By Bernie Horn
The Campaign for America’s Future

John McCain [spent] the week promoting his health care scheme. The crux of the plan is to abolish employer-based health insurance and throw middle class working Americans to the wolves. It is market fundamentalism at its worst.

But I’m not here to talk about the policy details. I want to discuss message framing. During an election campaign, when our ultimate audience is persuadable voters, how do we talk about health care?

Let’s first understand McCain’s frame. His campaign understands one crucial fact (if nothing else): About 95 percent of the voters in the 2008 general election will be insured – the uninsured don’t tend to vote. Extensive polling and focus group research has shown, without a doubt, that people who are insured are more interested in preserving and improving their own coverage than in covering the uninsured. Americans want “quality, affordable health care.” But of the two concepts, they are more focused on affordability than on quality.

McCain is trying to convince voters that Democrats are all about covering the uninsured while he, on the other hand, is all about lowering health care costs. Understand that this is a good strategy because it fits voters’ stereotypes of Democrats (and is fairly true). To our credit, we focus on “universal” or “single-payer” coverage, “Medicare for all,” “Canadian-style” health, and the like. But this is not good message framing for the 2008 election.

Continue reading →

By Robert Preidt
HealthDay News

75 percent say they behave abnormally around food, survey finds.

Nearly two-thirds (65 percent) of young American women report disordered eating behaviors, and 10 percent report symptoms of eating disorders such as anorexia and bulimia nervosa or binge eating disorder, a new survey finds.

The findings – from an online poll of more than 4,000 women between the ages of 25 and 45 – found that 75 percent eat, think and behave abnormally around food. The survey was conducted by SELF magazine in partnership with the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

“Our survey found that these behaviors cut across racial and ethnic lines and are not limited to any one group. Women who identified their ethnic backgrounds as Hispanic or Latina, white, black or African American and Asian were all represented among the women who reported unhealthy eating behaviors,” Cynthia R. Bulik, a professor of eating disorders and director of the UNC Eating Disorders Program, said in a prepared statement.

“What we found most surprising was the unexpectedly high number of women who engage in unhealthy purging activities. More than 31 percent of women in the survey reported that in an attempt to lose weight, they had induced vomiting or had taken laxatives, diuretics or diet pills at some point in their lives. Among these women, more than 50 percent engaged in purging activities at least a few times a week, and many did so every day,” Bulik said.

Continue reading →

By Jeff Cohen
t r u t h o u t | Perspective

In the fall of 2002, week after week in debates televised on MSNBC, I argued vigorously against invading Iraq. I used every possible argument that might sway mainstream viewers – no real threat, cost, instability. But as the war neared, my debates were terminated.

In my 2006 book “”Cable News Confidential,” I explained why I lost my airtime:

There was no room for me after MSNBC launched “Countdown: Iraq” – a daily one-hour show that seemed more keen on glamorizing a potential war than scrutinizing or debating it. “Countdown: Iraq” featured retired colonels and generals, sometimes resembling boys with war toys as they used props, maps and glitzy graphics to spin invasion scenarios. They reminded me of pumped-up ex-football players doing pre-game analysis and diagramming plays. It was excruciating to be sidelined at MSNBC, watching so many non-debates in which myth and misinformation were served up unchallenged.

It was bad enough to be silenced. Much worse to see that these ex-generals – many working for military corporations – were never in debates, nor asked a tough question by an anchor. (I wasn’t allowed on MSNBC unless balanced by at least one truculent right-winger.)

Except for the brazenness and scope of the Pentagon spin program, I wasn’t shocked by the recent New York Times report exposing how the Pentagon junketed and coached the retired military brass into being “message-force multipliers” and “surrogates” for Donald Rumsfeld’s lethal propaganda.

The biggest villain here is not Rumsfeld or the Pentagon. It’s the TV networks. In the land of the First Amendment, it was their choice to shut down debate and journalism.

Continue reading →

By Sally Kohn

The first thing I noticed about Juan when I met him is his presence. For a young man, just graduated from high school — that period when most of us were shy and awkward at best — Juan is confident and vocal, the kind of person with clear potential to be a leader in whatever field he might choose.

The second thing you notice about Juan is the sadness in his eyes. His country, the only home he has ever known, decided his potential is irrelevant — that no amount of talent and passion and vision and drive could ever overcome the fact that he and his family once crossed our nation’s borders without permission. It’s as though Juan the person doesn’t exist without Juan the paperwork. In our country, he’s treated as a number — one to be reduced or feared.

Fear is one of the dominant motivating and manipulating forces in politics today. Some have tried to convince us that we should be afraid of immigrants, exploiting our fear about our jobs, healthcare and the economy, while pointing fingers at immigrants and saying they’re the cause of our problems. These are problems that have existed for years, deep flaws in the distribution of wealth and opportunity in our society, and undocumented immigrants are just the latest scapegoats. Fear is used to distract us while the real problems only grow.

The other motivating force is usually pity. But that’s not the answer either. Pity is equal parts compassion and isolation — a sort-of thank goodness that it’s not me in his shoes. Pitying Juan would rob him of his dignity and power — and absolve ourselves of responsibility.

Continue reading →

By Manu Raju
The Hill

Congressional Democrats are backing away from healthcare reform promises made by their two presidential candidates, saying that even if their party controls the White House and Congress, sweeping change will be difficult.

It is still seven months before Election Day, but already senior Democrats are maneuvering to lower public expectations on the key policy issue.

In the back of their minds is the damage done to President Bush’s second term by his failed attempts to change the nation’s Social Security policy.

For some senators, the promises made by Sens. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) and Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) outside of Washington may not match the political reality on Capitol Hill.

“We all know there is not enough money to do all this stuff,” said Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.), a Finance Committee member and an Obama supporter, referring to the presidential candidates’ healthcare plans. “What they are doing is … laying out their ambitions.”

The Democratic candidates say their plans would cover the 47 million uninsured people living in the United States, except for millions of illegal immigrants. Their push for universal healthcare has sparked sharp exchanges over who would do more to cover the uninsured. A recent Wall Street Journal-NBC News poll found that 58 percent of Americans say healthcare costs are an “important” part of their economic concerns.

But veterans on Capitol Hill say that getting a sprawling piece of legislation requires broad compromise from both parties and outside groups.

Should the majority party rush the issue through, the minority may hunker down – as was the case with Bush’s Social Security proposal and President Bill Clinton’s attempt at addressing healthcare policy.

If supporters wait too long, however, it could fall victim to the political considerations of the next election cycle.

Continue reading →

By Robert Parry
Consortium News

After prying loose 8,000 pages of Pentagon documents, the New York Times has proven what should have been obvious years ago: the Bush administration manipulated public opinion on the Iraq War, in part, by funneling propaganda through former senior military officers who served as expert analysts on TV news shows.

In 2002-03, these military analysts were ubiquitous on TV justifying the Iraq invasion, and most have remained supportive of the war in the five years since. The Times investigation showed that the analysts were being briefed by the Pentagon on what to say and had undisclosed conflicts of interest via military contracts.

Retired Green Beret Robert S. Bevelacqua, a former Fox News analyst, said the Pentagon treated the retired military officers as puppets: “It was them saying, ‘we need to stick our hands up your back and move your mouth for you.'” [NYT, April 20, 2008]

None of that, of course, should come as any surprise. Where do people think generals and admirals go to work after they retire from the government?

If they play ball with the Pentagon, they get fat salaries serving on corporate boards of military contractors, or they get rich running consultancies that trade on quick access to high-ranking administration officials. If they’re not team players, they’re shut out.

Continue reading →

12 answers to questions no one is bothering to ask
By Tom Engelhardt
TomDispatch.com

Can there be any question that, since the invasion of 2003, Iraq has been unraveling? And here’s the curious thing: Despite a lack of decent information and analysis on crucial aspects of the Iraqi catastrophe, despite the way much of the Iraq story fell off newspaper front pages and out of the TV news in the last year, despite so many reports on the “success” of the President’s surge strategy, Americans sense this perfectly well. In the latest Washington Post/ABC News poll, 56% of Americans “say the United States should withdraw its military forces to avoid further casualties” and this has, as the Post notes, been a majority position since January 2007, the month that the surge was first announced. Imagine what might happen if the American public knew more about the actual state of affairs in Iraq – and of thinking in Washington. So, here, in an attempt to unravel the situation in ever-unraveling Iraq are twelve answers to questions which should be asked far more often in this country:

1. Yes, the war has morphed into the U.S. military’s worst Iraq nightmare: Few now remember, but before George W. Bush launched the invasion of Iraq in March 2003, top administration and Pentagon officials had a single overriding nightmare – not chemical, but urban, warfare. Saddam Hussein, they feared, would lure American forces into “Fortress Baghdad,” as Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld labeled it. There, they would find themselves fighting block by block, especially in the warren of streets that make up the Iraqi capital’s poorest districts.

When American forces actually entered Baghdad in early April 2003, however, even Saddam’s vaunted Republican Guard units had put away their weapons and gone home. It took five years but, as of now, American troops are indeed fighting in the warren of streets in Sadr City, the Shiite slum of two and a half million in eastern Baghdad largely controlled by Muqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army militia. The U.S. military, in fact, recently experienced its worst week of 2008 in terms of casualties, mainly in and around Baghdad. So, mission accomplished – the worst fear of 2003 has now been realized.

2. No, there was never an exit strategy from Iraq because the Bush administration never intended to leave – and still doesn’t: Critics of the war have regularly gone after the Bush administration for its lack of planning, including its lack of an “exit strategy.” In this, they miss the point. The Bush administration arrived in Iraq with four mega-bases on the drawing boards. These were meant to undergird a future American garrisoning of that country and were to house at least 30,000 American troops, as well as U.S. air power, for the indefinite future. The term used for such places wasn’t “permanent base,” but the more charming and euphemistic “enduring camp.” (In fact, as we learned recently, the Bush administration refuses to define any American base on foreign soil anywhere on the planet, including ones in Japan for over 60 years, as permanent.) Those four monster bases in Iraq (and many others) were soon being built at the cost of multibillions and are, even today, being significantly upgraded. In October 2007, for instance, National Public Radio’s defense correspondent Guy Raz visited Balad Air Base, north of Baghdad, which houses about 40,000 American troops, contractors, and Defense Department civilian employees, and described it as “one giant construction project, with new roads, sidewalks, and structures going up across this 16-square-mile fortress in the center of Iraq, all with an eye toward the next few decades.”

These mega-bases, like “Camp Cupcake” (al-Asad Air Base), nicknamed for its amenities, are small town-sized with massive facilities, including PXs, fast-food outlets, and the latest in communications. They have largely been ignored by the American media and so have played no part in the debate about Iraq in this country, but they are the most striking on-the-ground evidence of the plans of an administration that simply never expected to leave. To this day, despite the endless talk about drawdowns and withdrawals, that hasn’t changed. In fact, the latest news about secret negotiations for a future Status of Forces Agreement on the American presence in that country indicates that U.S. officials are calling for “an open-ended military presence” and “no limits on numbers of U.S. forces, the weapons they are able to deploy, their legal status or powers over Iraqi citizens, going far beyond long-term U.S. security agreements with other countries.”

Continue reading →