If Congress and the White House were to create “death panels” to decide who lives and who dies, just imagine the president’s cabinet meetings.
The suits are arrayed around the big table. Papers are shuffled. Good-mornings and knowing chuckles are exchanged. The powerful often take comfort in shared knowing chuckles. Then the Secretary of Death Panels enters the room. Throats are cleared. Nervous silence prevails. The president brings his Sec. of DP a cup of coffee. The Death Czar has stroke. He can decide whether you die from one or not.
Even arguments over farm policy would become life or death matters, and not just for farmers or food-eaters, i.e., us. The Secretary of Agriculture, who can only hope the Sec. of DP wasn’t raised among the amber waves of grain, would be as perpetually vulnerable as grapefruit to a freeze.
Democrats have spent so much time putting the lie to the death-panel claim of big insurance, its lawmaker lackeys and their grassdupes, that we’ve failed to consider the proposal on its merits. I think President Obama should deeply consider the possibilities before he addresses Congress this week.
Has anyone thought through the partisan advantage this might afford Democrats in the future? Would Americans ever again vote Republican if they think Dick Cheney is going to get anywhere near the Death Panel Doomsday Device?
Harry Whittington will become a progressive blogger.
Do you know how much rich Americans contribute to presidential candidates on the hopes they will be named Ambassador to the Court of St. James? Leaving aside the question of why they would pay to go live amongst the rascals we ran out of here at the end of our musket barrels, appointment to the Dark Office would be way cooler. How much would the wannabes pull from their pockets if such an appointment were a possibility?
Fantasies of retribution would abound among DP applicants. The 12-year-old who tripped you in the hall as you returned to your sixth-grade class from the playground: he’s a dead man. Death stalks the until-now invisible insurance company bean counter who sold your beans down the river and denied you that root canal you needed.
America’s corporate chieftains would quake, finally. Yea, it might make you feel powerful that you control the world’s gasoline supplies or fiber optic lifelines, but the damned Death Czar’s got it all over you. So you drop gas prices in his neighborhood to 50 cents a gallon. You give him premium cable channels for free. If you’re a banker, you give him a Cross pen and pencil set when he makes a deposit. This ritual becomes known in the financial sector as keeping one’s fingers Crossed.
The Death Panel is the ultimate triangulating policy initiative. By god, it’s positively conservative. We could return America to its Golden Age.
But you know how the Death Czar could really enhance his power? By never using it. Fear would spread across the land like smoke from the wildfires of California if the DP could turn his death-ray on anyone he chooses, but didn’t. “What,” we would whisper, “is he up to?”
And Congress? Say goodbye to gridlock. You think Republicans would filibuster the initiatives of the Sec. of DP’s party? The term “yes men” takes on new meaning. Civility will be restored.
If the Democrats had any real think tanks like the Republicans do we would have already thought of the extraordinary possibilities of the death panel proposal. Alas, we do not. So, I offer the above as a public service.
I know we are all wrapped up at the moment in the effort to end the unnecessary death and suffering caused by our current health care system, and that’s a noble pursuit. Right now, our Republican opponents tell us that the death and suffering among Americans priced out of health care is necessary if the free market is to remain free and America is to remain America. Necessary? We should pause and reflect. Oh, how the word “necessary” will turn heads in the corridors of power when it falls from the lips of the Secretary of Death
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And further to that, how can Dick Cheney claim to keep us safe from the Death Panel for a specified period of time (say, eight years) if he’s allowed to use their nefarious powers unchecked and untrammeled by any sense of common decency?
;>)
Ah, the Cheney death spiral, in which death panels save us from death panels. Excellent point. I wonder, by jumping up his own, would Cheney disappear?
My nominees for the national death panel:
– Barbara Bush (the elder)
– Colin Powell
– Barack Obama
– Rahm Emmanuel
– Harry Reid
Although I have entertained the notion, my personal shame always nipped it in the bud. I can now see how my well deserved but premature self loathing short circuited another potentially life affirming idea. Thank you for having the courage to venture into the dark and flip on the switch on for the rest of us.
Imagine the meetings. Where is Monty Python when we need them?
Shame is so over-rated.
It’s almost a Möbius death panel construct at that point, Glenn – no beginning or end, only Cheney and his illimitable dominion.
;>)
As humans, our fear of death, or “nothingness”, has been the stimulator for our tribal groupings and for religion. It’s a human thing. And, whether one is an R or a D, a progressive or a fundamentalist, it’s part of our make up. At least that’s what I’ve read and it seems correct to me.
Now, let’s move towards transcendant thoughts. Not going to happen tomorrow, but, it’s a road to choose.
Easy for you to say, you’re bright, witty and handsome.
You make a fine point, of course. Perhaps the creation of a cabinet level death panel should be balanced with a cabinet level “Secretary of the Tibetan Book of the Dead.”
You know, I agree with you, and nowhere is death more feared or misunderstood than America, so I’m with you on a new understanding.
Ah, ha!
See comment #9. Peorgie seems to get it too!
Let’s not forget how humble we also are. Ha, again.
I’m envisioning Ernst Stavros Blofeld and his famous electric chair!
With regard to # 9, however, I am afraid people fitting that description might be the first to go in Idiot America. See Charles S. Pierce. This is why I seem to work so hard to escape danger.
That’s Charles P. Pierce. See, I told you I worked at it…
Or perhaps one of the continent’s finest residential blocks.
;>)
Blutarsky would be more fun.
Wait minute, I understand death and I do not fear it. It’s my postmortem activities schedule that’s got me nervous.
I’ll be passing the time with Brigette…Bardo.
It’s Ingrid Bergman, Myrna Loy and an everlasting Jello Pudding Pop for me. Of course that’s a best case scenario, and in my mortal experience…
Then the trouble will be the struggle against rebirth, I mean, who would give up everlasting Jello Pudding Pop for Scranton.
AND THE KILLIN’ GOEZ ON AND ON AND…
Citizen Glen Smith and the Firepup Freedom Fighters:
Ah irony, thy name is Smith!! A wonderful Sunday mornin’ diversion but as each day goes by this year, I have less and less faith that the “truth will out” and even delicious irony doesn’t reach the taste buds. We have two “wars” goin’ on drainin’ treasury directly into the corporate General Staff. We have a corporate shadow government makin’ political decisions through threat, intimidation and outright bribery in public. We have a publically funded corporate mercenary army, battle tested and strategically deployed in both “war zones” and the “homeland” and guarding all the most important U.S. embassies. And, finally, we have a citizen of another country makin’ critical domestic political decisions in the White House and undermining the elected leadership of the national legislature. So I guess I can’t laugh anymore with the faith that “truth will out” before the human race are fossils in a toxic waste dump.
There is a point at which “democracy” can not save citizens from themselves and only those citizens bound together by shared history and suffering can save themseves and the idea of “democracy”…we’ve reached that point. So Brother Smith and fellow FDLers, let’s not forget that we have made hundreds of thousands of our youth into teeth of the corporate killin’ machine and there is no end in sight until there is no blood left to take. I for one have reached the limits of irony.
KEEP THE FAITH AND PASS THE AMMUNITION, THIS WAR IS OURS AND WE CAN’T LEAVE IT TO THE CHILDREN ANYMORE!
Don’t take irony for a distraction, take it for subversion. The struggle against injustice is never-ending, and it’s damned tiring, too. But on we march, and I’m glad you’re with us.
Sure I laugh, but don’t think I’m unaware of the grave dangers we all face in these most perilous of times. I laugh to hold back the tears, tears for all my stout of heart chums who won’t be coming back. But as God is my witness, I’ll be right there beside you in spirit! And make no mistake, If I can shake this pesky cold, I’ll be bringing sandwiches for every man-jack one of ya’s, and they’ll be tasty sandwiches at that!
And in the morning, when the cannon are finally silenced and is ours, on that morning, I’m makin’ waffles!
Okay Glenn, I too am glad Flamethrower is with us. Sometimes I do laugh just to keep from crying. But more importantly, it’s often the best response to the completely irrational. It’s subversive and non lethal.
These folks sound more suitable for a Death Cage Match than a death panel.
BTW, with reference to the next FDL diary, about today’s NYT article on Wall Street’s securitization of life insurance “buy-outs,” it’s clear that the “death panels” originated on Wall Street. It’s less profitable for them if individuals who’ve “cashed out” their policies to the Wall Street goons continue to live and require the goons to pay premiums to maintain the policy. Thus it will be MUCH more profitable to kill off those who’ve sold their policies, so the goons can collect.
I saw that. It kind of queers Newt’s attempt at putting a rational veneer on Palin’s canard don’t you think? The upshot of Newt’s bile was that inevitably, financial pressures would force doctors to prescribe TNT suppositories for otherwise healthy, but vaguely annoying old folks.
Well put. Non-lethal to all but ignorance.
That is a frightening, and I’m afraid, true, observation.
Hi, Glenn. Very late getting in today. Good post.
Wall Street will never get me because I don’t have life insurance.
Yes, we showed them. You know, I used to cover prisons for big city papers. I did then and still do wonder at my complete inability to see into the minds of rapists or murderers. Empathy fails, with good reason. Actually, we turn empathy off, with good reason. (By the way, this tells against the arguments against empathy — that we might lose ourselves in identification with our abusers.)
Anyway, the accountant-murderers present me with the same thing. I cannot grasp how they live with themselves.
Morning, Glenn. Happy Labor Day to you.
After today’s news about Viaticals, I wonder if the Death Panels will become Death Squads! Mrs. Williams, dear, your year is up. Time to go quietly.
Can you stop by the Thom Hartmann book salon later? It’s my first host…
Good afternoon:
Would you happen to know if life insurance companies sell policies to prisoners?(I’m NOT talking about Death Row)
Considering the sheer number of incarcerated persons,I would think the ghouls on WallStreet could envision a “captive” market,don’t you think?
I bet prisons would be a lot less brutal places if Wall Street had a stake in keeping prisoners alive.
What made me wonder aboout that is that so many of the prisons are now,”for profit” entities.
It would seem to follow that the insuring of prisoners would follow the money trail,too.
I wonder if the OWNERS of the prisons have policies on the prisoner,themselves?
Anybody remember the dead janitor policies that AIG wrote some years back?
Incidentally, AIG was the underwriter for KBR contractors over in Iraq.
Damn Glen, I didn’t know you used to write for the Houston Chrionicle!
Weird, I moved to Texas after accepting a job in Houston. My first assignment was working on a campaign for the Houston Post. Had it not been for the Chronicle and a concurrent assignment on Victoria Bank & Trust, I wouldn’t have unpacked. You just never know what things can turn on, Thanks Glen.
For years, then the Houston Post hired me to be their Austin bureau chief, then, well then I went on into politics where I discovered life could be even harder than a newsroom.
This is the most hysterical piece on the site. I applaud it!
And, of course, the Secretary of Death would have to be kept secret, to prevent anyone from killing the guy in revenge over a loved one. The Sec. of DP. would simply be called Mr. or Ms. Black.
Mommybrain, I only now saw that you were hosting Thom. I have read the book and think it’s great. I was unable to be in front of the computer then, and I apologize for missing it. Keep me posted on your future hosting.