SC funds other states' health care, instead of our own

Yes, you read the title correctly.



From The State:

COLUMBIA — Imagine someone offered to give you $4.1 billion over three years, and if you did not take it, your neighbors would get the money instead.

That is the situation South Carolina is in with the federal government, according to S.C. House Democrats who are pushing for the state to expand Medicaid – the joint federal-state health insurance program for the poor and disabled.

We covered this today on Occupy the Microphone, if you want irate, anti-Republican rants from me and my co-hosts.

The SC House rejected the expansion of Medicaid:

COLUMBIA, SC — House lawmakers refused to expand Medicaid in South Carolina on Tuesday after hours of debate that echoed the conflicts of class, race and religion.

For nearly five hours on Tuesday, Democrats quoted statistics and scripture in arguing for an amendment to the state’s $22.7 billion spending plan that would make 500,000 more poor people eligible for taxpayer-funded health insurance. They even proposed an amendment that would require any lawmaker voting against the expansion to forfeit their own taxpayer-funded health insurance.

But Republicans – who control the state House of Representatives – said the plan would cost too much and questioned if it would improve the health of South Carolinians. Amendments were defeated with a series of votes along party lines.

"If more money and more government produced healthier citizens, Americans should be the healthiest population on the planet – but we’re not,” House Speaker Bobby Harrell said in a news release. “The current system is clearly broken but instead of trying to fix this broken system, Obamacare simply makes it bigger.”

The expansion is an optional part of what’s formally called the Affordable Care Act. Expanding Medicaid would provide health insurance to anyone in South Carolina who makes 138 percent or below the federal poverty level. That’s about $15,000 a year for a single person and $32,000 a year for a family of four.

The federal government would pay 100 percent of the cost of the expansion for the first three years – about $4.1 billion. After that, the state would gradually start paying for a small part of the expansion while the federal government continued to cover most of it.

But even covering that small part of the expansion would cost South Carolina between $613 million and $1.9 billion by 2020 – depending on how many people signed up for the program and how much the state had to pay doctors.

Democrats tried to make expansion a moral issue. Rep. Leon Howard, D-Richland, said it was “a common thing” for seniors in his district to decide between paying their utility bill or buying their medication. Rep. James Smith, D-Richland, showed lawmakers how a person making $15,000 a year does not make enough to cover their expenses.

And Rep. Mandy Powers Norrell, D-Lancaster, told lawmakers how a man came to her law office carrying four grocery bags filled with $500,000 worth of medical bills for his wife, who has breast cancer. She said 60 percent of bankruptcies in the U.S. are because of medical debt.

“It is our moral obligation, it is a duty that all of us are bound, because we are Christians, we believe in God and God tell us to treat the least of these as you would him,” House Minority Leader Todd Rutherford, D-Richland, said from the House floor. “Denying them access to health care, denying them insurance, is not how anyone should be treated.”

House Republicans were notably silent during Tuesday’s debate, not once challenging the Democrats who were speaking. At various times during the morning, House Speaker Bobby Harrell, R-Charleston, posted to his Twitter account that House Republicans were “prepared to stand strong & defeat all budget amendments opting SC into Obamacare expansion.”

Republicans are notoriously bad Christians, though, so I don't know why Rep. Rutherford thought an appeal to their religion would help.

Where is Governor Haley?

Even Gov. Nikki Haley, who canceled her appointments on Tuesday to spend time with her mother who had been admitted to the hospital, issued a news release thanking House Republicans for “fighting to protect South Carolina from the looming public policy nightmare and fiscal disaster that is ObamaCare’s Medicaid expansion.”

Does Haley's mother, Ms. Raj Randhawa, have health insurance? Apparently so. I say, let's take it away. Not a problem, right? I mean, if that is considered acceptable for the poor and disabled of South Carolina, I am sure it's acceptable for Governor Haley's mother. After all, according to the Governor's 'biography'--the USA is the land of equality! (maybe she didn't even read her own biography)

Let's subject the Haley family to the same conditions 500,000 poor South Carolinians are subjected to and see how Haley feels about that.

Then again, since she has no heart, she probably won't feel a thing.

As of today, Governor Haley is crazy busy hobnobbing with rich people in Florida, instead of dealing with pressing issues at home--whether it is her mother or the rest of us. She is auditioning for future lobbying-gigs at the National Association of Manufacturers Board of Directors dinner in Boca Raton. God knows, those dinners are far more important than either a sick mother or the people of South Carolina getting our hard-earned taxes sent to other states, which is what will now happen. (To my out-of-state readers: you're welcome. Send your thank-you cards to Governor Haley, who has generously given you OUR earmarked tax money.) After all, if she was HERE AT HOME (which she so rarely is), she'd have to face the music and actually answer questions... and Haley is so inept and incompetent, she can't even give local interviews, preferring to talk to THE VIEW and VOGUE.

If this dinner was in a less-photogenic, less high-profile or more wintry location, bank on it, Haley wouldn't be there. Free trips to FLORIDA during winter! (Last week, Haley spoke in Orlando to 4,000 representatives of companies that supply Walmart stores.) Good work if you can get it.

Haley denies 500,000 people health care, but be assured, she denies herself NOTHING.

DIY Greenville space - Garaj Mahal

The new DIY Greenville space, known as the Garaj Mahal, had their first show last night. It was epic! I am SO PROUD of these kids. They are very open, accepting, and intensely committed to diversity and creativity. They are ready to try anything, the whole DIY ethic brought to life. Daisy hereby gives the whole endeavor a big fat A plus.

The new space is in an old garage near Paris Mountain; the "before" photos show a piled-up dump of furniture and detritus right out of the TV show "Hoarders" ... the DIY collective jumped in with aplomb; cleaning, hauling trash, scrubbing, building, installing a usable toilet and importing the requisite stinky old couches required by punk rockers everywhere (there's a law somewhere, I'm certain of it). When we arrived, the place was staffed with eager young volunteers with hula hoops and balloons-- as well as the occasional baby and dog.

The overall vibe really reminds me of the days of 70s Deadhead culture, people selling (or giving away) their own handmade comics, patches, buttons, t-shirts and zines of all descriptions. Although the music is (mostly, not entirely) punk, I can distinctly remember a violent, repellent, scary skinhead/biker atmosphere in the days of 70s punk, which often served the purpose of keeping women and gender-variant people away. Neo-nazis invariably showed up at 70s punk shows, usually sporting biker chains, swastikas, racist patches sewn on their butts ("Drop the Bomb and let God sort em out" was a real favorite) and other unfriendly paraphernalia. (It was due to this default-racist atmosphere within punk, that the Rock Against Racism movement was born, which I was proud to be part of.)

By contrast, the young folks in the current DIY movement seem more like the artist-rebels at an event like Burning Man. They are lots of fun, dedicated to advancing anti-corporate culture, and very positive.

And not a single swastika.

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Photos below, and as always, you can click to enlarge.

Hay Fever, featuring lovely singer/guitarist Amber and drummer Ryan.



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Weapon Y/Z



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I was thinking that this guy brought the freaking house down with his bang-up Broadway-stripper version of Total Eclipse of the Heart, and I thought Who is he? And whaddaya know, he's already one of my Facebook friends! Small world, huh?

I also heard the opening bars of "Nothing compares 2 U" and I was really disappointed he didn't tear that one up as well.

NEXT TIME, Jake Xingu! I'm holding you to it!



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From Indiana, Ghost Mice--lots of fun!



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Below, the Ghost Mice fiddler with her significant-other and adorable little leopard-clad baby; dancers; hula-hoopers, etc.

And the very last photo, a man who certainly needs no introduction here at DEAD AIR: my fabulous radio co-host, DOUBLE A, rock and roll diehard.



And a splendid time was had by all!

Atheism and (lack of) morality

Are atheists more moral than those of us who do not classify ourselves that way? I often think they are. Perhaps this is why they aren't unnerved about the long-term effects of atheism; they are doing fine, and they assume everyone else will, too.

The 'new atheists' are basically moral and well-behaved, so they don't realize that some of us are moral and well-behaved simply to keep from burning in hell for all eternity.

If there was no God or no law or no karma, we would SETTLE SOME SCORES.

I started thinking about this after participating on an atheist blog some years ago, when I was still identifying as Christian. I was struck by the fact that one of my serious questions was thought to be a joke, or at the least, a sarcastic rejoinder. It wasn't. I was dead serious. But the atheists didn't think I was serious, and that is what I found alarming: this means they do not understand what a serious matter it is.

Once again, I felt we were trying to communicate across a huge abyss.

I asked, "What about the fact that believing there is a God, keeps lots of people from killing each other?"

HAHAHA, they all responded, virtually as one unit. Well, they sneered back, one can learn not to kill someone without God. They acted like it was a simple decision, not a seductive thought that one consciously wrestles with (as in Woody Allen's great movie Crimes and Misdemeanors); an act that you eventually logically decide is... not nice. And so, you don't do it.

But why not, in that case? I asked what would be the deterrent, if there is no hell-fire? No bad karma and/or no punishment? Again, they sneered and thought I was joking or being a wise-ass. (It is also notable that they apparently assumed I was talking about someone else, i.e. The Bad People, rather than myself and other regular people like me.)

I wasn't. I was being rational. Belief systems (various kinds) have kept a lot of us from going off on people and committing violence. If there is no divine retribution, no holy justice, no guarantee the evil will be punished... do you understand how dangerous such an idea is?

Let me be very clear: Do the privileged understand that if the poor stop believing in God, they will no longer be safe? Are they ready for that world? Because I don't mind telling you, I'm not.

"Are you saying God is the only reason people act morally? What does that say about you and your view of humanity?"

My view of humanity is utterly realistic: humans have enslaved each other, pillaged, raped, and committed mass genocide. There have been Final Solutions, prison camps and Gulags. People have killed each other for insurance policies, parking places, brand-name shoes and having the wrong tattoos. And this has been possible even though the perpetrators DID believe in divine retribution and everlasting hell-fire. What if they stopped? What if all that matters is only what we see right in front of us: what you can get away with?

Will that be a better world? Doesn't it frighten you?

I don't think it frightens the atheists, because they are intrinsically moral people. This is why they can do without Gods, while the rest of us have floundered, made serious moral errors, became addicted or went to jail ... we have messed up again and again. We have had to pray late into the night, to be delivered from soul-devouring anger, envy or desires for revenge. We have suddenly left crowded parties because if we didn't, we were going to grab someone by the hair and throw them into the wall, before they even knew what hit them. We can taste the blood; we want to HURT people. We want to make them PAY.

And then, we tell ourselves, wait, that isn't up to me: Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord. (This phrase has the effect of deflating my anger immediately.) Karma, we assure ourselves, will deal with that individual. It isn't up to me. "What goes around comes around"--we remind ourselves and everyone around us. The overriding concept, of course, is that there WILL be justice. Therefore, I do not have to be the one to administer it.

But you atheists are telling me--it IS something I should administer myself, or it won't get done? You tell me justice will not inevitably happen?

This is something I wrote about in an old post, first quoting bell hooks:

[Quote from bell hooks]: my grandfather [was a black] sharecropper, and definitely the white man was on his back, but what I remember about that, when this man would walk through his fields and see his vegetables that he grew, he’d say, “See these vegetables. White men cannot make the sun shine. They cannot control..”

I mean here’s a black man who did not go to school, who did not have an education. But he found a sense of self that transcended the idea of him as a victim. Because he could say “yes white men have power over my life. They exploit and terrorize me, but at the end of the day, there’s a power higher than white men that I can lend my imagination to.”

[my comment]: And I would add, this is one reason why belief in god(s) has such a hold on people. To some, it is a synonym for a higher justice, a higher truth, a higher law--above and beyond unjust earthly authorities that dominate us on a daily basis.

When the atheists sneer at that, it can be experienced by non-privileged believers as endorsing the material world as it is (with oppressive powers intact) and negating the self-preservationist experiences of the oppressed.

What do the atheists intend for us losers who use religion and sky-fairies to feel better? (If religion is indeed the opiate of the masses, do atheists think believers will happily greet the people who propose to take away our opiates?) What do they have to put in its place? Will it serve the same purpose(s) and properly spur us to leave the party when we see the person we want to throw headlong into the wall? Or will we think, hey, fuck it, NO GOD, NO MASTERS, and follow them into the restroom where there are no surveillance cameras and dunk their head into the toilet repeatedly, as in LA Confidential?

Why not?

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For some of us, morality has not been easy. We have had to work at it, think about it, study it and dedicate our lives to it. We study theology and religion, because we are obsessed with morals. If you rip the rug of theology/religion/rules/myth out from under us, it would leave us empty, since this is where we initially got our morality from (in a way that we could understand) and how we learned to integrate it into our being. Some of us really do need the rules... because if there aren't any, we will go hog-wild. We know this, since we already have. We have to engage in continuous remedial education about the rules, and the reasons for them, to keep us from breaking them again and again.

I think the 'new atheists' underestimate the importance of God/belief systems in keeping us moral. Is it possible that the atheists are more moral than the rest of us, and do not need rules to govern their behavior? How can we impress upon them, that for some of us, it is in the interests of society that we adhere to these beliefs, or there could be unbridled chaos, Lord of the Flies?

And why have so few believers made this argument? Probably because believers like to think they are moral. This is likely because we think about morality a good deal; I think this is because WE HAVE TO, TO STAY MORAL.

The reason so many religious adherents believe atheists could not be moral, is because WE cannot imagine ourselves moral in the same existential circumstances.

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At the end of Flannery O'Connor's short story, Good Country People, the simple country man posing as an innocent Bible salesman is suddenly uncovered as a freaky, abusive sociopath. The educated, atheist PhD in the story, has accepted him at face value ... right up to the end of the story, when he unexpectedly and cruelly humiliates her. "You ain't so smart," he schools her, "I been believing in nothing ever since I was born!"

The end of this story, and those words, have always chilled me to the bone. Because whenever I read all the highly-educated atheist discussions on the net; whenever I read ultra-smart authors like Steven Pinker; whenever I admire the smart, self-sufficient, rational atheists who know where they are going and how to get there... I suddenly remember the sociopathic Bible salesman. And I worry that the 'new atheism' may be more successful than it should be. It might branch out from the moral, rational, educated people like Steven Pinker and Dan Fincke... to sociopaths-in-training, like O'Connor's Bible salesman... and to morally-struggling (and/or morally-confused) people like me. I think I am a fairly average person in many ways, and I know that the overall message we take away from the New Atheism, may not be the fresh-faced utopian vision of ideological and intellectual freedom, that the new atheists obviously wish for us. The atheists believe that their cleansing experience of rationality would also be ours, but our experience might not be anything remotely like that.

It may be the experience of finally doing those things that we have always held back... because... well, why not?

...


And I wish they would start taking that idea seriously.

Tuesday Tunes

Bad Sneakers - Steely Dan



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It's a long instrumental, but its real purty, too. ("Richard Betts pickin on that red guitar!") Relax, breathe, and visualize yourself right next to a waterfall.

It won't be hard to imagine at all.

High Falls - Allman Brothers Band



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I've heard this one a lot on this blog's namesake, the indispensable Uncle Dave's Dead Air. GREAT STUFF!

Ride Mighty High - Jerry Garcia Band

Bradley Manning nominated for Nobel 2013 Peace Prize

Political prisoner and free-speech hero Bradley Manning has been held under inhumane conditions for over 1000 days, and I am hoping this nomination means that the international spotlight will finally be turned on the conditions of his imprisonment. Since he is currently on trial, this is coming at the best possible time. Out of 259 nominees for the Nobel Peace Prize, he is probably the most well-known and 'notorious' name.



Bradley Manning Nobel Peace Prize Nomination 2013

Dear Norwegian Nobel Committee,

We have the great honour of nominating Private First Class Bradley Manning for the 2013 Nobel Peace Prize.

Manning is a soldier in the United States army who stands accused of releasing hundreds of thousands of documents to the whistleblower website WikiLeaks. The leaked documents pointed to a long history of corruption, war crimes, and a lack of respect for the sovereignty of other democratic nations by the United States government in international dealings.

These revelations have fueled democratic uprisings around the world, including a democratic revolution in Tunisia. According to journalists, his alleged actions helped motivate the democratic Arab Spring movements, shed light on secret corporate influence on the foreign and domestic policies of European nations, and most recently contributed to the Obama Administration agreeing to withdraw all U.S.troops from the occupation in Iraq.

Bradley Manning has been incarcerated for more then 1000 days by the U.S. Government. He spent over ten months of that time period in solitary confinement, conditions which experts worldwide have criticized as torturous. Juan Mendez, the United Nations’ Special Rapporteur on Torture and Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment or Punishment, has repeatedly requested and been denied a private meeting with Manning to assess his conditions.

The documents made public by WikiLeaks should never have been kept from public scrutiny. The revelations – including video documentation of an incident in which American soldiers gunned down Reuters journalists in Iraq – have helped to fuel a worldwide discussion about the overseas engagements of the United States, civilian casualties of war and rules of engagement. Citizens worldwide owe a great debt to the WikiLeaks whistleblower for shedding light on these issues, and so we urge the Committee to award this prestigious prize to accused whistleblower Bradley Manning.

We can already be reasonably certain that Bradley Manning will not have a fair trial as the head of State, the USA President Mr. Barack Obama, stated over a year ago on record that Manning is guilty.

Sincerely,

Birgitta Jónsdóttir, Member of Parliament for the Movement, Iceland

Christian Engström, Member of the European Parliament for the Pirate Party, Sweden

Amelia Andersdottir, Member of the European Parliament for the Pirate Party, Sweden

Margrét Tryggvadóttir, Member of Parliament for the Movement, Iceland

Þór Saari, Member of Parliament for the Movement, Iceland

Slim Amamou, former Secretary of State for Sport & Youth (2011), Tunisia

Bradley Manning statement (UK Guardian)

Bradley Manning, Malala among Nobel Peace Prize nominees (CBS News)

Opinion: Bradley Manning trial shows disconnect between transparency and treason (The Daily Reveille - LSU)

Bradley Manning called 'traitor,' 'hero' after Nobel nomination (MSN News)

The inhumane conditions of Bradley Manning’s detention (Salon)

We Must Not Fail Bradley Manning (Counterpunch)