I'm not the world's biggest fan of Matthew Yglesias, but He gets my endorsement for this. This Occupy Wall Street theatrical production that's going on right now is just absurd. Yes, it's good that we're seeing some folks out protesting who are mad about some of the right things and aren't demanding that the federal government keep its hand off of Medicare.
On the other hand, even if they're ridiculous when they aren't offensive, teabagger demands actually exist. The protesters down in New York obviously don't like to see parasites suck up billions while good honest folk can't get a job. I'm with them on that. So what do they want to do about it? Maybe if they just got some giant puppets or Wavy Gravy showed up it would all make more sense. Or maybe not.
Yes, we need a movement in this country. We need people to channel their anger into political action. We need to wrestle politics away from the billionaires behind the curtain and their Jesus talking marionettes. But that means people have to come together around an agenda for real change. The only concrete demand that's come out of this action is that a New York City police inspector be investigated for gratuitously pepper spraying some people. I'm for that, but it wasn't the original problem.
Discussion of public health and health care policy, from a public health perspective. The U.S. spends more on medical services than any other country, but we get less for it. Major reasons include lack of universal access, unequal treatment, and underinvestment in public health and social welfare. We will critically examine the economics, politics and sociology of health and illness in the U.S. and the world.
We need to wrestle politics away from the billionaires behind the curtain and their Jesus talking marionettes... that would be such a funny line, if it weren't so horribly true.
ReplyDeleteRobin my friend, your words can't be more true, right we need to face our mistakes, and take away the rotten apples from our government.
ReplyDeleteThanks so much for this article, quite effective piece of writing.
ReplyDelete