Interesting but not uninformative opinion piece. Virtues include being pithy.
Interesting but not uninformative opinion piece. Virtues include being pithy.
http://artvoice.com/issues/v13n42/getting_a_grip
http://artvoice.com/issues/v13n42/getting_a_grip
http://artvoice.com/issues/v13n42/getting_a_grip
http://artvoice.com/issues/v13n42/getting_a_grip
Yeah, pretty much. There are some subtle points that could be quibbled (the surge capacity argument, for example), but the broader theme... pretty much.
ReplyDeleteOf course, if you try to point out any of this, you're "politicizing" the situation.
And not a goddamned thing is going to get done, as these same forces will ride to victory in 2014. And 2016.
I reserve some optimism for now, as there has been an almost immediate, pretty well covered and generally temperate and informed discussion of why you need 'excess' capacity, and why you need public health infrastructure and funding, not to mention research funding can't be measured in quarterly returns. We'll see. The inherent badness of the situation is that as long as people in the US get sick, there will be a public impetus to do something. The minute it goes back to just Africa/other countries, we'll be right back to same old same old.
ReplyDeleteI don't share your optimism. Rather, I see exactly the same trends that got us into this mess - the same constellation of relentless right-wing tactics that have enabled them to slowly strangle everything not useful to them, simply continuing.
ReplyDeleteAfter all, the 1% in Liberia aren't suffering from Ebola, not when they can hole up in their compounds or simply jet overseas to ride out the horror. Many of our 1% think no differently. It's the same attitude that allowed health care in many Red States to degrade to the point that white life expectancy in many of them is lower than Mexico. Ebola will be a useful tool to beat Obama with, but actually doing something about the underlying constellation of structural problems that got us here? Why? How does that affect the 1%? It really doesn't - not in Liberia, not here.
"Public health" is a problem for the masses in the favelas, not the beautiful people in the secured, fortified towers, with their helipads to private jets.
By in large, the last 15 years haven't shown me much reason for optimism on this front, except for when I underestimated the stupidity and incompetence of the princelings ( Romney's end-to-end fumbling in '12 will always still cause me to shake my head in wonder ). But the general trend I think is, at this point, starkly obvious. Enough time has passed to show the trends in economic and demographic measures of all kinds.
For fuck's sake, girls born today in large parts of (largely Red) America can expect a life expectancy no longer - or even shorter than their own mothers. We're fundamentally broken, and the people who did the breaking are winning. Why should we expect this latest crisis to change a thing?
I need to hope sometimes. Reality bites.
ReplyDelete(nods)
ReplyDeleteI think one of the most important lessons my patients and their families have taught me, is that realistic hope is a good thing. Unrealistic hope, hope that is denial, is not merely harmless, but in the end, always a bad thing.
Unrealistic hopes cause us to squander time we don't actually have. Squander resources we can't actually spare. Cause us to focus on things and people we, when the end comes, regret wasting what hours we had left on.
I think the experiences of my patients have taught me that the truth - the truth of where you are, where you are going, how long you might have left, and who your friends and enemies are - is pretty much always for the best.
Wow, Turin turambar's comment is something special. #converted school bus with bars on the windows
ReplyDeleteAre you going to make me read the comments?
ReplyDeleteLook what you did. I read the comment. Predictably, my insightful and maturely considered response thereto is frak you.
ReplyDeleteF-L Silver sorry. At least it was just the one?
ReplyDeleteOh, I meant frak you towards the commenter, not you. Stupid context.
ReplyDeleteYou know, I thought Frak you to me for that one would be totally appropriate in this case (although, hopefully, in a joking kind of a way).
ReplyDelete