The Hollow Men

in ,

We are the hollow me We are the stuffed me Leaning together Headpiece filled with straw. Alas! T. S. Eliot

  • Yesterday the Republican majority in the House of Representatives voted to cut $40 billion from food stamps and to kick 3.8 million people out of the program. This, in a nation with 46.5 million people in poverty.
  • That same majority is bent on shutting down the government at a time when the long-sputtering economy is finally gathering steam.
  • It is goading its wretched leadership to default on the national debt when over 11 million people remain unemployed and we are seeking negotiations with Syria and Iran.
  • It has voted 41 times to defund Obamacare, treating it as a partisan bill, rather than the law of the land, passed by both houses of Congress, signed by the president, upheld by the Supreme Court, a law that will ultimately insure 48 million people currently without insurance.
  • It is eating its own young. The nation’s ten poorest states – Mississippi, Arkansas, West Virginia, Alabama, Kentucky, New Mexico, Tennessee, Louisiana, South Carolina and Oklahoma – have 44 Republicans in Congress and only 10 Democrats. In Mississippi, the country's poorest state, 40% of all children receive food stamps.
  • It is destroying the safety net, which is the glue that holds communities together.
  • It is unraveling the social contract, which is the foundation of the Declaration of Independence and Constitution that these “patriots” claim to revere.
  • It is the meanest collection of bullies and hypocrites that have ever claimed to represent America.