He said Russia’s very survival required overcoming a “humiliating dependence on oil and gas”, leaving behind the authoritarian infrastructure of Soviet-era industry and power. Observers reported that much of the content of his address implied a severe criticism of his predecessor, the current prime minister, Vladimir Putin. Some in the west have speculated if the election of Barack Obama —whose editions of the Harvard Law Review he read while studying— and a newly pro-active US diplomacy have liberated Medvedev to reveal more liberal tendencies than expected of a Russian leader.

Others speculate Medvedev’s sudden declaration of a commitment to rapid and far-reaching pro-democracy reforms might in fact be an effort to liberate himself from the shadow of PM Putin, widely seen as Russia’s premier power-broker and de-facto ruler. By putting Russia on a new course to more humane and democratic standards and a more fair and grassroots modern economic system, Pres. Medvedev in effect announces his opposition to the continuation of the politics of raw power, oligarchy, corruption and the police state.

That last point is perhaps the most problematic: Putin, while president, vastly expanded the power of the executive and of security forces, loading his cabinet with current and former spies. His efforts were sold to th public in a complex and effective but always tenuous dual logic: on the one hand, the people’s government was cracking down on the mafioso abuses of billionaire oligarchs, taking on Chehen militants, imposing order, and at the same time Putin’s power grab and military grandstanding were a nostalgic evocation of the power of Soviet empire.

Implicit in that dual narrative was the recognition of Russia’s long tradition of authoritarian leadership. Some political analysts have gone as fat as to say Putin not only used this to his advantage in terms of nostalgia for past dominance, but actually sought to persuade Russians that his unapologetic consolidation of power was, within Russian political history, a salient legitimizing feature of his exertion of power.

But Pres. Medvedev is of a different generation. He is better positioned, by his coming of age and intellectual development to view rigid authoritarianism as a weakness instead of a strength. But the first truly resonant evidence we’ve seen of this way of thinking was this week’s national address. Medvedev not only called for a more democratic and “intelligent” Russia, strengthened by a free and modern people, but said the colossal state-run industries created by Vladimir Putin would have “no future” in Russia.

Now, just one day after giving the pro-reform speech, Pres. Medvedev has ordered Prime Minister Putin to come up with a plan for restructuring the massive state-run firms he helped create, and which Medvedev now suggests are a threat to Russia’s long-term economic prosperity. Medevedev wants the plan finalized and presented by 1 March 2010. A statement from the Kremlin, issued Friday, reads: “The absence of controls on their activities in a number of cases has led to the inadequate use of state resources”.

As the AFP reports:

During Putin’s 2000-2008 presidency, Russia created an array of massive state corporate “champions” with the aim of spurring growth in sectors such as car manufacturing, aviation, nanotechnology, nuclear energy and arms building.

Many economists however say the sprawling congolomerates are costly to the state and their opaque structure gives huge powers with little accountability to Putin allies like Sergei Chemezov, head of Russian Technologies.

There are indications Putin’s state industry strategy may be coming into focus now more as a different kind of oligarchy, one favoring Vladimir Putin, instead of the end to oligarchy that he has promised. Even as the number of millionaires and billionaires in Russia seems to be exploding, due to waves of new wealth from the raw materials economy (oil and gas, primarily), average Russians are seeing costs of living explode and decent wages harder to come by.

Pres. Medvedev is likely aware of the spreading dissatisfaction, and he also likely needs to craft his own policies going forward in a way that points the finger at those who were in charge throughout the boom and drove the comprehensive restructuring of Russia’s economy to rely perilously on the volatile shifts in world commodities markets. It is no small thing that Medvedev called this dependence “humiliating” and used this context to launch into the public consciousness the idea of a brave new democratic Russia.

At 11:05, there remained fully 10 Democrats not having cast their vote, with rumors that one or two Republicans might also “defect” and join the Democratic majority in voting for passage. At 11:07 pm EST, the tally of yea votes reached 218, the threshold necessary to pass the comprehensive healthcare reform bill. The voting would remain open for 15 minutes, allowing for the possibility of a change in one or more votes.

At 11:10 pm, the impossible occurred, when the final Republican voting cast a yea vote, leaving only one Democrat to vote. The final vote, at 11:11 pm, was in favor, making the vote 220 in favor to 215 opposed. The vote means the House of Representatives passed healthcare reform weeks before the tentative Thanksgiving deadline, handing Pres. Obama a major legislative victory.

At 11:15 pm EST, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi dropped the gavel and declared to raucous applause that the bill had passed by a margin of 220 yeas to 215 nays. The vote was immediately followed by a 5-minute vote to honor those who died in the shooting tragedy at Fort Hood, Texas, 2 days earlier.

Rep. Anh Joseph Cao (R-LA) was the lone Republican voting to pass the reform bill. Louisiana is one of the states tat suffers from the least competition among health insurance providers, with high rates of denied claims, dropped coverage and uninsured, a large low-income population and serious budgetary challenges. His vote may put added pressure on Democratic Senator Mary Landrieu, also of Louisiana, to join her party in supporting passage.

The vote marks the first time either house of the US Congress has passed legislation that would extend healthcare coverage to nearly every American, after 100 years of attempts, some bold and visionary, some less daring and less developed. That historic achievement has been part of Pres. Obama’s rhetoric throughout the process, and the White House is expected to stress that achievement in declaring its efforts vindicated by tonight’s vote.

Earlier in the day, however, some difficult concessions were made in order to win support from conservative Democrats. The Stupak amendment will bar use of federal funds to purchase coverage under any plan that permits elective abortion procedures.

As Politico is reporting:

After hours of negotiations with a group of abortion opponents, led by Indiana Rep. Brad Ellsworth, and the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Pelosi made a final painful sacrifice to pick up crucial support, allowing a vote on an amendment sponsored by Ellsworth and Michigan Rep. Bart Stupak that would bar any insurance company participating in the exchange program from covering the procedure.

Rep. Diana DeGette, of Colorado, said the amendment —which passed with 240 votes in favor— has left many “furious” and that it marks a rolling back of women’s basic reproductive rights. The Stupak amendment will continue to be a point of serious contention, as there will surely be demands to remove it from the conference committee bill, if the Senate passes its reform bill.

Sen. Harry Reid, the majority leader, commended Speaker Pelosi on her leadership and said the House vote was “another mile traveled on the road to reforming our broken healthcare system”. Speaker Pelosi announced at 11:37 pm that she had received a congratulatory phone call from Pres. Obama, who she said “provided the vision and the momentum”, adding that without Pres. Obama in the White House, the process itself would not have been possible.

The Speaker personally commended Rep. John Dingell, who has introduced a universal healthcare coverage bill every year since he entered the House, as did his father, going back to the 1940s. Steny Hoyer praised Speaker Pelosi for “Her focus, her vision, her tenacity, her energy, her commitment” and said her leadership had served the future of America’s children. Rep. James Clyburn, the Democratic whip said the process had greatly strengthened the Democratic caucus.

The process of passing the legislation has only just begun, however, as the Senate still needs to finalize, present for debate, clear from debate and vote on it’s version of the reforms. Once that is done, the bills will go to conference committee to be reconciled into one merged bill, which both Houses will again have to pass, before Pres. Obama will have anything on his desk to sign into law.

UPDATE, 8 November 2009, 13:39 EST: Anh Joseph Cao has said he came to understand the need to vote to pass the sweeping healthcare reform program, after listening to the concerns of constituents desperate to find a way to secure reliable, affordable coverage for basic and/or emergency healthcare. A release on his website reads as follows:

Tonight, Congressman Anh “Joseph” Cao (LA-2) voted in favor of the comprehensive health reform bill, H.R. 3962, the Affordable Health Care for America Act.

Of his vote, Cao said: “Tonight, I voted to keep taxpayer dollars from funding abortion and to deliver access to affordable health care to the people of Louisiana.

Cao said: “I read the versions of the House [health reform] bill. I listened to the countless stories of Orleans and Jefferson Parish citizens whose health care costs are exploding – if they are able to obtain health care at all. Louisianans needs real options for primary care, for mental health care, and for expanded health care for seniors and children.

The bill passed the House at a 220-215 vote.

Cao said: “Today, I obtained a commitment from President Obama that he and I will work together to address the critical health care issues of Louisiana including the FMAP crisis and community disaster loan forgiveness, as well as issues related to Charity and Methodist Hospitals. And, I call on my constituents to support me as I work with him on these issues.

Cao said: “I have always said that I would put aside partisan wrangling to do the business of the people. My vote tonight was based on my priority of doing what is best for my constituents.

PoliticsDaily has put out a list of the 39 Democrats who voted against healthcare reform, their party’s banner legislative effort of the year. The list is as follows:

John Adler (NJ)
Jason Altmire (PA)
Brian Baird (WA)
John Barrow (GA)
John Boccieri (OH)
Dan Boren (OK)
Rick Boucher (VA)
Allen Boyd (FL)
Bobby Bright (AL)
Ben Chandler (KT)
Travis Childers (MS)
Artur Davis (AL)
Lincoln Davis (TN)
Chet Edwards (TX)
Bart Gordon (TN)
Parker Griffith (AL)
Stephanie Herseth Sandlin (SD)
Tim Holden (PA)
Larry Kissell (NC)
Suzanne Kosmas (FL)
Frank Kratovil (MD)
Dennis Kucinich (OH)
Jim Marshall (GA)
Betsy Markey (CO)
Eric Massa (NY)
Jim Matheson(UT)
Mike McIntyre (NC)
Michael McMahon (NY)
Charlie Melancon (LA)
Walt Minnick (ID)
Scott Murphy (NY)
Glenn Nye (VA)
Collin Peterson (MN)
Mike Ross (AR)
Heath Shuler (NC)
Ike Skelton (MO)
John Tanner (TN)
Gene Taylor (MS)
Harry Teague (NM)

Some, but not all, of the 39 defectors are members of the Blue Dog Coalition, a caucus of conservative Democrats. The leaders of the Blue Dog Coalition had pushed for a broader uniform opposition among their membership to the passage of a public option. In the end, only three of the four leaders of the coalition —Herseth Sandlin, Melancon and Shuler— voted against passage, while Rep. Baron Hill (IN-09) voted for passage.

A statement published on Hill’s website explained his reasoning:

As an elected representative I have been tasked with the weighty responsibility of acting as a good steward of the general welfare of my constituents and a good steward of their money. My vote in support of the Affordable Health Care for America Act is a fulfillment of those responsibilities.

Out [sic] great nation has been debating how to responsibly reform our health care system for decades. And the debate has grown increasingly important as health costs have escalated sharply – growing at nearly twice the rate of inflation, premiums rising four times faster than wages, and more than 60 percent of bankruptcies due to insurmountable medical bills. Inaction is both irresponsible and dangerous.

H.R. 3962 will allow those Hoosiers who work so hard every day but cannot afford health insurance for their families to secure it. Southern Indiana is currently home to 52,000 uninsured residents – a number that will significantly decrease under this bill.

Like Republican Rep. Ahn Joseph Cao, of Louisiana, Hill’s explanation appears to make clear that ideology aside, he was convinced it was in the immediate interest of his constituents that the reform legislation be passed. Having consistently run as a conservative Democrat, Hill’s vote is important, because it shows he viewed the virtue of public service as directing a vote to pass, something conservatives in the Senate may be forced to consider more closely.

They should be very wary. Obama is motivating the Democratic Congress to do the people’s work, working through the arduous process of passing comprehensive healthcare reform. The Republicans have not, however, apparently, been considering what might happen if healthcare reform comes to a full vote in both houses and they vote against it.

Essentially, the Republican party will have gleefully declared the irrelevance of its members to the process of effective and responsible service, with the added vulnerability of having opposed something that is a solution to a life or death quality of life problem for millions. Reports this year found that over a two-year period —2005-2007— more than one-third of the American population spent at least some time with no health insurance coverage.

Voting against a solution to that problem, however imperfect the solution, is to openly oppose an improvement to the wellbeing and household security of that one-third of the population. Today’s younger generation is projected to face a situation, without action to reform the system, in which half will spend significant time without insurance. The Republicans hope that generation will never hear that news, even if it comes to pass, because their stiff opposition to any of the pragmatist solutions that would rescue them from such risk could lose them that gneratiim’s support.

Personal bankruptcies are at an all-time high, with unprecedented numbers owing in part to the massive and escalating costs of healthcare — as much as 65%. How many of those families will base their vote in 2010, 2012, and beyond, on the experience of having one of the two major parties treat them like their travails and losses are of no importance whatsoever, or even a green light to malign them?

Democratic party supporters and those who support meaningful healthcare reform should and will begin organizing public awareness of the healthcare no-vote. It’s not hard to imagine enthusiastic young supporters of the Democratic agenda, motivated by Obama’s call to action and a generational shift that has seen interest in public service, volunteering and online networking, economic hard times and chronic vulnerability to the flaws of the health insurance system, decrying Republican no-voters for “voting to deny your children protection from the insurance cartel”.

The modern Republican party has made its way lying down with heavily monied interests, relying on large donations almost exclusively to fund it’s campaigns, and therefor doing the bidding of some of the least savory elements of mainstream society. It’s hard to imagine the party won’t have learned from Obama that you need to reach, take seriously, listen to and mobilize small donors and new voters, but then the Republican National Committee just launched its new website with no Spanish-language translation, just as momentum starts gathering for a new round of debate on immigration reform.

Is the GOP so reckless in its treatment of these very real problems of real Americans, because it’s out of touch? Maybe. But the party must worry more about the other interpretation that is more tempting to young, idealistic voters: that the Republican party is cynically calculating that it can deliberately undermine the interests of so many millions without them ever noticing. The uniform no-vote says that one of these two interpretations is true, and that will be a gift to the massive grassroots organizing of Democratic supporters in search of new voters.

But since we’re talking tough and being straightforward about what constitutes success and failure, it must be said: any amount of leeway for insurers to deny coverage or to limit treatment options will be a failure for the healthcare reform movement. Insurers are not substitutes for doctors and hospitals; they are insurance companies and payment systems, and that is all they should be involved in: they should have to survive without the market being rigged through allowances for denial of coverage and denial of care.

Allowance for exclusions based on chronic conditions, pre-existing conditions, or conditions that are costly to treat, will be a continuation of the status quo and will lead directly to patient deaths. Allowance for exclusions also allows the insurance industry to continue collecting huge sums of money for what is essentially a misleading business proposition: the money is taken in by what claims to be an insurance company, that will cover health costs when they arise, then the costs are ignored, vastly underpaid, perhaps up to 95% underpaid.

In many cases, the company with which the patient has entered into a good faith contractual relationship launches an expensive effort, organized by a full-time legal staff, oriented toward denying the patient coverage or even specific courses of needed treatment. The only way health insurance firms will return to behaving like insurance firms responsible for paying for people’s healthcare, is if they are barred from excluding any conditions or any methods of care.

In fact, if we are really going to talk tough, insurance firms and the bureaucrats within them who are part of this, should be charged with criminal impersonation of physicians for every case where they give medical advice to patients they have not personally examined. Doctors who make remote judgments on care, while on an insurer’s payroll, with the specific intent of saving that company cash in the short term, should be held liable for medical errors that result from the altered course of treatment they propose.

In the year 2006, 22,000 people died because they were denied treatment due to lack of healthcare coverage. If we add to those people all those who died after being denied treatment because their paid insurer refused to pay, or who received deliberate undertreatment in a persistent or haphazard way, due to insufficient coverage or lack of coverage, or died from the medical errors resulting from such inconsistent care, we find between 44,000 and 299,000 dying per year.*

We now have 13% more uninsured in the US, fully 52 million people. There may be millions more in immigrant communities and the unofficial labor market. But working from the 52 million figure, we have 68 people losing their lives, on average, every day, because they are denied treatment due to lack of coverage. The figures relating to deaths from chronic undertreatment, mismatch of non-treatment with inadequate treatment and resulting errors, would now be 49,720 and 337,870.

That means that anywhere between 68 and 926 people are dying every day, due to the systemic failure and moral corruption of our current system, which leaves 17% of the population with no access to care. That many people will continue to die, every day, due to the inadequacies of the current system, if reform is not achieved and a new model brought into effect. If that new model allows for coverage exclusions based on condition or treatment option, it will continue to produce that kind of needless and unconscionable deaths.

The insurance industry has tended to argue that without such exclusions, they cannot derive enough profit from the insurance game to make it worth their while. But, they want the private-sector insurance game to be the only game in town. Or do they. This year, we have seen a dramatic shift in attitude from private insurers and their lobby organizations. Some are eager to see comprehensive healthcare reform, even if it pushes costs down for patients, even if it involves a “public option”.

The reason: the insurers can’t actually produce the needed solutions by way of their current business model, but their current business model is failing and will not be sustainable if the needed solutions are not achieved. Therefore, legislation to achieve comprehensive reform is needed, more than ever, and a public option might be able to get closer to universal coverage, which would make the entire industry more sustainable.

The entire US healthcare industry is subject to intense market distortions, due to the fact of 52 million people carrying no healthcare coverage whatsoever. Costs are so extreme that without high-efficiency insurance coverage (meaning cheap to buy, but which pays out huge amounts to cover health costs) no one but the wealthiest in our society can actually afford the most advanced treatments, including life-saving surgeries and prolonged cancer treatments.

The fact remains that as a matter of economic theory, the insurance business only works when the largest possible pool of people is involved. In healthcare, where every last person has a need, the pool has to be 100% of the market, or costs will be pushed up by the need to deal with “uncompensated care” — emergency treatment which must be provided to those with no way to pay for it.

Price distortions are now so out of control, because no major effort to bring everyone into the system has been successful, putting the dream of optimum pricing levels far beyond the reach of anyone in the healthcare sector. Surgeons may charge over $10,000 for a procedure and receive a minuscule payment of $400 from the insurer. A dermatologist may perform a skin procedure for $270 and receive only a $12 check from the insurer, despite signed agreements with the insurer for a fee more than 12 times the amount paid. The insurer in those cases has begun to tell the doctor, get it from your patient, we’ve done our part.

It is increasingly apparent that such anecdotal reports are indicative of a broad industry trend and that such a trend is in turn indicative of the deep and worsening unsustainability of customary profit-projections for insurers. Market pressures demand that they continue to meet forecasts and expand their profit base, but recession, layoffs and skyrocketing costs mean their pool of insured patients is shrinking, a phenomenon whose ill effects are exacerbated by the fact that often only the sickest stay insured.

So, the fix: insurers must have something comprehensive imposed on the marketplace in which they operate, to justify the kind of fundamental cash-flow alterations and refined expectations they must bring in, if they are to make their businesses viable. They need to have a lower profit-per-client model, but ideally will be able to expand their customer base, the pool of patients they insure, because 52 million more people will be part of the insurance market, one way or another.

In order to make the necessary adjustments, to be truly health insurance companies, to perform as their clients expect, to compete in a market where health insurance is about taking in from each patient less than you are obliged to pay out —this is the unique high-risk model that makes insurance what it is— and where treatments and conditions are not excluded from coverage, private insurers need to be jolted into adaptive mode, made to compete, made to begin to operate in a way where exclusions are seen as contrary to the entire purpose of their business, and a potential cause for massive jury verdicts, not a convenient cost-cutting measure.

Human life must matter in this reform. It must matter more than cost; it must matter more than the bottom line of any one firm. Because if it doesn’t, the right reforms will not be introduced, and the insurance market will continue to be beyond the reach of tens of millions of Americans. And if that occurs, if even 5% of the population (15.45 million people) remain uninsured, needless deaths, escalating costs, mass bankruptcies (of patients, doctors and hospitals) and the chronic threat of collapse will continue to haunt the entire system.

* The first figure (22,000) is from the Urban Institute, while the second set of figures (ranging from 44,000 to 299,000) is derived from a confluence of other studies relating to chronic undertreatment, non-treatment, medical errors and misjudgments relating to insurance industry advice on treatment.

More on comprehensive healthcare reform in the United States:

• U.S. Uninsurance Rate Jumps 13% in 2 Years
• CBO Never Reported Patients’ Healthcare Costs Would Go Up
• Obama Weekly Address: Healthcare Reform Cannot Wait (video + transcript)
• Obama Holds Impromptu Healthcare Press Conference
• American Medical Association Backs House Healthcare Bill
• Conservatives for Patients Rights Lying to Kill Healthcare Reform
• Hospitals Agree to Lower Medicare Charges in Exchange for Universal Coverage (video)
• Obama Remarks to Online Townhall Meeting on Healthcare (video + transcript)
• White House Invites Public Video Comments on Healthcare Reform (video)
• The ‘Public Option’ is NOT SOCIALIZED MEDICINE
• Obama Healthcare Reform Speech to the American Medical Association (transcript)
• Private Not-for-profit Insurance Could Be Part of New Healthcare Market (discussion)
• Tens of Thousands Die Each Year from Lack of Healthcare Coverage (discussion)
• Why Healthcare Needs a Cure: Tens of Thousands Dying, System Failing, Despite Rising Profits
• No One Should Go Bankrupt for Needing Healthcare, Ever, Period
• Electronic Medical Records Could Help Find Cures, Speed Progress, Cut Costs
• ‘We Cannot Rebuild this Economy on the Same Pile of Sand’
• How to Solve Healthcare: Focus on Coverage, Cost & Cure

Douglas Elmendorf, the CBO director, told Congress last Thursday that reform proposals currently under consideration would likely increase costs for the federal government. He never said they would fail to bring costs down across the market as a whole; nor did he, for that matter, comment on whether the federal cost increases would materialize if costs did, in fact, come down in the marketplace.

He did specify, however, due to the potentially inflammatory nature of the testimony he gave, that “The point I made earlier this morning is that it raises future federal outlays more than it reduces future federal outlays.” Elmendorf’s testimony, therefore, means nothing more than that there will be a cost to the federal government for fixing healthcare. Pres. Obama and Congressional leaders have made it clear they intend to cover all those cost increases, so that the budget deficit does not rise.

There has been a bizarre and obsessive debate about the perils of “socialized medicine”, with comparisons being made to the Canadian or British healthcare systems, which are entirely managed through a government health system. No such plan has been proposed or is being debated. Pres. Obama’s plan is specifically designed to foster competition, efficiency and resilience in the marketplace and in no way involves socializing care.

In a very disturbing abdication of their duty, mainstream media outlets have virtually ignored this part of the story: Pres. Obama has vowed not to sign any bill that involves government-managed care or an inflation of federal deficits, but media have continued to call forward any opponent of the reform plans, in order to continue airing the irrelevant debate between laissez-faire pro-business groups and the notion of nationalized government-run care.

Republican opponents of healthcare reform legislation have openly stated their determination to derail Pres. Obama’s proposed reforms, aimed at bringing “quality, affordable care” within reach of all Americans. Yet they have refused to address the moral issue of patient deaths: no less than 22,000 people died in 2006 as the direct result of treatment denied for lack of coverage, as reported by the Urban Institute. As many as 299,000 died due to complications from undertreatment resulting from inadequate insurance coverage or other variations on medical error or undertreatment.

Since then, the official count of the uninsured has expanded by 13%. There were 46 million uninsured at the start of 2007, and there are now 52 million uninsured, by the official count. It is unclear whether a substantial number of undocumented immigrants are included in that count. Their number could mean that as many as 65 million residents of the US —legal or otherwise— have no healthcare insurance of any kind.

One Republican opponent of the legislation, Sen. Jim DeMint, has said he wants to kill the bill in order to undermine the president, saying it would be Obama’s “Waterloo”. Such politicians are clear about their lack of interest in the hundreds of thousands of innocents who die each year due to the failings of the current system, and they admit their words are designed to play politics and oppose reform.

One of the key areas they have decided to manipulate the truth of the facts at hand is regarding the meaning of the CBO report last week showing federal government healthcare spending might increase by $200 billion. While this is what mid-term federal spending projections indicate (the plan is actually to see $200 billion each year, beyond what is currently funded, for the 6th through 10th years after the reforms kick in — what is in debate is how to fund that $200 billion per year).

If the $2.3 trillion American healthcare system continues to increase in cost at current rates, it could be costing Americans over $3 trillion within 10 years, even if no new patients are added to the insurance rolls. It could consume more than the entire current GDP within a generation. Every year, millions of households go into bankruptcy in part due to the out-of-control costs of healthcare. Yesterday, a White House spokesperson said 68% of bankruptcies now have a healthcare cost component, and of those, 75% relate to patients that hadinsurance.

Elmendorf told the Senate budget committee that “federal outlays” would not be significantly reduced by the reforms on the table. It should be noted: Pres. Obama has bold aims for healthcare reform, but he is not aiming for anything as liberal as the House bill; it has always been expected some major spending would be trimmed in the conference committee to resolve House and Senate measures.

What needs to be repeated: Elmendorf did not say CBO was projecting that either the House bill or Barack Obama’s framework proposals would increase “costs over time” for healthcare as a whole, across the market, patient by patient. Yesterday, it was reported that the average family is spending $29,000 per year to buy healthcare insurance. In many cases, if not most, that family will not actually consume $29,000 worth of actual care.

The figure raises the question as to whether insurance companies are, like banks over-dependent on subprime mortgages and mortgage-based financial derivatives, in over their heads, unable to sustain the kind of profits they are accustomed to reporting, if they actually return to functioning like insurance companies and take in less per patient than they are obliged to pay out.

Are patients being fleeced, point-blank, at the very root of their healthcare spending? Maybe. What is clear is that costs are escalating at rates that are economically and morally horrifying. What Obama promised to do, by way of comprehensive healthcare reform, is bring costs down across the board, so that care is more affordable in general and the market as a whole is not dependent on unsustainable rates of price increase.

If the government has to add $200 billion to its overall healthcare “outlays” in future years, in order to make coverage available to 50 million more people, through a more competitive public-private healthcare market, that $200 billion is nothing compared to the wild escalation of costs projected to occur across a multi-trillion-dollar healthcare market. Elmendorf did not make any assertions about the potential for comprehensive reform to reduce the rate at which healthcare costs are escalating.

Already, hospitals have agreed to lower costs in order to avoid dealing with the fiscal black-hole of uninsured emergency cases. Drug companies are negotiating ways to lower costs as well, so their market can be expanded by millions, while the costs per patient can come down. Even insurers have signed on to the principles of reform, as laid out by Pres. Obama.

The AMA, which defends doctors’ interests, and which has spent much of the last century opposing every major reform to the healthcare system aimed at providing government-backed coverage, constraining insurers’ practices or reducing costs, has now signed on to the House version of healthcare reform.

So, who is crying “socialism” and “too expensive”? Faux fiscal conservatives in the Republican party, who are planning to use this issue as a way to sabotage the policy agenda of Pres. Obama. On an issue that involves life or death situations for tens of thousands of Americans, these members of Congress, who backed George W. Bush’s $1.7 trillion tax cuts and his $1 trillion war in Iraq, without paying for either, are lying about the nature of the reform plans before Congress, in order to undermine the president politically.

What we have seen, actually, in this intense round of negotiations on healthcare reform, is a White House willing to work with members of both parties, to hear concerns about escalating federal deficits and work to craft a solution that is “deficit neutral” and does not “socialize” medicine. That means the White House plans for healthcare reform to 1) not be too expensive and 2) support and expand on the market-based system, making it work better.

Concerns are mounting that the effect of this campaign of sabotage and distraction, aimed at undermining the best-case proposals being offered, will be to produce something incremental and insufficient, which will not in fact control costs over the long term and will not in fact make coverage available to the tens of millions of uninsured Americans.

As the Washington Independent reports:

“Something will pass,” said Julius Hobson, former lobbyist for the American Medical Association and now a senior policy analyst at the Washington law firm Bryan Cave. “It’s not going to be what everybody’s looking at right now, but the president will sign something in December … The drive is there to do something, and they will.”

The ’something will pass’ position has many worried, because it could lead to the best opportunity for major healthcare reform in half a century being squandered on something totally insufficient to address the major causes of the healthcare crisis. Failure to achieve substantive reform that brings costs down per patient and brings everyone into the healthcare system, will lead to huge numbers of deaths and bankruptcies and will continue to the trend that is threatening the entire federal budget.

The high-speed rail project is perhaps one of the least adequately reported components of both economic recovery and energy infrastructure overhaul plans, but one of the most vital and thoughtful. A successful implementation of 10 high-speed rail “regions”, in the most densely populated areas of the country, would provide a platform for major innovations in transport and energy sourcing.

A rail service, by nature, allows for the use of a wide variety of power-sourcing, and could provide the most immediate opportunity for making the shift to clean energy resources. An electric rail system would permit any new electricity sourcing strategy to be linked into the railway infrastructure, as soon as it is ready and operational. This could put millions of passengers in a clean-energy transport system within just a few years’ time.

But rail infrastructure is also vital to getting automobiles off the road. The current standard for automobile production is carbon-intensive and greenhouse heavy. Reliance on carbon-based fuels, especially petroleum-based gasoline and diesel, means the average automobile, be it car, bus or tractor-trailer, is constantly emitting carbon dioxide (CO2) and contributing to global climate destabilization.

There are “green shoots” in the energy economy, the beginnings of a new spring of innovation, namely the California-based all-electric car company Tesla Motors, theworldwide network of battery switch-out stations being developed by Shai Agassi’s Better Place, and the amazing Swiss-based Solar Impulse, a company which has developed the world’s first 100% solar-powered airplane.

The development of zero-combustion energy technologies promises to revolutionize the future of energy production and of transport. Ideally, most people will not have to make much of a change in the way they get around; they will just use the new technologies and infrastructure made available to them by visionary enterprises and responsible governments. But intelligent planning for how to implement each new advance as it comes to be operational, like a national high-speed rail system, is vital to keeping the innovation coming, wave after wave.

They say the railroads made Chicago the city that it is, and with Obama and his chief of staff, and various other top advisers, coming from Chicago, maybe this White House knows the history and is particularly well-positioned to understand the role of rail in the dawning of a new transport era. It is also true that Obama’s campaign for the presidency was more advanced than any before it at gathering information from the grass-roots, rewarding supporters (with a rating system) for contributing blog posts, creating discussions, or spreading new ideas.

Whatever the case, Obama came to office with a powerful commitment to the idea that infrastructure in America needed investment: 1) just to get up to code and 2) to prevent a dangerous energy-sourcing lag as the nation rallies to combat climate destabilization. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA / “stimulus package” / “recovery plan”) devotes $8 billion to high-speed rail, “a sum that far surpasses anything before attempted in the United States”, according to Politico.

Obama’s plan will devote another $1 billion to high-speed rail in each of the next 5 years. Some believe much more is in fact needed. Much of the underlying infrastructure cost could come from other areas of the recovery strategy or federal public works funding. Over $2 trillion is needed just to address lack of adequate maintenance in existing infrastructure. Obama’s plan aims to achieve both maintenance and major upgrades with the same funding, with careful planning and an eye to the new energy economy.

Absolutely key to the effectiveness of current plans for energy innovation is understanding the role of rail transport in effecting that change. With enough development of wind and solar technologies, the high-speed rail system could be powered through clean energy within just a few years, certainly by the end of a 2nd Obama term, if there is one. Pricing models and efforts to help back up Amtrak’s budget could make the service affordable to millions more people, accelerating the shift from carbon fuels to clean electric, and taking the pressure off private industry to cut emissions.

The Northern New England, Empire, and Keystone high-speed rail regions will expand the reach of the Northeast Corridor high-speed lines. The Southeast, Florida, Gulf Coast and South Central high-speed rail regions will deliver ultra-modern potentially clean-energy transport to the deep south. The Chicago Hub Network will reach out from Chicago to a total of between 7 and 9 states in the region.

Out west, the California and Pacific Northwest regions aim to increase mobility along the Pacific coast, providing better transport links between major cities and the industry-diverse work environments concentrated in the LA, Bay area Silicon Valley or Seattle regions. There are reports the funding will be concentrated in the midwest and far west, where infrastructure spending shortfalls could block the project altogether and where, unlike the northeast, there is no existing service.

In a tremendous and welcome boost to the high-speed rail plans, the House of Representatives provided $4 billion in new funding for the project, in its recently passed transportation spending bill. That’s $4 billion in addition to the $8 billion from the ARRA, instead of the $1 billion requested by Obama. The bill’s expanded funding shows Congress sees the value of such infrastructure investment and could be expected to implement bold energy-sourcing innovations for the rail system, if legislation can be used to do this, speeding the green revolution.

Empathy is not sympathy. Sympathy means feeling what the other feels, experiencing grief at the other’s grief, loyalty in kind with the other’s loyalties, taking sides; empathy is the ability to comprehend the meaning of another’s experiences, and does not entail adopting or sharing the other’s views. Empathy for a judge means the ability to see how both parties arguing before a court could arrive there based on legitimate human experiences and assertions about the protections and provisions of the law.

For a judge to acknowledge that this is a necessary quality, that it is important to go beyond one’s own preferences and ideological leanings in order to hear the full breadth of the case of each party before the court, is to acknowledge that full faith in absolute impartiality is a sort of false pride in one’s own capacity which expands the possibility a ruling will in fact be biased and not impartial. Acknowledging one’s humanity and personal experience as a judge is part of the process of transcending bias and getting to the most impartial rulings possible.

On the first day of direct questioning, the second day of her hearings, Judge Sotomayor told senators, “We’re not robots who listen to evidence and don’t have feelings. We have to recognize those feelings, and put them aside.” This message is in fact in keeping with her complex arguments about the intellectual process of understanding and getting beyond bias and personal preference.

Conservatives are committing one after another ridiculous contortion in an effort to defame Judge Sonia Sotomayor as biased, racist and incompetent. Their efforts are contortions worthy of ridicule, because they are ignoring every element of fact and thought in order to extrapolate arguments they so deeply desire to be able to make, as if there were no room for humanity or for reflection in the process of thinking about law, and as if their own ideology were not a source of significant bias on their part.

On CNN, Alex Castellanos, a Republican strategist, repeatedly suggested the narrowest of intellectual fallacies, in line with the arguments of Sen. Jeff Sessions, claiming that Sotomayor repeatedly said that she in fact meant to say the opposite of what she actually said. The truth of the matter is that she is trying to explain complex thoughts to individuals who are either recklessly or deliberately misreading her statements for their own partisan political reasons.

Castellanos and Sessions alike assailed Sotomayor for claiming that her statements about experience influencing judgment, or impartiality being in real terms an aspiration and an ideal were in fact statements in support of impartiality and objectivity in judicial thinking. They assailed her comments, because they either fail to understand or deliberately ignore the entire thread of her argument.

By day three of the hearings, her second full day of questioning, Castellanos was charging that there was something “almost schizophrenic” about Sotomayor’s philosophical explanations of how awareness of the meaning of personal experience leads to enhanced impartiality. There is a coordinated effort ongoing among Republicans in the Senate to argue that “empathy” is contrary to judicial impartiality, because they assume the conversation is about sympathy.

They assume that by attacking Obama has promoting empathy, or judges aware of what is in their hearts, they can stain him with the charge of prejudice, bias, even make him seem suspiciously racist. The arguments are being made for one reason alone, to promote an ideological view of judging, which holds that any deviation from the conservative agenda favored by those making the argument is “activism” that threatens to undermine the American Constitution and strip people of their rights.

Of all the Republican statements and questions so far put to Judge Sotomayor, only Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) has really gone to specific points of law and specific judgments outside the Ricci case. The Ricci case is eye-catching, but involves virtually no “innovation” on Sotomayor’s part and thus no real controversy, as a matter of law. It is being used in order to paint Sotomayor as a Hispanic woman with ethnic bias, who is trigger happy about affirmative action.

Even Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) spent most of his time questioning Sotomayor about her personal opinions on the philosophical question of “empathy” or of ethnicity as foundations for making rulings. He even went as far as to ask her if she believed that “physiology” played a role in judges’ manner of judging, referring indirectly to race and sex. She essentially spent most of her exchange with Sen. Cornyn explaining that she does not judge based on personal preferences, emotion or ethnicity.

What Sotomayor has time and again expressed is her view, informed by long years of experience as a lawyer and federal judge (she has more federal legal experience than any nominee in 100 years and more overt federal judicial experience than any nominee in 70 years), that most people struggle to even become aware of their own biases. Her concern with experience and awareness of discriminatory behavior is rooted in her experience that in fact most people do not make enough of an effort to transcend their biases, and this negatively impacts the kind of rulings made by many judges.

She has suggested that it is vital to understand one’s own experience and one’s own context, in order to look beyond one’s limits and develop genuine empathy for all litigants who come before her, to see that on some level there is meaning to their experience of the facts of the case. Her argument is not that empathy allows her to make biased rulings, but thatexperience of the need for broader empathy among people, in general, allows her to transcend her personal experience and give equal weight to the arguments of all before her.

It is not that complex an argument. But there is an ideology of “conservative” judging, which deviates from true conservatism and expects that conservatism (read: moderation) is a virtue that all judges should have, and that therefore any judge who is not determined to produce conservative rulings (read: in line with the “conservative” agenda) is somehow fundamentally flawed and can be opposed on those grounds. In order to support this view, a rigid standard of automatic ruling is applied, where certain types of arguments should win, not because of the merits of a case, but because they are aligned with a specific ideology.

Sessions and Castellanos appear to argue that law is “mechanical”, that judicial rulings are “predictable”, an essential negation of the logic of maintaining an independent judiciary. Sessions and Castellanos —and others making similar arguments against Sotomayor, or against Obama’s philosophy of the judiciary—, while they cast their criticisms in the mold of ideological conservatism, actually appear to be arguing that the only qualification for service on the Supreme Court is something akin to the ancient doctrine of papal “infallibility”.

This idea is reflexive; it works for segments of the political spectrum that desire relentless proof of the security of their ideas by way of the elimination of rival ideas. The mechanical judiciary argument is diametrically opposed to the idea that three separate branches of government check and balance each other’s power. The mechanical judiciary view holds that the judiciary must be either a rubber-stamp for the legislature or the executive.

The Sessions and Castellanos line, that all judges must be absolutely mechanical about the practice of law, use zero interpretive capacity and never disagree with ideological conservative positions, is 100% contrary to the US Constitutional system. Their line of attack is anti-democratic and is rooted in arguments that emerge from facile devotion to the logic of power rooted in old-world absolutist systems. (It should be noted that the Vatican threw out the doctrine of papal infallibility, because it had come to be seen as nothing more than an ill-conceived excuse for abuses and even heresy.)

It is important to note that increasing numbers of legal observers and Constitutional scholars are coming to view the Roberts Court as “activist”, in that Chief Justice Roberts has in fact been enforcing a devotion to a political philosophy that he had pledged would not influence his rulings. Jeffrey Toobin, renowned legal scholar and CNN judicial analyst, wrote in a May edition of the New Yorker magazine:

In every major case since he became the nation’s seventeenth Chief Justice, Roberts has sided with the prosecution over the defendant, the state over the condemned, the executive branch over the legislative, and the corporate defendant over the individual plaintiff.

Toobin was quoted during Monday’s opening statements, specifically in order to illustrate the concerns of some Democratic senators that the current Supreme Court has been stocked with ideological conservatives who do favor the idea of an activist conservative judiciary, despite their protestations in confirmation hearings that they would not.

The judiciary exists, and in the American system is independent of the control of the executive, precisely because no human being is infallible. This is why there are so many levels of judicial review, courts of appeal and opportunities to contest finalized legal rulings. This is why there are juries. And this is why on the final court of arbitration, the last appeal, the forum for final decisions on matters of law, there are nine justices, and not one.

Conservatives have reflexively sought to paint Barack Obama as a hardline socialist liberal who has no regard for conservative views, business interests, or limitations on government authority, when in fact, though a tested progressive in politics, Obama has consistently erred on the side of restraint and moderation. The prejudice that Obama favors biased government enforcement of a socialist ideology is influencing Republican arguments in the Sotomayor hearings, and has caused Republican senators to almost completely ignore her judicial record.

In fact, no serious challenge to her confirmation has been made by any Republican on the Senate judiciary committee, because so few points of law have actually been discussed. While attacking Obama’s interest in empathy as an emotional distraction that undermines impartiality, Republican senators have obsessively questioned Sotomayor on her sympathies, her views of personal experience in judging, her view of women in the judiciary, her “temperament” and her attitudes.

They have entirely glanced over her judicial record, which by most accounts is moderate and shows no overt signs of ideological leanings. What they have failed to see is that they are devoting their valuable questioning time to beating a dead horse: they want to establish that Obama’s mention of “empathy” means he favors judges who would be biased in favor of liberal ideology.

They ignore the fact that for both Obama and Sotomayor, based on their own extensive comments on the issue, empathy is a quality that allows a judge to rise above temperament, to rise above politics, and to judge the facts, in terms of law, for the good of the Constitutional system. The fact is, empathy as explained by both Obama and Sotomayor is a moderating virtue, a quality of intellect that allows for better understanding of the consequences of one’s actions as a judge.

• Constitution Center Stage as Sotomayor Introduced, Franken Debuts
• Sotomayor Confirmation Hearings Begin on Capitol Hill
• What Sonia Sotomayor Actually Said in 2001 Lecture
• Obama Remarks Announcing Sotomayor Nomination (transcript)
• Obama Names Judge Sonia Sotomayor for US Supreme Court

The US president said he had called for $63 billion in US spending for health initiatives across the continent, including money to fight malaria, polio, tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS. Disease and conflict have devastated the population of Africa, reducing life-expectancy in many countries to under 40 years. Of the 27 nations with life-expectancy under 50 years, 26 of them are in Africa (Afghanistan is the other). Life-expectancy in Ghana is just under 60, a fact which underscores the positive quality-of-life gains that can emerge from peace and rule of law.

Many observers, including across Africa, have questioned why Pres. Obama chose Ghana for his first presidential visit to subsaharan Africa, especially given his close family ties to Kenya. Ghana’s record of multiple consecutive peaceful transfers of power has been cited as the most likely explanation for the choice: Ghana is seen by Obama and by other leaders as an example of good governance, the rule of law and democracy, in a region troubled by bloody sectarian conflict, ethnic cleansing and relentless threats of coups and armed takeovers.

Obama will also visit one of the final points of embarkation used by ships engaged in the centuries’ long atrocity of the transatlantic slave trade, which brought millions of Africans to the Americas. That visit promises to be somber and bracing, as the US president confronts the most shameful aspect of his nation’s heritage, and seeks to highlight the need to establish the universal moral basis for human rights and democratic freedoms.

As reported by VOA:

Mr. Obama and his wife, Michelle, will visit former slave trading center Cape Coast Castle where African slaves were shipped across the Atlantic for almost 300 years. Mrs. Obama is a descendant of African slaves.

Pres. Obama is using new media to reach out to people across Africa, to ask for their input and to hear their concerns and questions. Twitter, Facebook and other social networking sites, as well as online media with continental reach, like AllAfrica.com, are being used to interact with and voice concerns to the president of the United States, in what could be called the first continent-wide online town-hall meeting in Africa.

Macon Phillips, Obama’s director of new media operations, told the Voice of America that “I think that it’s less about trying to market the President in a positive way, but it’s more about having a conversation and real engagement with people that hasn’t happened before”. Phillips also explained that in Africa, the focus of new media outreach involves mobile phones, due to their widespread usage and the relatively cheap cost of text messaging.

Phillips explained that Africans can contact the president directly via sms, to expand the scope of the conversation on Africa policy: “If you’re in Africa and you want to send a message to the president, you want to ask him a question, welcome him to Africa, or just comment on things in general, you can use the following short codes… If you’re in Ghana the short code is 1731?.

The short codes for other African nations include: Nigeria (32969), South Africa (31958) and Kenya (5683). For messages from across Africa, the following numbers can be used: 614-186-01934 or 456-099-10343. The AFP reported today that over 5,000 Africans had sent text messages to Obama, taking advantage of the opportunity to communicate their concerns and observations to the president of the United States.

Observers, including African politicians, historians and political scientists, say the selection of Ghana, seen as one of the few “established” democracies in Africa, is meant to send a message to powerful politicians in other states, like Kenya, where despite a tradition of democratic processes, violence continues to spring up after elections and corruption is a threat to long-term stability and openness.

The president stressed community-building efforts, civics and volunteerism. He sought to offer a message of hope and possibility, but warned that Africans’ own actions would be the key to achieving success:

To realize that promise, we must first recognize a fundamental truth that you have given life to in Ghana: development depends upon good governance. That is the ingredient which has been missing in far too many places, for far too long. That is the change that can unlock Africa’s potential. And that is a responsibility that can only be met by Africans.

Obama sought to highlight ways in which a lack of reliable government or rule of law, and the marginalization of the views of the public in public policy, were hampering development and leading to large territories having to survive without sustainable infrastructure or even healthcare facilities. Women, in particular, have been hard hit by a lack of reliable distribution of medical training, facilities and supplies.

As this publication reported in May:

The World Health Organization has found that 1,500 women are dying every day across Africa from pregnancy-related complications or during childbirth. The figure has not improved over the last decade, largely due to the lack of adequate medical facilities. An extremely high rate of maternal mortality, as many as 1,000 per 100,000 live births (fully 1% of women giving birth), makes the situation an extreme threat to women’s health.

Speaking of the crisis of global climate destabilization, and fresh from a Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate, which he had convened, Obama noted that though Africa was less responsible for greenhouse gas emissions than any other part of the world, it would be most severely affected by the ravages of climate change.

He highlighted the risks to African nations from dwindling food supplies and the depletion of already scarce fresh water resources. He also said that the need to cooperate internationally to confront the climate crisis and reform energy-producing practices the world over could lead to an unprecedented opportunity for growth and innovation in Africa, including new developments that would slow climate destabilization and protect Africa’s food supply.

Obama told Ghana’s parliamentarians:

One area that holds out both undeniable peril and extraordinary promise is energy. Africa gives off less greenhouse gas than any other part of the world, but it is the most threatened by climate change. A warming planet will spread disease, shrink water resources, and deplete crops, creating conditions that produce more famine and conflict. All of us – particularly the developed world – have a responsibility to slow these trends – through mitigation, and by changing the way that we use energy. But we can also work with Africans to turn this crisis into opportunity.

Obama cited specific examples from Ghana’s history that make the west African nation an example of commitment to good governance:

Time and again, Ghanaians have chosen Constitutional rule over autocracy, and shown a democratic spirit that allows the energy of your people to break through. We see that in leaders who accept defeat graciously, and victors who resist calls to wield power against the opposition. We see that spirit in courageous journalists like Anas Aremeyaw Anas, who risked his life to report the truth. We see it in police like Patience Quaye, who helped prosecute the first human trafficker in Ghana. We see it in the young people who are speaking up against patronage, and participating in the political process.

Across Africa, we have seen countless examples of people taking control of their destiny, and making change from the bottom up. We saw it in Kenya, where civil society and business came together to help stop post-election violence. We saw it in South Africa, where over three quarters of the country voted in the recent election – the fourth since the end of Apartheid. We saw it in Zimbabwe, where the Election Support Network braved brutal repression to stand up for the principle that a person’s vote is their sacred right.

He said that “history is on the side” of those people who stand up in the face of dark forces and seek to establish and defend democratic systems and sideline autocrats and put aside violent repression in favor of open government and participatory democracy. He also praised Ghana’s last president, who turned over power peacefully to a rival party and its new president, John Atta Mills, whom he said is “serious about reducing corruption”.

More Africa news and comment:

• Niger Unrest Could Be Attempt to Control Uranium Supply
• Obama Interview with AllAfrica, in Anticipation of Ghana Visit (video + transcript)
• Diversify Wheat Crops to Prevent Fungus-induced Global Harvest Collapse (discussion)
• Kenya Massing Troops for Intervention in Somalia
• Ug99 Stem Rust Fungus Could Wipe Out 80% of World Wheat Crop
• 400 Billion € Solar Project Makes Sahara into Key EU Energy Partner
• Bongo, Leader of Gabon for 42 Years, Dies
• Shell Agrees $15.5 Million Settlement in 1995 Killing of 9 Activists
• NOW Examines UN Peacekeeping: Record Deployments to 20 Countries
• Explaining Away Violence Against Women in Darfur, Sudan Gov’t at UN
• ICC Issues Arrest Warrant for Bashir, Charged with War Crimes
• Zimbabwe power-sharing talks collapse over allocation of ministries…
• African Nations & Movements Have Tools to Effect Change, when International Pressure Aims to Help

The Australian prime minister described the GCCSI as a “rolling global clearing house” for cutting-edge technologies that can speed concrete carbon-capture and storage (CCS) solutions to market across the globe, helping to reduce the greenhouse effect of burning carbon-based fuels. 23 governments and 100 private companies have already joined the initiative, in hopes of supporting best-practice technological innovations that can help combat climate change and ease the cost of transitioning to a clean energy model.

The GCCSI website explains:

Since the late 1940s, the concentration of several greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, notably carbon dioxide (CO₂), methane and nitrous oxides, has increased substantially. The stability of our planet’s climate is directly linked to the Earth’s atmosphere, and variations in the level, or concentration, of any one greenhouse gas will impact our climate.

Atmospheric levels of CO₂ are now higher than at any time in the last 800,000 years, standing at 385 parts per million (ppm) in 2008, compared to a pre-industrial high of 280ppm, and this figure is rising by around 2ppm each year.

The International Energy Agency projects the use of coal will increase in coming decades, with concentrations of carbon-dioxide in the atmosphere “stabilizing” at 450ppm, 61% higher than pre-industrial levels. The biosphere and its natural ecosystems are not capable of metabolizing that level of atmospheric CO2, making coal itself one of the great policy challenges of the 21st century, with real economic and security ramifications for nations around the world.

CCS is focused on dampening the negative impacts of carbon-based fuel use, and Rudd was specific and firm in his assertion that the GCCSI will be oriented toward achieving what is not currently industry or public policy standard: building actual CCS projects with significant measurable real-world effects for emissions reduction.

Rudd has been extremely pro-active in championing solutions to global, economic and environmental challenges, and has sought to elevate “middle-power diplomacy” as a major contribution to building global consensus on issues of global public import. Australia’s role in helping the US to negotiate $5 trillion in global stimulus spending to slow economic contraction and spur a shift to new innovation is one example.

The GCCSI is another case of “middle-power” leadership on the global stage. Another great example is the Svalbard global seed bank, above the arctic circle in Norway. The Svalbard project is designed to ensure crop diversity potential, even if agricultural practice leads to monocropping, vulnerability to crop fungus and other plant diseases and harvest collapse. Svalbard will store seeds from every known natural or synthetic crop variety, in perpetuity.

• L’Aquila Major Economies Forum Takes on Climate Change
• Going Deep Green: renewables to guarantee clean energy supply for export (discussion)
• Official House Energy & Commerce Committee Summary of H.R. 2454: Climate Bill
• Climate Bill Would Achieve Far Lower Costs than Critics Projected
• 190-page White House Report Urges Immediate Climate Action (discussion)
• Transition to Renewables Cannot Wait, Devotion to Carbon Fuel is Folly
• Comprehensive US Energy Bill: Does it Do Enough? (discussion)
• ‘WindCube’ Marks New Phase in Wind-power Amplification
• THE END OF AN ERA: Closing the Door on Building New Coal-fired Power Plants in America
• ‘We Cannot Rebuild this Economy on the Same Pile of Sand’
• Fmr. VP Al Gore Testifies in Hearings Related to Landmark Emissions Legislation
• Obama Acts to Enable Energy Innovation, Raise Emissions Standards
• Economic Downturn Cannot Be Allowed to Slow Shift to Green Resources
• EPA Chief Says Congress Should Pass Laws to Mandate Emissions Reduction Regulations
• US Supreme Court Rules EPA Must Regulate Carbon Emissions, Citing Clean Air Act

The controversial quote, part of a discussion on the question of whether every wise old judge shares the same specific type of wisdom, is as follows:

First, as Professor Martha Minnow has noted, there can never be a universal definition of wise. Second, I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.

Sotomayor went on to explain that there is a real history in the US judiciary of otherwise very enlightened justices failing to understand the real legal problem of certain types of discrimination. Specifically:

Let us not forget that wise men like Oliver Wendell Holmes and Justice Cardozo voted on cases which upheld both sex and race discrimination in our society. Until 1972, no Supreme Court case ever upheld the claim of a woman in a gender discrimination case.

But even there, Sotomayor is not saying that wise old white judges can’t understand the plight of downtrodden groups or individuals whose experience they do not share. She immediately points out that they can and often have, basing their judgments on the law and the guiding principles of Constitutional justice:

I, like Professor Carter, believe that we should not be so myopic as to believe that others of different experiences or backgrounds are incapable of understanding the values and needs of people from a different group. Many are so capable. As Judge Cedarbaum pointed out to me, nine white men on the Supreme Court in the past have done so on many occasions and on many issues including Brown.

So, even demographically uniform courts have rendered rulings that expanded the scope of civil liberties in order to remedy unconscionable historic injustices. And Sonia Sotomayor recognized this, and goes on to explain that every judge must search for that more enlightened part of his or her own intellect, to rise above the limitations of personal experience.

Explaining why the question of what a judge is able to understand about the conditions in which those before them might live is so important, she added:

However, to understand takes time and effort, something that not all people are willing to give. For others, their experiences limit their ability to understand the experiences of others. Other simply do not care. Hence, one must accept the proposition that a difference there will be by the presence of women and people of color on the bench.

Her argument is very clearly that, given the fact that human frailty can bias one’s understanding of an issue or a situation, even in some of the most enlightened justices of the past, diversifying the judiciary can help raise the frequency of insightful judgments. The argument is not diversity for diversity’s sake, but a complex critique of the failings that can be seen in some judges.

Sotomayor specifically said she aspires to be better than that:

Each day on the bench I learn something new about the judicial process and about being a professional Latina woman in a world that sometimes looks at me with suspicion. I am reminded each day that I render decisions that affect people concretely and that I owe them constant and complete vigilance in checking my assumptions, presumptions and perspectives and ensuring that to the extent that my limited abilities and capabilities permit me, that I reevaluate them and change as circumstances and cases before me requires. I can and do aspire to be greater than the sum total of my experiences but I accept my limitations.

So, Judge Sotomayor did not, in fact, argue that her ethnicity, language background or culinary preferences, would be a fair way to bias her judgments according to a leftwing political agenda, as ultra-conservative critics have claimed. Instead, she was explaining her awareness of how heritage can provide insight, but a judge must understand the complications of this dynamic, and seek to achieve a more enlightened approach.

She specifically pledged “constant and complete vigilance in checking my assumptions, presumptions and perspectives”, in order to make judgments that are not biased or unduly influenced by her heritage or life experience. Ultimately, she will explain this during Senate confirmation hearings, because there are plenty of senators who clearly have not read the speech and don’t understand her argument, but it cannot be said that she ever argued that being Latina was “better” than being white or that she favors biased judgments.

• Originally published 27 May 2009, at CafeSentido.com
• Republished 28 May 2009, at OpenSalon