Richard Day's picture

    CIVILITY

    While viewing my favorite A.M. show, Mornin' Joke With Jughead, I was impressed with a message that jughead was attempting to send to all Americans, except those with donated, yet up to date PC's in their PJ's.

     

    Jughead was reiterating his belief that the math just does not add up. I mean our deficit for this year is going to reach 13% of the GDP. We are all going to hell in a hand basket. Pure insanity, jughead says.

     

    And our favorite Peggy Noonan, twitching per pretty 60 year old nose (that has undergone some changes in the name of infrastructure reinhancement) chimes in:  He is just trying to dooo toooo much. All the while shaking her pretty head.

     

    Meanwhile, a twitter just came in and was read on the air at the insistence of jughead:

     

    Joe, why can't you for once take your head out of your ass and see that there are 47 million people out there who have no adequate access to health care.

     

    See, this is what I am talking about, replied Jughead. For the first time, our President showed us a side of him that I have not seen since the inauguration. Roll the tape Fido:

     

    The President is shown during his appearance at Notre DameUniversity explaining that the two sides of the abortion issue that will never be fully reconciled and that it does us no good to paint the other side as pure evil.

     

    Jughead notes that that is what this President promised during his campaign. The man whom Jughead would never vote for, but the man who promised a new way of governing. The man who for a hundred and ten days preferred to shove his agenda down the American People's throat.

     

    All the while, jughead noted that he was above the normal political stances taken by those who would polarize the country. After all, jughead was only doing the math. Math after all, in jughead's mind is politically neutral. And we are all headed for hyperinflation and hell in a hand basket.

     

    Touching really. When he has time, he likes to echo the complaints of dear Peggy, that our President is just attempting to do toooooo much during a time of crisis.  Sure something has to be done with health care, but this is not the time.

     

    What is civility after all. Marc Antony lost the person he most loved in the universe, Julius Caesar. The love of his life had been stabbed repeatedly and lay in a pool of blood. Carrying the body to the crowd that was amassing outside, filled with grief and ire he gives a speech:

     

    Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears;

    I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.

    The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones;

    So let it be with Caesar. The noble Brutus hath told you Caesar was ambitious: If it were so, it was a grievous fault and grievously has Caesar answered it.

    Here under leave of Brutus and the rest --- for Brutus is an honorable man --- so are they all honorable men --- come I to speak in Caesar's funeral. He was my friend, faithful and just to me --- but Brutus says he was ambitious and Brutus is an honorable man.

    He has brought many captives home to Rome whose ransoms did fill the general coffers. Did this in Caesar seem ambitious?

    When the poor have cried, Caesar has wept --- ambition should be made of sterner stuff. Yet Brutus says he was ambitious and Brutus is an honorable man.

    You all did see that on the Lupercal I thrice presented him a kingly crown, which he did thrice refuse --- was this ambition? Yet Brutus says he was ambitious and, sure, he is an honorable man.

    I speak not to disprove what Brutus spoke,

    But here I am to speak what I do know. You all did love him once, not without cause.

    What cause witholds you then, to mourn for him now?

    Oh judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts and men have lost their reason.

    Bear with me. My heart is in the coffin here with Caesar and I must pause til it come back to me.

    But yesterday the word of Caesar might have stood against the world; now he lies there.

    And none so poor to do him reverence.

    Oh masters, if I were disposed to stir your hearts and minds to mutiny and rage, I should do Brutus wrong, and Cassius wrong, who, you all know, are honorable men.

    I will not do them wrong; I rather choose to wrong the dead, to wrong myself and you, than I will wrong such honorable men.

    But here's a parchment with the seal of Caesar --- I found it in his closet, 'tis his will: Let but the people hear this testament, which, pardon me, I do not mean to read, and they would go and kiss dead Caesar's wounds and dip their napkins in his sacred blood, yea, beg a hair of him for memory, and, dying, mention it within their wills, bequeathing it as a rich legacy unto their issue.

    Have patience, gentle friends, I must not read it; it is not right you know how Caesar loved you. You are not wood, you are not stones, but men; and, being men, bearing the will of Caesar, it will inflame you, it will make you mad! 'Tis good you know not that you are his heirs, for if you should, oh, what would come of it!

    Will you be patient? Will you stay awhile? I have overshot myself to tell you of it. I fear the honorable men whose daggers have stabbed Caesar, I do fear it!

    You will compel me, then to read the will?

    Then make a ring about the corpse of Caesar, and let me show you him that made the will. Shall I descend? And will you give me leave?

    If you have tears, prepare to shed them now. You all do know this coat --- I remember the first time Caesar put it on. 'Twas on a summer's evening, in his tent, that day he overcame the Huns.

    Look --- in this place ran Cassius' dagger through! See what a rent the envious Casca made! Through this the well-beloved Brutus stabbed, and as he plucked his cursed steel away, mark how the blood of Caesar followed it, as rushing out of doors, to be resolved if Brutus so unkindly knocked or no.

    For Brutus, as you know, was Caesar's angel --- judge, oh you gods, how dearly Caesar loved him. This was the most unkindest cut of all! For when the noble Caesar saw his stab, ingratitude, more strong than traitor's arms, quite vanquished him, then burst his mighty heart, and in his mantle muffling up his face, even at the base of Pompey's statue, which all the while ran blood, great Caesar fell.

    Oh, what a fall was there, my countrymen! Then I and you and all of us fell down, while bloody treason flourished over us.

    Oh now you weep and I perceive you feel the dint of pity --- these are gracious drops. Kind souls, what weep you when you but behold our Caesar's vesture wounded? Look you here! Here is himself marred as you see with traitors.

    Good friends, sweet friends, let me not stir you up to such a sudden flood of mutiny. They that have done this deed are honorable. What private griefs they have, alas, I know not what made them do it. They are wise and honorable and will, no doubt, with reasons answer you.

    I come not, friends, to steal away your hearts. I am no orator, as Brutus is; but, as you know me all, a plain blunt man, that loves my friend and that they know full well that gave me public leave to speak of him --- for I have neither wit, nor words, nor worth, action nor utterance, nor the power of speech to stir men's blood.

    I only speak right on; I tell you that which you yourselves do know; show you sweet Caesar's wounds, poor dumb mouths, and bid them speak for me ...

    but were I Brutus, and Brutus, Anthony, there were an Anthony would ruffle up your spirits and put a tongue in every wound of Caesar that should move the stones of Rome to rise and mutiny.

    But friends, you go to do you know not what! Wherein has Caesar thus deserved your love? Alas, you know not --- I must tell you then --- You have forgot the will I told you of.

    Here is the will, and under Caesar's seal. To every several man, seventy-five drachmas!

    Moreover, he has left you all his walks, his private arbors and new-planted orchards --- he has left them all to you.

    And to your heirs forever, common pleasures, to walk abroad, to recreate yourselves.

    Here was a Caesar! When comes another?

    Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friends,_Romans,_countrymen,_lend_me_your_ears"

     

    There is a lesson to be learned here in rhetoric.

    Forty seven million people in this country are without any access to health care except for understaffed emergency  rooms across the country. Some hospitals shut these people out and say, go elsewhere. Hence the moniker for St. Elsewhere, a successful drama aired decades ago. An equal number of Americans (by my estimate) have in adequate access to proper health care. Read Face's most recent blog by a man who supposedly has decent insurance and must fight every inch of the way to receive the care he needs.  All in all, thousands of American's die every month, making the mortality rate in the ME seem small in comparison.

     

    Here lie the dead from our disregard Mr. Jughead. And the millions who carry permanent wounds with them have assembled.

     

    Oh, but jughead is an honorable man and Dear Peggy an honorable woman. They seek only the best for the American People.

     

    But the people keep dying. The mortality rate increases. Deaths that could be avoided keep mounting, day by day, week by week, month by month.

     

    Oh, but jughead is an honorable man and Dear Peggy an honorable woman. And the deaths have been mounting for years, nay decades. These deaths, like the poor, will always be with us as our Lord & Savior has noted (blesses himself) and what is a mother to do?  We do the best we can with what we have. That is what we do and how can we blame the most honorable man and woman? It is not like this duo is personally responsible for stabbing the victims deeply and twisting the most evil of knives into their bodies.

     

    But the people keep dying. And others become sick, sore and disabled. People who could otherwise be of use to the nation, producing and purchasing the goods made available by other Americans. Pain and suffering abounds.

     

    Oh but the jughead and the nose twitcher are honorable in their wishes for a better America. They feel honorably, that as things get better for the majority of Americans, we can LOOK at these ISSUES. We will better, at that future time, be able to take a breath and more wisely find how best to hand the PROBLEM. But there are tooooo many other things that need fixing in this country like inflation, and corporate security and heavy taxation for those who produce the most.

     

    But the ghosts of those who needed the help, who needed the proper diagnosis, who needed the proper medicines, who needed the proper care, cry out for justice. And those survivors, those who lost their loved ones for no good reason, they cry out for justice. And those sick, sore and disable cry out for justice too.

     

    You see now how civility can work?  Marc Antony (with help from the immortal Bard) spoke at first softly and civilly before raising his voice and sending a blood thirsty crowd into a frenzy ready to organize and destroy the murderers who killed his friend and ruler.

     

    Oh and just for the record, my real feelings here are basically summed up with this phrase:

     

    FUCK SCARBOROUGH AND FUCK PEGGY NOONAN.

     

    The end.

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