#welovethenhs - and some of us dislike misinformation

[innerbrat]

There is, apparently, a meme going around among various USian pundits of certain political affiliations  - and financial interest in the Insurance industry, in some cases - that the National Health Service is evil and murderous and everyone in the UK is dying of death. In my self-inturned little world I've only really come to be aware of this meme

Comments

[shellebelle93]

Agreed. OY, people. *sigh*

[sdelmonte]

Debate? What debate? A debate requires more than just "your plan sucks!" to be a debate.

[apiphile]

I *love* your icon.

[van]

Thanks for this, I was just going to ask my flist to link me to some stuff I can email my parents so they will stop thinking the NHS is EVIL. UGH. So fucking annoying.

[gramarye1971]

Every time I hear the nonsense that's being spewed about health care in the UK, I want to cry. When I was doing my postgraduate work in London, I never worried about what would happen to me if I developed medical problems and needed to see someone about them. Now, in the States, one of the main reasons why I'm staying a job that I increasingly dislike is because I'm afraid to lose my insurance coverage. If any system is sick, it's this one.

[sdelmonte]

Thank you for posting this.

[pmoodie]

What amazes me is that the politicians and pundits in the USA who come out with this sort of self-serving shit are so obviously lying, but everyone over there doesn't just point at them and laugh.

Is the American media so saturated with howling right-wing lunatics like Bill O'Reilly that they just accept their poisonous propeganda as though it's an accurate view of the world?

For the record, I'm a 39 year old Scotsman, and my life and the lives of many of my friends and relatives have been improved or saved by the NHS more times than I can easily count. Anyone who says we'd be better off without it either has an agenda, or doesn't know what the fuck they're talking about.

[innerbrat]

A lot of people are pointing and laughing. These pundits are the USian equivalent of the Daily Mail - a lot of people know they're spewing shit, but a worryingly large percentage just lick it up. It's all to do with the media one surrounds oneself in - why should Joe American who doesn't spend a lot of time on the internet know what goes on in the UK?

[pmoodie]

True enough. And I know enough Americans to know that a significant chunk of the populace over there despises this kind of gibberish.

I do sense that the tide is turning, not just in the States, but over here too. More people are becoming sick of being lied to, and treated like idiot children. I just wish the tide would turn a bit faster.

[womzilla]

"These pundits are the USian equivalent of the Daily Mail"

Except that the calm acceptance of the lies runs all up and down the corporate news media--it's not just the obviously barking right wing, it's the supposedly liberal NYTimes and MSNBC that help spread these contaminations of the noosphere.

"why should Joe American who doesn't spend a lot of time on the internet know what goes on in the UK?"

But it's worse than just not knowing--unless you put a fair amount of effort into it, in the USA, you're much more likely to encounter lies than fact.