Occupying the Pizza Guy’s TP Rally

Occupy Reno showed up at end of AFP (Americans for Prosperity Plutocracy) rally on July 23 featuring guest speaker Herman Pizza Man Cain. Occupiers saw the event as an opportunity to protest the addiction to big money in politics. AFP is one of these wonderful new Super PACs with gobs of 1% money, in particular that of the Koch brothers. So many of our homemade signs were plays on themes around the names Koch and Cain, if you will.

Historically, I think the significance of this event is the marking of the first time that significant numbers of TPs and Occupiers met face to face in Reno. None knew what to expect but I think those who have the skills to critically evaluate will look back and realize there was a spark of energy from crossing charges between our two terminal posts. Although the jolt initially may have made us all step back, the memory of the shock lingers.

When we arrived many of the Tea Party (TP) types simply hurled insults and walked quickly away instead of having the courage of their convictions to stand their ground and engage in dialogue. One long haired guy who approached us looked totally out of place. He wore a tied dyed shirt and his buddy work one featuring the Communist Party hammer and sickle. Tie Dye told me my sign which featured the term “plutocracy” was ineffective: “You need to dumb it down a bit for this crowd,” he said.

One loud mouth radio DJ came over and yelled about being insulted by a sign referred to Cain as a Koch Whore. Seriously, most of us were also surprised by the sign, but thought it was pretty clever. And obviously provocative. So Mr. DJ in his shiny brown suit pulled out his camera and tried to interrogate us loudly about offending him as a large crowd of TPs looked over his shoulder. Really had the mob mentality. The courageous young man carrying the sign took the top of a small knoll beside the street and held his ground.

After a few minutes of watching the dynamics several of us closed ranks around him and took some of the heat off of him. We used a “diversity of tactics” from the standpoint of speaking/communicating styles to reach various ones in the group and to try to break off into dialogues. If you challenged him back his TP chorus start yelling defending him stating he was an American, and you know where that was supposed to turn. But I wasn’t going there with this unruly mob. So I told my comrade not to be concerned with this angry man with his shiny shoes and suit. Then the loud mouthed DJ turned his anger at me asking me why I didn’t like his suit. I told him what was wrong with it from an aesthetic point of view, but he tried to insinuate that I didn’t like suits, which is partly true, but again, they were trying to transition to one of their pro-business talking points.

My problem was the quality of his suit made him look like a slick used car salesman and a Koch "whore" should be able to do better, but obviously his pimp is not paying him well enough. But I didn’t get to make the “kill” point because one of my loving fellow Occupiers, speaking in caring, nurturing motherly tones, pointed out that I was a professional too and wore suits. Darn it, why did she have to “out” me? Eventually most of the TPs left once the two sides were no longer yelling. I thought transforming the conversation to clothing would help diffuse the anger and it had. But it was done in Occupier fashion, no one led, we held our group in solidarity.

Finally most of the TP freeloaders left with their bellies full of free Koch $ food, carrying their AFP/Koch swag. We were life with a group who were finally willing to engage in reasonable dialogue for the most part, although from time to time someone would invoke some crazy Faux news version of the fax. For example one told me matter of fact that Obama had been living off his Grandmother’s fortune for years. “You mean when he was growing up,” I asked. “No, until quite recently.” I told the man Obama’s grandmother was dead. He told me that Obama had two grandmothers and he was talking about the one who was American. I repeated she was dead. He said she left an immense estate. It was all in his book. I told him I had read both his books and it didn’t say that. He said he had the info in his care, and all of the sudden it felt really creepy, and I walked away.

Conclusions: It was clear from our experience that the TPs have way more crazy hangers on than Occupiers do (although admittedly we have had a few over the last several months). But we really did enjoy the opportunity to engaged the few who were willing to dialogue rationally with us. We know we share a lot of views regarding our inherent distrust with big government and governmental overreach, although we part ways regarding several key issues including the role of money and what parts of the government coffers should be cut.

Those who showed up to admire a pizza mogol and to get free stuff told us they think that money is free speech and the more the merrier. Occupiers will never share that mindset. Had we known there was free food we would have transported a bunch of homeless folks to the party. I think it would have been harder for the TPs to argue with us about minimum wage, which they want to eliminate, with hungry homeless people hanging around. One argued, why not send jobs overseas if you can get the job done for $1/hour? Their America is so self serving. 

Then I saw the AFP Koch staff packing up boxes and boxes of their free T shirts as they head for Winnemucca. We were still engaged with TPs while they licked their ice cream cones, it was hard to relate to the fact that they don’t know (or is it care?) that there are thousands of homeless people in our area. Occupy Reno is spending our spare hours feed hungry people and shopping thrift stores for blankets because it gets cold at night in Northern Nevada, even in the summer. I asked one about the t-shirts and he asked me if I thought it was a zero sum game. I didn’t really know what to say, because I realized he was now engaged in self gratifying dialogue, not the objective to help Americans, but rationalizing their actions and inactions to help themselves and their own addictions.

Give Me Liberty or Give Me Car Insurance

Ever hear someone compare health insurance to car insurance? Why should we pay for health insurance to see a doctor when we don't have to pay insurance to see a mechanic?

I can think of only two similarities between health insurance and car insurance: 1) Americans will soon be required to buy some form of both of these so-called insurance types; and 2) In both cases insurance executives will be the primary beneficiaries of this gambling strategy known as "insurance"  which, like all gambling, is calculated to benefit the "house" in the short and long run.

This is where where auto and human insurance/coverage part ways. In most states people are only required to buy collision insurance for their vehicles; everything else is optional. If their care suffers from lack of care, at some point it will eventually simply die.

When people show up at the ER who cannot afford to pay, they expect someone will still take care of them without insurance. Ultimately it is the taxpayers who pay the bill. Theoretically the so-called "Affordable Care Act" is supposed to eventually take up the slack by putting everyone in the pay pool so that tax payers don't have the burden. But that won't happen until 2015 and when it does in reality it will only be another corporate payout to the 1%.

Rich people, including most members of Congress resent having to pay taxes to take care of others, which is ironic because most don't even pay their fair share of taxes (ca. 15-25% vs. 25-35% for average Americans).

Freeloading Tea Party members who now equate their "right" to not pay for healthcare with their liberty sure as heck aren't going to pay for coverage it if they can help it. They are standing of the steps of the Supreme Court to make that statement.

It is the moderates and progressives who willingly pay more taxes to provide services for the needy, but it is the poor that carry the burden of paying these taxes expenses disproportionately, especially if you live in a regressive state such as Nevada.

And any gains from the increases in health costs, like all income, 93% will likely go to the 1%. And the top CEOs in the health insurance and pharmaceutical industries make tens of millions in annual salaries. And then they buy off our government officials with the bribes we call campaign donations. That is the dirty secret about why our healthcare costs are out of control and our coverage is getting worse each year. What I don't understand is why the process of paying the middlemen in health care is called insurance; in most cases we are simply paying for access.

Back to the original question, why is it that we are not required to pay for a mechanic? Because truthfully nobody cares if you drive a beater, so long as you don't harm anyone else in the process. The collision insurance is to pay for the expense of hitting someone else with your vehicle, which would cause them financial and possibly bodily harm. In "health insurance" the harm can come from making someone else pick up the bill through an ER visit. That's the collision that can cause someone else financial harm.
So here is what I propose. We stop requiring any type of health insurance" other than emergency room visits and we call that catastrophic insurance, because we know if you pay half of what they charge for a typical visit to the E.R. it will be catastrophic to your checkbook. 

Set up coop exchanges (WITHOUT THE INSURANCE MIDDLEMEN) which can negotiate with doctors and clinics for office visits, lab tests, and minor procedures perhaps even major procedures).  And the government could help us set these up through oversight without actually paying for it. Shhhh, the government already does this through the existing Medicare process, as workers we could "buy" into the plan until we hit retirement age. I would be more than willing to pay for my share of this cost. Ultimately I would like Americans to receive a Medicare card when they are born and to pay into the plan when they are working, but that would be too Socialistic I guess, especially when the system is awash with dirty money to control what people think about this issue.


There are so many models to use to compare health care in the world  but no matter how you cut it, we Americans are getting significantly less bang for our buck than any other industrialized nation, and the price is skyrocketing relative to the rest of the world. To understand why it is getting worse you simply have to follow the money.

Am I grateful that President Obama spearheaded a revision of health care in our country? Of course! But we didn't get the universal health care, let alone the single payer plan, that so many of us fought for. Instead we got this "Affordable Care Act" which I think should have been called the "Health Coverage Act" because it obligates everyone to get health coverage. It is difficult now to see a doctor or use a health care facility without this coverage and more people are eligible for coverage than ever before. But, in my opinion, it is NOT insurance nor is it affordable care. It is coverage for the 1%, so that no matter who you are the 1% get their payday.

P.S. My car recently passed its smog check; I wish my labs were as good. But who has the money to see a doctor? My current deductible is $1950 (up from $500 a few years ago) and a payment of $125 just to see my doctor (compared with $20 co-pay last year) and don't get me started on recommended lab tests. Like many Americans, I am shopping around and  finding I pay for tests and procedures "out of plan" with good old fashioned cash. Rumor has it our Public Benefit Employment Plan managed has earned over $30 million in "excess saving" over the last year since they spiked our deductibles and many of us no longer use our so-called health insurance. Don't worry, the CEOs of the health unsurance "providers" and big pharma and the hospitals still get their cut.  Hurray for the money.