Illusions and delusions

In an earlier post I was singing the praises of the NHS, while passing comment on the opposition to Obama's proposed health reforms. Now we have an article in the 'Guardian' which highlights the real extent of that opposition. "The industry and interest groups have spent $380m (£238m) in recent months influencing healthcare legislation through lobbying, advertising and in direct political contributions to members of Congress. The largest contribution, totalling close to $1.5m, has gone to the chairman of the senate committee drafting the new law."

Well, at one level the evidence would seem to suggest that the White House is already pulling back from the most significant reforms in order to ensure that the entire bill is not scuppered. Of course, at another level, the evidence also suggests that capitalism just doesn't work.

Here we have big money ensuring that big money stays big by ensuring that money finds its way into a select group of politicians pockets in one form or another. Further proof that capitalism works in the interest of capital and not in the interests of the people. The people in what is still one of the richest countries on earth will still suffer under a health system that is probably the worst in the developed world; 18,000 people are expected to die this year alone because of lack of health care. Of course, another thing we see is that even when the "hype" man pretends to offer hope, a scratching of the surface soon reveals the "hype".

The hope was always hype and we should have no illusions about those "powers that be". Indeed, and it would appear that the motley crew that makes up Big Pharma has long had the hype fellow in their pockets. Of course, with Big Oil we have a similar scenario and with General Stanley McChrystal's report revealing that 500,000 American troops will be required in Afghanistan, we really should be starting to give up our illusions and delusions regarding this fellow, all the more so because our quite wrong perceptions of what this man can actually do and our quite inappropriate belief in his ability to fulfill those misplaced perceptions, makes him actually more dangerous than the half wit who preceded him.

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tom-andrews/classified-mcchrystal-rep_b_298528.html