[Peace-discuss] [Discuss] Fw: What hath got rot?

[C. G. Estabrook]

Not being a liberal but a socialist, I'm not looking for an escape route. I
wouldn't have wanted to miss the most interesting and affecting observation on
this matter that I've seen on this list. --CGE


John W. wrote:
> On this list, three of us have been and are the harshest critics of the new
> health care 'reform' bill:  Carl, Dave Johnson, and me.  I'm curious which of
> the three of us has NOT, in the eyes of Bob and Melodye, worked our asses off
> to try to make both the local community and the larger society a better
> place, according to our lights and talents.  Name some fucking names.
> 
> The way I see it, most of the folks on this list have decent health 
> insurance, so they have the luxury of being "ambivalent" about the health
> care bill, reminding us of its many virtues and counseling us to take a 'wait
> and see' approach.  I, on the other hand, have no health insurance, and will
> NOT have Medicare when I'm 65 due to a quirk in the law over which I had and
> have no control.  I can't speak for Carl and Dave, but I have actually
> suffered the indignity of sitting in the Frances Nelson Clinic, getting a
> different doctor every time, KNOWING that there were tests not being
> performed because Frances Nelson could not perform them in-house, and having
> pills shoved at me which I KNEW would do no good but which were all that
> Frances Nelson had to offer. Having to present proof of income documents over
> and over so that even Frances Nelson's precious and scarce resources would
> not be "wasted" on me.
> 
> The only decent medical care I've received in LIFE was at McKinley Clinic
> when I was a student at UIUC.  They have government-run, "socialized"
> medicine there; the doctors are on salary and all the services are "free",
> even the prescription meds, paid for by a student fee.  There I finally found
> a physician (female - God bless her) who cared about me as a human being, and
> ordered tests that were based on what I as a patient NEEDED rather than on
> what I could afford or on what paid the doctor the most money.  Sadly, when I
> ceased to be a student I could no longer avail myself of her services.  God
> bless her.
> 
> So I'm afraid I can't be as blase as the rest of you about this shitty bill
> which leaves health insurance companies firmly in control.  Nothing at all
> has changed for me, not a God-damned thing.  And you can bet that if nothing
> has changed for me, it's not changing for millions of other Americans who are
> not, perhaps, as articulate as I am.
> 
> Oh, yes, I forgot.  Something HAS changed for me after all, or it will in -
> what?  2014?   I'll be mandated to purchase a terrible private-sector health
> insurance plan, with money I don't have and with deductibles and co-pays so
> high I won't ever be able to actually use it, or else I'll be fined for my
> failure to purchase it.  Please forgive me if I don't see that as a benefit.
> 
> Yeah, I'll shut up now.  Every time I try to talk personal realities "on the
> ground" rather than abstractions, all the liberals' eyes start darting around
> the room, looking for an escape route.  Don't think I don't see it.
> 
> John W.
> 
> 
> On Tue, Mar 23, 2010 at 5:31 PM, Bob Illyes <illyes at uiuc.edu 
> <mailto:illyes at uiuc.edu>> wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> Melodye writes:
> 
> "It never ceases to amaze me how some of the biggest critics (on every
> subject) coming out of the shadows have done---- what?"
> 
> Precisely, Melodye.
> 
> Some pretext is generally behind this lack of accomplishment. A "Christian"
> pretext is that because of Original Sin it is not possible for a person to do
> good. A "Marxist" pretext is that the middle class will always prevent
> political progress, which isn't possible because the middle class is not yet
> destroyed. Market Fundamentalism supplies its own unsubstantiated theology.
> But don't be fooled. These are just excuses to hold in contempt those who do 
> their part to leave the world better rather than worse. These critics get off
> on contempt. They attempt to set up abusive relationships with those who
> would do good.
> 
> On a slightly different subject, I confess I have never seen anything quite
> so revolting as the Social Darwinian arguments coming from opponents of the
> efforts of our first black President and our first woman Speaker. (Their race
> and gender have nothing to do with this, right?) In the Gilded Age, it was
> seriously proposed that charity was vice, because it lessened the pressure on
> those on the bottom to change their evil ways. And now the new Gilded Age has
>  arrived, with the same recycled pseudo-scientific nonsense, that we all
> already get what we deserve.....
> 
> Bob

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