Sunday, March 28, 2010

Mad As Hell in the GOP

The health care bill passed by a narrow margin late Sunday night, with every member of the Republican party voting nay. Afterwards, while the Democrats were hooting and hollering to beat the band, slapping one another on the back, dancing in the polished corridors, jabbering into cell phones and sending out Twitter messages to their supporters, a group of Republicans including John McCain, Mitch McConnell, John Boehner and Tom Coburn gathered in McCain’s cavernous office.

“How about a beer, John?” McCain asked Boehner.

“Hell no!” Boehner snarled. “Gimme scotch, straight up.”

“I’ll take a club soda if you have any,” Senator Coburn, an M.D. in his previous incarnation, said.

“Kentucky sour mash,” Mitch McConnell said, dropping on the sofa. “I’ve got two words for Barack Obama: Tea Party!”

“Gay people are tearing apart the moral fabric of our nation,” said Senator Coburn, bowing his head in silent prayer.

McConnell looked at his colleague, shrugged his shoulders, and raised his glass in mock toast. “With this bill, socialism has come to America. There’s no going back, my friends.”

“Hell no!” Boehner said. “I will not let Democrats slap a tax on tanning salons or on decent Americans who want the freedom to stay tanned year round.”

McCain’s cell phone rang. “Oh shit,” he said, “it’s that dingbat, Sarah Palin. What the fuck can she want? Hey, Sarah, what’s up? Yeah, the bill passed. Why? Well, the other side has more votes than we do. Yeah, sure, I hear what you’re saying but we couldn’t refuse to vote on the bill, it doesn’t work that way. We’ll do our best to tie it up in the Senate with procedural moves, but at the end of the day, the lefties have the votes. What’s that? No, I haven’t looked at your FaceBook page. OK, OK, I’ve got to run. Talk to ya’ later.”

McCain snapped his cell phone shut. “Crazy fucking broad. She’d still be a nobody if it weren’t for me.”

“And you might be president if you’d picked a different running mate,” said Mitch McConnell. “Oh, well, water under the bridge.”

“Hell no!” Boehner said, slamming his glass down on McCain’s desk. “The people of America are angry, I’m angry, my mother’s angry.”

“Is your mother on Medicare, John?” McCain asked with a wink.

“As a matter of fact she is,” Boehner said. “Are you calling me a hypocrite?”

“Who will join me in prayer?” asked Tom Coburn.

“May all Democrats go straight to hell,” said McCain.

“Amen,” said Mitch McConnell.

“Amen,” echoed John Boehner. “Another club soda, Tom? I can’t believe you don’t drink. How the hell can you stay sane in this commie town without a stiff drink now and then?”

“I lean on the Lord,” Coburn said.

Mitch McConnell rolled his eyes. “Where was the Lord tonight, Tom? Why did He sit by and allow the Democrats to shove this terrible bill down the throats of the American people?”

“Ah, shit, Mitch,” Boehner said, “you know as well as we do that the Lord works in mysterious ways. C’mon, how we going to repeal this piece of crap?”

McCain refilled his glass. “We’re going to obstruct, delay, reject, and refuse to ratify anything the Administration proposes from this day forward. We’re going to get back to our core values – protecting the American people from terrorists, exploiting natural resources, and providing tax relief to the wealthy.”

“Hell yes!” Boehner said. “And when we regain control of the House and I become Speaker, I will wreak terrible vengeance on the Democrats.”

“Amen,” said Tom Coburn. “I raise my glass of club soda to that.”

Sunday, March 21, 2010

Health Care Flim Flam

You’d think the end of the world is nigh the way President Obama and the Democrats are talking about the health care bill. “Now or never,” they say, or “a flawed bill is better than no bill,” and “if we don’t pass a bill now, we won’t have another chance.” Much of the jabber is of a political nature, with the Democrats focused on the implications of failing to pass a bill rather than passing a bill that will really qualify as “reform.” Obama is campaigning for the bill as if his political future depends on it, framing his talk as the American people against the special interests, which is about as dishonest as it gets if you examine the history of this legislation over the past year.

The special interests -- insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies, hospital lobbies, the American Medical Association, the United States Chamber of Commerce – controlled the debate from the outset. The first thing they made sure of was to sweep real reform from the table by dismissing Medicare for All as unrealistic, even though a majority of Americans support expanding Medicare. Average people understand that a publicly financed, privately delivered health care system is efficient and cost-effective.

If the bill about to emerge from Congress becomes law, some citizens will be forced to buy health insurance from the very companies that have been reaping profits by denying care, dropping the sick, and creating a gauntlet of barriers that only a team of corporate lawyers can decipher.

What will this “historic reform bill,” as the New York Times describes it, do for you and yours? As far as I can tell, it won’t do squat to reduce my employer’s $10 million annual premium, which means that cost increases will continue to be passed to employees. Another two or three years of double digit premium hikes and it won’t surprise me one bit if my employer is forced to drop its health insurance plan all together.

Politics is said to be the art of the possible, but what can one hope for when what is possible is limited from the opening bell? Regardless of what happens with this health bill, the United States will still have a dismal health care delivery system that is expensive, inefficient and unfair. Sick people, be they young or old, will continue to die unnecessarily because to treat them appropriately would cut into insurance company and Big Pharma profits, and that’s a no-no in a country dominated by corporate interests.

Friday, March 12, 2010

Scattershot

We need a new dryer.

What makes you say that?

My socks never get dry. Neither do the towels.

Dryer’s are expensive.

What isn’t? Remember Mack, my old buddy from the shipping department at Melco? Lost his job last week. His wife’s got ovarian cancer and he can’t afford COBRA payments. He’s upside down on his mortgage, too, and to top if off his daughter ran off with a gangbanger. He’s pretty sure she’s knocked up. Poor bastard’s dying inside.

Yeah. How long would you say it takes your socks to dry?

///

Amy’s teacher pushed the report card across the table for me to look at. “As you can see, she’s doing well in Language Arts, reading fluency and comprehension are all at grade level.”

“She likes to read. Looks like her writing skills need a little improvement.”

“Sometimes she works too quickly and makes careless mistakes. We’ve been working on revising and re-writing.”

“I’m surprised the kids are assessed on their cursive writing. Who writes by hand anymore?”

“It’s a dying art, I admit, but it’s part of the state standards.”

“Let’s get to the math.”

“Amy has made some real progress with her multiplication tables and division. She still has trouble with word problems, and fractions are – “

“Torture?”

“I wouldn’t go that far. Amy struggles, but we work in small groups a lot and I’m sure Amy will show progress by the next assessment.”

“But suppose she doesn’t? Suppose she never grasps fractions or basic algebra? How’s she going to compete for work against the Chinese, the Indians and the Brazilians? Can you answer that? What’s my little girl going to do, work at K-Mart for minimum wage? Have you ever worked for minimum wage? Ever stuffed greasy French fries into little bags? Ever delivered pizzas in a blizzard?”

“No, but I’m not sure what any of that has to do with – “

“It has everything to do with it. Fear is the only reason the state makes you do all these assessments. Fear that our kids will grow up and be unable to compete with the Chinese and the Indians. Isn’t that why you stuff algebra into the heads of third graders?”

“I don’t think that’s what I do.”

“Why do you think all the parents are so stressed out? The white ones most of all. They’re scared out of their minds. They hire tutors for their kindergarteners. But hey, it’s not your fault. I’m sure you do the best you can, every day, rain or shine. Not your fault the system’s rotten. Can’t lay that on your doorstep. It’s all about accountability, but nobody’s responsible, right?”

///

Did you take $20 out of my purse?

No.

Because it was there this morning and it’s not now.

Maybe you spent it and don’t remember.

I’d remember if I spent it. You sure you didn’t take it? Because it’s OK if you did.

I didn’t.

I won’t be mad or anything.

Nothing to be mad about because I didn’t take your $20. Why would I? Maybe the $20 is swimming around in the bottom of your purse, along with the car key you lost last month and the bracelet I gave you for your birthday.

You have a habit of losing things, you know?

Do not.

It’s like that purse of yours has a hole in it.

Does not.

No telling what you’d find if you ever cleaned it out.

Who else took it then?

Nobody took it; you lost it, pure and simple. $20 down the drain at the bottom of your purse.

At least I never lost an animal like you lost Sam.

I didn’t lose Sam. Dell Willits’ truck backfired and Sam got spooked and ran into the street and got run over by the UPS truck.

You lost him.

How do you figure?

You left the house with him and came home without him.

Because he got run over by a UPS truck not twenty yards from where I was standing. He was never out of my sight.

You just don’t want to admit that you lost him the same way you won’t admit you took my $20.

Why do I even bother talking to you?

Because ever since you lost Sam there ain’t nobody else that’ll listen to you, that’s why.

///

He was a homeless man, sitting on a bench outside Rite Aid, panhandling passersby.

Hey, buddy, can I have your tie?

What?

I really like that tie, brother. Let me have it?

Don’t think so. It’s the only tie I own that goes with this shirt.

I think it would look good on me.

Looks better on me because it goes with my shirt.

You ain’t giving it to me, are you?

Don’t think so.

Charity begins at home, man. Don’t you want to be charitable?

Not with my tie, no.

Maybe you can spare a dollar then?

You working me? Ask for this beautiful tie, settle for a buck? That what you’re doing?

Hey, man, time’s are rough and people ain’t generous.

Thursday, March 04, 2010

March of the Forgotten

Just back from the March for Education -- De la Guerra Plaza to the Courthouse Sunken Garden. Lively crowd, waving signs, pounding drums, blowing whistles, mostly City College and UCSB students who find themselves on the wrong end of budget cuts, tuition increases and relentless privatization; teachers and school employees frustrated by several consecutive years of budget cuts that have sliced to the marrow; local elected officials, school administrators, some regular citizens. The same groups were marching all across the state of California today.

The route up State was controlled by the Santa Barbara PD with barricades and cops on bicycles, pairs of cops on the corners, arms folded, watching; I saw one officer shooting video of the marchers, and I wondered what that was about. Tourists and office workers stopped to gawk, a few waved, others shouted words of encouragement.

Student organizers with bullhorns led the marchers in chants like “Hey ho, these budget cuts have got to go!” and “Whose education? Our education!” A year or two ago most of the students were in high school, and I wondered how many of them had ever before participated in an act of civil protest. It was difficult to gauge how many people were marching; in 2003 I marched this same route to protest the Iraq invasion; that crowd was much bigger. I saw the photographer from the News-Press and Paul Wellstone from the Indy.

The marchers streamed into the Sunken Garden, across the green grass, up the stone steps. They were fired up, punching the air with their signs, making their whistles shriek, hammering their drums. I moved off to the eastern side, away from the main body, to get a better feel for the turn-out; 350 or 400, maybe.

Speeches began, the speakers using a bullhorn rather than a PA system – always a mistake. Voices don’t carry well through a bullhorn, and much of what was said was unintelligible. Not that it mattered. There’s an art to speaking outdoors to a crowd that few will ever master. Telling the crowd what they already know – that budget cuts and fee increases are hurting people and driving a rusty stake through the heart of the American Dream – is less effective than asking them what they’re going to do when the march ends and everyone goes home. A large, well-organized public event is important, no doubt about it, but without follow-up action, what’s the point? Without phone calls, faxes, letters, e-mails, in-person visits and Twitters to local elected officials, Assembly members, state senators, members of Congress and U.S. Senators, the march is merely an event, a one-shot and out deal that will not sway the powers-that-be to listen, let alone change. Pressure must be applied strategically and continuously because the people are fighting a well-financed machine that has no interest in altering the status quo.

One lobbyist with a checkbook speaks louder than one hundred hard-up students.

I agree with what the students and schoolteachers want, but I wonder what they’re willing to sacrifice to get it. That’s the nut of the thing now – the cold fact that the people of California are unwilling to sacrifice in the form of taxes to fund effective schools, adequate public safety, social services for the poor and elderly, environmental protections, transportation systems, and on and on. People say they want these things, but when it comes down to paying for them, the people balk: not on my dime.

And so on a beautiful afternoon in one of the most beautiful cities in America, 400 or so people take to the street in a peaceful demonstration of common purpose and unity that will likely be forgotten by tomorrow’s sunrise.