Jim Geraghty, liar:
So What Kinds of Objections to ObamaCare Are Okay?
For all of those shocked, appalled, horrified and fainting at the presence of the “political terrorists*” showing up at town halls with members of Congress, and who are reassured at the thought of the AFL-CIO** coming in to calm tense constituent meetings, a query: Exactly what forms of objection and protest do you find acceptable for citizens who disapprove of the health-care proposal before Congress?
Hey, I hate the heckler’s veto, and want the folks yelling at Blue Dog Mike Ross to give him time to point out where he disagrees with Obama. Yes, it’s stupid to use Nazi imagery in protest signs, I’m glad that after eight years of “Bushitler” you guys have finally figured that out.
But what is okay in your guys’ book? Besides curling up and dying***?
****** Or as it will be called under future versions of the bill, “end-of-life counseling conclusions.”
You know what kind of objections are ok, Jim? Honest ones. Now stop lying about end-of-life counseling and pretending it is a plan to euthanize senior citizens, you low-rent hack.
Christ. If talking about a living will was the same as euthanizing someone, every lawyer would be Jack Kevorkian. The shamelessness and dishonesty about this is just amazing.
dmsilev
OK: Showing up to a town hall meeting and asking pointed questions of your congresscritter. Hell, even asking loaded questions is OK.
Not OK: Showing up to a town hall meeting screaming NAZI NAZI NAZI and claiming that Obama will soon start serving Soylent Granny to welfare recipients.
-dms
El Cid
“Death Panel” = end-of-life / advanced care planning consultation, legislation amended and included by Republican Senator Johhny Isakson, R-GA:
*****************************************
Current HCR Proposals of Interest to the End-of-Life Care Community
The following proposals have been voted upon and agreed to during the legislative action on health care reform. Please note that the process is still in early stages and this does not represent what will be in the final package.
In the House Proposal, HR 3200, “America’s Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009”:
1. Hospice Annual Market Basket increase reduced by Productivity Factor Adjustment beginning in fiscal year 2010 (Sec 1103)
2. Extension of Moratorium on BNAF Rate Cuts (Sec 1113 – in Chairman’s Mark)
Extends the moratorium on the removal of the hospice budget neutrality adjustment factor through fiscal year 2010.
3. Advance Care Planning Consultations (Sec 1233)
Provides coverage for consultation between enrollees and practitioners to discuss orders for life-sustaining treatment. Consultations would be provided every 5 years, or more frequently if the enrollee is diagnosed with an advanced illness.
It also instructs CMS to modify the “Medicare & You” handbook to incorporate information on end-of-life planning resources and to incorporate measures on advance care planning into the physician’s quality reporting initiative. Read the legislative analysis of this provision.
4. Programs to Increase Awareness of Advance Care Planning Issues (Agreed to – Baldwin/Burgess Amdt)
Establishes a grants program to maintain an information phone line and clearinghouse for state-specific advance directive materials, and an additional grants program to fund an advance care planning educational campaign. Grants cannot be made to any government or non-government organization that promotes suicide, assisted suicide, or the active hastening of death.
In the HELP Committee Proposal, “Affordable Health Care Choices Act”:
1. Allows for utilization of CLASS Independent Benefit Plan for advance care planning (Agreed to – Isakson Amdt)
Within the establishment for a national voluntary insurance program for purchasing Community Living Assistance Services and Support (CLASS) available to individuals with functional limitations, program funds can be used for advance care planning.
Hunter Gathers
Ladies and gentlemen, meet your new radicals!
ozzy
Ok. I call your Bushitler, and raise you a feminazi.
Hunter Gathers
@El Cid: A sponsored amendment by the GOP – priceless.
Michael
Personally, I think that any new townhalls should occur in Teamster shops. That, and some heavy emphasis on pipefitter and longshoreman trade halls.
That way, the shouters (particularly the sorts of middle aged entrepeneurial real estate sorts and pharmaceutical repping “men” I’ve seen) can put their teeth behind their words.
Demo Woman
@El Cid: Not sure that I can make it but Hank Johnson is having a meeting at DeKalb college Monday night. I would love to ask him if he agrees with the Isaakson amendment.
Wouldn’t the whackos go wild with that one.
Bob In Pacifica
These eruptions can be used to measure the honesty or lack thereof of your media. Add NPR to the list of news outlets that don’t call bullshit on the Rethug lies.
If media is supposed to report what is true, then the lies about “death panels” and other crap should be pointed out and the people who tell those lies should be identified.
They aren’t. They are complicit in the lies. Now you know.
El Cid
@Demo Woman: WHY DOES REPUBLICAN SENATOR JOHNNY ISAKSON WANT TO KILL TRIG PALIN ? WHY ?? WHY ???
Demo Woman
@El Cid: I think it’s important to highlight this.
wilfred
See Iraq, WMD, Iran, WMD, Blackwater, Guantanamo, CIA and Congress, Secret prisons, etc., etc., etc. Mutatis mutandis.
Awesom0
This is my heart talking and not my head, but I now honestly understand why nations have civil wars.
Another thought from my head and not my heart: If all non-wingnuts are really fascists and communists; when do we get to start eliminating these assholes – Obama’s health care death squads not withstanding…
Better yet: Let’s just get rid of “socialized medicine” all together. The sooner we eliminate Medicare, the sooner most of these useless elderly and useless Baby Boomers will start to die off and we can have our country back.
Of course I believe none of this, but the idiocy is just becoming too much to bear at this point.
El Cid
Why do we call police and fire fighters “public” services instead of “soci_alized” services?
Why do we have the U.S. Public Health Service (a uniformed service) instead of the U.S. Soci_alized Health Service?
Damned soci_alized medicine!
The Grand Panjandrum AKA Americans for America
He left out the most convincing argument against healthcare I’ve heard coming from these guys:
Michael Moore is FAT!
linda
msnbc had an earlier segment with alex witless and john harwood where harwood was making these false equivalencies of the two sides’ behavior at these town halls. and then when that segment was done, witless reported straight on palin’s latest charge of how obama will kill her downs kid, failing to point out what an idiotic claim it was and there was no such provision in any healthcare plan offered by the administration.
eric
How long must we wait for a post titled “Fear of a Black Planet?”
Here is the other thing: how do you look at the Obamas and say: “that guy interacts with his family in a way that makes me think he wants to kill elderly family members?”
wait for it, wait for it, here it comes; he is BLACK and “they” cannot be trusted. He hid is ties to Rev. Wright from America, he his his ties to Ayers, his ties to ACORN, ties to Alinsky, he has hid the truth of where he was born; he hs hid his mulsim upbringing (cannot be reconciled with Wright, but move along). Heck, pretty soon we will find out about his trip to the USSR before the fall of the Wall, ala the Big Dog. (I am only partly joking.)
I posted a variation of this on Benen’s site yesterday:
The protestors are likely to be the same people who have made fun of me my whole life because i am “book smart.” They denigrate learning because it can stratify people in a way that does not put them at the top. So, you must create a means of stratification that (1) places you at or very near the top and (2) is unassailable. As a result, if you use “bloodlines” it is a closed set; or if you use birth place and color and region you create an even narrower set (Southern White Christian). You pick the things about you that you find most salient and you privilege them. Anything outside those primary traits are devalued — including education, race, religion.
The historical parallel is the Second Great Awakening in which the unwashed redefined religious expereince away from the intellectualized harvard protestantism to an orgiastic experiential protestantism. Thus, a particular individual’s experience of god and the bible always, by definition, trumped, learned religious teaching and practice. By making the key to truth supercede rationality, there can be no argument, there can be no correction, there can be no evolution, and, ultimately, debate serves no purpose. Only brute force matters.
We are seeing many people like that. I know what I know because I know it. Plus, because I am faithful person of god i cannot be radically deceived so that what I see and pronounce is true, no matter what evidence there is to the contrary.
Thus, these folks can demonize the other person and the evidence as the works of satan, both working as a test of faith registered only at a visceral level. Intellectual inquiry is the work of the devil. This is not a trivialized view of the devil. These people mean it. Because Satan is the prophet of false appearances, ALL things that contradict their internally known world-view are by definition false.
It appears that Palin is their political prophet.
eric
mclaren
Once again the Demos just curl up and whimper and let themselves get kicked to the curb. Their only response? Mumbling “it’s not fair to make these kinds of protests.”
That’s not how you win a political fight.
You win a political fight by, rhetorically speaking, ripping the opposition’s heads off and sh*tting down their necks. They show up with Hitler signs? Your side gets twice as many protesters to show up with Pol Pot signs, pointing out the Repubs want to kill your sick children and leave your ill parents to die because they can’t afford the co-pays for the insanely overpriced insurance.
Their side shows up chanting and screaming death threats? Your side gets five times as many people shouting them down with howls of “LIARS!” and “PAID INSURANCE COMPANY WHORES!”
That’s how you do it. They want a fight, cut ’em open and strangle them with their own intestines, figuratively speaking. Liberals just don’t seem to have the balls to actually stand up and fight for what they believe in.
Organized astroturf lying contests need to get outed as organized astroturf lying contests. Find out who’s paying these corporates whores and show up with giant 10 foot by 3 foot reproductions of the checks and bullhorns and scream CORPORATE WHORES MURDER YOUR KIDS FOR CASH until your drown ’em out.
Reminds me of Yeats’ poem:
The best lack all conviction
While the worst are filled with a passionate intensity
ozzy
Can I raise a Hitlery KKKlintoon?
Oh, and Mr. Geraghty, can you name the person or persons that wrote Bushitler? Were they the most popular broadcaster among liberals? Do they get invited to keynote Democratic conferences? Do Democratic politicians have to retract any and all criticisms of said idiots? Do you take your riding lawnmower to the drag strip and enter it in the funny car division?
Awesom0
@mclaren
Amen brother. This is war and we need to mobilize.
The Grand Panjandrum AKA Americans for America
@Awesom0:
As a Baby Boomer I want to thank you for excersing your First Amendment right to express yourself AND make an ass of yourself. Your comment is a reminder to us all that even those we may agree with can say or write some really stupid shit.
Rick Taylor
Fixed.
wasabi gasp
Why do you hate the ingenuity of the American people, John?
eric
@mclaren: or “Things fall apart, the Center cannot hold.”
eric
A Mom Anon
This isn’t all about healthcare either. I’d wager it isn’t even MOSTLY about healthcare. All this “I want my country back” sobbing and whining is about being scared that a black man is in “their”White House. The initial organizers of this idiocy is worried about their bottom line,they’re preying on the fears and craziness of willful idiots. I’m in the middle of a metric asston of problems personally and I still find the time to stay at least marginally informed,so the time thing is a crap nonsense excuse for being a moron.
Read the Bill,waawaaa. Please. There are precisely two bills from the House online(as of a week ago,I haven’t looked lately). Neither is finalized and one(HR 676)won’t see the light of day because it’s single payer,because noooo,we can’t have anything nice or simple,that’s too fucking much to ask. So,not only are all these screamers assholes,they’re ignorant assholes who have no idea how the government they’re protesting against even works.
I can haz civickz edumacation now plz? Jesus.
Awesom0
@AKA Americans for America:
You’re absolutely right. I just fucking pissed off right now.
Tom Levenson
Why do the GOPers hate old people so? As someone who sat by my mother’s deathbed, I’m here to tell you that the most compassionate gift she ever gave to her children was to take command of the end of her life.
These people either have no idea what happens when a body with multiple system failure hits the end of life industry, or simply don’t care, or perhaps just can’t imagine it ever happening to their own bodies.
Vicious or stupid or both.
I vote both.
Hunter Gathers
OT – this may be the worst thing ever (via rumproast)
http://www.rumproast.com/index.php/site/comments/the_birthers_new_theme_song_barrack_hussein_obama_where_were_you_born/
html fail
wilfred
An astute comment. This is a précis of Othering, a never ending process in this country; the specifics, health care, in this case, hardly matter. What’s terrifying is annilihation.
What complicates the present moment is the fact that this is not an unreasonable fear. The hope for sublation is receding and the more – can anyone really envision a future where White, fundamentalist Christian concerns still have any political influence?
The Second Great Awakening was almost simultaneous with the Industrial Revolution, where the fear was of the total triumph of Materialism, hence the reversion to ur-Idealism.
WereBear
On this topic, I have distilled a lifetime of dealing with Stupid in my diary on the GOS:
Mr. President: I hope you understand Stupid
I hope interested persons will click over there.
We must stop gnashing our teeth over Stupid. We must co-opt the Stupid. We must have a Stupid Outreach Program.
Because we can’t get rid of it. And, unchecked, it will destroy all our lives.
PK
It is only in America that people protest violently to demand the right to be exploited by large corporations.
Shibby
For John Cole, even though I’m a Clevelander, because I care…
“This is a fundamental change, and that’s why people are so passionate,” says FreedomWorks’s Brandon, of Obama’s reform initiative.
Now that supporters of health care reform are starting to turn out their own foot soldiers, Brandon suggested, tensions are running higher.
“This is kind of an explosive, combustible situation. The Obama supporterss are very passionate and very excited about their guy, and our folks are very passionate about what we believe in. When you get two people who are very passionate in the same room, it’s gonna get hot. I’m a Cleveland Browns fan, and when the Pittsburgh Steelers come to town, that gets hot,” Brandon said.
Original Article via Sully:
http://politics.theatlantic.com/2009/08/conservative_organizers_people_are_just_angry.php
(Sorry can’t use HTML)
Redshirt
Someone mentioned it in a previous thread, but much of the Republican response can also be understood as “tribal” or “team” behavior. They are on the Republican team, and their team is against the Democratic team. Thus, anything that comes from the D is wrong and bad, and everything that comes from an R is right and proper. And that’s that. No further thought necessary.
This obviously misses the larger picture — that we’re all Americans, heck, we’re all people, and obviously all on the same “team”. But alas….
eric
@wilfred: Indeed. I would point out that much of what we see here has a historic parallel with Biblical Israel. You have a chosen land shose enemies are enemies of the nation’s diety, allowing for the most abject dehumanizing. But here is the important point: Israel’s enemies also came from within and they too could become enemies of God when they strayed from His way or they caused Israel to act inconsistent with God’s way. (That is the point of the stories of Noah and Sodom.)
The birth of Israel is founded on Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his own son when instructed by God. The same God that promised Abraham that he would father a nation and allowed a fallow sarah to have Isaac in her twilight years. Ultimately, the story is founded on paradoxes that cannot be reconciled by reason, but only by faith.
Many of the Right’s foot soldiers grew up with these stories and their messages. If the father of Israel chose faith over reason and was rewarded as the father of a nation, why should reason trump things now.
The world view is deeply non-rational and thus, immune from rational argument.
eric
david1234
Simple: Behave like the people who were opposed to Bush’s attempt to privatise Social Security. No one would be complaing if you just did that. You may want to remember that they were successful.
demkat620
@Hunter Gathers: OMG
They have a theme song!
We’re doomed!
dom
Then candidate Obama: “If they bring a knife, we bring a gun”
The president’s message to Senators regardning the townhall protesters: “If they punch, we punch back twice as hard”
The teaparty protests have been going on since April, without incidents. It was only last week, since Obama has indicated to “push back” that we’re seeing any sort of violence. Not only that, but the goons are dumb enough to show up in bright purple t-shirts with “SEIU” screenprinted on the back.
Sorry Mr. Cole, but a cleverly edited, “non-partisan” (ahem)…”clip” by DailyKos TV (of all things), doesn’t show the facts.
From the St. Louis townhall:
Let’s see. Peaceful protests since April. Obama urges a push-back just this past week, his union donors send out the goons and….voila….we have violence!
Who’d of thunk it??
The SEIU are primarily a healthcare workers union. Big time supporters of liberal Democrats. Big time supporters of Obama, especially.
Coinicidence? Definitely not. I’m sure this is Bush’s fault. Or Sarah Palin’s, to be sure.
And oh yeah, Terri Schiavo.
Wake up….
JackieBinAZ
The “waaah, Democrats/liberals were mean first!” is being salted quite thoroughly throughout the political narrative these days.
bellatrys
Soylent Granny
dmsilev, FTW. (Does it come as a frozen treat, too?
More serious note – y’all gotta remember, too, that along with the stories of Canadians Being Forced To Come To the States to Get Crucial Surgery (again, these were being peddled back in the Seventies in conservative Catholic publications like The Wanderer and The National Catholic Register) there is the whole 1970s* Godless, Aging, Contracepting, Decadent Europe memecluster to contend with: which was partly peddled as Fear Of Immigrants (along with the Godless-Pagan Aging/Contracepting Japan scare story) but which, I now realize, had a dual purpose – HEALTHCARE BAD!eleventyleven
In this Narrative – and it’s almost always Holland which was held up as the nadir of this Ebol, but Switzerland came in for a lot of it too since they had an early needle exchange program, meaning that they were going to be overrun by Wanton Drug Use and Crime!eleven – the Godless Europeans having forsaken their Christian Heritage and become Secularhumanists, and thus selfish and immoral and decadent, not only weren’t having enough babies (and thus having to import workers from Turkey etc) but also due to their utter selfishness and depravity, were regularly and mandatorily killing off their elderly with state-sponsored euthanasia. Over and over again the cautionary tale of Godless Europe and its Culture of Death leading to self-extinction was held up to us Good American Christians as a warning of what we must fight, and face if the Liberals were ever to get hold of government in this country.
Thus you can get a literate, computer-connected chap like Josh “Tacitus” Trevino claiming absolutely unironically that there’s no measurable difference between real Holland and fictional Mos Eisley…
And oh yeah, it was full metal Godwin, back in seventies-theocon land. How could the formerly-valiant-against-the-Nazis Europeans have BECOME WHAT THEY WERE FIGHTING??
This is a meme-cluster that can be maintained, btw, even by people who have lived in Europe and/or have friends from Europe who have never had any worse issues with their healthcare than any insured American has, and who cannot point to a single first-person-experienced instance of someone they know being dragged away for Happy Release or having a relative taken away to be euthanized.
It can also be maintained in the face of scores of actual Canadians/ Britons/ Europeans/ Anzacs insisting that they LOVE their socmed, with specific case histories of how they would have died or been homeless with bankruptcy were it not for government healthcare – it’s perpetually rebunked because it tells the (apocalyptic) story they long to hear told** – and imagine themselves the stars of it, the valiant Paladins defending helpless Humanity from the corrupt Ephors and the swarthy Persians THIS IS SPARTAAAAA!WOLVERINES11! …um, can you get me another cup of coffee while you’re up? And maybe make me a sandwich, honey? where was I? Oh yeah – WOLVERINES! RAMBO! BRAVEHEART!SPAAAARTA!
*That is to say, I was a kid in the Seventies when this was being peddled; like fluoride-in-the-water, it could very well be a MUCH older propaganda package whose inception I just wasn’t around for. But I haven’t come across any Fifties-Sixties iterations of the Godless Europeans Kill Their Babies & Old PeopleEleventy! theme so far.
**(Fred at Slacktivist has an awful lot of relevant discourse on that phenomenon, fwiw. )
Anoniminous
Gallup Poll: 6 in 10 Republicans think humans were created in their present form 10,000 years ago.
Kos/Research 2000 poll: 28 percent of Republicans don’t believe that Barack Obama was born in the United States and another 30 percent are “not sure.”
60/40 odds the next Republican you read or listen to is an ignorant.
bellatrys
And Karen Ann Quinlan was the Terry Schiavo of the 1970s, too. And yes, theocons were just as whack about it then. We just didn’t have the internet, we had to do it all by hand with mimeo (remember mimeo? the purple smears and the banana-ish smell?) and small presses and face-to-face gatherings or (literal) games of telephone.
wilfred
@eric:
I agree with this line; American exceptionalism can be understood as the political expression of Judeo-Christian exceptionalism – also a by-product of the Great Awakening.
That’s it, really. I often think the only to understand this current struggle, and similar ones over the past few years, as the beginning of the final battle between Materialism and Idealism. The hope for dialectical resolution, or sublation, was never realistic, imo.
Sartre once wrote that the only strategy available to the Other is to be as Other as possible since he will always be the Other no matter what happens. Here, the Other will increasingly be the White, Xian fundamentalist. Their increasing shrillness and crackpot behavior is an indication of this (unconcsious) strategy.
And you’re right, of course, they are immune from reason. That’s why all this pointing out of inconsistencies is useless
eric
@bellatrys: > Let’s not forget the evil metric system and its role in the Europeanization of the US.
Of course, the real irony is that Europe has its own robust anti-immigrant, anti-muslim, brownshirt contingent that, because of parlimentary governments actually gets seats at the governing table at times.
eric
wasabi gasp
At least, the next prez who attempts health care reform will know the proper order of things: euthanize first, health care second. The tricky part is putting together a Department of Death Paneling and Wallpaper without folks thinking it’s gonna clash with their carpet pattern.
Jay
As long as they do it from Free Speech Zones they can say what they want. Though they should expect to be labeled traitors and treasonous.
Brachiator
@El Cid:
Advance Care Planning Consultations (Sec 1233) — Provides coverage for consultation between enrollees and practitioners to discuss orders for life-sustaining treatment. Consultations would be provided every 5 years, or more frequently if the enrollee is diagnosed with an advanced illness.
This is good stuff, and part of the heart of the issue. There are people, even some otherwise intelligent people, who are deliberately mis-interpreting section 1233 as though it permits government control of an individual’s end of life decisions.
As an example, see the quotation of parts of the proposed legislation and the wild distortion of the bill’s language in the sometimes useful blog junkfood science:
http://junkfoodscience.blogspot.com/2009/08/no-american-can-ever-say-they-didnt.html
The bill does no such thing.
And the Bioethics Defense Fund, typically, is an anti-abortion, anti-stem cell research group which has also jumped on the euthanasia band wagon. There reading of the bill deliberately lies about its provisions.
However, given the fact that Democrats and progressives have long had good healthcare reform as part of their agenda, it is disheartening to see how disorganized they have been in actually delivering the goods, and in not more effectively managing the reform efforts and the drafting of appropriate legislation.
The media has been typically stupid in covering the protests and in their lame coverage of industry and GOP efforts to undermine health care reform, but the larger issue still is that there are too few journalists, pundits and bloggers who have the smarts and the background to intelligently discuss the various proposals in the legislation. This inevitably leaves the door open to dingbats like La Palin, who stoopidly reduce complex issues to uninformed, ignorant whining.
Max
Just watched the public swearing in of Justice Sotomayor. She looks beautiful. I teared up a little.
Talk about taking our country back! I think we are on our way.
With that, I am turning off the television and going to go see Julia and Julie.
eric
@wilfred: I am reminded of the following line from Camus: Ideology is spiritual imperialism. We are seeing is militant strain reemerge.
Materialism is the enemy of religion because it denies the very possiblity of non-physical reality. So, you get virulent hatred of two great “materialists:” Marx and Darwin.
(For an epic laugh, go find Monthy Python’s World Forum panel.)
eric
kommrade reproductive vigor
Are these dipshits too stupid to realize that end of life counseling was included in a Medicare bill that passed in 2008 or do they know about it and are just lying pieces of shit?
Yeah, I can’t decide either.
bellatrys
Let’s not forget the evil metric system and its role in the Europeanization of the US.
Ack, eric, I had managed to TOTALLY FORGET about the anti-metric bullshit! Thanks for NOTHING, dude! (Also it wasn’t a big deal in our house because it wasn’t about Abortion, Birth Control, Drugs, Euthanasia, the Eschaton, Feminism, Paganism, or Liturgical Reform, so like the stuff about the gold standard, social security and unions my folks just kind of ignored it, being otherwise mostly-sane, pro-science types…)
The funniest (in a horrible way of course), hands-down, bar-non example of the persistence of memes throughout the ages I ever ran across was a 1790s recruiting poster for the British navy – it was full of ALL CAPS! ranting about how if you, Jack Tar, didn’t sign up NOW! the godless-
commieRevolutionary French were going to come over here, STEAL YOUR WOMEN WITH THEIR SEXAY FRENCH WAYS and worst of all, TAKE AWAY OUR BEER AND MAKE US ALL DRINK WINE INSTEAD!Every time I hear someone going on now about “Them” and how they’re going to SLEEP WITH YOUR DAUGHTERS AND TAKE AWAY YOUR BOOZE I think of that old Royallist parchment in that little California maritime museum, and just think “Nothing new, nothing new ever!”
Brick Oven Bill
‘Counciling’ in a time of funding becomes ‘rationing’ when the system goes broke, as everybody watching knows it will. The most valuable people in society are those aged 15 to 40 per this Adminstration’s advisors, and these are the people who should get treatment. In this manner the Administration is correct.
We are leaving an age of excess and the Administration is doing something about it, which I support. But they are again lying for political purposes. Leaders should not lie to those being led. This is a very unethical Administration, but I can get over that. They are providing a greater service by forcing people to participate in the process.
They have promised to bring a gun to a knife fight. But all they have is ACORN. Good luck with those losers.
Beth in VA
Thank you John Cole for direct spoken sanity.
Comrade Jake
You know what’s surprising to me? That they’ve decided to call this “ObamaCare” as opposed to “PelosiCare”.
Obama is the most popular pol right now. Sure, his numbers have dipped, but matched up against anyone he cleans their clock. Is the strategery here that they’re assuming it’ll be something people don’t like no matter what, so they want to hang it around his neck? Or is it just another case of the GOP not thinking particularly hard?
drillfork
America is ruled by the two Ps: Profit and Paranoia. Very often they work in tandem, but this is the perfect storm.
The murdering scum insurance companies and Big Pharm-a-holes are protecting their turf. The rabble, already knocked loopy by the fact that it isn’t 1958 anymore, is easily confused by healthcare, which can be a confusing issue, especially when astroturfers and right-wing media make confusion their goal.
Add to that the relative cluelessness/willful ignorance of our elite media, which doesn’t really care about this issue because they have great health insurance, so it’s not applicable to them, and the confusion swells into outrageous misinformation.
Then take a Democratic Party that generally serves the same corporate masters as the Republicans and MSM, and you see that no one in power is really committed to doing what is right. So one side has money and passion — yes, misplaced, loony passion, but passion just the same — and the other has hesitancy, disbelief, mistrust of even their allies on this issue, and… that’s about it.
So where does that leave us? Since no one in the Beltway really has our back, we’re not fighting. We’re just disgusted-to-the-Tunch-degree and praying that the racist, squidbilly-come-to-life shitheads don’t kill anyone over this.
Really, we’re not expecting any meaningful legislation to come of this, are we?…
kommrade reproductive vigor
No, duh. I just got it.
If people are encouraged to decide what they want to happen if they wind up in a vegetative state, there will be fewer Terry Schiavo’s for the fRighties to wank themselves into a frenzy over.
kay
@El Cid:
Here’s my question. Where the hell are all the groups that support advanced directives and living wills, and insisted that this be included in the bill? I agree with the idea, although I’m not sure why we decided this was so essential it had to be in the proposal, but EVERY sane person agrees with this, left and right. It’s not controversial.
Where are the sane people that feel strongly about this? I have seen one Democratic House member defend it. Where are the governors, doctors, nurses, state legislatures, probate lawyers, judges, etc.? 16 judges reviewed Schiavo, and not a one of them was happy about it, I’m willing to bet. Can they get off their ass and defend?
They’re going to let this ridiculous smear continue? What damage does it do to the whole idea of living wills and advanced directives?
PaulB
The sad thing, though, is that all of this is likely to work. The national media are not doing their job (surprise, surprise), and the polls have been trending steadily downward. We may be losing the best chance we’ve had in 50 years to get meaningful reform.
Alan
They’re Terry Schiavoing healthcare–death panels, euthanasia. It’s insane.
jcricket
Fundemantally, the answer to the question Jim Geraghty poses is “honest questions”. Ones that reflect objections to things in the actual bill. But frankly, I’d be fine with chanting, yelling, screaming, nazi signs, whatever, etc. outside the town halls. But trying to shut the entire thing down isn’t debate, it isn’t objecting, it’s not democracy, it’s thuggery.
BTW – I expect there are no honest questions/objections, because when polled on the specific issues (without scare-words like “SOCIALISM” or “GOVERNMENT DEATH PANEL”) attached, the public agrees with everything in the bill.
We’re basically talking about 7-8 sensible regulations and, at best, a public option for the uninsured. The biggest objections come from business owners who don’t want to pay the required taxes (but there’s no level of tax they’d be happy with) to support employee health care. Sure there are vague “Libertarian” objections, but those make as much sense as any of their philosophy (that is, they don’t address the real world situation we find ourselves in, and are instead hand-waving).
El Cid
ACORN. Nancy Pelosi. Barney Frank.
Keep it up, Republicans. I’m sure it’ll work if you just keep repeating that enough times.
someguy
1:1 odds that the ones who aren’t an ignorant [sic] are evil.
I don’t approve of anything the Republicans do, their mere existence is in fact an affront to all intelligent life. I could be convinced to voice qualified approval if all of them, if they curled up and died as Geraghty suggests. Though I’ll be on their asses like stink on shit if they don’t do it in a quiet manner and in an out of the way place, like, say, Guyana.
El Cid
@kay: Because it’s a minor yet important reform. I’m sure that they, like myself, had no previous inclination that the righties would look at that and go “OMG teh Obama will kill all the retarded babies”. We should have guessed, but nobody did, I think.
Anon
@david1234: Simple: Behave like the people who were opposed to Bush’s attempt to privatise Social Security. No one would be complaing if you just did that. You may want to remember that they were successful.
Nice try, but I doubt the folks at National Review are quite that dumb. They know full well that the tactics needed to defeat good policy are different than those needed to defeat bad policy. So lies, lies, lies, and paranoia it is.
jcricket
@PaulB: I fear that too, but then again, it’s not about the polls in the short-term. As others have pointed out, if Democrats give up, their approval ratings will go down further (people like failure even less than they say they like the proposed reforms).
If, OTOH, Democrats stick to their guns and pass a reasonably strong bill, the polls will go back up. People like winners, they like confidence, and the actual bill that will pass will not be some life-altering reform (for better or worse) for most people. Republicans will still be calling it the “end of freedom” and what-not, but that doesn’t matter. Over time it will have a positive impact on people’s lives, and build the foundation for further healthcare reform.
The key for future reforms will be the same kind of fortitude necessary to pass this current bill. Republicans will say “why haven’t costs dropped, and why are there more uninsured people. We should scrap the whole thing.” Democrats need to respond with, “The insurance company kept making things worse, so now the exchange is open to everyone, and btw, we’re enacting stronger negotiation rules and comparative effectiveness research panel, STFU”.
We never win by losing or tabling the issue until later. Never. Never. Never.
El Cid
The reason that all the right wingers are trying to derail and delay this reform is that they recognize that right now is when the Democrats are in the best position to pass it.
They want to delay it precisely because they know it would be more difficult to do later.
The rest is lies, like everything they do and say, except the ‘gaffes’.
jcricket
@El Cid: This. This is Republicans Waterloo. If they lose this, they will never recover. And if their tactics (which are being pushed to the limits of acceptability, as judging by reactions like Pearlstein’s in the WaPo) fail to stop healthcare reform, Democrats will learn they have nothing to fear from Republican’s fury and white-hot hatred.
Demo Woman
@jcricket: You have lots of ifs…
asiangrrlMN
The stoopid, it hurts. For some reason, I keep expecting good faith arguments and a semblance of reasonableness from the right. I need to get over that because it clearly isn’t coming any time soon. To that end, I have to get off my ass and start pestering my local Congress people, especially those who are on the fence about a public option in the healthcare reform debate.
Oh, and I have to give a metaphorical kick in the ass to arguably the stupidest, most batshitcrazy Congresswoman of them all–Michele Bachmann.
I have been feeling overwhelmed and discouraged by all the stupidity surrounding this issue, and I am sure other progressives have as well. With the traditional media firmly in the tank for ramping up the stoopid, it’s easy to forget that 3 out of 4 Americans WANT a public option. Time to start chanting that as my mantra.
fliegr
What do you think is the percentage of these mouth-breathers who gather together and shout “Tyranny!” about taxes and health care and then have no problem with the NSA data-mining their emails and phone calls and transcribing overseas servicemembers’ phone sex? That word you’re using, I don’t think it means what you think it means.
bellatrys
The stoopid, it hurts.
asiangrrlMN, if you need for any reason to give yourself a BSOD-brain reboot, google “912” and “meetup” and just read from there. It’s better than running hard into a brick wall for stopping thought, I guarantee – better than tequila in quantity, even. Some of my relatives, and several of the clients of the wingnuts I work for, have become 912ers.
Also, if anyone has any inside info on whether or not the 912 crowd is definitely using “zombies” as a dogwhistle/code word for “black” I would be – well, depending on the answer, not necessarily relieved, but at least less fretting over the uncertainty…
madmommy
@fliegr:
They don’t have any problems with it at all. Because if you’re not doing anything wrong, you’ve got nothing to worry about, right? I’m also willing to bet that they have no idea that such things happened to service members, and if they had heard of it, they don’t believe it’s true. Because when Bush was President, they completely trusted that the government would not do anything wrong. Now, of course, “everthin’s changed!!1!!” And we all know what THAT means.
El Cid
We just have to hope that the Democrats’ time horizon is the time period after the bill is passed and signed and begins kicking in.
If people and businesses like how their lives are improved by a good health care reform, how they save money and fear less and can do more, then it’s the sort of victory Republican screaming can’t undo.
If on the other hand Democrats are dumb enough to be thinking only about the next 3 months and Blue Dog crap and how this or that corporation or lobby was pissed off, or the next 15 months, then they’re complete idiots.
kay
OT, but Justice Roberts hit the word “impartially” hard in Sotomayor’s oath. I think she flinched. He’s a political hack, and a horrible human being.
El Cid
@kay: Yeah, but he’s white and conservative, so he’s impartial.
Brachiator
@fliegr:
They foolishly believe that the government is only going to data-mine other people’s emails, not theirs. You know, Muslims and “terrorists.”
Comrade Jake – You know what’s surprising to me? That they’ve decided to call this “ObamaCare” as opposed to “PelosiCare”. Obama is the most popular pol right now. … is it just another case of the GOP not thinking particularly hard?
Yep.
SATSQ.
General Winfield Stuck
I’ve come to the conclusion people like the teabaggers plus Geraghty and his ilk, are no longer interested in co-habitating this country as fellow citizens with different ideas on how things should be, with the day to day tolerance that requires.
They are on a war footing, where war propaganda is the norm for dialogue, and lies, distortions and disinformation are the only acceptable means of communication. And for one purpose, to win, whatever that means, and completely.
Right now it’s with political activity, but is on a trajectory to become something else altogether more ominous . Maybe that course will change with an improving economy, and these asshats get marginalized, I don’t know. But when one side makes claims the other side is trying to silence, oppress, or even kill them with government death panels, an untidy ending is not unthinkable.
I can’t deal with it right now, just cannot read or watch the dangerous stupidity for the time being,
GregB
We’re dealing with a large number of people who have euthanized their brains on stupidity and faux religious fervor.
Sarah Palin is by far the worst person to have popped up in American political life since George Wallace.
-G
Ann B. Nonymous
Since Republicans are masters of projection, it’s hard not to conclude that they plan on euthanizing the elderly once they return to power.
I can see the Twitters pass back and forth from Erickson to Domenech to Treviño now.
kay
@El Cid:
I’m sensitive on this. He cruised right by “rich and poor”. He’s too partisan to administer an oath properly, and that’s two strikes.
Screw you, buddy. Do your goddamn job properly, and leave your seething partisan rage at the courthouse door.
El Cid
@kay: I’m not disagreeing. I think he’s a useless, nation-harming right wing jackass. But then, that’s why the Republicans chose him.
El Cid
@Ann B. Nonymous: I.e., ” PLEASE DO NOT TRUST US WITH THIS POWER WE CANNOT FIGHT THE CHANGE ANY MORE YOU MUST LOCK US IN THE CELLAR FOR YOUR OWN SAFETY AND DO NOT LET US OUT NO MATTER HOW MUCH WE BEG… “
MobiusKlein
In all the videos of Townhall disruptions, have there been any non-white TeaBaggers?
Those entire crowds are honky beyond compare.
El Cid
@MobiusKlein: There’s a lot of wingnut noise being made about a ‘black vendor’ knocked down somewhere, maybe Tampa, and I have no idea what they’re talking about. But no, in general, it’s not impossible to have a few non-whites in even teaparty crowds. Not many, but a few.
Anoniminous
Me @ #38, time-stamped 10:59
“60/40 odds the next Republican you read or listen to is an ignorant.”
BOB @ #49, time-stamped 11:12
“We are leaving an age of excess and the Administration is doing something about it, which I support. But they are again lying for political purposes. Leaders should not lie to those being led. This is a very unethical Administration, but I can get over that. They are providing a greater service by forcing people to participate in the process.
They have promised to bring a gun to a knife fight. But all they have is ACORN. Good luck with those losers.”
**********************************************************
Gratifying to receive supporting evidence for my thesis so promptly.
Robertdsc-iphone
When that one who doesn’t want it is Max Baucus, we’re in serious trouble.
William
This maligning of rational thought about end of life decisions makes me crazy.
My mother ran an adult foster care home for a number of years. After about six months of that, we all filled out living wills. We were perfectly fine with the notion that people would rather stretch out their time, even when it meant continual confusion and discomfort, no semblance of their old lives left to them. But that wasn’t for us. No way, no how.
The part that horrified us was the suspicion that a lot of people in adult foster care and nursing homes never would have chosen that path had they thought it through. Nationally, we solved a similar sort of willful ignorance around organ donation, but right-wing scaremongering about the government killing old people is going to prevent an education effort like that for a decade or more.
Political Pragmatist
@kay: “OT, but Justice Roberts hit the word “impartially” hard in Sotomayor’s oath. I think she flinched. He’s a political hack, and a horrible human being.”
Yet precisely the “activist judge” the right hates, er, craves, er is on their side.
Wearbear, well done.
freelancer
@Hunter Gathers – 27
SRSLY? FUCK YOU. That birther song is worse than 2g1c and Rick Astley combined.
Hunter Gathers
@freelancer: Sorry. That killed more brain cells that blunt force trauma.
SGEW
[tl;dr]
During the entirety of the Bush years, I was that annoying individual who kept on insisting on an accurate use of the term “fascist.” Whenever a contemporary would insist that the Republican party was “fascist,” I would always say, “well, technically, ‘fascism’ isn’t correct, because of blah blah blah.” The “14 identifiers” and the “five stages” and the counter-historical dynamics in place, etc. – there simply weren’t enough signifiers in play to technically use the very loaded term “fascist.” Additionally, “fascism” has connotations and associations (e.g., the Holocaust) that are not necessarily synonymous nor coterminous. Nor helpful, really.
So saying, I am rather disturbed by this recent [1] arrival of a very significant identifier: politically directed violence against domestic adversaries. There are many caveats and qualifiers, of course [2], and all of the other objections still apply [3], but I’m getting a little creeped the fuck out.
The “right” is now reacting to loss of political power to a “liberal” opposition who is seen as both incredibly dangerous (killing babies and old people! classic) and “weak” (“appeasing” “enemies,” “apologizing” to foreign leaders) – an opposition that can be painted as “useless” and “impotent” in the face of looming economic and international problems. By upping the ante to include actual mob violence . . . well, that’s just one too many check marks on the road to real, literal fascism for my taste. This is the “fail-safe point” (h/t Sara at Orcinus, citing Paxton), where they go all in or not. The check mark list from here on out is where the slippery slope can upgrade to terminal velocity. (i cn mix metaphorz plz?)
However, naturally, it’s still too-early-to-say, and we’re not there yet (imho), and people who learn too much from the past are doomed to misinterpret the present, and we should probably come up with new terminology already, fer pete’s sake. Thus, this ridiculously prolix comment, wherein I scream “OMG they iz teh fascism” while trying not to Godwin all over this nice thread.
[1] Violence perpetrated by the police against protesters, which has been cited as fascist during the Bush years, is more a sign of general authoritarianism and not the more discrete tactic used by legitimate fascistic movements of mob violence by civilians against civilians.
[2] How widely/narrowly directed and/or controlled are these “mobs”? (I will need more evidence than a memo or two from second or third tier political groups) How much violence will actually manifest? How will the political opposition react? How will the public authorities intervene/interfere? Etc.
[3] For instance, historical fascists had simply fabulous design (see, e.g., Nazi films, Mussolini’s uniforms, Iron Guard symbolism, N. Korea’s pageants). The tea baggers couldn’t design their way onto their parents’ refrigerator – really, it’s pathetic. As soon as they get a really good brand manager, start worrying.
John Cole
@dom: Christ Dom- I linked to a video of a protest in Tampa because Jon Henke was talking about a protest in… wait for it… wait for it… TAMPA.
gizmo
The amazing thing about this healthcare fracas is that there is no healthcare plan on the table yet. Obama has not proposed one. There are various ideas floating around in Congress that will be sorted out in conference committee between the House and Senate, and the President may or may not sign the proposed legislation. The wingnuts have gone batshit ballistic over a bill that doesn’t even exist.
jenniebee
For the last eight years, Bush and Rush and Beck and the rest have been telling the American people that the country was facing an existential threat that could only be staved off by the strong, militant, biblical capitalism leadership that only Republicans could provide. And then, during the election, they upped the stakes and claimed that not only would an opposition candidate not hold off the terrorists, they claimed that the opposition were terrorists themselves.
So what did you expect, that after the election, they’d all just say “whoops, called our bluff! Don’t worry everybody, all that stuff about palling around with terrorists? That was just a lie. Y’all can just go back to stocking up on canned goods and picketing abortion clinics. Wait, on second thought, better skip that clinic part…”
mclaren
asiangrrl wrote
Holy.
Crap.
Have you been living in a bathysphere for the last 30 years???
The Republican party is the party whose whip, Tom DeLay, claimed that the Middleton CO school shootings were caused by teaching kids about evolution.
http://revcom.us/a/021/intelligent-design-trial.htm
The Republican party is the party whose mouthpiece, Rush Limbaugh, claims that the caduceus used on Obama’s health care reform website is a version of the Nazi death eagle.
http://imgur.com/aOBEa.png
The Republican party is the party whose president assured voters in a blatant lie that the tax cuts for the rich passed in 2001 were actually aimed at, and would primarily benefit, the middle class.
http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0926-12.htm
The Republican party is full of people who, if you asked them to describe a circle, would tell it was square.
Seriously. You expect good faith arguments from the party full of loons and kooks and cranks whose primary candidates denied evolution?
http://a_pretty_rainbow.gnn.tv/blogs/23163/3_Republican_presidential_candidates_deny_evolution_LOLZ_MUST_SEE
You expect a semblance of reasonableness from the right that claims the earth is 6,000 years old and Adam and Eve rode to church every Sunday on dinosaurs…?
C’mon, asiangrrl. Please. Tell you’re not that naive.
SGEW
@mclaren:
Maybe she’s just very . . . optimistic? Stranger things have happened.
[pauses to think about all of human history]
Maybe.
Comrade Darkness
For the record, and I have been a blog addict for quite some time, I have NEVER seen the term “Bushitler”. For one thing, it looks and sounds like Bullshitter, which is way more apt. I think he’s been hearing that and Godwining himself. No one I know would ever credit Bush II with as much in the way of brain matter and lack of being a clueless puppet that Bushitler would imply. Really.
freelancer
Niewert just posted at C&L and the first video is scary as hell.
http://crooksandliars.com/david-neiwert/brown-shirts-town-hall-teabaggers-ra
It’s from NARLO, North American Rural Landowners Association. (White Paranoid Hick He-Man Woman Haters Club)
The Narrator sounds like Carl Sagan if the man went the full wingnut. It’s a depressing thought to think. The vid hits all the winger bases:
-Illegals
-Outrage @ .7% of Federal Budget Used for Foreign Aid
-“How do you like their plan to shove us all into big cities!”
-Global Warming is a fraud
-Solar/Wind Power: BOO! Coal:YAY!
-Public Education encourages Socialism, care for the environment, and Multiculturalism! The Horror! Also, NWO.
-Objectivism: How long with the producers put up with taking care of the non-producers.
-Advocates Open Civil War against liberals and socialists.
-The very next slide: “Americans being squeezed by Government like a ripe tomato” [with graphic of woman’s fist crushing tomato]
-End the Fed
-“…tell the President of the U. S. Congress…”
-Secession
Wow, that’s like exactly the Wingnut Wet Dream. To paraphrase the end: “First come the Tea Parties, then come the pitchforks, then come the guns”.
It really is Red Dawn, except they think that 60-70% percent of their neighbors are sleeper Cubans.
Ben Richards
We have BOB on this thread and no Just Some F*ckhead. Warrants mentioning. JSF- we are on to your little game…
jenniebee
@Comrade Darkness: I was thinking that too. So I googled. Apparently, there’s one DU thread, one dKos diary, a guy chose ‘bushitler’ as an alias on Huffpo, and some random small time blogs I’ve never heard of before did some photoshopping. There are 27,900 hits, but the most frequent offenders are the Anchoress, people quoting the Anchoress, Confederate Yankee, the Corner…
“Chimpy McFlightsuit” on the other hand, has 37,900 hits. “Chimpy McHitler” has less than 9,000. Just for perspective.
Comrade Darkness
@mclaren: Don’t overlook the paranoid kneejerk freakout over the “obama personal foreign banner” that was the State flag of Ohio.
That one still cracks me up, even in these pathetic times.
jurassicpork
I think we’re closer to actual homicide over this debate than a lot of us realize. You stir up passion with ignorance and no good can possibly come of it.
Comrade Darkness
@jenniebee: chimpy mcflightsuit is one of my favorites. What a doofus he looked like jumping around with his “package” hanging out like that. Gods.
We laugh, otherwise we cry.
Comrade Darkness
@ozzy: Ah, that’s the right “equivalency”.
Hiltery :40,500 results
Bushitler: 29,500 results
both include photoshops, and an entry in the urban dictionary
But only the left is nasty and vile and resorts to disruptive discourse. Evar!
dom
@John Cole: Yeah. Sounds great. Using DKos TV to prove a leftwing talking point is kinda like asking Glen Beck to prove that there is a Birther movement. No offense.
I find it amusing that in a post about the “proper” way to voice objections in the debate on healthcare, there is not even one mention of the SEIU, with marching orders from what I’m sure are senior levels of “management”, are beating down protesters in the street. To the point where said protester is in the hospital.
If Gladney was an SEIU member or a healthcare reform supporter, we’d have another Rodney King story on our hands. And Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson would already be on the case, and the President wold be calling the perpetrators “stupid”—-then invite them for a keg party, I’m sure.
But no, let’s just keep pretending that the SEIU has nothing to gain from a new federal bureaucracy that will employ hundreds of thousands of healthcare workers across the country, while padding the pockets of the President’s political operations, and the VIPs in the Democratic Party.
And let’s just turn our heads that several purple-clad, racist thugs are intimidating citizens of this country, who, whether you like it or not, have every right to scream like idiots if they so choose.
Good lord, imagine if Bush supporters/donors were beating people in the streets if they opposed privatizing Social Security or cutting taxes….
But that’s ok. Just pull a Nooners. Just keep walking.
El Cid
When Republicans lose this battle, too, all they’ll have left as an excuse for why they did nothing when they had absolute power over all 3 branches of government 2002 – 2006 was that they got askeert of all them ACORN and SEIU and Barney Frank tough guys.
Yeah. Good luck with that. Keep it up and you’ll be 5 guys in an Alabama trailer park with the Republican Party of the Dixie Confederate Teabag Palin Uprising, begging for contributions so that you can fix up the used ice cream truck you bought to ride around on your Liberation 2012 tour.
freelancer
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/09/02/rnc.security/index.html
Kind of easy to do when the donors and supporters outrank the Minneapolis Police Commissioner and give him his marching orders.
Never mind that in the incident you cite so repeatedly, the Video “showing” union -members attacking conservatives, the most prominent video starts with the Union member lying face down in the street with conservatives standing around him. He who throws the first blow is guilty of assault, everything that follows is self-defense.
IOKIYAR.
freelancer
why the hell is it randomly doing strikethrough? I miss my EDIT button.
JoePo
@dom: Sample size? One protester is in the hospital in one documented incident in one town and we now have a replay of the ’68 convention on a countrywide scale?
I guess conspiracy theorists never have the burden of proof on their hands.
Comrade Darkness
@dom: I definitely agree that is you are hosting an event you should do absolutely zero security for it, no matter what is happening. Next time they should hire the cambridge police for security. I hear their tolerance for blacks shouting is really high.
the seiu should do nothing, clearly, just stand there and wait to get shot
dom
Yeah, because the police trying to “keep the peace” at a national political convention with thosands of people and SEIU union thugs at a local townhall have the same authority to
beat down a single healthcare protester for no apparent reasonspray down protesters. Makes complete sense now. Try again…Comrade Kevin
@freelancer: The strikethrough is happening when you put dashes on -either end of a sequence- .
dom
Sorry. I guess you prefer that severalpeople get beat down for no apparent reason other than that that person opposes healthcare reform.
freelancer
@Comrade Kevin:
Okay so WP is now just striking anything between two hyphens in a text? Sigh.
test-test OMG WordPress is like the best opensource software that ever been made. I hope Cole never changes and spends some of the money we donated on dog toys instead, this seems self-evident. [end test]
FUCK WP
freelancer
didn’t work there.
Comrade Kevin
I wonder how many AstroTurf points dom is getting from Freedom Works for his performance.
dom
Astroturf? You mean like when your townhalls are padded with union members to “fill out the crowd” and “get in their face”? With flyers sent out by Organizing for America, paid for by funds donated to the DNC? Telling your union overlords to “push back”?
JoePo
@dom: Maybe if you’d provide a single link that might verify your claim, I could assume you’re arguing in good faith. You elide details, in your cribbed paragraph from the P-D article, about pro-public option attendees getting bum-rushed and pepper sprayed by the police. But yeah, I guess the real culprits here are in the SEIU.
JoePo
@dom: No, I’m saying one assault does not prove a conspiracy. But anyway, I’m done. No more feeding the troll.
freelancer
Examples of Minn-St.Paul Police “keeping the peace” last Sept.
http://www.startribune.com/local/27703754.html?elr=KArksLckD8EQDUoaEyqyP4O:DW3ckUiD3aPc:_Yyc:aULPQL7PQLanchO7DiUX
http://www.democracynow.org/2008/9/1/st_paul_police_conduct_mass_pre
http://www.reason.com/blog/show/128533.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Republican_National_Convention#Police_raids_on_protesters_and_arrests
Again, these people were violent anarchist agitators, but the teabaggers are just expressing their first amendment rights.
IOKIYAR
Comrade Darkness
@dom: Ah, ironyproof. Must be nice.
Comrade Darkness
@JoePo: But, but, it has to be a conspiracy. A n____r is president!
Tsulagi
Yeah, I can see this dom guy crying over SEIU members showing up at town halls. Thugs, the lot of them. Service employees like waitresses and IT geeks. Can easily see why teabagging RSSFer types would be intimidated whimpering “Not fair!”
Maybe we should return to the informative town halls put on by the Commander Guy admin. You know, with full vetting of attendees and requisite loyalty oaths. Instead of spontaneous hard-hitting questions posed to GWB like “Is it really hard being so awesome?” we could have “Will I live to be 130 under single payer or just 120?”
jcricket
@El Cid: I love the idea that mean ol’ Barney Frank steam-rolled the poor Republicans. Seriously? Old, gay, fat, lisping, Massachusetts Congressmen are the new mafia?
Of course it’s really about “gay man is in charge, watch out”, just like the Obama hate is all about “nigger, nigger, nigger” (and Pelosi-hate is hatred of women, etc).
Republicans have no idea how ridiculous they sound to anyone but themselves.
Comrade Kevin
@dom:
My townhalls? I’m not a member of congress. In any case, the SEIU people aren’t Astroturfing, as they quite clearly identify themselves.
Anon
If Gladney was an SEIU member or a healthcare reform supporter, we’d have another Rodney King story on our hands.
You know what? I completely agree with you. If he had been a SEIU member or a healthcare supporter, it would be exactly like the Rodney King case: conservatives would be talking about how he deserved it.
jcricket
And they don’t shout down the people holding the townhalls, or prevent actual citizens who oppose healthcare reform from expressing their opinion, and the SEIU is made up of, i dunno, citizens who need healthcare?
The other dude needs to learn what astroturfing means. It’s not just when any interest group drums up support or opposition for an issue.
Kaleb
My wife and I were fairly active Ron Paul supporters early on in his campaign, and I’m still on several related email lists. I know that a lot of people like us were turned off by some of the people who became most vocal in local chapters of Paul’s campaign, and here’s where those people are pouring their energy. A story I got today, from Austin, TX:
“I attended the event and made the mistake of have the phrase “Government Healthcare Nazis” which is of course was referring to rationed care, the Libs and media were giving me more attention than I wanted. Things to watch out for: the Dems have people coming around just trying to provoke those against the health plan. They are also coming around and quizzing to find out how much you really know about the “proposed legislation”-make sure you call it that or you will be corrected. Some of them were very nice when trying to persuade, but it was still obvious that they were given the job of working the anti govt.health crowd. Others were down right rude and nasty. A young Jewish man started shouting and quivering about the word Nazi on my sign and argued that rationed care is not eugenics. Later, he was up at the podium with Doggett speaking. It is getting very heated and the opposition is VERY organized. I think many of the anti gov health crowd left early because of the bullying. I don’t like so much attention, so I’m making a new sign…..but for those that like the harassment…..just put the word Nazi or eugenics and attention they shall get!!!”
Anon
@dom: Hey, dom, what’s this about getting in people’s faces? Who’s said anything about that?
PaulB
See, that’s the problem with relying on rightwing propaganda. Not one word in this little rant of ours is true. And if you look at the videotape of the incident in question, you see a couple of things:
1. A union member on the ground before Gladney was even touched. Gee, I wonder how he got there? Do you think someone may have started something?
2. Gladney being pulled to the ground, bouncing back up again, and walking away.
That was the extent of the “beating down,” with the total incident lasting approximately 2 seconds from start to finish.
Chris Johnson
They want him killed. Pelosi- meh, not so much.
They are trying their hardest to put out a ‘obama = killing babies and old people’ meme so that if they can get Obama killed, they can have people say, “The question people are asking: did America dodge a bullet with regard to Obama’s plans to kill babies and old people?”
I’m not in the least joking. This is a regime change situation, and they want Obama killed, and a narrative that would ‘explain’ a right wing coup. It’s plain as day. They don’t get to say it outright, but they are working VERY hard to lay the groundwork.
Chris Johnson
note- intended blockquote goes to ‘thinking particularly hard?’. There was a space which made the blockquote shut off prematurely.
Fax Paladin
@Kaleb: ME AM BULLIED! ME AM PROVOKED WHEN ASKED WHAT BILL SAY!
My God, these guys really do come from fucking Bizarro World…
latts
@SGEW:
It’s not an area I’ve studied, but I always assumed that American fascism would be more like the Central/South American variety than the early-20th-century European type… more militia-populist (albeit without the unions, since here unions are nominally liberal). Maybe I’m completely wrong, but we do seem more disposed to tribal thuggery than massive statist crusades.
During the GWB administration, it seemed more to me like the right’s fascist tendencies were… not marginal, exactly, but very specialized and hard to link together wrt a movement. The ‘security’ apparatus, political corporatism, and the brownshirt wannabes were all big red flags, but were still more or less compartmentalized. I tend to think the American right are feudalists, in that they seem to prefer rulership by the nobility, gentry, & clergy, but fascism is a tougher charge even when we can identify its elements pretty clearly.
Well, I’d say that one concern is that since the right’s pols are not disassociating themselves as much from the crazies as they used to, it’s possible that the GOP marketing/design/propaganda corps could eventually learn to live with the lunacy as well, and then we really will need to worry.
Chuck Butcher
@dom:
You unmitigated whining pussy, why aren’t you out there protecting your brethren? You do realize that a union like the SEIU does have some seriously badass members and if any “beatdown” order was issued it wouldn’t be limited to this one person. You think playing at rage in a public meeting won’t get somebody else riled? It’s one of the risks of doing it that way, if you get in my face and scream at me you will get my adreneline going and in my case if you were to lay hands on me in any fashion I’d stomp a mudhole in you however innocent you thought that touch was. Right then and right there and you’d not be whining at the hospital, you’d be sedated.
It is a very very bad idea to carry on that way in crowded intense atmospheres. You are pathetic
Chuck Butcher
moderated…
really funny
was it pussy?
Chuck Butcher
sure as hell, you can’t write p*u*s*s*y
RayZorback
yawn….
section 1233 :docs receive $ from gov. to talk to your grandparents (or you) about when to pull the plug so we don’t “waste resources”.
Not as nutty as some think, but also not something I want my gov to encourage my doc to do. That is a little intrusive and a waste of my $.
Protest however the hell you want, but know what you are talking about. Both sides look stupid when they are saying that Obama will kill your grandma or Bush was behind 9/11. Just read and know your stuff. Like this soldier: http://bit.ly/teqtw He is well studied and knows his $#!T.
Whether you agree or not, you gotta go study to find out if it is true.
RayZorback
@PaulB: You asked the question about why the guy was on the ground at the start of the vid: The black guy in tan clothes was selling stuff at the little wooden cart you see in the front of the vid. How he got all the way over by the guy on the ground (seiu black guy): The black guy in purple was harassing him and getting up in his face. He started tussling with the tan guy (asking things like why a black guy is supporting the GOP) and worked their way over to the curb where the black guy slips off the curb. You can see how unbalanced the guy in tan is at the very start. It surprised him too. Then the big white guy in purple seiu throws tan guy to the ground.
This is my paraphrase of the events from eye witness accounts (there are a lot of videos of all this online from different angles). I’m sure it will all be in the police report to come out soon.
Basically, the instigators were SEIU & that is why they were the only ones arrested. Just FYI. Thanks.
PS: if you are offended by mentions of color, please make the word “black” = “African American” and the word “White” = “White”
fauxpopuli
It must be a real bummer to go through life as a lying hack who sucks so much at his job that he can’t make it to the end of the post without slipping up and acknowledging that the mob doesn’t have a constitutional right to show up and drown people out.
I mean, if I’m going to sell my soul I’d at least like to be able to take satisfaction at a job well done.
Anon
From here:
Supporters cheered. Brown finished by telling the crowd that Gladney is accepting donations toward his medical expenses. Gladney told reporters he was recently laid off and has no health insurance.
Oh my God, this is a joke, right? I mean, someone tell me that this whole thing was some kind of performance art piece?
daniel rotter
Asking a guy a question constitues a “tussle?”
daniel rotter
yikes “constitutes”