Saturday, August 15, 2009

The Sky Is Falling

This seems to be the newest in a long line of the ultra-conservatives scare-tactic modus operandii. Why anyone would consider Sarah Palin's comments worthy of repeating, I don't have a clue. I won't have to worry about the GOP grooming her for the presidency. She would make a fool out of herself on the first campaign outing. But she joins the "Death Panel" scream team as some kind of party totem. Now, along with the dumbness of the Birthers, we have the inane alarmists of the Death Panel-ers. Ye Gawd, will it never end?

As a senior citizen, myself, I can see several good things for those of us on fixed and lower incomes in the president's ideas. True, it needs a bit of polishing, but that is they way of all things. The far right has not been successful, so far, with its dire warnings of "socialism," so they drag out the old fear tactics. This is how the Equal Rights Amendment was defeated..with specious and inane specters of unisex bathrooms and the death of marriage as an institution and jobs being stolen from the more worthy "menfolk."

If the Chicken Little followers would just sit down, use their brains and read the entire thing, they would find nothing in there about deciding against treating the elderly as a way of saving money. But then, things can be twisted and gnarled by the "proof texters" until they are unrecognizable. This is like the ultra-self-righteous using out-of-context Bible verses to try to prove their points.

That the attacks by the Birthers and the Death Panelers smacks of racist maneuverings goes without saying. It's a lot easier to get the non-thinkers to fall in line if the target of the rumor-mongering is a mixed-race chief executive. As much as I would like to believe Maya Angelou when she said that we had finally "grown up" as a nation, I fear we have a ways to go yet. This is still a horribly, Puritanically rigid and racist nation. I often want to weep for all of us.

And, our bi-partisan system is no longer a balancing one. It has become, and, in fact, has been, for a long time, an adversarial, confusing and vicious one. In every culture where there has been a big gap between the haves and the have-nots, there has been an ultimate revolution. This is what scares the most conservative of the GOP since they and their meal-tickets are the "haves." We have long sacrificed our founding values in the name of capitalism and at the expense of our social conscience. We already have socialism in place with free public education and Social Security. A little bit more socialism might not put money in the fat cats' pockets, but is sure wouldn't hurt our country's image or esteem. Why can't we be the land of opportunity AND compassion?

Ooops, I think I just dislodged a piece of the sky!

2 comments:

Unknown said...

I tweated your blog! This is exactly right on!!!!

Chris said...

Personally, I am now convinced that our elected Dems as a whole, are a bunch of cowards and are taking the easy way out. To include Prez Obama. The Dems were elected into office this time, not the Repubs. But appears the Repugnants are still ruling the roost. This healthcare reform bit as practiced by the media is nothing but a giant mass-marketing advert to tell us what we need and what we don't need. And evidently is working. I am hugely disappointed.