A market is NOT a naturally occurring phenomenon. A market is made of up rules and the rules are made up by someone. Believing that a market can solve the plight of humanity is as silly as believing that communism or fascism can solve the plight of humanity.We make the rules of the market — er rather we once made the rules of the market. Once we the people were the government. This was the cornerstone of our now deceased Democracy. Now we are a people of the government. (which is, of course, why you dislike the government).
To use an analogy, since Sicko just came out: The problem is that we keep treating the symptoms of the disease instead of the disease. As long as the corporatist have you and the rest of America convinced that government is the problem, we will never rise far enough above the fray to fix the real problem, which is the power behind the money or the money behind the power. You cannot get elected to high office in America based on your ideas. It takes cash.
If we, as a people, decide that no one over 55 should get a kidney transplant, then that says as much about us as tossing a patient into the street, because they cannot pay for needed emergency care. Either way, it is when the government runs the people that danger exists. By the way, do you think that America’s HMOs would not deny you — that’s right DENY YOU, the same transplant? Do you think the insurance companies would not take that away from YOU? You must be naive if you don’t understand that idea. You can’t possibly think that in America they would not bilk you out of that operation.
Americans are disregarded by the millions, held hostage by the HMOs, insurance companies and pharmaceuticals. It is easy for the very wealthy talking heads to skip over that in the news, since the media is owned.
So, you might ask cynically, how in the hell do you change the government. The answer is, you can’t. Don’t even think about it. You have no power, you, my friend, are a flea. You have less power to change the government than my dog has to scratch off the annoying flee (you).
“Why?” you might ask. And the obvious truth will smack you upside the head. Because you, my little citizen, don’t have the moola.
So, I suggest that if you really want to know what’s going on, you take the red pill.
There is only one way to cure America — whose democracy is now on life support, if not already gone. There is one, and only one way to dig out of this hole. And I’m not sure Americans are clever enough to figure it out. We must have elections where citizens who have grass root support will have their campaigns publicly financed. That’s it. Until YOU TOO can run for office, get elected and then put ethical, untarnished, un-purchased, public policy to work, then we are lost. But you can’t get elected, because to get elected you have to be in someone’s pocket, and once you’re in their pocket, you are theirs. You no longer operate in the public interest and you no longer can be trusted to pass policy FOR the people instead of FOR the person who purchased you. This is the state of America.
So, if you want to have policy makers make rational decisions in the public interest about: immigration, health care, prescription drug costs, transportation, clean air, etc. you have to get people who are not in the pockets of special interest.
It’s time to take all the hotels off the monopoly board in this game we call American life, count out $1,500 per player, put the properties back in neat little piles and roll the dice, because this game is over, and the American public lost.