22 March 2010 A small step in the right direction

22 March 2010 A small step in the right direction


Take that, Boener! Getting used to losing yet, GOP? How’s that Palin-driven bigotry and lies campaign working out for you?

I woke up feeling good today, not just because I woke up next to Gloria, always a reason to feel good; not just because I had a wonderful birthday yesterday; not just for a lot of reasons that make me happy to be alive.

No, today I woke up feeling good for an additional reason. Last night, the campaign of lies, distortion, deception, and religious hypocrisy that has characterized the Republican Party since Nixon hit a shoal in its course. It was gutted by the Democrats, most of whom finally remembered who their current party is descended from, what wonderful works for the public good it once proposed and implemented. The GOP’s lobbyist bosses are going to most unhappy with the good-ol’-boys who took their money and failed to deliver.

The American people won last night. They received a chance to obtain more affordable health insurance that won’t be ripped out from under them when it is needed most. But they won more than that. They we’re handed a GOP hierarchy that over-reached, got caught lying, and that openly exhibited the depth of the hatred they bear for anyone who thwarts their plans to sell out our citizenry to the highest bidder at every opportunity. They were handed a GOP that played its most powerful wedge issue, abortion, and still lost. They were handed a defeated coalition of lobbyists, fundamentalist/evangelicals, and the Catholic Bishop’s council all of whom have been calling the tunes for the GOP’s elected.

That’s a big win, America. I hope it sinks in quickly how much we’ve won back for ourselves. I hope it sinks in to the GOP that the alliance with theocrats, fundamentalist/evangelicals, and Catholic Bishops is a truly unholy one. This triad of bible thumpers has been making every effort to subvert our 1st Amendment. They all want some form of national religion to drive our government and our day to day lives. We left that religious control of government behind centuries ago. That is, we tried to. But the greedy control freaks that are the leaders of these groups want to remove the safeguards against them crafted by Jefferson and the others. They want all of us to live as if we were subjects of their religious hierarchy, serfs working for the Bishops, the preachers, the snake-handlers and witch hunters. And last night they were told, “No!”

So today we start to change our health insurance system. The bill stopped far short of what we needed, what I wanted, and universal nationalized health care. But it does pull the insurance companies’ hands a bit further from our pockets. Like the moon landings of the Apollo missions, small steps can get us started in the right direction.

And by the way, Ms. Palin, to you and all your Tea Party illiterrati, that “Hopey Changey thing” is working just fine. How’s that unemployment thing working out for you? Quit any other jobs lately?