I have featured Mike Figueredo before to share his many spot-on insights and carefully gathered facts. He recently released a record length video compilation, over three hours long (and full of good stuff), a length that many of us can probably only handle on a weekend, except for those set up to listen to his podcasts while commuting.
Hence this part 2 of my video weekend post dedicated to Mike’s “Humanist Report.” To make it easier to handle, I have written up a timeline so you can more easily watch it in parts. The timeline is posted in the “Continue reading…” section below the video:
(Note: if the video linked above gets deleted, you may search the Internet for the title: “Hillary Clinton and Her Minions Seek Vengeance on America | Episode 110 “)
Once again, a collection of fine videos to brighten your weekend with enlightenment and fuel for our political revolution:
I. Jimmy Dore and Lee Camp together. A fine duo. Unfortunately, I felt they had both made the same statements before, and better, when they did them alone and better prepared. Still, I like what comes up 14:20 minutes into this clip (asking why you would donate to the “Democratic Party” when its primaries are rigged by its own admission!). The talk then moves to the topic of our rigged debates keeping out third parties… handcuffing presidential candidates to keep them away from the rigged debates… and record climate events in the past two months. Later Lee Camp, talking about Bannon, reveals how our corporate media lift up right-wingers by allowing only THEM to criticize corruption even though they are part of it):
(Note: if the video linked above gets deleted, you may search the Internet for the title: “Jimmy Dore On The Corporate State And The Power Of The Petrodollar “)
II.
Political wrangling surrounding Bernie’s Medicare for All bill:
(Note: if the video linked above gets deleted, you may search the Internet for the title: “Some Democrats Are Pretending Bernie’s ‘Medicare for All’ Bill Doesn’t Exist “)
III.
The usual lies about healthcare costs and single-payer:
(Note: if the video linked above gets deleted, you may search the Internet for the title: “Aetna CEO is Scared To Death of Single-Payer”)
Debunking one of the biggest lies: No, single-payer coverage such as Medicare for All is not single-provider healthcare, meaning a government-run healthcare, but merely a government-secured payment system. So, you can pick and choose your doctors as before, except this time their will be no question whether or not you can pay. It is simply our government doing its sworn duty to look out for its citizens.
IV.
Cha-Ching:
(Note: if the video linked above gets deleted, you may search the Internet for the title: “Obama Enriches Self With Back Room Oil Deal”)
V.
We have a responsibility not only for ourselves to fix our country:
(Note: if the video linked above gets deleted, you may search the Internet for the title: “Propaganda Buries Facts & Manipulates Emotions – Abby Martin with Chris Hedges”)
Various revelations about our country’s dark history. Also: an interesting and creepy revelation from former war correspondent Chris Hedges. He explains how the despotic regime in a foreign country went through the same motions as our southern states with their glorification of the Confederation: basically, when people are getting desperate over their worsening lives, give them a myth to feel good about, the better to control them. In our case, that myth would be the ‘noble heroism’ of our civil war’s slavery defenders, building up a white-against-black and south-against-north mentality that keeps us from uniting against the blood-sucking establishment controlling and exploiting us from above. The more divided we are, the better controlled from the top we are.
VI.
An older but very nice conversation:
(Note: if the video linked above gets deleted, you may search the Internet for the title: “Cornel West and Richard Wolff talk about Capitalism and White Supremacy”)
How much better off are freed slaves when they become enslaved by a wage slavery system? When one king of a company can hire and fire you, abuse you, rip you off and make you lick his boots – and every alternative job is just as bad – it is anathema to democracy!
VII.
Nice historic review of the last century of our economy and politics – the New Deal and its repeal:
(Note: if the video linked above gets deleted, you may search the Internet for the title: “Full Show 11/11/15: How Reaganomics Killed America’s Middle Class”)
Conclusion: we can’t keep a golden age after getting it, if we don’t topple the plutocrats who will roll back everything to resume their godlike status among a sea of serfs. The pendulum will always swing back to the dark side if we do nothing to lock it in place.
VIII.
And not to forget: the environment we depend on. One thing apparently forgotten in this conversation was the great danger that lies in our getting the permafrost soil to melt, releasing huge amounts of methane, which is a far worse greenhouse gas than CO2. Basically, we are terraforming ourselves off this planet:
(Note: if the video linked above gets deleted, you may search the Internet for the title: “After Maria “Obliterates” Puerto Rico, Trump Pushes Dangerous Climate Policy”)
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As I think I recently mentioned, Republican “leaders” are hurtling one more time toward an Obamacare repeal, and we must tell them “No!” — Even as Bernie Sanders has put forth his Medicare for All bill, the worst of the worst in Washington are still hell-bent on shredding federal protections found in the Affordable Care Act, killing its subsidies and Medicaid expansion, and suffocating the fifty-year Medicaid program that benefits everyone from newborns to seniors in nursing homes. If we don’t stop them, they will do it this month before time runs out for them.
“The GOP lawmakers who demand repeal, and the rich donors who back them, don’t seem to mind bulldozing our health care to make way for their tax cuts and market-based dystopia. … An unprecedented national solidarity has blossomed around the repeal proposal – in opposition to it. … That opposition includes medical and hospital groups. Patient organizations. Republican and Democratic governors. The health secretary for the home state of the bill’s top sponsor. Veterans. People who simply believe every person in our country deserves, and should get, health care. … So, call, call, call – not just to your senators, but to your representatives in the House, too. (Here’s the number for the Capitol switchboard: (202) 224-3121. But call local offices, too!”
I quickly dug up the following (untried by me) places to find phone numbers:
For many long decades, corrupt politicians have been baiting voters with measly little tax breaks while giving huge tax breaks to the rich and simultaneously cutting government services that help the citizenry, thereby actually costing us tax payers more money, rather than less, since we have to make up for the reduced government servicesand tax breaks for the rich out of our own pockets. These dishonest politicians have consistently shifted the savings from government service cuts to their billionaire cronies in the form of huge tax breaks, and this year they are at it again (Trumpcare and the proposed budget). The super-rich parasites, who receive these giant tax breaks and live a life-long vacation watching their dividends roll in, all pay only half the tax rate (typically 15% not counting loopholes and foreign tax havens) of what the rest of us, who actually work for our living, have to pay on our hard-earned income. Economist Robert Wolff explains some of this in this interview you might want to watch:
(Note: if the video linked above gets deleted, you may search the Internet for the title: “The GOP’s Latest Plan to Rob the Poor & Reward the Rich…”)
So, please tell me, when your life becomes unaffordable because the rich don’t pay their share and more and more wealth is transferred to them, how does that make your life better? These tax cut promises are just a sales pitch to sell us a reverse-Robin-Hood system. Continue reading →
(Note: if the video linked above gets deleted, you may search the Internet for the title: “Rep. Denny Heck Becomes 2nd Democrat Primaried for Not Supporting ‘Medicare for All'”)
Thanks to Bernie Sanders’ 2016 primary campaign, Medicare for All is no longer falsely considered pie in the sky. In fact, while Bernie just released his Medicare for All bill in the Senate, John Conyers’ similar bill, which has been gathering dust since he introduced it all the way back in 2003, has now a lot more co-sponsors than ever before: a whopping 117 (compared to the previous high of 49 in 2015)! Continue reading →
Medicare for All. We all want it. And the healthcare profiteers and their political cronies have been fighting it tooth and nail since FDR’s days, happy to see us suffer and die as long as they can extort us.
In fact, blocking healthcare for all isn’t enough for the worst of the political leeches in office. The crooks in the “right” arm of the establishment party (the arm called the Republican Party) are gearing up for yet one more effort to repeal Obamacare (despite the fact that he copied it from them). Despite all the popular unrest about this, they still wish to replace it with that heinous billionaire tax gift that is Trump’s wealthcare plan. (with a “w” rather than “h” when not mendaciously misspelled). At the same time, if sparingly released news are to be believed,arguably the worst of them all, Speaker of the House Paul Ryan is making yet anotherattempt to demolish Medicare by privatizing the program to mainly benefit huge insurance companies while also giving yet more tax breaks to the very wealthiest Americans. (Can people who so betray the American people really still be called Americans?)
In the meantime, to move the fight for justice forward, Bernie recently unveiled his new Medicare for All bill proposal. Here is the ceremony:
(Note: if the video linked above gets deleted, you may search the Internet for the title: “Bernie Sanders Unveils the Medicare for All Act – September 13th,2017”)
Welcome to yet another video weekend courtesy of this blog. No need to go bankrupt in your nearest cinema or lose much time searching for videos which grow you as a person rather than dumbing you down like so much of the corporate entertainment does. Have some laughs, shed some tears, and learn how to fight our rigged system while you relax, maybe with friends and family, watching these videos. Be sure to share them.
The first video (from the The Jimmy Dore Show) covers a variety of topics: Brexit, solidarity, presidential power and failure to use it — doom of journalism and the hubris and lack of concern and sympathy among the privileged and sheltered lucky ones in a profession that is falling apart — the awful mentality of the establishment’s henchmen and handmaidens such as those self-satified shills in the corporate media — how Obama became a sell-out instead of a hero — and Kamala Harris’ corruption:
(Note: if the video linked above gets deleted, you may search the Internet for “Moyers & Company” and the title: “Obama’s Three Biggest Failures – Not What You Think”)
Death to master-thieves in other countries. Elevation to pharaoh status in ours. Wait… didn’t we make war on this very same overseas government once?
(Note: if the video linked above gets deleted, you may search the Internet for “Moyers & Company” and the title: “3 Criminal Bankers Sentenced To DEATH!”)
No kidding, but even the spare time activity of golf is part of the establishment’s schemes against us now! — Private elite universities also leech off us even as we ourselves can no longer afford basic college. — Our national price-gouging and political bribing by Big Pharma is a big problem and we are forbidden to buy medication from cheaper places, even as our blood-sucking drug companies themselves are permitted to do what we are not: to buy cheaper Canadian drugs. And after they buy them cheap, as we are not allowed to, they get to sell them to us at a steep markup to pad their wallets, all watched over by our FDA for drug safety, of course. The latter means that all this quacking and clucking about safety risks when buying medicine from Canada is nothing but a baldfaced lie. — Our low taxes on corporations are only high in theory but quite low in practice (and, yet, our biggest corporations evade them anyway). — Researchers are being bought by corporations just like politicians are (global warming denial anyone?). — Scapegoating of immigrants is an old game of pulling the wool over our eyes. — Last but not least, taxing should happen where the money is, not where it’s lacking:
(Note: if the video linked above gets deleted, you may search the Internet for “Moyers & Company” and the title: “Economic Update: Faith & Labor Fight Inequality”)
Hmm… the rich person I once intimately knew sure enough spent much of her time in this iconic rich people’s pastime.
Richard Wolff quote: “… profit grabbing… using the power of your business to control the politics to give you yet another benefit on top of all of those you’ve purchased before.”
Have you wondered how our oligarchs report low unemployment to celebrate our nation and its “recovery” from the last stock market crash when our economy declines and sucks in reality? You simply don’t count unemployed people who have given up looking for jobs they know are not there; and you count people pushed into poverty as employment success when the growing number of working poor in an economy which increasingly squeezes us to our limits reflects the disappearing middle class. You can now find the conditions of poor, low-wage China right here in the U.S.:
(Note: if the video linked above gets deleted, you may search the Internet for “Moyers & Company” and the title: “Unemployment – Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics – Richard Wolff”)
Conclusion: We have a working class out of work (with some of us not completely out of work but underemployed and underpaid, so maybe not out of work, but out of life). Any wonder that our economy sucks?
Somehow I felt like sharing this one (with no further comment)… It kind of fits in with all that I-don’t-care-about-others-thinking which has poisoned our society, killing the solidarity we need to stand up for our rights, and which defines our establishment:
(Note: if the video linked above gets deleted, you may search the Internet for “Moyers & Company” and the title: “Don’t judge people you don’t know ( you will cry after watching )”)
Editor’s Note: As I keep saying, I don’t live in a left-right or conservative-liberal mental cage. In my view, these devisions of the people are cultivated by our oligarchs while, in reality, each and every one of us carries inside a mix of conservative and progressive ideas, “right” and “left” notions, and a zoo of diverse opinions — even more so when we start to think things through. Still, many people do still self-identify as belonging to this camp or that camp, and – by the way they talk – they fit one of the official molds. The author I present today (for the second time) fits the “conservative” (or libertarian?) mold. He admits to have originally sneered at universal health care and greatly favored our “free market” private health insurance system (personally, I wonder what is supposed to be free about private insurers holding our health for ransom). However, he has come around to support government-financed universal healthcare. Below you can discover what made him change his mind. — Dirk Droll
racket: government confiscation from innocent citizens
our system sucks away real life (Moyers)
FCC’s Comment Fraud on Net Neutrality
the 2nd Guilded Age
Wall Street Gambling still supported by DC
Haven’t you long felt like the corporate media news are talking right past you? Well, you are not alone, Jimmy Dore can show you:
(Note: if the video linked above gets deleted, you may search the Internet for the title: “What Americans Care About VS. What Media Covers”)
A whole bunch of interesting topics carefully treated (like the single-payer healthcare stance of Trump and “Democratic” politicians, government confiscation from innocent citizens (a massive racket, I can tell you!), primaring fake progressive career politicians, etc.):
(Note: if the video linked above gets deleted, you may search the Internet for the title: “As Trumpcare Falls, Single-Payer Rises | Episode 104”)
Slightly rephrasing Bill Moyers: Our political and economic/financial institutions and mass media have come to be without a soul. We walk a world in which the lust for private power and wealth corrupts everything and sucks away real life.
(Note: if the video linked above gets deleted, you may search the Internet for the title: “Politics in the Age of Casino Capitalism”)
Corporate Con-Job at the FCC: Anything to Censor the Internet
(Note: if the video linked above gets deleted, you may search the Internet for the title: “FCC’s Comment Fraud Problem WAY Worse Than Anyone Imagined“)
Frederick Townsend Martin (one of the robber barons of our 1st Guilded Age: “… we are the rich. We own America; we got it, God knows how; but we intend to keep it…” Ughhh! The practice and intent clearly is the same in our current 2nd Guilded Age, including the abject indifference and cruelty.
(Note: if the video linked above gets deleted, you may search the Internet for the title: “The New Robber Barons“)
Bill Moyers alerted us back in 2014, when few of us were paying attention, to Obama and Congress heinously passing a bill permitting Wall Street to resume its predatory practices (which only a few years earlier had given us the Mortgage Crisis and Great Recession) and sticking us, the taxpayers, with the bill when their gambles will fail again — all done as investment return for half a billion dollars poured into the midterm elections by these “financial interests.” And, unsurprisingly, the bill was written by a corporate think tank and adopted practically verbatim by our congress cheats, the way business is done in our “representative” legislature these days.
I hope everybody is coming to understand that corruption in our highest political offices did not start with Trump. It has been going on for a long time (long before Obama, too) and merely keeps gobbling up our country and ruining our lives contrary to Trump’s promise to “drain the swamp,” Obama’s promise of hope, and whatever false promises their predecessors (the Bushes, Bill Clinton, Richard Nixon and all those false cheats in Congress, as well as many state governments and city councils, made).
We are not fated to live this way. It isn’t fate. It’s a rigged system which we can change in a heartbeat when we resolve to do so and join forces to do it.
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I have been bringing current health war news and announcing health war fronts (like signature and donation drives) every few days. Things are happening so fast that another update is due, for example about tomorrow’s rallies. So, here goes: Continue reading →
