Optimism is necessary for our survival. It’s been proven. “Optimism may be so necessary to our survival that it’s hardwired in our brains.” That explains a lot.
Everything is going to be just fine!
So, today is Optimism Friday, a new invention here at Civilianism. We had a terribly pessimistic and critical article all set to go for today, but then decided, what purpose does that serve? Why add to the collective misery? In fact, Civilianism might just change its tune and give you something optimistic, maybe every day. What do we have to lose? The first installment is someone else’s writing. (I need some time to adjust to this new positive outlook.) The topic is health care. In summary: We didn’t get what we wanted. It’s OK. Breath deeply. Picture yourself smiling. Now tilt your head back, grab your nose, using your extra fingers to pinch your upper lip into a sort of stiffness, pull, and let the optimism course through your veins.
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“On Healthcare: Hold Your Noses and Celebrate Anyway
Democrats have been trying to pass a universal healthcare plan for nearly a century. But Woodrow Wilson dropped the ball on the first attempt, FDR gave up on the second, Harry Truman ran smack into the AMA on the third, Richard Nixon collided with Teddy Kennedy on the fourth, and Bill Clinton fell to Harry and Louise (and Bob and Newt) on the fifth.
Now we’re on our sixth try, and the fight so far hasn’t been a pretty one. The Republican side has been dominated by howling over death panels and socialism, transparently fake attempts at bipartisanship, and promises to filibuster and obstruct endlessly. On the Democratic side, activists have turned abortion funding and the public option into hills to die for, Olympia Snowe and Ben Nelson have become de factor kingmakers, and even at best none of the bills on offer will cover more than about two-thirds of the uninsured.
But you know what? This is still the farthest we’ve ever gotten, and with Democrats coming out of this week’s series of negotiating sessions seemingly united behind a compromise plan, it looks like Harry Reid might actually get something passed through the Senate before Christmas. If that happens, a conference committee will likely report out a final bill sometime in January. And that will be the first time ever that Congress has even gotten to the point of voting on national healthcare.
The first time. So yes: It’s not single-payer. The subsidies are inadequate. The public option, if there is one, will be so weak as to be a joke. Every interest group from insurers to doctors to seniors to pharmaceutical companies has been openly bribed to go along. Lots of people will still be left outside the safety net. It’s a mess.
But so was Social Security when it passed. It left out domestic workers (because they were mostly black and Southerners demanded it), it left out farmworkers, and its payouts were pathetically small. But what it did do was establish the principle that the elderly should be taken care of. And eventually they were. The healthcare bill we’re about to get is exactly the same: It does too little and it leaves too many people out, but it establishes the principle that everyone deserves decent healthcare. And eventually everyone will.
So hold your noses and celebrate anyway. It’s taken us a hundred years, but if this messy, inadequate, infuriating healthcare reform passes it will be a historic occasion. FDR will finally be smiling.”
It’s the farthest we’ve ever gotten! (I can tell already that optimism involves lots of exclamation marks.)
That was from Kevin Drum of Mother Jones. There’s more! On Climate change and Sarah Palin (SaraPee):
Why Sarah Palin Is Good for the Planet
She’s not trying to destroy the world after all! She’s out to save science by talking about it!
Excerpt:
“Here’s good news for the planet: Sarah Palin has become perhaps the leading US foe of the Copenhagen summit and efforts to redress climate change.
While on her book tour, the governor-who-quit has been Twittering regularly about her adventures. Most of her tweets have a God-bless-America tone:
* Privileged 2 now meet w MN folks w families n Alaska;1 realizes how intimate r nation is as we travel&hear of connections all Americans have
* Headed to Walter Reed hospital this morn to meet wounded warriors;will give them msg of support from patriots who love these selfless troops
*Flying 2 Dallas now where bus meets us 2 get early start tomrrw w 1000s of good Texans who are lot like Alaskans:independent/bold/patriotic
But when she’s not tweeting about all the wonderful Americans she meets across the wonderful United States, Palin has been zapping out Twitter messages about global warming–or the lack thereof:
* Stand by for Facebook entry on Obama’s climate change “experts” & their latest shenanigans. Thank God “Climategate” truth is being revealed!
* Leave chilly TX(poor evidence of global warming today)4 Virginia event&speech tonite n DC;Glad Todd got 2 lv construction project 2 join us!
*Copnhagn Climate Summit;Obama should boycott in light of bogus “findings”Public leary re:snake oil science,he must take stand on climategate
* 2 much of “global warming” agenda is merely to halt responsible developmnt;sound science must b foundation 4 Copnhagn decisions,not politics
On Wednesday, as the Copenhagen conference was under way, she published [a piece of *^%$ ] in The Washington Post, denouncing the climate change crowd, claiming (errantly) that the so-called Climategate controversy [Hackergate criminal activity -- like Watergate] proves there’s no significant scientific consensus, and asserting climate change is not connected to human activity: “while we recognize the occurrence of these natural, cyclical environmental trends, we can’t say with assurance that man’s activities cause weather changes.” (Actually, the issue is climate change, not weather change.)
Palin is supplanting Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) as the nation’s most prominent climate change denier. Her stance is nothing new. On Palin’s first day as John McCain’s running-mate in 2008, she said in an interview, “I’m not one though who would attribute [climate change] to being man-made.” This past July, she wrote a Washington Post op-ed decrying the pending cap-and-trade legislation, without once referring to climate change. In that recent Facebook note she tweeted about, Palin contended, “we cannot primarily blame man’s activities for the earth’s cyclical weather changes. The drastic economic measures being pushed by dogmatic environmentalists won’t change the weather, but will dramatically change our economy for the worse.”
This is by David Corn of MOJO.
There’s more, but let’s cut to the chase:
Given that Palin’s standing in various polls is low, environmentalists may want to encourage her to Twitter even more and be seen as the leader of the assault on Copenhagen. If Palin truly becomes the public face of the opposition, that is not likely to boost the credibility or prospects of the do-nothing crowd.”
Aha! That works for me. You see, Sarah knows nothing about science. Ab-so-lu-tely Nothing. NADA. And the beauty of it is, it’s obvious to everyone. There are no ‘cycles’ that last 3 million years. Please! Even better, I can live with the knowledge that SaraPee is so obviously a fake and a fraud, even Joe the Plumber probably gets it. I don’t have to move off the planet after all.
So the more she talks about it, the better for us. Talk away, SaraPee!
Join me at 
One would hope that if any change occurs, it will be more than just a gift to Wall Street. Maybe nothing will happen and any phasing in of future parts of a plan will be scrapped because of dire financial constraints and the need for financial restraint. There won’t be any cuts to KBR and some others like them, but the people can forget getting anything. It boggles the mind that a single-payer system like the one in the UK can’t be done here. When Nixon was going to have some kind of national health, would it have been single-payer? I had read somewhere that Saint Teddy the K had stopped Nixon’s efforts. Is this true? If it is, then it pretty much destroys Saint Teddy’s credibility to anyone who is progressive. Nixon was guilty for quite a number of things, including the framing of the Rosenbergs and Alger Hiss, the ‘Bay of Pigs thing’ which H. R. Haldeman elaborated in his book ‘The Realms of Power’ and not quite sure to what extent involvement in the persecution of John Lennon. Not a nice man, but if he tried to give single-payer health insurance to the people, you’ve got to give him credit for that. He and his boss, Eisenhower, also gave the gift of the Vietnam War, but after all those years, he finally stopped it. In all fairness, that doesn’t bring back anyone who had their mind, body or life, but the health care thing is curious to me. If Saint Teddy really was guilty of stopping it, then all those decades of fighting for something undermines everything he claimed to have or is credited with ’standing for’. As far as health care goes, people need help. They need real answers and no amount of liberal posturing or media declared sainthood gets the job done better than competent treatment of health problems. The only thing that helps in such a case is getting your hands dirty or bloody to help those in need. If Nixon was going to provide that, he should have been allowed to do so. Anyone, bar none, who stood in the way, has no right to get credit for trying to help anyone, imho. When Kissinger was appointed to power, all the liberals (not to be confused with Progressives) were so happy and gushing with how great the smartest man in the world was going to be for the world, ad nauseum. We all know how that’s turned out and it’s still turning, as well as my stomach.
Forgot to add that when you have over 15% unemployment in places like Michigan and maybe 18% or higher in many other places, it’s no use to try and force people to buy insurance. The kkkonservative$$ try to use the false word ‘free’ health care when anyone knows it isn’t free. It would be paid for by the public, just as KBR and Halliburton are paid for by the public. Silverado and Lincoln Savings and Loan were paid for by the public due to the mismanagement of people within those organizations. Kkkonserservative$$ can complain about health care being funded, but everyone paid for the bail-out on Wall Street which you haven’t benefited from because trickle-down means the executives got the good water and champagne and they later trickled something that wasn’t water on you. Why can’t the rip-off insurance companies be disbanded? It most certainly could be done. Just try growing certain plants and see how long you last if the government finds out. They’ll come in and take everything you have and you’ll be punished for it. Those people are doing something that is arguably a victimless crime if they’re only growing ganja. If rip-off insurance companies are setting these stupidly high premiums and disqualifying anyone for any contrived pre-existing condition, they’re thieves, plain and simple. And bums like o’really defend them. The profit should be taken out of medicine and surgery. There’s no reason to charge the insane prices that are being charged. The Hippocratic Oath states in part to ‘do no harm’. When you charge people thousands upon thousands of dollars that they don’t have and never will have, that is a form of murder and you certainly remove their hope by throwing this heavy load upon their already broken shoulders. I don’t know what they’ve got planned, but it’s criminal to expect unemployed people with no prospect for work anytime soon to buy a bogus policy that requires constant funding to stay in effect, but will never release a penny to the policy holder when any help is actually needed. A gift to the people is what is needed, not another gift to crooks and criminal thieves who’s only function is to steal as much as they can while living the good life and masquerading as someone who works honestly for a living. Shame on them all. The people who are voting for a gift to Wall Street need to realize that a lot of people don’t have cars, unlike some leaders today who have stated that one needs car insurance to drive a car. A lot of people simply can’t afford a car, so they don’t need car insurance. Fair is fair and reason is reason, but only the unreasonable would propose that those without work and money should pay high premiums for worthless but costly insurance policies. Anyone accepts that you buy car insurance if you drive a car. You don’t have to drive a car, but you do need to be in good health in order to have any decent pain-free as nature intended existence while you are living. Only a clueless or criminal mind would dictate mandatory health insurance. The poor can’t afford it and there are a lot of poor people out there in the world. If it’s required, then the government should actually control the costs and stop these thieves masquerading as CEOs and wake up to the fact that there is still enough poverty in the world that enough people will not be able to afford anything and they should just forget any more gifts to Wall Street and just have a single-payer system like a real country might use.