DebateGate
General Category => 3DHS => Topic started by: BT on February 05, 2010, 10:24:32 AM
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'Tea party' movement: Who are they and what do they want?
By Patrik Jonsson Thu Feb 4, 3:20 pm ET
Of all the protest signs at all the rallies and town-hall meetings where people gathered last year to object to Washington's plans to save the US economy and reform healthcare, this hand-lettered one is memorable: "You can't fix stupid, but you can vote it out."
That's the "tea party" movement in a nutshell.
The left paints the movement as a largely white and middle-class mob ? and as including kooks who equate President Obama with Joseph Stalin.
There's some truth to that view. But where some see a bunch of white people standing in the way of progress, others see a growing expression of dissatisfaction with what former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney (R) calls the "neomonarchists."
Ahead of the Tea Party Nation convention in Nashville, Tenn., slated for Feb. 4-6, here's a look at the tea party movement ? its birth, its leadership, and its aspirations.
When ? and why ? was the tea party movement born?
CNBC editor Rick Santelli's on-air "rant" last February about a proposed mortgage bailout is widely considered to be the "big bang" moment for the birth of the movement.
A few days later, a couple of conservative foot soldiers ? John O'Hara of the Heartland Institute and J.P. Freire, then of The American Spectator ? wondered if there were a way to harness Mr. Santelli's frustration.
"You know what would be funny?" Mr. Freire mused to Mr. O'Hara, leading into a discussion that would become so much more than talk.
The pair organized "A New American Tea Party" rally outside the White House on Feb. 27, according to O'Hara's book about the movement. Six weeks later (around tax day), about 500,000 people took to the streets in small, medium, and large protests from San Francisco to Atlanta. Today, says O'Hara in a phone interview, "there are absolutely hundreds" of local and state tea party organizations.
Is the tea party a real populist movement or a front for big business?
No single person leads the tea party movement. Sympathizers and role players include conservative politicians Sarah Palin and Dick Armey, antitax crusader Grover Norquist, online organizer Eric Odom of the American Liberty Alliance, and media personalities such as talk radio's Mark Williams and Fox News hosts Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck.
But unheralded operatives, such as Brendan Steinhauser, campaign director for FreedomWorks and author of "The Conservative Revolution," created the backbone of the movement, establishing websites and Facebook pages that would become populated with fed-up voters.
Critics say it is being funded or co-opted by entrenched conservative powers like FreedomWorks, which recruits volunteers to lobby for smaller government and lower taxes. The Washington Post has reported that the tea party movement is, through FreedomWorks, tied to corporations like MetLife, Philip Morris, and "foundations controlled by the archconservative Scaife family."
"Nobody is saying that the passion is manufactured," says Chris Harris at MediaMatters, a media watchdog group on the left. "But partisan and pro-?business interests ? [are] using people's real passion in a way that protesters aren't meaning."
Tea partyers, however, say the amateur-hour feel of their movement proves it's a true grass-roots uprising. "You can't simultaneously call the movement fractured and incompetent and a vast right-wing conspiracy," says O'Hara.
What do tea partyers want?
The movement, in its essence, is about safeguarding individual liberty, cutting taxes, and ending bailouts for business while the American taxpayer gets burdened with more public debt. It is fueled by concern that the United States under Mr. Obama is becoming a European-style social democracy where individual initiative is sapped by the needs of the collective.
"The issue is no longer tea tariffs and imperial rule, but bailouts and handouts, stimulus in the face of deficits, cap and trade [on carbon emissions], universal healthcare ? dictated against the will and interest of the people, and at the peril of ? the nation as a whole" leading to "an inevitable blow-back in a battle over America's constitutional principles," writes O'Hara in "A New American Tea Party," which hit bookstores this month.
Is the tea party affiliated with the Republican Party?
Certainly more Republicans than Democrats show up at tea party events. But the movement's aim is to fight profligate spending by both parties in Washington. (GOP chairman Michael Steele was notably refused a spot on the speaking roster at a Chicago tea party event last year.)
In some ways, the tea party movement poses less of a challenge to Democrats than to Republicans, who must weigh the potential gains and pitfalls of courting far-right tea partyers against those of courting middle America. To what extent the tea party movement is middle America is the big question ? one that coming elections will help answer.
What has the tea party movement achieved so far?
It appears to be winning the image war, for one. Forty-one percent of American adults have a positive view of the tea party, compared with 35 percent for the Democrats and 28 percent for the GOP, according to a recent NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll.
Tea partyers did transform the healthcare reform debate, some analysts say, after activists stormed town-hall meetings last summer.
Moreover, decisions by Democratic Sens. Christopher Dodd and Byron Dorgan not to run for reelection this year is an acknowledgment that they probably would have faced a tea-party-inspired populist backlash at the polls, say tea party watchers.
In Massachusetts, tea party organizers helped to funnel money and manpower to state Sen. Scott Brown's successful bid for the late Ted Kennedy's seat in the US Senate. The upset victory, wrote conservative columnist Mary Katharine Ham, shows that "Democrats fooled themselves into believing the town-hall/tea party caricature and ignored the feelings of real Americans."
What role do tea party activists envision playing in the 2010 elections?
For a template, look to an emerging showdown in Florida between Gov. Charlie Crist and former state House Speaker Marco Rubio over a US Senate seat. Tea partyers are backing Mr. Rubio and making a horse race out of a GOP primary that the popular Mr. Crist should have strolled through.
"The genie has been let out of the bottle," says Robert Watson, a political scientist at Lynn University in Boca Raton, Fla
How will the tea party convention advance or hurt the movement?
Recent convention developments have some tea party activists worried the event could tarnish the movement. The decision by two of the convention's key speakers, Rep. Michelle Bachmann (R) of Minn. and Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R) of Tenn., to pull out is giving Americans a glimpse of the internecine fighting in the tea party movement.
Some are also raising questions about convention expenses and its upscale lobster dinner, saying they contradict the movement's thrifty image and bolster arguments that the convention is a GOP ruse to raise millions.
Those who oppose the convention also question the cult of personality around Sarah Palin, the convention's headline speaker, and say it's the people who should be speaking to politicians, not the other way around.
Still, for many the controversy only proves the tea partyers are a grass roots movement with no central authority, and it's creating a forum for just the kind of healthy debate necessary to shape a stronger and more influential movement.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/csm/20100204/ts_csm/275402/print (http://news.yahoo.com/s/csm/20100204/ts_csm/275402/print)
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<<Is the tea party affiliated with the Republican Party?
<<Certainly more Republicans than Democrats show up at tea party events. >
WHOAAAH, there's real hard-hitting investigative journalism for ya!
Uhh, dare one ask the ratio of R to D in these little crypto-fascist gatherings? Would a million to one be in the right ballpark?
Sometimes you gotta read between the lines of these little puff-pieces, where what's NOT said is the key to the whole shebang.
Let's rewind: Q: Is the tea party affiliated with the Republican Party? A: Does a bear shit in the woods? Is the Pope Catholic?
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The question should be are the dems losing voters to the tea parties. Is the shift from d to i happening because of the fiscal responsibility movement?
Polling indicates that is in fact the case.
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Uhh, dare one ask the ratio of R to D in these little crypto-fascist gatherings?
That right there calls into question your intellectual standing on this issue. Taking you seriously is difficult when you throw the term 'crypto-fascist' at a bunch of people who are arguing for government fiscal responsibility and at least partially restrained government. They are not arguing for national purity, a corporate state, single-party rule, or anything actually fascist in nature. Your simple-minded, knee-jerk notion that they're secretly fascist is nothing short of asinine.
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Uhh, dare one ask the ratio of R to D in these little crypto-fascist gatherings?
That right there calls into question your intellectual standing on this issue. Taking you seriously is difficult when you throw the term 'crypto-fascist' at a bunch of people who are arguing for government fiscal responsibility and at least partially restrained government. They are not arguing for national purity, a corporate state, single-party rule, or anything actually fascist in nature. Your simple-minded, knee-jerk notion that they're secretly fascist is nothing short of asinine.
hear hear. Ranks right up there in if opposing Obama, you're a racist. Or supporting Israel's right to defend itself, your some zionazi
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The decision by two of the convention's key speakers, Rep. Michelle Bachmann (R) of Minn. and Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R) of Tenn., to pull out is giving Americans a glimpse of the internecine fighting in the tea party movement.
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Why would these two women pull out?
Were they not paying them enough, or is this ideological?
Did the GOP tell them there would be less or no campaign funds from the national party if they spoke there?
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<< . . . you throw the term 'crypto-fascist' at a bunch of people who are arguing for government fiscal responsibility and at least partially restrained government. >>
Close your eyes to the signs all you like, Prince, they're fascists and they can't hide it.
<<They are not arguing for national purity . . . >>
No, of course not. Those signs comparing Obama to a chimp just mean that they're animal lovers, not racists.
<<a corporate state . . . >>
Bullshit. What is opposition to universal single-payer health care but a voluntary assignation of the responsibilities (and the obscene profits) of health-care to the insurance industry, Big Pharma and the for-profit provision of medical care by hospital corporations? What is their foreign-policy and "defence spending" attitude but a complete surrender of responsibility to the military-industrial complex? What are their anti-immigrant ravings but white Anglo racism, pure and simple?
<<Your simple-minded, knee-jerk notion that they're secretly fascist is nothing short of asinine.>>
What's really asinine is the way you stick your head up your own ass to avoid seeing the fascism that is building up right in front of you.
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<<The question should be are the dems losing voters to the tea parties. Is the shift from d to i happening because of the fiscal responsibility movement?>>
Fiscal responsibility is only a part of it. Bush's unprecedented fiscal irresponsibility had brought the nation to the brink - - waging two wars without raising taxes and combining that, bad as it was, with enormous tax cuts for the rich, combined into a deadly witches' brew that could and did bring the country to its knees.
Obama did not have the guts (a) to present Canadian-style health care to Congress when he had the 60 Senate votes needed (and knew that Teddy was dying) and (b) declare an immediate halt to all on-going foreign wars and slash "defence" spending including the cancellation of on-going projects. These things COULD have been accomplished with bold and decisive leadership, arm-twisting and promises to recalcitrant Democratic legislators that he would tell the people how and why they had failed to get behind the program AND that he would ensure that he would give full personal backing and support to progressive Democratic replacement candidates against them2010 both in the primaries and in the elections. At one point, he had the credibility to make such threats - - his name carried a lot of respect in the early days of his Presidency.
Fear is the other part of it. Like fascists everywhere, since their program is inherently irrational, persuading large numbers of voters to vote against their own economic self-interest, the GOP must rely on fear - - fear of a black President, fear of Hispanic "illegals," fear of "terrorists," etc. A campaign stoking irrational fears, an electorate composed of gutless cowards, a populace weaned on flag-waving, militaristic violence against defenceless Third World "untermenschen," all of this is tailor-made for the tea-party organizers and the GOP strategists who are pulling their strings and jockeying behind the scenes to inherit their votes.
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Long live the 1st amendment. Haven't seen that much garbage since our bathroom sewage line backed up
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Why would these two women pull out?
Were they not paying them enough, or is this ideological?
They pulled out of the convention because they had some questions as to whether the convention was a political gathering or some kind of marketing expo. I ran a story on it last week or so.
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Close your eyes to the signs all you like, Prince, they're fascists and they can't hide it.
Or you're just trying to brand them as fascists because you have abandoned rational thought.
<<They are not arguing for national purity . . . >>
No, of course not. Those signs comparing Obama to a chimp just mean that they're animal lovers, not racists.
Oh, yes, I forgot, even one person with an objectionable sign means they're all racists. You're not making the case that your position is rational. And don't tell me it's not just one person. You have at best images of a handful or so of signs that you're using to judge thousands of people. And again, they are not arguing for national purity. A sign at a rally does not a platform make.
<<a corporate state . . . >>
Bullshit. What is opposition to universal single-payer health care but a voluntary assignation of the responsibilities (and the obscene profits) of health-care to the insurance industry, Big Pharma and the for-profit provision of medical care by hospital corporations? What is their foreign-policy and "defence spending" attitude but a complete surrender of responsibility to the military-industrial complex? What are their anti-immigrant ravings but white Anglo racism, pure and simple?
And now you illustrate another problem with your position. You insist the situation is always either/or. Opposition to government-run health care, by your accounting, must be a desire for fascism. Apparently you think the world is a Saturday morning adventure cartoon made for 7-year-olds. Good, bad; black, white; us, them; no other options allowed. Your judgment skills seem to amount to 'not like you=fascism'.
What's really asinine is the way you stick your head up your own ass to avoid seeing the fascism that is building up right in front of you.
But I don't... oh wait... I get it. You mean the way I use critical thinking skills and reason to assess the situation as it is, rather than jumping to a fearful reaction that has nothing to do with reality, is really smart. Thank you, Michael. I wish I could say the same of you.
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OK, Prince, I get it. Really. First there's no evidence of fascism. I give you one sign after another. Each one means nothing. Signs of Obama-the-Chimp. "Well, it's only one sign at a meeting. OK maybe more than one. "
LOL. It's true, Prince, you can't say the whole place was festooned with chimp signs. I guess to your way of thinking, unless there's a virtual forest of chimp signs, these bozos aren't racist. Well, IMHO, (a) there aren't ANY Chimp signs at any of Obama's meetings and (b) it's kind of funny how these aren't just one or two aberrant signs at ONE tea party, they occur, albeit in relatively small numbers, at many tea party locations.
I'm not gonna repeat the whole litany of how I know they are fascists. The point is that first you claim there is no evidence that they are fascist, you take the evidence I produce and each piece of evidence is minimised. That's OK. Think: How come there is so much to minimize? (Another way of saying this: where there's smoke, there's fire.)
What's the point of continued argument here? I can see the signs of fascism clear as day, you can't. You think I'm paranoid, I think you're willfully blind. We're even.
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Why are signs of Obama the chimp fascist (racist) but Bush as the smirking chimp is not?
http://smirkingchimp.com/ (http://smirkingchimp.com/)
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I'm not gonna repeat the whole litany of how I know they are fascists. The point is that first you claim there is no evidence that they are fascist, you take the evidence I produce and each piece of evidence is minimised. That's OK. Think: How come there is so much to minimize? (Another way of saying this: where there's smoke, there's fire.)
No, I took the accusations (that you claim to be signs) you made, and assessed them with rational thought and critical thinking. Why is there so much to assess? Because you made a lot of accusations. Just because you can throw out a lot of accusations doesn't mean you're pointing to a fire, to mix the metaphor. But it might mean the smoke you're complaining about comes from you trying to blow smoke up everyone else's asses.
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<<Why are signs of Obama the chimp fascist (racist) but Bush as the smirking chimp is not?>>
Because racists have often referred to blacks as monkeys, apes, chimps, etc. Don't you remember Sen. George Allen's smear of a non-white at a rally as "Macaca?" According to Southern racists, blacks aren't humans, they're further down the evolutionary tree, somewhere between the great apes and man. A chimp + Obama is coded racism; indicates the sign-bearer also believes Obama is inferior (ape-like) because of his race.
With Bush, he did smirk, and his smirking face did have a vaguely chimp-like quality to it. I didn't agree with ridiculing the man because of his physical appearance, it was cheap, childish and mean, but there was nothing racist about it.
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Do basically the smirkingchimp folks were calling Bush a Nigger?
Isn't that racist in and of itself?
Synonyms are synonyms, right?
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<<Do basically the smirkingchimp folks were calling Bush a Nigger?>>
No, basically they were calling him a chimp. There is no racist convention of referring white people in general or the Bush family in particular to chimps, so in that case, "chimp" meant "chimp." Kinda like the Freudian joke, "Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar."
<<Isn't that racist in and of itself?>>
Well, it would be if there had been a pre-existing practice of racism that painted all whites as sub-human chimps or chimp relatives, but in the absence of such pre-existing practice, no, there is nothing at all racist about it.
<<Synonyms are synonyms, right?>>
Of course, but that doesn't mean that all synonyms have the same number of alternative meanings.
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So it's all a matter of perception.
An insult to one could be an endearment to another.
But i do disagree with your minimization of the chimp slur.
I don't think it matters what race you are if someone infers that you are less than human, that's flat out a slur.
And to say that you have to be of a certain race for the slur to qualify as a slur is racist in and of itself.
And down right patronizing.
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<<So it's all a matter of perception.>>
I don't think "perception" is exactly the word you want. It's more like understanding a language. Only the language we're talking about is the language of signs and symbols. If you don't know all the connotations that a particular word has, you may mistake the meaning it has been given in someone else's speech. If you're totally unaware of the racist usage of "chimp," "ape" or "monkey" to stand in for black people, then you might visually understand the meaning of "smirking chimp" under Bush's picture ("ha ha, he DOES kinda look like a chimp" but the Obama sign would be very puzzling ("I don't get it, why is Obama's face being painted over to look like a chimp?") OTOH, someone to whom "nigger" and "chimp" have the same meaning, "gets it" instantly. Thus, the Obama chimp signs are code, the sign carrier communicating to the racist sign reader, you're at home here, we both have the same view of Obama and, by extension, of blacks in general.
<<An insult to one could be an endearment to another.>>
That's an old story, isn't it?
<<But i do disagree with your minimization of the chimp slur.>>
I didn't minimize it - - I said it was deplorable. Hurtful and unfair.
<<I don't think it matters what race you are if someone infers that you are less than human, that's flat out a slur.>>
I agree - - I didn't endorse the slur on Bush, I just denied that it was racist. It's objectionable on other grounds, but not on the grounds of racism.
<<And to say that you have to be of a certain race for the slur to qualify as a slur is racist in and of itself.>>
Now you're not making any sense. "Nigger" is a slur on blacks, not on Jews or Asians.
<<And down right patronizing.>>
That's not making sense either. Nothing patronizing about recognizing who the slur is directed at. It's simply taking the word at its meaning.
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the discussion is about the meaning of the word chimp.
What i don't quite get is if the speaker is of the mindset that Obama is a nigger why not just say so?
Why bother with some silly code. Is the code so complex that only the elite can figure it out and with moral indignation denounce the speaker and reap the adoration of the oppressed by doing so?
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<<the discussion is about the meaning of the word chimp.>>
In the broadest sense, it's about the significance that the IMAGE of a chimp has for people (in the case of the Obama signs) and in the case of the Bush material (I'm not aware of signs but only of a blog entitled The Smirking Chimp) it's whether either the word or the image, applied to Bush, has any racist connotations.
<<What i don't quite get is if the speaker is of the mindset that Obama is a nigger why not just say so?>>
The Tea Party organizers don't want that kind of outright, in-your-face racism associated with their cause because it will scare away the more moderate racists, such as (for example) the kind of white Southern racists who supported racial segregation but not the KKK. They felt the Klan were on the roughneck, criminal fringe, and they (the more centrist racists) were socially above that kind of rough stuff. As a matter of fact, not only do the Tea Party organizers not want to be associated with people who use the N-word openly, they try to clean up the chimp signs because they feel even THAT is too racist. Sometimes I think they don't even want to admit their racism to themselves.
<<Why bother with some silly code. Is the code so complex that only the elite can figure it out and with moral indignation denounce the speaker and reap the adoration of the oppressed by doing so?>>
Well, that's where we differ. Not only do I think that most adults know what's meant when Obama is compared to a chimp, but I find it very hard to believe that you yourself don't get it. Personally, I think you get it very well, but you just like messing with me. Or playing innocent.
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Mike, you are a fuckig chimp. In the most racist form of the term. You're a shit throwing cannibal chimp. In fact, to call you a shit throwing cannibal chimp is an insult to shit throwing cannibal chimps.
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As a matter of fact, not only do the Tea Party organizers not want to be associated with people who use the N-word openly, they try to clean up the chimp signs because they feel even THAT is too racist. Sometimes I think they don't even want to admit their racism to themselves.
So the if tea party people don't want the racists there, that would indicate that they are not racists. Perhaps the chimp sign people are agents provocateurs. Kinda like the SEIU people at the town hall meetings. Isn't that one of Alinsky's tactics? Make the opposition defend themselves against all charges? Takes them of message. Sets them up for ridicule. Another of Alinsky's tactics.
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<<So the if tea party people don't want the racists there, that would indicate that they are not racists. >>
Or that they're racists who value appearance and know that there are potential members out there who would be turned off by the overt manifestation. Remember the White Citizens Councils of the Southern states during the segregation battles? They were racists but it was never "about" racism in any of their statements for public consumption. It was about local traditions, harmony between the races (by keepting them apart) and even states' rights. They were socially a cut above the KKK and as far as they were concerned, they wanted to keep it that way. They didn't want KKK in their living rooms.
<<Perhaps the chimp sign people are agents provocateurs. >>
Anything's possible. Show me the evidence that they're not what they seem to be, and I'll certainly give it fair consideration.
<<Kinda like the SEIU people at the town hall meetings. >>
Ya lost me there, I'm not familiar with the analogy.
<<Isn't that one of Alinsky's tactics? Make the opposition defend themselves against all charges? >>
Including child molestation? Alien abductions? I thought Alinsky was a practical guy. I also felt, little that I know of him, that he was an honourable and ethical guy. Provocateurs at "enemy" meetings are more familiar to me from the Nixon administration and J. Edgar Hoover.
<<Takes them of message. Sets them up for ridicule. Another of Alinsky's tactics.>>
I'm sure Alinsky was all for setting them up for ridicule AND taking them off message. What I question is where Alinsky advocated the use of provocateurs and false-flag ops to achieve those goals. I would be extremely surprised if he did. It's definitely something the Republicans are very familiar with though, from Don Segretti and the Dirty Tricks guys of CREEP.
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Anything's possible. Show me the evidence that they're not what they seem to be, and I'll certainly give it fair consideration.
The invitation for them to leave, indicates that they are not the type of people the movement is made of.
What you don't get is there is no council guiding this movement. It's as genuine as the netroots. No one is in charge. It isn't politburo driven. It is a peasant revolt.
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Anything's possible. Show me the evidence that they're not what they seem to be, and I'll certainly give it fair consideration.
...What you don't get is there is no council guiding this movement. It's as genuine as the netroots. No one is in charge. It isn't politburo driven. It is a peasant revolt.
The great peasant revolt of 2010
By Charles Krauthammer
Friday, February 5, 2010
"Iam not an ideologue," protested President Obama at a gathering with Republican House members last week. Perhaps, but he does have a tenacious commitment to a set of political convictions.
Compare his 2010 State of the Union to his first address to Congress a year earlier. The consistency is remarkable. In 2009, after passing a $787 billion (now $862 billion) stimulus package, the largest spending bill in galactic history, he unveiled a manifesto for fundamentally restructuring the commanding heights of American society -- health care, education and energy.
A year later, after stunning Democratic setbacks in Virginia, New Jersey and Massachusetts, Obama gave a stay-the-course State of the Union address (a) pledging not to walk away from health-care reform, (b) seeking to turn college education increasingly into a federal entitlement, and (c) asking again for cap-and-trade energy legislation. Plus, of course, another stimulus package, this time renamed a "jobs bill."
This being a democracy, don't the Democrats see that clinging to this agenda will march them over a cliff? Don't they understand Massachusetts?
Well, they understand it through a prism of two cherished axioms: (1) The people are stupid and (2) Republicans are bad. Result? The dim, led by the malicious, vote incorrectly.
Liberal expressions of disdain for the intelligence and emotional maturity of the electorate have been, post-Massachusetts, remarkably unguarded. New York Times columnist Charles Blow chided Obama for not understanding the necessity of speaking "in the plain words of plain folks," because the people are "suspicious of complexity." Counseled Blow: "The next time he gives a speech, someone should tap him on the ankle and say, 'Mr. President, we're down here.' "
A Time magazine blogger was even more blunt about the ankle-dwelling mob, explaining that we are "a nation of dodos" that is "too dumb to thrive."
Obama joined the parade in the State of the Union address when, with supercilious modesty, he chided himself "for not explaining it [health care] more clearly to the American people." The subject, he noted, was "complex." The subject, it might also be noted, was one to which the master of complexity had devoted 29 speeches. Perhaps he did not speak slowly enough.
Then there are the emotional deficiencies of the masses. Nearly every Democratic apologist lamented the people's anger and anxiety, a free-floating agitation that prevented them from appreciating the beneficence of the social agenda the Democrats are so determined to foist upon them.
That brings us to Part 2 of the liberal conceit: Liberals act in the public interest, while conservatives think only of power, elections, self-aggrandizement and self-interest.
It is an old liberal theme that conservative ideas, being red in tooth and claw, cannot possibly emerge from any notion of the public good. A 2002 New York Times obituary for philosopher Robert Nozick explained that the strongly libertarian implications of Nozick's masterwork, "Anarchy, State, and Utopia," "proved comforting to the right, which was grateful for what it embraced as philosophical justification." The right, you see, is grateful when a bright intellectual can graft some philosophical rationalization onto its thoroughly base and self-regarding politics.
This belief in the moral hollowness of conservatism animates the current liberal mantra that Republican opposition to Obama's social democratic agenda -- which couldn't get through even a Democratic Congress and powered major Democratic losses in New Jersey, Virginia and Massachusetts -- is nothing but blind and cynical obstructionism.
By contrast, Democratic opposition to George W. Bush -- from Iraq to Social Security reform -- constituted dissent. And dissent, we were told at the time, including by candidate Obama, is "one of the truest expressions of patriotism."
No more. Today, dissent from the governing orthodoxy is nihilistic malice. "They made a decision," explained David Axelrod, "they were going to sit it out and hope that we failed, that the country failed" -- a perfect expression of liberals' conviction that their aspirations are necessarily the country's, that their idea of the public good is the public's, that their failure is therefore the nation's.
Then comes Massachusetts, an election Obama himself helped nationalize, to shatter this most self-congratulatory of illusions.
For liberals, the observation that "the peasants are revolting" is a pun. For conservatives, it is cause for uncharacteristic optimism. No matter how far the ideological pendulum swings in the short term, in the end the bedrock common sense of the American people will prevail.
The ankle-dwelling populace pushes back. It recenters. It renormalizes. Even in Massachusetts.
Can't blame these defeats on a Racist Northeast (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/04/AR2010020403623.html)
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What you don't get is there is no council guiding this movement. It's as genuine as the netroots. No one is in charge. It isn't politburo driven. It is a peasant revolt.
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Think upon this. A peasant revolt.
Have there ever been any such revolts that have been noted for outstanding achievement, or even competency?
Haiti? Padre Hidalgo's revolt in Mexico? The French communards? The American Revolution was NOT a peasant revolt, it was led by the middle class--lawyers like Jefferson and Adams, intellectuals like Franklin. experienced military leaders like Washington.
What we have is an assortment of Chihuahuas, best noted for constant and annoying yapping.
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>>Have there ever been any such revolts that have been noted for outstanding achievement, or even competency?<<
Yeah, the civil rights movement you moron.
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Your ignorance is abysmal. The Civil Rights movement was an intellectual process from the beginning: based on the writings of Thoreau and Gandhi. IT had clearly defined leaders: the Teabaggers have none. It has a clear objective and philosophy, the teabaggers have none, other than they don't like taxes and some are clearly racists.
Dolt.
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What you don't get is there is no council guiding this movement. It's as genuine as the netroots. No one is in charge. It isn't politburo driven. It is a peasant revolt.
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Think upon this. A peasant revolt. Have there ever been any such revolts that have been noted for outstanding achievement, or even competency?...What we have is an assortment of Chihuahuas, best noted for constant and annoying yapping.
Isn't it interesting how folks like Xo & Tee perseverate on how Socialism and/or Communism is a party of the people, that its governing in the people's best interests. And yet, so frequently we see how "the people" are perceived by those who apparently are so much their superiors. Boy, do I feel sorry for the people in such living conditions & locales
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<<The invitation for them to leave, indicates that they are not the type of people the movement is made of.>>
You might as well argue that an invitation for the KKK to leave a White Citizens' Council meeting indicates that the Council members aren't racist. Again, for the thousandth time, you reveal the right's inability to see shades of gray; there's a 12-year-old mindset that sees everything in terms of white and black. You're either racist or not racist. It's as if there's no difference at all between racists, while of course there are - - the very need for White Citizens' Councils in the South, notwithstanding the long-standing presence of the KKK, is proof in itself of the gradations of racism and the class contradictions between them.
<<What you don't get is there is no council guiding this movement.>>
No? So who then issued the "invitation for them [the Obama=Chimp folks] to leave?"
<<It's as genuine as the netroots. No one is in charge. It isn't politburo driven. It is a peasant revolt.>>
"News" of the coming crypto-fascist gatherings just "happens" miraculously to appear from a thousand Fox affiliates on the same day. It's about as spontaneous as the Florida mob which intimidated the recount in the 2000 election - - later photographs identified numerous GOP operatives in the crowd from all over the country. Spontaneous, my ass.
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The KKK ... crypto-fascists ...
Hey Mike, turn the fucking record over asshole. Nobody gives a flying fuck about your twisted race theories. Who the fuck made a muderous commie piece of shit like the authority on race? Who gives a fuck what you think? You're a demented can of shit who shouldn't even be considered to be taken seriously on anything, let alone race in America. It's people like you who perform mass murder against races you deem inferior. Hitler did it, Stalin did it, Mao did it, Pol Pot did it, Fidel does it. All your fucking heros. So who the fuck gives a shit for the opinion of scum like you?
Go outside and stick your head in the snow asshole.
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The problem that Tee has is this monolithic Anti-american template, that must be adhered to....like a religion. Think of it as a septic mutation of BDS, where his faculties of reason and common sense have been so compromised, we get the perseveration of crypto-fasciat racists in anything and everything that doesn't agree with his template. Be it Bush stole the election, Bush lied us into war, We went in for the oil, The south is a bunch of leftists, the U.S. military is just a bunch of low hanging rapist thugs, If Bush knew (about 911 in advance) he would have sat on it, and his latest asanine & completely unsubstantiated incarnation, that the Tea party movement is just a bunch of crypto-fascist racists, tells all those who read these passages, be it patrons or visitors, far more about our Anti-American Canadian communist's inability to engage in consistent rational thought, then anything about what he's currently spewing about.
Must fit template....must fit template. That's why even when we didn't procure Iraqi's oil, we still went in for the oil. That's why even though the Northeast has demonstrated just as much, if not more modern day racism than any other place in the country, the south is still racist. That's whey when folks are are deemed to be racist in how try to push that agenda at tea party gatherings and subsequently asked to leave, tea party folks are still crypto-fascist racists.
Prince (http://debategate.com/new3dhs/index.php?topic=9024.msg94722#msg94722) pretty much nailed (http://debategate.com/new3dhs/index.php?topic=9024.msg94740#msg94740) this one earlier, as did Krauthammer's (http://debategate.com/new3dhs/index.php?topic=9024.15) piece. Way to go, fellas
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In spite of the wealth of talent and education availible to the left , doesn't the common man have the right to reject their benevelovence?
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<<In spite of the wealth of talent and education availible to the left , doesn't the common man have the right to reject their benevelovence?>>
The common man certainly has at least the right to HEAR the left's proposition. In the sham democracy of the U.S.A., this is impossible, first because the MSM are corporate-owned and corporate-controlled so that the message gets out in a very attenuated form and is immediately drowned in a barrage of right-wing (corporate) bullshit.
Sure the common man has a right to reject benevolence, as he has a right to reject a life preserver if he is drowning, but no same "common man" will do so.
The fiction that you are attempting to maintain is that the common man receives an offer from the left, considers it and rejects it freely and voluntarily. In fact, this never happens. The offer never gets to him, it is misrepresented by lies which the left is not allowed to counter, and in the end the "decision" to reject is just a pre-ordained conclusion.
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Again, for the thousandth time, you reveal the right's inability to see shades of gray; there's a 12-year-old mindset that sees everything in terms of white and black.
Says the man who thinks if you don't support a single-payer, government run health care program you must then be a fascist. There is a word for what Michael Tee has accomplished here. It starts with an 'h' and ends with an 'ypocrisy'.
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>> In the sham democracy of the U.S.A.<<
The USA isn't a democracy you stupid cunt. It never was, and never will be. Are you really that fucking stupid? A rhetorical question I agree but for fuck sake asshole, stop spewing your idiotic bile. It's false and nobody in America gives a flying fuck about your penis envy for America.
Get a fucking job, have your old lady spend more time on the street, but for Christ sake, spare us you idiotic yammering.
The common man? Maybe he's your bastards real father but thats all you could possibley know about Joe the plumber. And Joe the plumber doesn't give a shit about you asshole. If he did he'd just want to kick your cocksucking commie ass.
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<<Says the man who thinks if you don't support a single-payer, government run health care program you must then be a fascist.>>
Did I say that? Wow, that's cool, but kind of extreme. Where'd I say that? I forget.
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Of course you did shit for brains. All us rednecks in the south hate healthcare because we're racist. That's all. Died in the wool racist redneck Wal-Mart shoppers. We hate the black folk because we're stupid racists.
Right asshole? Hasn't that been what you've been vomiting in here forever?
Shut up asshole. Spend your time hating racist Eskimos or something. Your opinion here is a repetitive joke that any normal American would have nothing but contempt for.
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<<In spite of the wealth of talent and education availible to the left , doesn't the common man have the right to reject their benevelovence?>>
The common man certainly has at least the right to HEAR the left's proposition. In the sham democracy of the U.S.A., this is impossible, first because the MSM are corporate-owned and corporate-controlled so that the message gets out in a very attenuated form and is immediately drowned in a barrage of right-wing (corporate) bullshit.
Sure the common man has a right to reject benevolence, as he has a right to reject a life preserver if he is drowning, but no same "common man" will do so.
The fiction that you are attempting to maintain is that the common man receives an offer from the left, considers it and rejects it freely and voluntarily. In fact, this never happens. The offer never gets to him, it is misrepresented by lies which the left is not allowed to counter, and in the end the "decision" to reject is just a pre-ordained conclusion.
WE elect a student of Saul Alinski to the Presidency , elect a solid Democrat Senate and House and you think that the Liberal message has gotten no hearing?
You think that corporate America has no libs?,... How do you classify Warren Buffet?...Or all those guys that give millions to Democratic Congressmen?
This is like,...... far beyond delusion.
Even our media is top loaded with Liberals , but still the liberal message is not being well presented?
I think you can do better than that.
Or maybe you can't , the president Himself pretty much said the same thing in his state of the union speech, promiseing to speak slower .
I think Kruthammner has your number
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<<WE elect a student of Saul Alinski to the Presidency . . . >>
Cut the bullshit, plane. What is this "student of Saul Alinsky" crap? You think Obama was some kind of disciple who sat at Alinski's feet for 12 years absorbing the wisdom of the Master? There's no solid connection between Alinski and Obama and if there was, Alinski was a teacher of methodology more than of socialist economics and policies.
<< . . . elect a solid Democrat Senate and House >>
Solid, my ass. What's so "solid" about Blue Dog Democrats? What's so "solid" about Lieberman? There was no "solid" anything, just a bunch of Republocrats posing as agents of "change" and "hope" to fool the dumb fucking electorate one more time. Billion dollar bailouts of banks, insurance companies and financiers, just the way Alinski had it all planned, eh?
<< . . . and you think that the Liberal message has gotten no hearing?>>
Yes, I do. There was NOBODY making the case for single payer. There was NOBODY making the case for universal coverage. The closest the case for single payer ever got was "public option," a pathetically watered-down version of single-payer, and even that was back-pedalled away from at breakneck speed by Obama and every fucking "Democrat" who was supposedly for "health care reform." Instead of reasoned debate, instead of veteran Canadian plan administrators to make the case for Canadian-style health care, the MSM blanketed the nation with coverage of the moronic "town hall meetings" and "tea parties" where speakers were routinely shouted down by morons with "Hear Our Voice!" till nothing but the chant could be heard. I SAW THAT. There were fake TV ads by this lying fat bitch who claimed that Canadian health care almost killed her by not operating on her "brain tumor" which turned out in the end to be a benign cyst. A Niagara of lies and bullshit hijacked the public debate on health care, and that was because the entire public debate was mediated by the MSM which made God-damned sure that the waters were muddied enough for the GOP to play on the fears of the ignorant and the uneducated, as they always do, to ensure that REAL health care reform never even got put on the table.
<<You think that corporate America has no libs?,... How do you classify Warren Buffet?...Or all those guys that give millions to Democratic Congressmen?>>
Who gives a shit about corporate America's lone libs? Soros? Buffet? BFD. At the end of the day, you judge the bozos they put in Congress with their campaign contributions. Democrats for whom "impeachment is off the table" and no stink raised in the MSM. A law-school President who says he can't prosecute Bush-era torturers because "that would be looking backward." EVERY FUCKING PROSECUTION OF EVERY FUCKING CRIME IN THE WORLD HAS TO BE "LOOKING BACKWARD" BECAUSE YOU CAN ONLY PROSECUTE CRIMES AFTER THEY HAVE TAKEN PLACE and yet not one major MSM outlet raised a stink about this. A Democratic "anti-war" majority which refused to cut funding for the war. This whole "liberal/conservative" divide is a crock, it's all one side.
<<This is like,...... far beyond delusion.>>
Oh GROW UP for christ sake.
<<Even our media is top loaded with Liberals , but still the liberal message is not being well presented?>>
Oh really? So what MSM "top-loaded with Liberals" was calling on Pelosi to impeach Bush for lying the country into the war? Which one was calling for the new Democratic majority to de-fund the war? Which one is calling for immediate abandonment of all Iraqi bases and all troops out in six months? Which one is protesting drone attacks? Which one is demanding trials for Bush-era torturers? Tell me, please?
"Far beyond delusion?" You're God-damn right, YOU are "far beyond delusion."
<<I think you can do better than that.>>
Thanks, I'm very flattered.
<<Or maybe you can't , the president Himself pretty much said the same thing in his state of the union speech, promiseing to speak slower .>>
Tell the President, it isn't how slow or fast he talks, it's whether he's making the "changes" that he promised or whether he's lying. Tell him that slow or fast, ANY prosecution of ANY crime has to be "looking backward" and he'd better find a better explanation for his refusal to prosecute any of the Bush-era war criminals than he's come up with so far. Otherwise I won't see any "change" with regard to the issue of torture and I'll think he's been lying to the people.
<<I think Kruthammner has your number>>
You're as dead wrong on that as you were about everything else that you posted here. I'VE got Krauthammer's number.
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<<WE elect a student of Saul Alinski to the Presidency . . . >>
Cut the bullshit, plane. What is this "student of Saul Alinsky" crap? You think Obama was some kind of disciple who sat at Alinski's feet for 12 years absorbing the wisdom of the Master?
Well said , that is exactly what I think.
I also think he didn't sleep through all of Rev Wrights sermons.
And I think that when William Ayers invited Obama over to his house , he went.
I think that BHO is the most Liberal canadate the US has ever elected to the presidency , and following LBJ JEC and WC that is realy saying something.
I hope that BHO is the apex of the American liberals and that we will learn enough from this episode to never elect another quite so bad (by "bad" I mean "Liberal") .
Obama's terrorist connections - William Ayers (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxoiZdBSi-g#)
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<<Well said , that is exactly what I think.>>
Well find me some authoritative source that says so, and maybe that'll be exactly what I think too. Right now, I think that Alinsky was a minor rather than a major influence on Obama.
<<I also think he didn't sleep through all of Rev Wrights sermons.>>
Well, when you hear him say "God damn America" to Congress, let me know and I'll concede that Wright had some influence on him. I don't think Wright would have told Obama to bail out the banks and the finance companies and the auto industry, though. I don't think Wright told him to give the torturers their Get Out of Jail Free card. I don't see ANY of Wright's influence on Obama and that's too damn bad. I bet Wright would have been the better President.
<<And I think that when William Ayers invited Obama over to his house , he went.>>
I'd go too. Bill Ayers is one of my heroes. Don't see Ayers acting anything like Obama has to date, if Ayers had been president. You can bet your ass if Ayers were in charge, all U.S. troops would have been out of Afghanistan and Iraq within two months of the inauguration.
<<I think that BHO is the most Liberal canadate the US has ever elected to the presidency , and following LBJ JEC and WC that is realy saying something.>>
BUT THAT'S MY POINT EXACTLY!!! The "most Liberal candidate" didn't make a God-damn bit of difference in the policies of the Government. Big business and Wall STreet and the banks got bailed out, the Palestinians and other Arabs all got fucked in the ass, the torturers got away with all their crimes, etc. The "most liberal candidate" is one big fucking fraud like all the rest of them.
<<I hope that BHO is the apex of the American liberals and that we will learn enough from this episode to never elect another quite so bad (by "bad" I mean "Liberal") .>>
I don't give a shit. If he's a "liberal" I hope your next President is Genghis Khan.
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I don't give a shit. If he's a "liberal" I hope your next President is Genghis Khan.
<<Well said , that is exactly what I think.>>
Well find me some authoritative source that says so, and maybe that'll be exactly what I think too. Right now, I think that Alinsky was a minor rather than a major influence on Obama.
Minor is too much
I don't give a shit. If he's a "liberal" I hope your next President is Genghis Khan.
Hey, wouldn't that be something! You can't get much more liberal than good ol' Genghis!
Redistribute the wealth, no excuses .
I would settle for a good clone of Teddy Rosevelt or Ronald Reagan, as soon as cloning is well enough done.
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Did I say that? Wow, that's cool, but kind of extreme. Where'd I say that? I forget.
http://debategate.com/new3dhs/index.php?topic=9024.msg94689#msg94689 (http://debategate.com/new3dhs/index.php?topic=9024.msg94689#msg94689)
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D'OH :D
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Nice try, Prince. My "What's opposition but . . ." DOES reduce opposition to the plan to simple fascism. Looks like I overstated the case. Obviously there are some who oppose the plan because they fell for the lying TV ads about the Canadian health care system (the woman with the "brain tumor" that was in fact a benign cyst) or were scared by the "death panel" bullshit of the lying politics of fear practiced so well by the GOP.
I overstated the case by calling them ALL fascists when I should have said that the active core of the movement, the people setting the agenda and masterminding the propaganda, on behalf of the insurance industry, THEY were primarily fascist in motivation.
So on the narrow issue, I overstated and can safely backtrack to the money behind the opposition to the health care reform is fascist in nature and purpose. In the overall debate, did I erroneously characterize the tea parties as crypto-fascist, no I did not, and even with the correction you forced me to make, I believe I still demonstrated the overall fascist nature of the tea parties. So you win a skirmish but you still lose the war, Prince.
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I believe I still demonstrated the overall fascist nature of the tea parties.
All I saw you do is accuse them of being fascist, and your support for this was that they do not agree with your political preferences. So as best I can tell, you have not demonstrated anything, except your own irrationally prejudiced partisanship.
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<<All I saw you do is accuse them of being fascist, and your support for this was that they do not agree with your political preferences. So as best I can tell, you have not demonstrated anything, except your own irrationally prejudiced partisanship.>>
Well what you just demonstrated is your outstanding ability as a rewrite man. I gave quite a few indicia of fascism vis-a-vis the Tea Parties, including the corporatism evidenced by the strenuous opposition to single-payer universal health care schemes, which your rewrite skills transformed into a simple failure to agree with me. Fortunately there is a written record against which your rewrites can be measured.
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fas'cism (fāsh'ĭz'əm)
n.
often Fascism
A system of government marked by centralization of authority under a dictator, stringent socioeconomic controls, suppression of the opposition through terror and censorship, and typically a policy of belligerent nationalism and racism.
A political philosophy or movement based on or advocating such a system of government.
Hmmmmm, a current administration that is attempting to centralize our healthcare. Has already largely centralized the banking industry, and a large chunk of the Domestic Automobile Industry, and largely dictated to by DC Czars, while allowing the said companies/agencies to still "function" outside their immediate control. But the "tea party" folks are the fascists. What a fascinating disconnect
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Well what you just demonstrated is your outstanding ability as a rewrite man. I gave quite a few indicia of fascism vis-a-vis the Tea Parties, including the corporatism evidenced by the strenuous opposition to single-payer universal health care schemes, which your rewrite skills transformed into a simple failure to agree with me. Fortunately there is a written record against which your rewrites can be measured.
You can try to run away from this by accusing me of a rewrite, but the written record will support my position without any editing. You equate opposition to a single payer, government run health care program and and support for corporatism/fascism with essentially zero allowance that one could oppose the government run program without support for corporatism or fascism. That is a clear indicator that you are being extremely partisan and have approached the matter with, oh, how did you put it... ah, yes, with "a 12-year-old mindset that sees everything in terms of white and black." The written record does not contradict this or hide it in anyway. On the contrary, the record makes this clearly apparent.
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I admit that I overstated the case for corporatist theory as the source of ALL opposition to the single-payer system, but I took that back when it was pointed out to me, allowing that some of the opposition was due to idiots who had succumbed to the GOP fear-mongering campaign. The basis of the opposition to the plan by the brains behind the movement is still corporatism and I stand behind that.
I also stand behind my earlier description of the Tea Party as crypto-fascist, and cite not only the corporatism (which you had demanded as proof of fascism) but the racism of the movement.
In regard to the racist aspect of the Tea Party movement, I note that Meghan McCain has now condemned this as well in an appearance on The View (sorry, no link available) - - citing the Tea Party demand for literacy tests for voters, a well-known racist device ensuring a lily-white electorate in the South that persisted till the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
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In regard to the racist aspect of the Tea Party movement, I note that Meghan McCain has now condemned this as well in an appearance on The View (sorry, no link available) - - citing the Tea Party demand for literacy tests for voters, a well-known racist device ensuring a lily-white electorate in the South that persisted till the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Oh GOOD GRAVY. To think, we want people who acually have the mental capacity to read & write, as the folks be the voting for some of the most important decisions this country has to make, be it its representatives, propositions, or the President. Apparently Tee has no problem with folks who have no clue as to what they're voting on, to be able to vote. So much the easier to herd them in the appropriate (read; Democrat) direction.
It's also apparently Tee's contention that only "lily white folks" can read and write. Man would I take offense, if I were a minority American
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I admit that I overstated the case for corporatist theory as the source of ALL opposition to the single-payer system, but I took that back when it was pointed out to me, allowing that some of the opposition was due to idiots who had succumbed to the GOP fear-mongering campaign.
Ah, yes, you allow the 'grey' that some members are not fascist, just idiots. How not at all open-minded of you. This alters the reality (as opposed to your whitewash) of your position not even a little.
citing the Tea Party demand for literacy tests for voters
As best I can determine, the Tea Party movement has made no such demand. Tom Tancredo apparently suggested it in a speech to the Tea Party convention, but there has been no demand that I can see.
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If they advocated such Prince, you would consider that racist?? or simply, not to start an arguement, "anti-immigrant"?? You'd have no problem with folks who had no clue how to read or write in English, voting in American elections??
Just curious
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fas'cism (fāsh'ĭz'əm)
n.
often Fascism
A system of government marked by centralization of authority under a dictator, stringent socioeconomic controls, suppression of the opposition through terror and censorship, and typically a policy of belligerent nationalism and racism.
A political philosophy or movement based on or advocating such a system of government.
Hmmmmm, a current administration that is attempting to centralize our healthcare. Has already largely centralized the banking industry, and a large chunk of the Domestic Automobile Industry, and largely dictated to by DC Czars, while allowing the said companies/agencies to still "function" outside their immediate control. But the "tea party" folks are the fascists. What a fascinating disconnect
Fancy this....MORE Government. Whoda thunk it?
Obama Creating New Govt Agency for "Climate Service"
The Obama administration is in the process of forming a new government agency dedicated to addressing the impending doom of global warming:
U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke today announced the intent to create a [National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration] Climate Service line office dedicated to bringing together the agency?s strong climate science and service delivery capabilities.
Apparently there is a big demand from the American public for "relevant and timely information" about global warming "to inform decision-making about virtually all aspects of their lives"--such a big demand, we need a new government agency to manage it.
?By providing critical planning information that our businesses and our communities need, NOAA Climate Service will help tackle head-on the challenges of mitigating and adapting to climate change,? said Secretary Locke. ?In the process, we'll discover new technologies, build new businesses and create new jobs.?
The best part of the announcement: ?NOAA is committed to scientific integrity and transparency; we seek to advance science and strengthen product development and delivery through user engagement.? (emphases mine)
NOAA is also unveiling a new website today, www.climate.gov (http://www.climate.gov), which coincidentally highlights "short-term cooling on a warming planet" following this weekend's record-breaking blizzards.
Scientific integrity & transparency, my ass (http://townhall.com/blog/g/a1cda50e-91c0-4843-be69-d3c72f574b50?comments=true&commentsSortDirection=Descending)
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<<Ah, yes, you allow the 'grey' that some members are not fascist, just idiots. How not at all open-minded of you. This alters the reality (as opposed to your whitewash) of your position not even a little.>>
Of course it alters my position. Originally it was that they were all fascists, now it is that the brains and the raison d’être are corporatist (fascist) but that some of the rank and file are just idiots. Certainly this takes away from the original blanket condemnation of all of them as fascists. Fascists are worse than idiots, IMHO.
<<As best I can determine, the Tea Party movement has made no such demand [of literacy tests for voters]. Tom Tancredo apparently suggested it in a speech to the Tea Party convention, but there has been no demand that I can see.>>
Yeah and I bet the Tea Partiers just booed him off the stage for it, right? Not. Ever figure out how a nationally recognized anti-immigrant figure like Tancredo got to be a speaker at the Tea Party convention in the first place, if they're not racist? Were they shocked - - SHOCKED? at Tancredo's racist proposals? LMAO.
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That'd be based on the premice that such statements are "racist", at their core. They aren't, thus the accusation is *surprise* without merit
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<<Ah, yes, you allow the 'grey' that some members are not fascist, just idiots. How not at all open-minded of you. This alters the reality (as opposed to your whitewash) of your position not even a little.>>
Of course it alters my position. Originally it was that they were all fascists, now it is that the brains and the raison d’être are corporatist (fascist) but that some of the rank and file are just idiots.
I thought that the corporations were good with the Obama health care plan.
All the insureance companys were getting a peice of the pie, they were not really fighting it.
I guess that for someone who is carefully searching out conspiracys , there is no grassroot movement anywhere.
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<<I thought that the corporations were good with the Obama health care plan.>>
They should have been good with it, since all real reform had long since been cut out of it. But you know the greed of the corporation - - the plan after it was successfully neutered gave them 75% of their cake, but now they saw a way to get 100% of the pie by ditching the plan completely. Thanks in part to the Tea Party campaign.
<<All the insureance companys were getting a peice of the pie, they were not really fighting it.>>
That's what you think. The GOP wasn't just fighting the plan, they were fighting Obama. His failure = their triumph. Ask Limbaugh. Ask Glenn Beck. If the insurance industry salvages 75% of its profits, the fight against Obama goes on. If in the course of the fight against Obama, health care can be further damaged, so that the 75% salvage becomes 100%, hey, why the hell not?
<<I guess that for someone who is carefully searching out conspiracys , there is no grassroot movement anywhere.>>
If there is, and it's right-wing, somebody on the right will capture it and throw a harness on it fast enough.
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That's what you think. The GOP wasn't just fighting the plan, they were fighting Obama. His failure = their triumph. Ask Limbaugh. Ask Glenn Beck.
Obama's failure is the triumph of the common man, the nation , humanbeings everywhere , good and right will enjoy their advantage in endurance and win eventually in spite of all.
Obamas evil plan to enrich insurance companys failed to the chagrin of his pet Companys and Unions , and the huge christmas tree known euphamisticly as "health care" withered on the vine leaveing a trillion dollors worth of earmarks ungiven.
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<<Obama's failure is the triumph of the common man, the nation , humanbeings everywhere , good and right will enjoy their advantage in endurance and win eventually in spite of all.>>
plane, why don't you buy a ticket to Greece, visit Delphi, and see if there are any jobs there for English-speaking oracles?
In the meantime, please try to help me out a little here - - HOW is Obama's failure "the triumph of the common man?"
<<Obamas evil plan to enrich insurance companys failed to the chagrin of his pet Companys and Unions . . . >>
Uhh, I don't think "chagrin" is exactly what any corporations felt about this. And BTW, which companys are his "pet" companys?
<<and the huge christmas tree known euphamisticly as "health care" withered on the vine leaveing a trillion dollors worth of earmarks ungiven.>>
Can a tree, any tree, "wither on the vine?" Just askin. Block that metaphor!!! Yeah, I am sure that the paralysis of the health care reform efforts, being the great "triumph of the common man," caused great joy in the insurance industry, not because of the failed effort to enrich them, but because of the great triumph of the common man, whose well-being is their sole reason for existing.
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How was a plan whose main feature was to force everyone (almost) to buy insurance, going to be bad for insurance companys?
Or how was it going to be good for those who were forced to buy Insurance that they didn't need or buy insurance at higher expense or lessor coverage than they already had?
Or was it supposed to be good for the people who were going to be taxed against their health care benefits , if they were pretty good "Cadalac" plans?
Obama was allowing Congress to fill the insurance companys feed bowl at the expense of the common man , and the benifit was a marginal increase in the raw number of persons covered , yet still not everyone.
And the whole thing was going to require a giant new tax package as boot.
So yes , good and light and the common man won when Obama and the corporations lost , which of these memos didn't you get?
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*standing O* 8)
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<<How was a plan whose main feature was to force everyone (almost) to buy insurance, going to be bad for insurance companys?>>
For one thing, it was going to prevent insurance companies from denying coverage for pre-existing conditions, something they often tried before as a means of weaseling out of their obligations. It posed tremendous risks for them. Secondly, as a compulsory purchase forced upon the population by government, government now had powerful reasons for dictating premium ceilings, which, if it didn't come with the original plan, couldn't be far behind it. Third, as a corollary to forced purchase, the plan would either provide, or would soon be followed by, legislation enabling the government to dictate statutory policy conditions that would be fair to the purchasers of the policies. Fourth, in principle it established a l government role in the health insurance business, which in its initial form, might be weakened and diluted enough so as not to offend the industry, but nevertheless was a "foot in the door," which in its subsequent revisions and amendments could exert ever more power over the industry. The less government regulation, the better from their POV. Much easier for the unregulated to screw the consumer than for the regulated industry subject to government oversight.
<<Or how was it going to be good for those who were forced to buy Insurance that they didn't need or buy insurance at higher expense or lessor coverage than they already had.>>
The issue with the plan isn't whether it's going to be good for this wealthy minority or that wealthy minority, but whether its overall benefits for the greatest number of citizens is going to justify the worsening of the position of a few members of a wealthy elite. Everything's a trade-off, nothing is going to please everyone, and so what if a few are left worse off if the vast majority are better off. Right now the system works fine for the rich. Maybe the rich have to come down one or two rungs of the ladder so that everyone else can move six or seven rungs up on the same ladder.
<<Or was it supposed to be good for the people who were going to be taxed against their health care benefits , if they were pretty good "Cadalac" plans?>>
Like I said before, no plan is best for everyone. If the Cadillac owners have to suffer for the pedestrians, the cyclists and the 12-yr-old Chevy owners, too fucking bad. Cry me a river.
<<Obama was allowing Congress to fill the insurance companys feed bowl at the expense of the common man , and the benifit was a marginal increase in the raw number of persons covered , yet still not everyone.>>
Obama's plan sucked, but only because it wasn't "Canadian" enough.
<<And the whole thing was going to require a giant new tax package as boot.>>
Tax the rich. NBD.
<<So yes , good and light and the common man won when Obama and the corporations lost , which of these memos didn't you get?>>
I didn't get the memo that "the common man" was rich.
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If they advocated such Prince, you would consider that racist?? or simply, not to start an arguement, "anti-immigrant"?? You'd have no problem with folks who had no clue how to read or write in English, voting in American elections??
Just curious
If the Tea Party folks advocated literacy as requirement for voting, would I consider that racist and/or anti-immigrant?
I've thought about the idea of literacy as a requirement for voting before. Let's ignore the immigrant issue for a moment. There are plenty of people who are citizens and illiterate. Some of them are stuck in poverty. A few have managed to find ways to work around the system. My father used to know a man (via a job at the time), a natural born citizen not an immigrant or even a son of immigrants, who was illiterate yet ran a successful small business. Should that man be punished, treated as a second class citizen (and yes, a law requiring literacy to vote would do just that), because he cannot read or write in English? I do not believe he should.
Should immigrants who do not know how to read and write in English be allowed to vote? No. But that has nothing to do with their ability or lack of ability to read and write in English. People who are not citizens should not be allowed to vote. I think that is actually the law already.
Would a law requiring literacy to vote be racist? Maybe. The people who note that such laws existed in the past specifically to keep poor, uneducated minoritys from voting are correct. And a lot of the people who are currently graduating from school and are illiterate or functionally illiterate are predominately from poor minorities.
Would I have a problem with people who cannot read or write in English voting in U.S. elections? Not as such. Being a citizen gives one (not a right but) the privilege to vote. And that is as it should be. I do have a problem with a school system that passes students to the next grade and/or hands a diploma to someone who cannot read. And while you may want to complain about illegal immigrants with fake IDs voting, my problem is with the laws that have allowed and encouraged the black market in labor and fake identities to flourish. (I know on that issue you and I disagree, Sirs, so let us leave it at that.) But no, I do not think literacy should be requirement for voting, and I think it would be wrong to push for such to be made law.
And for the record, I do not like Tom Tancredo, and I am disappointed that the Tea Party folks invited him to the convention to talk. He seems to me to be authoritarian and a man of the "yes government should be smaller, but only in the things I don't want government to do more of" school of thought, which makes him decidedly not the sort of person the Tea Party should be supporting, imo.
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Of course it alters my position.
First was they are all fascists; now it's some are fascists by choice and the rest are fascists because they're too stupid to know better. If it could be called a change at all, it is not really a change of any substance.
Were they shocked - - SHOCKED? at Tancredo's racist proposals?
I have no idea. I wasn't there. I didn't even know Tancredo had spoken there until today.
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<<First was they are all fascists; now it's some are fascists by choice and the rest are fascists because they're too stupid to know better. If it could be called a change at all, it is not really a change of any substance.>>
So now according to you, someone who's intimidated by fascism into taking a fascist position is also a fascist? The victims of the fascists become fascists? Nonsense.
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Thanks for the response, Prince
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So now according to you, someone who's intimidated by fascism into taking a fascist position is also a fascist? The victims of the fascists become fascists? Nonsense.
According to me? No. But as I recall you basically said the Tea Party was fascists and people who were going along with and supporting fascism because they are idiots.
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<<According to me? No. But as I recall you basically said the Tea Party was fascists and people who were going along with and supporting fascism because they are idiots.>>
They're fascists with some idiots on board. The idiots are intimidated by the fear-mongering fascists, but I think it's a stretch to call them fascists. They don't buy into the entire fascist agenda, but they ARE scared enough to oppose health-care reform, which fits into the fascist agenda.
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<<Obama was allowing Congress to fill the insurance companys feed bowl at the expense of the common man , and the benifit was a marginal increase in the raw number of persons covered , yet still not everyone.>>
Obama's plan sucked, but only because it wasn't "Canadian" enough.
From your point of view , this is true, there was little resemblence to the Canadian system as far as I can tell.
<<And the whole thing was going to require a giant new tax package as boot.>>
Tax the rich. NBD.
<<So yes , good and light and the common man won when Obama and the corporations lost , which of these memos didn't you get?>>
I didn't get the memo that "the common man" was rich.
And for all that this enormous and complex plan would have increased the coverage of Americans less than 10%.
As a strong majority of Americans meet your definition of "rich" you really should have been reading the memos, most Americans were satisfied with the insurance coverage they had when asked last year, and the Obama plan cuts all of these, for the sake of a PART of the minority that was poorly covered or uncovered, still leaveing a significant number uncovered.
The Government is rich ,and is like a landlord that will never die, thinking of the government as a hero or as a parent is unamerican. Taxing the Rich is a big deal if the only result is that the richest and least human of the rich gets richer and less manageable.
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They don't buy into the entire fascist agenda, but they ARE scared enough to oppose health-care reform, which fits into the fascist agenda.
Then there are the others, perhaps the majority of those who oppose the bill on the table, oppose the bill because it is crap. Single payer was never on the table. It is crap because the only way to get it out of the Senate was to bribe swing state Senators. It is crap because it reforms nothing, saves nothing and insures only a handful more.
This is not the best we can do.
Reboot.
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<<And for all that this enormous and complex plan would have increased the coverage of Americans less than 10%.>>
The plan sucks because nobody had the balls to bring forward anything that would make a real difference. I agree with you. But a tenth of a loaf is better than no bread at all.
<<As a strong majority of Americans meet your definition of "rich" >>
Bullshit. First of all, I don't have a definition of "rich" but I generally refer to the criterion originally set by Obama for tax increases, that is, earning $250K per year. That's a good rule-of-thumb definition.
<<you really should have been reading the memos, most Americans were satisfied with the insurance coverage they had when asked last year . . .>>
Totally beside the point when there are 47 million Americans without any insurance coverage and the Physicians for a National Health Plan calculates 22,000 needless deaths per year due to lack of coverage.
http://www.pnhp.org/news/2008/january/make_that_22000_uni.php (http://www.pnhp.org/news/2008/january/make_that_22000_uni.php)
<< and the Obama plan cuts all of these, for the sake of a PART of the minority that was poorly covered or uncovered, still leaveing a significant number uncovered.>>
Well think of it as saving 22,000 American lives a year. Sure it should cover more. Because of Blue Dog opposition, this was the best they could come up with before they lost their super-majority. Sure they are a bunch of schmucks. Sure it it were left up to the liberals and progressives, the plan would be a thousand per cent better. But on the theory that a tenth of a loaf is better than none . . .
<<The Government is rich ,and is like a landlord that will never die, thinking of the government as a hero or as a parent is unamerican. >>
Thinking of THIS government as a hero or parent is just plain stupid. That's because they're a bunch of rich ass-holes or the errand boys of a bunch of rich ass-holes and they're totally unconcerned about anything except their own individual well-being.
<<Taxing the Rich is a big deal if the only result is that the richest and least human of the rich gets richer and less manageable.>>
Well of course that's not the ONLY result. One other result is that a shitload of new money will pour into the government's coffers once the bastards are forced to cough up. The richest of the rich are ALREADY unmanageable. They OWN the fucking government, have for years, so who exactly is going to manage them? Tax their asses off, cut 'em down to size and THEN they will be more manageable.
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And which of the rich is richer or more of a bastard than the government itself?
Government is a landlord second to none in cruelty , and our government is not any more trustworthy with greater ritches or power than any other.
The best feature our government has is a collar and a leash that the people can shorten, as you have just been dismayed to observe, we did.
Your contempt for the wisdom of the common man fits you well in the group that Kruthamner was criticiseing in the article we were reading a cupple of days ago, I think that every victory of the common man will leave you gasping in indignation.
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<<And which of the rich is richer or more of a bastard than the government itself?>>
What a question! They ARE the fucking "government," don't you get it yet?
<<Government is a landlord second to none in cruelty , and our government is not any more trustworthy with greater ritches or power than any other.>>
You make up the most ridiculous of generalities out of your head with no evidence to back any of it up and with two whole centuries of American history behind you to provide you with hundreds and even thousands of examples of the cruelty of capitalism, of business. It's as if the history of labour exploitation, massacres of striking workers, child labour in the mines, share-cropping, the fight for the 8-hour day and the 5-day week, etc., etc. have just been wiped clean off the slate and into the memory hole and all we are left with are empty platitudes like yours which take no account of history or even common sense. MY government can sometimes act like a bunch of ass-holes, cover up horrific crimes, etc., but by and large it takes care of me, my family and our fellow citizens. It is NOT "second to none in cruelty," that is one of the most ridiculous and absurd statements I could ever imagine. Based on . . . ? Based on absolutely nothing except the decades of Cold War brain-washing bullshit that you and all Americans have been subjected to and now take as Gospel.
<<The best feature our government has is a collar and a leash that the people can shorten, as you have just been dismayed to observe, we did.>>
"The people," my ass! Say the insurance industry and its captive corporate MSM and you'll be a whole lot more credible.
<<Your contempt for the wisdom of the common man fits you well in the group that Kruthamner was criticiseing in the article we were reading a cupple of days ago, I think that every victory of the common man will leave you gasping in indignation.>>
Amazing how the dupes of the Big Money all spout the same nonsense, Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini BOTH claimed that their movement represented the masses. What a joke - - the masses as served by the corporate state. The masses totally shorn of any claim on the means of production! The "victory" of the common man left the rich in full possession of all of the obscene profits that they can rip off from the healthy, the sick and the dying "common man" and left the "common man" fucked up the ass as usual, 47 million of them uninsured, 22,000 of them dying every year needlessly, due to lack of insurance and no remedy in sight.
That is some "victory" for the common man - - or at least for any "common man" who happens to own an insurance company.
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Is the "Tee Party"... Communist?
:D
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Say the insurance industry and its captive corporate MSM and you'll be a whole lot more credible.
Show me the money trail that leads you to believe the insurance companies are behind the tea party movement.
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Isn't it obvious? ;)
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And which of the rich is richer or more of a bastard than the government itself?
Government is a landlord second to none in cruelty , and our government is not any more trustworthy with greater ritches or power than any other.
The best feature our government has is a collar and a leash that the people can shorten, as you have just been dismayed to observe, we did.
Your contempt for the wisdom of the common man fits you well in the group that Kruthamner was criticiseing in the article we were reading a cupple of days ago, I think that every victory of the common man will leave you gasping in indignation.
(http://www.cagle.com/working/100206/payne.jpg)
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Other than BT's "show me the money trail" I am glad to see that there is not a single intelligent fact-based rebuttal of anything I said in my last post.
Evidence for the money trail has to be circumstantial, since the insurance industry doesn't go out of its way to publicize how it spends money to influence public opinion. Cui bono, the history of similar "spontaneous movements" in Latin America, the history of the Florida rent-a-mob that stopped a recount in the 2000 Florida election and the recent revelation that numerous members of the "spontaneous" mob were actually GOP operatives from around the country, the support of Fox for the movement and its gratuitous and frequent publicizing of Tea Party events in the early days of the "movement" - - there's a lot of circumstantial evidence in lieu of a "money trail" which only an idiot could expect to find lying out there in plain sight.
I also should point out that my fingering "the insurance industry" as the source of ALL tea-party financing and support is short-hand for a congeries of interests opposed to any governmental expansion in the social safety net, and of course a Canadian-style health-care scheme, which scared the living shit out of all "free enterprise" proponents, would certainly have been a major incursion into that field by the U.S. government. Interests such as the Scaife family and other ultra-rich conservatives with an interest in blocking any kind of government social intervention, could be equally involved in the promotion and support of this "spontaneous" movement of "the people."
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Canadian style health care was never on the table.
Seems to me that congress is the recipient of insurance money and not the tea partiers.
That's what happens when you live or die by K street.
The tea folks just know the bill is crap and it is more costly less efficient crap.
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<<Canadian style health care was never on the table.>>
More's the pity. And that reason that it wasn't is . . . ?
<<Seems to me that congress is the recipient of insurance money and not the tea partiers.>>
Seems to me that there's enough for everyone.
<<That's what happens when you live or die by K street.>>
Well, I know what K street is, but you'd still have to explain that remark to me.
<<The tea folks just know the bill is crap and it is more costly less efficient crap.>>
You're giving them too much credit. They don't want a more efficient bill, they want government OUT of the health-care insurance business in all its aspects. They're not just against Canadian-style, they're against any element of Canadian-style. They're knee-jerk anti-socialism at its worst.
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Canadian style was never introduced because K street didn't write the bill that way, and since congress depends on lobbyist funds they went along with whatever crap was written.
The tea party folks and main street and often they are the same folks, might possibly go along with canadian style healthcare ie single payer if the funding sources were fair, universal and non punitive of any economic class. They have gone along reluctantly perhaps with other govt programs like social security and medicare as long as they are managed properly.
The problem is that govt doesn't have that track record of customer oriented service.
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<<They have gone along reluctantly perhaps with other govt programs like social security and medicare as long as they are managed properly.>>
Gone along reluctantly? Every single one of my American aunts, uncles and cousins (with the exception of one far-right cousin and another one who's a gun-owning Libertarian) has no problem at all with either SS or medicare, and there's nothing at all "reluctant" in their support of them. Except through this forum, I've never met an American citizen who had any qualms about either program. My impression was that they are very popular.
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Haven't met too many Americans, apparently
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Except through this forum, I've never met an American citizen who had any qualms about either program. My impression was that they are very popular.
Your attention span is limited. The 2k election centered in large part about Social Security, options to privatize it or more importantly put aside the funds collected for future use instead of using those funds for fake budget surpluses.
Remember Gore's lockbox?
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Everyone I know likes Social Security and Medicare.
Perhaps they have a different SS and a different Medicare on the Bizzarro World where sirs dwells.
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Nope. My country is the one in question. Not yours and tee's alternative reality. Many in fact are acutely concerned at both their impending financial collapses. And IIRC correctly SS is now officially running red, where payroll taxes coming in can no longer equal their payout mandate
But it's just hunky dory fine, isn't Xo
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Everyone I know likes Social Security and Medicare.
well well surprise surprise everyone likes the Tooth Fairy delivering "welfare checks"
to their mailbox every month from the Fairy God Mother gvt program that is going bankrupt.
wow XO....you mean people really like "money that grows on trees"?
I am shocked!
::)