MOST GENEROUS, MOST CARING DOCTORS

THESE HEROES TOOK FREE MEDICAL CARE TO 3rd WORLD
So In What Country Did they Find the Most Patients?

Really – all those who watched, or heard the details of the show on Sixty Minutes for March 2, should be ashamed of their country ! The show featured the most selfless of all acts, that of taking free health care to needy countries, where a lot of people are suffering and literally dying because of the lack of it.

When you need a definition for hero, it has to be Stan Brock. Stan and a few of his best friends founded the Remote Area Medical organization, to bring free medicine and care to the Third World. Stan is a pilot, and he began visiting every conceivable downtrodden area where people were dying of infection because they couldn’t get a tooth pulled, and it abscessed. Or they died of an equally simple health problem – simple if attended to, but lethal without it.

Brock revealed how he went to the Amazon, and other distant lands, but all of a sudden he realized that now -

RAM does 60 percent of its free medical care work in the United
States, caring for American needy persons, not Bangladeshi !

He explained how in Tennessee recently, his group treated 920 Americans with free medical care, and then, in total exhaustion had to close the door on some 400 others !

Brock said he was surprised at the numbers of people who came to his first American "medical expedition," as he refers to them. "I was surprised and the numbers are getting higher." Then he added this gem: "…I don’t know if it’s because we’re getting better known, or that the health care in this country is getting worse.” Every year, Brock’s organization helps thousands of Americans who have no health insurance and others who are underinsured

These facts and Brock’s identity became well known to Americans – at least those who tuned in to the Sixty Minutes segment. Brock showed us up close just how tough things are for some people to have affordable and available care for their health needs. What came out of the show was that Brock realized he is suddenly caring for thousands more needy patients right here in America than he was in the Third World ! Brock repeated the shameful fact that 47 million people in America don’t have Health Care. THIS FIGURE OF 47 MILLION PEOPLE WITH NO HEALTH INSURANCE DOES NOT INCLUDE MEMBERS OF CONGRESS. They have the best care. And it’s Free. So do Senators. So does the Supreme Court. So do members of the Armed Forces. My take on all of them is that they deserve it.

SO DO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE.

While 47 million of us do not have basic health care, it should be noted that America DOES have the finest machine guns in history. We have multiple barrel cannons that can fire thousands of lethal shells in just one minute. America has cluster bombs that break apart in the air immediately when dropped, and out comes thousands of bombs the size of baseballs. How about that for smart? See, these thousand small bombs all detonate at different seconds, and just simply “walk” along the ground for a 1000 yards or so, killing everything in their path. And here’s an added benefit: a lot of them don’t detonate when they hit the ground. They just lie there, and when a member of the unfortunate community accidentally touches it, say a 5-year-old child, it blows the unfortunate to bits. America can really make weapons, you’ve got to admit. Not so good taking care of the health of its citizens, but weapons? Oh, yeah.

A limited examination of these facts indicates where the main thrusts in America are. Come on, folks, why don’t we level with each other? This war thing (war is by definition the act of killing people, remember) is just great for business. It provides contracts for trillions of dollars to the weapons guys, like Lockheed, General Electric, Grumman, Smith & Wesson, and several thousand or more smaller companies. These contracts all go to the same group of weapons makers, the bona fides of those companies having been proven with the manufacture of literally thousands of weapons in the past.

IKE warned us. He was nobody’s fool, not just a skillful Military Commander. He could see that the power of the money to be made on weapons would, if not checked vigorously, in short order get out of hand. And it has. Hasn’t it? America has been in more wars than any other nation on the planet. Ike called the real threat to America’s well being “The Military Industrial Complex.” He was right, but, I submit, incomplete. He left out the money given to lawmakers (Senators and House members) and how it buys the votes to make weapons, and then to make war to use them. So I think my take on Ike’s famous warning would be titled “The Military-Industrial-Finance Triumvirate” – or MIFT, in Pentagon acronym.

Democracy is a great experiment, but is it getting destabilized by the conjunction of capitalism? More than a few European countries have learned that Capitalism is a very sharp, two-edged sword that needs to be regulated. Or, rather, the individual practitioners of it have to be regulated. For example, if the lawmakers of a Democracy can freely be given large amounts of money, by those with a definite objective, doesn’t it stand to reason that the lawmakers will be very appreciative to the money-givers? Come on. Does it, or not? Pre-Logic 001 states that: If you’re a Congressman, or Senator, and a weapons manufacturer gives you $10,000 and a trip to the Bahamas and rides you anywhere you want to go on a multimillion dollar jet plane, how likely is it you will vote against an upcoming bill that could help that company? Notice I didn’t say anything about “Campaign Finance” or “Lobbyist” or “Special Interests”. I’m on good terms with my native tongue, so I use realistic, non-euphemism terms, like “money-giver,” money-receiver,” etc. Don’t you think it reads easier to use plain English terms?

If I were wanting to put all of the above thoughts and worries into an equation, say for Logic 101, it would be something like:

Lawmaker \ Money Gifts x Votes on weapons / (Quid Pro Quo)? = Ye$.

Well, this post started as a pat on the back for Stan Brock and his wonderful Remote Area Medicine group. The fact that Brock’s contributions now benefit more sick AMERICANS than those in 3rd World countries, should be a national disgrace. Everyone knows America has the best Machine Guns and Cannons and Cluster Bombs in the world, and the worst health care, at least for 47 million of us. Those with no health care are now ONE SIXTH of the U.S. population. (301 million, estimated July 2007). God.

I’ll make a prediction. A full year in advance. I predict that if either of the remaining candidates for President on the Democratic side brings up the issue – actually works at getting a bill to sign, making these promises of health care actual law - that the bill will DIE in the United States Senate, because of Republican opposition. 60 votes stops all discussion and a vote, but there is great doubt we can muster 60 Democrats in the U.S. Senate, or expect to get a handful of turncoat Republican votes to help us. I can even predict the euphemism smears the Rs will use to justify their votes against health care: they will call it Socialized Medicine, and everyone knows, they will hint, that’s BAD, so they must vote against it. I further predict that not one of the highly paid news talking heads will ask the Republicans to explain why it is BAD, and then challenge any bad logic or “facts.” (Keith will, maybe.)

So, what’ll it be? More machine guns than cannons, or vice versa, or a combo-pack: equal cannons and cluster bombs? If you add the really big cannons, the Artillery pieces, your price will come down considerably. And if you go into Iran within 60 days of any purchase, every fifth weapon is free, regardless of unit cost. What’ll it be? Because it looks like those will be your choices, once again.

OR – maybe, just maybe, we could get a 75% voter turnout in November (an Opium dream?) and end up with 65 Democratic Senators. God, how good would that be? There’s one way we can give it one hell of a try. Do everything in your power to try to get a Democrat elected in your area to the Senate. One might be enough. Two might.But with 50 Democratic Senators, nothin’s gonna happen on this subject