I attended a Fuaxrum orchestrate by local State Rephensative Marty Knollenberg in Troy, Michigan last night. He is a smarmy smirking wise guy. About 50 supporters of HRC had signs outside, many in honor of Ted Kennedy and candles were lit as part of the vigil in front of Troy high. The panel was six GOP operatives, including newly announced gubernatorial candidate Pete Hoekstra (or Huckster or is it Hoaxter, Hoaxtra?). They had an empty seat for Gary Peters, my Congressman who did not bother to rise to their bait. Well done Gary. I wasted my time with their drivel....no need for you to bother. They of course held court and tried and condemned him in absentia. Did I mention Marty is the aspring scion of Joe Knollenberg, defeated by Rep. Peters last fall? Anyone suprised the six member jury found him guilty of being a Democrat?
Health Care Fauxrum: Troy Michigan 8/26/2009
As noted on Blogging for Michigan.com entry was controlled, but enventually I got in, as did quite a few other HCR supporters, though we were in the minority. I was a bit agitated by then, having been called traitor by one person pulling into the parking lot for wearing my Obama t-shirt and holding a sign that said: Remember Ted Kennedy: Health Care for All. Not sure which was the "traitorous" act, but my reply that I was a Patriot supporting Medicare for all almost caused the driver to lose control (well, I am fond of hyperbole, but one can hope)
Happily, a large handful of HCR supporters made thoughtful comments and asked good questions which were unanswered. Wearing my Obama t-shirt, I didn't even try to get to a microphone. But I wish I had, since my own doctor was there pedaling the GOP swill. I like him well enough, but now I wonder should I change primary care physician? It is all about the market placee I was told and we should follow our ecomomic self interest. Should I continue to pay him money when I know that, at least politically, he is a craven dufus? See poll below.
Had I gotten my chance at the mike, here is what I would have said in response to those tools who called our President a Communist and who made other lame comments, like one GOP County Commissioner who asked: "Will all the good doctors leave Oakland County if Health Care Reform passes" (and go...where I might ask? Fearmonger).
My rant:
I'll be the first in line for Obama care, seeing as my preferred favorite Howard Dean-Care came up short and Dennis Kucinich was right about everything, but apparently too short to get elected, but I quote him from the Democratic Convention last Summer: WAKE UP AMERICA! WAKE UP!
There is no health care reform without universal coverage...like VA, Medicare, and what Congress gets. What is wrong with our citizenry that they fall of this swill?
Time to rein in banks, insurance companies, arms merchants, warmongers (What $3 trillion for war and not one Cent for health care? Billion dollar fighters?, Star Wars laser that don't work but no health care?), all of those enemies of the Constitution that gave up the Bill of Rights as offerings to the false god "Security", the Thieves of Rights in the GOP and Bush administration that passed the Patriot Act (GOP swine all) so spies can read my mail, listen to my phone, read this diary, investigate the papers I buy, and the books I read, humiliate me, the old, the infirm and the young at airports because they have hip implants or pace-makers or don't look "Right" with strip searches and idiotic shoe removal that no other country in world does (and which the rest of the world laughs at us about), and those that give billion dollar tax breaks to Big Oil after it conjured up oil crises though speculative manipulation (..need I say..Enron?).
It is time for those that ran all the good jobs for the middle class out of the county to pay the piper, like the pigs at Wal-Mart that don't provide either a living wage or health insurance and send their workers to the emergency rooms for ordinary medical and everything else that I pay for with my premiums. Great Idea, import goods from China made by children in sweat shops, made of poisons and painted with lead paint, pay Americans peanuts sell them, have the shoddy goods break the day after you buy them and then send the poisoned and sick workers to the emergency rooms that I pay for with my premiums so the can make BILLIONS. Gee whiz where can I sign up for more? I have never been in a Wal-Mart and I never will.
Time for the plutocrats and the schemers that try to steal my Social Security to send to Wall Street (whew that was pure genius that....at the least the PEOPLE stood up and spoke like citizens and not Sheep on that one for once) to answer for their sins.
Time for true Citizens speak to the outrages of torture committed in our names and the wars started on false premises and the more than 4000 of our youth killed the 40,000 of them maimed in that unjust cause.
Time for Citizens, true Citizens, to inform themselves and not to decide issues on silly sound bites, cheap shots and talking points from those that hate the middle class, hate the poor, fear the working man and working woman and are stealing our country and giving it away to Wall Street.
Now is the time for the middle class to stand up and say no more to the plutocrats that are stealing out country. America is not corporatism. If you like corporatism and the way we are going I suggest you read up on Mussolini....the real original corporatist of the first order.
Yes, the Tree of Liberty does indeed need to to be watered with the blood of Patriots and Tyrants. I am a Patriot and I see the Tyrants quite clearly, being lobbyists, corporatists, Wall Street, Big Oil, the Defense Industry, the Insurance Cabal. America is for the people, the middle class and those that aspire to it.
Those making over $250,000 pay the lowest taxes rates in over 60 years. I personally PRAY FOR THE DAY I PAY FIVE PERSENT MORE on the $10,000 over $250,000. I wish I could pay that last $500.00 because that would mean I'd be making $260,000. If one of you makes that much, I understand why self interest would drive you to oppose Obama-Care, but it seems pretty cheapskate to me. $500.00 for coverage for all being measly two tenths of one percent of your lordly $260,000.00 income ((let me make that clear $500.00/ $260,000 = 0.0019230769230769230769230769230769). Yeah, I guess we need to wear our guns to town hall meetings to stop that. Cheap? Cheap is to kind? You should be humiliated for squeaking about that! What is it? Half a month's car payment on your Roll Royce?
Who do you know making that much cheese? I don't have one friend or acquaintance in that category and if they won't throw in that much for the common good, the hell with them. Let, take them take their shit to the off shore tax heavens and live there and darken America's doorstep no more...but they'd never do that because they have it so good here.
Am I alone in being galled to the core when I hear the mega rich say they are being "driven" from America because the taxes are so high? Is that all America, the Constitution, the blood of our patriots means to them that they would leave because health care cost them little money? If that is the case, then don't let the door hit them in the asses when they leave...and don't ask for my protection when the terrorists takeover you island tax haven either. Ungrateful greedy tools.
Who among us has $10 million and is worried about pay estate tax on the excess.? If it weren't so ungodly and sinful, I would be down on my knees and pray for the chance to pay Estate tax on everything over $10,000,000, because that means I'd have OVER $10,000,000! I defy anyone to even tell me one person whose deceased parents ever paid any Estate Tax and prove it. And if they did, so what? That means they kept, what, even in 2000 the first $2 million was exempt. Their kids, who didn't even make the money, kept TWO MILLION DOLARS! I'll never be worried about that me believe me. Right now it doesn't even start until you have TEN MILLION DOLLARS! TEN MILLION DOLLARS! If you have that much jack you used plenty of America's people and resources to get it, our roads, our skies, our workers, our land, our army to defend your wealth, our ports to import you goods, our youth to fight your wars. So Pay up and Shut UP. Whiners. How can you whine when you have TEN MILLION DOLLARS? Get some dignity will you. What's the worst case, your kids having to work like I do and my kids do? Cry me a river will ya?
Time for you to ask yourselves: Who runs the country...the corporations or the people? If you lose your jobs, who will pay for your kid's health care? If you lost your job, who pays for your unemployment? Do you truly believe as Christian or humanist, that if a neighbor becomes ill, she should go bankrupt to save herself or her kith and kin? Is that the cost of health care, Bankruptcy?
If you get cancer, should you have to sell you home and move into Section 8 housing (ooooo forget that..government run..how about a box under an overpass..wait, government run..so where does the cancer victim go?).
Rationing exists today, being no insurance...no care. So go die alone in pain citizen. NOW THAT IS RATIONED HELATH CARE AND DEATHER DREAMS. You can choose death or poverty...really poverty followed by painful death from cancer. Is that what America is about? NOT FOR ME!
What are we so stupid, so un-innovative, so uncaring that the French (the French!) of all people can cover all of their citizens, with better medical outcomes and at half the cost and we cannot do it? The French for heaven's sake. OMG. They don't even have baseball and they eat snails for dinner. They use their forks upside down I think....or is that the English? They drink wine with meals instead of milk and they still figured that out. Have Americans sawdust for brains now and the French have become smarter than we are? We went to the Moon, liberated Europe, beat the Japanese, won the Cold War, perfected mass production, explored the universe with robots on Mars, around Jupiter and beyond the solar systems, find distant planets half way across the Milky Way with our telescopes, built a space station, harnessed the atom..and we cannot find a way to get everyone to a doctor?
It is humiliating. The Plutocrats have reduced our dreams to those of midgets and prey on our fears and kill hope.
Even the Brits do it, and they don't even have baseball and confuse football with soccer! Canadians, they play football in the summer for heaven's sake, on the wrong sized field and can't even keep score right (two points for a punt or something), sold us Wayne Gretzy, and perennially cede Lord Stanley's Cup to us and even they figured it out and half of them don't even speak English I hear. But America cannot? Unreal.
Have we become so un-Christian that we would tell people we'd rather they die that help pay for their care? Are you ready to hear that if it happens to you..."Sorry..no insurance"...Sorry, your adult kid has no insurance...she has to die"...and then you'll bankrupt yourselves as any parent would to save them, right? Yeah. That sounds great to me. That is the America I want for my kids...not.
WE SHEEP HAVE TO LOOK UP.
I leave you with a quote from that Great American and Political Leader Sen. Bluto Blutaski from Animal House: "Who is with me?"
Pitch forks and torches available at my house most days.