Republicans to Slash Needed Domestic Programs to Fund More War and Conquest
by Jude Cowell
Since Mr. Trump and the Republicans have their knives out intending to gut social programs for the weak, ill, and aging among us while massive tax cuts are put in place for the wealthy class, a review of the History of Medicare and Medicaid seems timely. And as you know, in 1972 (under Nixon) an expansion of the social safety net was enacted to include coverage for the disabled, end-stage renal disease patients needing dialysis or a kidney transplant, and citizens age 65 and older.
But waging perpetual war for the sake of Empire is a very costly endeavor and it isn't as if the disabled, ill, and aging can or would enlist in the military, right? So did the GOP finally accept Trump as their 'outsider' president because they knew that an unprincipled man would agree to cut whatever programs they targeted? And that, after spouting campaign rhetoric that he would not cut the very programs now under the GOP knife! Not that I believed him, of course. Did you?
By Ricard Canals (1876--1931) {Sick Child, Octavi, the artist's son} circa 1903; Barcelona. Details of artist on Google Art Project [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
Always the Tiresome Trade-Off: Guns vs Butter
Photo: Paul Ryan: "We've Been Dreaming of Slashing Medicaid Since My Kegger Days"...a drunken dream? Now he's drunk with power.
Yes, with dreamy Neptune rising in his natal chart, Speaker Paul Ryan is quite a big dreamer. But do the current GOP austerity measures against the American people put you in mind of Republican President Eisenhower's famous Chance for Peace speech of 1953? Here's an excerpt:
"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children." Theft. He said theft. To give the wealthy more tax cuts while harming little children.
Now Eisenhower's words contain way too vast a concept for a subjective man like Mr. Trump to grasp although certainly some Republican congress members have the mental and emotional capacity to understand that such theft from We the People will result in millions of Americans ill and starving on the streets and infecting everyone else. Plus, the US economy will suffer from the additional financial burden placed upon our families. (No, churches cannot do it all). But that's where lack of conscience and principles come in--when politicians plainly show that no, they are not their brother's keepers.
Now I don't mean that the US isn't worse off economically than we've been led to believe these last decades and my suspicion is that this is very much the case. 'White collar' theft abounds, as you know, and as noted, waging global war and acting as World Cop takes a whole lot of filthy lucre.
However, the austerity path of heartlessness the GOP demands for America is not the only path to take. Even if it's the global bankers' * 'big picture commands a certain course of action, little option to do otherwise' offer-they-can't-refuse situation that our compromised, bribed, and threatened 'representatives' on Capitol Hill are following because the 'otherwise' involves too much risk for their own hides to take. Apparently the extra added 'benefit' of population control (a la Ayn Rand) seems to suit the Republicans (and their enablers) just fine--as long as they and their loved ones remain unaffected. (They hope!)
Well, thanks for letting me vent. The current news on Medicaid and other financial cuts enrages me on behalf of the common good and for the sake of my native country (which I'm very partial to!) I must vehemently dissent against the Republican austerity agenda and sorry-a**ed war economy which are suggested by the cruelty and hardship potentials of year 2020.
~:~
Here's an audio excerpt (under 3 mins) of Eisenhower himself delivering his Chance for Peace speech on April 16, 1953. Now that soup lines across America will come into vogue again, it's obvious that someone didn't listen to Ike's counsel and preferred to sell out our nation to the highest bidder.
* the oh-so-rational 'new world order' planets of The Enlightenment, Uranus and Neptune, met three times in Great Conjunction all through 1993 at or near '18 Capricorn' so that a current midpoint picture has formed via transiting Pluto: the big picture commands a certain course of action, very little option to do otherwise.' (Noel Tyl, Solar Arcs). And that's no matter who must pay the price--saboteur Pluto of the Underworld doesn't care.
