If you woke up this morning and read a headline stating that 18,000, 44,800, or 100,000 Americans had died overnight in some catastrophe, how would you feel? Do you think that most Americans would feel the same way? What if your family members were included in the list of victims? Add to your decision-making that it was not a natural disaster, but deliberate acts of man. Now add that a few billionaires profited from the acts.
It would be the (minimum) equivalent of the entire population of two medium-sized suburban communities - all gone without purpose or reason.
As an additional frame of reference, the 9-11 death toll was 2,974 and we all know that America went into a tail-spin for eight years ramping up over $981 Billion in war costs in response. Also in response, within only a few days, Congress prepared over 340 pages of complex legalese and then immediately and overwhelmingly passed a well-branded law stripping layers of previously sacred American rights away and adding monstrous layers of bureaucracy to our government. We are apparently okay with that. After all, we need to be safe, right?
Even today, after nine years of war, countless dead and disabled, and the ominous shadow of a “big(ger) brother” hanging over us, we are apparently content in knowing that our government is protecting us from whatever unknown evils lie in wait.
The politics of fear is an effective tool in controlling a population and encouraging consumerism. Does anyone remember Y2K and all the frenzy and great expense leading up to…nothing? How about Mad Cow or Swine Flu? Aids caused by casual contact? Today the terms “socialism” and “communism” and “death panels” are being thrown around in McCarthy-esque fashion to ignite the fears of non-critical thinkers who are most susceptible to the politics of fear.
If 18, 44 or 100 thousand Americans died in an event, and we knew this event happened annually, there would be rioting in the streets demanding our government act quickly and decisively to stop it.
Because the deaths are spread out through the year, and across the nation, we apparently are apathetic. As long as it’s not in our back yard or our families, we’re apparently just fine with the genocide. Maybe we think that the victims deserved it. After all, they are likely poor, undereducated, and probably minorities. Right?
The fact is that the dead are not affluent, poor, or elderly. Those groups have private or government insurance to protect them. They’re surely not members of Congress. This leaves young(er) middle class Americans - people that most of us can identify with. Yet we are more concerned that whatever the cure, we don’t have to pay for it.
Immediately following 9-11, we paid billions to shore up the potential losses of the insurers of the World Trade Center, just the beginning of nine years of insurance and bank industry bailouts at our expense. We were apparently okay with that – at least until the current administration.
We are not interested in “bailing out” the average American though. That would be “socialism” or “communism” – unless of course it’s a government program we use, or plan to use, like Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Hospital Care for the Indigent, WIC, the hundreds of programs funded through the Department of Health and Human Services like school nutrition programs, or subsidized student loans for medical profession students, etc. etc. Surely the programs we like are not socialism or communism, only the ones the current administration wants are.
If we admitted that we don’t want these programs either, millions of Americans would immediately get sick and die. That would just trigger another government program to burry all of them.
As for the “death panels”, the countless, faceless analysts, lawyers, and accountants working for insurers which create and execute policy to deny coverage to paying and future customers would be an excellent model to use. After all, they have cultivated their skills since the Nixon administration pushed for the allowance of HMO’s and the practices are apparently working well considering the massive profits of the insurance companies and the escalating number of Americans who die needlessly every year.
Depending on which respected source you choose to believe with regard to the death toll in America for the sake of corporate gain, the numbers should be staggering to thinking Americans. Add to this impact, the number of those that managed to live through the catastrophes and make up a significant percentage who ended up in bankruptcy. 62% of personal bankruptcies are caused by medical expenses people simply can’t pay.
Costs not recovered by care providers are a business expense passed on to paying customers – you and I. That’s okay. There is no line item on our hospital or tax bills, so we don’t apparently care. We will apparently care if the current administration enacts health care laws that result in our bills actually listing the costs though.
Since Barack Obama was elected President of the United States of America, the losing party, its followers, and its corporate and global bank masters have done all they can to ensure that he is defeated at every turn regardless of the need or merit of his efforts –even if it means countless deaths and misery or the continued downward spiral of our economy. In fact, it appears they would prefer that so they can say “See! We told you!” “Now give up all that Hope and Change and Believe stuff and trust us!”
I will not say I support either party more than the other or that I agree with everything the current administration has done or plans to do. I choose to be a critical consumer of information and make my own decisions based on careful consideration of all facts. Uninformed and emotional responses lead to poor decision-making.
Perhaps it’s an indicator of how far our education system and our consumer culture have degraded America’s general ability to critically think and act morally that we have so many citizens who are so willing to just follow the herd of bleating sheep in protest of what should have been an obvious greater good for our society; such as the national health care debate. I guess it makes sense though; it’s easier to herd sheep than lions. But whose control will we be under?
I don’t fear big government as much as I fear the systematic corporate takeover of it. I kind of like being an American. I find solace in having fought for my country and take pride in my continuing community service. I recognize now why we added the “or domestic” to the Oath of Office. It’s because the greatest threat to our sovereign republic isn’t going to be faceless foreign radicals and zealots, but faceless, wealthy, and very powerful corporate giants and global banks.
Ask who is profiting from the de-industrialization of America? Who has the most to gain by eliminating the middle class? Why are we working so hard to dumb down and fatten up our population? What nation will we live in when everyone is in servitude to corporations who own all of the property, places of employment, sources of medical care, control the food and water supply, and own the “privatized” essential government infrastructure?
Be a patriot and question everything. Then ask what’s in the other hand.
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