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| Thursday, November 10, 2005 |
| Blame shifting and hate mongering |
This story made me mad. It seems to me like a very convenient way to take a national crisis (the fact that an alarming amount of Americans cannot afford the very high costs of health insurance) and turn it into a hate-fest.
It seems to me like a convenient way to justify the lack of action being taken to repair the disaster in this country that is the healthcare system. |
posted by Zuska @ 3:02 PM   |
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| 1 Comments: |
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i don't have to read beyond the second paragraph to rip this article to shreds.
By Kevin Freking, Associated Press Writer | November 10, 2005
WASHINGTON --The increase in the number of people without health insurance has occurred largely because of illegal immigration, a study found.
Researchers at the RAND Corporation, a nonpartisan think tank, analyzed data received from about 2,400 people in Los Angeles County in 2000 and 2001, and applied that information to the nation's undocumented population at large.
this is the first time i recal the RAND referred to as nonpartisan. even if they are they have a strange track record. a random google search i did brought up a briefing the RAND gave to the pentagon suggesting that saudi arabia was an enemy nation looking to gain egypt as a "prize", and another report referring to problems within islam that begins with the premise that the Muslim world is sick, has a “failure to thrive”, and additionally has “a loss connection to the global mainstream”. Unless it is influenced by outside sources, the author believes, the Islamic world would both implode into serious instability and explode into major violence.
as we used to say back in the hood, that's mighty white of them.
next we have the fact that RAND extrapolated data taken from 2400 people in the los angeles area and projected it onto the rest of the country. i don't know where you live, but in new england we're not currently seeing thousand of people streaming in from mexico on a daily basis. yes, LA my be hit hard by a growing population of -- what's the phrase? undocumented populatrion? -- but you can't seriously use southern california as a model for ANYTHING like the rest of this country.
for most of the last 20 years i've worked retail, and now recently in contracted (read: temp slave) situations and i can tell you that anywhere from 80% to 99% of my co-workers were uninsured and not a single one of them was an immigrant, nor where they ignorant enough to blame it on "illegals".
the saddest part of all: this came off an AP wire story. since the AP ditched its copyeditors and factcheckers some years back (to avoid unions, i believe) there have been an increase in the number of stories with unsupported data. that so many newspapers have likewise cut editorial staff and "rip-n-run" stories off the wire as news just to keep the presses running is what makes it sad. the conservatives will latch onto this like a pitbull (and they'll just love to sink their teeth into the nonpartisan aspect) and repeat this as gospel until they've bludgeoned their passive-aggresive right-wing faithful into a frothy zeal and set them free to shout down anyone who dares disagree.
"it's them damn fer'ners that are keeping me from getting the health insurance i need!"
no, it's the nations collective inability to rise up and choke the ruling elite that put us into this mess.
pardon my rant, sweetie.
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i don't have to read beyond the second paragraph to rip this article to shreds.
By Kevin Freking, Associated Press Writer | November 10, 2005
WASHINGTON --The increase in the number of people without health insurance has occurred largely because of illegal immigration, a study found.
Researchers at the RAND Corporation, a nonpartisan think tank, analyzed data received from about 2,400 people in Los Angeles County in 2000 and 2001, and applied that information to the nation's undocumented population at large.
this is the first time i recal the RAND referred to as nonpartisan. even if they are they have a strange track record. a random google search i did brought up a briefing the RAND gave to the pentagon suggesting that saudi arabia was an enemy nation looking to gain egypt as a "prize", and another report referring to problems within islam that begins with the premise that the Muslim world is sick, has a “failure to thrive”, and additionally has “a loss connection to the global mainstream”. Unless it is influenced by outside sources, the author believes, the Islamic world would both implode into serious instability and explode into major violence.
as we used to say back in the hood, that's mighty white of them.
next we have the fact that RAND extrapolated data taken from 2400 people in the los angeles area and projected it onto the rest of the country. i don't know where you live, but in new england we're not currently seeing thousand of people streaming in from mexico on a daily basis. yes, LA my be hit hard by a growing population of -- what's the phrase? undocumented populatrion? -- but you can't seriously use southern california as a model for ANYTHING like the rest of this country.
for most of the last 20 years i've worked retail, and now recently in contracted (read: temp slave) situations and i can tell you that anywhere from 80% to 99% of my co-workers were uninsured and not a single one of them was an immigrant, nor where they ignorant enough to blame it on "illegals".
the saddest part of all: this came off an AP wire story. since the AP ditched its copyeditors and factcheckers some years back (to avoid unions, i believe) there have been an increase in the number of stories with unsupported data. that so many newspapers have likewise cut editorial staff and "rip-n-run" stories off the wire as news just to keep the presses running is what makes it sad. the conservatives will latch onto this like a pitbull (and they'll just love to sink their teeth into the nonpartisan aspect) and repeat this as gospel until they've bludgeoned their passive-aggresive right-wing faithful into a frothy zeal and set them free to shout down anyone who dares disagree.
"it's them damn fer'ners that are keeping me from getting the health insurance i need!"
no, it's the nations collective inability to rise up and choke the ruling elite that put us into this mess.
pardon my rant, sweetie.