11-22-13

Fifty years ago today, I was eight years old and in the second grade. I had been suspended from the school cafeteria for two weeks for "Talking back" to a lunchroom worker following a fight with another kid.

So, I returned after lunch to find a classmate  named Rusty telling everyone how the president had been "shot in the head!" 

Most of us thought Rusty was just making  stuff up. 

When we got into the classroom, a very sober Mrs. Behunnen told us what had happened and what a terrible thing it was for our country. She told us the flags would fly half-staff. 

My parents were sad. My grandmother cried. I was annoyed because some of my favorite TV shows were cancelled. I did see part of the funeral on TV. 

However, even at the time, I was old enough and aware enough to know that something had changed for all of us, and not for the better.

It was not until weeks and months had passed that I learned what an understatement that was. 

The Cruz Missile that Shut Down Our Government

The extreme Right Wing of the Republican Party has effectively shut down most of Washington.

Ted Cruz is has been the Tea Party’s most visible miscreant in the past several weeks. He has led the fight to defund the Affordable Care Act, otherwise known as Obamacare, and intends to do so, no matter who it hurts or how much it costs.

No matter that the Republican Party has tried to do away with Obamacare more than forty times to no avail. No matter that the ACA has passed and both Houses of Congress and been upheld by the US Supreme Court. No matter that Obama was elected by a sizeable margin, and that the ACA is his flagship piece of legislation. 

Well, wait a minute. Maybe that last bit does matter. Maybe that is the reason for the whole dustup. This is Obama’s baby, and they don’t like Obama, and just can’t get over the fact that he was elected — twice!

Ted Cruise even Filibustered before the Senate for more then twenty hours to try to get his way. He even read Dr. Seuss’ Green Eggs and Ham aloud to the Swnate, which is rather ironic, don’t you think? Green Eggs and Ham is about how silly it is to be against something new that you haven’t even tried. 

Maybe Ted Cruz is not as much as a Grinch as we make him out to be. Maybe he has another reason to stop Obamacare. Maybe he is dong it to prevent cancer among the working people of our great country. How would this work? 

Well, remember the old joke about a surefire way to treat hay fever. It involves taking a whole lot of laxatives before leaving the house in the morning. How does that cure an allergy?  Well it won’t, but after taking all that laxative, you won’t dare sneeze. 

That’s right, those people who can’t afford to buy insurance won’t dare get cancer or heart disease or be involved in auto accidents — nothing which could bankrupt them. 

Somebody needs to convince Senator Cruz and his friends that this plan will not work.

Some republicans argue that the Democrats just won’t compromise. The fact is that the ACA is a compromise, and a big one. The problems which we are now undergoing, including the insurance exchange computers being inundated with applications and with companies threatening to lay off large numbers of their workers so they don’t have to give them insurance —  all of these wrinkles and growing pains are the result of the fact that Obama and the Democrats have already compromised. 

Most of the problems we are now having, and will have in the months ahead, with the ACA, would not happen if the country had chosen to try a single payer plan, something similar to the kind of plan which has worked so well in Canada and several European countries. 

Obamacare is the law, and the current state of shut-down the government is undergoing, is not the result of a simple disagreement in Washington. No, it is because of a tantrum on the part of a subset of the Republican members of Congress. 

I like President Obama. I think he is doing the right thing to stand up for the people of this country. I have not always been so very pleased with him. He has caved in to Republican demands in the past. See my post for Thursday, December 9, 2010, "Obama Calls it a "Compromise" – I Call it a Surrender"

(http://dansneglectedblog.blogspot.com/2010/12/president-barack-obama-has-chosen-to.html).

 

They are holding the American people hostage. This is an a act of terrorism. I hope that Barack Obama will remain strong enough to refuse to negotiate with terrorists.