D9 Pushes Boundaries With A Message

District 9 has received much attention since it's release last year, and for many good reasons. It's the directorial debut of South African filmmaker Niell Blomkamp, and has been nominated for several Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Visual Effects. However, it has also received attention for it's political message involving the treatment of ethnic minorities.

The story revolves around a spaceship that has stranded itself in sky over Johannesburg, and the alien race, derogatorily referred to as prawns, that have come to live in the slums of the city. The film follows Wikus van de Merwe, played by Sharlto Copley, as he does his job at MultiNational United and attempts to get the prawns to consent to forced evictions out of District 9 and Johannesburg.

And the treatment of the prawns at the hands of MNU is not kind, but it is not unheard of in human history. First, of course, are the evictions. Military forces, dragging aliens, adult and children alike, out of shacks at gunpoint is reminiscent of Palestinians being forced off of their land in 1948. Prawns have medical experiments performed on them, like Jewish people in Nazi Germany, including one called the Pain Tolerance Exam, which involves a power drill. When prawns are suspected of crime, they are tortured for information, not read their Miranda Rights.

Blomkamp challenges your notions about these types of movies. It is hard not to feel angry for the prawns when they are beaten or killed, but when they lash out and kill a man with one swipe it is understandable why the humans react with fear. Blomkamp does a great job forcing us to feel sympathy for the aliens. It is obvious how intelligent they are, but they also have a different moral code, so different, in fact, that to an outsider it may seem as if they have none at all. In this way, he uses the aliens as a stand-in for some native people that colonial powers might have met hundreds of years ago, maybe in South Africa.

Obama Steps (Lightly) Onto Field

This week is starting to seem like the most important one in months for the health care reform bill. Obama had already announced plans to hold a televised "summit" with congressional leaders of both parties, which is scheduled for Thursday, and today he released his most concrete proposal yet. Obama's plan was taken mostly from the Senate bill, the more moderate of the two chambers, with a few key changes.
The most notable, and newsworthy, part of the bill was actually not part of the bill, at all. Obama decided not to include a public option as part of his bill. The administration has hinted, however, that Obama would back congressional Democrats if the wanted to include a public option in the final bill, even supporting reconciliation as a means to do so. The bill does create an insurance exchange, though, which would require insurance companies to disclose all fees and allow consumers to shop and compare plans side-by-side. Obama has also raised the Medicaid funding that would go to states, to help them cover budget shortfalls and insure more people. The bill also closes the "donut hole" created in Medicare "part-D," and raises the amount that any plan would have to be worth in order to qualify as a "Cadillac plan," and therefor subject to increased taxes, from twenty-three thousand to twenty-seven thousand. Most of these changes should satisfy progressives, expect of course for the failure to include a public option. The "Cornhusker Kickback," in which Nebraska received all of it's Medicaid paid for by the federal government in exchange for the support of Senator Ben Nelson has also, thankfully, been removed.
So this is a good jumping off point for this bill, and for this debate on Thursday. Although the bill coming from the Administration is not what most progressives would have wanted, it is something that can get widespread support, just not in the US Senate. And that is what makes Thursday so important. Will this bill be a starter for both parties to add to and improve, or will this be something for the Republicans to tear down?
A bill that is called "Health Care Reform" will pass the congress and be signed by the President, but what that bill will contain is still up for grabs. It is important that we end "pre-existing conditions" clauses, that we create competition among the insurance companies to give the consumers more power, and it is vital that we make sure no American ever goes bankrupt from medical bills. And we can do all of this without adding to the national debt, but we need leaders who are willing to stand up for the American people ahead of the insurance companies.
Obama has made a habit of saying, "I am not the first President to take up this fight, but I am determined to be the last." Well, sorry, but that's not going to happen. The lobbyist in Washington are too powerful to allow that to happen. We will not get single-payer. We can, however, get a good bill for the American people. One that levels the playing field, and gives the customer the power to make informed choices when it comes to purchasing a vital product. One that does not allow insurance companies to change the rules in the middle of the game, and make huge profits from people who are more afraid for their bank accounts than they are for their lives.

Fili-Busted

Last week, Democratic Senators Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) and Tom Harkin (D-IA) introduced a bill to reform the filibuster rule, in which sixty Senators are required to end debate and pass a bill. In the bill, the first cloture vote on any bill would still require sixty votes to cut off debate. However, if such a vote failed, the number of votes required for cloture would gradually reduce over time, eventually needing only fifty-one votes, or a simple majority.

The filibuster rule, which has been in effect in it's current form since 1917, has become much more prevalent in the last decade, and has exploded in this congress. In the last congress, cloture votes were invoked almost 140 times.

While filibuster reform probably is a good idea, it is not totally necessary. Yet. Where is the Mr. Smith Goes to Washington moment? Why hasn't majority leader Harry Reid required these Republicans (and let's face it, some Democrats) to stand on the Senate floor and read the telephone book, or Shakespeare? Or "My Pet Goat"!? It doesn't matter, really. But if Harry Reid is the progressive that he claims to be, if he is an effective majority leader, if he is a Democrat, why can't he get tough with the minority?

In 1957, a Republican Senator from South Carolina, Strom Thurmond, conducted the longest filibuster in American history, 24 hours and 18 minutes. What was he fighting against? For what did he take this grand principled stand? He was filibustering the Civil Rights Act. What if we had had a majority leader like Reid in 1957? Would African-Americans still be sitting in the back of the bus?

As it is, 45,000 Americans will die in the next year because they lack health insurance. And Harry Reid is allowing this to happen because he does not want to appear uncivilized, or upset the Republican minority. The American people elected Barack Obama because they were on board with his agenda, but we are allowing the Senate to derail it. If Harry Reid refuses to use the rights of his position to push thru that agenda, then we need to get a majority leader that will.