(no subject)
Thinking about picking up my NaNoWriMo project from last year or the year before (can't remember which) and reworking it. Been having a lot of ideas for worldbuilding. Aiming for a mixed fantasy setting rather than just European. Need to do a lot of research to pull that off well.
I'm getting less and less hopey-changey as time goes on with the current administration. I know it's only been just over half a year, but the executive branch has backed off on a lot of campaign promises so far. Add to that the fact that Obama himself is so fucking wishy-washy on the public option for health care, which was one of his primary issues and a major reason for his backing by progressives, and we have a whole mess of not hopey-changey. Health care reform without a public option or HEAVEN FORBID a single-payer system is no reform at all. Bipartisanship is a high ideal, but we don't need it. (Unless you believe Senator Grassley and others that we need 75-80 votes in the Senate.) In fact, it's killing the bill altogether. Republicans in the Senate, at least, want reform that doesn't hurt the insurance companies.
Well, guess what. The insurance companies have to be hurt. It's not a health system. It's a wealth system. The insurance companies are only willing to insure those that are already well so as to make as much money possible with spending as little as possible. So many people end up in debt because of hospital bills, and we're turning a blind eye to it because we want to save a broken industry? Wasn't this the thing the right had against the bailouts?
Not to mention, of course, the circus that is the town hall meetings that the media has paid so much attention to. Accusations of Nazism, comparisons of Obama to Hitler, people carrying loaded guns, talk of death panels, talk of mandatory sex-change operations (GENDER REASSIGNMENT SURGERY THANK YOU), of mandatory abortions... A woman stood before Representative Barney Frank, a Jewish man, and said to his face that Obama was Hitler and we're being led by the Nazis.
Nazis and Hitler are not abstract ideas. They are not a boogeyman to be used to scare people. Their terrible acts are not just some fiction. They were real people NOT SIXTY FIVE YEARS AGO. That is not a long time at all. Their effects are felt to this day by the members of Jewish families who lived through the Holocaust. Hitler is not Napoleon. He is not Robespierre. He is not Nero. He is not so distant as to have no effect on people living today. (Also, he didn't provide health care to Germany. According to wiki, Germany had health care under Bismarck. So um WTF people?)
Also, socialism. Not always a bad thing. It's exactly the inverse of capitalism. Capitalism is seen by some as a system that has no flaws. It does. It's used to exploit underdeveloped countries. People are fucking greedy, okay? It's a cardinal sin for a reason. (Not that I believe in the concept of sin anymore.) If left to their own devices, some people will take full advantage of everyone around them until they have every cent from everyone possible.
Also, socialism provides things like roads and food stamps and financial aid for schools and national parks and Medicare. (I still can't believe people were worried over the government getting their hands on Medicare after the health care debate was over. IT'S A GOVERNMENT PROGRAM AND ALWAYS HAS BEEN. HOLY FUCK.)
But really, I'm feeling kinda drained of my hopey-changey feelings. The administration hasn't done much to fulfill its promises on transparency in the executive branch; there's been no talk on DADT for months; the Department of Justice released a second statement on DOMA only mildly better than the first but still no word on working to repeal it; health care has overshadowed every other major issue right now and the President doesn't even seem to be that committed to it. The only good thing that I can think of at the moment that has recently come out of the executive branch is Secretary Clinton's work on women's rights in the Congo. Of course, the mainstream media's been ridiculing her for her reasonable answer to a mistranslated question. (I say "reasonable" because here is a woman in a real position of power whose husband's politics have always overshadowed her own in the public arena who is asked what her husband thinks about the situation when it is HER opinion that should have been asked for. Granted, the original question was about Obama and not her husband but was misinterpreted by the translator.)
Anyway, I'm tired, so in summary, FUCK IT! WHEN CAN I MOVE TO CANADA OR THE UK? I hear there's lovely health care in those places and more tolerance for gays so hey, win-win. Except they're both ZOMG SOCIALIST HILTER COMMIE PINKO NATIONS WITH DEATH PANELS AND LONG LONG LINES AND BOOGITY BOOGITY BOO
I'm getting less and less hopey-changey as time goes on with the current administration. I know it's only been just over half a year, but the executive branch has backed off on a lot of campaign promises so far. Add to that the fact that Obama himself is so fucking wishy-washy on the public option for health care, which was one of his primary issues and a major reason for his backing by progressives, and we have a whole mess of not hopey-changey. Health care reform without a public option or HEAVEN FORBID a single-payer system is no reform at all. Bipartisanship is a high ideal, but we don't need it. (Unless you believe Senator Grassley and others that we need 75-80 votes in the Senate.) In fact, it's killing the bill altogether. Republicans in the Senate, at least, want reform that doesn't hurt the insurance companies.
Well, guess what. The insurance companies have to be hurt. It's not a health system. It's a wealth system. The insurance companies are only willing to insure those that are already well so as to make as much money possible with spending as little as possible. So many people end up in debt because of hospital bills, and we're turning a blind eye to it because we want to save a broken industry? Wasn't this the thing the right had against the bailouts?
Not to mention, of course, the circus that is the town hall meetings that the media has paid so much attention to. Accusations of Nazism, comparisons of Obama to Hitler, people carrying loaded guns, talk of death panels, talk of mandatory sex-change operations (GENDER REASSIGNMENT SURGERY THANK YOU), of mandatory abortions... A woman stood before Representative Barney Frank, a Jewish man, and said to his face that Obama was Hitler and we're being led by the Nazis.
Nazis and Hitler are not abstract ideas. They are not a boogeyman to be used to scare people. Their terrible acts are not just some fiction. They were real people NOT SIXTY FIVE YEARS AGO. That is not a long time at all. Their effects are felt to this day by the members of Jewish families who lived through the Holocaust. Hitler is not Napoleon. He is not Robespierre. He is not Nero. He is not so distant as to have no effect on people living today. (Also, he didn't provide health care to Germany. According to wiki, Germany had health care under Bismarck. So um WTF people?)
Also, socialism. Not always a bad thing. It's exactly the inverse of capitalism. Capitalism is seen by some as a system that has no flaws. It does. It's used to exploit underdeveloped countries. People are fucking greedy, okay? It's a cardinal sin for a reason. (Not that I believe in the concept of sin anymore.) If left to their own devices, some people will take full advantage of everyone around them until they have every cent from everyone possible.
Also, socialism provides things like roads and food stamps and financial aid for schools and national parks and Medicare. (I still can't believe people were worried over the government getting their hands on Medicare after the health care debate was over. IT'S A GOVERNMENT PROGRAM AND ALWAYS HAS BEEN. HOLY FUCK.)
But really, I'm feeling kinda drained of my hopey-changey feelings. The administration hasn't done much to fulfill its promises on transparency in the executive branch; there's been no talk on DADT for months; the Department of Justice released a second statement on DOMA only mildly better than the first but still no word on working to repeal it; health care has overshadowed every other major issue right now and the President doesn't even seem to be that committed to it. The only good thing that I can think of at the moment that has recently come out of the executive branch is Secretary Clinton's work on women's rights in the Congo. Of course, the mainstream media's been ridiculing her for her reasonable answer to a mistranslated question. (I say "reasonable" because here is a woman in a real position of power whose husband's politics have always overshadowed her own in the public arena who is asked what her husband thinks about the situation when it is HER opinion that should have been asked for. Granted, the original question was about Obama and not her husband but was misinterpreted by the translator.)
Anyway, I'm tired, so in summary, FUCK IT! WHEN CAN I MOVE TO CANADA OR THE UK? I hear there's lovely health care in those places and more tolerance for gays so hey, win-win. Except they're both ZOMG SOCIALIST HILTER COMMIE PINKO NATIONS WITH DEATH PANELS AND LONG LONG LINES AND BOOGITY BOOGITY BOO