Yesterday morning at work, it felt like Tuesday for some reason. Every time I realized it was actually Wednesday, I thought, “cool, Friday will come a day early this week.” Unfortunately, after several hours of that kind of thinking, it started to feel like Thursday. Now the damn weekend will come a day late. Just can’t win.
Speaking of not winning, after all but saying the “public option” was dead, David Axelrod (who looks a lot like Oliver Hardy when he doesn’t have his glasses on; he should be required to wear a bowler hat) now says the President “embraced” it (translation: is still willing to throw us under the bus, but feels a need to assuage – slightly – the “liberal” base), because it will be a “boon to consumers.”
And that, folks, is exactly what the problem is. We aren’t patients, or humans – or even Americans. We’re consumers, and our only value in a Capitalist/Corporatist State is measured by the extent to which we consume. Nothing is exempt. This isn’t France or Canada or Great Britain (or Cuba); this is America, goddamnit! Consume, or be consumed.
Lost your job? You no longer have the means to consume, therefore there’s no reason to keep you alive. The real “death panels” are run by the boards of directors at AIG, Exxon, Wal-Mart, and Blue Cross. You won’t read that in your copy of the “USS Constitution,” but that’s how it is.
Oh, I know, there are those that think Obama is the “Great White Hope” (by that, of course, I mean a “bright, shining light”) and this is all part of his stealth plan to slip socialized medicine in through the back door while nobody’s looking. While the members of his administration appear to be running around like chickens with their heads cut off, delivering conflicting messages and looking more like Mayberry than Chicago, what they’re really doing is playing “rope a dope,” and whomping up a huge audience for Obama’s big speech next week, at which point he’ll be so eloquent and so clear in his message that the Blue Dogs will have to fight off the Republicans for the right to crawl under the podium and service him first, while insurance industry executives will resign or commit suicide after after being forced to see the error of their ways.
Well, I hope so. Maybe he’s finally realized that the Republicans are obstructionist scum who only want to stand in the way of reform. Maybe he’ll get in front of that joint session of Congress, ignore Republicans, and tell the f*cking Democrats to get with the plan. Maybe. It’s kinda like believing in God: I see no evidence for it, but anything’s possible
Personally, I think this stopped being about health care reform a long time ago. Maybe Obama really did want every American consumer to have access to health care at one point, but his administration – in astounding Clintonian fashion – triangulated, gave away the store in exchange for nothing, and lost the war before the battle had even begun. Now, it’s all about passing “something,” just so Obama can save face, and maybe show how tough he is.
Unfortunately, he only seems to be tough when it comes to screwing “liberals,” and the only fighting he seems to do is against a progressive agenda. Of course, he doesn’t even appear to have the guts to do that all the way – sending his flacks out to twist and spin until nobody really knows where he stands on anything (his poll numbers sagging with each twist and turn). Not that that surprises me. We saw it with the Scalito confirmation vote, when, after getting pressure from liberals, he rather angrily (and somewhat petulantly) stated that he’d vote against cloture the first time around, but that it would never work.
Oh, hell, I forgot I wasn’t going to care about this any more. I need to get back to something more innocuous.