Lou Reed: "Busload of Faith"

Gave up asking how other peope get by.  Only know I "need a busload of Faith to get by."

"Give me your hungry, your tired your poor I'll piss on 'em That's what the Statue of Bigotry says "

Quote from the inestimable Lou Reed, song "Dirty Boulevard," from the New York album.

Part of any civilization that shows ethical advancement comes from how that society treats those unable to contribute much to the general welfare: the elderly, infirm and disabled, the sick, poor, and even children deemed weak.  So although we may still celebrate the heroic sacrifice of the Spartan 300, no one would call them civilized for they threw weak babies to the wolves.

So also the Medicaid cuts proposed by Paul Ryan, Republican, state of plutocratic advantage, would harm the least available to help themselves: humans in Assisted Living Facilities, poor children, and the destitute.

In the great but penurious state of Florida, a family of 3 making less than $11,000 a year-below the federal poverty level--does not qualify for health care under Medicaid.

What do they do when their children get sick?

Hope, pray, wait for the malady to pass, and go to an Emergency Room if the sickness worsens.

The hospitals who accept poor patients--and make no mistake, some do not, which means people die every day in the US of un-Affordable health care because they lack insurance--bear the costs of treatment and pass those costs onto paying customers and insurance companies, which the Affodable Care Act will help prevent by getting people, human freakin' beings for God's sake, care before their conditions become acute.

Paul Ryan's budget, an immoral document if ever there were one, cuts $800 from Medicaid, cloaking this draconian dicing of the safety net by claiming it will give state governments more flexibility while knowing fool well--yes, I meant fool because if you believe these right wing Republican lies, you are a fool--and result in the states further cutting eligibility for Medicaid:

[By RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON —
There's another Paul Ryan plan for health care, a fundamental change in caring for the poor and disabled that would affect many more people than the Medicare overhaul the GOP vice presidential candidate is best known for.

Under the Wisconsin congressman's Medicaid plan, states would take over the program. At the same time, Ryan's budget would reduce projected federal spending on Medicaid by about $800 billion over 10 years, dramatically shrinking it as a share of the national economy.

Medicaid serves about 60 million people, roughly 10 million more than Medicare. It's a diverse population brought together by need. Most Medicaid recipients are low-income children and their mothers, but the costliest cases are severely disabled people, many of them seniors in nursing homes.

Ryan would also repeal President Barack Obama's health care law, expected to add at least 11 million more people to Medicaid.

Ryan's Medicaid plan is in sync with his new boss, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney.]
http://www.wftv.com/news/ap/top-news/the-other-paul-ryan-plan-800b-in-medicaid-cuts/nRBst/

Will this pass the test of helping those least able to help themselves?

Hell NO it won't!!!


Personal note #1:  Happened to work at hotel Lou stayed at when he came through the City Mean on his tour supporting this album.  Found it interesting contract called for in room refrigerator cleared of alcohol and to have no alcohol delivered to the room.
"Give me your hungry, your tired your poor I'll piss on 'em
That's what the Statue of Bigotry says
Your poor huddled masses, let's club 'em to death
And get it over with and just dump 'em on the boulevard"
Read more at http://www.songmeanings.net/songs/view/49609/#jO30k2XiwmjF3qUj.99

Personal note 2:  As a walking ex-quadrapeligic surviving for 32 years and oddly proud of eking out an existence on disability for the second time in my life (20 years working between stints), I have entered that range of middle age where one plays wheel of monthly medical specialist visits at $40 a copay pop even with medicare Advantage: gastroenterologist, urologist, neurologist, orthopedic surgeon, nephrologist, etc.  How the hell can I see more than 1 a month making the princely sum of $968 a month?

Personal note 3:  to all the bastards who judge me and assume and dare to say, "you should get some help," judging me because they assume some magical, faerie dust social safety net exists to help but I fall into odd category of not quite old enough at age 54 nor quite disabled enough to get social services help.

Sit on it, JJ.

Would Jesse Helms count Jesus a Marxist?

He practiced just like MLK, and at least his followers later practiced followers practiced marxism: Matthew25, "35For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me."
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=matthew%2025:%2035,36;&version=31;

Then we have the whole non-violence thing, so 2 centuries ago.

"Take the poor out and club 'em to death/that's what the statue of bigotry says." sings Lou Reed.



From Wapo
[Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.), charging that the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. espoused "action-oriented Marxism" and other "radical political" views, yesterday temporarily blocked Senate action on a House-passed bill to create a new national holiday in memory of the slain civil rights leader.
Helms' assault on King, which prompted a scathing denunciation from Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), came as the White House was putting out word that President Reagan intends to sign the measure, even though the administration once had opposed it...

Helms had hardly begun his attack on the bill when Senate leaders of both parties, including Sen. Strom Thurmond (R-S.C.), [WTF, Strom?} the conservative chairman of the Judiciary Committee, filed a cloture petition to shut off debate and bring the bill to a vote, perhaps as early as Wednesday.

And Sen. Robert J. Dole (R-Kan.), floor manager for the legislation, acerbically attacked the contention by Helms and other critics of the bill that another federal holiday would be costly for the economy. "Since when did a dollar sign take its place atop our moral code?" Dole asked.
Although Helms' colleagues had expected his effort to derail the bill by sending it to committee for hearings, the tone of his attack--linking King to what he called "the official policy of communism"--appeared to take them by surprise...

A federal holiday should be an occasion for "shared values," but King's "very name itself remains a source of tension, a deeply troubling symbol of divided society," Helms said.

Helms said King had used "nonviolence as a provocative act to disturb the peace of the state and to trigger, in many cases, overreaction by authorities."

He asserted that there were Marxists in King's movement and that King had been warned against them by the president at the time, apparently meaning President Kennedy.

Added Helms: "I think most Americans would feel that the participation of Marxists in the planning and direction of any movement taints that movement at the outset . . . . Others may argue that Dr. King's thought may have been merely Marxist in its orientation. But the trouble with that is that Marxism-Leninism, the official philosphy of communism, is an action-oriented revolutionary doctrine. And Dr. King's action-oriented Marxism, about which he was cautioned by the leaders of this country, including the president at that time, is not compatible with the concepts of this country." ]



http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/opinions/articles/helms_stalls_kings_day.html

Found from link in comments at http://mediamatters.org/altercation/index