The World is Awash With Cash.
Richard Mellor
Afscme Local 444, retired
Just a reminder of how some of our tax dollars are spent. NBC interviewed some of these guys and we published the drone letter to Obama some time ago. Obama was indeed the drone king while claiming, as they all do, how careful and humane US imperialism's brutal illegal wars are and how we are the "good guys".
It might seem unrelated but I watched a very good film the other day about homes for people with Alzheimer's and it was called Alive Inside. It is a condemnation of what they call nursing homes and in this case homes for people with Alzheimer's disease. It shows how playing music to Alzheimer sufferers literally wakes them up. History is gathered about their lives, their likes, their background and music that they loved or from their era is played for them. It's quite stunning to watch it and it's cheap treatment. All that is needed is an Ipod and a set of headphones.
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| See here |
Medicine in the US is a business, a barbaric system indeed, certainly not a civilized or humane way of dealing with the health and care of citizenry. But that's capitalism.
The problem with the show is that like all these expose's of the rotten nature of the system, it doesn't have an answer. There is no alternative (or TINA as the butcher Thatcher put it) but to beg and plead and hope the powers that be will hand over a few crumbs.
I think the movie points out that there are 1.6 million people in these homes and 10 million family members trying to take care of them.
But in the end the movie fails us. The narrative is that American culture is wrong or that we don't do that here . Then there is the claim that there are "no resources" which of course is simply not the case. The narrator talks of having to "find a way to help them age in a healthy manner.".
But if one starts from the position that there are no resources or that our society is not geared that way, there is no possible solution to this problem. The US spends trillions of dollars waging a reign of terror around the world bombing countries and populations indiscriminately. The result of this is hatred toward all Americans. We are despised throughout the world except for dictators, bootlickers wanting cash that our government hands to nations that will support the US at the UN and other terrorist groups that act as proxies.
Then there is more trillions stashed away in tax havens and the like by corporations and individuals, one estimate putting the corporate stash in the region of $26 trillion.
The advantage of drone strikes for the US ruling class of course is it is less costly than boots on the ground and the cost of medical care for the injured. The greater part of the US population will keep their mouths shut about the (mostly) illegal US massacre of the world's people as long as the US death count is low. Wars are fine when the others dies in droves.
Obama was the king of the drone killings, As he reportedly told senior aides in 2011: “Turns out I’m really good at killing people. Didn’t know that was gonna be a strong suit of mine.”
The Drone Papers reveal great deal about these supposedly highly accurate strikes. Here is the letter to Obama from drone operators that we published on this blog.
The cost of US foreign policy in the form of human life and environmental destruction and human life is massive. Iraq has been destroyed as a nation state with some million deaths and many more injured. There are many more deformed like the children born in Fallujah and others fled as refugees. Remember, this is a country that never threatened the US in any way. Bush, Obama, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Cheney, Albright and Hillary Clinton are all war criminals, a few of them anyway.
Then there is the 17 year war in Afghanistan that the US cannot win.
I am just using the blog to vent a little here. But when we hear talk about the lack of resources or lack of funds and so one whether it is related to health care, elderly care, education, infrastructure whatever social necessity is being denied by this lie; we must at the very least in our own minds, reject it. When members of your local council claim the "money's not there", call them out. When any politician academic, lecturer co-worker or friend, parrots such a claim, counter it.
What we see in that film about Alzheimer patients or any news account of how bad the roads are, health care is, how the housing crisis and homelessness is an epidemic, fiercely challenge this false narrative. That is fake news par excellence.
What a burden a sick loved one is on a family in our society, I am sure most people would prefer resources being spent helping families provide a humane environment for their loved ones in these situations.. The resources that are spent in destructive ways, our collective wealth created by the collective labor power of workers in the US and throughout the world, could be spent this way, providing help in the home, providing those trained in the field whenever needed with advice and more. The other aspect of providing a family with assistance would be shortening the workweek reducing the hours spent at work and increasing leisure time and time people can spend in other ways. Decent social housing as opposed to homeowners having to pay moneylenders for the rest of their lives or renters handing over 70% of their paychecks to the greedy clutches of the landlords would go a long way in providing a more human existence for the sick and for the rest of society
The most important thing is to reject it in our own minds; to reject that there is no possible solution to any of our or the world's social problems, hunger, disease, war, etc. without the starting point being the system of production in which we live; how it works, who controls it and allocates the resources and so on. I understand the danger as then, like the alcoholic that rejects he/she is an alcoholic, surely one must act on it now one knows the truth. But that's the beauty of reality. It's tough, but healthier.
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