I do try to respond to those gracious enough to join these commentaries, often I agree with what is said, often I do not; in either case, however, I am grateful for the discourse, the fellowship and the provocation.
I did try to respond to the later comments on the last thread, yesterday but cramming them into the accursed Blogger window, on the accursed i-thing, I lost them. The bulk of the thread initiated, I think, by ms lilith and echoed by mr jgm2,concerned private education, moved to the enquiries into historical paedophilia, sidetracking into mr richard's, non-statist perception of the NHS, in Ulster. Those repsosnes are amalgamated from memory, here, below, for those who are still interested.
The average person has fewer than two legs and although many would bridle at that information, it is clearly accurate and is a caution to us when we confuse average with normal. The average contribution, however, made by employed adults to the NHS, via their National Insurance deductions is, by the simple use of long division, easier to calculate and understand and amounts to just short of £800 per year.
I did try to respond to the later comments on the last thread, yesterday but cramming them into the accursed Blogger window, on the accursed i-thing, I lost them. The bulk of the thread initiated, I think, by ms lilith and echoed by mr jgm2,concerned private education, moved to the enquiries into historical paedophilia, sidetracking into mr richard's, non-statist perception of the NHS, in Ulster. Those repsosnes are amalgamated from memory, here, below, for those who are still interested.
The average person has fewer than two legs and although many would bridle at that information, it is clearly accurate and is a caution to us when we confuse average with normal. The average contribution, however, made by employed adults to the NHS, via their National Insurance deductions is, by the simple use of long division, easier to calculate and understand and amounts to just short of £800 per year.
Conventional cancer treatment costs £35,000 per year; dialysis costs £750 per week and a liver transplant £70,000; ante-natal appointments cost a couple a couple of hundred pounds whilst a normal delivery costs £2-3,000 and a caesarian section consideraby more; a broken leg can cost £3,000 and the long-term, twenty-four hour home care of disabled people can cost in excess of £100,000 per year, for decades; hip and knee replacements cost £6-10,00). GP appointments are variously calculated but an average cost would be around £40 per visit; many patients do not pay directly for prescriptions arising from such appointments and these can be costly and repeated. Diabetes is presently manageable but incurable and incurs life-long costs of medication, equipment, monitoring and often, even among patients with a well-controlled condition, the expensive treatment of complications. It may be the case, sometimes, that obesity, drink and indolence trigger diabetes, although in some cases, my own, for instance, it occurs spontaneously in otherwise healthy patients and/or, as in my case, where there is a genetic predisposition.
The wider costs of public health, include post-natal care, school nurses, PE and games, clean water, the dentist, clean air, a health and safety structure, a national veterinary system, a food inspectorate, widespread vaccination programmes, the safety of transport systems, vehicles and roads and the construction and policing of same; the safety of buildings generally, the integrity of sewage systems, of sports and leisure facilities and of the workplace - from which everyone alive benefits. It is clear, even to Reason's staunchest doubters, that our health and safety are contingent upon massive state investment in an encyclopaedic range of structures, measures, facilities, regulations and personnel and that, therefore, the £800 per year contribution, nominally ascribed to health care is preposterously inadequate, insufficient to pay for even our useage of the NHS, never mind all the other stuff which keeps us safe.
mr richard, in his last comment, on the previous thread, said, inter alia:
..... Round our way a four to eight hour wait in casualty is not unusual but a private medical policy, costing less than your N.I., gets you seen straight away. By the same doctor. ......richard on SID FARAGE TO SUCCEED CLARKSON IN TOP QUEER.
..... Round our way a four to eight hour wait in casualty is not unusual but a private medical policy, costing less than your N.I., gets you seen straight away. By the same doctor. ......richard on SID FARAGE TO SUCCEED CLARKSON IN TOP QUEER.
And so it may, this private medical policy, help jump a tiresome queue but it won't do anything else, certainly will not improve the health infrastructure, in fact misuses, parasitically, a resource - the trained doctor and probably premises and facilities - long ago paid for by the taxpayer and is adding-to rather than decreasng waiting times.
BigMed, in the form of the BMA and the medical colleges owns many or most in the legislature, a gathering of criminals which, itself, like many doctors, insists on the right to neglect its prime task but to use that position to facilitate the doing of private work at public expense. Jack Straw, sitting in his office, pimping his arse, is like your average, whoreson private surgeon.
A minimum condition of ishmaelia joining a coalition government would be that those practicing private medicine be immediately stripped of citizenship, of all national rights and privileges and permanently deported to any of those what we call third world countries which would accept them, there to work, unpaid, for the rest of their days; their assets nationalised and their families set to work in care homes, on the minimum wage.
See what that does to waiting lists.
The insurance trade works only on the basis that the fortunate outnumber the unfortunate, identifiable and assessable risk is pooled, in good faith, in the hope that those suffering misfortune can be compensated from just a portion of the monies derived from shared-risk premiums; this is all well and good with buildings and vehicles and aircraft and vessels but it does not and cannot apply to people. And by definition, therefore, those sickly or weak or inheritors of illness may not join in that sport; what do we do with them, the untouchables, the uninsurables? Do we let them die, put them in concentration camps, experiment upon them?
The insurance trade works only on the basis that the fortunate outnumber the unfortunate, identifiable and assessable risk is pooled, in good faith, in the hope that those suffering misfortune can be compensated from just a portion of the monies derived from shared-risk premiums; this is all well and good with buildings and vehicles and aircraft and vessels but it does not and cannot apply to people. And by definition, therefore, those sickly or weak or inheritors of illness may not join in that sport; what do we do with them, the untouchables, the uninsurables? Do we let them die, put them in concentration camps, experiment upon them?
And for most, the cost, anyway, of insuring against what we now consider normal, to-be-expected illnesses is prohibitive. mr richard might find he'd get his sprained ankle treated an hour or so sooner by a moonlighting, greedybastard quack but he and his might well prove an uninsurable risk otherwise; maybe his parents' medical history, maybe his postcode, maybe, shortly, his genetic profile; they simply won't insure you economically if they think you are going to be ill in a costly way; why would they? Only the state can provide comprehensive health care for its citizens, that state which, non-existent, according to mr richard, nevertheless intitiates and provides the national health, safety, care and wellbeing structures outlined above. Gosh, even mr jgm2's children will have been publicly vaccinated, screened and nurtured, even the little mongeese; all of our children survive birth and flourish thanks, not to BigSick but to the NHS, that filthy, interfering socialist device of enslavement, devised by traitors and tyrants..
Here is what I would do to improve the national health: BigSmoke owns many or most in our legislature, so a condition of my support for a coalition government would be, at the very least, the immediate execution of all LungDeath directors, investors and parliamentary spokespersons - especially Cool Ken Clarke - the seizure of all their assets at home or abroad and the employment of all their surviving relatives in restoring the nation's dry stone walls and when that task is completed, set them to decent, arse-wiping work, on the minimum wage, in the care homes.
We are very happy to bomb, burn and strafe anyone whom Barak Obama says is a terrrorist, some blackfellow, who may have killed no-one at all, may just be going to his kid's wedding, kill the bastard, that's what we say, he might be a terrorist, so that's good enough for me, eh. But BigSmoke drug peddlers, enslaving, addicting and killing millions all over the world, costing us an incalculable fortune, well, we soiree them in Downing Street and put them in the house of lordcrooks. Stand them on the fucking gallows, that's what they need, filthy bastards, let them stand there a minute and then kill them, before they kill millions more of us. Up against the wall, motherfuckerism is too good for them, hanging, that's the thing for war criminals. And if you don't think BigSmoke is at war with us then you're in the wrong place, my friend, you better leave.
See what that does for the national health.
See what happens to cardio-vascular disease, after we kill its servants. Oh, I know, 'ere we go, 'ere we go, 'ere we go, people have the right to poison themselves, people will always find a way, civil liberties, can't stop it blah blah blah, I pay for my cancer treatment through the tax on me fags. No you fucking don't, you stupid cunt. No, people don't have a right to poison themselves, no more than they had a right to own slaves, to bait bears with dogs, to subjugate women or send children down the fucking mines.
See what happens to cardio-vascular disease, after we kill its servants. Oh, I know, 'ere we go, 'ere we go, 'ere we go, people have the right to poison themselves, people will always find a way, civil liberties, can't stop it blah blah blah, I pay for my cancer treatment through the tax on me fags. No you fucking don't, you stupid cunt. No, people don't have a right to poison themselves, no more than they had a right to own slaves, to bait bears with dogs, to subjugate women or send children down the fucking mines.
I am sure that many of mr richard's troublesome neighbours will be overweight, unhealthy and suffering personality disorders, as are most people forced to consume poison on a daily basis.
We have kown since 1957 that refined sugar is a poison because it has been depleted of its life
forces, vitamins and minerals. "What is left consists of pure, refined
carbohydrates. The body cannot utilize this refined starch and
carbohydrate unless the depleted proteins, vitamins and minerals are
present. Nature supplies these elements in each plant in quantities
sufficient to metabolize the carbohydrate in that particular plant.
There is no excess for other added carbohydrates. Incomplete
carbohydrate metabolism results in the formation of 'toxic metabolite'
such as pyruvic acid and abnormal sugars containing five carbon atoms.
Pyruvic acid accumulates in the brain and nervous system and the
abnormal sugars in the red blood cells. These toxic metabolites
interfere with the respiration of the cells. They cannot get sufficient
oxygen to survive and function normally. In time, some of the cells die.
This interferes with the function of a part of the body and is the
beginning of degenerative disease."
Dangers of Refined Sugars, Global Healing Centre. And thousands upon thousands of others.
If someone tried to bring a product like refined sugar to the market, today, food and drug administrations and licensers all over the world would laugh at them. Youwannadowhat? Put six teaspoonsful of poison in every soft drink, every tin of beans, every hamburger meal?
Dangers of Refined Sugars, Global Healing Centre. And thousands upon thousands of others.
If someone tried to bring a product like refined sugar to the market, today, food and drug administrations and licensers all over the world would laugh at them. Youwannadowhat? Put six teaspoonsful of poison in every soft drink, every tin of beans, every hamburger meal?
BigSugar, though, historically owns the legislatura, a minimum condition, therefore, for us joining a coalition government would be the immediate lengthy imprisonment of SweetDeath directors, investors and parliamentary spokespersons, the employment of their relatives in restorative landscape projects, hedgerow and tree-planting and maintainance, as well as the siezure of all assets and the immediate closure of all refineries, plants and storage facilities and an outright ban on the use of refined sugars in processed foods and drinks.
See what that does to major organ disease, eh?
It is probably unfair of me, all this talk of criminalising criminals. All they're trying to do, after all, is what's best for their children, bless, LuvEm2Bits, they do, DoAnyfin4Em, MySon'E'sMoreLikeM'BestFriend.
Those people.
They went home to their kids, every night, those people who threw babies and children over the heads of their crammed-in parents and into the gas chambers. Probably played Schubert to them, later, their own children, wanted what was best for them.
Fuck that my kids uber alles shit.
Funny, how we, in the whaddayacallit, the West, the Free World, the Developed World, the Spied-Upon Democracies, how we grow more and more obsessed with the narcissistic worship of our own children, aspirational, that's the marketing term for this phenomenon, amogst the under-employed.
Even little fat fascist, Reg, he does it.
LuvEm2BitsMe, MyOtherPeople'sKids.
No-one ever comes right-out and says My Children Good, Your Children Bad, instead, they use words like clever and gifted and talented and special, they do actually say that, all squirmy and angry, I-Just-Don't-See-Why-Notting, as though their lives depended upon their children receiving special treatment, My Sasha is a really talented child, requires a place with other similarly gifted children, they really do say that, fucking Nazi bastards, mothers, generally, but fathers too. Fuck 'em, let em all fuck off to some fantasy island, down Branson way, where their talents will just magically summons an entire infrastructure from the jungle, without the employment of any nasty ordinary people, where no-one will ever have to pay any tax, and things will just be given to them, because they're, y'know, special and clever.
In the meantime, against that glorious day, we have, for the children of the special ones, the private schools.
mr jgm2, just the other day, was raging about his children's education. Well, I'm sorry but I already paid for his children's education, and their health care, as well as for that of my own child. I am sorry that while it was good enough for her, it is not good enough for them, life is full of unfairness - but then, on the other entitlement hand, I only had the one, you see, the one child, so maybe mr jgm2, having more than one, should, all things considered, send me a refund, that's the sense of it, isn't it, this idea that we deserve what we say we deserve and collective be damned. I deserve a refund from parents of multiple children. People with no children deserve a refund from me. I pay council tax for street lights, even though I live eight miles into the big dark, can I have a refund? No, of course I can't.
mr jgm2, by his own regular admission, has more, and therefore wants more, albeit just for he and his. But he shouldn't take it from me and that is what he is doing with the private school tax scam, he couldn't send his kids to a tax-exempt riding school, why should there be a favoured tax status for St Cakes?
In summary, then, the NHS is brilliant but flawed; the idea that it is funded from tiny NI contributions is risible but not as risible as the idea that, somehow, it can continue to operate without all of us accepting significant personal tax rises, without paying respectable salaries to its workers and without challenging entrenched BigDeath corporate interests which run our JackStraw parliament. Aside from smashing BigDeathCorp we should also demand, as a condition of our joining a coalition of national unity, that the businesses of those not paying tax - such as Amazon - be nationalised without compensation, their directors apprehended on international arrest warrants, tried and jailed for lengthy terms, their relatives put to arse-wiping, their personal fortunes absorbed by the NHS and any persons in government or HMRC who have facilitated the tax evasion be jailed for similar terms, their salaries and pensions forfeited and their relatives set, also, to arse-wiping duties in nationalised care homes.
See what that does for NHS funding crises, getting rich people to pay tax.
Private health care is both a drain on the NHS and an affront to Decency, there is no valid ethical or clinical argument to be made for it, and the notion that its customers use it altruistically, in order to free-up NHS beds, is contemptible, let them, too, fuck off to Fantasy private Island and fund their own health care system. See how long they survive that experiment, without labs and theatres and training funded by every other bastard.
The private education tax scam is intolerable and I am sick to fucking death of hearing some ponce headmaster ruminating that Well, actually he does, as with mr mike, for instance, take some children from poorer backgrounds, the cheeky cunt, who does he think he's talking to, fools? The private education scam is a racket whereby the undistinguished spawn of rich arseholes garner for themselves not an education but a lifetime of connection to unearned wealth and power, that would be just tolerable were these fucking spoiled idiots any good at power's exercise but they are not - see HM Governments 1900 - present.
As a minimun condition for joining a coalition of national unity we insist that all presently within the estates of them should be ejected from so-called public schools, whipped around the nearest town and set to arse-wiping duties, withour delay; their customers should be heavily fined; the properties and facilitities and grounds themselves, to be nationalised without compensation and used as educational, recreational or recuperative establishments for those in need - disdvantaged children, wounded soldiers, the terminally ill.
Finally, from the previous thread, ms lilith and I differed over the ongoing pursuit of the dead Savile, me acknowledging that he could never be other than innocent, she saying that his untriable crimes, if any, were minor, normal-for-then, groping and touching. My final point on that issue was, I think, that the Savile enquiries were necessary - not only for his victims, whom, ms lilith, I feel, disparaged unfairly and uncharacteristically, without knowing their evidence - insofar as they might lead to and corroborate evidence relating to the more serious, alleged Westminster Paedophile Murder Ring, might promote a climate in which a decent bobby or two or a decent lawyer would feel able to come forward.
PBC2 Newsnight reported that very development only last night.
See what that does to major organ disease, eh?
It is probably unfair of me, all this talk of criminalising criminals. All they're trying to do, after all, is what's best for their children, bless, LuvEm2Bits, they do, DoAnyfin4Em, MySon'E'sMoreLikeM'BestFriend.
Those people.
They went home to their kids, every night, those people who threw babies and children over the heads of their crammed-in parents and into the gas chambers. Probably played Schubert to them, later, their own children, wanted what was best for them.
Fuck that my kids uber alles shit.
Funny, how we, in the whaddayacallit, the West, the Free World, the Developed World, the Spied-Upon Democracies, how we grow more and more obsessed with the narcissistic worship of our own children, aspirational, that's the marketing term for this phenomenon, amogst the under-employed.
Even little fat fascist, Reg, he does it.
No-one ever comes right-out and says My Children Good, Your Children Bad, instead, they use words like clever and gifted and talented and special, they do actually say that, all squirmy and angry, I-Just-Don't-See-Why-Notting, as though their lives depended upon their children receiving special treatment, My Sasha is a really talented child, requires a place with other similarly gifted children, they really do say that, fucking Nazi bastards, mothers, generally, but fathers too. Fuck 'em, let em all fuck off to some fantasy island, down Branson way, where their talents will just magically summons an entire infrastructure from the jungle, without the employment of any nasty ordinary people, where no-one will ever have to pay any tax, and things will just be given to them, because they're, y'know, special and clever.
In the meantime, against that glorious day, we have, for the children of the special ones, the private schools.
mr jgm2, just the other day, was raging about his children's education. Well, I'm sorry but I already paid for his children's education, and their health care, as well as for that of my own child. I am sorry that while it was good enough for her, it is not good enough for them, life is full of unfairness - but then, on the other entitlement hand, I only had the one, you see, the one child, so maybe mr jgm2, having more than one, should, all things considered, send me a refund, that's the sense of it, isn't it, this idea that we deserve what we say we deserve and collective be damned. I deserve a refund from parents of multiple children. People with no children deserve a refund from me. I pay council tax for street lights, even though I live eight miles into the big dark, can I have a refund? No, of course I can't.
mr jgm2, by his own regular admission, has more, and therefore wants more, albeit just for he and his. But he shouldn't take it from me and that is what he is doing with the private school tax scam, he couldn't send his kids to a tax-exempt riding school, why should there be a favoured tax status for St Cakes?
In summary, then, the NHS is brilliant but flawed; the idea that it is funded from tiny NI contributions is risible but not as risible as the idea that, somehow, it can continue to operate without all of us accepting significant personal tax rises, without paying respectable salaries to its workers and without challenging entrenched BigDeath corporate interests which run our JackStraw parliament. Aside from smashing BigDeathCorp we should also demand, as a condition of our joining a coalition of national unity, that the businesses of those not paying tax - such as Amazon - be nationalised without compensation, their directors apprehended on international arrest warrants, tried and jailed for lengthy terms, their relatives put to arse-wiping, their personal fortunes absorbed by the NHS and any persons in government or HMRC who have facilitated the tax evasion be jailed for similar terms, their salaries and pensions forfeited and their relatives set, also, to arse-wiping duties in nationalised care homes.
See what that does for NHS funding crises, getting rich people to pay tax.
Private health care is both a drain on the NHS and an affront to Decency, there is no valid ethical or clinical argument to be made for it, and the notion that its customers use it altruistically, in order to free-up NHS beds, is contemptible, let them, too, fuck off to Fantasy private Island and fund their own health care system. See how long they survive that experiment, without labs and theatres and training funded by every other bastard.
The private education tax scam is intolerable and I am sick to fucking death of hearing some ponce headmaster ruminating that Well, actually he does, as with mr mike, for instance, take some children from poorer backgrounds, the cheeky cunt, who does he think he's talking to, fools? The private education scam is a racket whereby the undistinguished spawn of rich arseholes garner for themselves not an education but a lifetime of connection to unearned wealth and power, that would be just tolerable were these fucking spoiled idiots any good at power's exercise but they are not - see HM Governments 1900 - present.
As a minimun condition for joining a coalition of national unity we insist that all presently within the estates of them should be ejected from so-called public schools, whipped around the nearest town and set to arse-wiping duties, withour delay; their customers should be heavily fined; the properties and facilitities and grounds themselves, to be nationalised without compensation and used as educational, recreational or recuperative establishments for those in need - disdvantaged children, wounded soldiers, the terminally ill.
Finally, from the previous thread, ms lilith and I differed over the ongoing pursuit of the dead Savile, me acknowledging that he could never be other than innocent, she saying that his untriable crimes, if any, were minor, normal-for-then, groping and touching. My final point on that issue was, I think, that the Savile enquiries were necessary - not only for his victims, whom, ms lilith, I feel, disparaged unfairly and uncharacteristically, without knowing their evidence - insofar as they might lead to and corroborate evidence relating to the more serious, alleged Westminster Paedophile Murder Ring, might promote a climate in which a decent bobby or two or a decent lawyer would feel able to come forward.
PBC2 Newsnight reported that very development only last night.
77 comments:
Mr I: whilst I agree that only the State can provide a comprehensive health care system, its not true to say that it is funded by NI. That may have been the original intention, but the total cost now is funded from general taxation and from borrowed money. So in that way, the rich pay more (ignoring tax avoidance for the sake of this argument) through their higher tax bills. Just as car tax doesn't fully fund roads.
Its not State health provision, per se, thats the problem, its the very inefficient way the NHS is organised and run, and the sub-standard quality of care. It is the largest employer in the world second only to the Chinese army, but outcomes (eg with cancer) are way behind other so-called first world countries. Defending the state provision of health is very different from defending the NHS - indeed, if you accept the State's obligation in health care, and were Sekertary of State for Health in the new coalition, then your first task would be to dismantle or massively restructure the NHS.
Other countries do it more efficiently and have better outcomes - France is an example. And our own system Down Under (part publically financed from taxation, with a user-pays contribution at time of use, with exemptions for retirees etc) is substantially better. As well as the organisation and financing model, and quality of care, down here, an important part of the success is the attitude of professionals and the expectation of the public. Put simply, we don't look upon doctors as gods and they don't act that way, just people like car mechanics who deliver a service; and just as we don't accept long waiting times for our cars to be serviced and then being fucked up, so we have the same expectation with our bodies.
The NSH is an anachronism, and no sane person starting from scratch today would design such a system. Aside from the cost, its literally killing people (both directly and through poor quality). Your first duty in office must be to scrap it and start again.
Of course, it is hard to separate clean water provision from health. And fags and booze from sickness. But what about chips? We have to ban chips too, don't we?
And the other part of it is "cost". Cost. or price, I guess, to the NHS - or any public sector buyer - is not the same as it is to an ordinary buyer. Public buyers are, in my (not inconsiderable) experience, less efficient than private buyers. And considering the purchasing power that the public sector should have, this is a pretty damn catastrophic incompetence. All their minimum tenders and blind bids, and still they get rings run around them. If I was Health Secretary, we would save many, many millions every year on the consumables and drugs bill. It's the work of a day to do it. An hour even. Of course, there would be no cushy job afterwards.
IMHO, more scandalous than private healthcare, which I am not sure is quite so parasitic as you maintain Mr I (though I agree that there are significant dependencies there which may not be fully 'priced in') is our apparent dependency on hauling in tens of thousands of healthworkers from poor countries to minister to our sick and injured - leaving their 'donor' countries with what? In this respect the NHS functions as an arm of imperialism sucking in resources from comparatively poorer countries to benefit the citizens of a far richer, 'neo-colonial' power (I thought I would examine this one from a neo-Marxian perspective - not one of the ones I generally use but useful from time to time). This makes it virtually impossible for said poorer countries to establish adequate health care systems of their own leaving them vulnerable to just the sort of crises that we see happening in West Africa at the moment and dependant on 'aid' from the very same 'neo-colonial' power that has denuded them of their own trained medical personnel in the first place.
Without using the two words I thought I had indicated quite clearly that NI alone did not fund NHS and my point was that refunding NI. contributions, to be spent on private cover just didn't add up. I was also, mr mike, trying to make the point that the citizen's health was affected by far more than nurses'n'doctors'n'ospitals, positively, in the cases of clean water and air and detrimentally by the pernicious impacts of both private practice and the awful
Private Finance Initiative, furthermore, there is the combined national corporate poisoning initiative run by thevtriumvirate of BigSugar, BigSmoke and BigBooze, which owns parliament, or large parts of it.
continue....
continued.....
In Scotland there is a bi-partisan move towards amalgamating other care services with NHS Scotland, here it is called OHAC, Orkney Health And Care and although causing upheaval seems to be progressive in intent, the aim is greater efficacy of oiutcome at lower cost.
I don't know about Australia but here, in the UK, the vandalism which we call Austerity has wrought terrible consequences fof the nation's health -,fuel and food poverty among the old and vulnerable as well as in the impotent poor are largely addressed by health centres and A and E units; irregular, zero hours, Treasury topped-up slave jobs may delight Ian Duncan Smith but they do nothing for family stability and self esteem; cuts to local government funding have an impact on the weak, making them weaker and sicker, flooding the hospitals.
I quite agree that doctors, especially, need taking down a peg or two or three but this isn't egalitarian Australia: here, status and mutual protection and blackmail and well-established lobbying lines are entrenched, doctors get away with murder. I resent, therefore, the proposal that individualising private access to clinicians is in any way remedial, it would only make a bad situation worse.
Some of your suggestions may work here, although I think things would be greatly eased, also, by the implementation of the ishmaelian party's tax evasion policies.
Add in Big Wheat and you would probably eliminate most of the ailments that generate the need for an NHS at its present scale Mr I. It could then revert back to being a midwife and A & E service dealing with broken legs etc. It is, as it is, the price we collectively pay for the sum of our present 'lifestyles' (I say as I make my way through another large glass of wine...).
I am not, by nature, a vindictive man ... but if Ken Clarke is to be brought to book - in a suitably abrupt, painful and immediately judicious manner - could you pencil me in for a couple of seats?
You are absolutely right, mr mongoose, and you shall be health seckatry in any govament which we form. It is not Spanish practices, nor the asshole incompetence of NHS managers to which I am wed but to the principle of health care, free and thoroughgoing at the point of need, and in intervention, by force if necessary, where that national health is threatened by commercial or criminal interests, be they Cadburys or Amazon or Ian DuncanSmith.
Nothing wrong with chips, as long as they are made from potatoes, not extruded corn starch and eaten in moderation, no more than daily, and as long as the butties have butter in them.
It may not be polite to say so, but massive 3rd world immigration has imported 3rd world health problems. TB was eradicated in the UK; now its prevalent in the inner cities again, as just one simple example. And anecdotal evidence from relative in the UK suggests foreign doctors & nurses leave a lot to be desired. My mother in law is currently being poisoned by a useless Iraqi GP.
I agree that a holistic view of health is required - but just try to get some health fund money spent on better roads to reduce car accidents, for example. No chance. The NHS is just as self-serving as other public services.
Aside from his parallel career, flogging fags to third world children, jazzman Clark is rumoured to have had but has denied any connection to the nonce-protectors general in Thatcher's circle and we must take his word for that, he is, after all, a right honourable gentleman. Should our conditions for coalition be met, however, and he hang, be assured, mighty caratacus, of a front-row seat; something, isn't there, about his studied, bluff, ho-ho-hoing bonhomie, something icy? And selling fags is such a spiv, suede-shod sort of thing to do.
Yes I see that too Mr Mike but are these 'Third World' immigrants being pulled or pushed? A bit of both maybe...
No question about it, mr mike, mine eyes have seen a one-woman contamination machine in the person of an oriental nurse, blood-testing a wardful of diabetic patients in Leicester Royal Infirmary Death Camp. She wore latex gloves and after pricking the thumb and extracting blood, she wiped the spot, not with fresh cotton wool or gauze but with her gloved thumb, moved along to the next bed and repeated the procedure, wiping that patient's blood away with the same bloodied glove. On reflection, I should have jumped-up, knocked the bitch senseless and argued it in court, later, filthy, wicked woman, absolutely no excuse or reason for that behaviour other than malevolence. But since I always test my own blood myself, I didn't, thinking that if I did, they might kill me - a real fear, because they nearly did, anyway, a bit later.
"A minimum condition of ishmaelia joining a coalition government would be that those practicing private medicine be immediately stripped of citizenship, of all national rights and privileges and permanently deported to any of those what we call third world countries...".
There might be a practical problem with this bit Mr I, since, if I recall correctly, almost all GPs, Consultants et al are, technically, in private practice and are then contracted to the NHS, BUPA or whoever. It was part of the deal that 'Big Med' imposed when the NHS was established under Mr Atlee...
It is. very good point, mr sg, and one made, unfortunately, by Mr Shine, wotsisname Nuttal, of the Poundlanders, entirely opportunistically, I am sure, about us denuding poorer countries of health workers, merely to avoid the costs of training people, here.
One way and another I am quite close to health care and I am sure, also, that it is now, if you have the stomach, a fantastic career, if careers people must have - the knowledge bases, the specialisms, the technology, the opportunities for involvement in revolutionary procedures, the chemistry, the products, the ongoing training and professional assessment and validation, the life-saving interventions and promotion and salary scales are fantastic. Why on Earth can we not recruit doctors and nurses from within the UK?
Yes, I know that, mr sg, it is a point I often make but for the purposes of this discussion it is hair-splitting. I refer not to General practitioners contracted, symbiotically, to treat the public, without charge but to Sir Lancelot Spratt, who is sadly very much alive, working in a limited way in the NHS, using its patients and facilities and training to grow rich and arrogant.
Absolutely Mr I. Apparently we can't train, recruit and retain enough Doctors & Nurses etc from a population of c. 65m, or whatever the fuck it is now, & with unrestricted access to an EU 'hinterland' of c. 500m. Either fuckwittery or malevolence is at work here...
Splitting hairs indeed Mr I. It is just that I suspect that most, though not of course all, are at it in one form or another. Though actually I was endeavouring to make an observation about 'Big Med' who always seem to be able to negotiate favourable terms e.g. the less for more deal they secured under Mr Brown's ill-fated administration.
Happy St Mongoose Day, by the way, mr mongoose. And it isn't just an institution being ripped off, it is also anyone required to make purchases of dressings or equipment, have a look in Boots, next time, at the price of rudimentary dressings, tapes and scissors and things, you will be amazed at the mark-up on elestoplast in a blue Boots package.
In that case, it wasn't even them at fault, Patsy Leatherface Hewitt offered them far more than they had asked for. Disaster, as you say. She now works for Boots, the fucking useless monsterbaggage.
I don't think I disparaged Saviles "victims", rather than the sick frothing media frenzy, which was begun by a woman who was demonstrably lying, and who was backed up by women who were also demonstrably lying, and, if you read the multimillion reports, you find they were triggered by someone phoning yewtree to say they had heard that Savile was once seen at a children's home, although they forget which one. And no they don't want to give a statement, just show their support.
Why should I believe what the papers say? They reported the lies as gospel. Of course it's easy to imagine him as a nonce because he was so creepy.. But what if he wasn't? Once the TV and papers had all run with it without checking out the original story, that seems to be that. Britain's most prolific sexual predator. Guilty as charged.
A bit off-topic, but it will cause you to need the NHS. I read in the Filthograph that your MSPs have voted Gnasher an even higher salary than Dave.
I said earlier she is detined to be the most powerful woman in the UK.
Mr mike's observation, of Aussie doctors not being deified, such a reform would be a minimum requirement of our forming a coalition of national unity. Then we could start on the lawyers.
The Westminster allegations do appear to have substance,in that the officers investigating Smith where hauled off the case with threat of prosecution under the OSA. Clear cover up, and probably not just for Smith's benefit.
Re: Mr Shine-Head - well even a broken clock is right twice a day. They'd be real dangerous if they had any brains working for them Mr I. I was discussing the TeeVee election debates with my son just now and the prospect of a head to head debate between Milliband Junior and an empty chair. He thought the empty chair would win hands down. A sound judgement from a young head I think. Come to think of it how about an empty chair for PM? I think we may have been here before with NOTA somewhere back up the road? I seem to recall that the Belgians managed it for a year or two...
Interestingly, Obama sez Hezbollah and Iran have nothing to do with terrorism.
Well, inasmuch as that you, in a sweeping generalisation, ms lilith, dismissed all the purported victims as hysterics or dissemblers or compo-chasers, without hearing their evidence, you did, disparage them, but I am only here hair-splitting, like a Tory lawyer, in the house of commons. I am not trying to shift your view vis a vis Savile. I conceded long ago that he cannot now be convicted and must be deemed innocent but may be seen, nevertheless, as Guilty, Job Done! mr mongoose has made a similar point, regarding other relatively small fry, DLT. and Stuart Hall, maybe Max Clifford and Rolf Harris, as scapegoated diversions from the discovery of the main offenders. Case proven or not, Savile was preternaturally freaky, scary and suspicious and it is only responsible to look for reasons explaining his closeness to royalty, to Downing Street and notably to his being given carte blanche over a penal psychiatric establishment as well as an office in and the keysvto Leeds Infirmary.It is no longer disputed that Cyril Smith was protected by kindred spirits in high places, beasts. Why is it so hard to believe that Savile, too, might have been part of that dark brotherhood, police investigations into him also being dropped?
Failing a Murphy revival I fear you will be proven correct, mr mike.If only JockMediaMood would get off its knees.
Please quote me? I'm pretty sure I didn't.
Well there's folks (the sort of folks who keep a year's supply of tinned food and ammunition under their beds, in their shacks with perimeter tripwires etc.) who live up in the hills back there in the US&A who'd say Obama Bin-Laden's the terrorist Ms L. After all he is an unamerican, muslim heretic is he not & with a dancin' wife in all?...
I have disparaged the original "victim " for lying, and her mates who forged the police letter saying they were dropping the case cos Jim was elderly.
There are those folks I'm sure SG.
It might just be that Savile had access to royalty etc because he was, whatever else he my have been, a phenomenal fund raiser for good causes. Of course, I would like to be proved wrong, and discover he has molested hundreds upon hundreds of children. (Sarc!)
"Revolting hysteria ...... I have yet to hear of a credible case of (Savile's) abuse" A question of interpretation, of course, ms lilith, but if there are any genuine Savile survivors - and manh claim to be - I am sure that in hearing those words they would strongly identify with the younger ms lilith, who was similarly dismissed, by wiser heads.
What happened to the 'Prime ministers friend' post?
Those of us who subscribe on RSS feeds got the whole thing before it was pulled....
"Seeking a new role in presenting his friend, the prime minister's, immigration policy, Mr Jeremy Fuckhead today announced the view from New Cotswoldia, the Gloucestershire home of organised crime."
etc etc etc
Friendly tap on the shoulder from her Majs dept of right thinking?
I admire your diligence in rehabilitating Sir Jimmy but it wasn't just access, was it, running Broadmoor, counselling Diana, dining at Chequers?
Ah! Yes. Displaying my ignorance there. Perhaps I should read more tales till I'm as convinced as everyone else. There's just so much smoke around I can't see the fire. I hope his victims can forgive me.
I was hoping, mr what's up, that mongoose would find it for me, like he usually does, so's I could repost it but you know what these Irish immigrant families are like. Any ideas? It is odd, because the comments remain, on the Blogger dashboard, minus the post.
I doubt that they will, would you?
Apropos nothing and at a tangent to this, but Shapps is a spiv isn't he? In the War he'd have been selling nylons and 'rubber johnnies' save for the fact that the vendors of these would have been trying to feed themselves and / or their families rather than their egos. Maybe the hill dwelling, 'patriot' nutters are on to something?...
Quickly Mr Ishmael, follow this link and copy the post.
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:JY9kRukLN7kJ:mrishmael.blogspot.com/2015/03/the-prime-ministers-friend.html+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk
The Broadmoor shit is seriously weird and his buddy buddy closeness with Sutcliff (?). Counselling Diana? Well she hung out with some types didn't she? Can't think she was in on it though.
I would actually!
Were I a victim of Savile, I would be far angrier with the women who made up lies, than an ignorant woman commenting on an obscure blog expressing cynicism that is a direct result of those lies.
Mr SG: we get a lot of British trained doctors & nurses down here. It used to be the case (not sure if it is so now) that they were allowed in but had to work in country areas for 6 years before they could settle in Sydney.
It used to be folklore (but certainly true) that Aussie dentists went to the UK after training, drilled every tooth in sight, and claimed the max from the NHS. After 6 years they would retire back to Aus before the system caught up on them.
It's true Mike. My sister talks dreamily about having her root canals done by a beefy blond surfer called Shane.
Mr Mike, round these parts its the (white) emigre South Africans who are 'cleaning up' the dentistry market these days. The east Europeans have the car washes and the Pakistanis do the taxis and Take-Aways.
Ms Lilith: but did they really need doing, or was it Shane just being Shane?
Mr SG: we have our own ethnic take on that: Paki car washes (aka drug dealers), lebanese and italian renderes and tilers, maori and south-sea islander (the BIG guys) concreters and tree-loppers.
Round my way (Lower North Shore) you can get people to do every job imaginable - people are so lazy. Even Mr I's arse-wipers I wouldn't be suprised. But they're out every morning surfing, kyacking, jogging, cycling, golfing (in my case).
If I may intrude, I think that the point is that JS is helpfully dead, was helpfully a bit odd at the best of times, and helpfully has a dead-worth of a few million which can be scattered on the ground. (The money is gone btw.) His ludicrous carcass is being hunted around and every media hound in the world can now pad his earnings-per-word with "notorious paedophile". And nobody dare argue. Treason doth never prosper - cos if it does, none dare call it so. And the JS paedo story has prospered and none dare argue for they will be called apologists for kiddy-fiddling. Well, I dare, and I do NOT belittle any abuse or any victim. I think JS was a weird bastard and I doubt little that he behaved in the seventies like others of the fame-entitled behaved. But Master Crowmell needed his guilty men and his modern contemporaries need theirs.
After Cromwell's efforts, QE1 was the first for how long to be Queen alone? She was belittled and undermined - only because she was a woman. Called whore and witch and barren - the paedo insults of her day for a female. Today's belittlement story is "paedo bastard". But carefully used only about the friendless, the old, and the dead. Do you really think that our friend here, ms lilith, would write what she has written without due thought and understanding? I don't.
Nobody here, I am sure, belittles the impact of that spectrum of horror the shorthand for which we use is "beasting". The powers that be though assure us of all sorts of things and it behoves us to take each with the same pinch of salt whether it supports our views or it does not. Whether it is about dead DJs or weapons of mass destruction which don't turn up or nothing to see here in Dolphin Square or we must stop burning coal although Japan and China and Germany build coal power stations like topsy or... Smoke, mirror, bread, circus. Orthodoxy. Off you go. Nothing to see here. Move on.
It is true, Mr Ishmael, that the current Dolphin Square and Met Police story has exploded. But it is only 12 hours later and it is already focused on the dead and the coppers. We have a circus. Tomorrow Osborn will throw £10bn of bread to the masses and the circus will disappear under it until an enquiry pens a report way on up the road there. Which will say?
Nothing to see here. Move on.
Mr Mongoose: its a powerful argument that a few old/dead nobodies have been thrown like bones to a dog. I can imagine the meeting to discuss this: "lets give them x,y,z - names people know, but of fuck all value; by the time the feeding frenzy dies down the feckless plebs will have lost interest". This is my take on the thing.
Meanwhile the Westminster paedo thing gets buried under a far-reaching enquiry, rather than a proper police investigation, and the Paki paedo gangs are quietly brushed under the carpet because it too difficult.
I couldn't give a fuck about Savile,in the scheme of things, but even in death he's proving to be the establishment's best friend.
PS: I was rogering my girlfriend when she was 17, and married her on her 18th birthday. I guess technically I'm a nonce as well.
I fancy that the stories served up for public consumption have plenty purpose. Always of benefit to someone. The Saville story has legs and they just keep it running and running. Every underhanded govment fiddle sneaking under the radar while we’re all waiting for the next horror thriller from the BBC back catalogue of deviants.
I note that ebolascam has died a death, weirdly, since they were pushing that for quite a while. Mass immunisation…the drug companies have been struggling for a while now…lay offs, closure of plants etc…not fleecing quite enough from the NHS for the chickenpox “epidemic” or was it measles? Gotta shift those flu jags.
Mike, well my sister had at least 4 teeth done yet my brother has no fillings at all and I have 2 little filings that someone overenthusiasticly gave me when I was twelve. So it was probably Shane being Shane.
And in the cold light of morning I still think what I said says more about the media reportage than any potential victim.
I used Ausdtralian dentists in Coventry, in the late 'seventies and they were great.
It is the counter-media wich informs me and -I would have thought - most doesn't take much imagination or wit to discount the Mail and the Filth-O-Graph or skymadeupnewsandfilt, does it?
It is an argument, mr mike, certainly, but one whereby our resident enmgineer hoists himself with his own petard of ever-ready cynicism; nothing wrong with cyncicism, in proportiion, it is just not a rememdy for that which it reviles.
The repeated deployment of Nothing To See, Here, Move Along is a device both redundant and ineffective, meaningless, snide I Know Bestism; you silly people shouldn't get excited about anything. It is lazy thinking masquerading as sophistication. To harness this denunciation of the Establishment Hoodwink to a dramatised, largely apocyrphal character's supposed machinations is, well, it is what it is.
We are not permitted to know the truth of Dunblane, yet claim, sagely, that we know the intricate doings of Tudor times, Cromwell this and Cromwell that. It's fucking luvvie TeeVee, based on a luvvie novelits's interpretation of histories written by court propagandists and pimp dramatists; are we really to apply such to modern child beasting and dismiss it; is this the nature of the argument which you affirm, mr mike, fucking showbusiness?
Mr Rylance is a fine actor but that is all he is - apart from being, like myself, one sceptical of the idea that a grammar school boy such as Shakespeare was sufficiently schooled and travelled and courtly-wise to have written all that stuff. HRylance's director, too, is good at what he does but the idea that they draw meaningful parallels between a distant corruption and a current one is at best lazy and at worst dangerous, effete sophistry.
We have the internet, you and I and mr mongoose can communicate at a speed and with a potency unimaginable even a decade ago. Are we really incapable of raising a storm? Must we really shrug, Oh, Nothing To See Here, They Are Too Clever For Us? If that is the case then we deserve everything we get.
It was the blogosphere did for Gordon Snot, Jack Torture, Jacqui Schmidt, Blind Boy Blunkett, Patsy Leatherface, Tony'n'Imelda. It wasn't a reasoned debate, it was a tumult of catcalling and ridicule; it has not yet resulted in their jailing but it has resulted in an overdue and vivid dissatisfaction with heritage politics and the rise, North and South, of what they call but isn't insurrection. Poudland and the Tribesmen are the bastard twins of the UK blogosphere. Nothing much to be proud of, I know, but better than nothing.
For the longest time few even knew of Dolphin Square, of Peter Morrison, of William Hague's dutiful suppression of Welsh Tory paedophilia, of the extent of Savile's misuse, at the very least, of his position at the PBC. Now millions and millions do.
As I often repine, it was the malcontent who brought us from the sea, onto the land,into the trees and caves, to the axe and the plough, to fire and the wheel, from the hut to the city and eventually to grasp at the stars. If he had said Nothing To See Here, MOve Along, we would all still be there, swinning around. In shitty water
Everything you all say about obfuscation and inaction and full and far-reaching cover-ups is true, it is hard to corral wrongdoing in the Court - but not as hard as crawling from the sea.
You misread it, Mr I, or I miswrote. it is not me saying move along because there is a much to unearth. (Just Dunblane should be enough to convince anyone. Man goes tonto and shoots a bunch of kids. Ok. Is horrible. But papers closed for 100 years. Why?) "Why was this allowed to come out?" was yesteray's quote from the Conservative minister of the eighties about some philandering junior minister. And there you have it. The moving along always comes from our great leaders who throw us other distractions to fill the day. To lead us to orthodoxy, they first decry X as barely a molehill, and then bury it with Y which they magnify by media and make it a mountain.
I tell you what. We''ll chuck them a fish. Can't be able to sue though. A dead 'un then. Who is dead today? We can make a dead un, chief. Yes, yes, tried that, son, haven't we. Going all double-o-seven today, aren't we? How about Savile! He's a goner and he'll have a few bob lying about. And the NHS will have to stump if we... Yep, OK, get to the Beeb and find a link up. Ask Cheltenham too. We'll nonce up Savile. Music biz, eh. that's tidy. There'll be a queue of cameras to the corner by teatime and then it'll be true forever. The plebs can't name the Prime Minister of now let alone those fiddlers from the eighties. They'll never see past Savile. How's about that then. Get some others too. For later. Telly names. Footie names. Get a politico too. A nobody mind! Just one! Gay would be handy. Everyone 'ates gays, don't they, son, but they won't be able to say so that'll close down that road. Get it done. And tell Obama to keep Andy out of fucking court or Hilary's Benghazi transcripts will be on Fox the day after.
(Oh, had everyone forgotten about Andy?)
The only thing which divides us is that you think that we are witnessing a great surge of honour and truth rising up to engulf the guilty, and we can burn down the palace. I see a great surge of distraction rising up to fill the telly until we all forget and "move on". No, it is not fruitless and in vain if some groping dick gets hauled up and gets his due but it isn't their objective. It isn't the justice system coming to save us. It's a mechanism.
And the Cromwell thing is just a line, Mr I, but a damn good one. "I need some guilty men." Damn right they do. They always do. Anyway. Enough. But do you see how it works? Argument. Anger. Apologist. They're not fools, you know.
mr mongoose, I am sorry, then, for seizing on a line or two, out of context. it's just that I have been seeing that nothing to see here, move along thing for what seems like ever but is only since the days of order-order and for me it is inexcusably smug and counter -productive, whereas for you it is a useful device to describe the workings of the unGodly. I apologise.
The news caravan is something I have always referred to and regretted. So much of it is now just click-bait, to attract advertising and even before that it was merely bait to ensnare readers. Used to be busty teenagers getting their A level results in the Filth-O-Graph, regular as mr mike's bowel movements, they were,those pictures. Now it is wossisname, Dan Hodges, annoying the Poundlanders, which brings in the punters.
Savile, of course, will sell newspapers to those who still buy them, although - and this may be unkind and inaccurate - buying newspapers, at all, can be seen as hopelessly anachronistic when you can read them online at ten o clock the previous evening, who does it and do they have money to burn? I used to buy two broadsheets a day and a couple at the weekends, as well as Viz, Q, sometimes Rolling Stone and the Eye, as well as runningh a business. What would that lot cost to-day? Now it is just the Eye and Lapham's Quarterly and I have never been so well-informed. What I am saying is that I just look at what was Fleet Street with bottomless contempt, they are filthsters of the worst order and any coalition which I would join would need to be committed to the arrest, trial and imprisonment of, at the very least, Kelvin McKenzie, Rebekka Thing, Piers Moron, Toilets Maguire, Andrew Neil, Simon Heffer, Paul Dacre, MIchael Kneepads White and Mr PsychoBastard at the Filth-O-Graph, just for starters. Savile as a tool of gutter journalism is only part of the story, it may be true as far as it goes and amongst those at whom it is aimed but obviously that is not you and I, nor anyone else here foregathering, nor anyone else in similar congregations, all across the cybertelegbraph. Is it?
In short, it is not working, that stratagem which you spell out. I am nothing special and it stopped working on me decades ago. The kids on the current EVENSONG, it is niot working on them, either; it is not working on mr sg's son,just for instance.
It is a rejection of such devices which I see, not a, what was it, a great surge of honour and truth rising up to engulf the guilty and burn down the palace.
You know nme well enough to be able to judge my faith in the justice system, it is largely non-existent, I am a child of Widgery and Denning, why would I believe the justuice system is coming to save us?
People just can push hard enough, the Suffragettes, the Dagenham Women and generations of organised workers can push and scream and kick. Despite the organised resistance of the unGodly and their servants in Fleet Street, we have a health service, an equal opportunities act; a race relations act; a shops, offices and factories act and many more bits of legislation chipping away at filth like Andrew Neil and Rupert Murdoch, men who would have opposed all of those measures, me who will use Savile exactly as you say.
Now, do you see how it works, educate, organise and agitate, we are not fools, you know, either.
Thanks for replying, Mr. Ish. I stand by my reasoning. " what do we do with them, the untouchables, the uninsurables? Do we let them die, put them in concentration camps, experiment upon them?"
I can't see BUPA doing that because they'd go out of business. However the German NHS did it, the US health service did the experiments with syphillis and LSD; our own NHS kills people via infection and incompetence if not malice. Thousands have starved or died of thirst.
The people who jump queues wouldn't have to do so if the NHS was efficient and good.
I can't afford to do so because I'm on a small salary but if I could I certainly would.
Having said that, the NHS provided a complete and efficient treatment when my old dad had a stroke. Could he have afforded a big medical bill? No, but there are more ethical ways to do things, ie friendly societies and private insurance.
We can agree cordially to differ, I hope, on this. Where we must diverge is the strange notion that someone has a duty to other people to keep healthy. In which case could all readers sell their motorbikes and boats, muzzle their dogs, pour their beer away, don't go climbing, and don't play squash in case you put your eye out.
No, unless your body isn't yours then you can do what you like. If it is yours it's unfair to ask other people - sorry, force other people -to pay for your diseases and accidents. Which is my point.
-richard
PS. Going for a smoke, my choice. Relaxing. Send the NHS a cheque if you like, or smile when you see your NI deduction. Either that or begrudge paying for a consequence that's not your business.
But you can't do both.
No worries, Mr I, and no need to apologise. I shall though have the boys turned back at Stranraer.
The, oh so progressive, Swedes did it too Mr Richard - the full eugenics and sterilisation programme.
Sadly I concur with your view of the UK print branch of the infotainment industry (formerly known as newspapers) Mr I. I'm down to just an FT subscription now which I am beginning to wonder about too. Canned the Eye a while back too though still pluck Viz off the topshelf once in a while. I tend to go straight to Reuters and the like plus a few foreign papers - the online English version of Der Spiegal ain't bad...
It is a moot point for me, mr richard, has been for some time, the ownership of the body.
As you know, I contend most fiercely that a person's pain is their own, is owned by them and no-one else and thus its medication is purely a matter for them and that this does not apply only to ameliorating the consequences of disease of illness but also to the alleviation of any manifestation of anxiety, stress, discomfort, boredom, alienation, ennui, lethargy, indeed of any and all mental, emotional, psychic, neurological, religious, spiritual, sexual, familial or societal pressures, fatigues, strains or fissures which have, since the dawn of man, compelled us to seek edibles, inhalants, potables, injectables, topicals and even rectally insertables in order that we might jointly or singly, in stupor, abandon or sacrament get off our fucking heads.
Post-mortem, however, I believe that a cadaver which has, in life benefited from state health care becomes the property of the state until it has harvested any and all such organs, bones, tissues and any other organic matter which may be used in the continuing health care of the living. Those opposed to this contractual arrangement should be free to opt-out of state medical care, upon reaching their majority, providing, of course, that their parents had not so opted-out, in which circumstances the whole family'd be fucked, dying young but hanging-on to their bits, after they were dead, silly fuckers.
As to a duty of care to oneself, well, as a former very heavy smoker, I can assure you that you will feel - and be - better and brighter and bolder if you stop. Even though I generally like smokers I hope you do stop, I hope everyone does.
Thanks, Mr I, no doubt I will stop mainly because I begrudge the tax.
I would have a better scenario for the deceased - the body becomes part of his estate and his beneficiaries get paid for the spare parts. Unlike the Chinese system- statism at it's worst - where their health service has access to a vast pool of prisoners who find that their death sentence is carried out when a suitable recipient stumps up with the cash.
No, the State takes enough already without resorting to grave robbery. How would someone know if their relative was DOA or just not revived to meet a quota? They don't scruple to freeze old people to death every winter to save on pension costs, or is heating houses beyond the capabilities of people who could, in fact, heat people's houses? State care? As in Tony "I care" Blair? It would be a good idea if it worked but it can't. People who believe they can order people about, abetted by people who believe they're right. It always turns to shit sooner or later.
-richard
"Post-mortem, however, I believe that a cadaver which has, in life benefited from state health care becomes the property of the state until it has harvested any and all such organs, bones, tissues and any other organic matter which may be used in the continuing health care of the living". That assumes that the 'cadaver' has, indeed, 'benefited' from the interventions of the state health care system Mr I. And who will make that determination? I admire the generosity of people who leave their bodies for 'harvesting' and would be willing to consider an auto enrollment to this system subject to democratic assent to a penalty free opt out. On this rare occassion I find your line of thought dangerous, disturbing and, indee, unnecessary given the great and ongoing progress of medical science and technology which will soon make the transplanting of organs and other body parts from dead bodies unnecessary.
On a more positive note Mr I, and with reference to our earlier discussion of Dr Ramirez, I have just come across a much better effort in the form of Waldemar Januszczak's "The Dark Ages: An Age of Light". He displays passion and more interest in his subject than himself. The old forger is good too - now that is how to rehabilitate ex-cons... Light indeed - maybe not all is lost.
Briefly, mr sg, due to battery ishoos, yes, I love Jabberwocky, there are several reviews of his work, here, in the previous pages.
As to benefit, all have benefited, be it infant vaccination or the school nurse or birth control, everyone, save the Jovas, is automatically opted-in. That so many die for lack of organs which other people prefer to burn or bury seems to me infinitely more dangerous than my suggestion, of keeping people alive or sighted, by the use of otherwise wasted matter,
Stuff may shortly be created by technology but in the meantime my proposal would focus people's minds in what i believe is a positive way, sensible, ethical and beneficial, what better use of a corpse than bringing sight to a blind child? As I said, it need not be compulsory, opt-out from your fellow man, if you will but he will then opt-out from you.
I don't think I will be in Coalition so this is just a discussion point. Even now, though, the state assumes some rights of ownership, , inasmuch as it demands control of he means of disposal, limiting them to, I believe, burial, cremation and burial at sea. They won't let you put your granny on the compost heap. Similarly, they will perform a post mortem if they wish. Why don't they legislate for something so hugely, incontrovertibly beneficial as organ recycling?
I have personal issues here Mr I but I don't like to argue from the particular to the general - a point you also made very well just now, back up the road somewhere. Suffice it to say that I am philosophically ill disposed to the idea of the the 'state' owning anything - still less people's bodies. However I like the idea of people looking out for one another and would glady donate any parts of me that are still servicable to those in need once I no longer have need of them (though the liver probably won't be too good by then - though a nice foie gras for cannibals maybe!).
I said it was a moot point, mr sg, and advanced two utterly contradictory views of the place and value of state intervention - while I live, my body is mine but since the dead cannot own anything the question is, to whom does ownership transfer? Clearly an individual cannot own a corpse, only symbolically,and I am sure that some symbology could be devised to satisfy the emotional needs of mourners-in-chief and that the procedures could be entirely respectful. I was trying, some years ago, to leave my body to medical science, only to find that they only wanted healthy dead people.
Duscussing this, later, with my GP, she told me that as a medical student, she and five others had dissected one deceased and on the occasion of his funeral, some years later, all had attended, some travelling huge distances. I think in most human cultures there is this automatic respect for the dead and I maintain that the automatic saving of life-giving parts would only enhance that respect.
As mr richard remarks, the Chinese practice is revolting and enrages me hugely, but those fuckers'd eat my little Harris's nose, wouldn't they, and think it a delicacy?
As to certainty of natural death I am sure that here, too, technology will be able to assist, ruling-out possibld malfeasance.
I don't mean to distress anyone by this thought, quite the opposite.
The old slippery slope/thin end of the wedge case has to be acknowledged. Now apparently is OK to abort based on sex - the original law would never have been passed on that basis.
If the State owns your bits when you die, how long will it be before it decides it wants those bits before your dead. Or at least takes the decision to switch off the machine because it has a waiting recipient for your kidneys?
Its a dangerous road, this.
Or more likely: your retired and a drain on resources; a banker is deemed economically valuable, if only you gave him your liver. I wouldn't want to have to rely on the Government appointed independent panel of experts making that call.
I don't deny, mr mike, that it is a road strewn with ethical boulders, as is the whole of medicine but I think it would, once arrived at, this proposal, remove any need for the practices you fear. If - as would be the case - an ample supply existed, why would there be any need for banditry, doesn't happen with blood, does it, nobody is attacked in the street for their blood. This clinging to organ ownership after death, means that many, many young people sicken and die. A massive reduction in liver, heart, lung, kidney and eye disease, imagine the savings, of cash and sorrow.
I am uneasy about abortion, suspicious of Elton John baby farming when so many need adopting and I am entirely, resolutely opposed to state sanctioned euthanasia - precisely because of those ethical liabilities which you raise, mr mike, but this is different, this is about, prolonging, enhancing and saving lives which would otherwise be lost with organic material which would otherwise be burned or dumped in the ground. It's just a thought.
I guess that's me told.
Be a long cold day in Hell, I suspect, mr jgm2, before I could tell you. But I do differ with you and others, here, about, what would you call if, the cast-iron, copper-bottomed case for redistribution and collective solutions to collective needs, indeed, I see them as the only way to encourage the flourishing of the individual, as, I would venture, they have in your case. As I said at the top, I value our disagreements as much if not a little more than our accords.
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