I’m having a hard time mustering up my usual enthusiasm for ranting about all the stupidity out there on the internets today. The possibility of a decent health care reform bill just seems so much more important.
Now that it’s through the House, I can’t imagine that the Senate will drop the ball. We’re going to have a bill. No doubt it will fail to “bend the health care price curve” to Fred Hiatt’s and Ruth Marcus’s satisfaction. And no doubt it will be widely heralded as good news for conservatives. But getting access to health care for 30 million Americans matters a hell of a lot more than any of that.
Consider this an open thread.
lyons
Lieberman promised on fox this morning that he will filibuster the bill and ‘not allow it to the floor’ if it is like the House bill.
jwb
@lyons: Yes, and if Reid and the rest of the Senate Dems weren’t ready for this, then they really are very stupid. Seriously, I can’t imagine that Obama would have gone along with Reid’s plan had he not been convinced of the strategy to contain Liebermann—which I presume Schumer is running because he’s the only Democratic Senator a wise pol would trust with matters like that.
kommrade reproductive vigor
At the end of the day the Repubs will claim they were for health care reform all along, but they had a much better plan that would have given everyone free coverage, not raised taxes and included a pony. They never bothered to show it to anyone because they knew the mean old Nazicrats would have just laughed at it.
Lysdexics Untie!
licensed to kill time
@lyons:
Lieberman really is an attention whore, isn’t he? Sometimes I ponder the alternate reality scenario where Al Gore actually became president after he won in 2000 and what the aftermath of 9/11 would have looked like in that case. The fly in the ointment would have been Lieberman; though maybe the glory of being VP would have curbed his attention seeking needs.
Max
My Bills are on a bye this week, so I’m watching By The People, which I recorded the other night.
I’m even more an O-bot than I was before the movie started.
charles johnson
I hope it happens, but it’s going to be virtually impossible. Ben Nelson, Mary Landrieu, Joe Lieberman? And what happened to Kennedy’s seat? (I forgot, honestly).
August J. Pollak
Yep, and all we had to do was pass the most sweeping restriction on abortion since the Hyde Amendment. Change we can believe in.
Max
@Max: P.S. Jon Favreau is foxy.
geg6
If you haven’t been to Sully’s lately, you should go over and read the collection of comments he has there from the Politico article about Elie Weisel’s comments on the Dachau = HCR banner. Freakin’ unbelievable. A swamp even I won’t dare wade into. Wow.
charles johnson
The Netroots tried to primary Lieberman into retirement. Wouldn’t it be Shakespearean if, in revenge, he were to single-handedly cause the Health Care Reform bill to fail, bringing down the liberals’ plan and Obama’s presidency?
inkadu
Color me underwhelmed. Does anyone even know what’s in this bill? Benen says, “Health insurance exchanges.” Those suck, even if they are well structured, and I haven’t heard anything on the structuring…
Change is the invisible pink unicorn of politics.
dfd
Lieberman clearly sees his future as being in the hands of Connecticut Republicans.
inkadu
@charles johnson: Lieberman: Iago or Richard III? Discuss.
New Yorker
So as the teabagger movement becomes more and more and openly fascist movement (lower-middle class people who are parnoid about communists, and hate Jews, intellectuals, foreigners/minorities, and urbanites), I figure they’re missing just one ingredient: the dolchstoss myth.
That will come if/when Obama removes all US military personnel from Iraq and the country implodes into secterian civil war. Then their myth about having “won” in Iraq will turn into having “won” in Iraq until our treasonous president stabbed us in the back.
dmsilev
@lyons:
Ah, so he lied when he stated in earlier interviews that he would allow the bill to go to the floor, but would vote against cloture to bring the debate to an end.
Consider me extremely not shocked.
-dms
inkadu
I’d feel better about passage of the House bill if ticker tape were medicine.
Just sitting here with the cat thinking up one-liners.
charles johnson
While in the short term i would be very unhappy with that result, in the long term it might actually help. Our congress is so corrupt, so completely owned by corporations, that only some calamity can change things. If you look at the banking industry, they’re already back to taking wild, unregulated risks, ensuring that in a few years, maybe before we’ve recovered from this one, we’ll have another economic crisis. How high will unemployment have to go before some political disruption happens?
CalD
I got news for you. Not all the stupidity is coming from the right wing today. Paul Rosenberg, for example, has been fulminating all day on OpenLeft about targeting all the Democrats from conservative-leaning districts who voted against the bill for primary challenges.
(Sure, Paul. Let’s hand all the committee chairs in Congress back to the Republicans and see how much farther that advances our agenda.)
Some people have very short memories.
inkadu
@New Yorker: Iraq won’t have the punch that WW1 or even Vietnam had. There is no great enemy and no prolonged battles, no significant territory to be held, not even an enemy to sign an armistice with. No Khe San, no Lang Doc, no helicopters fleeing from the roof tops. Iraq is incredibly uninteresting from the brain stem’s perspective.
Brent
Missing from all the coverage is whether the public option will be an opt-out or trigger. I live in TX. I am screwed. Plus I’m gonna be fined for not buying expensive private insurance. Hooray! Not.
JD Rhoades
Hey, does anyone know how the governors of Virgina and New Jersey voted on the House health care bill? ‘Cause I heard they were real important.
jwb
@New Yorker: A fascist movement needs a substantial number of young folks to break heads. Right now, the teabagging movement is sorely lacking in that. I would be very frightened if the demographics of the teabagging movement were slightly different, but as things currently stand I don’t think they have the right mix to go brown shirt.
Cain
Maybe we’ll get lucky and Joe ends up getting a bad flu or something on voting day and he’ll have to use his excellent heatlh care plan to get better. Here’s to lady luck!
cain
4tehlulz
@geg6: Wow. Just fucking wow.
charles johnson
“@charles johnson: Lieberman: Iago or Richard III? Discuss.”
Ha. Well, more like Hamlet.
King Hamlet: Joe Lieberman, D
Prince Hamlet: Joe Lieberman, I
Claudius: Ned Lamont
Polonius: Obama
The Very Reverend Crimson Fire of Compassion
“I can’t imagine that the Senate will drop the ball.”
Really?
bago
@New Yorker: Ain’t the real world such a fun place?
inkadu
@jwb:Remember the riots in Greece last year? I imagine that could happen here, but I’m not even sure where anyone would riot. The coasts and urban centers are Democratic territory… Maybe places surrounded by “heartland” like St. Louis…
When there are riots in Sim City, Total War: Rome, or Civilization, you can just lower taxes for the next turn. Not sure how it works in real life. Maybe St. Louis just needs a good general with a few hundred hastati.
inkadu
@charles johnson: Laertes: Don Imus.
Cain
@4tehlulz:
I lament on how it has gotten ugly on BOTH sides.
Feh.
cain
inkadu
@CalD: Well, it’s hard to tell how many of those conservadems would have voted against the bill if it wouldn’t have passed. That’s what makes politics tricky. For all we know, those anti-bill Democrats may have been all for the bill, but afraid of losing crucial political mojo and decided to be “against” only after being assured of its passage.
Not sure how such a thing games out politically. Do they lose votes for being part of the socialist Democratic party or do they keep / gain votes for being “one of the good ones?”
Col. Klink
Can’t we use the money earmarked for war Afghanistan and Iraq to buy the votes of Collins and Snowe in Maine (or simply purchase Maine outright) so that I never, ever, have to give a damn about anything Joe Lieberman says or does from here until the Mayan Wingnut apocalypse raptures Pastor Hagee.
bago
Holy crap, I think I have found a brilliant solution to war profiteering. Tie the Estate tax to military service. If none of your children enlist, you get a 100% tax on your estate when you die. If one out of two of your children enlist, your estate tax is 50%. If all of your children enlist your estate tax is deferred. This is far more elegant than a draft, as it actually will penetrate those “beautiful minds”.
New Yorker
inkadu,
I don’t know about that. For reasonable people, Iraq doesn’t have the punch of WW1, but for the teabaggers, who see it as confirming the Book of Revelation or something insane like that, it might actually carry that weight. Who knows…..
jwb,
Good point. A bunch of 65-year-olds aren’t going to marching through the streets with guns and clubs. They’d pull muscles and then have to have medicare pay for the doctor’s visit.
valdivia
@geg6:
I saw that earlier today and could not believe it. How can anyone, especially any jews (I say this as one) support the ‘teabaggers’ after reading that shit? What a cesspool.
calipygian
@jwb:
I don’t know about that. I got a full gob of spit in the face from a bezerk tea-bagger who I was afraid was going to punch my lights out and I was almost assaulted by a couple of bikers from New Jersey.
They got some headbusters in the mix. Whether they have enough of them is a different story.
jwb
@inkadu: Yes, and we almost had riots with our teabaggers this summer. But my point is that the demographics of the teabaggers is currently too old. Yes, if they manage to recruit the younger demographic to bang heads for them, then I’ll be frightened. But so far I don’t see any evidence that the teabaggers are making any inroads with the younger set or are even particularly interested in doing so. No, at this point it seems to me we are just watching political theater.
Col. Klink
Bago @ 32 is win.
And if you have no children whatsoever then you’re obviously a part of the homoislamofascist agenda so wouldn’t it be un-American for you not to pay 100%?
JK
Eric Cantor – spineless weasel of the week
“Do I condone the mention of Hitler in any discussion about politics?” Cantor said. “No, I don’t, because obviously that is something that conjures up images that frankly are not, I think, very helpful.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/06/cantor-pushes-back-agains_n_349030.html
Wow. That’s really telling them Eric.
Comrade Scrutinizer
@inkadu: Lang Doc?
charles johnson
“I saw that earlier today and could not believe it. How can anyone, especially any jews (I say this as one) support the ‘teabaggers’ after reading that shit? What a cesspool.”
I doubt there are many jews among the tea baggers. If you don’t live in a rural area, and want to know who the tea baggers are, download the “Dey Terk Err Jubbss” episode of south park.
South of I-10
Even though it’s not coming at me, a hurricane in the Gulf in November is just wrong.
kommrade reproductive vigor
@bago: The people who scream about estate taxes would stick army boots on a fetus if it allowed them to protect their precious money.
JK
@calipygian:
This is a very disturbing first hand account. Did these 2 incidents occur at the same event or did they take place at 2 separate events? Did these incidents take place in New Jersey or did the Jersey bikers attend an event in another state?
eemom
everytime I see Eric Cantor on teevee I’m waiting for him to trip over something. Hard to believe someone with that vacuous of a gaze can actually see where he’s going.
Jacob Davies
Er that assumes:
1. Less conservative Democrats would lose all those districts represented by those who voted against the bill. So far as I can tell not true – most people are in favor of the bill including large numbers of Republicans.
2. Losing all the Democrats who voted against the bill would result in the Democrats losing Congress. Not true, though barely; that would leave us 219-216 even if every single one lost their primary challenge and then lost the seat (pretty dubious).
Though I reserve my particular ire for those supposed Democrats who voted for the Stupak amendment and then against the bill. W. T. F.
Punchy
Only got 58 Dems plus 1 Indy in the Senate. Not quite good enough. Ball dropping commencing in 3….2…Lieb…er…man.
jwb
@calipygian: I don’t doubt that there are some headbusters in the teabagging movement. I just don’t see anything close to a critical mass, and, even more, I don’t see any systematic attempt to recruit young people into the movement. I think we may have lucked out that the teabaggers seem to be a fairly self-absorbed bunch, and that so far their natural leaders (Palin, Limbaugh, Beck, etc.) seem more interested in the money they can skim off the movement than in organizing it for raw political power. (In this respect, Bachman is a scarier figure, since she does not seem so interested in the money and if she finds the right—or rather wrong—handlers, she could be real trouble.)
Brachiator
@New Yorker:
Why do you think that this depends on the lower-middle class falling for the con? The most itchy fascists have always been the upper classes, who look for any opportunity to indulge their pretensions to aristocracy. Everybody else is dragged along on the false promise of a piece of the pie.
The vast majority of Americans, liberal or conservative, don’t give a crap about Iraq. As long as we are not threatened or attacked, there is no level of horror that might erupt in Iraq and Afghanistan that would distract us from important stuff, like American Idol.
Wingnuts will lull themselves to sleep with endless blog discussions of which was the greater liberal betrayal, Vietnam or Iraq, but no one else will pay the slightest bit of attention.
calipygian
@JK: This was at the big Million (Thousand) Moron March on 9/12.
Oh yeah, a little old lady told me I looked like a pedophile, too.
Midnight Marauder
@geg6:
Beyond words.
bago
@kommrade reproductive vigor: Which is why tying those boots to their children is the entire point. If you want war you need to give money or blood. If you are willing to offer neither then you really don’t want war.
DBrown
@charles johnson: Really? What about Lieberman? He seems to be in full teabagger action – NAZI’s and all the other signs by these stupid assholes, be damn. He, at least, proves that someone’s soul can be bought on the cheap.
Remember, while the demorats may be so spineless that a pig like lie -berman can try to hold up a vote, the nuclear opinion is there and it is high time it is used; if Americans every hand the senate to the repub-a-thugs, I still feel that the majority rules and this precivil war strangle hold that always allows a handful of confederates … I mean southern whites to lock the senate down is an evil tradition that must end.
smiley
I really look forward to the letters to the editor and anonymous comments to be published in the local paper this week.
inkadu
I wonder if the @Comrade Scrutinizer: I’m meant Lan Doc. I’m not sure where that battle was, but you might want to forward your question to Walter Sobchack, who lists Lan Doc as one of the places where so many of a generation went before their time.
Hill 364, also.
charles johnson
DBrown, what I said was “I doubt there are many jews among the tea baggers.”
Mentioning one jew–who I haven’t seen at a tea bagger rally, btw, maybe you have–doesn’t disprove what I said.
Rhoda
Medicare being extended to 150% of the poverty limit; thereby giving 15 million more Americans access to health care alone is worth the teabagging of America. Disgusting and noxious as that’s been.
I’m praying that survives the conference committee.
I’m also really hoping Reid looks over at Nancy Pelosi’s amazing accomplishment and swings for the fences. The beauty of the House bill; I think it could survive reconciliation.
charles johnson
I agree that the filibuster really needs to end, but it gives individual senators a lot of power, so I doubt you can get them to give it up.
EnderWiggin
If so, you have a disturbing lack of imagination. I have serious doubts that anywhere in the free world a more self destructive institution than the U.S. Senate has been created. If we had banished it 20 years ago, we would probably be looking at 200 more years of American supremecy, not 20.
arguingwithsignposts
@charles johnson:
Is that “the” charles johnson”?
Fred Hiatt and Ruth Marcus can both blow me.
jcricket
The saddest thing is that Lieberman’s a complete paper tiger. Dude will fold at the drop of a hat. Arrange a fake medal ceremony for him or whatever and he’ll vote for it.
But then after the vote, strip him of stuff anyway and tell him to FOAD.
Ben Nelson is a tool, but at least I understand his “conservatism”. Lieberman has no reason to do this, and has flip-flopped more times than, well, a flip-flip.
Then make it clear the filibuster will be abolished, and do it. No one benefits from this. I know this will hamstring the Ds should we ever be in the minority again, but I don’t fucking care. This whole super-super-super majority thing (Senate non-proportionalism + ridiculous rules/holds/committees + filibuster = you need Senates that cover 80% of the population before you can get a vote) is killing America.
Dems need to start addressing these super-majority requirements, or make it clear that if they can’t make progress on an issue, it’s the minority and a few Democratic tools – the public hates Congress at least partially b/c of lack of progress (not just ideological differences).
ARGH! So mad I can hardly think, let alone type.
Persia
Remember folks, if your Senator is on the fence, and hell, even if they aren’t, SEND A LETTER. Call on the phone. Fax them, email them, something. LET THEM KNOW.
charles johnson
I’m afraid I don’t know who “The” charles johnson is. I’m merely “A” charles johnson. It’s an annoyingly common name.
arguingwithsignposts
@Persia:
Fortunately (or unfortunately), my sen. is not on the fence. he’s strong for the p.o.
JK
@calipygian:
OK, so these were the hardcore Glenn Beck supporters.
Were you traveling with a larger group of individuals or were you alone at this event? Did you attend the event with the goal of engaging in a rational, civil dialogue with tea baggers in the hopes of possibly winning some of them back from the dark side? If so, I commend your effort and idealism.
jcricket
BTW – despite my cynicism, I think health care will pass, and I think it will have the public option (no trigger). I think the Stupak “pro-sepsis” wing will unfortunately succeed with their amendment, and I think the funding of the final bill (and subsidy levels) will be far from ideal.
But it will pass and Obama will sign it. In doing so this will enshrine healthcare as a right, eliminate a host of free-market “innovations” (rescission, pre-existing conditions, gender discrimination, etc) that make healthcare so shitty – and put us at least in the ballpark of being able to address the other issues (cost control, the perverse incentives to over-treat, medical error rates, etc.)
And again, even as fracking stupid as the Democrats are, the Republicans have done such an awesome job of being even bigger idiots (running against universal healthcare is idiotic, no matter how you try to spin it) that they are dooming themselves to the wilderness for a loooong time outside of the deep south/mormon belt.
arguingwithsignposts
@charles johnson: Little Green Footballs‘ charles johnson.
charles johnson
Agree with Persia. If you don’t at least email your senators about this vote then I would say you don’t actually care about this topic.
arguingwithsignposts
@charles johnson:
Little Green Footballs‘ charles johnson.
jcricket
And Joe Lieberman, regardless of his final vote, has sealed his political obituary. Whether he runs as an independent or a Republican next time, CT voters will kick him out.
He’s 2009’s Zell Miller.
As a fellow Jew, I am ashamed of once considering Lieberman a good person, more than you can know.
Blecch.
arguingwithsignposts
Dammit, I must be in moderation. Little Green Footballs’ Charles Johnson. That’s “the” CJ I was speaking of.
jcricket
@charles johnson: What if both my Senators are already on-board (WA-state here). And even in former states I’ve lived (PA, MD, NJ) we’re still fine.
Can I carpet-bomb Lieberman’s office with tiny, tiny violins (that play just for him)?
smiley
BTW, I really like that the president kept referring to “health insurance” reform and not “health care” reform in his statement this afternoon. I like that framing a lot more and I think it will be less scary to people who are afraid of “socialized” medicine.
arguingwithsignposts
@charles johnson:
Durbin and Burris are both on the record supporting the P.O.
New Yorker
Not true. Fascism is generally a lower-class movement. Sure, there may be some bandwagoners from the upper classes, but the soul of the movement is petit bourgeoisie and working-class.
The fact that Palin energizes them so much just confirms this in my mind.
charles johnson
I don’t like the Stupak amendment, but is there anybody out there who depends on their insurance to pay for abortions? From the Guttmacher Institute:
“Some 74% of women pay for abortions with their own money; 13% of abortions are covered by Medicaid, and 13% are billed directly to private insurance. Some women who pay for the procedure themselves may receive insurance reimbursement later.”
So the stupak amendment I guess would affect some of that 13%. That doesn’t strike me as a very big deal, and those people I’ve seen on the more…enthusiastically…liberal blogs who would rather kill the whole effort because of this amendment are frankly being stupid.
charles johnson
We need to get a whole bunch more women in the Senate and the House. That would put the kibosh on this anti-abortion nonsense.
jcricket
@charles johnson: Interesting stats. I think it’s unfortunate, but there’s no way scuttling this bill b/c of the Stupak amendment makes any kind of sense.
The best way to “fix” this if you can’t strip the amendment is insert another amendment with language providing high subsidies for birth-control and requiring scientifically accurate sex-education. Maybe even a thing in there about Plan B (like requiring pharmacies to carry it, or insurance to cover it).
That’ll reduce abortions significantly enough that it might make up for the lack of funding available through insurance plans. I’ve often thought this would be a “brilliant” battleground for progressives anyway. Call the conservatives’ bluff – you know they’ll start going after birth control and access to Plan B (which have much higher levels of popular support than abortion) – further alienating the “moderates” they need to win.
Demo Woman
@charles johnson: I’m pro choice but I agree with you. Affordable health care will be open to all women and there are other issues that affect females. If the amendment stands and there is no reason to think that it won’t, then my extra dimes will go to planned parenthood.
Nellcote
I don’t think Lieberman plans to run again. I think he’s building up chits from BigBiz to get a massive paycheck as a lobbyist/consultant.
Brachiator
@New Yorker:
Horse crap. The British upper class loved themselves some fascism. The founder of the British Union of Fascists, Oswald Mosley, was a baronet. His wife, Diana, dug Hitler so much that she kept a photo of the little darling that she tried to hide under her kid’s mattress when the Brit authorities came to arrest her and her husband.
In the US, upper class twits like Philip Chandler, brother of Los Angeles Times publisher Norman Chandler, was a prominent member of the John Birch Society, which attracted many of the Ivy League and prep school set.
The chairman of the racist, nationalist, British National Party, Nick Griffin is a Cambridge grad.
There is nothing more foolish than the fantasy that people become more liberal as they move up the educational or class ladder. It’s just that these people become smoother and more oily about there fetid little dreams, and insulate themselves with helpers and surrogates who are more “down market.”
Nellcote
@Brachiator:
See also Prescott Bush.
Linkmeister
Planned Parenthood’s commentary on Stupak-Pitts. It would:
What Stupak does, among other things, is disallow any insurance plan from offering abortion services if any purchaser of the plan receives any federal subsidy money. In effect, that’s all of them, so none would offer the services if they expected to get their hands on Uncle Sugar’s help for the uninsured.
Trouble is, that press release was from yesterday. They’ve known about Stupak’s efforts for a year. I keep wondering: what took them so long to fight?
Linkmeister
Well crap. That asterisked item was supposed to be within the blockquote.
calipygian
@JK: I was alone. And I went to piss them off and provoke them, not to reason with the unreasonable.
So I pretty much had a gob of spit in the face (or worse) coming to me because I’ll admit, I was a dick.
jcricket
@Nellcote: This is why we need a 5-year ban/non-compete type thing. Being in national politics is a special privilege, and so, so sorry if you can’t immediately cash in on it afterwards. That’s the price you pay for the power you have (and the pension and healthcare you get).
J. Michael Neal
Good luck getting the 67 votes that would require. Changing the Senate rules requires a 2/3 majority.
Now, the only reason that this is true at the start of a session is because the Senate holds that, since only 1/3 of its members are replaced at any election, it’s never really out of session. Therefore, all of the rules are considered to be continuing, rather than restarted with each session. That’s why there’s never an opportunity to install new rules with a simple majority.
If the Democrats wanted to be really ruthless, they could have the President of the Senate (Mr. Biden) overrule any contrary ruling espoused by the parliamentarian (I have no idea what his verdict would be) and declare in January 2011 that it is a new session and the rules need to be passed de novo by a simple majority, and eliminate the filibuster. I doubt that they are this ruthless, and I’m not sure I want them to be. I do think that this is a silly holding, though; by any reasonable reading, it’s a new session every two years.
The House, of course, doesn’t have this issue. That’s why the rules there change more frequently. It only takes a 2/3 majority to change the rules during the middle of a session, not at the beginning.
Aren’t parliamentary rules fun?
schnooten
Anybody with more constitutional law credentials than this lurker know how well the Stupak Amendment squares with Supreme Court precedent holding that predicating the receipt of government benefits on the relinquishment of constitutional rights is itself unconstitutional? Anyone remember what the case was that said as much?
drillfork
For what it’s worth AP is already pronouncing this DOA in the Senate:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_health_care_overhaul
They’ll pass something, but if you think Stupak was a buzz-kill, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet…
diogenes
@jcricket:
Since when is mandating, complete with criminal fines and jail time, that I purchase insurance, “enshrining healthcare as a right”?
Oh, I forgot. They hate us for our freedoms.
lyons
of course the super rich are amenable to fascism (and some of them are funding the teabaggers) but there are not enough of them to run around in mobs, so they need more working class types to do that…
burnspbesq
@arguingwithsignposts:
Do let us know which one is better at it.
pika
Please just call and write your Senators and implore them to strip out the Stupak amendment. I would hate to see folks decide NOW that protecting health care legislation that may (or may not) pass is so important that sacrificing normal, necessary health care that many will seek and need (and again, don’t think for a second this is just about abortion) is a necessary sacrifice along the way. It may end up being that, and I’ll be pissed, but I’ll be even more pissed if folks decide in advance, without fighting, that it’s already a necessary sacrifice to make.
J. Michael Neal
@Brachiator: Perhaps it needs a bit more explication. Fascist parties that are in any way successful have their power base among the lower middle class. Fringe movements like the British Fascist Party don’t really matter, but, if they were going to become powerful, it would be by melding with disgruntled lower middle class people.
This was the case for the Nazis, Mussolini’s Fascists, the Fascist contingent of Franco’s coalition (most of which is more properly considered a reactionary Christian party). In the US, while there were some upper class sympathizers, what gave them any power at all were the people attracted to Father Coughlan and Charles Lindbergh.
Many of the upper class people connected to the movement were pretty tepid fascists; mostly, they were businessmen looking to make a buck. Prescott Bush wasn’t a fascist; he was an amoral capitalist. This was certainly true in Germany. During the 1920s and early 1930s, both the aristocratic wing and the business wing of the conservative movement held the Nazis in contempt. They backed Hitler because they thought he could mobilize the votes to get into power from that lower middle class base, and then they could use him as a figurehead for their extreme pro-business policies. They were wrong.
It should also be noted that, in continental Europe, the lower classes were not a source of strength for the fascist parties. As a general rule, they supported the communists when they picked an authoritarian party. The divide between the bourgeoise and the proletariat was deep. This is less true in modern Britain, where communism has disappeared, and one could see the fascists mobilizing the racist hooligan movement. Unlikely, but possible.
arguingwithsignposts
@burnspbesq: ROFLMAO. I suspect they’re both pretty shitty at it. :)
charles johnson
“What Stupak does, among other things, is disallow any insurance plan from offering abortion services if any purchaser of the plan receives any federal subsidy money. In effect, that’s all of them, so none would offer the services if they expected to get their hands on Uncle Sugar’s help for the uninsured.”
You seem to be confusing ‘insurance plan’ with ‘insurance company’. I’ve seen no reportage which indicates that a company which offers an exchange plan without abortion can’t simultaneously offer a private plan with super-duper coverage for abortion.
Brachiator
@J. Michael Neal:
I didn’t bring up Prescott Bush. I did bring up Philip Chandler, who wasn’t a tepid fascist at all, but a hard core Bircher.
To suggest that upper class people were not connected to the fascist movement is wrong on a number of counts. It’s probably more correct to say that the upper classes are nominal fascists who have no particular reason to be upset about anything as long as they are comfortably in power, and only get their dander up when an outsider who is not one of them, achieves power.
To get into hair-splitting over “successful” vs “fringe” fascist movements in order to try to minimize the attraction of the upper classes to this sort of thing doesn’t do justice to the complexity of the issue.
Historical studies like Aristocrats in Bourgeois Italy: The Piedmontese Nobility show how, even when they weren’t leaders of fascist movements, aristocrats readily accommodated themselves to the fascists, took jobs and
received honors from fascists in order to maintain a semblance of their social position and lifestyle.
TenguPhule
I remember when something like this would have been pioneered in the USA.
Must Japan always be better then us at everything?
TenguPhule
Not really. We simply need people who believe in choice.
The Anti-abortion women are even worse then the men.
Linkmeister
@charles johnson: And do you really think that any company would risk the ire of Stupak and the Catholic Bishops by doing so?
Or, if one did, that it wouldn’t charge such a high price that it would be impossible for poor and lower-middle class women to afford the premiums? Presumably there wouldn’t be such a huge pool of potential customers for that abortion-included private plan that prices would be affordable.
J. Michael Neal
Of course, no one ever said that. It’s a strawman of your own invention. What was claimed is that fascist movements draw their real strength from the lower middle classes. There may be upper class members of the movement, but they aren’t the power within the movement.
This is why the distinction between successful and unsuccessful fascist movements is not hair-splitting, but actually crucial to the point. No fascist movement has been successful relying upon the upper classes for either its primary leadership or main source of support. If that’s all they have, they’re insignificant on any meaningful scale.
On the other hand, there have been fascist movements that have been successful without significant participation by the upper classes. The Nazis are an example. They formed an electoral alliance with traditional, upper class, conservative parties, but the Nazi leadership and membership was overwhelmingly bourgeois. As soon as they were in power, they started cutting the upper classes out of the action.
The only way that the tea partiers become scary on a large scale level is if they mobilize a significant cross-section of the middle class. I suspect that they will have to grow beyond a point where deep pocketed financiers can remain the primary source of funding or retain significant power within the movement.
That’s not to say that the Koch’s aren’t dangerous. It’s that they aren’t dangerous because their participation signals any sort of effective fascist movement. Their real, direct danger, involves them successfully playing the tea partiers for dupes to get through their extreme pro-business agenda rather than the things that the birthers really care about. In other words, playing the mob for chumps, just as they have been for three decades.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@TenguPhule:
Tough neighborhoods are America’s last advantage.
Brachiator
@J. Michael Neal:
This wasn’t the original claim either, which was New Yorker’s rather fuzzy statement about fascism attracting the lower classes in talking about tea baggers.
And of course, the tea bagger movement isn’t an organic movement of lower class people at all, but has been orchestrated and puffed up by plutocrats, Ivy League neocons and other fellow travelers.
But in any case, we may agree more than disagree on this point: aristocrats and oligarchs often support and underwrite fascist movements, only to be surprised when the fascists turn on them.
Anne Laurie
@Brachiator:
This. I’m just barely old enough to remember when “Quemoy and Matsu” were fighting terms for the old-school Birchers. “Who lost Iraq? ! ?” would work as well for the not-batshite Republicans as “Who lost China?” worked for their grandparents in the 1960s.
charles johnson
“November 8th, 2009 at 6:59 pm Reply to this comment
Linkmeister
@charles johnson: And do you really think that any company would risk the ire of Stupak and the Catholic Bishops by doing so?”
Yeah. I’m sure blue cross and blue shield sits around trembling in fear of Bart Stupak. Seriously, I think you need to get a little better informed on these topics.
charles johnson
Several states already require state employees’ insurance plans not to cover abortion. Those same companies nevertheless still offer other insurance policies and riders which cover abortions. The feds already require federal employees’ insurance plans not to cover abortion. Those same companies nevertheless still offer other insurance policies and riders which cover abortions.
But maybe the colossal fear you imagine people have of “Bart Stupak’s ire” will change all that.
Sure.
calipygian
@Anne Laurie:
Once upon a time, mainstream Republicans like George H.W. Bush made fun of the “who lost china” folks. The “unleash Chiang” story is pretty funny.
HRA
“I can’t imagine that the Senate will drop the ball”
A news blurb minutes ago on TV quoted Lindsey Graham as saying HRC will die in the Senate.
Is it any surprise to have Liebermann saying he will fillibuster? Graham and Lindsey are team McCain -thinking of them as they posed on both sides of the maverick.
Liebermann has a local problem in that Hartford CT was know as the insurance capital of the world or maybe it still is true. Not too long ago someone told me the insurance lobby has paid Liebermann 5M.
So why are the Dems keeping Liebermann as a committee chairman?
JHF
Christ, where do you get this “getting access to health care for 30 million Americans” stuff? I mean, really. Aren’t you just talking about the freaking mandate?
Senyordave
I no longer consider Lieberman to be Jewish. His lack of values and basic morality is not consistent with the basic elements of the Jewish faith.
Since you can’t recall a senator, I would love to see people in CT protest him. Picket his house, picket his wife’s offices, make his life generally unpleasant.
The fact that this piece of shit’s wife lobbies for drug companies shows where Lieberman’s priorities lie.
Nick
@jwb: Well remember when Reid decided to include the public option and we heard all those “anonymous sources” about how the President was really for Olympia Snowe’s trigger idea?
keestadoll
This is all just peachy. How many more people will be bankrupt/uninsured/generally screwed until this plan goes into effect? 2013 right? Unless the senate plan and the house plan do something about immediacy, I’m holding off doing back flips.
jwb
@Nick: I don’t think Obama was ever “for” the trigger per se; he was “for” whatever could get out of the Senate. He didn’t think the PO could get out of the Senate. Reid, Schumer and a couple of other Senators convinced him otherwise and so they decided to play it this way. When after the meeting Reid et al declared that Obama had asked a lot of very tough questions, you can darn well be sure that one of the first questions was something along the order of: “what the fuck you going to do when Liebermann throws his hissy fit?” You’d have to be an idiot not to ask that question in that circumstance, and while perhaps overly cautious in exercising his power to smite lower political beings, Obama has not shown himself to be stupid.
kay
@HRA:
I don’t know.
I think we now understand why Olympia Snowe turned into the most important person in the world.
I was always worried about Lieberman, and I’m still worried about Lieberman. He’s already announced he doesn’t support a trigger either.
Given his looooong record of completely screwing Democrats, perhaps most especially the Democrats who voted for him last time, who he flat-out lied to, I have no idea why people trust him now.
Elie
keestadoll:
there is no way to implement this immediately…There is a lot of work to get things into place.
I hear your concern, but it will take every bit of a couple of years just to set up the administrative structure, make sure there are enough docs to cover and get everyone enrolled,
Its a big deal
keestadoll
Elie:
I hear you. Meanwhile I’ll keep washing my hands and hope against hope Blue Shield doesn’t quadruple my premium.
Neurovore
I have some questions, and sadly have not had time to follow the discussion relating to the bill going through the house…
Right now, it seems that there is some disagreement over a “trigger” as opposed to an “opt out” provision. The way things are going, which is going to be more likely in the final version of the bill?
Secondly, was Max Baucus’ idiotic idea of bailing out insurance companies by forcing everybody to purchase insurance and giving subsidies to those who cannot afford it rightfully abandoned? Or is the latest bill going to do something of that nature while we all get stuck paying high deductibles and copays for crappy mandated insurance or face a tax penalty?
Finally, if the “opt out” idea is still going strong, how long will states be required have a public plan before trying to ditch it?
bob h
George Stephanopolous suggested the House HCR was a “phyrric victory” for the Dems on Sunday. What a sick, perverted political culture we have in DC.
BruceK
Should “GBCW” be added to the lexicon, perhaps?
kay
@bob h:
Media are fundamentally opposed to health care reform. If you can find me a major media figure who has approached this seriously and rationally, as even a serious problem that requires some effort to address it, I’ll reconsider that statement, but I don’t think you’ll be able to do that.
I’ve never seen anything like it.
This does not matter to them. It didn’t matter prior to the proposed legislation (as evidenced by the complete lack of coverage of the failures in the system we have over the last 15 years) and it doesn’t matter now.
I think we’d see a whole new focus if two things happened:
1. the Senate health care insurance plan was suspended until they voted on a proposal
2. media figures lost health insurance
There’s a complete disconnect between the situation at the consumer level and the reporting. It reminds me of the housing boom, and the build-up to the mortgage crisis.
kay
@bob h:
I had to drive several hours across several states last night, and when I do that, I listen to the radio. Every news mention of the bill was negative. Uniformly and consistently negative, too. The same set of talking points.
CBS radio was startling it was so slanted. They featured Lieberman and Graham snippets (those were then helpfully rephrased and repeated by the news reader) and no rebuttal of any kind from proponents of reform.
I’m flabbergasted by it. If you had told me any of the coverage was a paid ad spot by anti-reform activists, that would have been completely believable.
Nick
@charles johnson: oh, did you think Joe was doing this on principle?