As readers of this blog will know I am very reluctant to comment on other political systems as I realise that as a Brit I have little to brag about my own. The British have some of the most appalling politicians on the planet and we have the distinction of not only electing a Prime Minister whom I consider to be quite insane, but re-elected him twice, even worse, we have David Cameron and Iain Duncan Smith, two people who believe that empathy and compassion are horses running in the Grand National. However, I was watching a programme on the Republican campaign in America to elect a presidential candidate for next years election and was genuinely speechless on the performance of the man that we are being told is the front runner, Ben Carson. If this is indicative of the state of American politics then that poor country is in for real trouble, especially given that, at this time, his greatest challenger is Donald Trump who is definitely a fugitive from the Mack Sennet studios.
Mr Carson made several claims that I found astonishing, such as the claim that the pyramids were built by the biblical character Joseph to store grain. At first I really believed that this was a spoof programme until I realised that it was quite real. This man obviously works on the supposition that you should never spoil a good theory with such bothersome things as facts. Despite over a hundred years of archaeological and scientific study he is quite happy to pander to the right-wing fundamentalist Christian myths that sustain the Bible Belt and make himself an international laughing stock. However, it was another statement he made that was truly jawdropping, because in his opinion, and he has spent his working life at the top of the medical profession in America, Obamacare is the worse thing to happen to America since slavery. This was an African-American neurosurgeon, a supposedly intelligent person and he actually said that. This is a very good example of someone who is obviously well-schooled, but is just as obviously not very well educated. The proper title of Obamacare is The Affordable Care Act, I mean the clue is in the title, but, in this man's opinion, a system of national insurance, designed to provide a basic and affordable national medical service for even the poorest sections of society is a bigger catastrophe for American society than the First and Second World Wars, a bigger catastrophe than Vietnam, a bigger catastrophe than the 9/11 attacks on the Twin Towers. I raise the fact that Mr Carson is a prominent African-American, because he obviously believes that Obamacare ranks as a greater threat to America than the Ku Klux Klan, than the social problems facing African-Americans that gave rise to the civil rights movement and the emergence of Dr Martin Luther King and the Black Panthers etc. A greater threat than the Iraq war, than the 2008 financial crash, than Prohibition and the rise of the Mafia etc. etc. I could go on but it is not necessary as it is obvious that this person is most definitely not wired properly.
This would be all very amusing were it not for the fact that he is being taken seriously as a candidate for the highest office on the planet and his lunatic ravings are being enthusiastically applauded by whole sections of the American public, or they were in the programmes I have seen. There is still a year to go before the election and a lot will happen before that, but the American right are definitely off the wall and people like this must surely pose a genuine threat to the rest of the world. We are definitely straying into Doctor Strangelove territory here. You have been warned
Your Servant
Doktor Kommirat
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