March 28, 2010
(The Swamp) -- I'm breaking the "editorial" rule this week and speaking in the first
person singular because this is personal.
I cannot remember a time in my entire life when physical movement was not, at least, uncomfortable.
Most of the time it's a dully painful chore. Sometimes, it's true agony. I have no idea why.
I'm not saying this to garner any sympathy - life is what it is. I'm also not writing this even
though I have just recently come to this realization.
I'm writing this because a betrayal of this state is the most painful experience, yet.
I feel betrayed on a gut level so personal, that it actually clouded
my consciousness for a couple of days.
You know him as Rep. James Clyburn, majority whip and Nancy Pelosi's do-badder. I know
him as Jim and USED to count him among my very best acquaintances. Jim, Ray McClain,
Bruce Strauck, Bill Runyon, and I used to hang together in Charleston in the early '70s.
We were honest, fearless, and justice hell-on-wheels. We helped the helpless and honored
the law. They would root out the baddies and I would tell people about it on the news.
I honestly don't know what happened to Ray - haven't been able to get hold of him for the
past four years. Bill's a successful lawyer. Bruce teaches college. And Jim? Well, he's broken
my heart.
It doesn't take a physics professor to figure out why Jim did what he did - he's been given
real power for the first time in his life. He traded his soul to a set of persons who have
no real love for his state nor his culture. He has become, as Marx said, "a useful buffoon."
One of Jim's supporters was yelling out loud, in a Columbia bar on Thursday, that, with the passage of
the Health Bill, Jim had finally gotten even with "those crackers!" To him this was more than restitution
for slavery. It was a shot in the eye of all non-people-of-color in the Palmetto State.
Imagine.
But this person does not speak for Jim. Yet, no-one in this bar, frequented by predominantly
African-American persons, told him to stop being a racist, or shut up, or sit down. My source
tells me they all cheered wildly.
Is this what I and other civil rights advocates have worked so hard for all these years? Is it?
Has it come to this - a legislative trick to steal money from the grandchildren of America in
order to get even with whitey? If it isn't why did they cheer wildly?
Does ANYONE in her right mind actually think that this Medical Moronicity is going to
help anyone in this country except politicians? HOW COULD JIM DO THIS???
Well, he's sold his soul, now, and he's joined the crowd crying wolf as America rises as
one to tell him and his homeys to stuff it. His district, dubbed by educators, "the corridor
of shame," is safe for him because, as one good friend who lives there said, "I'm Black, he's
black, and the district is black. In fact, I think I'm the only vote he won't get! And don't
you DARE use my name! But this isn't a Black thing - It's just THEIR thing."
Well, in the old days we white guys helped him. Does that make me a convenient idiot, too?
All I can say is something I hope all of my Caucasian brethren say,"One bad apple don't
spoil the whole bunch, girl!" If anybody in that district is listening, I hope you can take solace
from the fact that Republicans are actively preparing to replace this medical lunacy with
something that will give you honor, pride, money, and a job.
And they'll do it with your Representative fighting you the whole way.
In the classic science fiction movie, The Day the Earth Stood Still, Carpenter, the spaceman,
is dying in the middle of a DC street. He tells the female protagonst to find GORT and tell him, "Klaatu
beratta nikto." She does, and GORT steals the body away to revive Carpenter, once aboard his ship.
I fear for Jim. He has no GORT. I fear he will be treated ill by his Progressive colleagues as they blame him
for the Health Bill Passage with each vote for the other guy. I wish him well, but I fear
evil at the hands of his peeps when it all ends on the 2nd of November.
"The 2nd of November." What sweet sounds be there..
- Dick Anderson
