Organized Treason

When you watch the news over this next year, here is a lot of what you are likely to hear from Republican
Congressmen, and probably to a lesser extent from Republican Senators, who tend to think and speak more individually.

But the GOP Congress Members?  Umm, not so individual.  They seem better at memorization, and appear more wedded to the idea of marching in lock-step...  rather than doing anything heretical like independent thinking.  If they were working to unite our people, to encourage the American people to work together to solve an issue that threatened our Country, I'd be far more sympathetic to such behavior.  For example, in a time of war, there would be social value in uniting behind a single point of view.

But when the issue is to try to hamstring the effort to reform America's staggeringly costly and not notably effective healthcare system, I think it is fair to say that this sort of "party line" attack is as tawdry as the mindless slogan pandering of those who waved Mao's "Red Book", and through their efforts cost the lives of something in the range of 100 million Chinese people, before the "Great Leap Forward" and the "Cultural Revolution" were over.  How many Americans will needlessly die as a consequence of this partisan hogwash?  10,000?  100,000?  What could one call the actions that cripple and kill our fellow Americans?  Traitors, perhaps?  Think about it.  These cheese heads are using a well-meaning effort to reform, expand, improve and rein in the costs of America's healthcare "system" as leverage for their efforts to grab political capital.

If this were happening in Italy, we'd all shake our heads and ask, "What can you expect from such a corrupt system"?   During this year, the rest of the world is going to be asking the same question about us.  The effort will fail, healthcare will improve in this country, preventive care will save enormous personal and social costs for the indigent and impoverished, but the pace of positive change will be slowed by these well-dressed weasels, busy banking donations from parts of our massive Medical/Industrial Complex.  17.8% of GDP.  Gosh, it sounds "too big to fail", right?  We HAVE to let it keep preying on the public, or else...  I mean, or else we might have a recession or something, right?

Uh, no, the money not wasted on our current healthcare system could be spent and invested in things which improve the lives of individuals and are of enormous value to our economy.

It will all work out, but how many will have to needlessly die because of these troglodytes?  Who will hold them responsible?  I suspect the voters will, in spades, but what a terrible cost will have been paid, in the process.

It's like watching a slow-motion train wreck. 

It's ironic.  When a Congressman gets caught scoring "coke" he gets a $250 fine and a year of probation, while an African-American kid might do some jail time.  When a bank embezzles a Billion or so, they get a fine, which doesn't seem to be used to compensate the homeowners who have lost money.

If your actions lead to the death of one individual, the penalties are serious.  But when thousands are killed, by misguided partisan boneheadedness, who pays the penalty for that?  You guessed it.  No one.  Instead they get a very cushy healthcare plan and a generous pension.  Even if they might have failed a drug test or two along the way.

But the wind is being sucked out of the current Republican Party.  One might even say that "the party is over".  Those who blindly believe their slogans are sharply divided between a smaller group of reasonable conservatives and a steadily growing group of those who are misogynist, racist and hate "big government".  The battle between the old-school GOP and the whatever we're supposed to call it camp is going to be as passionate as their disjointed attack on the Democratic Party in this mid-term election.  And a house divided can rarely stand.

Are we on the way to becoming a three-party nation?  You know, kind of like Italy?  (no offense to Italians, but really, a Prime Minister who has "bunga-bunga parties"?)

But as we get started on this, these will be the sounds of the Republican echo-chamber; and this is the "playbook" that these overage elementary school students will be working to learn to recite, in lockstep, ad nauseum; (click here)

Arthur