“Was not their mistake once more bred of the life of slavery that they had been living?—a life which was always looking upon everything, except mankind, animate and inanimate—‘nature,’ as people used to call it—as one thing, and mankind as another, it was natural to people thinking in this way, that they should try to make ‘nature’ their slave, since they thought ‘nature’ was something outside them” — William Morris


Thursday, March 28, 2019

This Is Why I Really Respect AOC

Unlike Sanders, who comes off elitist in his purity, she's ready to help people without much money have nice things, now. This was exactly why I loved and still love Obamacare. Try for national health and fail nobly? Millions of people die. Make a bit of a compromise? Succeed and set it up for people to start demanding more healthcare as their right.

What about progressive hopes for a more fundamental health care overhaul? Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez got it exactly right: While still calling for hearings on “Medicare for all,” she declared herself “happy to support any provision that strengthens the A.C.A. and plugs some of the gaps that we’re seeing.” (So far, Bernie Sanders has refused to support the plan. Let’s hope he walks that back.)  (Paul Krugman)


When I first arrived in America, from a country whose health care is way way more socialist than single payer, I was desperate for someone to say out loud how fucked it was that there was this "pre-existing conditions" thing. Like not even wealthy people who needed health insurance understood. Now they do. Good. Why? Obama. Yes. So now they're ready for Medicare for All or whatever. Respect to the Obamacare and for avoiding looking perfect and good and holy at the expense of real people's lives.

My friend's brother, a doctor, tried to charge me $250 for some sample antibiotics when I got sick. Coming from the UK, I was able to say fuck off really fast.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Hi Tim,

This is a relatively irrelevant question but i feel compelled to ask it regardless. Have you seen Ralph Bakshi's 'Wizzards' (1977) ?

Ps, I disturbingly enjoyed reading Being Ecological, wish I had found it sooner.

Regards,
Isaac Sweetapple

kimtrainor7 said...

hey tim, yes AOC -- first bright glimmer of hope in American darkness. (sean sweeney on the magical realism of GND is interesting. https://newlaborforum.cuny.edu/2019/02/19/green_new_deal/). I'm in the middle of reading dark ecology--and why not write author directly! I'm working towards the third thread, not there yet, intermittent reading on SkyTrain as works allows. In fact I'm working towards writing a poem on how poets seek the sweet honey of darkness (others just use lights, as my marxist friend texted me).... lovely intro to first thread reading of Tess--a joy to read. :)