Look out your window, baby, there's a scene you'd like to catch
The band is playing "Dixie", a man got his hand outstretched
Could be the Führer
Could be the local priest
You know sometimes Satan, you know he comes as a man of peace.
-Bob Dylan-
The band is playing "Dixie", a man got his hand outstretched
Could be the Führer
Could be the local priest
You know sometimes Satan, you know he comes as a man of peace.
-Bob Dylan-
It hard not to think of the parable of the good Samaritan when you read about the anti-health care reform protesters in Columbus Ohio. Seems that Rep. Mary Jo Kilroy (D-OH) is still undecided and so competing groups showed up outside her office Tuesday last to express their opinions as loudly as possible.
A wrinkled, kneeling man holding a stick crawled up to a group opposing the effort with a sign saying he has "got Parkinson's" and needs help, say Raw Story's Will any of us be surprised at the reaction?
"If you're looking for a handout you're in the wrong end of town," one man yelled at him.
"Nothing for free over here, you have to work for everything you get."Something smells bad in Columbus and I don't think that stench is called Christian values.
Of course the health care reform under consideration isn't about handouts, it's that some people's greatest fear is that not only will someone get something he himself isn't getting, but that it might cost him some money. Insurance, by nature is about dividing risk amongst participants and so those who suffer losses will be covered while others pay a smaller amount. This seems to be fine with Republicans as long as some third party is skimming off 40% while keeping those at greatest risk out of the pool. This seems to them perversely to be Communism when individual risk is minimized by maximizing the pool and cost minimized by self administration by public ownership.
Is it a coincidence that people who don't seem to get this are the same people so mean spirited that they will mock someone with a terminal and debilitating disease and tell him to "work?" Is it that such people fear someone who could challenge their own self-pity that they must hate those really deserving of it? God knows who the Christians in Columbus are, but no one else seems to.
Even so, health care reform isn't about being a good Samaritan, it's about the most economical and efficient method of minimizing the burden on any individual participant by making us all participants, so whether there is a God who punishes nasty, malicious, selfish greedy bastards or some other principle of Nature that punishes the intellectually unfit and self defeating Conservative, it may be time to get out of Columbus and not look back.
Ugh. I'm out of words.
ReplyDeleteit may be time to get out of Columbus and not look back
I'm afraid this is easier said than done -- hate is coming soon to a street near you, if it's not already there, no matter where you live in the US.
Metaphorical, of course, Columbus is a state of mind.
ReplyDeleteYes, I support the SPLC too. Not because I think they can accomplish anything, but because I love to see the little dance Republicans do when you mention it.
Maybe we're not all ugly, vicious, hate-filled little bastards in this country, but so many of us are willing to let it go and not do anything about it we might as well shave our heads and polish our boots. Even the churches are so heavily invested in gay bashing, abortion misrepresentation, theocratic insurgency and ripping off the poor that they ignore the hate and thereby become part of it.
The Parkinson's guy protesting in the street was a "Communist thief" according to a Republican on another blog. People like that don't deserve life, much less citizenship. People like that with their animal ignorance are the enemy and unlike the Klan or the Aryan Assholes they're just everywhere, pissing on all of us.
Well put, as always, Captain.
ReplyDeleteI do have to (more or less seriously) object to this, however:
People like that with their animal ignorance
Yes, true -- and yet this is unfair to animals, who readily exhibit empathy for each other, even for members of different species (birds toward mammals, for example). See Frans de Waals' book, The Age of Empathy, where he describes instances of animals helping each other, sometimes even sacrificing their own lives in the process.
Nothing in the animal (or at least mammalian) kingdom compares with the human extreme right-wingers (OK, maybe male chimps during turf wars -- but even they do not attach an ideology to their murderous deeds, and they usually try to make up with their rivals/victims after flare-ups of instinctual mayhem).
P.S. It's Frans de Waal, not de Waals.
ReplyDelete"Nothing in the animal (or at least mammalian) kingdom compares with the human extreme right-wingers"
ReplyDeleteIt's our capacity to dehumanize others that sets us apart, I guess. We do it almost instinctively and if you look for it in the Bible, you'll see how much of "us Vs. Them" is in it. It used to be around racial or ethnic or religions lines, but now we're so scientific about our hate management, we create convenient "others" to set almost any one aside. It's powerful political tool. Can you tell a Hutu from a Tutsi? I can't either, but one of them is a "cockroach" because the other one is trying to justify a power grab and the brotherhood of mankind gets in the way.
I'm so proud to be human.
I heard from my son in law the other day - was confronted by some road-enraged loony who could think of nothing worse than to call him a Liberal. Maybe his car was more expensive or something.
It makes dummies feel smart and part of something bigger than themselves, but we know that they know that we know they're just dummies.
America's Tea Baggers, Dumbers, and Haters are encouraged not only by the idiots that lead them, but by the idiots who enable them, i.e. the Republican party and the MSM. The former jump with joy, but always in private. The latter jump with joy, but carefully, when they present this trash to the public...Shame!
ReplyDeleteWell, this is a 'Christian' nation after all.
ReplyDeleteYou can really feel the love when 'real Americans' are gathered.
Though it's a bit dicey trying to drink from the cup of human kindness when that bunch is in full flight.
Back in August, I promoted the idea that disabled advocates of reform should do EXACTLY this kind of activism. Nonviolence does not mean non-confrontation -- on the contrary, "turning the other cheek" is an act of nonviolent defiance. The age of video makes it more possible than ever to have this kind of confrontation -- and allow the forces of reaction to reveal themselves on camera.
ReplyDeleteWhen I heard about this I thought of; let those without sin, cast the first stone. But I'm atheist and fed up with these self righteous bastards. My response would be to stone them. Don't spare the rod, just means useful discipline.
ReplyDeleteCaptain Fogg - "Insurance, by nature is about dividing risk amongst participants and so those who suffer losses will be covered while others pay a smaller amount."
ReplyDeleteStating it in such terms has made me realize that all insurance is a communist plot. Which means all health insurance, auto insurance, life insurance, and credit default swaps. Perhaps, I should cancel my insurance policies and save myself a bundle. Besides, who would pay a claim to an ignorant octopus? Whether human or cephalopod, just being alive is a pre-existing condition.
Tom, I'm not a believer either and I've been fed up with them for a very long time.
ReplyDeleteIndeed, insurance has become so expensive that it eats up a bigger share of my income than any other expense -- and I have lot of expenses. One of the reasons of course is the 40% overhead. With company profits rising at an accelerated rate and along with their cries of poverty, I'm tempted to self-insure where I can. I do know people with multi-million dollar houses who self-insure simply because they don't want to pay for the house five times over.
One of the healthy, well-dressed guys who mock and harrass the Parkinson's man in Columbus had a sign identifying himself as a member of Americans for Prosperity (yup...)
ReplyDeleteWatch Chris Matthews confront the founder and leader of AFP about the behavior of its member(s), their own views on health care, and their proposed solutions (= none).