Tuesday, September 11, 2012

GOP Pronunciation



We have been hard on our GOP brothers
Yet their trickledown smothers
Making it more than just strange
They go backwards for change
Perhaps we’ve missed all the meaning
And there’s more that we should be gleaning
When they add to our debt
By “no tax” pledges and wars they forget
We have all been chasing a rabbit
And the Right has made it a habit
To make jobs overseas
Despite all the pleas
By workers who want work and pension
Instead of handouts and tension
Or vouchers for health and schools
While being taken as fools


All this time, I have been bewildered by the GOP talking about jobs and yet legislating only social engineering projects in the House. In fact, in order to train the millions of Americans who simply want to work for a living to learn patience, they are testing our memories and patience. There may have excellent support that the GOP should not run their campaign by fact checking. It destroys delusions.

At the state level, we have seen a refusal to accept federal monies to enhance their Medicaid (which includes child healthcare) while simultaneously adding to “small” government by passing and financing laws to mandate ultrasound (including transvaginal ultrasound in some GOP states). Is this social engineering reminiscent of the old USSR? Maybe worse. At least in the USSR, an individual did not have to pay for an unnecessary medical act mandated by the government. Remember that abortion, regardless of the discomfort it brings in discussions, is still legal in our United States. So the party of “small government” that threw months of hissy-fits about “Obamacare” being mandatory are demanding that women in seven states pay for the MANDATED medically unnecessary procedure to undergo another medical procedure. Hmm. Small government? Exactly where? Will we have a small government staff for each woman who must have government ultrasounds and one for maintaining the unequal pay for equal work rules? Will we have another small government to ensure that these uppity women don’t get contraceptives? The GOP platform mandates that women who are victims of rape must bear the children of rape so, in effect, the small government acting in loco fetus chooses the fetus over the rights of the mother to have a legal procedure performed to protect her physical and mental health. I am currently reading Half the Sky that points out dramatically that the most repressive regimes abuse women the most. Are we headed to a link up with the Taliban? According to authors Kristof and WuDunn, more egregious violators of women include India, China, Pakistan and Afghanistan. Are we crowding women out of political expression here so that they are property once again? So we abolished slavery with the 13th Amendment? Are we circumventing that amendment state by state and causing women to lose their hard won independence? By curtailing women’s healthcare funding and attacking Planned Parenthood, are we marginalizing women in the US so they are no longer a factor in our society except to bear children as the State mandates but without financial assistance?

There are a number of other curious ironies by the party that touts freedom but acts to enhance the role of government in the home and family. Some are personal and reflect back on their disdain for fact checking. Paul Ryan claimed a “two hour and fifty-something” marathon a couple weeks ago, even when challenged by the interviewer Hewitt who recognized that as an amazing time. It was only when Runner’s World documented his actual time that was well over 4 hours that he claimed a “misstatement.” His running mate Romney, while governor of Massachusetts claimed both MA and UT as his residence and only after that fact being pointed out did he reimburse MA for taxes not paid. Lie, of course not, it was an error by his accountants. We have all heard the spin by Ryan that Obama failed to follow the Simpson-Bowles recommendations. He omitted the fact that he, Ryan, voted against Simpson-Bowles and that he, Ryan, actually led the GOP commissioners in voting against it. Why not blame Obama? Maybe he won’t notice. Similarly, Ryan blasted Obama for “looting” $716 Billion from Medicare. He, Ryan, also eliminated $716 Billion from Medicare and his came from benefits instead of payments to providers like hospitals as the Obama plan does. Ryan’s Medicare would last only until 2016 when he could save it by destroying it much like our criticism from Vietnam. The establishment of Voucher-nation would also include education. The idea of this pure marketplace is brilliant. We will put individual taxpayers in the position of bargaining with large, wealthy private providers to get a good price for medical and education services. He will restore the donut hole in medication pricing to help those poor pharmaceuticals along while we bargain. Now let me think. Can I trade a medical voucher for services like getting my broken down used car fixed so I can drive to all my minimum wage jobs to keep my family together? No matter. Mittens says I should borrow money from my parents. “Oh, they died? Find some living parents who will lend you money.”

As I said, we have been too hard on our GOP friends and we have set the bar too high. After all, they brought us the two greatest financial calamities in the past century, the Great Depression by Harding and Coolidge and Hoover and the Great Wall Street Fraud by GW Bush. Who were we to know that trickle-down referred to the pee down your leg instead of money? They were right, and the pee trickled down. Now they talk of millions of jobs and they will be right again. Just be sure to pronounce it as JOBES. I can assure you that with vouchers and without guaranteed healthcare coverage, we will see millions of people suffering to compete with Job and his medical afflictions. We will see women returned to their rightful place promoting men in the home and hearts of the nation. We will see the wealthy getting wealthier but slimmer so they can fit like tiny camels through the eyes of needles. We will see the poor carrying water for the parched lips of the wealthy as in the biblical allusions amended by the religious right. There will be the opportunity to buy education-by-voucher if you did not spend that voucher on food. This is the Brave New World. You had better be brave or you cannot compete in the new Darwinian experiment from the right. It is a new approach to an open market where there are no impediments like regulations on the corporations that caused the Wall Street collapse. This is where risky investments are rewarded by success or bailout and you can share in the next bailout on your minimum wage job, Job.

You may not share in the profits and your paycheck may be smaller, but you will be free to bargain and to borrow money from your parents. Is life good or what, Job? You have learned patience in your afflictions and now you can enjoy the payoff. No need to retire, Bain has your pension money. No time to get sick and you have new choices with your freedom. Job, do you buy medicine or food? Do you train for new skills or buy food with that voucher? Do you feel the power?

Please vote. The Job you save may be your own. Is it jobs or Jobs? Maybe it is all in the pronunciation. Could it make a difference? Can you make a difference? Will women remember in November? So do a little fact checking and maybe you can avoid the next trickle-down. Those pants may be the last you will own and you don’t want to pee in them.






Peace,
George Giacoppe
7 Sep 2012

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