More on Sunday, but today has been riddled with upsides & downsides.
Upside: I dropped off some toys I had in reserve for the two boys, who live in a home without so much as a refrigerator, in anticipation of the youngest leaving hospital. César is also signing the contract to own his humble apartment tomorrow.
Downside: Although César's contract starts Feb 1, his boys won't be covered until Feb 15. The last treatments will be out of pocket too.
I am tired & angry at non-universal healthcare.
US citizens, HOW has there not been a general strike against this BS on your home front? HOW?!
@MLClark Because this country has no history of such an action taking place.
And since we have about a third of registered voters not exercising their right to do so, what makes you think that a majority of people would turn out for such a general strike?
@Darkenyght1701 South American countries also have low voter turnouts, in large part because they're so disillusioned with sitting officials that they engage in direct action instead. There are strong traditions of annual strikes here, though - that's the difference. Folks know that official strike committees will announce protest dates, distribute protest routes and lists of demands, work with transit & media, & set up negotiations with government. Protest is strongly acculturated elsewhere.
@MLClark again, you don't see that here.
South American countries.also have more of a history of.direct military rule and juntas, or " presidents for life", whereas neither have occurred here..
People in this country are more concerned with the latest reality show winner and celebrity news than.they are with current events, which is another reason you'll never see a general strike
@Darkenyght1701 Not disagreeing with you - except to note that low voter turnout isn't automatically a sign of civic apathy. That was my point.
Otherwise: Tony Judt explored similar in Postwar, where he noted that Eastern countries had less to lose, so they often resisted far more than Western countries, which were keen to protect some semblance of their comfortable lives - and thus built grander myths of resistance around the far fewer fighters who did stand up to oppressive forces.
@Darkenyght1701 I am not sure where we're disagreeing now. Where did I suggest a policy?
@MLClark sorry , crossed wires .
The second part was is response to your comment about eastern countries creating myths about those who fought back against authoritarianism.
The reason I said Poland is the labor leader, whose name I know but can't spell, was a bit of a flop when he was elected to be president after leading a generally successful strike against the government in charge at the time
@Darkenyght1701 No, it wasn't the Eastern European countries creating those myths around WWII; it was the West, offsetting how little they were actually all-in with the struggle against Nazism by building grand tales of, say, the French resistance.
So we're in agreement here: Western countries have a history of protecting their existing comforts, however slender, even in the face of far greater oppressions and injustices.
But also agreed - it's easy to get wires crossed when chatting online!
@MLClark yes to both points
@MLClark I would love to agree with you on this point, but I've had far too many conversations with otherwise intelligent people where I had to literally lay out the consequences of suggested policies, or the need for certain policies, to do that
Call me cynical.
The problem with leaders of resistance leaders becoming political leaders is too often they end up over their heads
Poland may be the best example of this