both sides. Obama and the American people got their healthcare bill, the insurance companies kept their monopoly, and the Republicans……?

……well, according to Senator John McCain – they’ll just repeal it in 2012.^[1]

^{[1] “McCain said Democrats have not heard end of debate” Yahoo News, March 22nd 2010}

Filed under: Socialist medicine