This article on RT.com is about a couple of Americans who are building an email system free of NSA snooping. It sounds plausible – even if FBI marches in and demands access, it will be blocked by private encryption. Their only option will be to shut the operation down in total. They might inquire with the Chinese on the technical aspects of that. I think you just bust in the front door with some thugs in helmets and carrying automatic weapons and close it down.
It is worth noting here that there is no terrorism of any note going on in the US except that done by CIA and other domestic agencies. This is for the purpose of keeping us in a state of fear. The TV is the prime method of spreading that fear. It controls us just like telescreens in Orwell’s 1984. There is no evidence of terrorism. If you follow any story to its source, you find either nothing or domestic agents at work. But it only need be mentioned on TV, and it is effective. If it is on TV, it is real.
Think about it: Airport security. They check your person, your bags, your identity. There is no purpose to that, as anyone wanting to blow us up only has to go to the queue where people are waiting to be scanned to set off a bomb. It does not happen. (Don’t give CIA or FBI ideas, however.) There are no terrorists about.
However, by means of airport security government monitors our movements and can stop us from flying anytime. That is the objective – control of the domestic population.
Likewise, domestic spying on our computers and social networks has nothing to do with the nonexistent terrorists, but rather with internal dissent. That is the prime concern of any oppressive government – its own people, the “domestic enemy” as Chomsky calls it.
I don’t know what Occupy Wall Street was in its real purpose. The urgency with which Obama clamped down in it indicates some concern high up. But I do know that even if it was a real groundswell, government can mine such operations to identify domestic activists. So it would make sense that OWS was a PSYOP for that purpose, to expose them. But I do not know that.
The remedy, of course, is to stop being afraid, stop believing news, stop watching the TV for anything more than weather and sports. But our population is so deeply thought-controlled that this is nothing more than a pipe dream.
Piece of Mindful 
The tech blogs are full of ideas on how to avoid NSA tracking. The question then arises about being too “dark” and drawing attention that way.
“…by means of airport security government monitors our movements and can restrict our travel…”
They could do that without all the theatre, which is done to reassure the populace. A bit troubling is that when they start to dial back the gratuitous groping, we hear clamour from some parts of the public for it to continue.
And yes, the thought control from our overlords is irritating: no genetic differences between people; no differences in group ability; radical equalitarianism. People like to say that they believe in evolution, but they don’t want to face the implications. Sigh. I like to think that the truth will win out in the end, but the political climate can stay irrational longer than I can stay solvent.
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Are you sure Fred isn’t really just m a x b u c k s with his happy face on?
The potential damage that could be done by a hijacked airliner exceeds the potential of that done by someone bombing a line of people in a tsa line so if you accept that terrorists who intend to hijack exist then some measure of security to board a plane makes sense. Of course I already know that you do not accept that premise (even though skyjackings have been happening as long as we have had air travel) so it isn’t necessary for you to take away from your beach time to explain at this time. Current tsa searches are ridiculous but the seizing of air travel has been a tried and true political weapon for quite some time and those countries who make a habit of creating desperate political enemies would do well to guard against it.
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Yes, hijackings occur, but only extremely rarely, and the countermeasures need not be so onerous as this big brother scene we have at airports. That is done only to remind up us that we should always be afraid and are in need of protection. Even the Israelis have figured this out – you don’t grope everyone. You are clever and look for the suspicious ones.
And yes, no planes were hijacked on 9/11. The burden of proof there is on you. Watcha got?
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Also note that airport security was nationalized after 9/11, something our host is anxious to apply to health care in this country. Why should we presume that health care won’t be taken over and used by the Cabal to the same nefarious ends? I would expect such posts as: It is worth noting here that there is no health care shortage of any note going on in the US except that promulgated by NIH and other domestic agencies. This is for the purpose of keeping us in a state of fear. The TV is the prime method of spreading that fear. It controls us just like telescreens in Orwell’s 1984. There is no evidence of a health care shortage. If you follow any story to its source, you find either nothing or domestic agents at work. But it only need be mentioned on TV, and it is effective. If it is on TV, it is real. Health care used to be kept expensive and in short supply by insurance company executives at the behest of Wall Street executives. But finally the glorious day arrived where they were all lined up along a trench and treated like Che and Fidel treated their political enemies. But, alas, the real power behind the scene; the unnamed, unknowable entities that really control things; quickly regained the reins of power from the People’s Health Care System and are, as we speak, funneling massive amounts of money into their off shore bank accounts. More trenches are needed.
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Health care is a public utility, a natural government function. The for-profit system cannot do it because they have conflicting objectives – profit versus care – serve one only at the expense of the other.
And again, the fact that it works everywhere it is tried seems not to move you in the least.
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Your usual line is that any big entity with any importance has been taken over by power behind the scenes, and that power cares not one whit for the populace. Why should we believe health care won’t stay the same cash cow under total gov’t control that you are so convinced it has become now?
Health care is a public utility, a natural government function.
To you, every conceivable thing is a natural government function.
The for-profit system cannot do it because they have conflicting objectives – profit versus care – serve one only at the expense of the other.
And the bureaucracy you crave does not have these conflicts?
One major flaw with our current insurance based system is that the cost controls are so weak. Forget about the administrative executives skimming profits. The big cost drivers are the number of procedures and people involved at a high cost. In every comparison I’ve seen between our health care system and other countries, the thing that stood out was the number of specialists and support personal (nurses and techs) involved in each procedure. Administrative overhead was some of it, but you are not going to get significant savings by just attacking the administrative end, and I’ve never seen a gov’t entity do much to cut admin, costs,
What we call “health insurance” is really a funding mechanism for health care. In that sense, this complaining we have is just shooting the messenger. The thing costs 2 trillion dollars a year. The insurance companies and government divide that by the paying customers they have on the books. Under your system, we get rid of the insurance companies, and the thing gets funded by taxpayers; essentially the same as before: the 2 trillion gets divided by the same paying customers. Any cost cutting is pretty vague. The thing that gets pushed is that the gov’t can compel more people to pay into the system. This doesn’t cut any costs, just spreads the cost over (allegedly) more people.
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Ayeeeee! Every other system that uses government-run or single payer health care has the following: Lower costs per capita, 100% coverage, an excellent system of triage based on easy access to the system, and better outcomes.
You twist yourself into a pretzel trying to understand how absence of a profit motive as the driving force is the prime reason for success.
There is no efficiency brought about by health insurance companies. Their overhead alone is at least 15% for large groups, 20% for individuals. Because of the burdens they impose on other groups, hospitals, clinics, doctors, overall adm o/h is 31%. By world standards that is not just high, it’s absurd.
The purpose of health insurance companies is not efficiency, though the cost-sharing principle behind it is efficient. The insurance companies rather are engaged in “capitalist enclosure,” where they have taken an efficient system, surrounded it, excluded anyone deemed unprofitable, and charged exorbitant fees to any they let in. Their last act, ACA, or Obamacare, is the final nail, subsidy. Obama was hired to prevent the rise of single payer. He succeeded.
The overall activity of insurance companies is known as “rent seeking.” Look it up.
Governance is an essential feature of life. There are good and bad among all countries, but ours is among the worst because our leaders, the government within the government, are psychopaths and our government has become “pathocracy.” Look that up too. It is the same sickness that Germany, the Soviets, Japan in the late 1920’s, and British since god knows when succumbed to. The fact that psychopaths have taken control by means of assassination and false flag events like 9/11 and Boston does not make government the culprit. It is the criminals currently in power.
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You twist yourself into a pretzel
Oh, you are just trying to flatter me.
trying to understand how absence of a profit motive as the driving force is the prime reason for success.
I’m not all that big of a fan of the profit motive. I’m well aware of the distortions. But every system has their weak points. They have to be used/implemented properly.
Every other system that uses government-run or single payer health care has the following: Lower costs per capita, 100% coverage, an excellent system of triage based on easy access to the system, and better outcomes.
Well, some of this depends on how you count things. We take more extensive measures for premature babies and accident victims, a couple big things that drive our costs. It is kind of naive to think we will have a revolution and step from what we have into some Euro-Asian type technocratic system that will be accepted and be significantly different that what we have now.
Health insurance companies have turbo charged their rent seeking by having it subsidized through the ACA
I’m not sure it is that much of a panacea for insurance companies: more regulation and oversight. And many companies have gotten out of underwriting health insurance. If the money is so easy, why don’t we see more entrants, even the barriers to entry are high? I followed one large entity that went it alone, becoming self insured, thinking that they could capture all the rent and pass the savings on. They didn’t save a dime. The actual delivery of care is the big cost driver.
criminals in government
If things are so bad, or if they get bad enough, it seems guys like you, me, and like minded individuals, should be able to seize control — it’s our government at the end of the day. Or die trying. Or carve out an area we can defend from the psychopaths and raise up a proper government. If we are truly going down the tubes, there should be a point where reasonable people take action.
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We cannot change the nature of people – that is, most of us are good and decent, but there are always a small percentage that prey on the goodness of others to achieve their own petty aims, usually accumulation of wealth and the power needed to protect accumulated wealth. That will never change. We can, however, attempt to construct systems of governance and regulations to keep these forces at bay. They will never go away. Even in days and places where people fondly remember good times and democracy, they were there devising ways around democracy to take control of government for themselves.
To a large degree, and mostly due to arrival of a new and unschooled generation, they succeeded in 1980 with the arrival of Reagan and the people who created his mythological personality. Since that time power has become centralized in government (to a large degree in unelected power centers) and business, media constricted, propaganda (always present) intensified to an unbearable degree. 9/11 was the beginning of the new age of empire, though it could not sustain even for a decade.
New world awaits, power decentralized now, US weakened, new superpowers arising. I don’t know the future. Like always. It cannot be worse than these last twelve years.
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It cannot be worse than these last twelve years.
You must not have much imagination..
Reagan was a point along a steady continuum: no blip in the rise of federal spending, no blip in the politically leftward march of the nation. His enduring legacy will probably be the 1986 immigration amnesty that opened the floodgates to demographic replacement of this country; apparently a win for everyone: cheap labor for the profit motivated; votes for those who love democracy and can thus just dial up the numbers they need to outvote the evil conservatives who just can’t understand the need for more progressiveness; and the Tomato Guy’s of the world who think White people are boring. Mmm, vibrancy. It is all good.
but there are always a small percentage that prey on the goodness of others to achieve their own petty aims, usually accumulation of wealth and the power needed to protect accumulated wealth. That will never change.
Things can change, but a start would require facing the truth, including lessons from biology.
The accumulation of wealth and power includes a big chunk going to Washington DC, which has been the fastest growing wealthy area in the US of late. You fret about wealth accumulation in the private sector, but let us not take our eyes off the other areas with equal acquisitiveness.
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Before the ACA, private health insurance plans set a yearly dollar limit on care. Many plans also set a lifetime limit. The lifetime “cap” has been lifted. Bankruptcy is no longer the automatic price of surviving a serious illness or accident. Avoiding bankruptcy and promoting public health speaks directly to the purpose of our U.S. Constitution: “….Promote the General Welfare….”
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Many plans also set a lifetime limit.
And some don’t.
The lifetime “cap” has been lifted.
So now unlimited health care spending is available to all? Who is going to pay for all this? Does it promote the general welfare to install an unlimited liability upon the populace?
Bankruptcy is no longer the automatic price of surviving a serious illness or accident.
Well, I suppose one could pay for their care directly. It can be awfully expensive. Maybe we need cheaper alternatives. But you got the benefit of the care, what’s wrong with you paying for it? Bankruptcy is not that bad in any case; a de-facto way of getting others to pay for our stuff, which seems to be the goal of everyone around here.
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Those “cheaper alternatives” exist in every industrialized country but one. You know we pay twice the price for half the care — a worst-of-both-worlds, private-public system. What does your solution look like if it’s not similar to one of the other countries with universal health care systems?
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What does your solution look like
I’m not sure we need a solution. We pay a lot, but we also get a lot. “Half the care at twice the cost” is misleading. We get quicker access; more extensive procedures; and we employ a lot more people. Where are you going to cut? Administration? People love love love their white collar jobs, and dig in to protect them. Fewer specialists? An obvious place, but who’s going to carry that news? Cut salaries, support personnel? It’s like cutting union jobs. Good luck.
The solution you seek is the solution I seek in other areas: my auto parts cost too much; my tires cost too much. I’m on it, but one man’s gain is another man’s loss.
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Your system gets even more efficient as it serves fewer people. You need to deal with universality, health care as a right (come up with a philosophical basis on which denial is aright of some against others). Otherwise, you’re merely advocating services for privileged classes, hardly a social good.
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To say our system excludes people is a bit apocryphal.
To announce something is a right is largely to say government can’t interfere. If we have a right to speech, that doesn’t mean I have to pay for your microphone. You can rent your own hall and build your own bullhorn. You have the right to any surgical procedure, but how much am I required to pay for your stuff? Denying me use of my money in this case is a philosophical problem for you. You are creating a privileged class here: those who need medical care beyond their own resources.
Yes, I understand that a community has a responsibility to its members occasionally beyond the individual’s own abilities. But at some point we have to talk about an amount.
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It was “announced” as a right after WWII, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. some take it seriously. Regrading your right to keep your income, if you can come up with another basis of taxation that does not hurt some, go for it. I don’t like income tax either. But left to the private sector to take care of health, you are a dickensonian.
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I’ll grant you all the rights you want, I just want to know why I should pay for them.
The UN rights document gave everyone the right to marry who they want. I want to marry a supermodel, but the only one with any interest said it would cost me one billion dollars. I called Max Baucus, ’cause I figured he would know about gov’t funding of such things, and he said I would have to raise the money on my own. Bastard.
The Declaration puts medical care under the right to an adequate standard of living. How much is adequate? One bottle of aspirin? A fully equipped intensive care unit on standby for every man, woman, and child?
if you can come up with another basis of taxation that does not hurt some, go for it.
Voluntary donations? I suppose at some level taxation is voluntary.
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Taxation works via social contract where we all fund things that we may or may not believe in. Failure to do so leads to chaos. I hate these god damned wars and butchery, murdered innocents by the boatload to satisfy the needs of bankers and corporations who control so much wealth as to be able to rule foreign policy and public information. I would hold back that part of my tax used to finance this barbarism if I could. Thoreau had a similar notion concerning the Mexican adventure of his time.
The D of HR was signed onto by your country, perhaps an unenforceable statement of idealistic goals, but backed by philosophical reasoning. I don’t care if you don’t like paying for public health. We’re doing it anyway. You need to come around. Not us.
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I’m not against public funding toward agreed upon goals. I don’t see where the “rights” agenda forces public funding of such. There is a right to travel, a right to religion. Must the public fund those?
I suppose you could point to the life threatening nature of heath care. Doesn’t change the argument.
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Poor = “privileged class?” So, right is might, right, right? You dance the Orwellian Inversion like a blindfolded prima ballerina. Dada humor, perhaps. You cannot be serious about this.
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I was making a point, not staking out a philosophical position.
Measuring your goodness by how much money you give to the poor is problematic.
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