sonora2sonoma

After 50 plus similar votes

the puppet-show

that comprises the current majority

in the House of Representatives

has, once again,

voted to repeal

the Affordable Care Act,

Once again

wasting resources and time,

that could have been devoted

to worthy and timely causes,

while tilting at windmills

at the expense of you and me and all the rest of us.

 

Imagine

what might have been accomplished

if they had put all that effort and time

into something more productive

like, maybe, passing legislation

to address our nation’s many

pressing needs.

 

This time, it’s being claimed,

they are doing something different–

passing a bill

that will actually get to

the President’s desk–

where he will–

No Surprise–

veto it!

 

Something symbolic, they are saying.

Something to appeal to their constituency.

Something to evidence

that they are doing what they were sent there

to do–

only, by most accounts,

the Affordable Care Act

is accomplishing handily

what it was intended to do.

Maybe they should take notice!

 

By forcing a veto,

they are saying,

they are shining a spotlight

on how the policies of the current administration

differ from their positions–

as if there were any lack of clarity in that regard–

but their actions do nothing

to clarify what kind of a health care plan

they would seek to implement

were they to succeed

in undoing the one currently serving so many

for whom health care was previously unreachable.

 

Speaking of constituencies,

these folks weren’t elected

by the Koch brothers

or their ilk!

But the votes they submit

and the priorities they espouse

represent them nonetheless.

 

There might have been a time in the past

when a man’s lies

were more likely to catch up with him

but not anymore.

Today

politicians routinely make the most outrageous claims imaginable

yet go unchallenged.

What has become of accountability?

 

I wish someone would explain to me

what it is about Obamacare

that the puppet-masters

find objectionable.

Just what underlies

the reprehensible rhetoric

and the downright dishonesty,

the fabricated fictions

and the opaque obfuscations

driving their divisiveness.

 

But, I confess,

the answer, should I find it,

would likely only increase my cynicism,

for the common threads–

money, power and influence–

that bind corrupt politicians to their wealthy donors

and the bogus causes they champion

are the same strings upon which they dance

to their masters’ whims

to our peril

and to theirs too, were they only able to see it.

 

06 January 2016

Tim Konrad