Here's a speech you'll never hear from the Democrats:
If you elect us and throw out the criminals who have infested our government, we will put the rich on notice.
We'll say to them, "Get out your checkbook, we want our money back! We may never get it all back from you, but you've had your hands in our pockets long enough! Your gravy train is over!
"We're replacing the boys you bought to run the government, the one's who sent you truckloads of our money, and then borrowed more money from the Chinese and all the others all over the world who saw a good deal…and gave THAT to you, too.
"Not did your boys give you the tax cuts, which let you off the hook while we kept on paying more and more, but they threw you money that they told us was to 'fight terrorism.' We know you have profited from the deaths of our sons and daughters and we're holding you to account.
"They made it possible for you to run the price of gas so high that it's breaking our personal banks. Oh, I know the price has come down lately, but we understand you did that because an election is coming up. We know the price will go over $3 again in December.
"Your boys filled your bank accounts on our medical miseries. Not only ours, but those of our most vulnerable, the old who can't fight back.
"This is going to stop, guys. We're taking back our money."
That's right, my fellow Americans, when we take office, the rich who have stolen our money are going to give it back. Yes, we're going to raise taxes. Not on you and me, but on THEM. We're going to get our money back and they're going to suffer for it.
They'll tell you all kinds of shit about it, but you know by now that they will lie, cheat and steal twenty-four hours a day to keep taking our money.
It's OUR MONEY. We PAID them for the gas. We PAID them for the health insurance. We even paid them to despoil our beautiful country. They don't care. They live in gated communities. They're not like us. They're greedy bastards and their time is up.
If you throw these un-American slime out of office and elect us, we promise to put real American values back on the table: fairness, that all-for-one'ness that made American great. There will be no former Haliburton CEO's to profit from the deaths of our soldiers. There will be no religious fanatics. There will be no mean-spirited name-calling. And there will be no lies.
Yes, no lies. Imagine that?
There's only one way out of the mess the Republicans have put our nation in. First throw them out. And then elect some smart people who know how to put the brakes on the largest robbery since Lufthansa. We're going to become Robin Hood and his merry men. The Republicans have robbed from the poor and given to the rich.
This will stop.
Then I woke up and remembered I was dreaming. No Democrat would ever make that speech.
This is also available on huffingtonpost.com
Friday, September 15, 2006
Wednesday, September 13, 2006
Job #1 Is NOT Iraq
Not that the "Democratic Tsunami" (as front-runner Chris Matthews likes to say) is a sure thing…but should the public throw the evildoers out of Congress and out on the (K) street, Iraq, while important, is not the most important issue facing Americans.
Yes, global warming and the dozens of other environmental issues must be addressed, and they will be once (or if) the oil companies are divested of ownership of the American government. We know what to do about that.
But Job One should be health care.
It is the sole issue that touches each of us every day. There are powerful forces to be beaten, but what the health care industry (pimping the Republicans, and many Democrats like Joe Lieberman) have designed…what passes for a "Health Care System" …is criminal in the extreme. The problem is there are no criminal penalties against it. To the contrary, the health care industry owns the levers of power in government.
For a start, let's stop calling them "the health care industry." They are "illness profiteers" and no better than war profiteers. They make money from our illness. They make it if we're not sick, and they make more if we are.
First, they take our money in CASE we get sick. Then they want us to be sick enough to need medical care and then borrow money from the banks (in on the deal) to pay for it. So the pharmaceutical companies get our money, the hospital industry gets our money, and doctors too, but banks via their credit card operations, and medical loan companies get to transfer money to those industries and then bill us at a huge rate of interest so we can pay it off.
We're hit three times. Number 1: We pay premiums. Number 2: The money we owe when the coverage isn't enough (or through deductibles and co-pays), and Number 3: The interest we pay when we have to go into debt to pay off the deductibles, etc.
Nice thing they've set up for themselves. A license to print money? No, a license to steal from us, when we are at our most vulnerable.
Why aren't these people in jail?
On top of that, millions upon millions of us don't have ANY health care. When you stop and think about that, it's hardly within the imagination of folks of good will, that this could even be possible. The illness profiteers are not good folks.
And as soon as you begin to talk about a system of national health care as they have in Canada, the illness profiteers will start screaming "Socialized Medicine," as though that's a bad thing. Ever talk to a Canadian about it? Of course there are problems. We're all human and human institutions and individuals make mistakes. We always tinker with things and try to make them better.
The simple fact is that the Canadian system works for folks. Please don't bother commenting here with anecdotal problems. For the vast majority of Canadians, the thing works. And it could work here.
If the Democrats were truly different from Republicans, they'd have a plan on the table NOW, and stop grandstanding about Rumsfeld. The American public has already made up its mind about Iraq and Bush. Even moderate Republicans know they made a big mistake electing that bunch to two terms.
Why is Sen. Clinton so silent on the subject? Who knows better than she what Americans are up against in the fight for fair health care? It's like someone sat her down like Howard Beale was sat down in "Network" and shut her up, because she's been silent ever since the first year of her husband's first term.
I can safely say that if it weren't for employer-provided health care, hundreds of thousands of people would be dead. I'm one of them.
The illness profiteers, who make billions from the real and potential suffering and misery of all of us, must be defeated.
It's a national shame.
This also appears on huffingtonpost.com
Yes, global warming and the dozens of other environmental issues must be addressed, and they will be once (or if) the oil companies are divested of ownership of the American government. We know what to do about that.
But Job One should be health care.
It is the sole issue that touches each of us every day. There are powerful forces to be beaten, but what the health care industry (pimping the Republicans, and many Democrats like Joe Lieberman) have designed…what passes for a "Health Care System" …is criminal in the extreme. The problem is there are no criminal penalties against it. To the contrary, the health care industry owns the levers of power in government.
For a start, let's stop calling them "the health care industry." They are "illness profiteers" and no better than war profiteers. They make money from our illness. They make it if we're not sick, and they make more if we are.
First, they take our money in CASE we get sick. Then they want us to be sick enough to need medical care and then borrow money from the banks (in on the deal) to pay for it. So the pharmaceutical companies get our money, the hospital industry gets our money, and doctors too, but banks via their credit card operations, and medical loan companies get to transfer money to those industries and then bill us at a huge rate of interest so we can pay it off.
We're hit three times. Number 1: We pay premiums. Number 2: The money we owe when the coverage isn't enough (or through deductibles and co-pays), and Number 3: The interest we pay when we have to go into debt to pay off the deductibles, etc.
Nice thing they've set up for themselves. A license to print money? No, a license to steal from us, when we are at our most vulnerable.
Why aren't these people in jail?
On top of that, millions upon millions of us don't have ANY health care. When you stop and think about that, it's hardly within the imagination of folks of good will, that this could even be possible. The illness profiteers are not good folks.
And as soon as you begin to talk about a system of national health care as they have in Canada, the illness profiteers will start screaming "Socialized Medicine," as though that's a bad thing. Ever talk to a Canadian about it? Of course there are problems. We're all human and human institutions and individuals make mistakes. We always tinker with things and try to make them better.
The simple fact is that the Canadian system works for folks. Please don't bother commenting here with anecdotal problems. For the vast majority of Canadians, the thing works. And it could work here.
If the Democrats were truly different from Republicans, they'd have a plan on the table NOW, and stop grandstanding about Rumsfeld. The American public has already made up its mind about Iraq and Bush. Even moderate Republicans know they made a big mistake electing that bunch to two terms.
Why is Sen. Clinton so silent on the subject? Who knows better than she what Americans are up against in the fight for fair health care? It's like someone sat her down like Howard Beale was sat down in "Network" and shut her up, because she's been silent ever since the first year of her husband's first term.
I can safely say that if it weren't for employer-provided health care, hundreds of thousands of people would be dead. I'm one of them.
The illness profiteers, who make billions from the real and potential suffering and misery of all of us, must be defeated.
It's a national shame.
This also appears on huffingtonpost.com
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