The recent death of Senator Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts gave the awake observer some tremendous insights into politics, government as we know it, and politicians. The mindful and truthful have been testifying against politics, government and politicians since these phenomena were invented. And King Solomon would again shake his head and shrug if he were alive today. Nothing new under the Sun.
At a time when politicians in the majority are taking bribes (they call these 'campaign contributions') from the private health insurance industry to keep the American people slaves to premiums which support a Byzantine insurance bureaucracy, we have heard somber, solemn and totally hypocritical eulogies about the one Senator in Congress who has consistently supported universal health care with no buts or ifs.
'That's the way our system works, ' I have heard them say in defense of their hypocrisy and corruption. They speak of the interests of corporations as though they were of equal moral and ethical merit as the interests of the population, The People. This is not only lying. It is unconstitutional. We are supposed to be a democracy of the people, by the people and for the people. Corporations are not people. CEOs and lobbyists are people, but they are an infinitesimal minority of the people. Why are their interests being held above those of all the people?
Most troubling to me is the lack of counterpoint coming from the Kennedys themselves. In order to provide themselves the glory of a state funeral, it appeared, they have allowed the most despicable celebrities of the political class to jump on the funeral publicity train. The very people who have plotted to defeat the central pillar of Edward Kennedy's career, universal health care, rushed to fill well positioned church pews in Boston.
Death is not negotiable. It has no nuance. It is not debatable. It has no Right or Left. And neither does Truth.
If Americans could grasp and internalize their mortality, stripped of all the opiates of religion, plastic surgery, hormone enhancement, and television, perhaps they would demand Truth from their politicians. Perhaps they would demand that a Truthful legacy be granted to honor a man of the caliber of Senator Kennedy. Perhaps they would demand basic human rights, like health care, for all Americans and all the people in the world.