Family Values

If conservatives are so pro “family values” (as much as I hate using that “morally”-charged term), they should not be so anti-illegal immigration, since deporting illegal immigrants often breaks up families and even leaves kids stranded in the US without their parents taking care of them. How’s that for family values?

 

Yet Another Reason Health in the US is Shit

Front page of the New York Times today: Surgeon General Sees 4-Year Term as Compromised

No surprise, I suppose, but politics has been influencing health policies. There are many things I would like to rant about, but I think just reading the article should give you an idea of what is wrong with our government. For example, I have long been against abstinence-only sex education – and not because I believe in free love and all that, but because I know that it doesn’t work. Haven’t our politicians been teenagers, too? Don’t they know what it’s like to live with all those hormones? Pandering to the religious isn’t as important as protecting people from STDs, unwanted pregnancies, and AIDS (which is, I suppose, also an STD). I’m sure it’s the money behind it – always the money – but you’d think there’d be a shred of true morality there – something ethical that puts all the people above some of the people. Science over opinion and politics. Yes, science – because science is about facts, and politics is about opinion, smoke and mirrors, manipulation, and lies.

 

Sicko – It Just Makes Me Sick To Know That Money Is The Bottom Line

One of the most horrifying movies I’ve ever seen. I can honestly say I never want to have to pay for medical care, but since I’m reasonably sure I want karate and jiu jitsu to remain a part of my life, I know I’ll be seeing the doctor often, even if just to make sure I’m not broken. And what easier way to do that than moving to another country with better healthcare. Even one that isn’t socialized, as I hear that, say, Chile offers better healthcare than we do.

One of the most memorable moments in Sicko was the observation that the governments of countries like France fear the people. But Americans fear their own government. I’ve been to protests. I know. When I’ve marched, at least, there wasn’t a moment when I wasn’t afraid of being arrested, even though I never broke the law since I respect it. I promise you I saw cops on NYC rooftops looking down on us holding guns large enough for me to see from the ground (I want to say they were snipers, but I might be wrong). Fear of being shot at – having a horse crush me, since the police pushed the horses into the crowds – being arrested and not having my parents know where I was (yeah, that happened to other people too) – fear of exercising my First Amendment right.

Sicko left me feeling a bit in-between. I’ve still got time to decide, I know, what to do with my life, and lately I’ve really been considering becoming a lawyer, particularly with the bullshit the Supreme Court has been pulling out of its wrinkled ass lately (which I may discuss later when my angry ranting becomes coherent). I love our Constitution and I hate to see it get trampled by ideology and ignorance of facts. In any case, I was thinking I would like to become a lawyer and maybe work with the ACLU, and Sicko of course would make me want to help people beat health insurance companies and get a chance to live. But there’s so much wrong with this country, I think sometimes, that maybe it’s better to leave it? But then it’ll never change if everyone who could have helped leaves. I wish I had a thousand lives, there’s so many problems in the world that one person and one lifetime isn’t enough to fix it all.

What Sicko also reminded me of, and I think what Michael Moore was trying to get at, was that regular American people can be really nice. We see the 9/11 rescue workers that got shafted by the government. We see families just trying to get by and take care of themselves. We see doctors helping people who’ve been dumped in LA by companies like Kaiser. And we see those who once served the big Dollar Sign repenting in a way.

Anyway, it seemed to me that doctors in countries with socialized medicine got to do their jobs, get paid, and never feel guilty that they had to turn away someone when they needed help. I have enough friends doing pre-med in the States for me to know that money is a big deal when it comes to being a doctor. Why? Because they study so hard for it? I’m sure there are other Ph.D.’s that have a comparable amount of work…but I won’t argue that writing a paper can be compared to saving a life. My point is, without the emphasis on getting paid that gets placed on medicine, as in our country, doctors are free to do what they were trained for. Could that be more rewarding than the big checks written in blood? Ha, that may be overstating it, but knowing that people have died from lack of medical care in the United States is heartbreaking. Especially because no one ever sees it coming.

Lastly, I think it’s about time “socialism” lost some of its stigma. Politicians throw “socialism” and “liberal” around like they were curse words, when they aren’t, and making an argument using charged words like that is flawed reasoning. Seriously. No more straw man arguments from the people that hold life and death in their hands.

Update: Just if you want another perspective on the movie, check out this site. While I don’t approve of the site’s title (makes it seem way too biased…but I guess that makes it easier to Google), I think the article was a nice perspective from the other side.

 

“Who’s Malcolm X?”

I went to Barnes and Noble today. I don’t know whether to feel good or bad about that. They’re selling some nice, cheap compilations of books like Douglas Adams’s Hitchhiker’s Guide books and the Chronicles of Narnia. Lovely. But it only costs…NOTHING…to borrow those from my town library.

Anyway, as I was scanning over the books in the Summer Reading section – and marveling at the Newbery Award Winners that my classmates and I used to always flock to (but I never liked Number the Stars despite that nice cover and reading it twice) – I noticed two things: (1) I am too old to be looking at those books, even if it is for professional purposes (come on, if I wanna write, I gotta get a feel for the market) (2) Some people – not all, just some – are…stupid? Ignorant? Sheltered? Just not interested? I think the right word falls somewhere between stupid and innocent, no matter how cruel that might sound. Yet – granted – I may have misinterpreted this situation completely.

So, I moved away from the Summer Reading table when I noticed that a mom and her son (who was probably 3 feet tall) were looking at them. Earth to me – I’m too old to hang around there. So I moved to the next table over to check out the slightly more sophisticated YA books (which I am not too old for, I hope). The mom and her son followed, and as they checked out some books, he asked her, “Mom, who’s Malcolm X?” – And she said, “I’m not sure.”

Now, there are a few possibilities I can think of for this answer:
1) She knew who Malcolm X was but didn’t feel like going into it. Not likely – because they weren’t talking about anything else and weren’t exactly in a rush to buy books and leave. They were definitely taking their time looking.
2) She wanted to shield her son from the truth. After all, Malcolm X is associated with a hard period in American history – the civil rights movement. And violence, and assassination. But, what’s wrong with just giving a simple answer, like he was trying to work for equality for blacks?
3) She actually WASN’T SURE who Malcolm X was.

This woman was probably in her thirties, late thirties, I would say, and being non-white, she might have been an immigrant (my parents, as immigrants, didn’t know about Malcolm X until after they had lived here for a while, since he was before their time). But her English was perfect, as was her son’s, and I gotta say – how can you live in the US and be non-white and not know who Malcolm X was?

I’ll tell you how. From personal experience anyway. When I was in school, the Civil Rights movement was always crammed into the end of the year – I don’t think my class ever got much further than Nixon when we studied the presidents – everything after him was a bit of a review. The most I remember about Malcolm X were a few paragraphs in our textbook and nothing else. Of course, they always have you learn about Martin Luther King, Jr., in school, but never Malcolm X. Who’s making it this way? Teachers, who don’t want to put “violent” ideas in children’s heads? Politicians, who don’t want children to see every facet of history? Maybe it’s something to do with the Jesus figure that King is made out to be in schools. I’m not saying he wasn’t great, because I whole-heartedly agree with the nonviolent take he had on civil rights, but no mention is ever made of his extramarital affairs, or of the FBI’s heinous attempts to discredit him by investigating his personal life. I guess Malcolm X would have fit even less easily into the savior mold. But that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t teach students about him…

And, anyway, this isn’t just about not knowing who Malcolm X is. It’s about not knowing a lot of things. Not knowing the difference between Sunnis and Shiites, for example (which the Daily Show once hilariously…and helpfully…covered). Not knowing that the Vice President is part of the executive branch. Or pretending not to know, as this mother I overheard might have been doing. Which is worse?