23 June 2017

Utterly despicable evil that is the Republican Tax Cut Plan Masquerading as a Health Care Plan

I oscillate between black rage and pernicious, gnawing despair at the pure evil which is the Republican Tax Cut claiming to be a Health Care Plan. And my emotional response is largely fueled by the intellectual realization that it will most likely become law, and its dreadful, actually murderous, effects are very likely to actually occur. People I know very well will be terribly hurt by this. People in my own family will be faced with terrible dilemmas, and restrictions of choices. And, far worse, many, many thousands of Americans will needlessly die and suffer from lack of needed health care because of the cruelty and vicious disregard for their fellow humans that is the hallmark of today's Republicans. This isn't some difference of opinion among civilized people. It is a dichotomy between common decency and outright barbarism. 

I understand the need to focus on what can be done to change the political trends, and I do believe that the Democratic Party, if it embraces a genuinely progressive agenda and comes up with people who can promote that agenda as a program for positive change, not a stop gap of damage control (which is never very inspiring), can prevail in 2018 and 2020. It will take work, but it can be done. 

I cannot deny it: my hatred for the policy is also personal. The prospect of the terrible, truly incredible human suffering that these people are willing to wreak while they yet wield power, just to eke out a little bit more in unfair tax breaks for their richest constituents, simply appalls. Truly. I can not help but feel genuine, fulminating hatred for these people. I am committed to nonviolence and peaceful political action. But that does not change the fact that, while try always to practice compassion and lovingkindness, I am not capable of it in this context: this action is so evil that I cannot help but personalize it, and feel hatred and utter disdain for those who are promulgating it. 

I can only hope that others who feel as I do will try, as I will try, to channel that energy into action to actually do something to change this situation, through peaceful democratic political processes. 

The details are largely unimportant. The overriding principle is at stake. Everywhere in the advanced world, except here, the principle that citizens are entitled to reasonable, first world health care, and the the society must structure a system to pay for it, is accepted. There is no reason, other than greed and arrogant contempt for humanity, that we can not do this. And this bill will take giant steps backwards, to a status FAR WORSE than what we had before the Affordable Care Act. This is simply fact, and arguing over this or that detail, as they do on Vox's The Weeds and other forums, is pointless. This policy is especially cruel to the poor who depend on Medicaid (which is largely slated to be destroyed, so that it cannot work at all), as well to lower to middle income older people, who face costs for woefully inadequate health coverage so cripplingly high that many millions will opt not to pay for it. Instead, they will risk catastrophe and go bare, without insurance. Many of those people will suffer sickness and death, without care, as a result. This is evil, pure and simple. Not bad policy. EVIL. 

We must fight this, now, and until this evil is excoriated from our body politic. 


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