Health Care Reform Vs. Selfish America:
As the Rude Pundit's noted before, in a way that makes most every other country look like a model of "Kumbaya"-singing, hand-holding unity, the United States is filled with selfish motherfuckers who are such desperate wannabes that they'd dine on their mother's innards if it got them closer to those with power. Listen: the truth about the powerful is that there's those who are trying to help you and there's those who want you to help them. Yeah, they're all self-interested fucks, but at least the former acknowledge that there's a difference between being inside and outside power. The latter? Oh, they're the type that will take you out to a nice restaurant, introduce you to a bunch of their powerful friends, give you little gifts, invite you back to their place, let you touch all their expensive trinkets.

And if you're someone who falls for this? Well, as you pass out from the drink they've given you, as the last thing you see is the powerful unzipping their pants and pulling out their cock, you'll think, "I'm so grateful. I'm so appreciated. I'm one of them," something you'll continue to think when you wake up with a sore ass, chapped lips, no memory of the last twelve hours, and a note telling you to shut the fuck up or your sister's family will be burned alive.

Here's a conversation that the Rude Pundit recently with the somewhat conservative friend of a friend:
FoF: You know, I'm not against a public option on health care.
RP: Really?
FoF: No. I just think that it should be mandated that the policy can't be lower than the average price of the policies of the major insurers.
RP: But then you're giving all the power to the insurance industry. Isn't that the problem?
FoF: The government shouldn't be doing anything to put an industry out of business.
RP: But the FHA didn't put banks out of the lending business. And fuck the health insurance industry. You work for diseased whores, you shouldn't be surprised if you get fucked. (That didn't actually make sense, but it seemed like it did at the time.)
FoF: You just want national health care.
RP: Yeah. I do.
FoF: Then why bother having this conversation?

(Hmm. Thinking about it, that's pretty much the way single payer was treated by the Obama administration. But, hey, we progressives gotta suck it up like good little punks.)

It has stunned the Rude Pundit that the major complaints about any health care plan the Democrats might eventually cobble together like some Frankenstein's monster with a Parkinson's-infected brain are that it will somehow damage the sacred relationship between a doctor and a patient and that President Obama wants to pay for it with a tax on really rich people. The only ones who seem to buy these bullshit lines are the media, who seem to be rooting for an Obama failure to keep the storyline interesting; the Republicans, who spend their evenings skull-fucking Michael Steele so that a brother can't put a thought together; the Blue Dog Democrats, who are listening to the media, who make them believe their constituents are going to hang 'em from the lamp posts; and the yahoo rich-people wannabe, who have virtually no understanding of how socialism or health care works, only what Rush Limbaugh, et al, tell them. That last group there desperately has to believe Rush, et al because it's the only thing left for them to cling to, the American Dream life jacket, the ones who tell them they can still be rich some day if only those who are actually trying to help them stop doing so.

As for the first myth, you know who gets to see whatever doctors they want whenever they want? Not you. That's some bullshit ideal that may have existed a long time ago for your middle or working class ass. But you can believe that somehow the inclusion of a public insurance option in legislation will force you to have your care "rationed." And you can believe that a slight tax increase on people making way more than you ever will is a tumble into socialism. But that's because you're just another grasping, pathetic wannabe who'll always watch the popular kids, hoping that you can be one of them, when they just look at you and laugh and tell you to do their homework. So, in an oversimplified way, the "rationing" part of the debate doesn't apply to you if you're already rich and/or powerful. (By the way, if you're rich and reading this, hey, toss some coins in the hat.)

Republicans are getting giddy at the idea of Barack Obama (and Nancy Pelosi) failing at passing any health care reform. It would please their lobbyist/donor masters to no end. Skeevy Senator Jim DeMint, the last of the triumvirate of South Carolina Republican creepy dirteaters, recently said, "If we're able to stop Obama on this, it will be his Waterloo. It will break him."

Putting aside that the failure of the health care push was hardly the end of the Clinton presidency, here's a history lesson for both Republicans and Democrats. The British alone didn't defeat Napoleon at Waterloo. They needed the Germans, the Belgians, and more. And Jim DeMint ain't exactly Lord Wellington.

Republicans better have more arrows in their quiver than the cry of "socialism." And Democrats better not give aid and comfort to the Republicans. No, we're not gonna get the health care bill we need. We'll get something. But we are not a nation that believes in huge transformations anymore. We could be, but we have abdicated that in favor of greed, self-interest, and fear. And it's a lot easier to give in to those things than to agree that you should help out the family down the block.