Some Thoughts

Okay, some random thoughts going through the ol muser's head at the moment.

1) Why are the Democrats (and some Republicans) talking about affordable health care? I don't want affordable health care I want health care, tout court. Why won't this fucking country and its politicians embrace the idea that health care is a right (basic health care is listed as a human right by UN treaty) not something to be purchased? Making it affordable still means I have to fork money over to the private sector. And worse yet, some politicians (even one I back) want to force us to buy health care. In short, they want to force us to pay the private sector money. No, no, no. America is the only industrialised country without a government run health plan, be it an insurance programme or full socialised medicine. I'm tired of the word affordable because it hides the fact that we are still putting a band-aid on a gaping wound in this country. Private health care is profit oriented not health oriented.

2) Why is the US media not taking much note of the failure of Bush's current Mideast trip? It is a miserable failure. His road map to peace in Palestine, one of the major reasons for the trip?: Practically in tatters. This is something I don't understand about the US's position on the matter. We refuse to deal with Hamas. As a party it was elected- something I thought we wanted- yet then we reject the results. Hamas was elected not for religious reasons but because it was the only party with a track record of clean and effective governance in Palestine. Sure, they aren't the best of humans but they were elected. The road map to peace does nothing to address Hamas and it is precisely for this reason that it will fail. But no one is talking about it....

3) Another wonderful op-ed piece in the NY Times about the beauty of the free market and lessons to be learned by extending economics out into the world. Bullshit. This whole freakonomics thing about extending the lessons of economics into politics and the social sphere is stupid if not downright dangerous. Until economists come to terms with the fact that their past is strewn with miserable failures in the theory and prediction department (not to mention so ideologically bloated with free market libertarianism), I don't think I want their thoughts on social life going too far. And the idea that politics could learn a little bit from economics? Fuck off. Political economists have long demonstrated that economists need to take into account the political to get their theories working. Maybe economists should tried reading a book once and a while...

4) And lastly, Lieberman remains a douche bag

And thems my thoughts for the afternoon...