Comment on: "Good news! No Really" by Bill Keller

See
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/17/opinion/keller-good-news-no-really.html
for article...

I'm not sure why the modern American news media always seem to feel they need to feed us a \"feel good story\", usually at the end of the network newscasts -- it is time we Americans faced the disaster we have created for ourselves.

And the \"good news\" Mr Keller quotes is really scraping the bottom of the barrel, if we have to go to Liberia and Somalia for \"good\" news.

It would be more useful if the Editor of an influential source such as the NYT took an honest and forthright look at the problems and potential solutions we have in the US, and took a non-weasel-out stand on the current \"debate\" in Congress about how to correct the deficit-lack-of-jobs-deteriorating-infrastructure-etc-etc situation which our money-lobby-special-interest driven political system has gotten us into...

\"Fair and Balanced Journalism\" does not mean that you just let each side spout its gobble-de-gook, it means checking what is true, factual and makes sense, and then having the courage to say so....

Comment on: "America’s ‘Primal Scream’" by Nicholas Kristof

See
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/16/opinion/sunday/kristof-americas-primal-scream.html?hp
for the original opinion piece by Kristof.
=================================
This is an excellent piece in that it is one of the few instances, news or opinion piece, which has correctly described the odd dichotomy of many Americans - they recognize and empathize when citizens in other countries are oppressed (such as during the \"Arab Spring\"), but (for the most part) they allow themselves to be taken in by the Republican dogma that asking for a more equal distribution of economic and political power in the US is somehow \"class warfare\".

The critique of the 99% vs 1% distribution is absolutely on target: wealth = power in the US form of democracy. And this unequal distribution will ultimately lead to the death of American democracy unless we as a people find the means and the will to reverse the trend of ever more concentration of wealth and power within a smaller and smaller oligarchy.

This deadly trend of concentrating wealth and power in the top 1% started with Reagan and accelerated to unbelievable proportions during the Bush (W) administration. This was the real "class warfare" and it successfully decimated, if not outright killed, the broad American middle class. The Republican intransigence against any form of of tax increases for the top 1% in order to reverse this deadly concentration of wealth and power is the stranglehold which will choke the life out of American democracy.

Comment on: "Health Law to Be Revised by Ending a Program"

See
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/15/health/policy/15health.html
for original article.

Health care, and health care insurance in the US is a joke, and unfortunately President Obama does not understand (or is not willing to admit) that without mandatory coverage, including a single payer plan (for which those with money could add additional private coverage) is needed to make anything work, including long-term health coverage.

By now the statistics about the fact the the US has the highest per-capita expenditures for health care, which gets it somewhere between rank 30 and 40 in terms go \"health care outcomes\" (depending on which measured you choose) should be well known.

In addition, the much ballyhooed \"free-enterprise\" model for healthcare favored by Republicans (at the behest of the health \"industry\" lobbies - just like when they passed Medicare Part D, the biggest give-away in the history of health care legislation) only allows corporate greed to enrich themselves on the backs of the suffering, ill, and elderly -- just like the recent news stories about the \"scarce drugs\", where our wonderful corporate leaders horde scarce but vital drugs in order to jack up the prices by insane margins, apparently up to 600% and more.

While not perfect, the US could do with some advice from other advanced/industrialized countries, ALL of which have national health care plans, and NONE of which allow the disgrace of some 45 million citizens to go without even minimal health care...

Comment on: "Something’s Happening Here" by Thomas Friedman

See
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/12/opinion/theres-something-happening-here.html?_r=1&hp
for original article by Thomas Friedman

I vote for Paul Gilding's \"The Great Disruption\" as closer to \"the truth\". Economics and economists have led us to believe that free market capitalism, with its supposed self-correction and optimum resource allocation mechanisms, is the cure-all. However, in order to come up with this \"theory\" of economics and their wonderful economic models, they have had to \"externalize\" and/or abstract almost everything from the real world. They (economists) postulate perfect and complete knowledge when players in the free-market economy, from individuals choosing a new car, to corporations deciding on a new product, make their decisions. That is, of course, complete bunk. For example, marketing/Madison Avenue spends billions to mis-inform us about products and services, using sophisticated psychological techniques, combined with outright lies, to ensure that we do NOT have complete information, and that we do NOT make rational choices. And how complete was the information of financial institutions in defining the real estate based junk products, and how rational were their decision in betting everything on these products, which no one really understood?

Free market capitalism has shown its lethal flaws (ignoring, for example, the environmental impacts, and the social/human impacts, because it cannot be \"priced\"). I do not pretend to know how to fix this, but something will have to radically modify, or even replace, free market capitalism if the world is to survive.

Comment on: "The Milquetoast Radicals" by David Brooks

See
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/11/opinion/the-milquetoast-radicals.html?_r=1&ref=global-home
for the original Brooks column.

Mr. Brooks, it is indeed a 99% vs 1% problem. All the valid policy imperatives you enumerate (\"Do tax reform, fiscal reform, education reform and political reform so that when the economy finally does recover the prosperity is deep, broad and strong\") to get the country out of the doldrums are exactly the steps being blocked by a GOP which has been completely hijacked by a minority of radical conservatives whose only policy goal is the \"ensure that Obama fails\" (as opposed to ensuring that the country succeeds).

The 1% are in possession of the vast majority of wealth, and thus, given the PAC and Lobby-driven nature of the US political system, hold virtually all economic and political power.

The Occupy Wall Street protests are an expression of frustration with the government and the 1% power-elite which controls it, not much different from the Tea Party before it was hijacked by conservative PACs.

Our current political problems are indeed like \"declaring war on some nefarious elite\", just like the American Revolution declaring war on the nefarious British Crown, with actions like the original Boston Tea Party...

Comment on: "Panic of the Plutocrats", by Paul Krugman

For the original piece by Paul Krugman, see
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/10/opinion/panic-of-the-plutocrats.html

I am surprised by Mr. Krugman's apparent surprise...

Plutocrats and/or Oligarchs always react with panic, and when pushed to the wall, with extreme ruthlessness to any perceived or actual threat to their status and privilege.

Judging by some of the disproportionate reactions from the NYPD to the protesters, the moneyed powers obviously want to crush this in the bud - let's remember that the New York mayor is named Bloomberg, and although I often admire his sometimes liberal policies, he is definitely a member of the Oligarchy.

Comment on: "Where Have You Gone, Joe DiMaggio?

For original Freedman column, see
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/09/opinion/sunday/friedman-where-have-you-gone-joe-dimaggio.html?_r=1&hp


While I agree with Mr. Friedman's oft stated view:
"To do that, we need to reinvigorate our traditional formula for success — quality education and infrastructure, open immigration, the right rules to incentivize risk-taking and government-financed scientific research",
his assertion that Steve Jobs embodies the kind of leadership qualities we need in politics, however, is ludicrous. There is nothing "democratic" (small d) about successful corporate leaders. They are more akin to dictators, and we want to be careful about a populous longing for a "strong man" or dictator to get us out of our current troubles. It is exactly the fact that Americans, different from most other countries during the last Great Depression, did not succumb to the temptation to turn to a dictator to lead them out of their miseries, which makes America different. All right, I'll grant you that FDR had many of the qualities of a "strong man" leader, some on the Right would even say, a dictator. But we as Americans did manage to keep things within the framework of a democratic government and society.
I agree that leaders like Steve Jobs are important in a free-market, entrepreneurial society, but let's make sure we keep the boundaries between good corporate leadership (generally un-democratic) and good public leadership, clearly defined.