It's been almost a week now and I still remain haunted by the images of that Health Care Summit that was called by the White House last week. Thankfully the images have faded a bit -- the massive tables with all those important representatives. The blue and yellow bunting. Who put up all that bunting? Used all those tacks? Was it done the night before? The morning of? It reminded me a bit of the Oscars. A really big show, folks, with lots of speeches. I can't remember really what came of the whole thing: various hands were shaken in photos; people frowned, smiled, looked important...
But one thing sticks. I can't get it out of my head. Almost everyone there at the tables was a big, fat, white guy. Most of them had white hair. White on white. And the other thing that kept hitting me was, yes, everyone of those big fat white-white guys has got a really good Health Care Plan, paid fully by his government: total Health Care coverage. (And then there was the news earlier in the week about Dick Cheney and his fifth heart attack and how his survival proved -- according to his proud doctors -- what great Health Care the former VP had. Were these doctors just laughing at the rest of us because that's all that can be done at this point?)
Big, fat, well-taken-care-of white-white guys, mostly in suits. A few women, yeah (also in suits). A black president. Cool. But mostly big fat white-white guys, many with a kind of redness around the eyes and cheeks. Puffy and red. Little networks of blue veins around the noses. Red, white and blue from too much alcohol. Too much beef. Reminds me of the 1960s -- actually the 1940s -- scratch that -- 1890. So what's changed in a hundred and ten years if guys like this still get whatever they want and then meet around long tables with blue and yellow bunting to hash out what to do with the rest of us and the rest of the pie?
But jeeze, it's pretty tough to do that, isn't it -- all these complicated issues and the money that's left after they've taken care of themselves and their pals? Not to mention all that money needed to get re-elected and so forth...
And that single, black, mother with her three kids in the ghetto? It's all her fault, of course (more or less) that she hasn't gotten her act pulled better-together. Never mind she's twenty-two, was forced to try to fight through a laughably underfunded school system, et cetera. Besides, she's got the internet now, right? And there's Google. And another good thing -- her kids seem to be getting thinner and she's getting thinner and you live longer if you're thinner. Maybe that's why these big, fat, white guys need all that great Health Care and she and her kids don't.
But I ramble. And I suppose I'm a little confused (I'm a white guy too, by the way -- same age as a lot of those leading statesmen). And I do have to admit that I have good Health Care too. Hmmm. Interesting...
But still, I ramble. Sorry.
How about this -- these big, fat, white guys (and the few woman, and the black president and even me, I guess) -- we all get our Health Care plug pulled till this damn thing gets sorted out.
This is not an impossible idea if enough of us get together (at this point in the endless Health Care debate) and say, "No! Enough is enough! It's not fair. You/me -- we get no Health Care till you figure out Health Care for everybody. And then...
what everybody else gets, you mostly big, fat white representatives get too. Nothing more. Nothing less."
Not impossible. We just need some big fat petitions. A national movement. Use the internet. "You guys get what we get. Nothing more. Nothing less." It'd be nice if the President (not being red, pasty white and blue) could say it too -- that he'd stop his government sponsored fully covered single payer Health Care Plan for himself and his family and challenge the House, Senate (even the Supreme Court) to voluntarily do the same until this damn thing gets solved for the people that all of these mostly big fat white rich guys were put into office to serve.
But I don't see that in the cards, so that leaves it up to us, the people. Why should that have changed after all these years either? A groundswell. Grassroots. A rebellion again, of sorts, because enough is enough. Sound like another Tea Party? Two Tea Parties at the same time? Why not?