What are Harry Reid and the US Senate thinking? Delay of the Senate vote is a big disappointment, and significantly risking NOT getting this crucial job done at all. Democratic leaders need to STAND UP, at least on this issue.
If we can't do this now, then our democracy really has been bought and/or bullied by corporate America and the mean-spirited, small-minded, not-very-bright Republican base.
I have no job and no money (except limited SS funds for rent and health insurance!). I cannot even afford two of my non-generic prescriptions, and will be visiting a food bank next week. Thus, I cannot afford contributions or memberships in advocacy groups that care about ME (e.g., Common Cause, Move On, Obama's sites, etc.), as much as I would like to do so.
But I just printed out a call list from this Obama site (http://my.barackobama.com/page/community), and I will will be calling every name on it by the 8/6 deadline. And I have emailed Common Cause and Move On, entreating them to give us po' folks some can-do-from-home tasks to help. And I have emailed a list of legislators, urging them to help get cost-contained health-care reform (WITH a real public option) passed in both houses by August, or now at least by December; see "extended blog" below for a list based on one from Kaiser's Capital Hill Watch at http://www.kaisernetwork.org/daily_reports/rep_index.cfm?DR_ID=57496 .
We have to do something. Please join me!
How is it that most of the "media" are owned by a frightenly small number of corporate entities? Television stations, radio stations, newspapers, magazines, movies, publishers, cable companies, etc. Think Time-Warner, then Turner, then Fox, then … who …?
Do I remember correctly that there used to be laws to protect the public against monopolistic control of the news? Doesn't "freedom of the press" mean freedom from hidden distortion due to corporate control, as well as freedom from distortion due to government control? We all know that there is a lot of corporate control of government, per se, but must there be a lot of corporate control of public information about government?
Many newspapers and local television stations are struggling to survive at all. Given the internet and a rush of technological innovations in communications, a revolution is inevitable in how we are informed about what is happening, especially in our government. Really good journalists are wondering who or what (if anyone or anything) they will be working for 5-10 years from now. In addition to PBS and NPR and CSPAN and the BBC, what is there to ensure public access to reasonably trustworthy news and discussion and commentary?
Could we somehow use this really-big-the-economy-affects-and-is-affected-by-everything crisis to fix the FCC, lest those who think the Rush Limbaughs and Bill O'Reillys of this country give them all the truth and interpretation of the truth that they need to guide their votes in the next election?
How is it that so many US financial and related corporations are so large that we cannot allow them to fail? I know that this is a complex question, and I know that I do not know enough to begin to understand how complex a question it is.
I know that the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 was too vague to regulate corporations, so ended up controlling labor unions instead. I know that the Clayton Antitrust Act of 1917 outlawed charging different prices to different customers, the buying out of competitors, and interlocking boards of directors. But what about the pharmaceutical companies currently charging US prices vs. lower prices in other countries; and what about health care providers charging insurance companies one discounted price, and patients who have no insurance a higher price? And what about all the buy-outs and mergers that produced all these huge corporations? And is anyone really keeping track of who is on what boards of directors of corporations, holding companies, spin-offs, conglomerates, subsidiaries, etc. What does being “part of” AIG mean? How can greed and sneakiness in one small “part of” AIG, regardless of bonuses and redecoration, bring down all of AIG all over the world, and even also other financial entities all over the world, and even governments all over the world? Does the Federal Trade Commission know what is going on, and/or care?
The only antitrust actions I can recall in the last 50 years were about AT&T and Microsoft. Has there ever been an antitrust action in the financial world? Has there been any significant Sherman-Act-related legislation in the last 50 years, i.e., since computers and multi-national corporations and the Internet?
Maybe we need some law that says that no financial corporation can be that big. And that no financial entity can cut up loans and spread them out so widely that they cannot be traced, much less monitored. And that no insurance company can insure bets on loan repayment and similar risks. And that no one can embed information about interest rates and/or fees (on credit cards, on mortgages, on car loans, on any transaction) in so much verbiage that less than ½% of the adult population can comprehend what is really important.
