23 March 2010 The world still turns on its axis.

23 March 2010 The world still turns on its axis.




Despite the anguished howls that have been heard issuing from the GOP house and senate leaders, the sun broke the horizon as scheduled this morning. Buds have not fallen from the forest trees, birds from the skies, and insurance companies still possess sufficient resources that they will fund yet another GOP campaign to block any health care reform in these United States.

In monitoring my normal internet forums, I’ve visited one which is comprised of men who think Barry Goldwater was not conservative enough. On that forum, where Obama has routinely been referred to mainly by pejoratives and slurs, one correspondent claimed that the passage of health care reform was the demarcation of the demise of the nation, that it would soon be taken over by “socialists and communists,” as has been Obama’s plan since he was born. Yes, this same forum is filled with “birthers” who insist Obama was born outside our borders. Others who populate this forum are 10th Amendment proponents who believe that nearly everything should be relegated to the various states.

Well, we’ve let the states try their hands at running transportation, commerce, health care and education. What we wound up with was a tier of states in the South East that is renowned for its collective illiteracy. We have other states that seem to believe that the laws of physics can be abrogated by waving a bible at the physical universe. We have people starving or dying from cold because the former governor of our largest and most oil-rich state didn’t believe in helping the poor; but does believe in witchcraft apparently.

From the beginning of the Obama administration push to actually get a health care bill through Congress I have been astounded at the apparent lack of intellectual capacity demonstrated by the mobs sent out by the GOP or by Fox News in Tea Party gatherings. There has been constant misuse of the terms “Nazi,” “socialist,” and “communist.” The mob seems to be unable to understand what are the underlying principles of each “ism.” Such lack of political education is all too likely to become even more widespread if the Texas history re-writes are allowed to happen. It seems as if the theocrats and reactionaries are worried about having sufficient voters to return them to office in the future, and are therefore determined to breed their own pool of poorly informed and poorly educated voters.

The GOP protestors come equipped with commercially printed signs when the party wants to be openly involved. The Tea Party mob present, mostly, with pre-printed posters of Obama defaced in some vicious manner, and with hand-lettered signs of even more vulgar and poorly spelled nature. The signs are all designed to polarize, to display anger and hatred. A lot of them invoke some form of divine intervention in the present and even more predict such intervention at a later time.

Also highly evident in the Tea Party mob’s signage is an immense lack of knowledge as to how our own government works. There is widespread lack of information about Medicare and its place in the payment scheme. “Keep government out of my Medicare” is all too commonly seen and heard. Medicare has been around for 50 years now and is still misunderstood. Gloria just talked to a young woman who believed that the various components of Medicare are free to the Medicare insured. This woman, college educated and in her thirties should know better but like too many, has never been concerned with the mechanisms involved in providing health care to our disabled and aged populace. Think how much less informed our college and high school dropouts are about such matters.

Think of the distortions hung on quotes taken from the Constitution and Declaration of Independence, out of context, that are put on signs, screamed into bull horns, and splashed across television and computer screens. Twisting words from historic documents is easy when the recipient has never bothered to read the original document. All politicians and political parties manipulate truth and lie easily. The GOP seems to have mastered the art of removing any shadow of a conscience that the candidate for election or his campaign staff might have once possessed.

This is going to be a continuing litany as the GOP does everything possible to repeal the law Obama signed today. Already they have convinced the attorneys-general from ten states to file lawsuits asking to have the law overturned. It will not matter to the GOP leaders or rank and file that children will die of preventable diseases, that adults will die of treatable diseases as they lose coverage or have it denied. It will not matter that we have a health care delivery system that is less effective than any other industrialized nation except, perhaps, Russia and China. As long as the corporate offices that control insurance are happy and their occupants paid obscene bonuses, the GOP will continue to lick the boots of those that fund their re-election.

Keep screaming, Boener. The door between you and the unwashed masses has been kicked open. Your good little Republican boys and girls won’t attack you in your office. But those Tea Party idiots you’ve been inciting since you discovered that Palin could incite hatred all too well can’t read all that well. One fake tanned, politician looking like a used car salesman looks pretty much like another. The Tea Party mob isn’t picky. If they can’t find me in my home, they’ll be quite happy to attack you in your office.