Futile Care Law

In 1999, a governor of a Western state signed into law a provision that states in part,
that if a patient's family could no longer afford medical care, and the case was truly hopeless, the hospital has the right to end treatment, even if it was against the family's wishes.

It's chapter 166 of the Texas Health and Safety code, and it was signed by none other than governor George W. Bush.

If Terry Schiavo was a resident of Texas instead of Florida, her treatment would have ended years ago. In fact, there was a case just recently where a poor black family had their child 'killed by the state' because they could no longer afford his care.

It's truly mind boggling to contemplate the hypocrisy in play here. Because Terry Schiavo is photogenic and white, she gets all the press. Just who is paying for 15+ years of 'futile care' anyway? I suspect larger forces are at work.

As of 3/21/05, the USA is legally a fascist dictatorship

Many thanks to my friend 'Zowie', whose original post can be found here.




EDITORIAL
The Midnight Coup

March 21, 2005

Republican leaders, eyeing an opportunity to appease their radical right-wing constituents, convened Congress over the weekend to shamelessly interject the federal government into the wrenching Schiavo family dispute. They brushed aside our federalist system of government, which assigns the resolution of such disputes to state law, and state judges. Even President Bush flew back from his ranch to Washington on Sunday to be in on what amounts to a constitutional coup d'etat.

Conservatives are the historical defenders of states' rights, and the supposed proponents of keeping big government out of people's lives, but this case once again shows that some social conservatives are happy to see the federal government acquire Stalinist proportions when imposing their morality on the rest of the country. So breathtaking was this attempted usurpation of power, wresting jurisdiction over a right-to-die case away from Florida's judiciary, that Republican leaders in the end had to agree to limit this legislation's applicability to the Schiavo case.

Congress does act in other extraordinary cases on behalf of a specific individual, such as when it grants someone U.S. citizenship. But here, Congress is breaking new ground, trying to overturn a judicial decision by altering the Constitution's federalist scheme. This is the family law equivalent of the constitutionally banned "bill of attainder," legislation that seeks to convict someone of a crime.

[That's it, folks. The Government of the United States was overthrown last weekend, and nobody noticed. -Z]

Feeling a draft?

Reinstatement of the draft is likely soon, despite what the politicians say.

We must begin NOW to build a movement to stop the draft before it starts.

The U.S. military is in a quagmire in Iraq, facing a national popular uprising against the occupation. Although the U.S. has 138,000 soldiers, supplemented by as many as 20,000 mercenaries, in Iraq, this force is not sufficient to defeat the uprising. According to the Associated Press, military officials have recently admitted that the resistance numbers more as high as 20,000 and has enough popular support among the Iraqi people that they cannot be militarily defeated. Nevertheless, President Bush is committed to trying to maintain the occupation, and is threatening to launch new wars against Iran, North Korea, and Syria.

Soldiers are dying every day. A report issued in January, 2004 by Jeffrey Record, a visiting professor at the Air War College, said the Army is "near the breaking point." The Pentagon has been forced to issue repeated "stop loss" orders and recall soldiers who had retired or otherwise returned to civilian life.

Out of 10 Army Divisions, part or all of 9 of them are either deployed in Iraq or Afghanistan. Twenty-one out of 33 regular combat brigades are on active duty in Iraq, Afghanistan, South Korea, or the Balkans. That's 63% of the Army's combat strength. This means the Army is extremely overextended. Military experts agree that in order to maintain long-term mobilizations, an army needs twice as many soldiers at home as deployed. That means the U.S. Army is more than 100,000 soldiers short. The Bush Administration has been trying to fill the gap with Reserve and National Guard troops, but this is a temporary fix at best.

Meanwhile, official U.S. foreign policy is now the doctrine of "pre-emptive war" and "regime change" wherever a leader runs afoul of U.S. corporate interests. An invasion of Iran, Syria, Korea, or Cuba -- all of whom are on Washington and Wall Street's list of targets -- would require tens or hundreds of thousands of new soldiers.

Enlistment rates not even able to maintain current force levels, much less provide troops for new invasions and occupations. All four services missed their enlistment quotas last year, and enlistments in the Reserves, National Guard, and regular military are at a 30-year low. Many current members of the armed forces plan to get out as soon as their current enlistment ends. According to a poll conducted by the military newspaper Stars & Stripes, 49% of soldiers stationed in Iraq do not plan to re-enlist.

The President has given the Selective Service System a set of readiness goals to be implemented by March 31, 2005. As part of these performance goals, the System must be ready to be fully operational within 75 days. This means the Draft could be in operation as early as June 15, 2005.

We must begin NOW to organize against the draft.

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Hey, I'm a moderator!

Yes, it's true.

I've just become the newest member of the moderating team at Air America Radio Place.

Come on by and give Air America a listen, there's a link to the stream right there on the front page.

Check out the Daily Blog and the Message Boards too, you'll find plenty of intelligent people there able to carry on a civilized conversation about the issues you care about.

Look for me under the name 'TriSec'.