The ever-quotable David Simon

I’ve been meaning to link to this interview with David Simon — not safe to read for anyone who hasn’t seen the end of The Wire, by the way (what’s the expiration date on spoiler warnings, anyway) — for ages now, but in light of the current healthcare stalemate, it’s even more relevant than they were when I first read them a month or so ago. Here’s what he has to say about the possibility of political reform in general and health care specifically:

Why does reform seem so impossible?
We live in an oligarchy. The mother’s milk of American politics is money, and the reason they can’t reform financing, the reason that we can’t have public funding of elections rather than private donations, the reason that K Street is K Street in Washington, is to make sure that no popular sentiment survives. You’re witnessing it now with health care, with the marginalization of any effort to rationally incorporate all Americans under a national banner that says, “We’re in this together.”

But then the critics of a system like that immediately cry socialism.
And of course it’s socialism. These ignorant motherfuckers. What do they think group insurance is, other than socialism? Just the idea of buying group insurance! If socialism is a taint that you cannot abide by, then, goddamn it, you shouldn’t be in any group insurance policy. You should just go out and pay the fucking doctors because when you get 100,000 people together as part of anything, from a union to the AARP, and you say, “Because we have this group actuarially, more of us are going to be healthier than not and therefore we’ll be able to carry forward the idea of group insurance and everybody will have an affordable plan…” That’s fuckin’ socialism. That’s nothing but socialism.

I’m trying really hard to give less of my attention to the political world, especially after getting some words of wisdom from my stepfather recently, who’s just fed up with the lack of cojones up on capitol hill:

I’ve had it, I can’t take it anymore.  I feel now the way I did when Bush-hole was in office.  I have made so many excuses for Obama, but the truth is he let health care get away while he was sucking up to Olympia Snowe, Joe, Max, and the rest of them.  HE DIDN’T CLOSE THE DEAL–THAT’S WHAT PRESIDENTS AND LEADERS ARE THERE FOR…

I have imposed a news blackout for myself.  I am not listening to the State of the Union Address or any other speeches.  They can tell me when they have DONE something.  [ A friend ] used to say to me: I have no interest in what you are thinking of doing, what you have planned, intended, considered, or want to do; tell me what you have done, or are doing right now.  That’s how I feel about government and politics right now–no more talk–f*******g do something.  In the end the cretins are going to get the government they asked for and deserve; I will vote, but I am not going to give up my serenity in what seems like a lost cause.

[emphasis mine]

That’s some good stuff right there, and if I was a church-going type, I’d be yelling out a big “amen” right now. The recognition of my own powerlessness in the larger scheme of things is really okay — it’s not giving up if you were never in the game to begin with, right? And if it allows you to focus on the things that are tangible and changeable and right in front of you (and by you, I mean me, of course), then good on ya. That also leads — in a somewhat oblique way — into the realization that I haven’t really written about Down syndrome in a while, though I’ve got some pieces bookmarked I’ve been thinking about a lot that I need to link to in that realm of the world as well that I should spit out soon.

More to come, I guess…