I just got finished to listening to this interview on Democracy Now! about the effects Hurricane Katrina had on a particular hospital in New Orleans. As waters rose and electricity and water pressure was lost, the situation in Memorial hospital became desperate–pushing some doctors to allegedly kill their more vulnerable patients. Some of the doctors allegedly killed their patients so that they (the doctors) could escape the situation, others allegedly did it as an act of kindness in the middle of hell. One doctor denies killing her patients at all–despite evidence to the contrary.

It’s a hard story to listen to–one that really opens the “death panel” discussion in a way that is much more relevant and necessary to reality. Namely: in moments of crisis and few resources, how do we decide who is going to get resources and who is not?

No doctor should have death on his or her hands because as a society we are so unprepared and unable to handle frank discussions about death. The fact is, especially in crisis moments, and ALWAYS under capitalism, resources are in short supply. And I personally would rather that there is a public debate over who is allowed to live *specifically because capitalism is its own death panel* and who is not.

But, to have that frank conversation, we first need to be able to redirect the conversation to reality. We need to be able to admit that unrestricted capitalism has its consequences. And that individual humans making decisions forced on them by capitalism become scape goats so that capitalism can remain hidden and unchallenged. When we all finally admit that capitalism is a horrible game of parceling out resources to the people who have the least need of them…then we can begin to have frank discussions that might possibly save doctors from making horrible decisions and vulnerable people from being killed simply because there was no other way.