To Comfort The Afflicted
And Afflict The Comfortable

To Comfort The Afflicted And Afflict The Comfortable

Monday, October 7, 2024

Observercast

Class Warfare

on

BY KAREN WEBB

What exactly is it called when people are laid off and the guys at the top are getting golden parachutes for running the company into the ground? What do you call it when the gap between the guys at the top and those on the bottom is in the hundreds of percentages? What do you call it when the CEOs and Wall Street use the markets as a casino and do whatever they want? What is it called when our health care is controlled by a profit margin? If it costs too much to save your child then they just die.

I guess I have a problem with compassionate conservative Christians who have to be bribed to tithe or give to charity. They had a guy on the national ABC News who makes over $250,000 a year and he says his charitable giving will go down. I have no Biblical reason for that attitude.

Render unto God the things that are God’s if and only if Caesar lets you deduct it?

It is always the upper class that starts wars and it is always the upper class that makes money during wars by investing in war industries, but it is rare that the CEOs or millionaires lose children in wars when there is a volunteer army.

They don’t have to get shot at to pay for college. They don’t even have to worry about a draft any more. They get to use other people’s children as cannon fodder so they can take the natural resources of other countries.

I suggest the Republican Party continue this tactic of selling the idea that I should be concerned about CEOs at the corporation where I work when they get to decide if I get health insurance and then the HMOs get to decide what care I get depending on how much it will cost. Or I get to choose what coverage I need and what I am willing to bet that I won’t need.

I saw a story on the news recently about a young family with a baby who needs heart surgery, but their plan doesn’t have coverage for that. How do you decide if you want to pay a larger amount that you can’t afford or take a chance on your kid not getting cancer?

I am certainly no economic expert, but even with just one class in high school 45 years ago, I know that tax cuts only stimulate the economy if the people getting them spend them.

Do they think I am stupid?

If they are waiting for me to run out with extra money and spend it on stuff I don’t need, they can think again.

If they want me to take pity on people who tell my doctor that he can’t do needed tests because my life or the lives of my loved ones aren’t worth the cost, then they can forget it.

If I can pay insurance premiums for 20 years and the first time I need it they can jack up my premiums, then I don’t feel sorry for them.

We have the problems we have now because we gave rich people back their money and thought they would use it to create jobs, and they haven’t. We were told we could trust them to police themselves and instead they went crazy doing anything and everything they could think of to screw us. No, I don’t feel sorry for them. Not one bit.

The only important difference in the health care in the United States and the health care in Canada is that ours is a lot more expensive and done on a profit margin and theirs isn’t.

Our drugs aren’t any better, they are just more expensive. Drug companies spend a fortune advertising drugs we can only get with a prescription.

You do not need to ask; after the last eight years, there is no way I would vote for a Republican.

Karen Webb lives in Moore, OK and is a regular contributor to The Oklahoma Observer

Arnold Hamilton
Arnold Hamilton
Arnold Hamilton became editor of The Observer in September 2006. Previously, he served nearly two decades as the Dallas Morning News’ Oklahoma Bureau chief. He also covered government and politics for the San Jose Mercury News, the Dallas Times Herald, the Tulsa Tribune and the Oklahoma Journal.