What do you mean?
3 Likes
Public school teachers are typically very politically involved, as their jobs rely on things like public funding and taxes. But they’re also too busy being teachers and helping kids to go on strike en masse.
6 Likes
Don’t get me wrong, its one of the most noble and human of professions, but between them and nurses, being somewhat fairly removed from the free market, are so quickly to dismiss the realities of people actually working in the free market.
Voting every 2 years and outraged linkbait online is not hugely political. It is much more political to know who is profiting off all your purchases and lifestyle.
Wealth inequity is so bad and wages are so low people can not afford shelter, education, or healthcare without government intervention. This hasn’t translated into any sort of growth for anyone other than those already wealthy. We are just consumer vehicles for them to subsidize themselves through.
1 Like
An isolated strike by teachers and nurses would be useless. A real general strike requires that sufficient numbers of the industrial workforce down tools that the entire economy grinds to a halt.
As I said, not a realistic possibility in the USA. You need large, powerful and politically engaged blue-collar unions in order to pull it off. The US ruling class dedicated the 20th century to destroying those unions.
9 Likes
My father’s been a public school teacher for 40 years.
He’s not blind to the realities of what you term “actually working” – as if his job doesn’t involve… work?
The teachers I know lead marches, petition school boards, attend public hearings, and are involved in local politics a bit more than posting “outraged linkbait”.
But y’know, keep digging that hole.
10 Likes
Well, I hope you are wrong, because the step past that is no good for anyone.
Untold numbers of Americans could die as a result of this legislation. Voting the bastards out is a laudable goal but it won’t make us “even” by a long shot.
11 Likes
However, attempting to inject Sanders…
I didn’t. Try again.
Actually as in the free market, not as in working. Your father sounds like a great fellow, I wish there were more like him. But it has not been my experience.
To clarify my statement about loosing the battle, she was nominated without protest, and is going to burn it to the ground. I am getting the impression that people are not grasping the gravity of damage this administration is about to unleash.
Uh. The healthcare provider industry is considerably more powerful than the health insurance industry. According to OpenSecrets:
Health Insurance Lobbying, 2016: $77,966,304
Healthcare Provider Lobbying, 2016: $179,704,701*
Health Insurance Cash Contributions, 2016: $28,313,659
Health Provider Cash Contributions, 2016: $176,750,012**
Combined Health Insurance Spending, 2016: $106,279,963
Combined Health Provider Spending, 2016: $356,454,713
Hell, the AMA is who killed single payer healthcare when Truman ran on it in the 50s. They called it socialized medicine and said the Truman administration were “followers of the Moscow party line.” They’ve been using that line now for 70 years!
The healthcare provider lobby are also the ones who successfully lobbied in the 70s and 80s to deregulate healthcare providers and kill off state price controls for healthcare that kept major cost increases from happening.
They’re the ones who rail against any kind of reform that might lower their receipts. That’s why we don’t have any of the sane cost control measures that every other country with universal healthcare has like standardized treatment plans that bias medical treatment towards the most those that have the best success-to-cost ratios.
I don’t think the health insurance industry are saints or anything, but way too much blame is foisted on them because that’s the bill most people pay despite the fact that they are only passing on the cost from healthcare providers.
Frankly, the strength of the healthcare provider lobby is one of the reasons I think Single Payer, even if we could get it implemented, would fail to show any cost reductions. For goodness sake, they lobbied Congress successfully every year for two decades to pass a “doc fix” which was really a massive increase in their reimbursement rates from Medicare.
* health professionals $84.8 million, hospitals/nursing homes, $94.9 million
** health professionals $136.3 million, hospitals/nursing homes, $40.4 million, nursing/dentist/chiropractor
1 Like
That is categorically false. There were mass call-in campaigns to those on the committee as well as marches against Ms DeVos.
7 Likes
Vote them out, to be mandated to buy insurance from the same industry, who will then take that new found profit to lobby for deregulation,…
This sounds like an incomprehensive plan, just voting them out is not enough
So things that can be ignored. It’s good to vent though, it’s healthy.
You’re joking, right? You’re moaning that Americans don’t get involved in politics, and you’re mocking people calling their representatives in Congress and marching on the Capitol. What would you suggest? Burning her house down?
10 Likes
I’d say more angry and spiteful than apathetic.
Unless he’s donating the type of money to sway elections, they could care less what any of us say or think.
Effecting their profit margin is the only real power any of us has. Coming full circle.
Justifiably angry, turning to spite in desperation.
The transfer of wealth and power to the aristocracy that has occurred over the last fifty years isn’t something that they’re imagining. Neither is the imminent environmental collapse.
I’m pretty spiteful myself, these days. We’ve tried all the solutions that you’re “supposed” to use, and they haven’t worked. We’re on a sharp downwards trajectory, and it doesn’t seem possible to divert it. Even pre-Trump, business as usual politics were accelerating us towards catastrophe.
I’m pretty much down to “fuck it, we’re doomed; just make sure you take some of those greedy bastards with you”.
4 Likes
That’s very ironic coming from someone posting Martin Luther King Jr. memes earlier in this thread. I don’t remember MLK buying politicians to sway opinions.
I’m genuinely baffled by where you’re going with any of this. First you say that we should boycott everything everywhere to prevent any money going into the pockets of politicians. Now you’re saying that the only way to effect change is to put money into their pockets. Are you just driving trollies, here, or do you have a concise point?
5 Likes
Why would you even mention a Senator in a discussion about a House vote?
2 Likes
