"We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark. The real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light." - Plato

Two thoughts:

-this divide and conquer thing. It's occurred to me that it works. Well, you might be thinking, "no shit Sherlock", but hear me out. Everybody says that's what the powers that be are doing, dividing us to conquer us. Even the conservatives on the right say it. Many are in effect positing that if we the people, the 99% (which is wholly inaccurate at this point) would just resist the efforts of our rulers to divide and conquer us, we could unite and march them into the Hague and ourselves into nirvana.

But the fact is that's not so easy because we are significantly divided. We're divided by beliefs, ideologies, how we think we should live, govern ourselves, organize society, our understanding of this country, what the flag really means, what our government really does, etc.

The "Flag Flap" is a good example. You've got a majority of the country believing people should respect the flag and stand for the national anthem, many believing you should get the fuck out if not, and a solid minority who believe people should be free to stand or not stand because the flag stands for freedom. Most of those who take that stance still believe our veterans fought and died for our freedumbs, which of course is crazy shit. Then you've got a small minority who believe they're all fucking crazy and have been brainwashed since birth to believe the illusions of manifest destiny, American freedom and spreading democracy.

That's a big divide.

So we can pretend that if we the people, the 99% that isn't really the 99%, can unite because we really all have something in common but are just being divided and conquered. But that kind of divide is going to be hard to close. In fact, that's the big problem. Most of the country is fucking brainwashed.

-Other thought:

I've wondered how this health care thing will work out when austerity is in the air. We've been under austere government practices regarding social programs in this country, with the sequester and the incredibly inept and corrupt Congress we rely on to manage this country and the capitalist system of high crimes and misdemeanors reaching hyperdrive. The same thing has been happening in Europe, i.e., the socialist tendencies have been giving way to global capitalist greed. The rich are winning and the rest of us are pawns waiting for our end fate.

Deep down, it hasn't made sense to me. How can we progress to a massive socialist program, i.e. a nationalized health care program eliminating major corporations and corporate power, under these conditions? We like to compare what Europe and others have but greed has no boundaries.

"Briefly, the health system in Europe seems to be working to finance the investments of large medical companies and gradually paving the way for ending the public health insurance system and turning it into a private sector.

The middle class, the poor and perhaps the majority of European society will be the victims of this dangerous trend in public health and medical treatment."

http://www.kawther.info/wpr/2017/09/26/the-collapse-of-eu-health-insuran...

Just a matter of time. Seems to me relying on Congress in this political system, under these global gangster capitalism conditions, all things considered, to enact a socialism oriented, national health care system eliminating the insurance corporations and neutering the power of the pharmaceutical and medical corporations, while greed has reached epic proportions, is a fantasy.

And that's what all the efforts to gain such a health care system are doing, trying to get Congress to do it by electing the right politicians. What an old story that is.

[video:https://youtu.be/6DYC61HzmtM]