Yeh, I'm old enough to remember

Americans are supposed to have short memory spans.  But I remember.

In 1985, US Presiden​​t Ronald Reagan introduced a group of six visiting Afghan mujahideen warriors to reporters on the White House lawn.  Reagan proclaimed, "These gentlemen are the moral equivalents of America's founding fathers."

Those warriors were, of course, leaders of the groups that became the Taliban and al-Qaeda.  Neither of those groups would exist today if not for the help of the US, which was determined to hand Russia a defeat in Afghanistan as humiliating as the American defeat in Vietnam.  The Americans were driven by egoism. By hurt pride.  Osama bin Laden wasn't in that group of six at the White House that day, but he was one of those mujahideen leaders, and he was an ally of the United States, trained, armed and funded by the Americans.  Oh, the irony of it is so rich.

And, oh how we laughed when Leonid Brezhnev's soviet army suffered a shameful defeat at the hands of those mujahideen warriors in 1989.  Tucked tail and fled.

Listen.  Yeh, I hear it, too.  That's the sound of Russian laughter, and I can't help thinking, "he who laughs last, laughs best."

That is what happened, 36 years ago.  The wind was sown ...


And, in case you don't remember, and you need to be reminded, neither the Taliban or ISIS existed before the US got involved in Afghanistan, funding and training and supplying weapons to the mujahideen freedom fighters who were determined to expel the Soviet Union from their country.

Remember the Khmer Rouge?  

In 1970, Richard Nixon and then National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger sent US troops on secret missions into Cambodia to clean out Viet Cong sanctuaries and destroy their supply lines and started bombing Cambodia (a war crime of the first order).  The Khmer Rouge communists, who were very few in number, with very little popular support, used the heavy American bombing as a recruiting tool among the common people in the countryside, which is exactly what happened in both Afghanistan and Pakistan (if not in much of the Muslim world).

It took a scant five years for the Khmer Rouge to grow from a few scattered camps numbering an estimated 4,000 into the guerrilla army of 70,000 that seized the Cambodian capital in 1975 and began their "purge" of the population, which was basically a purge of anyone who supported or worked with the foreigners who invaded their country.   You know, traitors.  Mostly they killed the people who lived in the cities and who cared more about making money than in making a patriotic defense of Cambodia's sovereignty.

Isn't that what's happening, right now, in Afghanistan?

The Khmer Rouge did not come to power because the US stopped bombing Cambodia ... they came to power because the US started bombing Cambodia.

By the same token, it has been the US occupation of Afghanistan and the propaganda value of its indiscriminate use of aerial and drone bombing that has strengthened the Taliban for the past 20 years.  And, it was certain that when the US tucked tail and left the country in defeat, that the Taliban would "purge" the infidels in their country; it is not because the US failed to "stay the course."  It is because the Americans made the enormous mistake of trying to do what no military power has done in 1,000 years:  conquer Afghanistan, the "Graveyard of Empires."

War is a question of morality; and it always will be

The Rev. William P. Mahedy was a Catholic chaplain in Vietnam for a decade.  In his book Out of the Night:  The Spiritual Journey of Vietnam Vets, Reverend Madedy told of a soldier, a former altar boy, who asked him: "Hey, Chaplain, "how come it's a sin to hop into bed with a mama-san but it's okay to blow away gooks out in the bush?"

Mahedy wrote, "Consider the question that he and I were forced to confront on that day in a jungle clearing.  How is it that a Christian can, with a clear conscience, spend a year in a war zone killing people and yet place his soul in jeopardy by spending a few minutes with a prostitute? If the New Testament prohibitions of sexual misconduct are to be stringently interpreted, why, then, are Jesus' injunctions against violence not binding in the same way? In other words, what does the commandment 'Thou shalt not kill' really mean?"

"In theological terms, war is sin," wrote Mahedy. "This has nothing to do with whether a particular war is justified or whether isolated incidents in a soldier's war were right or wrong. The point is that war as a human enterprise is a matter of sin. It is a form of hatred for one's fellow human beings. It produces alienation from others and nihilism, and it ultimately represents a turning away from God."  ["nihilism" here means, simply, the rejection of all moral principles — CAulds]

The wars that the US is involved in (soon to be twenty years in Afghanistan, having accomplished ... well ... nothing) has exposed the truth about America's Christian fundamentalists ("christianists", not Christians), the hollowness of their morality, the hypocrisy of their religiosity.  On the subject of war, one that is without doubt a question of morality, America's leading religious leaders and institutions have been silent, not willing or brave enough to take a moral leadership position.  And now it is best they remain so, as they have nothing to say to us now.

Shockingly a few have even tried to defend ​​the indefensible.  To defend sin.  To affirm that evil committed in the name of good is not evil (a violation of one of the very most basic tenets of Christianity).  And the gap between the values that evangelicals claim, and the reality of their actions in the past 20 years, is an ugly open oozing wound.

I say, once again, principles that can be easily changed and manipulated by others, for whatever purpose, good or evil, aren't true principles at all.

How Canadians and American differ on universal health care

​​​​​​I was 48 years old when I immigrated to Canada (from a Deep South US state) in 2005, with my wife and daughter (who was 14 at the time). Under the auspices of the NAFTA treaty (as skilled work immigrants) we became eligible for Medicare after a three month wait. And we have no complaints about Canada's system of universal health care.

When we came to Canada, Canada had a new conservative government and "privatisation" of the health care system was a hot topic. The Obamacare" debate in the States educated a lot of Canadians about our own health care system. And there are few Canadians now who support a privatized health care system like the one “enjoyed” by Americans.

I remember a conversation I had with a young consultant in my office about how Americans and Canadians are different.  We agreed that Canadians are in most respects (he said 75%, I said 90%) just like Americans ... but where they differ, the differences are profound.
​​
"It's not conspicuous," Jason said, "it's inside ... it's in our psyches."
​​
"How do you mean?" I asked.

Jason said, "Americans are all about themselves, what they can get for themselves, it's always me, me, me ... Canadians are more community minded."

I had to agree with that.  I think that's why Canadians are far more willing to embrace a system like our single-payer health care system; not because it works so well for us, individually, but because it works so well for all Canadians, many of whom, particularly those living in some of the world's most remote regions, would have no decent medical care without it.  

A big difference in Canadian and American attitudes toward universal health care coverage is that Canadians do not fret excessively about people taking advantage of social services.  Undocumented immigrants, ​​or Reagan's "welfare queens", or whoever; that "straw man" is a very American creation.  It is simply accepted by Canadians that there will be abusers; that is no reason to eliminate a system that is beneficial to everyone else.  In other words, Canadians are reluctant to "throw out the baby with the bathwater."

I dealt with my own cognitive dissonance, when I crossed the US-Canadian border, by thinking this way:  So what if someone else's kid gets free hospital treatment for a head injury?  That doesn't take anything from me.  Because one day it might be my kid's turn to ride in that ambulance.  That's the way a healthy society works.  And that's how we fight back against the insatiable greed of the one-percenters. We are our neighbor's keeper.  We're all in this together.

Canadians don't worry excessively/compulsively about "those people" who are getting something for nothing. 

It's interesting that I had to immigrate to another country to learn what community is really all about.

"Oath Keepers" still exists?

I was surprised, in January, to learn that Oath Keepers (founded eleven years ago) still exists.  The group was founded in March, 2009 by Stewart Rhodes, a lawyer and former US Army paratrooper, coincidentally with the inauguration of President Obama.  Oath Keepers organizes former and current military and police to be prepared to resist all unconstitutional orders. As a result, they have been attacked by everyone from Bill O’Reilly on the right (who called them "anarchists") to Bill Clinton on the left (who linked them with "terrorists").

The "Oath" in Oath Keepers refers to the oath military servicemen and servicewomen and police take to defend the constitution. Stewart Rhodes claims he founded Oath Keepers to help "defend the constitution from its enemies," most of whom, he believes are in or around the government.

Rhodes thinks neither liberals nor conservatives recognize the need to limit government to Constitutional bounds. "Picture a Venn diagram with 2 overlapping circles," he says. "People in each circle only object to what's going on when they are not in power. But there is a third section that, no matter who is in power, they care about the constitution and distrust those in power. My goal is to grow that third part of the population.” Among the "consistent Americans," Rhodes includes feminist author Naomi Wolf, Congressman Dennis Kucinich, and Congressman Ron Paul.  Two of them are liberals, the third a Libertarian; none of them are rightwing. Oath Keepers isn't partisan.

That all sounds great.  "We're not a political organization!" they claim loudly, "We champion liberty, American values, and upholding the Constitution, regardless of which political party is power."

Oath Keepers' lists Ten Orders We Will Not Obey. These include: "We will not obey orders to disarm the American people, conduct warrantless searches, detain American citizens as 'unlawful enemy combatants' or to subject them to military tribunal, impose martial law or a 'state of emergency' on a state, or invade and subjugate any state that asserts its sovereignty."

But wait.  Wait.  Just hold on a minute ... aren't these the very things the US began doing, in the name of its "War on Terror", 8 years before this organization was conceived?  Then why was this group founded only after the political party in power shifted?

The are the very same rightwing "patriots" who meekly and submissively accepted a major shift toward a police state 17 years ago.  They were silent about all of these things ... completely silent:

• presidential claims of unlimited executive power
• limitless imprisonment with no legal recourse
• warrantless intrusive searches
• warrantless wiretaps
• creation of massive databases on citizens
• repudiation of habeas corpus
• redefining cruel and unusual punishment as "enhanced interrogation"
• suppression of dissent
• arbitrary no-fly lists
• endless overseas wars

Isn't it ironic that this group was perfectly ok with all of these things as long as they were being done by a large, powerful, and growing federal government that was in the control of "their" political party?  Then, suddenly, after a change of power, they discovered their principles?  Just like that?  Or did they only oppose all these actions by the federal government because they don't like the political party in control?  That would make their motives political, not principled. That's loathsome.  They think all these things are fine, when they are being done to "others."  But if they think they're the ones who might be the targets, then, and only then, they choose to be upset?

These are people, who love to stroke each other at silly flag rallies where they talk about the right to own assault weapons.  But at a time when they needed to take a stand; at a time when true courage and principle were required; they stood down, and remained silent.  Compliant.  Submissive to authority.

When it took courage to stand up and oppose the actions of a runaway government; they were silent.  When public opinion was against those of us who opposed America's perpetual series of wars; they were silent.  When it took guts to oppose the things they claim to oppose; they remained gutless.

These aren't patriots at all; and they are certainly not leaders; these are weak followers of authority; the tools of that authority.

And now they want our respect NOW?   I don't think that's gonna happen.

Respect has to be earned; it's not a right.  And that, friend, is a true American principle.

 

Oath Keepers and True Patriots in 1941

 

 

Canada's single-payer health care system (does it improve our overall health ?)

Younger Americans have made sure that universal single-payer health care is part of the discussion Americans are having about what they want their nation to be.  The reason? Young Americans are learning more about universal health care, and realizing its value. They are also not frightened by the word "socialism."

I immigrated to Canada in October 2005, along with my wife and daughter. In the 15 years we've lived here, our experience with Canada's system of universal health care or, as it is known here in Canada, simply "Medicare", has been a positive one.

It is important to understand that, in Canada, the only people who are allowed to make decisions about who receives medical care are physicians.  In the United States, by contract, HMOs and other private medical insurers do indeed make many such decisions about who gets what care (it's probably more appropriate to say "who gets denied the care they need). In Canada, medical decisions are left entirely up to doctors, and there are no requirements for pre-authorization whatsoever.   If your family doctor says you need an MRI, you get an MRI. Like I did after a severe concussion four years ago. An emergency room doctor called a Moncton New Brunswick hospital, and I got an immediate appointment for an MRI the following morning. Straight to the head of the line. My "ability to pay" was not a consideration. In the US, if an insurance administrator or HMO rep says you are not getting an MRI, then you're not getting one regardless of what your doctor thinks — unless, of course, you pay for it out of your own pocket.  I bet you there are far more Americans paying for necessary medical procedures out of their own pockets than there are Canadians who find it necessary to do that.

The health system of an entire country can't be evaluated by measures like "MRI machines per capita" or perhaps, "number of hospital beds per capita", not if the use of those machines and beds is rationed by ability to pay for them.

There are statistics that are generally accepted as valid measures of the overall health of a population.  What are some of these and, in the aggregate, which population fares better by these measures, that of the US or Canada?


 

Infant mortality rates (the number of infants who died under the age of one year, per thousand)

USA        5.3 deaths/1000

Canada   4.3

Source:  CIA World Factbook

The probability of a newborn making it to age 65

                    Female       Male 

USA               85.7%      77.4%

Canada          89.3%       82.3%

Source:  https://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/stats/Health/Probability-of-reaching-65


Life expectancy at birth for the total population (male and female), considered a good indicator of overall health
(The gap in life expectancy between Canada and the United States continues to widen)

USA          78.6%

Canada     81.9%

Source:  OECD List of Countries by Life Expectancy (2016)


And, my own favourite statistic: expected number of healthy years of life (because I don't want to live long; I want to live well).
Healthy life expectancy (HALE) is the average number of years that a person can expect to live in "full health"

USA         66.1 years

Canada    71.3

Source:   World Health Organization HALE Index (2019)

 

Should most Americans care about the rest ?

I immigrated to Canada, from a Deep South US state, in 2005, along with my wife and my 14 year old daughter.  I was 48 years old, and I now have long personal experiences with the medical system in both Canada and the US. 

I would never suggest to anyone that better medical care or facilities or equipment or professionals is available anywhere in the world than what is available in the US.   The problem, in the US, is that access to that medical care is increasingly rationed based on ability to pay for it, and a growing number of Americans are finding themselves forced to forgo necessary care for financial reasons. 

I was one of the lucky ones, too ... I had a lot of career success; I wrote a best-selling technical (Linux) book in 2000 ... but after my wife's colon cancer experience (which gave us those famous "pre-existing conditions") and my being caught in a corporate "downsizing", I understood that it would not take much of an emergency to put us in a very bad situation.  I could not ignore how many Americans suffered from no fault of their own ... and I changed my attitudes dramatically.

The best measure of the greatness of a nation (in my opinion) is in how it treats its citizens who are the weakest, most vulnerable, the elderly, the infirm, the handicapped. 

The US is losing something that is a lot more important than their economic and military dominance of the planet ... Americans are losing their claim (in the eyes of the entire world) to being a people of compassion.

Is it worth it?  I don't think so.   I think it's yet another in a series of very bad choices.

Indeed ... most Americans are probably in very good shape.  As long as they choose not to care about those who are not as fortunate, most Americans have no reason to hope for change.

But "most" is the problem.  "Most" excludes millions of Americans.  So the divide is really between those who think that those millions of Americans don't count ... and those who think they do.

I think they do matter ... because the measure of the greatness or goodness of a society is in how well it treats its most vulnerable; its infirm, its weak and elderly.  It's poor.

America is trying to determine whether it will be great and good ... or sell its soul to the highest bidder.  America is in the process of making that choice, whether people are aware of it or not.  And the choice is profound, because it will set the country on a course that may prove impossible to reverse.

That's why the opponents of the health care have resorted to a campaign of lies and fear rhetoric.  They do not use fact or reason, or offer alternative solutions.   Because they have already made their choices, and an honest, open, fair-minded debate is not in their best interest. 

What do you believe?

The climate models have been uncannily accurate

For what it's worth, any claims you may have heard that there is a gap between the major climate model projections for global temperature and actual observed temperatures are false.

In the chart below, a composite model of climate change projections is compared to four of the most widely-respected datasets of actual, measured, and globally averaged temperature measures:

UK Meteorological Office/Hadley Center's Climate Research Unit HadCRUT5

NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI)

NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) GISTEMP 

Berkeley Earth http://berkeleyearth.org/

The black line on the chart is the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project phase 3 (CMIP3), which combines multiple projections/predictions into a single projection.  The gray area represents the area of 95% certainty around that single projection (essentially, it encompasses 95% of the variability in the various models, most of that variability is based on different scenarios for the future, such as population growth/decline, increase/reduction in the use of fossil fuels).  

Although neither is used in the chart, the datasets of both Japan's Meteorological Agency (JMA) and the EU's Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) are in close agreement with the others.

Climate models and projections of global warming have proven to be extremely reliable.