[img]583|left|||no_popup[/img]The Republican Party is a coalition of three separate constituencies with confluent interests. The first group is made up of traditional conservatives. These are highly patriotic Americans who believe in limited government, the primacy of the people over government, and fiscal responsibility. The other two groups that have coalesced within the GOP are much more malevolent, international business interests and social bigots.
It is the former, international business, that controls the GOP.
Made up of highly educated individuals with huge resources and plenty of clout, they use all of their resources and clout to manipulate what has become their citizen army, the social bigots.
Social bigots are the people we see armed to the teeth at Presidential speeches, disrupting town hall meetings, fighting against their own interests. These are the Joe the Plumbers of the world.
While the traditional conservatives are legitimately concerned about the direction of the country and assuring that the nation remains fiscally sound, big business could care less about the condition of the American people. For the most part, they've become international in scope. This should be clear, considering how they first created an economic crisis in this country, then used the crisis to gouge the American people.
Here Is a Stick for Poking Purposes
All big business is concerned about is making money at our expense, frequently to our detriment. These are the same people who have gouged America dry, given themselves huge bonuses, and rented post office boxes in other countries to avoid paying their fair share of taxes.
If that isn't bad enough, the corporations used the money they avoided in taxes to buy politicians, who are suppose to be representing us, to feather their nest further. The corporations also use the incredible wealth they've managed to maintain, again, thanks to our tax dollars, to clog our airwaves with propaganda in order to incite every under-educated social bigot within earshot to near insurrection. They use these people to distract us from examining the true issues that would serve to protect us from their greed.
Social bigots are easy targets. They have less than a tenuous grasp on reality and, in many cases, they're willing stooges. They are not true victims. Due to their bigotry —not only racial but bigotry against anyone who doesn't share their beliefs — and anger over losing the last election, they're willing to accept all nonsense disseminated about the government, about President Obama in particular. They are also willing to cut their own throats, and their families’, if it means striking a blow in the name of hatred.
Take socialism, for example. Shouldn't the most misguided idiot understand there's a big difference between the government taking over the free enterprise system as opposed to protecting its citizens from the predatory business practices and greed of large corporations?
And They Still Are Not Convinced
Even after Wendell Potter, former chief spokesman for Cigna Healthcare, told Congress, “I saw how (insurance companies) confuse their customers and dump the sick so they can satisfy their Wall Street investors,” social bigots still are trying to demonize a man who has placed his Presidency on the line to protect their families.
Potter went on to testify that the insurance industry fears enactment of a single-payer plan. “They even fear the public insurance option being proposed,” he said. “They'll pull out all the stops they can to defeat that, to try to scare people into thinking that embracing a public health insurance option would lead down the slippery slope toward socialism…
“Putting a government bureaucrat between you and your doctor — they've used such talking points for years, and they've always worked.”
As I've pointed out in previous articles, some things are just too important to our society to be left to for-profit business interests. They include police, fire, national defense and public healthcare. I've invited readers to imagine calling the police to report your daughter being raped or kidnapped and the police informing you that they were sorry but there was nothing they could do. Your daughter just turned 18, and she's no longer covered in your rape/kidnap policy.
That's what's happening to hundreds of thousands of people regarding their healthcare. They'll pay their premiums for 25 years. After coming down with an ailment that the insurance company considers prohibitively expensive, the insurance company suspends their coverage. A prime example is a young woman who was diagnosed with cancer only to learn her insurance company denied coverage because she failed to report that she had acne as a child.
Without a public option to take away the insurance companies' monopoly, they can make coverage so expensive that any other laws we pass will be meaningless. Let's say we pass a law saying that it is illegal to deny coverage for pre-existing illnesses. The insurance industry can say, okay, we'll cover you, but it's gonna cost $800 a month, and you've got to pay for 55 percent of your treatment.
That's why the industry is fighting so hard against a public option. They don't want the people to have any place else to go. If we have a government option that sets the price of healthcare at a reasonable rate, the industry can't inflate their prices to make us pay for those $30 million executive bonuses. If they did, they'd lose all of their business. They want us locked in, mandated by law to purchase health insurance, and have nowhere to go but to them.
The price of healthcare is going up several times faster than wages. It has been estimated that it will cost the average person $24,000 a year for health insurance in the next seven years, 41 percent of his salary. That will be a severe drag on the economy since businesses won't hire new people because they can't afford to provide employee healthcare.
Meanwhile, the GOP sees defeating healthcare reform as a win-win proposition. It will keep the American people traumatized due to the lack of affordable healthcare, sabotage President Obama's efforts to revitalize the economy, and also appease their true constituents, the insurance industry. All of this will help them regain power. The GOP is using its social bigots to disrupt society in order to protect America's moral obligation to allow Wall Street to cut our throats yet again.
Mr. Wattree is a writer, musician and poet who may be contacted at wattree@verizon.net
You may learn more about Mr. Wattree at
wattree.blogspot.com
Religious bigotry: It's not that I hate everybody who doesn't look, think, and act like me. It's just that God does.
