MANY EXPERTS THINK NOT, but people are finding new types of satisfactory accommodation (or has this been going on for a long time?).

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PATRICK MARTIN, WSWS.ORG |  1 June 2011

ANNALS OF FRAUDULENT DEMOCRACY—
The recent election in New York’s 26th District confirms what has been amply demonstrated in opinion polls: that the overwhelming majority of the population, including a majority of Republicans, opposes cuts to Medicare. However, this mass sentiment has no impact on the actual course of government policy.  In the week since the election, the American political establishment has thrown its weight behind an effort to put the genie back in the bottle and reinforce the political consensus in Washington that the Medicare program is unaffordable and must be dismantled to prevent national bankruptcy.

ONE WEEK AGO, on Tuesday, May 24, voters in the 26th Congressional District of New York cast ballots in a special election that, unusually for American bourgeois politics, was actually focused on a significant issue of public policy—whether the Medicare program, which underwrites health care for the vast majority of Americans aged 65 and over, should be phased out and replaced by private insurance.

The Republican candidate to fill the vacancy in New York, Jane Corwin, said she supported the plan put forward by Representative Paul Ryan to end Medicare. The Democratic candidate, Kathy Hochul, campaigned almost exclusively on her opposition to the Ryan plan and won by a comfortable margin. This was as close to a referendum on the future of Medicare as the unrepresentative American political system can provide.

In the week since the election, the American political establishment has thrown its weight behind an effort to put the genie back in the bottle and reinforce the political consensus in Washington that the Medicare program is unaffordable and must be dismantled to prevent national bankruptcy.

Nothing could more clearly expose the fraud of democracy in the United States. The election confirms what has been amply demonstrated in opinion polls: that the overwhelming majority of the population, including a majority of Republicans, opposes cuts to Medicare. However, this mass sentiment has no impact on the actual course of government policy.

While the election was a direct repudiation of Republican proposals, if anything the results were more disturbing to the Democrats. Several prominent Democratic Party officials and liberal media pundits quickly stepped forward to declare that no one should draw the wrong conclusions from the Buffalo vote.

Leading the way was former president Bill Clinton, who the day after the election worried that, “Democrats will draw the conclusion that because Congressman Ryan’s proposal is not the best one, we shouldn’t do anything.” He added, “I completely disagree with that.”

Several leading congressional Democrats have made a point of emphasizing their agreement with Clinton. The Obama administration, for its part, is moving forward with closed-door discussions with Republicans to slash at least $1 trillion in government spending, including health care programs.

The New York Times responded to the election by devoting its editorial, op-ed and news pages to intensifying its campaign to slash health care spending.

A Times editorial advised the Democrats not to draw the lesson that they should run in 2012 as the party opposing all cuts in Medicare. After citing Clinton’s remarks approvingly, the Times noted, “Democrats don’t like to admit this, but President Obama’s health care law reduces Medicare spending by more than $500 billion through 2019.”

This was only an initial down payment, however. “After the law was passed, Mr. Obama proposed reducing health costs even more sharply,” the Times stressed.

America in 2011 is a vast catalogue of unmet social needs. Yet the spokesmen for the ruling elite preach austerity and sacrifice and warn sanctimoniously that “we” must give up our “spendthrift” ways. They attack, not the fraud and speculation of the banks, mortgage lenders and hedge funds that triggered the 2008 Wall Street crash, nor the profit-gouging of the oil companies, but the health care needs of the elderly, the poor and the disabled.

The Obama administration’s policies, in health care as in every other sphere, are tailored to the interests and demands of the financial elite. As the Times itself all but admits in its editorial, the Obama health care plan was not a progressive reform, but the first step in an assault on social benefits. It is part of an escalating campaign to eliminate every social gain of the working class made in the 20th century, in the United States and internationally.

The Socialist Equality Party rejects the entire framework of the debate within the political establishment. The claim that there is no alternative to cuts in Medicare and other social programs is a fraud. Vast wealth has been accumulated by a financial aristocracy which has exploited the economic crisis to loot the public treasury.

As an initial step to preserve and expand health care programs upon which millions of people depend, the SEP proposes a sharp increase in taxes on the wealthy. Even a 10 percent wealth tax on the top one percent would yield more than $1.5 trillion. Corporations are sitting on trillions of dollars in cash. Global hedge fund assets have topped $2 trillion.

Such a tax would not itself constitute a socialist measure. But even this modest progressive and democratic step would encounter immediate and ferocious opposition from the entire corporate and financial elite, which controls both the Democratic and Republican parties. It is remarkable that two-and-a-half years after the financial crisis, which has created untold misery in the US and throughout the world, not a single serious proposal has been introduced to alleviate social distress and reduce unemployment. Instead, the entire force of policy is in the opposite direction.

Health care is a basic social right. To defend and expand this right requires the mass mobilization of the working class in opposition to the entire political establishment and the capitalist system it defends. If American capitalism cannot afford to provide medical care for the elderly, that is an irrefutable argument for putting an end to capitalism and placing economic life on a new and more rational foundation, with the priority given to human need, not private profit.

The solution to the health care crisis is to put an end to the privately owned health care corporations, ban the exploitation of human suffering for private gain, and establish socialized medicine, under which high-quality health care is provided free of charge for the entire population.

Patrick Martin is a senior analyst with the World Socialist Web Site.

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Guess what: Wilhelm Reich was right. Frequent sex is mighty good for you. No wonder the closeted Hoover and the legions of repressed reactionaries and busybodies went after him with a vengeance.

By Cherry Trifle, SeXis Magazine |
Posted on May 28, 2011

I’ll say it right up front: I love quickies.

These days, even people over 60 can enjoy sex as often as circumstances will alllow.

Sure, I’d like to spend languid hours making implausible, mind-bending, wine-infused love on a gauze-draped bed in a fashionably modern South American boutique hotel overlooking the ocean—but you know, I’m busy.

Like most people, I have a laundry list of unglamorous crap to do—places to go, deadlines to meet. That said, a girl’s still gotta eat. And as far as I’m concerned, sex is as vital to life (in any worth-living scenario, anyway) as food. The good news? Unlike fast food, fast sex is healthy. It’s a quick burst of cardio amid your otherwise sedentary workday, a sultry endorphin injection that allows those pleasure-laden sensations to linger. Quickies generate an enduring buzz that renders one temporarily immune to the mundane and monotonous.

And while there are some people who believe quickies should be relegated to the realm of anonymous, lust-based encounters – and sadly, more than a few of my sisters dismiss them as male-driven dalliances wherein only the boys leave satisfied – my philosophy comes from an alternate universe. I believe the quickie is an absolute cornerstone for building intimacy, and one of the most valuable means of cultivating and preserving it as time rolls on.

Also, to be loquacious and literate, they’re way-hot.

Short-Order Erotica

“There are times when all you want is to be pushed up against the wall—or be the one doing the pushing,” says writer/editor Alison Tyler, whose Got A Minute? 60-Second Erotica (Cleis Press, 2010) is a 60-story romp through short-form literary heat. “Fuck the flowers. Screw the sweet nothings. Moments of total, unbridled lust are as important to a relationship as a freight-load of foreplay.”

Tyler, who’s been a master of the art for more than 15 years, likes her erotic fiction “… to the point, loaded with sexual tension and spice.” The stories in Got A Minute? range in length from less than 75 words to a max of 1,500, and reflect her attitude succinctly. “Readers who require a first date before a goodnight kiss probably won’t appreciate it,” she jokes, “but each maintains a unique flavor and impression in your brain.”

Erotica is a delicate matter, even if the actual tale is less than delicate. It’s a genre that can lend itself to ponderousness, but this book doesn’t give any of its gifted wordsmiths the time or space. “Is anything more arousing than giving in to a base, animalistic need?” Tyler asks. “[Those] who crave the heat of a quickie will find exactly the lover they’re looking for.”

Wham, bam…

Long Island psychologist and sex therapist Joel Block, Ph.D. says it’s unrealistic to expect to engage in full-on sex all the time, “which is why quickies are not optional, they’re damn necessary.” Block, author of The Art of the Quickie: Fast Sex, Fast Orgasm, Anytime, Anywhere (Quiver, 2006), is a clinician on the front line.

“What makes more sense when it comes to our sex lives: the infrequent feast or a frequent delicious snack that creates a hunger for more?” Therapists commonly suggest a massive infusion of romance for exsanguinating relationships. “Schedule, plan, make dates — blah,blah,blah. Lots of us have tried to follow the experts’ advice…but they have it wrong and, full disclosure, I have been among them. Not anymore. It doesn’t work!”

Block believes humans not only need faster, bolder sex — we were designed for it. “And at least on occasion,” he adds, “[we need] a bit of daring. Novelty is required. It’s likely we’ll be in a relationship longer than our ancestors lived.” Couples are prone to fall into patterns and what Block calls the biggest libido-killer of them all: monotony.

“That’s when creativity, openness and a sense of humor come in handy. Quickies, whether spontaneous or planned with mischief … are what’s needed to bring back the glow of the early days,” says Block, whose book makes for inspirational couples’ reading come bedtime. Those less enthused by prose — or too lazy to find their glasses — might find its alluring photography motivational.

Thank you, Ma’am (or Sir). May I have another?

It doesn’t take much to convince men of the merits of quickies, says Block. “It’s the ultimate guy thing.” But in his experience, women often report feeling left behind. Come on, Ladies, I beseech you: Do we really need to keep score all the time?

“A random lunch-hour lay in the parking garage is what jump-started our sex life,” says 43-year-old Jennifer, whose husband of 11 years works for the same company, in the same building — but on a different floor. “We don’t usually plan them, but if one of us is in the mood we might send a quick text, ‘Meet me in the car in ten minutes.’”

Having one of those vibrate into your pocket while the boss is droning on in the door of your cubicle, she says, is excruciating, “but ultimately makes it hotter.”

“We don’t worry about who comes when,” she says, adding that she’s thankful for the advent of window-tinting. “Who cares? It’s all fun.”

I agree; we can call it “good sex karma.” Let’s face it, simultaneous orgasm is stupefying precisely because for most couples it’s a fantastically rare occurrence. Don’t downplay the spirit of giving. It’s wonderful to bask in your partner’s afterglow. Give yourself a pat on the back for generosity and mad, mad skills — enjoy the knowledge that later, it’ll be your turn.

That said, Dr. Block points out that while women might have something of an anatomical hurdle to overcome where intercourse is concerned, “this doesn’t mean they’re incapable of reaching climax quickly.” In fact, he points out, citing a report by the famed Alfred Kinsey, “on average, both men and women can masturbate themselves to orgasm in about three minutes.”

Ergo, if the situation doesn’t allow for direct clitoral stimulation, women should feel free to take matters into their own hands. “I’ve found a little theatrics can even move things along,” says Hannah, 29, whose quickies with her longtime beau often begin with a mutually masturbatory peep show. “The faster I can get him off, the more time he can spend getting me off. For us, quickies don’t necessarily mean actual penetration, but sometimes we’ll cover three or four different sex acts, intercourse included, in less than 10 minutes, and both of us come. Not at the same time, but every time.”

Despite what preconceived notions you might have about the lives of sex writers, we don’t, generally speaking, get paid to don gilded togas and attend bacchanalias that culminate in an exhausted, oily heap of leather-beaten flesh. Or maybe my mailman’s been stealing my invitations. If so, I’m tipping him double this December.

“You see your partner. You want your partner. You fuck your partner. Beginning. Middle. And end,” says Tyler. “There’s no character development, no arch. Do you have a character arch every day? I don’t. But I do have a lot of hot sex.”

I’m not Sting. Tantric marathons are a luxury of time and rock stardom. But I can find ten minutes in my schedule, on any day of the week, for a wild ride on the edge of the bathroom sink or a hands-and-knees interlude in the walk-in closet. Even if my head does end up wedged in the laundry hamper.

© 2011 SeXis Magazine All rights reserved.

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John Nichols | THE NATION |  May 10, 2011

House Budget Committee chair Paul Ryan [1], R-Wisconsin, proposes to undermine the integrity of the Medicare and Medicaid programs, with an eye toward enriching the insurance companies that so generously fund his campaigns.

The American people are not amused [1]. They have sent a clear signal that they want to maintain Medicare and Medicaid.

And rightly so. despite the battering they have taken from misguided and malignant policy makers, the Medicare and Medicaid programs still provide the rough outlines for a single-payer health care program that keep costs down while expanding access to prevention and treatment for millions of Americans.

So, instead of gutting Medicare, as Ryan proposes, why not expand on what works.

That’s what Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders [2]is proposing.

“The United States is the only major nation in the industrialized world that does not guarantee health care as right to its people. Meanwhile, we spend about twice as much per capita on health care with worse results than others that spend far less,” Sanders explained Tuesday, as he announced plans to introduce the American Health Security Act of 2011, would provide federal guidelines and strong minimum standards for states to administer single-payer health care programs. “It is time that we bring about a fundamental transformation of the American health care system. It is time for us to end private, for-profit participation in delivering basic coverage. It is time for the United States to provide a Medicare-for-all single-payer health coverage program.”

Sanders’ plan is the right response to America’s health-care crisis — and any country where tens of millions of citizens lack health-care coverage, where tends of millions more lack adequate coverage and where costs are skyrocketing because of insurance-company profiteering has a crisis.

Don’t get the independent senator wrong. He voted for the health-care reform legislation that passed Congress last year and that was signed by President Obama. He even improved that legislation by fighting to include funding for public-health programs and community clinics.

But Sanders also recognizes flaws in the 2009 reform — which, reformers note [3], keeps the for-profit private health insurance industry at the center of the U.S. health system. And the senator argues that the ultimate cure for what ails American health care is a “Medicare for All” approach that ends the profiteering and focuses on prevention and treatment of disease.

And he is not alone.

Congressman Jim McDermott, the Washington Democrat who has for two decades been one of the House’s steadiest backers of real health-care reform, will introduce a parallel bill in that chamber. Says McDermott:  “The (2010)  health care law made big progress towards covering many more people and finding ways to lower cost. However, I think the best way to reduce costs and guarantee coverage for all is through a Single-payer system like Medicare. This bill does just that – it builds on the new health care law by giving states the flexibility they need to go to a single-payer system of their own. It will also reduce costs, and Americans will be healthier.

The Sanders-McDermott initiative in Washington, DC, comes as the Vermont Legislature has taken steps to make the senator’s homestate the first in the nation to develop what advocates desctibe as a state-based variation on the single-payer approach. Vermont. Sanders applauds the move, and thinks it could serve as a national model. Others agree, while noting that Medicare provides another model.

Sanders and McDermott were joined at the announcement [4] of their new “Medicare for All” push by Arlene Holt Baker [5], executive vice president of the AFL-CIO; Jean Ross, co-president of the National Nurses United; [6] and Greg Junemann, president of the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers. All three groups are encouraging this fight for real reform.

“Providing a single standard of high quality care for all is a priority for registered nurses who have seen their abilities to act as patient advocates made more difficult as for-profit interests control more patient care decisions,” says Ross,whose union has been in the forefront of the fight for single-payer. [7] “We commend Senator Sanders and Representative McDermott for their vision and passion to help registered nurses create a more just healthcare system through the American Health Security Act and applaud our brother and sisters in labor for their support,”

Physicians for a National Health Program [3], the movement of doctors and medical students for real reform, welcomed the national legislation.

“At a time when the airwaves are filled with talk about cutting or even ending Medicare,” said Dr. Garrett Adams, PNHP president, “Senator Sanders has boldly stepped forward with the seemingly paradoxical proposition that the best way to financially strengthen the Medicare program is to upgrade it and expand it to cover everyone.”

Like this blog post? Read it on The Nation’s free iPhone App, NationNow. [8]

Source URL: http://www.thenation.com/blog/160572/cut-medicare-no-way-make-it-medicare-all

Links:
[1] http://www.thenation.com/blog/160503/how-town-hall-protests-against-paul-ryans-plan-changed-medicare-debate
[2] http://sanders.senate.gov/
[3] http://www.pnhp.org/news/2011/may/doctors-group-greets-single-payer-health-bill-in-senate
[4] http://sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/news/?id=47d632b8-4a43-4d2b-b500-cb2c105e93ef
[5] http://www.aflcio.org/aboutus/thisistheaflcio/leaders/officers_baker.cfm
[6] http://www.nationalnursesunited.org/
[7] http://www.nationalnursesunited.org/press/entry/nurses-support-american-health-security-act-of-2011/
[8] http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/nationnow/id399704758?mt=8

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