Lalo Alcaraz by Lalo Alcaraz
- September 29, 2009
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About Lalo Alcaraz
Lalo Alcaraz -- award-winning editorial cartoonist and Latino journalist -- captures the essence of the country’s changing cultural and political landscape. Alcaraz has produced editorial cartoons for LA Weekly since 1992 and also creates cartoons in Spanish for La Opinion, the United States’ oldest Spanish-language newspaper. His work has appeared in The New York Times, The Village Voice, Los Angeles Times, Variety, Hispanic Magazine, Latina magazine, La Jornada in Mexico City, BUNTE, (Germany’s People magazine) and many other publications. Add instant variety to your Web site’s news and opinion offerings with Alcaraz’s intelligent, youthful and thought-provoking perspective.
© 2009 Universal Press Syndicate - All Rights Reserved.
Comments (45) Jump to Comments Form
1960LandMan said, about 1 month ago
Wow. 80% of Americans already have Health Care they want to keep…(read—”HAVE Health Care”) and somehow you think we should supply any law breaker who can sneak, swim or lie their way here, coverage. I’ve seen so many of your posts that show your lack of reason—This one doesn’t shock me either.
senorbullwinkle
said,
about 1 month ago
Wow 80% have health care ? really ? How many can afford it ? How many will be canceled or denied when trying to use it ?
Do we leave the dead and dieing on the hospital steps. Babies, kids, Grandma, bleeding and in pain, to suffer in the cold ? Will you go to the hospital and physically throw them out, cause I dont think the Doctors will.
cdward said, about 1 month ago
I have probably as good health care as most on this list, but I can think of a lot better. That 80% stat is pretty inflated.
DrCanuck said, about 1 month ago
1960Man: Some have a lack of reason and some have a lack of compassion.
NoFearPup
said,
about 1 month ago
And not one GOP vote necessary for passage…. Can someone with a clue tell me what that means?
Copperdomebodhi said, about 1 month ago
FearPup - it means that the Republicans have made themselves irrelevant. They could have had tort reform (and lots of other stuff) if they were willing to deal with Democrats in good faith. Instead, they decided that their real agenda was to make the president look bad. Now, they’ll have nothing.
Repubs are making the same mistake that the Left made in the U.K. in the 1980s - they’re doubling down on crazy. Anyone catch the Newsmax column talking about a military coup against Obama? How about the Arizonan congressman who called the president “the enemy of humanity”? The GOP has handed the reins to the most extreme elements in their party. The more they run their mouths, the better Democrats look.
av8tor
said,
about 1 month ago
I am not a republican but I don’t want to pay for someone elses healthcare..here in az they all get free healthcare any way. all they have to do is go to the ER..the law says they cannot be refused. Those against healthcare are with the people that work and pay taxes. this socialism is great until you run out of people to pay more taxes.
BOB HASTY
said,
about 1 month ago
AVATRBR
I am a Democrat. I want to pay for the Fire Dept., the Police Dept., the Water Dept., The Water Treatment Plant, the Planning Dept., the City, County and State Gov., the IRS, the Army, Navy,Ait Force, Marines, the National Guard, the State Mental Health program, etc. The ruling class of the country created by Republicans is moving in the direction of private poplice. Here in California, some of the truly wealthy class has their own fire department which will only respond to fires which their customers experience.
It seems as if the majority of Americans is prone to the “I got mine! You can’t have it! What happened to this country? You can travel throughout the world. And if you need health care, you won’t have to pay much for it,except you have to pay here.
Anybody who thinks that America is a Judeo-Christian country [I don’t], which means most Americans know the story of the Good Samaritan. In that story, it was the despised and loathsome Samaritan who Jesus points to as the best example of neighborly acts, not the good church people. The ugly American doesn’t want to care, to share, to heal, to make peace, to raise one finger for the stranger in the neighborhood.
Our American heritage was based upon a unique quality of sharing and community service. There was a social contract the amazed the world. It was called “the habit of the heart.” Today, the corporate Media is persuading too many people that being selfish is being patriotic. Our social fabric is being destroyed by fears of someone getting what we don’t want to share.
Avatrb is right about one thing. Taxpayers automatically deserve things like healthcare. Just realize how many undocumented workers have payroll taxes taken from their pay. And that’s free money for us, if the employer is honest enough to pay into Social Security and Medicare. It’s free because Americans don’t want foreigners to have any services but our jails. And the undocumented worker knows not to ask for his/her money’s worth.
PlainBill said, about 1 month ago
AVATRBR, perhaps you should reconsider the ‘Genius’ badge. You SHOULD be aware that medical care at the emergency room is expensive and inefficient in terms of both the medical staff and patient.
The last time I went to see my doctor it took just over 35 minutes. That included checking in, waiting in the waiting room, having his nurse check my vitals,, waiting in the examining room, actually discussing my concerns (three of them) with the doctor in depth, having blood drawn, and checking out with the front desk. I didn’t even get a chance to read a magazine!!!
What’s the last time you heard of someone getting out of the emergency room in less than 2 hours? In many cases you have to see at least three clerical workers before you ever get to see a medical person, let alone a doctor. (Of course, if you have a genuine emergency, the initial process is much faster.) All of this takes time and money, AND degrades the performance of the emergency room’s primary function.
Justice22 said, about 1 month ago
Amen, PB. Getting these people out of the emergency room IS a savings. Taxpayers and those with insurance are paying for their care. The last time I took my wife to the emergency room it took over four hours to be seen for a suspected broken arm.
ezdeb said, about 1 month ago
According to rightie logic, when NO ONE in America except Donald Trump and the U.S. Congress has healthcare, it will be the best of all!! That will be sweet success for you guys, huh?
As B Hasty mentioned above, I don’t necessarily have to care about a republican’s house burning down, do I? I really might only care about ACORN employees’ homes, or only the businesses I like to patronize. But no. I pay taxes to fund fire prevention and firefighters for everyone, because it’s in the community interest not to have untended fires consuming homes and businesses. You might call it paying taxes for UNIVERSAL FIRE INSURANCE.
When people are sick or injured and cannot work, that equals loss of productivity for our communities and when millions of people are in need like that, it’s a significant productivity loss for the nation. If you want to think of it only as a numbers discussion, righties, try those two issues. Let us know why you think it’s fiscally responsible to keep going this way.
I also see, especially in AVATRBR’s post, a lot of rightie “us vs them” words. AVATRBR, who are they? The poor? The undocumented poor? Any uninsured person? Remember, ahem, no undocumented workers are allowed to get even private insurance under the “Joe Wilson You Lie” amendment. So who are the “other” Americans that you would like to leave you alone and get their butts to the ER if they can’t afford, say, a dentist until they have an infection to deal with?
You righties’ ridiculous talking points are getting old, having been debunked again and again. You just keep shouting socialist and snickering about others’ efforts without the slightest interest in fixing anything.
If people like you were speaking out in WWII, I bet you’d be hoping FDR, the war effort and scrap metal drives would fail. Some things are bigger than your taxes going up $100 a year, no? Or is that only in Marxist countries?
Grrrrrrr…..
striper77 said, about 1 month ago
To set the record straight. Senior citizens receives Social Security and Medicare. Children receive Medicaid through their state if their parents do not have insurance, are out of a job or make less than $20 an hour. In all actuality the working class pays for their insurance through their jobs.
blfreeze said, about 1 month ago
I think we need to get back to helping ourselves and each other, not expecting the government to do it. I can’t go to Mexico and work because I might be taking a job away from a Mexican citizen. And they won’t even give medical treatment unless you “show them the dinero”. My boyfriend’s 90 year old mother broke her arm and we had to send money to Mexico before they would set it. When Hurricane Stan hit Chiapas in 2005, I don’t think the people stood around waiting for the equivalent of FEMA to come with their new trailer and food. They grabbed their shovels and started digging!
I believe in helping those who are unable or too old to work, but we need to train people how to work again and get off of welfare. If we don’t want hard working Latinos to take our jobs, then send a bus to pick up the able bodied welfare recipients to pick tomatoes, clean the streets, do landscaping and EARN THEIR PAY.
I am not rich, I work hard to pay my bills, and I don’t need more taxes taken out to help people who won’t help themselves. We need to get over thinking that we are “too good” to do these jobs.
I would love to be rich, but I am not and never will be. But those who are rich provide jobs for the rest of us. What will we do when we are ALL poor and there is no one left to pay?
We need to get rid of fraud in health care - people going to ER’s for prescription refills, excessive/unnecessary tests, unnecessary prescriptions. I am tired of overweight people riding into me at the supermarket on their motorized carts when they need to walk it off.
What would happen if we stopped paying welfare, building “turtle tunnels” and jogging paths. If the senators and congressmen had to retire on Social Security like the rest of us? Maybe we would get off our butts and help ourselves!!!!
deadheadzan
said,
about 1 month ago
We pay more and get less then any other industrialized country. There is a reason for that, and it is because health care for profit is draining the money into the CEO’s pockets.
Justice22 said, about 1 month ago
Hey BLF, I agree with some of your statement but not all.
Insurance is a way of helping ourselves. Originally most insurance companies were formed by community organizations to help each other pay for unplanned or accidental expenses. Then some saw them as an opportunity to make money. As for health insurance, I have seen figures ranging from 30 to 60% of our premiums going to profit for the Executives (labeled as expense) and shareholders. We need a movement to create new cooperatives, but that would be Socialistic like the Grange and Farm Bureau.
NoFearPup
said,
about 1 month ago
~~~ ^ I stopped reading way up there… Republicans shouldn’t feel so safe…my preference now is a pilloried Exec. and a Congress worried about third party votes draining their hegemony: TEA PARTIES, BABY! Yeeee Hawwww!
striper77 said, about 1 month ago
Deadheasd stated,
health care for profit is draining the money
It goes way further than that. The Current President and Democrat House and Senate is bankrupting the nation with the bail outs and stimulus package. The health care bill may be the final nail in the coffin.
It does not stop their, Every company out there is for the money at any cost.
GM, Chrysler, Ford, Wall Street, AIG, American Airlines, AT&T, Cox, Nissan, Toyota, Honda, Hyatt, Hilton, Hospitals, Surgery Centers, Wal-Mart, Target, Grocery chains, stores, Exxon, Shell, Conoco, Coke, Pepsi, Disney all of them.
If you get upset say with the oil companies and the health care companies you should be just as mad at everyone else. Everything is supply and demand. You can look at the cost of groceries, to utility bills, to interests rates, credit cards, Chase Bank, every last one of them will take your last borrowed dime from you for their own personal gain.
striper77 said, about 1 month ago
Furthermore if you owe any creditor any more After they take you last borrowed dime they will not negotiate anything with you or take a settlement offer.
They will sell your loan to a third party, hire a collection agency or turn your name over to a collection agency in hope of only getting half of their money back. This will ruin your credit rating as well.
If you have anything that has collateral they will come out and repo it.
If you do not pay the monopolized gas and electric company they will shut your utilities off.
If you upset your boss you will get fired,
If you upset the police or break the laws you will get fined or go to jail.
If you do not pay your property taxes to help out the failed school system, the government takes your house.
I stated all of this to realize the health care issues for the illegal aliens and lazy people whom do not want to or have ever worked is the least of your worries.
Corosive Frog said, about 1 month ago
stripy; the private sector already does almost all you said.
On every tax dollar, ask yourselves how much pennies go into government help for multinational corporations and the private sector through other means…
I like the analogy they made between universal health insurance and the fire department.. A fire can be caused by negligence, stupidity or recklessness and yet when a fire breaks out, there’s no time to wonder where it came from because if it spreads, we all lose.
cdward said, about 1 month ago
BLF wrote: “I think we need to get back to helping ourselves and each other, not expecting the government to do it.”
First of all welcome, since I don’t remember seeing you before. I appreciate your concerns but if I may, I’d like to start from a different place. From my point of view, us helping ourselves and each other and the government helping us are the same thing. I grew up believing that the government is of, for and by the people. It is simply a far more equitable delivery system for all of US than private organizations that are not here for us but for themselves. To depend on churches and other not-for-profits is to depend on a scattered and undependable system since they can never be certain of funding from one year to the next and don’t have the wide ranging abilities of the government.
”But those who are rich provide jobs for the rest of us.” I wish I could believe this. It’s true that some of the rich provide jobs, but there has been a disconnect in recent years between the amount of money made by the obscenely rich and the good they do for the rest of society. The amount of money they “earn” (or rather receive) has gone up exponentially while the jobs created from their wealth have diminished. In other countries where the gap between rich and poor is much smaller, the job production is hardly worse.
Some of the other things on your wish list would be nice indeed. And of course, we both know it’s only a partial list. I’m not sure any politician can change all those things, however. Perhaps it’s enough to ask us focus on a few things that government can do. For my money, all of us pitching in together to make a better and broader health care system would seem to make life better in the end for all of us – small businesses, corporations, individuals. I recognize many don’t accept this but disagreement is inevitable. For now, I only hope we can discuss it respectfully and with open minds. Once again, welcome.
NoFearPup
said,
about 1 month ago
~~~ ^ Wrong, Copperhead. It means Libs are suckers! Put aside your grand, altruistic goals,,,stop your incessant whining because it’s all a farce!
mike48
said,
about 1 month ago
the rich get richer and the poor get poorer
PlainBill said, about 1 month ago
Shakey, I’m sure this will be over your head, but read what John Donne wrote nearly 400 years ago.
“‘No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend’s or of thine own were: any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.’”
“John Donne.”
NoFearPup
said,
about 1 month ago
Yes. plain Bill …this is some of the bleeep idle men came up with after they started toying with the idea of de-throning their Maker from his rightful position. John Donne’s quote while nice and “feely”, I submit , has nothing to do with the useless debate going on about having an illegal under-class openly traversing the country-side. THEY chose to break not only our laws but there own. And THEY also collectively, whether in Mexico (or the nation of there citizenship) or here in America, have neglected their duty to their own POSTERITY to fix THEIR own country or at least ask for help from their willing neighbor to the North. This holds true not only in the illegal immigration debate; but all over this globe where entrenched leaderships and their peoples are refusing to follow the better models of freedom and governance shown to them by Western style-Democracy. I for one am tired of their whining, and by extension, their number 1 supporter Barak Obama and the Emanuel Regime.
DrCanuck said, about 1 month ago
PoopyPuppy refers to “toying with the idea of de-throning their Maker from his rightful position.”
DrCanuck admonishes: Oh, c’mon, Puppy, God died YEARS ago. Don’t you read the news? We’re on our own, now.
NoFearPup
said,
about 1 month ago
Dr.MapleLeaf, the rumors of God’s death have been hastily accepted as truth; and it’s predicated on the belief in the ability of genetic material to re-program itself into new, fully-formed organisms.
DrCanuck said, about 1 month ago
True. Except that that is not a “belief.”
ahab
said,
about 1 month ago
If a decent health-care plan gets through and succeeds, Republicans will probably say that they were instrumental in it’s creation. Those same individuals who disavow the economic crisis conceived under the Bush regime and blame Obama for the crisis. The same Americans who also ignore their own moral obligation to fellow Americans when it suits their political agenda. The party of No.
cabrobst said, about 1 month ago
Vote the bastards out.
Make it a capital offense for congressmen to take bribes!
NoFearPup
said,
about 1 month ago
Dr.CantKnow - You can say it’s “not a belief” when you have the evidence to support your claim…Until then, be intellectually honest and admit that you only “believe” it to be so.
DrCanuck said, about 1 month ago
Well, Puppy, we do know. The physical mechanisms of genetic transference, variability and mutation, and natural selection are well understood. Genotype producing phenotype. And once we know how something works, we no longer “believe” that it is so. Is that not so?
ahab
said,
about 1 month ago
A recent Harvard Medical Study reports 45,000 Americans die each year due to a lack of medical insurance. Another group of patients too sick to work, lost their insurance or did not get the illness expenses covered fully. These groups represented 78% of people filing for bankruptcy due to illness. This means those insured are not really insured!!!Republicans are not as safe as they believe by maintaining the status quo, or saying no.
NoFearPup
said,
about 1 month ago
100% percent of people (minus 3 if you are a Christian) have died since the beginning of Life on Earth. The cause? Mortality. The cure? Very expensive. (Impossible so far, if you are not a Christian).
NoFearPup
said,
about 1 month ago
“Well, Puppy, we do know. The physical mechanisms of genetic transference, variability and mutation, and natural selection are well understood. Genotype producing phenotype. And once we know how something works, we no longer “believe” that it is so. Is that not so?”
How can you say that; when even Darwin’s introductory research hasn’t been proven to link genetic characteristics to long-term genetic change in the Planet’s Biological History. You, sir are the epitome of the kind of dangerous academic who asserts “beliefs” as fact , and assumes your audience is too ignorant to know the difference.
DrCanuck said, about 1 month ago
Darwin’s introductory research didn’t, you are quite correct. But 150 years years of collaborative follow-up research by thousand of researchers independently testing his predictions certainly has.
We’ve gone a little beyond simple “belief” here. And yes, getting students to think for themselves and to discover the veracity of evidence and reason is intensely dangerous - for organized religion.
Michigander said, about 1 month ago
Does anybody know if any other country would let an American citizen live in their country illegally and pay for their healthcare, food, etc. like USA does for illegals? Just curious.
ahab
said,
about 1 month ago
Pup, you have never cared for a cancer patient. Christian, my keester!
NoFearPup
said,
about 1 month ago
We’re (organized religion) still chugging along. and everytime one of your leading stars gets a platform to speak from, hundreds of thousands of “ignorant folk” turn their thumbs down.
Thank you, Jesus!
DrCanuck said, about 1 month ago
Michigander: Canada accepted many American draft dodgers and deserters who illegally entered the country and supported them until they were established.
parkersinthehouse said, about 1 month ago
when i was a visiting artist in zagreb i was treated in hospital for a lung thing - they were amazing
4uk4ata said, about 1 month ago
“Does anybody know if any other country would let an American citizen live in their country illegally and pay for their healthcare, food, etc. like USA does for illegals? Just curious.”
A quick search:
http://www.redorbit.com/news/health/197745/franceillegalimmigrantslosehealthcareundernewlaw/index.html - France (I don’t know what happened to this law, but it meant pre-2005 it was ok)
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,4056861,00.html - Germany: note that right now they are treated… then often deported.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/5275586.stm - UK: at least some are treated
http://eurpub.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/ckl266v1 - Spain - illegals can obtain cards and use the services available to legal immigrants
In general, I think most countries would give emergency care. Afterwards, it depends ;) .
NoFearPup
said,
about 1 month ago
^Hey, some foreign countries are harder on their illegal immigrants than the U.S. is on theirs (Including Mexico). Imagine that. What do you think of that, LALO?
Corosive Frog said, about 1 month ago
Sooky Rottweiler says;
NoFearPup, You’re a cave dog? Doesn’t it make you a wolf?
cdward said, about 1 month ago
Puppy, do we really want those countries to be our role models? Aren’t we supposed to be better? Many of those countries, after all, are harder on their own citizens, too.
NoFearPup
said,
about 1 month ago
cdward: That would be playing God ; would it not? Libs really think they have the right…Scary.