What follows is my response to a friend, who was worked up about a classroom singing about Obama -- in a positive light. She assumed that I'd be outraged if that happened in the last 8 years.
The first part shoots that down, but the real meat is below the fold.
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Actually, no. This stuff did happen, I guess. I really don't spend much time policing what kids sing in school. I really don't care.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
What does outrage me is that since we've privatized hospitals and health insurance, we've had prices go up 10% a year for 30 years. Our coverage becomes more skimpy every year (while we pick up a bigger share of the premiums), and more fall from insured status due to costs -- and have to be picked up by the gov (read: taxpayers). All because drug makers, hospitals, doctors and insurance companies want to add a few more dollars to the bottom line in a dysfunctional market where no one has an incentive to push costs down.
I also get outraged by the fact that median household income hasn't gone up in 30 years, even though:
1) Productivity has gone through the roof,
2) We're a much more educated workforce, and
3) Basically most families have all sent another person into the workforce.
Why, because our political class seems hell bent on breaking us. Not by taxation, which has fallen over this time. But, by breaking our leverage to extract better terms and, in general, selling out this country for short term corporate gains (only to see them make a home overseas to avoid taxes). Making our middle class compete against Chinese kids, folks in labor camps, and all the rest making 30 cents an hour. They actually call it progress, I don't. To me, progress would be having those folks come closer to our standards -- but that was not the intent or design of trade deals, was it? No, it was about the eternal goal of corporations -- cheap labor.
They don't seem to see (or care) that a strong middle class drives growth, and that you can't just loan broke people more money forever. They don't seem to care about 20 years from now, but only the next quarter. And, they don't seem to give a damn about the world they leave for our kids (Drill baby, drill! Take it all today for me! AZ is actually selling all gov buildings to fill their budget gap this year, paying about 8.6% return -- which is way to high for a gov obligation, so it's basically giving away tax dollars to friends -- to lease it back so they can make Grover Norquist happy and not break a no-tax pledge. Steal from tomorrow, to pay for today).
I get mad that anesthesia is no longer covered by insurance, which means that many poor women choose not to pay 2 months pay to reduce pain during childbirth (in exchange for a half an hour of a doctor's time). I get mad that, in the individual market, maternal care is not covered because it is a 'chosen condition'. All these types of things were a given to my parents 30 years ago, and they were kids with little to offer the world in the financial sense. But, the system made things humane because they had values. Hospitals were run by churches and non-profits, and gave a damn about people. Now, those same churches tell us to beat the hell out of poor people -- it blows my mind.
I get frustrated that our food is no longer food, produced in labs instead of fields. Very little nutrition is available in 90% of the products offered, yet you'd think it could cure cancer by reading the labels. Meanwhile, a huge number of people get diabetes, which works well for drug makers.
I hope we can regress, if that is what you call it, to a point where people and institutions in this country allow others to live with dignity and respect. I am more than willing to get there by (political) force, if that is what it takes. At this point, there's such a sense of entitlement in the upper class (Wall Street, Ins co's, defense contractors...), that is exactly what I suspect it will take.
Our political system is so corrupted by money, that we have 'grassroots' campaigns to protect huge corporations who are the only ones doing well these days... Getting those squeezed by these facts-of-life to blame those below them on the food chain for their sorry state, instead of the corporate power that owns our gov and takes all the wealth we create. A sad state, really. But, what is there to do, except try to make it better? Submit to it?
I don't have it in me. I only grow more determined with each indignity suffered by my fellow travelers.