2008 presidential election

John Heilmann helps Robert Reich drop a bomb on the Clinton campaign :

Reich insists that the endorsement does indeed come as a surprise — to him. As we chatted in Washington, where Reich had come from Berkeley, where he teaches, to give a speech and meet with some Democrats on Capitol Hill, he explained that, despite the criticisms he's made of the Clintons ("I call it as I see it"), he had planned to refrain from offering an official backing for Obama out of respect for Hillary. "She's an old friend," Reich said, "I've known her 40 years. I was absolutely dead set against getting into the whole endorsement thing. I've struggled with it. I've not wanted to do it. Out of loyalty to her, I just felt it would be inappropriate."

So what's changed? I asked Reich.

"I saw the ads" — the negative man-on-street commercials that the Clinton campaign put up in Pennsylvania in the wake of Obama's bitter/cling comments a week ago — "and I was appalled, frankly. I thought it represented the nadir of mean-spirited, negative politics. And also of the politics of distraction, of gotcha politics. It's the worst of all worlds. We have three terrible traditions that we've developed in American campaigns. One is outright meanness and negativity. The second is taking out of context something your opponent said, maybe inartfully, and blowing it up into something your opponent doesn't possibly believe and doesn't possibly represent. And third is a kind of tradition of distraction, of getting off the big subject with sideshows that have nothing to do with what matters. And these three aspects of the old politics I've seen growing in Hillary's campaign. And I've come to the point, after seeing those ads, where I can't in good conscience not say out loud what I believe about who should be president. Those ads are nothing but Republicanism. They're lending legitimacy to a Republican message that's wrong to begin with, and they harken back to the past 20 years of demagoguery on guns and religion. It's old politics at its worst — and old Republican politics, not even old Democratic politics. It's just so deeply cynical."

To have tossed aside a 40 year-old friendship and business relationship is beyond serious. It's a brutally honest repudiation from a man who has become a sort of oddball superstar in the academic wonkosphere with such ponderings as Is Capitalism Always Good For Democracy? and the nature of Supercapitalism. Especially since Reich happens to be from ... ahem ... Scranton, Pensylvania.

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I have found that basic health care is more accessible in Brazil than in the United States.

The New York Times reports today that the process in the United States for getting basic vaccines against deadly childhood diseases is becoming more and more expensive and precarious.

Getting a vaccination was not always so difficult. In 1980, it cost only about $23, or $59 adjusted for inflation, for the seven shots and four oral doses needed to immunize a child, according to data provided by Thomas Saari, who is emeritus professor of pediatrics at the University of Wisconsin.

Today, though, a child who receives all the recommended vaccines would receive as many as 37 shots and 3 oral doses by the 18th birthday — at a cost exceeding $1,600. NYT

Before I moved to Brazil in 2004, I contacted public and private clinics in New Jersey, looking for the basic vaccines that were recommended before my travel. It would have cost me $800 dollars or more to receive these vaccinations in the United States. Since I didn't have that much money and I was not covered by any insurance, I decided to go to Brazil without first receiving this basic and easily administered medical care.

When I got to Brazil, I discovered that all of the medications that I needed but could not afford in the United States are available for free at all Brazilian government health clinics, even for visitors from the United States. In fact, there is a hospital a block from my house that provides all medical care for free. So I have more access to health care in Brazil than I did in the United States.

A couple of weeks ago, my Brazilian wife informed me that the government was recommending that everyone in our state receive shots for malaria. The first time we went to the clinic, the supplies had been exhausted. The following week, I, my wife and two children went to the government clinic and we all got our shots for free, with no lines or additional waiting. The government of Brazil cares for my medical health more than my own government does.

I have also discovered that the same anti-depressant drugs that cost $200.00 USD per month in the United States may cost $40.00 USD per month at regular Brazilian pharmacies and only twenty dollars per month at Brazil's government run pharmacies. But at certain Brazilian government pharmacies, many basic medications are available at no charge whatsoever, to anyone who has a prescription, while supplies last.

I hope someday that the United States will have a public health system that is as accessible to the public as Brazil's health care system is now. In the 2008 Democratic presidential primaries, I'm absolutely going to vote for a presidential candidate who has a long-standing and proven dedication to seeing that we in the United States have care that is at least as accessible and affordable as the care now available to people in so-called "Third World" countries like my new home, in Brazil.

Much as I have been liking Edwards and Obama so far (not to mention Al Gore), I have not been ready to commit to a candidate yet. In fact, as I recently wrote, I feel the Democrats have an unusually strong and exciting field of candidates this time around.

So, to add one more voice to those of Al Gore, Barak Obama and John Edwards who are calling for a rapid end to the Iraq (and Iran?) quagmire, here is a message from Tom Vilsack:

Tom Vilsack’s message was heard loud and clear this weekend at the DNC Winter Meeting in Washington, DC -- it’s time to get troops out of Iraq, now.

"It is time for us to clearly say 'the war must end and our troops must be brought home now.' Let me say that I think Congress has a constitutional responsibility and a moral obligation to do it now. Not a cap -- an end. Not eventually -- immediately."

And for the record, it's hard finding good pictures of Vilsack. He has both name and lack of charisma working against him, but otherwise he isn't bad. Midwest Governor and all that could help.