Blue Dog Democrates

The Blue Dogs are a group of conservative democrats. They have tended to resemble Republicans within the last several months, particularly with regard to Obama's health care plans. My fear is that they will undermine him to such an extent that his health care plan will go the way of Clinton's in the early 90's. Since he has staked so much of his presidency on the promise of affordable health care for every American, I am concerned for his chance of reelection in 2012 if health care goes down. Most people say that the Dogs will stop short of this, but who can tell. It all depends upon how red their state is and how much money they take from the health care lobby.

I am determined if the public option goes down to the interests of the insurance companies - to advocate for the proposition that the people in Congress lose all health care benefits. There is no reason why the American people should subsidize their public servants in what they are denied. I can't imagine that it would be very difficult to stir up against the Dogs and others the same selfish interests within the general public that are now worried about what covering the uninsured will cost them. It is time that Congress lived in the world it creates.

If the Dogs want to be Republicans they should cross the isle. I have written to the leader of the Blue Dogs telling her so. I tried to write to the coalition, but their email is no longer working - imagine that if you can. I am providing some urls for anyone who would like to write. Let’s be clear here, these people live in our Capitol and feed at our government's troughs. Therefore, anyone can write to them who wishes too, regardless of who put them office.

http://www.house.gov/melancon/BlueDogs/Member%20Page.html coalition

http://hersethsandlin.house.gov/contact2.htm leader of the Blue Dogs

Now, if you have reached the end of this blog and are thoroughly pissed off, that would be your problem. You are in the wrong place. I am a Liberal, an unashamed, unabashed Liberal. I believe that people are more important than money. Don't waste my time forcing me to read an angry comment - go find someone with whom you have something in common.

Disgusted

This morning I caught an ad on CNN. A woman claimed to be a Canadian who needed brain surgery at one point and was told that she would have to wait some ridiculous period of time. I say ridiculous because some of the claims about the British and Canadian systems boarder on malpractice. At any rate, she indicated that she had to come to the US for surgery. It begs the question, what in hell did she use to pay for her care? I know neurosurgeons. I worked with many when I was in institution health care. THEY DO NOT WORK PRO BONO.

There is something really strange about all the crap being spread with regard to health care in other countries. There aren't too many people walking around who could afford to pay out of pocket for resection of a brain tumor. It seems to me that either she is lying or there is something she isn't telling us.

Sorrow

I have stopped watching the news or reading it on line. I refuse to go into the Internet News Chat Rooms that are like nothing so much as toilets. I realize that I am frightened and irritable. I have taken counsel with my good friend Kitty, other wise women and my Goddess. This is what I know.

In the late 60’s I joined the Fabian Socialist. I remained a card carrying Socialist for nearly eight years. Barak Obama has no more resemblance to a Socialist than I do to an NBA star. Most of the political opportunists throwing this term at him like spitballs wouldn’t know a Socialist if they ran over them with a tank.

I left the Socialist Movement when I understood that the logical outcome of the old adage, "What goes around, comes around," and the Pagan Rule of Three is that most people have exactly what they deserve. Still in all, I remained committed to social justice, civil rights and women’s rights. I joined the Democratic Party. Please note the "ic" on the end of the word Democratic. In this phrase Party is the central noun. It is modified by the adjective form of the noun Democrat. Here ends the lesson except to say that politicians who are so self absorbed or lack the perspicacity to speak their native language properly should stay away from the microphones or learn to Sign.

These many years since have demonstrated to me that Democrats use money to take care of people, while the Republicans seem to use people to take care of money. I hear this persistent and ubiquitous rant about the Unbridled, Unrestrained Free Market as if it existed on some soaring, rarefied plain miles above the human condition. It is a tabernacle to wealth and greed of which most people will never own any significant portion, but will exist only to serve. The working class is enslaved by the concept, mouthing the rhetoric of their economic betters like hypnotized children hoping for a sweet. It is group think, group speak, no free thinkers allowed, and they call Obama a Socialist.

The worst of it is the hate speech, the demonizing and the veiled, or not so veiled threats. I sometimes think that we are a nation of one-note-canaries. We are so shrill and so unyielding that we can’t hear the many other notes that would ease our soul and make a beautiful symphony. I feel as if the world has grown dark and bloody as Macbeth’s Scotland. Juxtapose this to the bright promise of President Obama’s election and the darkness fills with a palpable sorrow.

I will enter my sixth decade in November. I have seen a great deal. I know where rage and hate lead, and it is nowhere that any sane person should want to go. I know truly that greed is a deadly sin and not, as some in this country would have us believe, a cardinal virtue. Mostly, I know that true freedom lives in the heart with love and empathy.

Calling Social Security an Entitlement is a Damn Good Way to Get Away with Theft

Here is my problem with so-called-entitlements. I have had Social Security removed from my pay for nearly 50 years. There was no "check if you wish to contribute" box on my tax forms. I wasn’t given a choice. The money taken out of my check was food off my children’s table. Where the hell did it go? Who raided my retirement fund? I am an Italian American, when my ethnic brothers, the mobsters of the 1940s and 1950s, raided the Teamsters retirement fund they were charged with racketeering and sent to prison. Now the modern day racketeers are telling me that I am a drain on society and it isn’t their fault, it is mine. I need to retire later, take less and they have no accountability. I suppose the good news is that we never adopted the Bush plan and put Social Security into the stock market.

Well I have an idea how we can save some money in this country. Cut the salaries of all those serving in the Congress in half. Cut their retirement benefits in half. Most of them may not have Social Security. Their government funded retirement is far better and has never been in question. Anyone now receiving a salary who is no longer serving in government and not of retirement age needs to go get a job, and their funds need to come back into the country’s coffers. Perhaps it is time that we demand that our legislators receive compensation and benefits consistent with the average public servant rather than being spoiled and pampered like an elite ruling class. Above all we need to remember what Mark Twain said, "There is no distinctly criminal class excluding the United States Congress."

Just an opinion.