"WHEN FASCISM COMES TO AMERICA IT WILL BE WRAPPED IN THE FLAG
AND CARRYING A CROSS." -SINCLAIR LEWIS

Thursday, July 23, 2009

Tom Arnold: Political Pugilist

Yes, that Tom Arnold. The one who fucked Rosanne. Yes, Rosanne:

Not to put too fine a point on it, but Tom Arnold is not exactly known as a towering intellect. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure he's a very nice man; he's certainly built a pretty decent career in a notoriously difficult industry, no small feat. But when you think of politically astute Hollywood types, Tom Arnold isn't exactly the person that comes to mind.

Clearly, Hannity assumed that Arnold is a Republican (I'm guessing that Hannity's researchers got no further than a picture of Tom Arnold endorsing Arnold Schwarzenegger for Governor, since Tom has publicly said he's a Democrat), because I can't imagine Hannity asking a Democrat on.

But the multi-millionaire Hannity (who is so out of touch with everyday Americans he insists that ham costs on 79 cents/pound) didn't count on the former meat packer from Iowa whose whole act centered around being a common man actually championing policies that help the average American, instead of the corporate oligarchy.
This takes Arnold up several notches on my respectometer (and I already love True Lies):


Oh yeah, no fraud and abuse in the private sector. The main (and openly stated) goal of practically every corporation in the country is to make as much money as possible, first and foremost, above all other considerations. But yeah, no fraud and abuse. And since when are U.S. citizens not allowed to sue their government? It happens all the time. And what Hannity says is mostly true: We don't deny people health care because of their inability to pay. We just allow corporate America to squeeze them dry for the rest of their lives if they find themselves in an emergency medical situation where they're not covered by insurance.

Now, is our government perfect or relatively free from the aforementioned fraud and abuse? Of course not, and I wouldn't expect a government run health care system to be either one of these things but just take an honest look at the numbers. We're the richest, most powerful country on the face of the planet, right now and all the way back through recorded history. And 45 million of us have no health care coverage at the dawn of the 21st century. Something has to change.

2 comments:

Kevin Robbins said...

I'm afraid Tom Arnold may have lost his Great American status after that performance.

Anonymous said...

There are laws preventing emergency rooms from denying medical care in most (but not all) states. However, there are no laws regulating emergency room triage procedures. Uninsured patients in emergency rooms have been 'denied care' by making them wait til they have in disgust, only to have them keel over dead when their minor problem turns out to be serious. Nor is quality of care regulated. Many patients are dismissed with minor amelioration of symptoms and no diagnosis of real medical problems.

Nor is there any law requiring any other facility to accept uninsured patients unable to pay. So uninsured Americans ARE denied common preventative care, regular diagnostic care, and non-emergency care. All the time.

So we do deny quite a few Americans medical care because they cannot pay for it. We just have a law saying emergency room patients have to be attended to, we don't require hospitals to really provide them with care or regulate anyone ELSE's ability to refuse people care.