A Modest Proposal....

Given that both American political parties, and perhaps capitalism itself is utterly discredited, perhaps it is time to move towards a new type of political thinking, or in this case reviving and fine tuning one from the past that went a bit off the rails. The SPK (Socialist Patients Collective or sozialistschen Patienten kollektiven in it's native German language) is the only political party that ever made sense to me.

The SPK members were mental patients recruited from the Psychiatric Neurological Clinic of Heidelberg University by Dr. Wolfgang Huber who politicized them and sent them out to fight the good fight. They soon joined forces with the Red Army Faction (better known as the Baader-Meinhof Group) and became known as the nut wing of that movement.

A bit of background for the unfamiliar, the Baader-Meinhof group were a hardcore

left wing political action group with a fairly incomprehensible philosophy (big deal,

isn't all political thought incomprehensible to a reasonable human?) formed in West Germany in 1970 by Andreas Baader (pictured above with his brains splattered across the floor of his prison cell), Gudren Ensslin, Thorwald Proll, Holger Meins (who would die after a long hunger strike in prison), Jan-Carl Raspe, and would soon include a respected German journalist Ulrike Meinhof among it's dozens of members. They took to the streets, targeting ex-Nazis and representatives of American imperialism in an orgy of arson, murder and kidnapping. They would make world headlines by hijacking a jet (in collaboration with PLO), bombing American military bases in Germany and the murder and kidnapping of many West German industrialists who had been Nazis in WWII. More on the Baader-Meinhof group can be found here.

Dr. Huber's theory was that the pressures and hypocrisy inherent in capitalist society is enough to make a sane person nuts. How'd you think I got this way? I was the smartest kid in my school until sixth grade when I was proclaimed a delinquent by teachers and school administration, and I've had to live on the borders of society ever since. Huber was onto something, something we need to look into and fine tune into a real workable political theory.

The SPK itself didn't work out too good. On April 24, 1975 SPK members seized the German embassy in Stockholm, Sweden and demanded the release of RAF/SPK members imprisoned in Germany. They made a mess of the action, one members blew his own leg off mishandling a bomb and the police were soon in control of the ground floor of the embassy. A blood bath ensued. The SPK might not have accomplished anything but you gotta love their moxie.

It's not just mental patients who need an organized political action group like the SPK but anyone with medical problems (meaning all of us as some time in their lives).

As one who carries an incurable and life threatening liver disease (hepatitis c) I can attest to the corruption and incompetence of the medical establishment. Dealing with doctors who refuse to diagnose, hospitals staffed by morons and insurance companies run by thieves and liars is enough to send anyone into a blind rage. After eighteen months of mis-diagnoses and apathy I've been told there's little that can be done for my condition. But I should come back every six weeks for more testing so they can keep billing me and my insurance company (which tries to deny every claim). Had I never gone to a doctor at all, nothing in my life would have been any different. Except I'd have many thousands of dollars lying around that now lines their pockets. I'm left to sit and wait for my liver to rot, and ponder my revenge.....