A Few Days Lite

That’s me in the East Village back in 1985. Glorious days.

I wasn’t happy with what I had written yesterday about Dick Cheney, so I didn’t post it and didn’t post anything in its place. Snarky is no substitute for satire.

I left the Haudenosaunee post hoping more people would read it. I believe it is a valuable piece of American history—especially for the Birthers, Deathers, Gunnutters, Seceders and whites who hate a black president for reasons of skin color as opposed to the frustration and disappointment others feel about Obama.

I am hoping the announcements made today that the Attorney General is required by law to investigate torture could lead to Cheney going away for awhile (until Obama offers a presidential pardon) for torture.

I doubt Obama will make mention of anything significant next week when he addresses Congress about health care. Hope I’m wrong. Perhaps he’ll beg the Republicans to make another attempt to negotiate. Unless he’s playing very high-stakes poker, I don’t understand him and don’t want to try right now. To me, Obama is like an African-American, accentless Schwarzenegger.

Speaking of Schwarzenegger, he must have been someone Teddy Kennedy rolled his eyes about many times at family functions in Hyannisport when Schwarzenegger tried to talk politics. So far Obama is disappointing, but I hope Schwarzenegger is disappearing.

This post serves as fair notice that the next few posts will be light on substance because I need to cram between now and Tuesday to finish a screenplay about honor killing, a very serious subject throughout much of the Muslim world.

As I explained a couple of years ago to that close personal friend of mine who’s a recording artist up the beach, I believe one aspect of the war on terror is for we and the Muslim world to encounter each other as friends and get to know each other and discuss our realities with each other. A better shared future depends on it. This is my way of carrying that forward. A more in-depth book about the bigger issue will follow.

I’m happy about the fifth season SNL DVD release on December 1st. I will buy it its first day out just as I have with the first four season releases.

All the fires and smoke hanging in the air here in Los Angeles and the high temperatures have been a bit debilitating and exhausting.

Happy Labor Day if I don’t post between now and then.

Vulturizing Kennedy

Vultures typically circle in the air over a dying animal or sit nearby in trees, logs and the ground until the animal has died and then they begin feeding.

Ted Kennedy is in the ground less than one day and already Washington’s vultures have decided to feed on his body, thereby helping to sell us out completely on the public option.

Orrin Hatch, the Moonie Mormon, who spoke at Kennedy’s memorial, claimed that Kennedy would have compromised on health care, meaning bye bye to the public option.

John Kerry, in what is said to be a cherry-picked quote by the Associated Press, says that Kennedy would have thrown away public option just to compromise.

Stephanopoulos told O’Reilly that the Democrats didn’t have the votes and that Kennedy would have negotiated and compromised, implying Kennedy would have abandoned the public option.

Last Thursday on “Countdown”, Lawrence O’Donnell mentioned that in 1994 he was in the room when Kennedy told Clinton they should go it alone without Republican votes on health care reform.

That should prove Stephanopoulos, Hatch, McCain and the others wrong. Their lies should help dispel the lie that the media is liberal.

Why is the media reporting on this and not on stories that could help health care?

Apparently the pharmaceutical and insurance industries are giant advertisers on the cable news programs.

Telling a lie like the president is a racist makes advertisers drop you, but telling lies like Ted Kennedy would have dropped the public option means nothing. Obviously the two are not equal.

Defaming a sitting president, immediately followed by a statement totally contradicting the racist defamation is insanity that everyone knew Beck possessed and could hold him accountable for and they punished him advertiserally (new word).

Attributing political convenience to one of America’s greatest Senators—who just happened to be buried yesterday—is slimy.

But how would one punish George Stephanopoulos? You can’t necessarily convince his advertisers to leave for that.

Large parts of the media seem intent on doing their part in ruining Obama’s chances of passing health care reform—more even than Obama himself so far.

Instead of investigating abuses by insurance companies or price gouging by pharmaceutical companies, they are focusing on the negatives of scorekeeping before Congress reconvenes in about a week.

By that time McCain, Hatch, Stephanopoulos and the others will have tried to make America believe that Teddy Kennedy would have been a Republican if he did not have to pretend he was a liberal for the sole reason of upholding his brother’s legacies.

Vultures are capable of digesting rotting corpses contaminated with Botulinum toxin (which is sold as Botox), hog cholera and anthrax.

Needless to say, they use their vomit as quite an effective defense mechanism in much the same way some snakes use their venom as projectiles.

The difference between vultures and cable news personalities and politicians is that what comes out of a vulture’s mouth isn’t as dangerous.

The Prejudice Opposing Health Care Reform

One day this will all be history. And I hope this generation and the ones that follow will see the important lessons to be learned. One of the most important of which is how strong is the grip by American corporations on our country and our politicians.

In theory, I suppose, American corporations are not a bad thing. But when you factor in greed, and when greed is piggybacked on war profits, oh boy…! All hell breaks loose.

Every political era has its defining moments and its defining issues. It is no different now than it was in the 60s when I was a kid. With Ted Kennedy’s death, Obama on the ropes (hopefully doing a rope-a-dope), the Democrats being weak and spineless and the Republicans also on the ropes but screaming as if vocal intimidation instead of hard hitting punches will win the match, health care reform and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are the defining issues of today.

The passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was a defining moment in America because it helped lead to the correction of a centuries-old travesty in America, meaning slavery and discrimination against the descendents of slaves.

The possible passage of health care reform is similar to the passage of the Civil Rights Act in at least one respect which has to do with prejudice. In the case of health care reform that prejudice is based on class.

Perhaps because we are so focused on white/black and white/Hispanic racism, we have totally ignored and, therefore, not become educated about, nor had a national conversation about class prejudice. It seems that classism and class prejudice was discussed much more a century ago and through the Depression.

But that all seemed to be swept away by the American victory in WWII and to be crushed by the anti-Communist witch hunt of the McCarthy era in the early 1950s and replaced by the growing Civil Rights Movement in the mid-50s through to today with the election of America’s first African-American president and the appointment of our first Latina Supreme Court Justice.

Insurance industry CEOs and their corporate capo regimes are like the Jim Crow bigots of the Old South. They are the lords of the health care power structure just as some Whites in the Old South were the lords of that power structure.

Possible passage of a bill requiring all Americans to carry insurance so that insurance companies make money of the now uninsured 46 million means they control every aspect of health care in America just as the lords in the Jim Crow South controlled nearly all aspects of life for blacks back then.

Insurance industry CEOs view people with disdain and contempt because they know they need us just as the Old South Whites—especially the slave masters—viewed blacks with contempt and hatred and violence because they knew they needed them for as one of the primary pillars of their agrarian economy.

Just as the white power structure in America determined which blacks they approved of, the insurance industry power structure does the same with who gets an operation, who gets an operation denied and who gets coverage period.

Those in Congress now are like those Dixiecrats back in the 60s who tried to maintain their status quo on segregation until the Kennedys, Martin Luther King, Jr., LBJ and others forced the Civil Rights Act through Congress.

The insurance and health industries and their Congressional minions want to maintain the status quo and put the prejudiced power structure and its profits over providing the human right of adequate health care for the People. “The People” in America has always represented a class of people which is usually the heart and soul of America—the poor and working class and small business owners.

One cannot have such a profound lack of compassion for something as fundamental to compassion itself as quality and affordable health care unless they already have a prejudice, a disdain and contempt for “the People”.

Those opposed to the principles of equality during the Civil Rights Movement often resorted to convoluted logic and confused doubletalk when trying to explain why segregation was good and how white superiority was “God’s will”.

We hear this same convoluted logic and confused doubletalk today from Republicans and Democrats opposed to health care reform on unspoken class grounds.

Others simply won’t even participate in the discussion. There are Congresspersons, Democrat and Republican, who won’t even read the bills and won’t vote for health care reform anyway.

Just as they called Martin Luther King, Jr. a “communist” because that was how their simplistic minds processed the concept of equality, they view health care reform as “socialism” because it benefits “We the People” and that is how their simplistic minds view equality.

There are those in the intelligentsia of the insurance industry power structure who use these buzzwords to inflame the situation. The ultimate irony is these racists are accusing Obama of being Hitler without making a coherent argument because they simply cannot due to a complete and total lack of logic inherent in its premise.
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The vocal, violent mob mentality of the Old South’s power structure is very similar to what we see in the town hallers, the tea baggers and those “proud to be right wing terrorists” like that guy at the recent town hall in Reading, California.

The use of terrorism was how the Old South kept control over blacks, largely through the KKK and other vigilante means. The use of the town halls is how an insurance industry prejudiced against working class is keeping control over “the People”.

Between the two political parties, the Democrats were supposed to be for the people. Democrats like Ted Kennedy were, but many are not. Just as there were blacks known as Uncle Toms back in the day who sided with the white power structure that oppressed them and other blacks, many Democrats are traitors to the causes of the People because they are not of the same class.

Obviously Ted Kennedy was also not of the working class but was instructed from a very early age to help those less fortunate and that to whom much is given much is expected. That is compassion. But now they are trying to say that Kennedy was a “centrist” and not a liberal.

Just like some Whites in the Old South, Republicans and conservative Democrats believe that only they should be in power. They, like the Old South, believe it is God’s Will that they lead our country the way they see fit and the rest of us should shut up and be happy.

Now that we have a black president, can we now engage in some amount of discussion of classism in America without detracting from the worthy and ongoing national discussion of racism in America?

I still believe this moment in history gives us a profound opportunity to change America and make this country live up to its ideals that we so loudly profess to the rest of the world.

The forces that oppose health care reform in this country do so out of a deep, deep prejudice against the poor and working class in America. It is that simple and that discussion needs to be had on a national level so that we may out those bigots before they can poison our country any further.

Beyond Teddy Kennedy

I remember watching JFK’s funeral on TV when I was six years old and crying and not really understanding why I was crying. I don’t really remember hearing the news of RFK’s assassination but I have always taken pride that he was in my hometown the week before.

Tuesday night when I was writing yesterday’s blog, the news of Ted Kennedy’s death came across. But I knew I did not really know enough about his life and career to write a respectable and respectful piece, and that I would leave it to others.

The one thought I had Tuesday night was on a theme I have touched upon a few times, which is that there are certain people in the world who you feel are pillars of strength to guard you from bad things and you almost take them for granted. Ted Kennedy has always been one of those for me. One did not have to pay as much attention because Kennedy was there to do it for us.

There has been much made today of Ted Kennedy’s greatness as a Senator. I don’t doubt that. I think what contributed to our thoughts of Kennedy’s greatness was his special place in our national family as the only surviving brother of JFK and RFK.

We as Americans will never get over the assassinations of John and Bobby. It will simply fade from our collective national consciousness as those who have any memories of them fade into the night.

Who will replace Kennedy in what he wanted to accomplish? I had hoped Kennedy would have lived long enough to make the difference in the current health care reform debate that seems to have been hijacked away from the passionate, eloquence of Kennedy by the thuggish, screaming of the town hallers.

Kennedy’s death should be a wake up call to those with progressive ideals and the skills, intellect and talent to carry them through.

This means you, Mr. President.

Perhaps your attempt at bipartisanship is learned from Ted Kennedy’s modus operandi within the Senate. Well, I believe times have changed and a different strategy is obviously needed. I don’t believe saying you promised Kennedy and just naming the health care reform bill after him is enough to get Republicans and errant Democrats on board. Many of these people seem to have lost their souls long ago.

This means you, Mr. Hatch—Moonie alumni.

There are progressives waiting to be led if you are so inclined to lead, Mr. President. We need toughness and rapid response to shifting sands caused by insurance and pharmaceutical industry con men. If we see you are waiting too long we are prepared to go it alone.

One of Reagan’s famous quotes was, “Government isn’t the solution to our problems government is the problem.” Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn said Tuesday that government was not the solution. Obviously what they want is to de-regulate corporations and to corporatize America in education, health care and Social Security, among others.

We don’t want America to become corporatized. With Kennedy gone, we must now do it ourselves, trust no one and take no prisoners.

Good luck on Saturday, Mr. President. We will all be watching for more than just a eulogy. You have a lot of rising to the occasion to do.

What would America be like if JFK and RFK had lived with Teddy in the Senate? Maybe Oliver Stone needs a new film?

All that’s left in the immediate is for Glenn Beck to make some insensitive comments about Kennedy’s death and lose even more sponsors.