Taking a Lesson from Dr. Seuss

Yesterday, Stephen at Drinking Liberally in New Milford suggested throwing Max Baucus under the health care reform bus. Woody at Walled-In Pond figured out that congressional candidates raised $122,634.64 each in the last quarter alone and it's not even a dang election year.

This national "debate" about health care has, if nothing else, illustrated the power of special interest pocket books. It's no wonder Americans despair over reform when the greed of our leaders is on constant, audacious display. None of us peasants can have an impact when all we do is lament our lot in isolation. We have to act collectively in our own interests since we cannot rely on Congress to consider any interests but their own. According to itskevin at Daily Kos, there are a few Senators who are fed up with Max Baucus's ineffective leadership on health care.

If you don't have much on your agenda today, try calling one of these members of congress and tell them you're sick and tired of being jacked off by congress:

Charles Schumer (NY) at (202) 224-6542
Jay Rockefeller (WV) at (202) 224-6472
Ron Wyden (OR) at (202) 224-5244
John Kerry (MA) at (202) 224-2742
Blanche Lincoln (AR) at (202) 224-4843
Debbie Stabenow (MI) at (202) 224-4822
Maria Cantwell (WA) at (202) 224-3441
Bill Nelson (FL) at (202) 224-5274
Robert Menendez (NJ) at (202) 224-4744
Thomas Carper (DE) at (202) 224-2441

Or go to Write Your Representative and send an email.

We are headed straight toward Idiocracy. In that movie, America is experiencing a famine because the citizens believed in commercials and tried to grow crops using Gatorade since sports drinks contain essential elements and water is just for toilets.

The only way to avoid Idiocracy in real life is to use our impoverished, puny little voices to say: I'm Mad as Hell and I'm not Going to Take it Anymore. Different movie, but real life today is as bad as, or worse than, the one imagined in Network in 1976.

Now that I think about it, we're in the same boat as all the Whos down in Who-ville. The pompous, closed minded animals of the jungle are ready to rope and cage Horton and boil Who-ville into Beezle-Nut stew because they refuse to believe the tiny Whos even exist when their world is an insignificant speck of dust. Kind of like Congress and us. In order to save themselves, the Whos must work together.

And, down on the dust speck, the scared little Mayor
Quick called a big meeting in Who-ville Town Square,
And his people cried loudly. They cried out in fear:
"We are here! We are here! We are here! We are here!"

Dr. Seuss was no fool. The first time the Whos try to be heard, the plan fails. The Whos make all the racket they can, but cannot be heard by the douchebags of the jungle until the mayor discovers a shirker. The Mayor grabs the "young twerp" and takes him to the top of the Eiffelberg Tower tells him, "Open your mouth, lad! For every voice counts!" All the kid says is "Yopp," but his yopp helps the Whos' noises go over the top.

Their voices were heard! They rang out clear and clean.
And the elephant smiled, "Do you see what I mean? . . .
They've proved they ARE persons, no matter how small.
And the whole world was saved by the Smallest of All

Horton Hears A Who (Random House, 1954) is just a story, but we could learn a lesson from Dr. Seuss. Can it be simple coincidence that Horton is an elephant? One liberal elephant makes a bunch of foolish, self-important, cut throat animals that a person's a person no matter how small - and they have the exact same rights as those buttheads.

Speak up, America.