Yes, these folks came from all over America to exercise their right to assembly and protest. Thousands arrived and tended to be slightly older, mostly white, and self-proclaimed Christians. They held a severe mistrust for the American government.
So while it is in their rights to protest and make their voices heard, it is also within my rights to not let those voices go unanswered. Looking at what these folks had to say gives a keen perspective of the enemy we face constantly in our country in trying to move to a more Enlightened, Progressive society.
First you have this fellow:
Jerry Hershberger, a market representative for an automotive company from Flower Mound, Tex., said he flew up just to protest the health care bill. "A little expense now compared to a lot of expense later," he said, explaining why the cost of the trip was worth it to him.
http://prescriptions.blogs.nytimes.c...
Of course, he recited all those Fox News talking points like gospel. Things such as the bill not being bi-partisan, Congress negotiating it behind closed doors, and the bill driving us into a "super-deficit".
Which begs the question, where the hell was this guy when the Republicans rammed their Corporate policies that crashed our economy through in a partisan manner?? Where was this guy while the Bush Administration was one of the most secretive in history?? Where was he when we were wasting hundreds of billions of dollars in Iraq while the taxpayer was being picked clean by firms such as Halliburton with no-bid contracts??
Then, this hypocrite offered up this gem of wisdom:
Mr. Hershberger, who has health insurance through his employer, said that he believed some changes were needed to the health care system, but that Democrats were going about the process all wrong. "Scrap all this, start from the beginning, bring in the conservatives, the Republicans and the Democrats and see what we need to do to care for the 12 to 14 million people who really need insurance."
Noting of course, that this man has health insurance. He is not one of the millions who work full-time and still cannot get or afford coverage. His selfish ass is covered. I will agree with him that the Democrats are going about it wrong though. They should be ramming real reforms down folks like this guy's throats with reconciliation or whatever else was at their diposal. Finally, I just like to tell this fellow that Republicans HAVE been invited into the process. Their base acted like idiots, and their politicians offered up TORT Reform and delaying tactics. Republicans want no part of changing the healthcare system because it profits many of them too much, and their base is too easily brainwashed about anything.
Then we had this lady, a prime example of just how clueless these folks are:
"We support our country and we’re patriots," Ms. Garloch said. "And I don’t want my health care to be changed."
Ms. Garloch, who has a combination of Medicare and private coverage, said insurance should be sold across state lines to increase competition.
But Ms. Garloch, like many in the crowd who while visibly angry. could not articulate the main problems in the health care system or how they should be solved.
Notice again that this woman has health coverage. It is just fine for the government to be involved in healthcare if they are providing it for her, but of course that generousity should not include others. She is a patriot as long as her country is providing for her, but not so much if it does for anyone else. Of course, she knows nothing of the real problems with our healthcare system and the great failings it provides millions of Americans and if you ask me could care less about them because well, her selfish ass is covered.
Many of these folks, in their own hypocrisy and selfishness readily contradicted themselves. They complained of too much government spending, but of course they also complained about too little Medicaire funding. Ah of course, the government is spending too much, and too little on them. Lovely.
Like their leaders and Fox News most of them seemed to only know one solution to the healthcare crisis. Tort Reform. I mean, we are just so hard on medical institutions and insurance companies. What is really needed is to further limit the Constitutional rights of Americans just like under Bush. This time, we can limit their redresses in court. Why didn't we think of that before?? That solves the whole problem!!!
Next up we have a fellow from Ohio with a particularly telling story:
As for controlling medical costs, Mr. Davis did not have any ready solutions. He said that last December, his wife, Jennifer, had a heart transplant at the Cleveland Clinic. But he said he had no idea what it had cost. Her insurance coverage has an annual deductible of $4,000. After that, he said, everything was covered "100 percent."
Despite his good fortune though, he seemed to confirm just what Alan Grayson said the Republicans plan for healthcare is, "don't get sick", and "die quickly":
Mr. Davis said Americans needed to think more about the quality of life, rather than the length of life. He said that he and his wife had just such a discussion before she went forward with her heart transplant, at age 55.
The theme continues. I have written many times about the "greediest and least patriotic among us" and I believe the folks that personify that term quite nicely showed up in Washington D.C. once again today. They had no problem with debt and deficit when George W. Bush was allowing his Corporate cronies to pick our economy clean, crashing it. They have no problem with government spending as long as the government is spending on them and them alone. They do not feel that there is a healthcare crisis in this country because they have coverage and quite simply cannot see through their own greed to worry about millions of American families who may have a misfortune not of their own making and be completely destroyed or worse yet, bury loved ones because they worked hard at jobs with low wages and no benefits.
These folks have shown exactly what they are made of. They care nothing about our country, or any of the other people within as long as their sorry asses are covered. If our party actually surrenders to such a fringe, uninformed, selfish bunch of people then there may actually be no hope for our country.
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