1984 Blog 1

I believe Newspeak stiffles the thoughts in 1984 more than blackwhite and double think Newspeak is alter the citizens of 1984's vocabulary to in the long run make them too stupid to think of thought crimes. Like in the book when they were going over the Newspeak dictionary they wanted to get rid of words like excellent and stupendious becuase they were too big, they created too much thought. Also, in the back of the book it tells how the Declaration of Independence preamble, "We the people..." can be summed up into one word with Newspeak, crimethink. They wanted fewer words sot he people wouldn't be able to get the feelings of freedom and revolution.

In our world today there are still leaders who use their words to distract us, the people. I call it the slight of hand - like in magic tricks. An example would be Nixon with the Watergate Scandal. He had other people take the fall for him. They may have been involved, but not the leader - slight of hand - becuase the people wanted someone to blame and he gave them someone. However, he was caught.

There are also institutions around today that use words to distract us. For example the health care system. There are so many health care commercials that promise affordable health care with fixed rates and no one will ever be turned away, but once the fine print is read it really doesn't cover everyone. Or if it does cover you, but then you need the insurance to pay for bills, like in the Micheal Moore documentary, Sicko, the company sends someone to look at your paper work desperate to find some way out of paying. They promise to get your money, but they don't always go through with their promises.

Absent for Karl Marx

Karl Marx believe that class conflict was inevitable because of human nature; he believed that all humans are competitive and always will be. He believed that even if classes were to disappear that their competitive nature would have them still seeking better and trying to be better - produce more, earn more, etc.

I agree with Marx - it is human nature to be competitive. Some more than others, but everyone wants to be the best or at least try to be the best. In the world today men and women around the world are trying to be the best at something. For example, the Olympics. Men and women practice at their sports to be the best and they compete for the gold. Look at politics - many use slander to have their opponent lose.

In Brave New World the citizens were conditioned to be happy with their class. They were under a dictatorship, like what Marx said would happen, but they considered him as a God. The citizens - even though conditioned - still questioned their class. "Why was I chosen to be a delta?" or "I could do that." (Delta saying about Alpha). Marx said things like this would happen. He knew that because of human nature citizens wouldn't stay in a "classless" society forever - it wouldn't last.

Health Care Blog

I have never liked the United State's health care system! I know people who cannot afford health insurance so they wait until they can't move to go to the hospital just to avoid the bills; one died. I know people who were denied coverage because of pre-existing illnesses. I know what it's like to see the huge pile of hospital bills for hospital stays - even with health insurance. I have seen people be turned away from the hospital, so when I watched Sicko it hit home. What Moore suggested sounded amazing - I wanted to move to Norway or France. I almost cried when I saw what happend to the 9/11 verterans because our country wouldn't honor or help them, but Cuba - our enemy, or so we've been lead to believe - heped with their illnesses and the firefighters honored them. I was almost sick to even watch that; America is supposed to be the best right? The Home of the Brave right? Yet, we are turning away even our soldiers in their time of need. SO when Moore said to overturn everything in our health system, I was all for it...until "Dead Meat."

"Dead Meat" told us what Moore left out. Yes, the cases in America were real, but Moore left our some facts with other nations. For example, Canada's waiting list. People die waiting in Canada, Moore left that out and tried to cover his tracks by visiting an emergency room. In the emergency room the wait is about twenty minutes, but for surgeries it can take years. For even a knee replacement surgery it took two years for a Canadian woman to finally receive hers. The most shocking thing that Moore left out for Canadians was that it is illegal for a human being to buy health insurance for themselves, but completely legal to buy health insurance for their PETS!

Now, I agree with the article, "Michael Moore and the Beige Bomber." The article states that the U.S. health care system is NOT perfect and needs to be changed, but Moore is being overhasty. Yes, the market-based health system in the U.S. easily allows the insurance companies to dump, deny, avoid, and neglect the sick, but this isn't the only problem. Moore believes if we just cut the market-based health insurance and turn it over to the government all will be well, but that isn't the case. How can we pay for free health care? We would hav to cut doctors salary majorly, but is that fair? They are going to college for the longest - college loans to repay - and are making life-death choices daily. Shouldn't they be rewarded with their salary? Also, with this transfer from insurance company to the government would just mean a new person to blame for denial. The article states, "That's waht happens if you offer something for free - you have to make rules about who is allowed to get it."

I agree with the article becuas the U.S. system does need to change, but Moore was acting rash. He wanted to scrap everything and start over without being realistic as to where are we going to get the money for that. The article also gives ideas how to fix what we already have which are really good ideas. Such as, "How else to reward doctors like the U.K. How to prevent sickness like Cuba and we could use pooling instead of the dump-and-deny we have now." These things are small steps towards the goal of Universal Health Care, which I would love to have. However, everyone must know that there is no perfect system, there will be flaws with even a free health care.