(no subject)

[labellementeuse]

God. GOD. Can someone please explain to me why the words "socialised medicine" - oops, sorry, I meant "socialiZed medicine" - are so apparently terrifying to so many people? I was just watching this (Youtube trawling since everyone's talking about how hot Rachel Maddow is, which: so true, I may be in love) and, right: the point Buchanan seems to be making is that a federal programme which reduces the number of uninsured kids in America by half is *intrinsically* bad because it looks like/is creeping towards socialised medicine. Dude - if that's socialised medicine, doesn't that make socialised medicine a GOOD THING? kids with medical care? Isn't that a plus?

Every other developed nation - every single one - has some kind of public health care. The whole clip left me with the desire to shout at every American I know, just, what is WRONG with you people? (I mean, I like everyone on my flist and I respect you, but come on. COME ON. There is something SERIOUSLY wrong when the words "socialised medicine" are considered a good argument against *healthcare for children.*)

Comments

[bad-mushroom.livejournal.com]

Welcome to my life.

My personal favorite low in American politics, however, is the fact that the Republican party has recently decided that FDR was a "hero". Well, yes, but they've been basically calling him a dirty commie for the last half century. But the slightest sign of financial trouble? OMG HERO.

[labellementeuse.livejournal.com]

The finance thing is really just very... yeah. I mean, we're having our own little "Shit, we're really fucking dependent on the US market, how quickly can we diversify to China?!" economic panic of our own, which is really fucking with our election campaign too. But I haven't seen any reversals in national's (the bad guys) policies really, whereas there have been some interesting commitments from Labour (the good guys - who, um, obviously I'm going to think are more interesting than the bad guys.)

[bad-mushroom.livejournal.com]

And it's all Reagan's fault...which is funny, because guess who used to be the hero of the GOP?

[amarynth.livejournal.com]

Oh, he's still their hero. And probably will be for a while too. His actual positions don't matter much - for instance, apparently Reagan would never have allowed abortion to exist (he did) or sign an amnesty for illegal immigrants (he did).

[bad-mushroom.livejournal.com]

Gotta love it when they rewrite history.

[amarynth.livejournal.com]

Never mind that, they've been calling Truman a hero since the 1960s, and even JFK generally gets some love. Basically, once a Democrat has receded into the mists of history, they're felt to no longer be associated with the actual party and are safe to praise.

It has to be said though it's very hard to imagine Truman joining today's Democratic party.