Like a Rolling Stone
By David Glenn Cox
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Indiana's budget crunch has become so severe that some state workers have suggested leaving severely disabled people at homeless shelters if they can't be cared for at home, parents and advocates said.
They said workers at Indiana's Bureau of Developmental Disabilities Services have told parents that's one option they have when families can no longer care for children at home and haven't received Medicaid waivers that pay for services that support disabled people living independently.
It just makes you wonder what sort of country that we've become. I mean really? That's the best answer that they've got? Take your disabled child to a homeless shelter and drop them off while you go work your shift at Wal-Mart.
The Medicaid waiting list has over 20,000 names on it and some have been waiting for ten years. It reminds me of the joke about the Soviet who buys a new car. The salesman says, "Comrade, Your new car will arrive on June the 15th fours years from now."
The customer shakes his head and answers, "No, that won't do! That's the day the plumber's coming!"
Public services have become a thing of the past, we've got a half a million highway signs that say things like, "Barney Rubble Memorial Bridge" or "Dead Politician Memorial Interchange." Why does every bridge over every railroad track in this country need to be named in the first place?
In July, President Obama signed a supplemental appropriation for Iraq and Afghanistan sending 30,000 more troops and another $33.5 billion dollars. This is extra, this was a supplemental appropriation. The bill also allotted $14 billion for Vietnam Veterans suffering from injuries from Agent Orange. Several months back Representative Anthony Weiner went on the floor of the house begging for funds for 9-11 first responders.
Not only did Obama's health care reform not cover 9-11 first responders it didn't cover Vietnam veterans or disabled children. John Kerry in the Senate spearheaded legislation to send Pakistan $8 billion dollars over five years to build schools and infrastructure. The State Department recently gave money to Afghan merchants whose stores were damaged by an insurgent attack. We paid for every broken window, busted light bulb and frightened goat that wouldn't give milk.
For our own damaged merchants? For our own people whose lights have been turned off or who are trying to manage with a disabled child what do they get?
I'm not just trying to just pick on the Democrats because the Republicans are worse. The don't believe in Agent Orange or Gulf War Syndrome they just believe in the wars where they originate. They fail to understand that war is the failure of politics, it is a bankruptcy of ideas. Brawn over brains, kill em all let God sort them out!
Idiocy is in full bloom, the Iowa Republican Party has on its party platform to allow students or teachers to lead students in voluntary Bible readings and prayers. How many times have we fought this battle? Reading the Bible to your children is a parents job not the school districts. These same people that don't want sex education taught in school because children might get the wrong message want the Bible taught in school. They also want to limit the parties activities on Wednesday nights because that's church night!
We have millions of homeless and hundreds of thousands of homeless school children and they're worried about Bible readings and church night? As Mark Twain once said, "If Christ were here today the one thing he wouldn't be is a Christian."
It seems that every avatar on the Internet with an American flag or an eagle is populated by some numb skull calling the most Republican President since Nixon a Communist, a Socialist, Mao, Stalin or Hitler. They are invariably pro-war, pro-god, pro-life, pro-tax cuts and pro-death penalty and see no contradiction in their beliefs. Or as Sinclair Lewis once predicted, "When fascism comes to America it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross."
Meg Whitman running for California governor had promised to bring jobs to California and started her program by having her campaign ads made in Virginia. Her plan to restore California's prosperity is to layoff 40,000 state workers and to do away with the states capital gains tax. Problem is, the states capital gains tax brings in 11 to 30 billion dollars in revenue annually so with the state's current twenty billion dollar annual budget deficit Whitman's plan defies logic.
But Whitman is a small timer compared to the House Republican's plan which is to the cut the Federal budget by a hundred billion dollars the first year. Of course, the defense budget off the table and everything else is on the table. It is nothing less than collective insanity.
If the Republican's were to get their way, which they won't, nursing homes and assisted living centers would be showing the elderly to the door by the tens of thousands. Clinics would shut down and the workers would be laid off. Thousands more teachers would be laid off, tens of thousands of students would have to leave college and enter an all ready waterlogged job market.
Forgotten in this insane asylum called government is its only real legitimate purpose for government – protection!
The only reason the Egyptians ever kept the Pharaoh around was so the Pharaoh could buy the excess grain to make the farmers happy and protect the populace from famine. The Pharaoh built the army and provided public works projects like the "Great Pyramids to nowhere" to supply workers with income when the Nile flooded
The Roman emperors provided for the poor with food and coin because it was cheaper then trying to control the crime caused by legions of pissed off poor people. Roman's then like American's today didn't like paying taxes but were smart enough to understand that poor people in Rome starting backyard barbecues without a backyard or a barbecue meant big trouble when the most advanced firefighting equipment in the world was the bucket.
Those picturesque European castles were meant to protect people in times of invasion. When the fit hit the sham the King was expected to suit up and lead the army into battle. No medical deferments for a cyst on your tailbone would save you nor would studying for the seminary. That was the job, collect the taxes and protect the people. The had a unique recall vote procedure, local townsfolk would form a caucus and the leader would shout, "All those in favor of cutting the Kings head off and putting it on this here stick say eye!"
These weren't Socialist states or Communist states nor were they Nanny states.
These were kings and potentates who supported the arts and theaters, they sponsored festivals and schools. They commissioned Universities and architecture and engineering but, if they didn't take care of the people their head went on a trip to which their body wasn't invited.
But by modern standards these societies were barbarous, they would lock up developmentally challenged children and adults into an asylum. Perhaps chained to a chair or a wall. The poor were sent to work houses and their children too. The elderly were allowed to starve or were shipped off to the asylum. These people who behaved so ignorantly could be excused for their barbaric behavior. They were an ignorant and uneducated people who didn't know any better because they lived in an unenlightened time.
What in God's name is our excuse?
How does it feel
How does it feel
To be on your own
With no direction home
Like a complete unknown
Like a rolling stone
(Bob Dylan)