Hillary

We finally got around to watching the Michael Moore film 'Sicko'. There were few surprises, I have a friend in the States with medical insurance who has experienced problems. I have others who I assume never have. There were certainly points when I wanted to cross-examine the witness as it were, times when I felt there were parts of the story we weren't hearing, but the main point was well-made.

And of course, there was the scene where an effigy of Hillary Clinton was being burnt because she dared to introduce the idea of health reforms. In a way it reminded me of the people of Springfield. There were the people who had no insurance and hoped that nothing but nothing would ever happen to them - 50 million. Then there are the huge number of people who have insurance but who discovered their insurance didn't actually cover them for what ails them. Some died. But like the people of Springfield, they can nonetheless be relied upon to get the pitchforks and flaming torches to hound the person who dares to suggest that healthcare, like the fire brigade, police force, education and libraries, should be in any way managed by the State, and by the State I mean the country.

Now, Hillary's health reforms proposed as part of her election manifesto, or whatever that would be called in America, has been under attack from the other candidate. Hillary's response, which is to declaim said candidate, 'Shame on you...' because health reforms should be, MUST be part of any democrat's policies, is of course derided. Why is she getting shirty now? Well why not, why the hell not?

At the end of his section on Hillary's healthcare reforms, MM points out that Hillary has 'gone over to the other side,' because her campaign has accepted money from healthcare organisations. Sadly, I see this as one of the times when I wanted to cross-examine. Just as in Britain, when every mistake any police officer in the country makes is blamed on Metropolitan Police Chief Sir Ian Blair, as though he were chained to his desk in front of an infinite bank of screens, one for each police officer in the country, I don't see Hillary sitting at her desk saying yes or no to everyone who offers the campaign money. Nor do I see them all as completely evil and even if she did and they were, why not take money from them to regroup, lick wounds and come back and fight another day? Michael Moore himself says that he gave money to his sternest critic so that he could go on criticising.

On SNL last night, Tina Fey had a go at those who are failing to vote for Hillary. What reasons are being given? Ridiculous ones, ones that barely cover the ardent misogyny.
'The people don't want to see their President becoming an old lady,' I beg your pardon? 'They didn't care when Ronald Ray-gun did just that,' said Tina, although the old satirical Ray-gun was my inclusion.
'Perhaps they don't like that she is married to a former president,'
'Yes, what a horrible idea that two intelligent people should talk about matters of state,' or thereabouts, from Tina.

Misogyny is endemic, the Observer points to the media treatment of boys versus girls. How they hound and judge the women for everything, the men get more sympathetic treatment. Why is that?
Every family that has been blessed with children is even more blessed when within that family there are both boys and girls.
Each baby as it grows inside us, we women, goddesses that we are to have the amazing, the divine capacity to produce the next generation, could be either a boy or a girl, both equal, both in the sight of our Deity and in the sight of both parents. So what happens? Why, somewhere along the line, do girls slip to being the children of a lesser God?

I hate that I see this election in another country as a global issue. I shouldn't. It doesn't concern me. Except that I have good friends, people I care about a great deal who live there, but it's up to each of them to make their choices, not me.
I don't believe for one moment that Hillary is done for yet. But if she is, and if she perceives that she is, by God, if she has decided to go out in a ball of fire, I admire and respect her even more, it's what I would do.
She's an amazing, extraordinary woman, just to have boldly gone where no woman has gone before.