Friday, August 28, 2009

Cry, The Beloved Country

“What is happening to America?” I ask myself while reading newspapers and scanning the intertubes from my sick bed where Canada’s national health plan is treating me at no cost, without any waiting times and without making me go before a death panel.

A crazy Kansas Congresswoman - a Republican, naturally, and she's not even Michelle Bachman - says her party is looking for a "great white hope."

In Virginia, a man wearing an Obama T-shirt at a town hall meeting is punched in the face without provocation by another man wearing an anti-abortion T-shirt.

Only days after Sen. Chuck Grassley tells an Iowa rally they should fear that health care reform will let the government “pull the plug on Grandma,” Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele is on the Today Show insisting “no elected Republican official has used scare tactics to frighten constituents into opposing the measure. I haven't."

Meanwhile, on the same day, the RNC sends out an e-mail over Steele’s name and signature claiming health care reform is really an attempt to deny Republicans health care.

A man who tells a town hall meeting he is a "proud right wing terrorist" is applauded by the Republican Congressman holding the event instead of reporting the self-proclaimed terrorist to Homeland Security which is what Bush and Cheney did to nearly everyone who objected to their war of lies.

The lunatic lout who toted a semi-automatic weapon to an Obama rally in Arizona belongs to a church where, the previous Sunday, the pastor prayed for the death of the president, hoping "worms consume his soul."

The same fundamentalist Christian group that targeted the last abortion doctor to be killed - in his church, no less - has set its sights on another physician, including putting details of his home and phone, family photos and a map to his clinic on the web.

In a similar act of Christian charity, the US Conference of Catholic Bishops is now against healthcare reform because it includes end-of-life counselling.

After Sarah Palin posts a condolence note about Ted Kennedy on her Facebook page, many of her "friends" leave comments such as "good riddance to bad rubbish," "Now, if we can only get Pelosi and Reid to join him" and "It's about time."

And all of this is in just the last few days.

Meanwhile, to my knowledge, only one elected Republican official has called for this to stop. I guess crazy is a pre-existing condition, as Paul Krugman notes in his blog.

Nothing good will come of this. And I am beginning to suspect that the United States is no country for an ailing old man like me, anymore.