Wednesday, October 06, 2010

Blame yourself

Was Tom Daschle (D-SD) telling the truth when he said that the health care public option Obama campaigned on was:
"taken off the table as a result of the understanding that people had with the hospital association, with the insurance (AHIP), and others,"

or was he telling the truth when he said the President really did fully support what he promised to support and that:
"The President fought for the public option just as he did for affordable health care for all Americans. The public option was dropped only when it was no longer viable in Congress, not as a result of any deal cut by the White House."

Does it really matter? Were some people right on the money in telling me that either party would, in time, do just about the same things if elected ?

While I'm not sure that "I'm a maverick/I was never a maverick" McCain wouldn't have buggered up the economy beyond recovery by caving in to every moneyed interest as he always has done, I'm not sure that Obama really ever had the ability to be the kind of People's hero his supporters dreamed of and that he presented himself as. I'm not sure anyone could have been or can ever be, because our government has become a conduit rather than a barrier between the interests of Global power and the perceived wants and dreams of the public -- and we like it that way. We want what they want. We see the government as the enemy rather than those entities behind the government which the government can no longer even desire to control.

We're out in the street supporting tax relief for the billionaires who got that way by taking our jobs abroad and importing foreign workers, legal and otherwise. We support the party that tries to block a tax cut for the vast majority and insist on keeping it for those whose wealth has grown exponentially as ours has faded away or stagnated. Hope itself has become the butt of a thousand jokes.

Since the dawn of supply side economics nothing much has trickled down but debt, no private sector employment was created and all those massive profits that were supposed to translate into more and better jobs simply trickled into hedge funds, tax shelters, fraudulent investments designed deliberately to fail; grossly inflating markets and tempting us all into massive debt. We've supported every false characterization, every fabricated and fanciful bit of data, every promise of future glory as well as every scurrilous slander designed to keep us dancing in stage managed anger on the ends of our puppet strings -- dancing to a tune we think is our own.

Lack of oversight and lack of responsibility cause one disaster after another, yet we keep insisting we need more of the same and any attempt at standing between us and rapacious global profiteers and pirates can handily be dismissed as Communism or Tyranny or Godlessness and "too much government interference." Safety inspections, food inspections, even rules against selling worthless commodities are "government interference with profits," but we're quiet about every increment of additional government power to snoop on us, track our movements, our finances and to interfere with our privacy whether it's the government itself or corporations wanting to sell us more and sleazier things. Cows want to be milked no less than we do, but only we two legged cattle see it as freedom.

It doesn't seem like "socialism" to the fellow who gets his hip replaced at the VA hospital and for far less than he could even if he were employed and had insurance that didn't pass it off as "pre-existing." -- yet he thinks it is "Obamacare" when Big Brother tries to keep United Health Care death panels from denying coverage for his grandson with cystic fibrosis. He oozes platitudes like " well insurance companies have to make a living too" and he doesn't see the difference between making a living and unlimited, government protected rights to make as much as possible without a moral scruple about exploiting human suffering -- and the land, water and air that make life possible. The common good? That's Communism.

No, it's too easy to blame Government, blame Liberals, howl about socialism, 'redistribution' of wealth, chortle about Nancy Pelosi and weep idiot tears with Glenn Beck until we don't notice the shackles. Or maybe you're one of those bumper sticker bozos who think that that hopey changey stuff is just hilarious compared to the same old despair and we ought to keep on staging unfunded wars and ignoring the bill because as the Maverick said: "Debt Doesn't Matter" until, of course, it does and then you can giggle and blame it on somebody else.

Did Obama sell out? Did Congress sell out? Was it the media who told us to walk toward the light when the light was over a cliff? No, you sold out, you bought into it, you gave it all away because otherwise it would be Communism and Fascism and Tyranny. Either that or you thought a new figurehead could steer the ship on a new course. Happy now?

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