My Rant on the Would-Be Health-Care Killers

Iron Eyes Cody, 1971. This is how I feel,

(Note: This piece was filed Friday morning, just before John McCain announced he could not support this vicious bill. I have had great respect for McCain since I met him years ago. His action Friday may have doomed the legislation -- for now -- but these people keep coming back for their money.) 

Lately, I’ve been seeing the image of the Native American with one tear rolling down his cheek.

It was a highly popular commercial, for the ecology, from Earth Day, 1971.

The man had paddled down a pristine river and sighted a modern Apocalypse of debris.

That’s how I feel these days.

It’s not just the natural disasters pounding Texas and Florida and the Caribbean and Mexico, places we know and love.

It’s deeper.

It’s the vision into the heart of darkness. I have dealt with the election of a cruel, ignorant and disturbed human being, believing he will be out within 18 months. He’s a symptom of something worse.

The teardrop in my mind comes when I see stone-hearted members of Congress preparing to vote to take away health care from millions of people who need it the most -- fellow Americans, whatever that means anymore.

I see politicians – and by that I mean Republicans – lobbying for votes, to stiff the poor and the sick.

They are doing it for their donors, the Koch Brothers and villains like them, who want tax breaks, and do not care how they come, even at the penalty of taking away surgery from the ill and shelter for the aged.

These donors would, essentially, kill for money, and so would their lackeys in Congress.

Lindsey Graham. For a while, I thought he was showing touches of humanity but now he is front and center for the White Citizens Council, some of them doctors, for goodness’ sakes, who shuffle wordlessly behind Head Kleagle McConnell. They want money so they can keep going.

Jimmy Kimmel is wise to this Cassidy guy. I hope Kimmel's rants do some good.

Until McCain made his statement Friday, I could not count on three Republicans in the Senate to vote for the poor. Plus, I can think of a Democrat or two who would shaft people in their own states, for money.

They do not want to care for their fellow humans. And they have the backing of some large and oily religious lobbies.

I can remember when Americans told each other we were the good guys who helped win two World Wars. If you overlooked the Civil War, the war that has never ended, it was a workable image.

This current collective meanness has been coming on for a while. It began when the McConnell-Boehner-Ryan coalition sabotaged Barack Obama for the crime of Presiding While Black.

It’s about race, a lot of it.

I’ve gotten pretty tough in my old age. I ascribe to the Iris Dement song, “No Time to Cry,” about how her father died and she had to keep going.

But now I'm walking and I'm talking,
Doing what I'm supposed to do.
Working overtime to make sure I don't come unglued.
I guess I'm older now and I've got no time to cry.

Then I remember the Native American, so proud, so stoic, seeing what others are doing to his world.
One tear.
                                   
(Footnote: the man in the commercial, who went by the name of Iron Eyes Cody, was actually of Sicilian ancestry, Espera Oscar de Corti, and grew up in rural Louisiana. He portrayed Native Americans in movies, and married one in real life. He looked the part well enough that I remember his tear, 46 years later.)