Democrats Opposed Selling out Veteran Health Care

[Doug]

Last September Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) sent an open letter expressing her party's concern about the privatization of Walter Reed.

Here.

It was ignored.
====================
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Senator Barbara A. Mikulski (D-Md.) today led Democratic Senate colleagues Paul S. Sarbanes (D-Md.), Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), John F. Kerry and Edward M. Kennedy (both D-Mass.), Christopher J. Dodd and Joseph I. Lieberman (both D-Conn.) and Tim Johnson (D-S.D.) to urge Secretary of the Army Francis J. Harvey to refrain from outsourcing 350 federal jobs at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center until Congress has finished its work on the 2007 Department of Defense (DOD) spending bill.

“America needs an independent civil service. Our federal employees are on the front lines every day, working hard for America. These hardworking men and women deserve to be treated fairly and, at the very least, deserve to have the same rights that contractors do,” said Senator Mikulski. “I will keep fighting to fix the competition process that is shamefully slanted in favor of private contractors.”

[Dardedar]

DAR
But... I thought there wasn't any difference between Demo's and Repub's?

[Hogeye]

No, there are minor differences. The similarity is that they are both for massive plunder and redistribution, and they both favor military intervention. IOW They are two factions of the Welfare-Warfare Party. They differ in which constituencies and cronies they want to give loot to, and what wars and occupations they want to get involved in. The Dem faction wants to give loot and favors to e.g. big established unions and "underprivileged" groups; the Rep faction big established corporations and traditionalist groups. The Dems like multilateral "humanitarian" mass murders; the Reps like unilateral national aggrandizement mass murders.

[Barbara Fitzpatrick]

I remember well how efficient the Post Office was until it was privatized. There is a reason for civil service jobs (and the tests to be passed before getting one). That purely corporate view - no matter what the true bottom line is, as long as you cut labor costs, you're being efficient - is costing us tax dollars in waste and "war profiteering" by the minute.

[Hogeye]

Earth to Barbara - The US Post Office is a government entity. It is not privately owned, i.e. privatized. The closest thing to private postal services today are firms like UPS and Fed Ex, both incredibly more efficient than the government's post office.

privatize
v : change (industry or business) from governmental to private
control or ownership

I've noticed a tendency (esp. among socialists) to misconstrue the meaning of "privatize" from it's dictionary meaning of control/ownership to simply contracting out some functions. It's not uncommon to hear this mistaken usage when discussing mining or management of resources, e.g. people errantly claiming that Bolivia privatized water when really the Bolivian govt still owns (de jure) the water but is merely contracting out water distribution services.

[Dardedar]

[Dardedar]

I remember well how efficient the Post Office was until it was privatized.

DAR
When someone has an eccentric ideology to defend sometimes it is easier to redefine words than actually give up the pet wacky idea. As you probably know Barbara, your use of the term "privatize" here is correct and represents standard usage. Consider the following from:

UNDERSTANDING POSTAL PRIVATIZATION:
CORPORATIONS, UNIONS AND “THE PUBLIC INTEREST”
BY SARAH F. RYAN

"The term "privatization" can refer to several different processes. In countries where factories or natural resource industries have been nationalized, privatization often means the sale of these entire industries to private investors. In the United States, however, “privatization” generally refers to government contracting with private companies for the provision of various services, from garbage collection to schools, rather than providing those services directly through public employees. In the case of the Postal Service, this is the most frequently-advocated form of privatization."

link

[Hogeye]

Merriam Webster: pri·vat·ize
Pronunciation: 'prI-v&-"tIz
Function: transitive verb
: to make private; especially : to change (as a business or industry) from public to private control or ownership

Let's look at a bunch of dictionaries - Onelook - privatize

I looked at the first ten dictionaries, and all except Wikipedia (not really a dictionary) said it meant private ownership or control. None even mentioned farming out or subcontracting. So, you can use "privatize" like virtually every English dictionary, or take Sarah Ryan's word for it (whoever she is.) It is quite clear what "standard usage" is.

Don't you agree that it is quite Orwellian to water down the term to mean its virtual opposite? War is peace; freedom is slavery; privatization is government ownership. If you can obfuscate the meaning of peace/freedom/private property to mean the opposite, then you undermine clear thinking on the subject - the whole point of Newspeak.

[Dardedar]

Don't you agree that it is quite Orwellian to water down the term to mean...

DAR
Something other than you would like? Not at all. I think words have much more nuance than you are capable of understanding. I agree entirely with Ms. Ryan's comment. This was from a thesis she wrote while obtaining her "Master of Labor and Industrial Relations." It's obvious she knows what she is talking about on this subject, while in contrast I have watched you endlessly torture the definition of words to fit in your absurd black and white ideological boxes.

It is quite clear what "standard usage" is.

DAR
Why would you suddenly concern yourself with how other people, usually statists, use words? It's much more creative and entertaining when you define them as you go.

D.

[Hogeye]

I see. So to use the standard definition in all known dictionaries is to "endlessly torture the definition of words." But to use a non-standard definition given by some unknown statist apologist for the government post office, one that construes "privatization" to mean govt ownership, is not.

Now there's nothing wrong with her stipulating a definition in her paper. After all, the writer even admits that the term is used to mean "the sale of these entire industries to private investors." What I objected to was the Orwellian use of privatization to mean government ownership with some sub-contracting, as it is sometimes used by statists without explanation. That is simply misleading.

Why do I concern myself with how other people use words? I agree with George Orwell, that concepts can be obliterated when/if there is no word-label for that concept. Like Orwell, I worry that people won't be able to conceptualize peace, or talk about it, because it has been reconstrued as war. Today, a surprising number of people think "peace" is multilateral military intervention, not much different from the 1984 fictional perpetual war called "peace" in Newspeak.

Some battles for words are hopeless, e.g. the word "liberal," originally meaning limited government laissez faire, has been captured by statist socialists (at least in the US) and made to mean the opposite. So we had to substitute "libertarian" to label the concept. But I'm not ready to give up on "freedom" or "peace" yet. If "privatization" becomes contorted to mean government owned with subcontracting to cronies, what word would you suggest I use for the concept of devolving goods and services from State ownership to private ownership?

A group of words I try to keep from Orwellian perversion is: State, country, and nation. Rulers, attempting to leverage the epigenetic hunter-gatherer communal solidarity, like to equate all three. Actually, "country" is a local/regional territorial concept (e.g. Northwest Arkansas or Ozarkia), "nation" is a cultural/language concept (our nation is the Anglo nation, i.e. USAmerica, Canada, England, Australia, New Zealand, and a few others). "State" is a political concept - an organization with an effective monopoly on the legal use of force in a particular geographic area. It is easy to see why rulers want to obscure the differences - to dupe people into believing that their natural love of neighbors and community is identical to loving and serving the State. And it works! Even some freethinkers fall for the patently absurd "we are the State" dogma.

[Dardedar]

what word would you suggest I use...

DAR
Words can be used in more than one way.

Found this on reference.com:

***
Privatization
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - Cite This Source

Privatization (alternately "denationalization" or "disinvestment") is the transfer of property or responsibility from the public sector (government) to the private sector (business). The term can refer to partial or complete transfer of any property or responsibility held by government. A similar transfer in the opposite direction could be referred to the nationalization or municipalization of some property or responsibility.

[Hogeye]

Right - that's what I mentioned earlier when citing OneLook. Out of the first ten definitions, only Wikipedia (not really a dictionary) takes privatization to mean anything but the transfer from govt ownership to private ownership. (Perhaps I'll correct Wiki's improper usage...)

[Dardedar]

only Wikipedia... takes privatization to mean anything but the transfer from govt ownership to private ownership.

DAR
Of course it doesn't say that and you are not being honest, again. It says:

"The term can refer to partial or complete transfer of any property or responsibility held by government."

Like Humpty Dumpty you will continue to use words as you wish and read and portray language in an incoherent manner.

[Hogeye]

We agree here. All the dictionaries defined privatization as a change from government to private control or ownership. Only Wikipedia added the Orwellian definition. BTW, I changed the Wiki article to something more reasonable.

[Dardedar]

DAR
It would be neat trick if one could change the way people actually use words by changing an internet blurb. But that's not how it works. People have and will continue to use the word privatize in ways other than absolute. Probably even most of the time. Try googling the word "privatize" along with any government entity and you will quickly be buried in examples.

I did "military privatize" and got 1.2 million hits. The following is typical:

"In both Congress and the Pentagon, interest grew in outsourcing (contracting for support services while retaining responsibility for them within the military) and privatization (transferring responsibility for management of a program from the military to private contractors). They were (and are) viewed as ways to cut costs and increase efficiency."
link

Barbara's usage is quite correct and your attempt to understand words only in some bizarre absolute sense, is not at all persuasive.

D.

[LaWood]

>Today, a surprising number of people think "peace" is multilateral military intervention, not much different from the 1984 fictional perpetual war called "peace" in Newspeak.<

Could you name a few of the 'surprising number of people' ?

If ground forces are used to prevent an aggressor military group from murdering unarmed civilians (genocide) then such ground forces are making war?
Explain.

[Hogeye]

People have and will continue to use the word privatize in ways other than absolute.

Obviously. And other people (like me) will continue to insist on clarity, and to point out ambiguities and equivocations. Barbara wrote, "I remember well how efficient the Post Office was until it was privatized." The USPS has not been privatized in either sense. Some sub-functions of it have been outsourced, that's all. Her statement made it sound like it had been sold to FedEx. But enough of this semantic argument.

Hogeye> Today, a surprising number of people think "peace" is multilateral military intervention, not much different from the 1984 fictional perpetual war called "peace" in Newspeak.

LaWood> Could you name a few of the 'surprising number of people'?

Many, perhaps most, members of Omni (Omni Center for Peace, Justice, and Ecology) in Fayetteville, a so-called peace group, want a UN multinational force to occupy Iraq and want a UN "peacekeeping" force to occupy Darfur. These people are not real peaceniks - anti-interventionist; they simply want a different flavor of military intervention - multilateral rather than unilateral. Other national "peace orgs" are similar.

If ground forces are used to prevent an aggressor military group from murdering unarmed civilians (genocide) then such ground forces are making war?

Not necessarily. Violence used in defense is permissible, of course. But using the State to send people into foreign countries to remedy their squabbles (esp. when such actions are chosen by rulers with various nefarious agendas) is not a policy of peace. If someone wants to be charitable and send money or volunteer to help protect foreigners, that is their right. But for a (coercively funded) State to do so only internationalizes local conflicts. In short, Lincoln Brigade - yes; US military - no. Harper's Ferry raid or John Horse's slave rebellion - yes; War of Northern Aggression - no. If neocons want to take their shotguns and occupy Iraq (or Darfur, or Kosevo) at their own expense, let them have at it!