Dodging the Question

 

 

I am growing increasingly sick of vote whoring, influence peddling politicians lecturing the American people on morality and decency.  Our system of politics is riddled with corruption; indeed, legalized corruption is the favorite occupation of politicians from Washington, D.C. to Puget Sound and from the Great Lakes to the Texas-Mexican border.  Since Antonin Scalia and his band of Rightwing clowns on the Supreme Court, that would be Roberts, Alito, Thomas and Kennedy, decided that corporations are people and have the First Amendment Right to express political opinions with money, the Founders’ idea of a government of the people, by the people and for the people has been eroded to the point of near meaninglessness.  Thus we have a veritable hothouse of money eating plants serving in the United States Congress.

By way of example, I give you Marsha Blackburn of the Tennessee 7^th.  In hearing her incessant chatter – as one often does on cable news programs – I am continually struck by her limited brainpower and her apparent dependence upon repeating Republican talking points in a chant like fashion to forestall any objection to her prefabricated ideas.  To wit:  Ms. Blackburn appeared on CNN with Carol Costello and insisted that one impetus for Darryl Issa’s trumpeted up and expensive hearings on the Affordable Care Act rollout is based upon a suspected violation of HIPAA.  The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 or HIPAA is designed to protect patient medical information under a guarantee of privacy or confidentiality.  Ethical medical practitioners have always respected confidentiality in dealing with patient information; not so some insurance companies, unethical doctors and nurses and some hospitals.  The only question, only I say, on the ACA application that can be considered medical or medically related is, “Do you smoke?”  That question will be found on any insurance application no matter who is offering the insurance or what is being insured.

To spite Ms. Costello’s repeated attempts to get Blackburn to specify what medical information is at risk and where the ACA computer signup can be seen to be violating HIPAA, the Congresswoman just kept repeating her talking points.  Once in a while she would throw in a pseudo professional sounding computer term by way of making herself appear knowledgeable only to prove that she was simply coached by a moderately skilled techie. 

Ms. Blackburn’s concern for privacy is belied by her rabid prolife stance.  She appears to be unaware of or insensate to the fact that her sisters’ right to reproductive freedom under Roe v. Wade is grounded in the implied right to privacy inherent in the 14^th and in part the 9^th Amendments. She also is willing to set privacy aside, indeed HIPAA regulations, while advocating that employers should have the right to deny female employees access to birth control.  Marsha Blackburn appears to be in lockstep with her Republican and Tea Party colleagues in picking and choosing the parts of the law and the Constitution they will honor.  Much the same way as they select the parts of the Bible that will work best for their political advancement.  Thus, as they scream about being Christians they ignore Christ’s central tenets of love, peace and charity so they might wallowing in the fear, threat and retribution of the Old Testament.

Marsha Blackburn is but one rightwing hypocrite and misogynist who women must put on their “Time to Go” list in ’14.  This amounts to a crusade for all forward thinking people who would have their children, male and female, live healthy and free.

Buffoons and the People Who Control Them

 

 

Yesterday, I saw a video of some pompous ass calling a group of people employed by the federal government parasites.  I saw the same thing in videos from Wisconsin when angry citizens stood and called teachers parasites.  It breaks my heart now, as it did then.  My husband spent forty odd years working for the Department of Agriculture, Food and Nutrition Service.  Neither he nor his friends and colleagues, Debby, Paula or Michelle to name a few, were or are parasites. 

Anyone of them could have gone out into the private sector and earned a hell of lot more money than ever they did working for the Feds or this ungrateful nation.  However, they all shared the idea that their work was valuable and that in this most Christian of countries feeding those in need was a trust which they were proud to accept.  So while the hawks in the Pentagon and in Congress went screech along starting wars to shove our moral vision of human dignity down the world’s throat and chiseling politicians on both sides of the aisle wrote promissory notes in their campaigns to honor and protect the social contract with the most vulnerable, my husband and his colleagues did the work that brought the vision to life and made good on the promise.  

I looked at the buffoon yesterday disrespecting the government employees in front of him as if he had a right to and thought, what do you do for a living?  Can it be that you are so stupid that you don’t realize that once the public sector workers have been discredited and invalidated by that cabal of the superior rich, the Heritage Foundation, Jim DeMint, their stooges in the Tea Party and whores in Congress that they will need someone else to use as a foil in their war against anyone who isn’t one of them.  Will it be construction workers, cab drivers, food service workers, nurses; how many people before they get to you?  If you are one of those small business owners who think that you will get a seat at the table when labor is finally put in its place – do the world a favor and evolve.  You too will be swallowed up by big money, forced to go along to get along or be kicked to the curb just like your employees.

This is not about Capitalism or the Free Market.  This isn’t about freedom of any kind.  There never was a tyrant who rose to power threatening to enslave people.  They all promise freedom to the one group they have selected to play against the others. 

This is about destroying the Middle Class, breaking the back of the Working Class.  This is about a society where the rich rule and the poor serve.  So go ahead, bend your knee and kiss the master’s ring.  Follow the God of the ruling class, believe and say what you are told to, have more children than you can afford to feed and don’t expect them to have a better world than the one you have created.  Know most of all that eventually you will take your place in front of some other buffoon who will call you a parasite.  That is how it works, man.  Karma is a bitch.

When I was Young

It was 1966, and Dr. King and Bobby were still alive. My generation was becoming prematurely and politically astute. Our beloved President Kennedy was dead three years and innocence died with him. I look around me today at the filth that passes for leadership, at clowns who think public service ends at the tip of their dicks and buffoons who think a Free Press means they are free to sell their services to the highest bidder and piss the public trust down the shitter and I grow nostalgic - not for my youth but for my nation's lost soul. I wouldn't have been young at any other time.