I Just Don't Get It...Or Do I?

We all know Democrats pretty much got beat up for their lunch money every day for the 8 years of the Bush administration. Heck, even after they won back they House at mid-term in '06 they were so psychologically scarred they just gave it up to the bullies to spare the beating. They were able to roll this invigorating tide of momentum into a late-in-the-game, so-so victory over a surprisingly unaccomplished old coot and a daffy novice. Hope and Change incarnate, right?

They've certainly kept that train rolling, bending over backward with a quickness to make sure they fuck up their one shot to make lasting, positive change in one fell swoop on our economy and our standard of living--for currently insured and uninsured alike. But no, they stand there wide-eyed while their opponents weave their special brand of mendacious hypnotism and send it out over the airwaves (I call it "special brand of mendacious hypnotism", they call it "talking points"; they call it "talking points", I call it "man it must be hard not to laugh when you're lying so goddamned hard". Ah, semantics!).

I'm embarrassed to be a Democrat. Hell, I'm embarrassed to admit any party affiliation. As much I want to distance myself from any partisan identification, I just can't. The best part of my brain and spirit know that this creaking, cobbled-together, compromise-ridden, pork-laden, corruption-encouraging, thyroid-damaged-overgrown-colossus of an abomination of a federal government deserves nothing but my scorn.

But my scorn doesn't have the opportunity to provide health insurance to the 40+ million people who need it. My scorn doesn't have the power to put the screws to private insurers whose sole reason to exist is to make money first and provide health care second. I want to avert my gaze and tell myself this administration's bungling and capitulation shouldn't surprise me because it is their nature to bungle and capitulate. The Democrats are the frog and the Republicans the scorpion. The scorpion will fucking sting you in the middle of the fucking river so you both fucking drown. Every. Single. Time.

(While googling that link I saw that some Huffington Post blogger had a post from August 7 entitled "Frog and Scorpion Healthcare". Please note that my use of this fable 1) came to me without seeing that 2) speaks to the current relationship b/w Democrats and Republicans generally, but this health care battle specifically, and 3) makes sense and isn't stupid unlike that guy's.)

I hate to sound like some frazzled anarcho-hippie (not because I'm not--make no mistake, I am--I just try my best not to sound like one). But...

The creation and subsequent protection of--via common law--the concept of a corporation is the single most troubling occurrence in the history of mankind. When I say troubling, I don't mean bad, evil, or what have you. It's trickier than that. [NOTE: I'm well aware I've slid off the page from talking about simple two-party politics and the very current affair that is the push for better health care to cover more Americans...but the dots, man, the dots are connected. Don't you see?!? [slap!] ["shut up, hippie! focus!"] [slap!slap!] [deep breath]

It's tricky because it created the form, the type of entity, which enabled the most massive transformation of the planet we may ever see--and by that I mean almost every single positive and negative transformation of the past 200 years (and you could probably take it all the way back to the East India Trading Company). Yes, the corporation. The piece of paper (or papers) that gives legal power and protection to a mere collection of capital--a pile of money--collected for the sole purpose of engaging in any and all endeavors which further the amassing of yet more capital for its shareholders. That sounds dastardly but it really isn't, unless you're some crusty old Marxist (do those even exist anymore?). But it does have some real limitations. Such as what kind of expectations we should have regarding how a corporation will act.

So, these piles of money have protection under the law similar to those of an actual living, breathing human being. Now, on the plus side, that allowed all sorts of innovation and continent-spanning and globe-spanning derring-do (yes, it's derring, not daring...go ahead, look it up, fuzzball) which has embiggened the lives of billions of perfectly cromulent people. Basically, the legal existence of the corporate form allowed the modern world to take shape, and that shape includes all the awesome stuff you can think of.

But what about the minus side? (Didja ever notice people always say "on the plus side" but nobody ever says "on the minus side"? Didja ever notice nobody under the age of 60 gets [or makes] an Andy Rooney reference?) Well, on the minus side, corporations aren't human. They aren't endowed with an inherent morality, they don't have feelings, are more likely to marshal armies of lawyers to look for tax loopholes and to litigate do-gooders into the ground, they...they aren't fucking human, dig? But they are governed by laws that basically (trust me on this--I am/was/are? a lawyer) treat them as citizens.

Now that might be legally convenient and workable, and may have unleashed untold human potential, but it ignores the fact that a corporation's only concern, it's raison d'etre if I may, is to increase the amount of money it can make for its shareholders. No matter if it was created to build widgets that kill people or widgets that save people, it was first and foremost created to make money.

So you see my point, right? You've connected the dots? Followed the breadcrumbs o' logic?

Our health care "system"--except for the old, the poor, and those who have fought in our armed forces--is in the hands of corporations. For making TVs and cars and shit corporations are awesome--just ask the late, unlamented Soviet Union. For the welfare of fucking human beings, what do you think?

Oh, so you say without them we wouldn't have the latest MRI-nuclear-whatsit? Maybe. But we also wouldn't have 40+ million of our fellow citizens without any health coverage at all. We wouldn't have a system that pays doctors per procedure, the more procedures the merrier. We wouldn't have a system that denies coverage to a person with an ailment because doing so fucks up the bottom line. We wouldn't have a system that employs people to find any possible to way to deny coverage to a person after they do get sick or injured.

Think about it--we've already chosen to not foist this bullshit on the well-being of the old (they've got Medicare), the truly poor (they've got Medicaid) and the valorous (they've got the Veterans Administration). What's stopping us from freeing everybody else's well-being from the grips of something that exists solely to make money?

An extremely large, extremely powerful pile of money that likes things just the way they are and thinks that any degree of change will hurt its legally-granted right to make as much money as possible.

I'm not sure the Democrats have a shot up against something like that. But who knows? Maybe appearing to have no spine and no integrity is just the kind of reverse-psychology, counter-intuitive strategy that will work.