Bandwagons, We Americans Never Tire of Bandwagons
A bandwagon is defined as “a popular trend that attracts growing support.” It’s a holdover from the times when a wagon, with a band onboard, would wend its way through town prior to a circus or other tent show. It says something about our internet-connected world that the definition now includes neither ‘band’, nor ‘wagon.’
That’s progress of a kind, I guess
In its current iteration, Congress has much reason to salute any bandwagon passing and, in its absence, creates its own. The congressional purpose is neither a circus, nor a tent show, although the United States Congress has recently become both a circus and tent show.
Such is the current state of political theater in Washington where, every so often, they throw us the bone of an impeachment or other hearing capable of striking up the band and bringing the clowns to spotlight, front and center. This serves as governance during attention-flooded news cycles.
We settle on this as ‘something’ in a do-nothing Congress
If a politician holds their political breath long enough, Syria will be overthrown, a wildfire will destroy Malibu, or a healthcare CEO will be assassinated. Any one of which are worthy of a congressional committee hearing, and the heat is temporarily off the death of bipartisan politics. No wake, no funeral, no one giving a damn.
What’s Jimmy Kimmel up to tonight?
“Senate Subcommittee To Hold UnitedHealthcare Accountable For Denied Coverage,” blares a headline today. Across the page, “Health Insurers’ $371 Billion Windfall” charges that since the Affordable Care Act’s passage, the top five health insurers’ annual profits have jumped 230 percent, with much of that going to UnitedHealthcare.
The heat’s off, boys
Time to bang the gavel, bring in UnitedHealthcare top brass, call in witnesses and appear to actually be accomplishing something. Everyone gets their chance at a microphone, even Democrats. How’s that for bipartisan?
And so, the unintended consequence of a temporarily deranged college student, allegedly killing a UnitedHealthcare CEO in broad daylight in New York City brings a national conversation to the fore that has been absent from the political stage for at least three decades.
Maybe it was not so unintended
It’s possible that the ‘small game hunter’ school shootings and mass mall killings are realigning to concentrate on the ‘big game’ animals of the super wealthy and major company CEOs. That might run a chill down the spines of America’s billionaires, it certainly raises the hairs on my neck, and I am a long-time hunter. They are a new species, you know. These billionaires haven’t roamed our forests for very long. Bill Gates was the first of them in 1987, if you discount Rockefeller, a hundred years earlier. That’s less than forty years since this billionaire beast has stridden the earth, and the public may be late catching its breath.
But it is catching it now.
There’s an ill-wind blowing in monetary society
Less and less wealth is situated in what we once called the commonwealth. In its original definition, a commonwealth was ‘a traditional English term for a political community founded for the common good.’ Meaning public welfare, the general good or advantage, it dates from the 15th century. Much of our American law resonates from that century, reflecting the Magna Carta. By the 17th century, the definition came to mean ‘a state in which the supreme power is vested in the people; a republic or democratic state.’
If power is to be vested in the people, it seems we quietly redefined ‘supreme power,’ across a couple of centuries, along with ‘the people who will eat, and who will serve.’ Language, a civil society is based on the language of law. All else is the temporary chaos of power.
Today, ‘the commonwealth’ in America has become meaningless
If history teaches us anything, it is that words matter. What we have in our nation today, is a state of affairs in which the very essence of our national wealth (the total of all private assets) has been denigrated, denied and transferred. The words Deny, Defend, and Depose were written on the cartridge casings of the shots that killed UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, certainly a statement of intent.
As we moved from the millionaires of the 1960s to the thousand times richer billionaires of the late 80s, one percent of the wealthy ended up holding half of the world's net wealth
In other times, revolutions were made of that cloth. We don’t yet know the style or content of America’s future clothing, but it will not likely continue to be denim for the public and cashmere for those who hold the public purse. With that in mind, Congress has served us a subcommittee as a distraction to hold UnitedHealthcare accountable for denied coverage. Which is far easier than holding themselves accountable for their accepting money for votes. Who, after all, allowed American healthcare to rank 10th overall in the world?
If that causes you to pass out, the ambulance taking you to the hospital will charge $10,000 please, denied by your health insurer because it was from out of area.
And the band plays on…