Mindless, Memory Loss

There is something surreal about Senators and Representatives
telling us that they are opposed to a publicly sponsored health
care option because, "everyone knows the government does
not know how to run a business".  Put aside the fact that
the same members of Congress approve of a public military,
public schools, public police and fire departments, publicly
owned flood insurance plans, public parks, public roads,
public airports, public pensions, and publicly paid Senators
and Representatives.  Are they suffering from instant memory
loss?  Have they forgotten that just a few months ago,
they voted to use public funds to try to avoid a full-fledged
depression brought on by privately owned investment banks,
private commercial bank, private automobile companies,
held together by private incompetence, greed, and veniality?

Have they forgotten that is is public money, public taxes,
that were used to save the arses of private companies,
even assuming temporary ownership of some of the companies
until the incompetents who bankrupted the companies
can pick themselves up, wash off the scum, and assume private
ownership of the shipwrecks they steered onto the rocks?

Has Bernie Madoff suddenly become their economic model?
Is standing mutely by while watching bankers take enormous
risks with other people's money--ignoring the incompetency
when other people's money is lost, and rewarding their
executives with monstrous bonuses when those high risks
pay off--their idea of the reliability of private ownership?

Is that what banks are supposed to do?
Is that not what destroyed them in the first place?
Are pension funds supposed to be invested in
the equivalent of a roulette table in Las Vegas?

Of course we need a publicly sponsored health care alternative!
It is the only way to provide an alternative to letting insurance
companies do whatever they damn well please, charge whatever
they damned well wish, deny coverage to whomever they think
will cost them money, and cutting off the people who need
insurance the most:  those with the biggest health care needs.

Almost worst, most of the people who know we need a
public alternative to private insurance company control of
health care, seem to be content with a severely crippled version
of a public plan; deliberately protecting the advantage already
gained by the insurance companies, allowing only the hopelessly
uninsured to gain access to a public, non-profit plan.

Who are these Senators and Representatives who have made
Olympia Snowe into a Maine-woods version of Mother Teresa?
She does not represent a majority of the American people!
She represents whomever contributed to her election campaign,
and that party's candidates lost in the last election.

All of our elected representatives should be required to take
off their blue suits and spend about a month in their home
States, eating every meal in a different, small-town or inner-
city, restaurant every day, never paying more than forty dollars
a day for food, while talking to people they have never met
before.  They should spend every night for a month staying
at a Motel 6, and they should read local newspapers. 
No interviews.  No appearances.  No reporters.  No lobbyists.

Or maybe they should just resign.  Retire on Social Security.