Cuba, Model of Health Care
“One of Cuba’s greatest prides is its health care system. Cuba’s government promotes the country’s free and universal medical care from the moment a baby is born as the cornerstone of its communist state…. How can one of the poorest countries in the Western Hemisphere provide free care and achieve such impressive health outcomes?… There’s no doctor shortage in Cuba, which means the health care system here can push doctors and nurses down to the smallest rural communities, providing a kind of care that’s both personal and persistent…. In an era when countries are struggling to do more for less with limited health care dollars, Cuba’s successes in prevention are likely to be closely watched.” – Correspondent Ray Suarez on PBS’s “NewsHour,” December 21, 2010.
Smearing Conservatives as Racists
Clip from RNC ad: “Stop Obama and his union bosses today. The Republican National Committee is responsible for the content of this advertising.” Host Lawrence O’Donnell: “The Republican Party is saying that the president of the United States has bosses, that the union bosses this president around, the unions boss him around. Does that sound to you like they are trying to consciously or subconsciously deliver the racist message that, of course, of course a black man can’t be the real boss?” Ex-governor Jennifer Granholm (D-MI): “Wow, I hadn’t thought about the racial overtones….” – MSNBC’s “The Last Word,” February 25.
“I get out of all of these things that many of these candidates would rather take legislation to build a time machine and go back in time to where we had, you know, no women voting, slavery was cool. I mean, it’s just kind of ridiculous.” – Daytime anchor Thomas Roberts on “MSNBC Live,” September 23, talking about the previous night’s GOP debate.
America, the Real Evil Empire
“What happened after 9/11 – and I think even people on the right know this, whether they admit it or not – was deeply shameful. [The] atrocity should have been a unifying event, but instead it became a wedge issue. Fake heroes like Bernie Kerik, Rudy Giuliani, and, yes, George W. Bush raced to cash in on the horror. And then the attack was used to justify an unrelated war the neocons wanted to fight, for all the wrong reasons…. The memory of 9/11 has been irrevocably poisoned; it has become an occasion for shame. And in its heart, the nation knows it.” – New York Times columnist Paul Krugman in a September 11 posting to his NYTimes.com blog.
“The dead in the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania were used to sanctify the state’s lust for war…. Because few cared to examine our activities in the Muslim world, the attacks became certified as incomprehensible by the state and its lapdogs, the press…. Our brutality and triumphalism, the byproducts of nationalism and our infantile pride, revived the jihadist movement. We became the radical Islamist movement’s most effective recruiting tool. We descended to its barbarity. We became terrorists too…. – Ex-New York Times reporter Chris Hedges writing on Truthdig.com, September 10.
“At the news of Osama bin Laden’s death, thousands of people – most of them college-aged and in requisite flip-floppy collegiate gear – whipped up a raucous celebration right outside the White House gates that was one part Mardi Gras and two parts Bon Jovi concert…. It felt a little crazy, a bit much. Almost vulgar…. When I saw that folks were celebrating in the streets at the news of bin Laden’s death, my first reaction was a cringe. Remember how we all felt watching videos of those al-Qaeda guys dancing on Sept. 11?”
– Washington Post “Metro” section columnist Petula Dvorak, May 3.
