R-E-S-P-E-C-T!

This marks post number one thousand for my wee humble blogging effort.  I suppose I am supposed to treat this like a special event, so I decided I would seek the collective wisdom of my list of friends from Twitter.  I asked my friends, earlier this evening, what I should write about.

I only got one answer.

I'm hoping that the lack of enthusiastic participation doesn't denote a lack of interest.

Anyway, an old colleague suggested that I write about reapect, and so I am.

I am going to write about respect.  The respect that the Republican party has for the American people... or, the lack thereof.

As I sit in our  Williamsburg hotel room, with soccer girl snoring away in the next room, and Mrs Gunfighter dozing in and out, I want to talk about Health Care Reform.

Is it just me, or do all of the Republican excuses for not wanting to legislate any reform in our health care system ring exceptionally hollow?  I mean, seriously.. do they all think that we are completely stupid?  For years, while they controlled the White House and both houses of Congress, these dopes went berserk, cutting taxes, while engaging in two wars, neither of which they had any intention of paying for.  They were so intent in their fiscal dishonesty that they just didn't bother to put these military operations in the annual budgets.  The wars were billions and billions of dollars that weren't on the books!

Next, these masters of dishonesty enlist legions of elderly people, the so-called "Greatest Generation", to get on television and claim that health care reform, especially any Public Option was going to hurt them, and that they wouldn't forget that in November of 2010.  Well. pardon me if I don't get weepy about all of this.  You see, the "Greatest Generation" had more tax dollars spent on them, individually, than any other generation before or since.  Think about it.... The GI Bill, Medicare/Medicaid; Social Security; unemployment benefits... all of these things are paid for by the taxpayer, and the "Greatest  Generation" has been reaping the benefits for nearly seventy years.  Seventy years.

Now, when the President and the Congress are trying to give some modicum of those same benefits to a wider group of Americans, the Republicans, and their legion of The Greatest, want to make sure the door of federal largesse is slammed in the face of anyone that they deem unworthy, which, by the way, means anyone who isn't part of their age group Or the poor).

You know, this kind of thing isn't the only dishonest part of the GOP effort to block health  care Reform that irritates me.  What irritates me even more is the fact that the GOP expects the American people to not notice that we already have several versions of the "Public Option" in place... not that it embraces most people.  You see, Uncle Sugar (in the guise of TAXPAYERS) are already paying directly for the health care of the nearly two million men and women in our armed forces... we are paying for their spouses as well... oh, and their children, too.  Why doesn't that make anyone mad?  Do the people have any idea how many children are born at military hospitals?  Jeez, some of those folks ought to contribute to the war effort by not having so many children! We've heard that before, haven't we, except in this case we only say it about the poor.  We don't really care if the people on the fringes of stability have lots of kids... especially if mom or dad wears a uniform.

Let's move on... let us turn our eyes on the Congress.  Those folks, and their staff' members get good  great health benefits thanks to the taxpayer.  Federal employees have good health care benefits.  Cops, Firefighters, clerks at city hall, judges, teachers, snowplow operators, and city bus drivers get good health care benefits. 

Oh... astronauts!  I forgot astronauts!  They get pretty good coverage, too.

And don't even get me started on how much tax-money is given to farmers... in some cases given  to NOT grow things.

You see, we do all sorts of "Public Options" in this country.  We give things to the wealthy... because we like the wealthy so much, we want to be like them.  We give things to the middle class, because it is in the best interests of any politicians to keep the middling sort quiet.  We give things to the folks in the military, because, well, to not do so would seem unpatriotic.

What we don't do, is care enough about the unemployed, and worse, the underemployed.  The people on the fringes get very short shrift, and the GOP and their ignorant followers don't give a f**k.

That's respect, folks.  The kind of twisted respect that The GOP has for anyone they deem unworthy.  These same miserable wretches who bleat so bitterly about taking it slow on health care reform, who never did a single bloody thing to make it happen on their watch.

NOTE:  Many thanks to those who have continued to read my scrawlings since I started this blog in early 2006.  Thanks also to those hwo have since come aboard to read the things that I write.