mew wrote: There are some things I just can’t figure out:
Why is it that some people trust corporations more than they trust their own elected officials who at least must pretend to represent their interests?
How could something as critical as health insurance be allowed to be run completely in the private sector, and public alternatives are seen as exotic when exactly the opposite is the case as concerns building highways, running schools, operating utilities? What’s up with that?
salp: Upon listening to an old audio clip of Ronald Regan declaring that if a medicare program is implemented it would mean the end of freedom in American,
i realized such ideologically charged rhetoric has been employed by right wing extremists since day one whenever a progressive politician or movement tries to move this society forward.
Probably the private sector can deliver services more ruthlessly but that’s different than providing services efficiently & democratically.
Obviously the right doesn’t believe in democratic goverment but rather in the dictatorship of the dollar
where the only socio-economic activity allowed is that which maximizes profit. Unrealistic for sure, self negating absolutely.
Compounding our current dilemma is the fact that even if President Obama came up with the fairest, most workable health care plan imaginable the party of NO would still object because their main purpose is not to build a system that works for the American people but to make sure the president fails in whatever efforts he makes in order to satisfy some completely unrealistic ideological imperative.
Your point is well taken about highways, schools etc.
it’s always been the government who has built the infrastructure
which allows the private sector to prosper.
It was the military that came up with the concept for the internet
& though the right wing might forget this
the department of defense is a GOVERNMENT agency
as a matter of fact
i would stop using the term ‘taxes’
and replace it with the phrase ‘users fee’
if an individual or company uses the infrastructure of this nation
that has been built mostly with public dollars
to make a profit
than one must pay a ‘users fee’ for that privilege
it’s the arrogance of the free market fundamentalists
which might ultimately prevent us from building a civil society for the 21st century
therefore we must actively resist those whose idea of organization
is stuck somewhere between the stone age & the wild west