 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
BLOGS
Links: local area political directory
|
YESTERDAY
WAS NOT A GOOD DAY, AND TOMORROW MAY TURN OUT EVEN WORSE IN THE
LONG RUN Well,
what happened yesterday? From the news reports I've seen thus far,
I can only conclude that a white mob was inside a building where
members of Congress were walking on their way to somewhere else.
They were subjected to what seems like third grade playground behavior
at its worst. (Sincere apologies to third-graders.) There were racial
taunts, including the N word, inflicted on men who had been at the
forefront of the civil rights movement, gay baiting including the
F word, and at least one instance of spitting on. (Not at, I said
on.) When was the last time that people demonstrating from the progressive end of politics in this nation even got close enough to public officials to engage in behavior of that sort, if we so chose? Normally, if a demo is anticipated to be any more serious than a polite parade, it is fenced off, at least a mile or so from the scene being protested. The usual thing in trips to the one or another of the coasts to protest the wars is for the permit to be issued for Saturday, so that the crowd can pass by and throw their verbiage at empty offices along the prescribed route. It is tempting to speculate what the authorities would have done, if we had gotten close enough to do any of what was done in Washington yesterday and had actually spat on a public official. Given that we normally don't have the funds to hire the kind of legal help available to members of so-called Freedom Works, for example, arrests would have most assuredly numbered more than the rumored one yesterday. Let me try a couple of words on you. One you know; that one is government, the other is often confusing, because it is also used to describe political entities at a different level of government. That word is "state." The Second College Edition of The American Heritage Dictionary defines the word, state: (actually this is definition 8.a) as "the supreme public power within a sovereign entity." That is the sense that I am using the word, "state" here. Classic sociologist, Max Weber, defines the word as the monopolization of violence over a given territory. So, for me, the question becomes whether the government, is actually something close to what we mean when we say "state" or is it not. How would we say that it fits the definition when it cannot even prevent its officials from being spat upon. Perhaps, someone in government feels that a move to punish such an act to would involve it in a court battle that it might well lose, or would involve it in a loss in the court of public opinion. But, perhaps, the worst part is: are we of progressive or even liberal opinion still supposed to look up to it and honor it, if it cannot prevent its officials from being spat upon and cannot even mete out punishment when it happens? The conclusion here is that those of us who many years ago adopted the term "corporate state", to refer to the ruling force in the US, have once again been proven exactly right. I say once again because about all of the legislation, passed in Congress for eons, but most particularly in the last year, has the fingerprints of the lobbyists all over it, and most of it does not even begin to do what it is being sold as doing. Again, because the Supreme Court in a recent decision has decided that the situation is not enough that way, it needs to be even more so. (Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission). The 14th Amendment becomes a sham, because Congress can indeed take away the rights of residents of US states, and the proof will be there for all to see, if the health care bill passes, complete with the individual mandate that you have to have private insurance. If Congress can decree that persons within the US must buy any particular product, it can do anything. Who put that in there? Well, the lobbyists again had a lot to do with it, the deal apparently was that the insurance industry would drop refusal for pre-existing conditions if everyone had to have insurance. A hell of a deal for them! I could cite what usually passes for evidence in these matters: the stocks of health insurers have already been soaring in anticipation. And, if this bill passes, the stratosphere will be the limit. I'm
not going to even watch the debate on this bill. I've tried before
to watch Congressional debates, and the last two times particularly,
it made me literally sick. (Not an exaggeration, trust me.) If the
legislation, as law, pushes costs up, as happened with a somewhat
similar plan in Massachusetts, instead of reducing the deficit,
as the CBO claims, it could set back any plan for reforming health
care back for a generation, at least. Pass Alan Grayson's Medicare
buy-in bill, or Dingell's bill that adds people to Medicare, age
groups of ten at each end of the spectrum at a time, or if, perchance,
we want to finish the job the right way all at once, the best shot
is HR 676. No muss, no fuss, no escalating insurance premiums, a
way to pay for it right in the bill, starting with the transaction
tax |