Thursday, July 17, 2008
The Invisbile War
You won't hear about the invisible war on the TV tube.
Iraq War, Afghanistan War, and the fearful but fictitious War on Terror are distractions worthy of a new chapter in 1984.
The Domestic Economic War.
The war on the American public is pernicious yet conspicuously invisible to the media. Globalization, deregulation, union-busting, privatization, and the absence of a single-payer national heath care service are fodder for the Domestic Economic War.
Where is the American universal health care system? Why doesn't it exist? Every major economically-advanced "western" nation has it. Great Britain, Canada, continental western Europe--they've all got it. Germany instituted universal health care in the 1880's. Great Britain created their own national system in 1948.
The inefficiencies and injustices of private, for-profit heath care are legion and need not be enumerated here. America has a "Pay or Die" health care system resting on the notion that corporate profits are above all else, the principal goal of medicine. The public good be damned, and of course, the rich pay for health care while the poor pay with their lives.
The US no longer has any sense of the public good or individual rights. The Declaration of Independence speaks of the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The right to life isn't consistent with marketplace medicine.
There is a place in human society for the market and a place in human society for the rejection of the market. Where production of ball-point pens is market-driven, and where medicine is a human right guaranteed to all.
The reason the US does not have universal health care is because private insurance carriers and private hospitals have enormous political clout. The public health be damned, corporations wield vast corrupting influence on national government policies. Sick? Screw you. In the US, corporate profits will not be compromised for the public good.
We have one vastly corrupt political system. Not just government, but the two major political parties are profoundly corrupt.
The media are part-and-parcel of the corruption. American media are owned by giant corporations. Giant corporations function in service to their own self-interest. Corporate media do not produce news; they produce corporate propaganda. The real news is what you do not read or watch on TV. The right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness was reserved to the white, male, landed-gentry in the US Constitution. We've made progress. Slavery was abolished and women can vote, for example. Currently, the right to life is limited to the rich, and Congress. When is the next phase of citizen enfranchisement? Universal health care. Medicare for all.
The Domestic Economic War on the American Public.
Iraq War, Afghanistan War, and the fearful but fictitious War on Terror are distractions worthy of a new chapter in 1984.
The Domestic Economic War.
The war on the American public is pernicious yet conspicuously invisible to the media. Globalization, deregulation, union-busting, privatization, and the absence of a single-payer national heath care service are fodder for the Domestic Economic War.
Where is the American universal health care system? Why doesn't it exist? Every major economically-advanced "western" nation has it. Great Britain, Canada, continental western Europe--they've all got it. Germany instituted universal health care in the 1880's. Great Britain created their own national system in 1948.
The inefficiencies and injustices of private, for-profit heath care are legion and need not be enumerated here. America has a "Pay or Die" health care system resting on the notion that corporate profits are above all else, the principal goal of medicine. The public good be damned, and of course, the rich pay for health care while the poor pay with their lives.
The US no longer has any sense of the public good or individual rights. The Declaration of Independence speaks of the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The right to life isn't consistent with marketplace medicine.
There is a place in human society for the market and a place in human society for the rejection of the market. Where production of ball-point pens is market-driven, and where medicine is a human right guaranteed to all.
The reason the US does not have universal health care is because private insurance carriers and private hospitals have enormous political clout. The public health be damned, corporations wield vast corrupting influence on national government policies. Sick? Screw you. In the US, corporate profits will not be compromised for the public good.
We have one vastly corrupt political system. Not just government, but the two major political parties are profoundly corrupt.
The media are part-and-parcel of the corruption. American media are owned by giant corporations. Giant corporations function in service to their own self-interest. Corporate media do not produce news; they produce corporate propaganda. The real news is what you do not read or watch on TV. The right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness was reserved to the white, male, landed-gentry in the US Constitution. We've made progress. Slavery was abolished and women can vote, for example. Currently, the right to life is limited to the rich, and Congress. When is the next phase of citizen enfranchisement? Universal health care. Medicare for all.
The Domestic Economic War on the American Public.
