> I'm glad to see fellow MM fans aren't displaying the stereotypical
"indie"
> attitude of a nihilistic "who gives a f-ck" ethos. I'm glad to hear about
> your critical attitudes for Al Gore. In fact, speaking of the Green
party,
> a campus club that I've been volunteering for is apparently going to
> actually get Nader to come to our campus (which is generally pretty
> conservative). This wil be awesome and allow a "different" perspective to
be
> communicated. Mind you, I am not a card-carrying member of the Green
party.
> In fact, I don't believe in modern "laissez fare" privatization, blah,
blah,
> blah, forms of capitalism. I guess I am a socialist at heart.
Nevertheless
> chancg is good in any form, and I'm thinking that it just might be worth
> getting the party's platform conveyed to the general populace....
this girl nikki that i write to every now and then used to talk about
socialism and how she believes in it, etc and a long time ago i used to
think "ok, this is stupid. socialism isn't a good thing" and in some ways
it's not, but in general i've changed my mind about it.
when my mom had her 40th birthday, it was a real turning point in my life
and how i look at socialism as well as communism. now it's true, communism
will never work and really, why would anyone want communism to work? i
wanna get money for the work i do - i just want my money fair and square,
which will probably never happen. as for socialism, i feel like only the
most intelligent people and sound mathematicians could make it work in as
big of a place as the US. in a place like sweden, i'd have no reservations
about having to deal with socialism on a daily basis. they're forced to
take vacations; they have to take time off after they have children; they
have universal healthcare. and as far as communism goes, the US assumes
cuba is so awful, but there are so many opportunities for college students,
not to mention they have excellent music programs AND, of course, they have
universal healthcare.
back to why my mother's 40th birthday was such a turning point and why i
stress universal healthcare as much as i do: when my mom turned 40, we
didn't have insurance. i had medicaid, which - if you've ever been on
medicaid - makes it really hard to find a decent doctor that will accept
such insurance. it's not like HMOs are any better, but it's an
improvement. (does anyone know what ever happened to dental insurance by
the way? ;) i guess getting a filling is no longer a necessity (as
opposed to sitting around, waiting for the root canal), but rather an
honor!) unfortunately for her, she didn't have medicaid. see, i had some
children's version of medicaid that i was able to have, but she wasn't able
to get it because she's working lower-middle class therefore making just
enough to not be qualified to get it herself. to translate: when it was
time to get a mamogram she wasn't able to, and people have said before
"well, there are free clinics you can go to to get that done." well, there
are, but not in my town with a population of 3,600. i've also heard "your
mom can drive to champaign or bloomington and go to one of the clinics
there." yeah, she could do that except she never has time, being that she
works 40+ hours a week most of the time not to mention she has to come home
to be a mom. eventually she was able to go to bloomington and get a
mamogram and all that good stuff on a new program that illinois has
developed for lower-class women, so yay. but that doesn't make up for not
being able to stay in our town and get it done here with non-discriminating
insurance. i'm not ashamed to say i had to go on medicaid because i know
my mother works very hard day in and day out, but every day it irks me that
we're one of the only countries in the world besides like samalia or some
place like that, that doesn't have universal healthcare. maybe if we
elected gore he could develop something like it, but i think nader is the
only one who could do that unless we developed a really stable version of
socialism or something. i know that nader would probably never make it
into office even though he's highly respected by pretty much everyone
including other politicians, journalists, and basically anyone who's heard
of him, but i hope that gore, if elected, will come up with some sort of
program that resembles the good things about socialism such as universal
healthcare.
- amy
