On January 29, 2002, during his State of the Union speech, George Bush stood before the American people and proclaimed that Iran, Iraq and North Korea were the “axis of evil” and accused these countries of helping terrorism and pursuing weapons of mass destruction. We all know how that turned out.The only true axis of evil George Bush ever really knew (but wasn’t fully aware of) was he, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld.
However, there is another triad of troublemakers who I call the “ass kiss of evil”. They are the insurance industry and American Medical Association, various congresspersons, mostly Republican, and these fake grassroots people screaming at congressional presentations. Thankfully, this Ass Kiss of Evil doesn’t have nukes.
Members of Congress (Senate and House) have excellent health insurance, US soldiers have government-run health care (except for Veterans) and yet many Members of Congress of the American people are siding with the enemies of the American people on health care reform despite the fact that the Constitution they are sworn to uphold makes our government, as Lincoln said in the Gettysburg Address, “of the People, by the People and for the People.”
The lobbying industry needs to be regulated. They have a python-like stranglehold on our democracy if they can invade sessions for public discourse on health care reform and disrupt it to the extent they have in recent days. If our government’s job is to first serve the people who elect them and then industry and commerce, lobbyists are cutting in line and usurping that process by calling out these groups of thugs and hooligans to prevent a public from being informed by their congresspersons..
With scenes of fake grassroots outrage at government all over our TV screens in the past few days, I have become inspired. I think to insure lobby reform, groups of citizens should flood Congressional offices and whenever insurance industry and pharmaceutical industry lobbyists begin selling their wares in congressional offices we should shout them down, call them liars and start chanting “Just Say No”.
Under our laws, persons who prevent others from receiving what is their due are in violation of either criminal or civil laws, or both.
Excessive lobbyists like the ones behind the thugs and hooligans are guilty of impeding the process of representative government. This should be illegal on some level and to some degree. There should be a well-drawn and restrictive line that lobbyists cannot cross which respects the needs of the people more than it presently does.
I’m sure if I use the word “people” one more time I’ll be accused of being a socialist.
America is the most rabid capitalist country in the world. What did Atticus Finch do to the rabid dog coming down the street in “To Kill a Mockingbird”? He shot and killed it.
That’s what needs to happen to the rabid aspects of American capitalism. They need to be shot like a dog on a dirt road. Swiftly. And the remains burned, not buried.
Greed is the rabies in the diseased minds of these raging capitalist dogs. Lobbyists are the infected foam dripping from their mouths.
And while our focus is now on lobbyists and the Republicans, it may well be Blue Dog Democrats who will destroy health care reform. Damned Blue Dogs. Those Democrats are rabid.
Where is Atticus Finch when we need him?
