Beware: The Reform Zombies Approach!

It’s become something like a predictable horror movie these days. In the horror movies, you know the zombies are about to appear from around a corner when the violins play their high, shrill notes. In today’s political climate, you know the zombies are about to appear when you hear the the word “reform”.

The thing about zombies that makes them so creepy is that they take what’s good in the world and turn it rotten. It’s a good thing to see people on the street, walking for a bite to eat, but when they’ve got cemetery soil on their suits, their skin is green, and their eyeballs are popping out, suddenly that snack doesn’t seem so appetizing.

It’s the same way with the reform zombies. Reform used to mean making something better. Now, Republican zombies have made “reform” their favorite word, and they’ve turned it into a sickening shell of what it once was.

They stumble down the street, smoking their GOP victory cigars, moaning “Social Security reform!” Then, when they get their hands on Social Security, they rip it apart, chewing its flesh, sucking its blood until it too joins the living dead.

In every state in the union, reform zombies stagger through the night, screeching “Medicaid reform!” They search, relentlessly, for any corner where Medicaid recipients might be hiding, in need of “reform”. They take those Medicaid checks and devour them, and leave Medicaid recipients’ quivering bodies behind to fester without adequate access to medical care.

Oh, but the reform zombies are never satisfied. Always hungry, they stagger through America looking for any program that smells vulnerable. What’s their next victim? Class action citizen protection from corporations. “Reform! Reform class action!” they scream, hobbling down the street into America’s courthouses. It used to be that when corporations violated people’s rights, cheating them, poisoning them, or exposing them to danger, people had some redress. They could team up their efforts to seek compensation.

Now, that the Republican reform zombies have their hunger piqued, the days of such citizen cooperation are numbered. Remember when Erin Brokovich found that corporation poisoning the drinking water of an entire town? Well, if the reform zombies have their way, Erin Brokovich wouldn’t be able to file any more class action lawsuits like she did. The reform zombies want to have her for lunch.

Know what’s truly scary? The reform zombies have hired public relations experts to help them devour what’s left of citizens’ protection from corporate power. The public relations firm representing the reform zombies calls what they’re doing the “Class Action Fairness Act”.

Even more frightening, the large corporations of American are teaming up with the reform zombies to take the politics of living dead cannibalism public. Pharmaceuticals manufacturers, big oil companies, heck, practically all the big corporations that operate in the United States are helping truck the reform zombies all around the country to do their dirty work, eating the living flesh off of America’s traditions of civil law.

The corporations say that they have no choice. They have to make profits, see, and when citizens can seek compensation for being injured or killed by a corporation’s actions, they call that “unfair”. In their minds, giving people dangerous drugs is fair. Poisoning drinking water is fair. Creating cheap automotive parts that end up killing the people riding in American cars is fair. But, these corporations have to draw the line somewhere. Corporations absolutely will not tolerate it when people ask to be compensated for the death and ruin corporate corruption causes in their lives. It’s the principle of the thing, see.

So, the reform zombies are being sent out to your neighborhood to find any last shred of class action citizen protection, and suck the life right out of it. But, they’re not going to have to do the job alone. This time, they’re being joined by a new breed of Republican zombie: The fairness zombie.

Lock your doors, and defend yourself. No, don’t grab a rifle. Sign a petition defending the right of Americans to file class action lawsuits in local and state courts.