Keith Hudson wrote: > (CR) > >That's very good, but IIRC, you also suggest privatization. The latter > >is counter-productive, as it maximizes short-term profits instead of > >long-term public health. > > There is no reason why health should not be privatised. The evidence (from USA and other places) and logic suggest the contrary. > The NHS in England > was founded on the naive assumption that if a sufficiently comprehensive > service were provided then illness could be permanently banished and then > the NHS could be gradually cut back to a skeleton organisation. Those who > said that this was rubbish were ignored. You keep missing the point: The NHS is based on a flawed paradigm, but so is private "healthcare" (even worse) -- tinkering with symptoms instead of addressing the causes. The cure is a paradigm change, not privatization. > There is a myth these days that the pre-NHS private health services in the > England were in some terrible dark ages in which only the rich were able to > be treated. In fact, three quarters of the population were medically > insured and voluntary hospitals supplied equivalent attention for the > indigent. In the USA these days, much less are insured and you can't count on voluntary hospitals at all (the last few are being shut down). The result is a humanitarian desaster (but hardly reported by the corporate press). Btw, your comparison with the pre-NHS (19th century) era also ignores the boom of "civilization illnesses" that has happened since then. > (CR) > >The people who "treat" you with > >radiation don't know or care about the causes of your prostate cancer.) > > I'm afraid that you also have a naive view of illness. Prostate and other > cancers, as well as a great many other illnesses, are inevitable, even in a > "perfect" environment (whatever that is). Totally untrue! Diet, lifestyle and enviro/occupational exposures greatly influence the personal risk for prostate and other cancers, as well as a great many other illnesses. Not only in prevention, but also in treatment -- i.e.: Even if you already got cancer, you can significantly slow down the growth and spread of cancer by changing your diet, lifestyle and toxic exposures! If you don't believe me, read the well-referenced summary "Diet and Prostate Cancer" by the Physicians' Committee for Responsible Medicine at http://www.pcrm.org/health/Preventive_Medicine/prostate_cancer.html and for detailled dietary advice (on which foods to avoid, which to eat, which vitamins to supplement etc.), see the great CyberDiet pages on prostate cancer at http://www.cyberdiet.com/modules/pros/outline.html So Keith, for your own survival's sake, listen to me and drop your dogma that you have uncritically soaked up from the corporate PR (like your other dogmas on privatization, Free Trade and CO2, where others will pay with their health/life). > Deconstructing the welfare state will have to be done by governments and, > indeed, this is now being started in a faltering way by the American and UK > governments. The rest of the EC is, however, is at present digging itself > into a deeper pit with even more "rights" for workers. This is why > investment is increasingly fleeing Europe and heading for the UK and America. Only when the last tree is cut, the last river is poisoned, and the riots overwhelm the last robocop, will they realize that you can't eat money... > >> >> [KH describes mafia brothels enslaving xx,000s of illegally imported > >> >> girls from Eastern Europe and complains that the police ignores it] > >> (CR) > >> >Now you suddenly call for trade barriers. Tss tss... > (KH) > >> I'm saying that the mafia are evil influences in society. > (CR) > >Al Capone said: "All I ever did was supply a demand that was pretty popular." > > Yes, indeed. The nonsense of the American Prohibitiion era are being > repeated all over again. See, you are calling for unhampered Free Trade of sex slaves. > (KH) > >His modern "colleagues" would surely agree -- those Russians etc. saw this > >business opportunity offered by "free trade" and grabbed it. Ethics and > >scruples?? Nah, that's not what Free Trade is about! > > Well-organised criminals (in distinction to indiviual offenders) will > always take advantage of nonsensical government laws. They take advantage of nonsensical (or rather, criminal) laissez-faire "Free" Trade and out-of-democratic-control corporate feudalism which you are advocating. Chris
