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/#######################################################################\
| |
| P o l i t i c s O n l i n e M a g a z i n e |
| ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ |
| Volume 1, Number 1 |
| |
| Head Editor ...................................... David Killoren |
| ...................................... Josh Renaud |
| |
| Contributing Editor/Consultant ................... Mark Waelterman |
| |
| Columnists ....................................... |
| ....................................... |
| |
| Contributing Writers ............................. Shai Sachs |
| ............................. Gary Brown |
| ............................. Shawn Hayes |
| ............................. Justin Renaud |
| |
| Publisher .............................. GrossWorld Publishing Co. |
| |
\#######################################################################/
/#######################################################################\
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| P o l i t i c s O n l i n e M a g a z i n e |
| ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ |
| Table of Contents |
| |
| |
| Introduction to Politics Online Magazine |
| Health Care Report ............................... Josh Renaud |
| Social Debts ..................................... David Killoren |
| Views from Across the Pond ....................... Gary Brown |
| Abenaki's Survival ............................... G. Thomas Martell|
| |
\#######################################################################/
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| Introduction |
\==============/
Welcome to the first ever edition of Politics Online Magazine! We are the
ONLY politically oriented online magazine available (via modem) today. As of
right now, we have a somewhat small staff, but this will hopefully change as
the magazine becomes available in a wider variety of locations. We are always
looking for columnists who can write regular articles for the magazine, and
contributing writers who can write articles when it's convenient.
We're also a great place for advertising. Our policy, as of now, is
simple. An ANSI and an ASCII 78x23 advertisement is free to anyone who sends
one to us. Since POM is distributed in two forms - ANSI for ANSI-based
systems, and ASCII for non-ANSI systems - we ask that you send us both an ANSI
version of your advertisement and an ASCII version. If, for example, you only
send us an ASCII ad, that ad will only be included in the ASCII version of
POM.
We at POM plan to be around for a long time, so wherever you found *this*
copy of POM, you can be sure that another issue will be there in a month.
Thank you for your curiousity, and we hope you enjoy what you read!
... The Editors ...
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| Health Care Report |
| |
| Josh Renaud |
\====================/
Health Care: Socializied Medicine, or Medicine
for the Clintons' Political Status?
Health Care. Many analysts claim if the new health care bill passes, the
Clintons status will skyrocket. Bob Dole has created a new proposal, but
President Clinton is refusing to compromise. What is going to happen, and what
is best for you?
The heart of the plan is this idea: Universal Coverage. The main reason
Clinton wants universal coverage is so he can control everyone's health care.
It's not because he 'feels' for everyone, and because he wants to make sure
everyone gets quality care, it's because with universal coverage, Bill can
completely control who gets care, and how much. Another drawback to universal
coverage is this: billions of dollars more are required. Where will Bill -GET-
those billions? From us, the taxpayers. And yet another problem arises. What
if Bill decides to merge welfare into health care? It's simple; most people on
welfare need health care __from the government__ because they can't afford
their own. And it's likely Bill will devise more bureaucracy to handle it.
According to the experts, if the new health care plan passes, we will lose
our medication technological edge. And if the plan is passed, it will take 100
years to re-reach our present level of technology. The question we must ask
ourselves is, do we -want- to be hurtled backward 100 years? Most of us would
say no. (Although, most liberals would probably say yes)
Our current health care status is the best in the world. Bill's plan will
put us in rank with Canada and England, where there are week-long waiting
lists for care of simple colds, flus, sore throats, etc. Right now we have
access to care WHENEVER WE NEED IT. Some of us don't have coverage, that is
true. But the rhetoric the Clintons is attempting to paste on us (that health
care is a RIGHT, not a privilege) is totally flawed and designed to mislead
you. Health care is a science, something that improves constantly over the
years. The cost for the improvement and the level of consistency it has, is
this: some people won't get covered. In this day and age, that's acceptable;
even predictable. Usually (Not always) the people who don't have coverage are
people who don't TRY to go out and get a job that COVERS them. On the average,
people who don't have care are lazy. They are the type who will take free
hand-me-outs, but when they have to earn something, they just won't. (This is
not to say that there are some people who work hard, but simply CAN'T get
care. They are the minority, though)
For the sake of freedom; for the sake of keeping our level of care, make
it plain to your senator that Bill's plan MUST NOT PASS. Bob Dole has a plan,
one that improves the health care system, but doesn't centralize or
governmentize it. It doesn't limit your freedoms, and it will make sure that
we won't lose the precious coerage we have right now. I encourage you to ask
your senator to approve Dole's plan.
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| Social Debts |
| |
| David Killoren |
\==================/
As you may know, the economy is thought to be of three "sections": land,
labor, and capital. Land is generally thought of as any natural resource;
anything man didn't create. Capital is any man-made object. Labor is any work
or force exerted by a human which improves something or increases its worth.
Of course, there is no such thing as an object that is man made. All
the matter in the universe was here before we got here- how could we have
created any of it? So there are really only two sections: labor and natural
resources. Man can create labor, but he cannot create natural resources.
People have a right to keep or be left alone with everything they own. People
own only what is given to them or what they have created. The natural
resources of the universe belong not to one person but to all people.
Those three statements, I believe, are impossible to disagree with. They are
also, of course, impossible to prove.
At this point I would like to make the distinction between mass and value.
I believe this can be illustrated best with a hypothetical situation: Two
friends, Log-Suck and Pip, decide to open a lemonade stand together. They
decide to split the profits 50-50. They earn a 5 dollar bill and a 1 dollar
bill. If they had agreed to split the profits by mass, Log-Suck would recieve
a 5 dollar bill and Pip would recieve a 1 dollar bill, or vice-versa. But if
they had agreed to split the profits by value, they would each recieve 3
dollars. Of course they would have to translate their two bills into
manageable pieces: 6 ones instead of a 5 and a 1.
I believe the fairest way to split the profits of any venture is by value.
Since all the natural resources of the world belong to ALL people and not just
to select people, they need to be split up evenly among those people. But
they need to be split up by value, not by mass.
Land is a natural resource. It would be quite an undertaking to split the
land of the world up evenly among the population. Land is a fairly
unmanageable resource. It would be much simpler and more profitable to
liquify it.
For example, let's say that the sum of the value of all the land in the world
divided by the sum of all the people in the world is $50,000. That would mean
that a person who took up NO land would be owed $50,000 by society. If a
person took up $100,000 worth of land, he would owe $50,000 to society because
he had removed more than his fair share of the value FROM society. So in this
way, those who take up more space than they deserve to take up pay for their
size accordingly, and an equilibrium is maintained. Nobody owes society
anything in this type of system.
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|Views from Across the Pond|
| |
| Gary Brown |
\==========================/
Issues facing Health Care in the US
Much has been made in recent months of the need for health care reform in
America, with the central goals of such reform being coverage for all
individuals who are unable to cover themselves, and the improvement of the
service to the end consumer at a lower cost. To this end several proposals
have been tabled, including the establishment of a National Healthcare
system, or an ever-more encompassing Medicaid alternative.
The National Heathcare system alternative has been compared to those
existing in the United Kingdom, Canada and the state system in Oregon. Such
comparisons draw on the central themes of universal coverage on the positive
side to long waiting lists for surgery and an increasingly bureaucratic
system as a negative component. So what are the realities of a National
Healthcare system? The strength of such a system lies in the universal
coverage it confers to all citizens within its scope. No individual needs
to feel threatened by the dollar cost of his or her anticipated treatment,
and thus will go to their respective physician more readily than those for
whom the cost of treatment might be discouraging. On a broad social level,
this is precisely the behavior a responsible and responsive government
should foster, as medical problems encountered by the population will be
treated on average much earlier. This skew towards a more preventative
medicine should decrease the total dollar cost of healthcare for the nation,
heading off more costly procedures. However, a drawback of such a system
is that healthcare resources tend to be centralized, and frequently to use
these most efficiently certain procedures are prone to waiting lists. It
would seem, then, such a system places the most efficient use of high dollar
cost resources, such as CAT scan machines and positron emmision tomography
over the less quantifiable cost of human suffering.
And what of increasing the scope of Medicaid? Certainly Mediacaid is not
without its own problems, the least of which is an ever-increasing
bureaucracy and reliance on Emergency Room care treatment of minor ailments
by those on or below the poverty line. The soaring cost of Medicaid is
projected by some sources to cripple the entire system inside the next ten
years. The bureaucracy associated with the Medicaid system has prompted some
private practices and clinics to refuse treatment for patients within its
scope, and limiting their involvement to paying consumers or those enrolled
in private or group health plans. For those individuals relying on Medicaid,
there are less choices available to them for their healthcare.
Of course, the dollar is the biggest obstacle to a successful social health
program. The cost within the healthcare community of insurance both for
institutions and healthcare professionals against malpractice and other legal
matters forms a significant portion of the tax dollars spent. In order to
begin to address the issues of healthcare reform, this area requires the
most immediate attention. This could be in the form of an independent revue
body being set up to determine the extent of damages allowable for all
conceivable areas of malpractice, in order to cap the exorbitant damages
sought by some individuals. Such caps should take into consideration the
projected cost of healthcare for the patient for the forseeable duration of
the particular malady suffered, with a consideration for psychiatric well-
being. The well being of relatives of the patient should not be an
influencing factor, unless they have been reliant upon the patient's ability
to provide for them. Such a provision would substantially reduce the legal
costs incurred within any healthcare system, enabling the salaries of
affected healthcare professionals to be adjusted accordingly.
Increasingly, in the United Kingdom, more workplaces are realizing the
public's desire for improved healthcare. To this end, more individuals are
moving towards a private healthcare system in order to circumvent the
possibility of being placed on a waiting list for a particular surgical
procedure. Such health insurance is specifically designed to protect against
the discomfort of awaiting such a procedure. There is a reliance upon the
National Healthcare system to provide Emergency treatment and to provide
basic preventative healthcare and treatment for minor maladies at the offices
of a General Practitioner. The administration of funds to GPs is on a per
head basis, thus the more patients a GP practice has the more he or she will
earn as income. This system encourages MDs to perform better and provide
better services - those that do not tend not stay in business for long.
However, those practices in outlying areas cannot survive in this system due
to a smaller patient base, these are encouraged to stay active in their
respective communities by special governmental grants or awards sanctioned
by medical revue boards.
Throughout Europe, those countries with National healthcare are experimenting
with alternatives to reduce the dollar cost while maintaining or increasing
the level of services they offer. Healthcare should be seen as a right and
not a privilige of just those who can afford it. It is incumbent upon the
federal government to examine them all in order to do the American people
justice in this regard, and to exercise the appropriate amount of caution
before committing public funds to this project.
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|Abenaki's Survival|
| |
|G. Thomas Martell |
\==================/
I would like to open up my first article with a little background on the
Abenaki peoples. The Abenaki homelands are in the northeastern United States,
Primarily upstate New York, Vermont, New Hampshire, Southern Maine, and
Northern Massachusettes.
The Chief of our nation is Homer St. Francis, a sometimes boisterous and
always outspoken man. Through his current and past leadership, we have made
some steps forward in our attempts to right injustices perpetrated upon our
sovereign peoples. The seat of the Abenaki Nation is the small town of
Swanton Vermont. From here the fight has begun an will continue, until the
sovereignty of our Nation and the rights our people are returned. Currently
the only aboriginal right given to the tribe is the allowance of fishing
rights in one county.
In 1989 a ruling by Judge Joseph Wolchik in Vermont district court, the
Abenaki Nation was granted the right, in Northwestern Vermont, to
unextinguished rights to fish on tribal lands, as well as sovereign
self-governance. Yet the state government has since, in flagrant violation
of Federal law, revoked these rights. These matters are still being reviewed
by the Vermont Supreme Court. Even though Judge Wolchik affirmed that no
treaty had ever been signed with the Abenaki's and there tribal lands were
taken illegally.
Time and again the State of Vermont has put to issue that the Abenaki's were
not indigenous people of the region, but merely, a wandering nomadic tribe
that was "passing through". Yet during excavation for a basement near the
Missisquoi river human bones were unearthed, archaeologists from the
University of Vermont recovered the bone of more than 100 humans, artifacts,
and wizened ears of corn.
These were all dated back several thousand years, proof that Vermonts natives
were not tourists and that permanent settlements existed long before the
European invasion.
Among the people still holding fast in this dispute are Chief Homer St.
Francis, Tribal Judge Mike Delaney, Medicine Man Richard "BlackHorse"
Phillips, along with thousands of Abenaki natives working in the background.
These men all hold fast to the beliefs handed down by the original Chief Grey
Locks, that they are a free people with universal human rights under God,
that should not be trampled by a state looking only to protect and justify
having stolen their land and their homes.
Anyone wishing more information or to show there support is urged to contact
the Abenaki Self-Help Association, inc. at P.O. Box 276, Swanton, Vermont
05488.
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\====================/
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