Health care system is evidence of class war

Joe,

First of all I want to tell you that I think you are the best, most informative and entertaining writer on the net at this time. (I know this sounds like sucking up, but it is true.) The first article I read by you was "The Covert Kingdom". Unfortunately, it was after the 2004 election and I could not forward it to anyone to try to change their vote. Anyway, the article "Madmen and Sedatives: Inside the Iron Theater" was just incredible. The first few paragraphs said what I have been feeling with such clarity that I think you were in my mind and were able to articulate it. My wife has told me that I am not much fun to live with anymore because I am such a "gloomy Gus" of late. I sent her the first five paragraphs and said "this is why I am the way I am". She now understands.

The topic that really gets me is health care. I am a social worker at a local mental health center in Southern Ohio. This area seems to mirror your Winchester in lots of ways. Our funding has been cut and we now cannot enroll people without insurance. Our local health clinic that served people without insurance is also getting their funding cut and will probably close. The evidence of a class war is so evident in this area. If you don't have insurance you don't deserve to live. It is getting harder and harder to get Medicaid in Ohio even if you are disabled, so go off and kill yourself or die of an easily treated disease. It seems to me that eventually only the super rich will be able to afford any sort of treatment. Maybe the people will wake up before then and rise up and change the system. And maybe monkeys will fly out of my butt as well.

Please keep up your writing. It is important and does touch peoples lives in a positive way. Also thanks for making me realize that I am a Socialist as well.

In Brotherhood,

Steve
Ohio

------

Dear Steve:

Ya know, all I do is write about what I see around me. And apparently millions of others see the same. Which would be nothing more than the traditional Emperor's New Clothes act, were it not for the growing climate of fear in this country.

Regarding health care, could we have expected anything else from free market capitalism? Rooted in the reptilian survival brain, it is deeply intelligent when it comes to fear, basic blood and shit survival truths and dominance as the ultimate issue of survival, amid shrinking resources. The reptilian eye of the dominant lizards sees the practicality of letting resource competition die off around them, whether in Darfur or Winchester, Virginia or South Central. From an ultimate survival standpoint they are exactly right. It's not just, but it is true that there are far too damned many humans on the earth, and it can openly get worse until most of them are removed. When ordinary Americans fail to acknowledge a Darfur, they are silently acknowledging that they understand and approve of genocide.

As much as I tend to attribute things to class issues, the reptilian brain is nevertheless equally distributed among us all. As to the health care issues, almost no one who has consistent and adequate health care gives a damned for those who do not. I don't see any nationwide middle class strikes on behalf of universal health care, even as toothless and sick people walk out streets in broad daylight for all to see. I am waiting for the same monkeys to fly out of my  ass as you are. In the mean, socialism seems the only real option. It is not the default politics of intellectuals, artists and thinking people worldwide for no reason.

I leave you with one of my favorite poems, "Why I voted the Socialist Ticket," by Vachel Lindsay, a man much out of fashion these days, but who seldom fails to move me.

I am unjust, but I can strive for justice.
My life's unkind, but I can vote for kindness.
I, the unloving, say life should be lovely.
I, that am blind, cry out against my blindness.

Man is a curious brute — he pets his fancies —
Fighting mankind, to win sweet luxury.
So he will be, tho' law be clear as crystal,
Tho' all men plan to live in harmony.

Come, let us vote against our human nature,
Crying to God in all the polling places
To heal our everlasting sinfulness
And make us sages with transfigured faces.

Vachel Lindsay

In brotherhood,

Joe