fromanyalley

The final, and worst crime, was committed behind closed-doors and unveiled before a County Commission meeting.
To be fair, this WAS reported in the local Daily Republican (”None of the real news we are bribed not to print.”) How this particular piece of news, as poorly detailed as it was, made it on to the front page is in and of itself a mystery. Obviously the self-imposed censors were busy divvying up the contents of the plain, unmarked manila envelope which simply appears in the mail-room at the exact same time, on the exact same day, every single month. Like clockwork.

Due to the vile nature of this horrible crime a bit of back-story is needed to fully understand it. So, we will begin with a once upon a time….There was a hospital in a small town in a little corner of a little state. The hospital was run by nuns. And a fine hospital it was. Babies were born, wounds healed, bones set, and old people died of the old folks friend, pneumonia, as it was called by the fairly good doctors who performed their services in the hospital run by nuns. The nuns cared about people and did not care for wealth. That is an odd thing about those nuns. They simply did not and do not care for money. It is seen as another tool with which to help people. They gave help and care to any and all. They would even “forgive” the charges for their services if the person helped could show hardship. The people who worked in the financial office of the hospital were happy and glad to find ways to forgive all or part of the person’s hospital bill.

Then, children, one day the nuns were no where to be found. A giant organization squatted where once the nuns had seen to life and death with equanimity, compassion, and respect. The giant organization began to feed. It appeared to feed primarily on money…blood soaked or otherwise. It grew and grew. Whatever heart had been there was going away until it was simply ruled out as too expensive.

Fast forward ten money gobbling years. That decade includes nearly all eight years of the Bush abomination. Yes, the crime committed, the heinous, heartless crime will be laid squarely at the door of Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney. They set the lowest bar imaginable for all business. They glamorized profit, mean-spirited, spiteful disregard for decency, and made power the only thing worth living or working for. Many many people in all walks of life bought that terrible, evil lie.

Even here in this tiny corner of this little state the lie found good ground and flourished. Money and power overcame the nuns’ quaint notions of service to others in the name of a gentle and forgiving Higher Power. The neocons knew there was power, but it was and is upon the earth, and not floating around somewhere with an avuncular fellow who appears to like losers, such as the meek and the poor. The poor, as is well known, are a disease of the body of the state. Because the poor have less, they are less. They are not privy to such things as adequate health care, nutritious food, or, god forbid, respect. The first two of the three are commodities to be bought and sold. The third relies wholly upon the person’s ability to buy and sell. The person who has little may have served his or her country in battle; that person may serve his or community by acts of goodwill and generosity of spirit and time. However, if they fall below an established monetary level, they become the lesser-ones, the disease, the people nice people (meaning people with money) do not recognize on the street. The nice people may under-employ the lesser people. They may actively exploit and cheat the lesser people. They may even fuck a few of them every now and again. But there is a dividing line which will not and cannot be crossed. The poor are the poor because there is something wrong with them. And it may be contagious.

Two county commissioners, one named Dick, decided that the poor had been either too sick, or there were too many of them being sick. The poor who were truly pestiferous were causing the gigantic corporation masquerading as a hospital some financial discomfort. The county has a legal obligation to pay for the hospital bills incurred by what is termed the “indigent.” The poor. The two county commissioners looked at their wallet-photos of their heroes Bush and Cheney and asked, What would Dubya Do? The answer was clear, strike a slimy deal which is against the law and push it through whatever official channels it had to be pushed.

Let’s talk money. The county was staring down the barrel of a $146,000 dollar bill to pay for the hospital’s charges against the poor. That is $146,000 dollars for the entire year, which is $26,000 dollars over budget. $146,000 dollars, for the year is, as we all know, chumpchange to the Dubya’s of the world. They spend more than that on their specially bred, specially trained English hunting dogs. They spend more than that on gas-guzzling Humvees and the trophy wives propped up in the front seat. They have to be propped up since their natural inclination is to have their faces buried in the driver’s lap or they are so fucked-up on prescription pain killers, the kind that Rush Himself loves so dearly, they cannot sit up without help.

The two county commissioners of this tiny county in this tiny state apparently decided that the incredibly rich corporation masquerading as a house of mercy needed help. These are the same two clod-hopping, puddle-jumping rednecks who bellow like one of their beloved cows if the word welfare is even whispered in the room. They are the same two grotesque caricatures of law-abiding citizens who pound the table for the bail-out of lifeless, soul-less corporations, i.e., fannie mae, freddie mac, and down the list of corporate losers. Corporations aren’t bad. Poor people are. Corporations need help, and that help is in the form of tax-payer’s money. Poor people do not need help, especially if it is in the form of tax-payer’s money.

Following the lead of their heroes the late great Kenny-boy of Enron, and the lovely couple Dubya and his Dick, the two tiny little power-grasping commissioners decided to fuck the poor as royally as they could. Did they want to send a message to the state Republican Party that two foot-soldiers in the culture war could and would gladly be bought and sold if only they could have just a taste of the power and acceptance the political criminal is normally given? Did those two pitiful excuses for public figures actually think that they could cut a deal with the huge company pretending to be a place of healing and care?

They did, and they did. The deal was cut. Even the county attorney was left out.

At the last Commission meeting the two county commissioners who had finally and fully sold their tawdry and blackened little souls announced that the hospital had “graciously” agreed to send no more bills for the poor to the County for this fiscal year. The two sick little bastards who had become county commissioners to serve themselves agreed to make “some” changes in protocol which would make it easier for the county and the huge, rich, rapacious company to harass, bully and squeeze the money from the poor to pay for the accrued bills. The people, and they are people, are called indigent. Indigent means they have little or no money. The county, or at least two venal heartless bastards representing the county and the huge, gluttonous company intend to squeeze the money from people who have no money. This fits in with the idea of welfare for the rich, nofare for the poor very neatly. We must remember that there are more than two commissioners. Only two struck this diabolical deal. It is informal, unwritten, and illegal. The county attorney, a lawyer for crying out loud, left the County Commission meeting in disgust. Think about that. Causes one to become a trifle woozy.

The last part of the sulfur-soaked, informal, illegal bargain was the county’s cost for poor, sick, helpless people would be no more than $110,000 next year. What that means is the gargantuan company decided that it knew how many poor people would be sick, and to what degree next year, and the cost would be $110,000 dollars. This all translates to the simple fact that the hospital had drawn a line and said, That’s it. No more than x-amount of dollars. The self-serving nattering nabobs of nano-neoconism had their little self-images blown-up by the big, gosh-golly powerful corporation. In the process the law was broken, and people are going to pay, out the ass if necessary, but by-god they will pay.

The deal made will be alive and well and part of public policy one year from today. There is no question. The two culture warriors who promise to save the county $60,000 to $70,000 won’t have to buy one drink for themselves at the Moose Lodge bar. The good gigantic corporation will be defended from the grasping, clawing poor, who are bad people. The final solution to the cost of the poor will be investigated by an ad hoc, informal commission meeting in the back room of a liquor store. The rich can sleep safely knowing that the insane, greedy mass of poor people will not only be held at bay, they will be, slowly possibly, exterminated, by the natural laws of the free market economy. Health-care, as a commodity, will be sold. If the poor, some of whom are poor due to extreme ill-health or crushing medical bills, are unable to buy the commodity of health care, they will simply die, young and old alike. This means that over time the poor will simply cease to be, or their numbers will be at a tolerable, easily exploited level. The little county in this little state will be juden frei, er, uh, free of the leeches bleeding-hearts call the poor.

The callous, cold-blooded actions of the two commissioners is remarkable only for the idiotic announcement before a public hearing of an illegal act committed by two representatives of the county and a huge national corporation with its eye on the bottom line. Those two penny-ante politicos need to get their heads up and in the game. They will learn, and those who come after them will be even more devious, duplicitous, and deceitful.

In this little corner of this small state when our county commissioners say Next order of BUSINESS, they goddamn-well mean it.

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