Call Me a Socialist and I'll Say "You Betcha"

I'm not a verbal flincher. Call me what you want, I might argue, but I won't flinch or look hurt. I will roll my eyes at stupid insults. And, not only will I not flinch if you call me or my ideas socialist, I will proudly accept that appellation.

Harry Truman said, "Any jackass can kick down a barn, but it takes a carpenter to build one." There have been lots of verbal jackassery recently in terms of health care reform. Take Whole Foods CEO John Mackey (please, we don't want him). He, rather sanctimoniously, wrote an op-ed dissing the idea of making sure everyone had health care. He is so proud of the high deductible insurance provided to Whole Foods employees. Sounds nightmarish to me. I'm a diabetic, and trust me I would burn through that $2,500 deductible fast and it would probably mean going without a lot of other things to do it. He thinks people make better health care choices when they have that deductible. What if you DON'T have a choice, douchebag? So happy your veggies have kept you healthy. Some of us lost the DNA lottery on disease states. Grumble. Then I see people defending his stupid comments, saying no one should boycott WF because they do so much other good. Trust me when I say that I'm not the only one who feels betrayed by this man. Who would have thought this "shining example" of a feel good company would be run by such a rightwing, self-justified tool.

More verbal jackasses are, of course, the parade (and one long-ass parade it is) of detractors on the right, the far right, and the really far right. From the pitiful locals waving badly written signs on either side of the road as we walked, then drove into the Democratic fundraiser in the park last night, to the supreme tool Dick Armey continuing to spew delusional crap on Meet the Press this morning. It's all the same nonsense. They grasp at some sentence in the bill or more likely something they saw on TV purportedly interpreting the bill that is completely not what the bill or any logic says.

Bill says, Medicare/public option will pay for end-of-life counseling every five years. No mandate. And Grassley, it doesn't say you only get it on your death bed, you fool. No death panels. Just saying they will pay for what is already in other bills as optional and unpaid. Seriously, this is like me seeing the tag on a mattress and yelling at my child for touching it and assuming stormtroopers will descend upon my house to arrest us.

I can't express how disappointed I am now that these loud idiots have fucked the chance we had at a public option. Obama, Reid, etc. have slunk back to a health care reform that is hardly reform. I want single-payer but I begrudgingly accepted public option, thinking it would be a slope (I won't define as slippery as I'm not negative about it, I wanted to slide down that slope toward single-payer) we could scoot down toward something good. Now they're like cats who eat their own vomit. No public option. Look, you don't see it anymore protesters, we ate it. Co-ops,exchanges, really? That is like offering bread to someone with scurvy. Yes, scurvy is caused by malnutrition but malnutrition of a particular kind. Without an orange or lemon, still scurvy.

I hate feeling hopeless. I couldn't flinch if I wanted to, no muscle tone now, so tapped out emotionally from all the backing up these politicians are doing. Now we are down to: Yes We Can...capitulate to special interests, blue dogs, and loud, angry rightwing nutjobs. Bully for us. I don't think we even built a whole barn before we let the jackass pull it down.