Friday, December 22, 2017

Congenial Speak #60

It's Their Funeral



Now is a good time to live. It is even a better time to die. This administration, this thought policed mentality of a out-foxed nation, this configuration of a democracy on the verge of extinction has given people no reason to live. People, for example, with ALS, with cancer, people whose days are numbered by the availability to affordable health care, can choose to lay down and die. They did, mocking a tragic end, on the floors of congressional bureaus. If it's really the end of free will, of the God-given talent, the smile, the option to laugh and wish your servants a warm time in hell. Just pessimism gets you there, sitting in a sterile room in a wheeled chair. Wondering whether to allow an extra hour to get your taxes done next fiscal year, whether your child will survive CHIP's ending. Or, the glass is half full, the GOP cooked its goose, democracy will prevail and we'll just have to hunker down for, at the very least, another year. People will have to suffer through one terrible holiday season, a bleak new year, one they will remember for the rest of their lives. It is kind of a spin on It's a Wonderful Life, the rare version in which George gets a windfall and Uncle Billy dies because his health care got too costly. That song, that anatomy of the human spirit, its saga. That dichotomy drives me insane these days. All the way one can see “a time to live and a time to die,” “a time to reap and a time to sow.” That was ripped right from the omniscience of the bible. Save for the title and the final two lines, the song is from the third chapter of the Book of Ecclesiastes. It is a little known story—so I am telling it here—Pete Seeger added the sentiment, the suggestion, the other-worldly idea, that there's “a time for peace on earth, I swear it's not too late.” Let that sink in; let that shrink the arrogance of the biblical lip-servers and hypocrites born with every elephant cycle of gestation. A mortal man, a Democrat, a “Communist” who served his country had to edit the bible. He had to, in the frays of a war started immorally, protracted by greedy politicians, remind them that there did exist another option, that it was not too late.
I think the shrewd reader can see where this is going. That, without the guidance crutches of GPS, bookmarks, or breadcrumbs, my next sequenced step is clear.
Picture an epic mural, a massive all-ensconcing piece of art, a display of philosophy that by sheer coincidence bears a bold connection to the humanities. Imagine that, during the seances at night, in the backrooms of Georgetown watering-holes, where senators join hands, once more, each decade, to pay homage to the dead. To nod their heads in glib recognition of those killed or cut short of future Christmas's; at their hands, in their words, in their deafness to constituents, AT PAUL RYAN'S GAVEL SLAM. Trace the connections, follow the money there. And there are the dots, schemata, blueprints for a civil or world war, or both. From the Lincoln Memorial, behind the pillars, eyes study the terrain. The 16th president stares at where his party has gone, what it's become, where it could go, and yes, how it may be too late. The peace Mr. Seeger spoke of in the late 50's came at the beginning of Vietnam, when it was still that Second Indochina War, at the tip of the slippery sloping iceberg, when each year it became a little easier, less culpable and tangible, for a Congress to draft young men to a probable death in an uncertain war. It was not too late then, in 1959, in 1960, when Eisenhower (a General war hero and all-around good Republican) warned Kennedy (a war hero and all-around good Democrat) about the constant threat of Communism spreading. Well, you know the rest. How the lies surmounted, gathered objectionable acceptance, altered reality and compromised journalism for the next decade, until the Washington Post published the “Pentagon Papers” in early 1970. History writes this stuff. It is documented, or at least a watered-down version of it, in text books, now on the internet subject to fanciful Wiki-creation, for the next generation. For prosperity. How is it so different? The players obviously differ, but the plot and motives are essentially the same.
The peace I write about is less objectified. It is a set of door hinges, a boxed set. The peace I refer to faced its biggest threat on January 20,2017, when a hustler from the streets of NYC said America was a dumpster fire and he could make it as great, again, as it was in 1886 when Alexander G. Bell created a means of communication. The policies create havoc, they breed animosity, violence, guns, belligerents intent on war. In short, that man on the capitol steps, swearing a lip served oath to the empty bleachers on Pennsylvania Avenue did start the fire. He fans it with every tweet, with appointment of the least qualified people for the job, he fans it by pandering to his base. Here was this extreme narcissist with an agenda: To plunder America. He scammed that gullible quadrant of the country, that populace that cheers NASCAR and cooks meth in their garage. The one that now has to swallow their pride and admit that Obama made it possible for them to get health care for a few years, made it possible for them to get help after the meth lab exploded or Jr. lost a digit lighting fireworks, showing his loyalty to America.
Hypocrite's gestation
Early next year the kids on CHIP (Children's Health Insurance Program) will lose their heath care. It was not renewed. The program did not get the necessary attention (money) to keep it functioning. So much was invested in the tax scam, the overhaul that would make Reagan ashamed to be a Republican, so much emphasis was put on the reverse Robin Hood zealots, the pirates that took over the White House. Things look bad for Alabama, southern state that exist to be the go-to places to rally support. Bastions for voters with a deep sense of remorse, preachers of right to life for fetal means. If 2,000,000 kids lose their health care, families have to go on food stamps to feed them, pay medical bills, make choices of whether to feed or medically treat their kids. Ah, back in the womb, things were so nice and those prospects of human beings had rights. The unborn are “worth” more. A righteous moral high ground is lapped, within the uterine walls, with so much amniotic fluid. The unborn, the idea of a base in the name of religion saving them, giving them a fighting chance, allows a narrative to be created. A highly contentious, volatile, debate is offered to which no living, potentially productive child can compare. In a nutshell the unborn child is exploited for political gain. And once again the bible, religion, something that by definition is designed to bring people together, to echo compassion, to take the heaviest burden from those struggling to make it, succeeds in creating a divide. Saving an unborn life is a smoke screen. A time to live, a time to die; months to be unborn and leave politicians to scheme and lie, to cast away stones that hold them in real time, and lobby for donations and 5,000 dollar a plate dinners. Time for special interests, for the NRA, to create the next Sandy Hook. A time for war, a time to tweet little rocket man threats; a time to dream of an adopted homeland, where birth-er movements don't exist, a time for the ill, the blue-collared, the veterans, the seniors, to get what they paid into, a time for America to stop trying to exploit the middle east like. . .the unborn; a time for peace, I pray it's not too late.
And finally, to leave this world, to abscond with a sense of self and let the rest fend for themselves. There must be something bigger than ego, than politics, than a trail lined with money. In the fickle fates of old-school candidates, the struts and dancing gavels of clairvoyant magistrates; looking at how the world spins, each time they hiccup from caviar, how they win and drink champagne in the Rose Garden . . . It is a good time to live, but to die is nye, ripe, youthful, sinister, a leftist plot.



No comments:

Post a Comment

A bed-ridden hacker is bound to cough

I woke up November 9, 2016 to see my visibly upset wife. I never shed a tear for Clinton's loss and its consequence. I was info...