Stopping Corporate Supported Hate Speech
There is a great new campaign to cut off the corporate advertising support that pays for Glenn Beck’s hate speech. As long as companies like WalMart, Travelocity and Red Lobster continue to advertise on Beck, he will have a platform. The campaign is already working as 12 advertisers have dropped off in the past three weeks.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n3yaJ5nIRrE&eurl]
I have been trying to understand this most recent episode of delusional thinking on the part of the Right Wing, characterized by the “Death Panel” meme, that the New York Times tracks this morning.As The Times points out the original source of the false rumor was not some random blogger.
Rather, it has a far more mainstream provenance, openly emanating months ago from many of the same pundits and conservative media outlets that were central in defeating President Bill Clinton’s health care proposals 16 years ago, including the editorial board of The Washington Times, the American Spectator magazine and Betsy McCaughey, whose 1994 health care critique made her a star of the conservative movement (and ultimately, New York’s lieutenant governor).
OK, so the seed is planted by the same group that successfully defeated the last attempt at health care reform. But what causes the meme of “death panels” to catch on? The clinical definition of schizophrenia comes to mind.
A psychiatric diagnosis that describes a mental disorder characterized by abnormalities in the perception or expression of reality. Distortions in perception may affect all five senses, including sight, hearing, taste, smell and touch, but most commonly manifest as auditory hallucinations, paranoid or bizarre delusions, or disorganized speech and thinking with significant social or occupational dysfunction.
Such a cracked rumor wouldn’t have spread unless there was a general “abnormality in the perception of reality…manifest as paranoid delusions” in both Beck and Limbaugh and a good part of their audience. The source of Limbaugh’s paranoia might be traced back to his Oxycontin abuse, withdrawal from which leads to the following symptoms: restlessness, lacrimation,anxiety, perspiration, chills, irritability,increased blood pressure, respiratory rate, or heart rate. Whether Glenn Beck is a tweaker or uses Adderal or Ritalin to keep himself so jazzed for his show is beyond my purview, but it is well known that use of such drugs leads to general unfocused paranoia. But how do Limbaugh and Beck really work? No different from the leaders Richard Hofstadter described in his seminal 1964 essay, The Paranoid Style in American Politics.
As a member of the avant-garde who is capable of perceiving the conspiracy before it is fully obvious to an as yet unaroused public, the paranoid is a militant leader. He does not see social conflict as something to be mediated and compromised, in the manner of the working politician. Since what is at stake is always a conflict between absolute good and absolute evil, what is necessary is not compromise but the will to fight things out to a finish. Since the enemy is thought of as being totally evil and totally unappeasable, he must be totally eliminated—if not from the world, at least from the theatre of operations to which the paranoid directs his attention.
Paul Krugman suggests this morning that it is time for Obama to end the mythological “post partisan” rhetoric that assumes these people can be reasoned with.
This opposition cannot be appeased. Some pundits claim that Mr. Obama has polarized the country by following too liberal an agenda. But the truth is that the attacks on the president have no relationship to anything he is actually doing or proposing.
I think Krugman is right. Glenn Beck has about 2.2 million viewers a day. That is 6/10 of one percent of the U.S. population. They may be noisy and fearful, but why do we even care about their paranoid delusions?
Not sure Limbaugh is delusional, so much as it’s a conscious means to a paycheck, and a handsome one at that. Drugs don’t really factor in, except the paycheck pays/paid? for them.
The Right Wing Noise Machine is a money maker. Big business buys consulting firms to create the “meme”, then buys shills to spread it, and the folks who make their living (O’Really, Coulter, Limbaugh, Beck, and hundreds of other paid to shout-ers) join in because it’s a living: a lucrative living that becomes self sustaining. If your primary circle keeps repeating it, that’s what you hear, and eventually the “memes” become truthiness. The paid distributors probably come to believe many of their stories/ perceptions (it’s called method acting), which makes them more convincing. Most people read the emotional tone of a message more then the content, and fear is a very attention getting tone to use.
And then the cognitive dissonance kicks in. My personal take on the current political landscape leads me to be cynical and sad. And I don’t see an easy recovery from this, since the left will once again tear itself apart with failed loyalty tests (not left enough, not fast enough,!) and the right will march to it’s drummers back to a significant recovery in the next election, because they know how to play middle America like the well trained response mechanisms they’ve become.
Not sure Limbaugh is delusional, so much as it’s a conscious means to a paycheck, and a handsome one at that. Drugs don’t really factor in, except the paycheck pays/paid? for them.
The Right Wing Noise Machine is a money maker. Big business buys consulting firms to create the “meme”, then buys shills to spread it, and the folks who make their living (O’Really, Coulter, Limbaugh, Beck, and hundreds of other paid to shout-ers) join in because it’s a living: a lucrative living that becomes self sustaining. If your primary circle keeps repeating it, that’s what you hear, and eventually the “memes” become truthiness. The paid distributors probably come to believe many of their stories/ perceptions (it’s called method acting), which makes them more convincing. Most people read the emotional tone of a message more then the content, and fear is a very attention getting tone to use.
And then the cognitive dissonance kicks in. My personal take on the current political landscape leads me to be cynical and sad. And I don’t see an easy recovery from this, since the left will once again tear itself apart with failed loyalty tests (not left enough, not fast enough,!) and the right will march to it’s drummers back to a significant recovery in the next election, because they know how to play middle America like the well trained response mechanisms they’ve become.
When advertising becomes a hatefull info-comercial, the image of the products involved deteriorate. That guy is a moron (anywhere in the world). Critics of Obama, if they want to survive the changes of this century, should raise the tone of their dissent.
When advertising becomes a hatefull info-comercial, the image of the products involved deteriorate. That guy is a moron (anywhere in the world). Critics of Obama, if they want to survive the changes of this century, should raise the tone of their dissent.
I wonder if, soon after Beck is canned, Faux News will announce that Lou Dobbs is making the jump to their network.
I wonder if, soon after Beck is canned, Faux News will announce that Lou Dobbs is making the jump to their network.
Look, let’s settle this death panel thing once and for all… first, I can’t stand Palin, second she’s RIGHT.
Jon, here’s the thing you just have to accept… right now the only “rationing” that we have is based on supply/demand – based on price. Whether a doctor or a patient or and insurance company is paying… PRICE is the controlling feature. In food or beach front real estate – it is always PRICE based rationing, people determining what they can buy based on how much they have to spend and how much they want something compared to other things.
NOW THEN, this is E. Emanuel in “Principles for allocation of scarce medical interventions”-
“we do not regard ability to pay as a plausible option for scarce life-saving interventions”
http://www.scribd.com/doc/18280675/Principles-for-Allocation-of-Scarce-Medical-Interventions
Jon, WTF?
Here’s what I don’t get about your side of things… stop pretending that most people are going to trust your good intentions. What we want to hear is “ability to pay” will ALWAYS be first and foremost in the decision of who gets care. Article 1: “Those who can pay, get better treatment than those who cant.” – will save a lot of animosity in this debate, why not just start that way?
So if “death panels” helps clarify for people we’re talking about a new kind of decision making – than so be it.
—-
Finally, though I support boycotts, BE WARY, you’ll sooner see RACHEL MADDOW’s sponsors chased out of the pool.
Look, let’s settle this death panel thing once and for all… first, I can’t stand Palin, second she’s RIGHT.
Jon, here’s the thing you just have to accept… right now the only “rationing” that we have is based on supply/demand – based on price. Whether a doctor or a patient or and insurance company is paying… PRICE is the controlling feature. In food or beach front real estate – it is always PRICE based rationing, people determining what they can buy based on how much they have to spend and how much they want something compared to other things.
NOW THEN, this is E. Emanuel in “Principles for allocation of scarce medical interventions”-
“we do not regard ability to pay as a plausible option for scarce life-saving interventions”
http://www.scribd.com/doc/18280675/Principles-for-Allocation-of-Scarce-Medical-Interventions
Jon, WTF?
Here’s what I don’t get about your side of things… stop pretending that most people are going to trust your good intentions. What we want to hear is “ability to pay” will ALWAYS be first and foremost in the decision of who gets care. Article 1: “Those who can pay, get better treatment than those who cant.” – will save a lot of animosity in this debate, why not just start that way?
So if “death panels” helps clarify for people we’re talking about a new kind of decision making – than so be it.
—-
Finally, though I support boycotts, BE WARY, you’ll sooner see RACHEL MADDOW’s sponsors chased out of the pool.
“They may be noisy and fearful, but why do we even care about their paranoid delusions?”
Because they get a lot of air time and screen time. That’s where the left is losing the debate: failure to innovate in the face of the same old tactics they’ve been using for years.
Roll up to one of the town hall debates with a big TV or LED screen and use it to flash messages like: “You look really stupid doing this on TV” and show them the feed. Immediate feedback is a powerful stimulus-response control. Have others stand around sworn to be silent but when confronted with an angry person, holds up signs with answers to the most common issue questions (Human FAQs).
We’re not taking advantage of natural strengths as communications experts and behaviorists. We’re rolling into the punches.
“They may be noisy and fearful, but why do we even care about their paranoid delusions?”
Because they get a lot of air time and screen time. That’s where the left is losing the debate: failure to innovate in the face of the same old tactics they’ve been using for years.
Roll up to one of the town hall debates with a big TV or LED screen and use it to flash messages like: “You look really stupid doing this on TV” and show them the feed. Immediate feedback is a powerful stimulus-response control. Have others stand around sworn to be silent but when confronted with an angry person, holds up signs with answers to the most common issue questions (Human FAQs).
We’re not taking advantage of natural strengths as communications experts and behaviorists. We’re rolling into the punches.
“..you’ll sooner see RACHEL MADDOW’s sponsors chased out of the pool.”
Not soon. She’s got one thing on Beck: she’s one sexy gal and she understands the power of that.
NYT has a pretty good intro to Canadian health care.
Ability to pay and ability to insist those who are able pay more go hand in glove like a sucking siphon. Note the Canadian insistence on cost controls and the fact that the hot negotiations are between local and federal authorities, not insurance companies and pharmaceutical vendors.
All your system provides is an even more enraged public against the wealthy. You’ll set off a class war.
“..you’ll sooner see RACHEL MADDOW’s sponsors chased out of the pool.”
Not soon. She’s got one thing on Beck: she’s one sexy gal and she understands the power of that.
NYT has a pretty good intro to Canadian health care.
Ability to pay and ability to insist those who are able pay more go hand in glove like a sucking siphon. Note the Canadian insistence on cost controls and the fact that the hot negotiations are between local and federal authorities, not insurance companies and pharmaceutical vendors.
All your system provides is an even more enraged public against the wealthy. You’ll set off a class war.
Len that’s exactly wrong.
Rolling up to the meetings and saying, “we’re just going to keep the poor out of emergency rooms, nothing else is going to change, the public system we create will not have all the cool features your plan has, the only people who’ll want to be in it are the ones who can’t afford what you have now, it is just a safety net, it is just a food kitchen” – that’d win them over, that would send them home.
People aren’t dumb, they perceive that they are going to get LESS. Stop trying to dance around the subject… they have a real reason they are mad.
Len that’s exactly wrong.
Rolling up to the meetings and saying, “we’re just going to keep the poor out of emergency rooms, nothing else is going to change, the public system we create will not have all the cool features your plan has, the only people who’ll want to be in it are the ones who can’t afford what you have now, it is just a safety net, it is just a food kitchen” – that’d win them over, that would send them home.
People aren’t dumb, they perceive that they are going to get LESS. Stop trying to dance around the subject… they have a real reason they are mad.
len, my system is in place now… 80% HAVES. And #1 in Satisfaction.
This is a class war. The 80% don’t want to be even with the 20%.
len, my system is in place now… 80% HAVES. And #1 in Satisfaction.
This is a class war. The 80% don’t want to be even with the 20%.
len, my system is in place now… 80% HAVES. And #1 in Satisfaction.
This is a class war. The 80% don’t want to be even with the 20%.
The class war has been in progress a long, long time. And the plutocrats have been winning, hands down.
Btw, the key function of a market price mechanism is to … you guessed it … RATION. You get if you’re willing to pay for it. The current value-subtracting health-insurance racket is routinely sentencing people to death, dismemberment and all sorts of other unpleasantness with tricks like recission, not writing coverage for people with the notorious ‘pre-existing conditions’, etc.
It’s important for proponents of reform to start distinguishing between the value-creating work of health care providers, pharmaceutical research & development, etc. on the one hand, and the health insurance business which is currently structured to avoid helping people.
The public/private equilibrium out of this reform process should look quite a bit like the Postal Service/FedEx relationship. The public option handles generic reliable services for all comers, while premium policies continue to be available from private insurers willing and able to pay more.
The reason for the push-back? Insurance execs might have to work hard for a few years to compete — not with the public option — but for the premium consumers. Much easier to stick with their current racket.
The class war has been in progress a long, long time. And the plutocrats have been winning, hands down.
Btw, the key function of a market price mechanism is to … you guessed it … RATION. You get if you’re willing to pay for it. The current value-subtracting health-insurance racket is routinely sentencing people to death, dismemberment and all sorts of other unpleasantness with tricks like recission, not writing coverage for people with the notorious ‘pre-existing conditions’, etc.
It’s important for proponents of reform to start distinguishing between the value-creating work of health care providers, pharmaceutical research & development, etc. on the one hand, and the health insurance business which is currently structured to avoid helping people.
The public/private equilibrium out of this reform process should look quite a bit like the Postal Service/FedEx relationship. The public option handles generic reliable services for all comers, while premium policies continue to be available from private insurers willing and able to pay more.
The reason for the push-back? Insurance execs might have to work hard for a few years to compete — not with the public option — but for the premium consumers. Much easier to stick with their current racket.
The class war has been in progress a long, long time. And the plutocrats have been winning, hands down.
Btw, the key function of a market price mechanism is to … you guessed it … RATION. You get if you’re willing to pay for it. The current value-subtracting health-insurance racket is routinely sentencing people to death, dismemberment and all sorts of other unpleasantness with tricks like recission, not writing coverage for people with the notorious ‘pre-existing conditions’, etc.
It’s important for proponents of reform to start distinguishing between the value-creating work of health care providers, pharmaceutical research & development, etc. on the one hand, and the health insurance business which is currently structured to avoid helping people.
The public/private equilibrium out of this reform process should look quite a bit like the Postal Service/FedEx relationship. The public option handles generic reliable services for all comers, while premium policies continue to be available from private insurers willing and able to pay more.
The reason for the push-back? Insurance execs might have to work hard for a few years to compete — not with the public option — but for the premium consumers. Much easier to stick with their current racket.
An eye for an eye is barbarism . An eye for two eyes and their glasses is capitalism. An eye for a voucher for a new lens for old glasses, that’s socialism.
They are enraged, Morgan, and well financed rage it is. As I watch the news, I’m not so sure many of them know why they are there, just that being mad and being there makes them feel better about being mad. It’s political mau mau.
An eye for an eye is barbarism . An eye for two eyes and their glasses is capitalism. An eye for a voucher for a new lens for old glasses, that’s socialism.
They are enraged, Morgan, and well financed rage it is. As I watch the news, I’m not so sure many of them know why they are there, just that being mad and being there makes them feel better about being mad. It’s political mau mau.
Yes because an eye for an eye that everyone passes around in the land of the blind is communism.
Even the French manage to take care of that 20%. Are you telling me America is incapable of doing something even the French manage to do? Wow.
Yes because an eye for an eye that everyone passes around in the land of the blind is communism.
Even the French manage to take care of that 20%. Are you telling me America is incapable of doing something even the French manage to do? Wow.
Yes because an eye for an eye that everyone passes around in the land of the blind is communism.
Even the French manage to take care of that 20%. Are you telling me America is incapable of doing something even the French manage to do? Wow.
Well-armed helpless rage, if the level of consciousness ever rises to the point that the “people in Pennsylvania” see how badly they have been, are being and henceforth will be had by the 1-percenters. Could lead to something for historians and sociologists and ecnomonists and political scientists (sic, very sic) to study and debate for centuries yet to come. “Why did Americans blow themselves into a smoking crater, then crawl around shooting anyone else that survived the explosion?” While the 1-percenters look down from their Dubai penthouses and out from their megayachts and private islands… They, at least, in their ability to withdraw like F. Scott Fitzgerald put it, into their vast indifference, might actually enjoy watching the rest of us squat down into our “anomie,”
“a social condition characterized by instability, the breakdown of social norms, institutional disorganization, and a divorce between socially valid goals and available means for achieving them. Introduced into sociology by Emile Durkheim in his study Suicide (1897), anomie also refers to the psychological condition—of rootlessness, futility, anxiety, and amorality—afflicting individuals who live under such conditions. The importance of anomie as a cause of deviant behavior received further elaboration by Robert K. Merton.” You might link to this page, or chase your own Googleplex of references.
Nah. Couldn’t happen here. Could it. Nope. Never. Not in a coon’s age (can we say that any more?). Could it? Helen, let’s clean and load our shootin’ irons while we’re watchin’ FOX tonight, just in case…
Well-armed helpless rage, if the level of consciousness ever rises to the point that the “people in Pennsylvania” see how badly they have been, are being and henceforth will be had by the 1-percenters. Could lead to something for historians and sociologists and ecnomonists and political scientists (sic, very sic) to study and debate for centuries yet to come. “Why did Americans blow themselves into a smoking crater, then crawl around shooting anyone else that survived the explosion?” While the 1-percenters look down from their Dubai penthouses and out from their megayachts and private islands… They, at least, in their ability to withdraw like F. Scott Fitzgerald put it, into their vast indifference, might actually enjoy watching the rest of us squat down into our “anomie,”
“a social condition characterized by instability, the breakdown of social norms, institutional disorganization, and a divorce between socially valid goals and available means for achieving them. Introduced into sociology by Emile Durkheim in his study Suicide (1897), anomie also refers to the psychological condition—of rootlessness, futility, anxiety, and amorality—afflicting individuals who live under such conditions. The importance of anomie as a cause of deviant behavior received further elaboration by Robert K. Merton.” You might link to this page, or chase your own Googleplex of references.
Nah. Couldn’t happen here. Could it. Nope. Never. Not in a coon’s age (can we say that any more?). Could it? Helen, let’s clean and load our shootin’ irons while we’re watchin’ FOX tonight, just in case…
Well-armed helpless rage, if the level of consciousness ever rises to the point that the “people in Pennsylvania” see how badly they have been, are being and henceforth will be had by the 1-percenters. Could lead to something for historians and sociologists and ecnomonists and political scientists (sic, very sic) to study and debate for centuries yet to come. “Why did Americans blow themselves into a smoking crater, then crawl around shooting anyone else that survived the explosion?” While the 1-percenters look down from their Dubai penthouses and out from their megayachts and private islands… They, at least, in their ability to withdraw like F. Scott Fitzgerald put it, into their vast indifference, might actually enjoy watching the rest of us squat down into our “anomie,”
“a social condition characterized by instability, the breakdown of social norms, institutional disorganization, and a divorce between socially valid goals and available means for achieving them. Introduced into sociology by Emile Durkheim in his study Suicide (1897), anomie also refers to the psychological condition—of rootlessness, futility, anxiety, and amorality—afflicting individuals who live under such conditions. The importance of anomie as a cause of deviant behavior received further elaboration by Robert K. Merton.” You might link to this page, or chase your own Googleplex of references.
Nah. Couldn’t happen here. Could it. Nope. Never. Not in a coon’s age (can we say that any more?). Could it? Helen, let’s clean and load our shootin’ irons while we’re watchin’ FOX tonight, just in case…
You are writing off legitimate anger len, and that’s not the way lead and keep a majority.
I’d actually prefer the Dems calm the situation down, give up half a loaf, and actually ensure the concerns of the haves get solved for before they worry about the have-nots. If they don’t they’ll be eating it come Nov. 2010.
People want insurance protections. People want a safety net for the poor… they realize emergency rooms isn’t the way to do it. But people also want tort reform, they trust doctors more than lawyers. There’s a happy medium here. We should find it.
You are writing off legitimate anger len, and that’s not the way lead and keep a majority.
I’d actually prefer the Dems calm the situation down, give up half a loaf, and actually ensure the concerns of the haves get solved for before they worry about the have-nots. If they don’t they’ll be eating it come Nov. 2010.
People want insurance protections. People want a safety net for the poor… they realize emergency rooms isn’t the way to do it. But people also want tort reform, they trust doctors more than lawyers. There’s a happy medium here. We should find it.
You are writing off legitimate anger len, and that’s not the way lead and keep a majority.
I’d actually prefer the Dems calm the situation down, give up half a loaf, and actually ensure the concerns of the haves get solved for before they worry about the have-nots. If they don’t they’ll be eating it come Nov. 2010.
People want insurance protections. People want a safety net for the poor… they realize emergency rooms isn’t the way to do it. But people also want tort reform, they trust doctors more than lawyers. There’s a happy medium here. We should find it.
80% of the People of Pennsylvania are satisifed with their health care…. why you are enraging them I cannot understand.
80% of the People of Pennsylvania are satisifed with their health care…. why you are enraging them I cannot understand.
Ien, I like that :
An eye for an eye is barbarism . An eye for two eyes and their glasses is capitalism. An eye for a voucher for a new lens for old glasses, that’s socialism.
With your permission I shall translate it to Spanish
Ien, I like that :
An eye for an eye is barbarism . An eye for two eyes and their glasses is capitalism. An eye for a voucher for a new lens for old glasses, that’s socialism.
With your permission I shall translate it to Spanish
Permission granted. An eye that we pass around among the blind is communism.
Permission granted. An eye that we pass around among the blind is communism.
Permission granted. An eye that we pass around among the blind is communism.
Morgan – I truly applaud your sentiment when you say that we should look for a happy medium, but I honestly think the median is skewed. The Democrats are centrists, and the right is well, the right. And both are subject to the influence of big insurance and pharma, not to mention the 1.4 million a day being spent on and by the K street lobbyists on this single issue. If the Dems were actually socialists, as they’re currently being accused of, then you might actually find a solution in the middle. As it stands now, I fear the outcome of this venture will be a solution that continues to favor big business, while supplying marginal relief to the 50 million uninsured.
Morgan – I truly applaud your sentiment when you say that we should look for a happy medium, but I honestly think the median is skewed. The Democrats are centrists, and the right is well, the right. And both are subject to the influence of big insurance and pharma, not to mention the 1.4 million a day being spent on and by the K street lobbyists on this single issue. If the Dems were actually socialists, as they’re currently being accused of, then you might actually find a solution in the middle. As it stands now, I fear the outcome of this venture will be a solution that continues to favor big business, while supplying marginal relief to the 50 million uninsured.
Morgan – I truly applaud your sentiment when you say that we should look for a happy medium, but I honestly think the median is skewed. The Democrats are centrists, and the right is well, the right. And both are subject to the influence of big insurance and pharma, not to mention the 1.4 million a day being spent on and by the K street lobbyists on this single issue. If the Dems were actually socialists, as they’re currently being accused of, then you might actually find a solution in the middle. As it stands now, I fear the outcome of this venture will be a solution that continues to favor big business, while supplying marginal relief to the 50 million uninsured.
Morgan – I truly applaud your sentiment when you say that we should look for a happy medium, but I honestly think the median is skewed. The Democrats are centrists, and the right is well, the right. And both are subject to the influence of big insurance and pharma, not to mention the 1.4 million a day being spent on and by the K street lobbyists on this single issue. If the Dems were actually socialists, as they’re currently being accused of, then you might actually find a solution in the middle. As it stands now, I fear the outcome of this venture will be a solution that continues to favor big business, while supplying marginal relief to the 50 million uninsured.
I’m not writing it off as much as I am questioning how much of it is “legitimate’ concern and how much of it is a John Birch Society sequel. No doubt some is but just as diplomacy is keeping a conversation alive, governance is telling diplomats when to shut up.
In this case, all of the ills of the system won’t get fixed in one swell foop. If sanity returns to the discussion, someone has to slice these up and figure out the minimum to declare victory on each one. Right now in the town hall mob scenes, they try to boil the ocean with as many divisive issues as they can bring. If the Dems try to calm them down, they see it as an opening to enrage them further.
No Morgan, this is a well-paid professional rage machine at work sitting back calmly creating an Overton maneuver for each rational contingency to drive irrational thinking to the front of the mob. The Dems can’t calm that down by confrontation although I’m beginning to agree with Krugman. The health care supporters are going to have to figure out a way to expose the machine for what it is without denying people their rights.
Have you ever seen a battered spouse without bruises? That is what the machine tactics resemble. They are the loudest spouse cowing the one that wasn’t raised to be confrontational. They are lieing and threatening.
Got a legitimate concern? Express it like adults. Otherwise, get treated like children. This aspect of what is going on isn’t complicated.
I’m not writing it off as much as I am questioning how much of it is “legitimate’ concern and how much of it is a John Birch Society sequel. No doubt some is but just as diplomacy is keeping a conversation alive, governance is telling diplomats when to shut up.
In this case, all of the ills of the system won’t get fixed in one swell foop. If sanity returns to the discussion, someone has to slice these up and figure out the minimum to declare victory on each one. Right now in the town hall mob scenes, they try to boil the ocean with as many divisive issues as they can bring. If the Dems try to calm them down, they see it as an opening to enrage them further.
No Morgan, this is a well-paid professional rage machine at work sitting back calmly creating an Overton maneuver for each rational contingency to drive irrational thinking to the front of the mob. The Dems can’t calm that down by confrontation although I’m beginning to agree with Krugman. The health care supporters are going to have to figure out a way to expose the machine for what it is without denying people their rights.
Have you ever seen a battered spouse without bruises? That is what the machine tactics resemble. They are the loudest spouse cowing the one that wasn’t raised to be confrontational. They are lieing and threatening.
Got a legitimate concern? Express it like adults. Otherwise, get treated like children. This aspect of what is going on isn’t complicated.
I’m not writing it off as much as I am questioning how much of it is “legitimate’ concern and how much of it is a John Birch Society sequel. No doubt some is but just as diplomacy is keeping a conversation alive, governance is telling diplomats when to shut up.
In this case, all of the ills of the system won’t get fixed in one swell foop. If sanity returns to the discussion, someone has to slice these up and figure out the minimum to declare victory on each one. Right now in the town hall mob scenes, they try to boil the ocean with as many divisive issues as they can bring. If the Dems try to calm them down, they see it as an opening to enrage them further.
No Morgan, this is a well-paid professional rage machine at work sitting back calmly creating an Overton maneuver for each rational contingency to drive irrational thinking to the front of the mob. The Dems can’t calm that down by confrontation although I’m beginning to agree with Krugman. The health care supporters are going to have to figure out a way to expose the machine for what it is without denying people their rights.
Have you ever seen a battered spouse without bruises? That is what the machine tactics resemble. They are the loudest spouse cowing the one that wasn’t raised to be confrontational. They are lieing and threatening.
Got a legitimate concern? Express it like adults. Otherwise, get treated like children. This aspect of what is going on isn’t complicated.
Dick Armey had to resign from a law firm today because he’s been one of the key people organizing these “spontaneous” protests.
He’s a walking disaster area. He was kind of a precursor to Goober.
Dick Armey had to resign from a law firm today because he’s been one of the key people organizing these “spontaneous” protests.
He’s a walking disaster area. He was kind of a precursor to Goober.
“That’s where the left is losing the debate: failure to innovate in the face of the same old tactics they’ve been using for years.”
I disagree. Stewart and Colbert deliver stinging rebukes in this debate four nights a week. The Base doesn’t watch them, but The Base simply shouts until it is red in the face.
“That’s where the left is losing the debate: failure to innovate in the face of the same old tactics they’ve been using for years.”
I disagree. Stewart and Colbert deliver stinging rebukes in this debate four nights a week. The Base doesn’t watch them, but The Base simply shouts until it is red in the face.
“That’s where the left is losing the debate: failure to innovate in the face of the same old tactics they’ve been using for years.”
I disagree. Stewart and Colbert deliver stinging rebukes in this debate four nights a week. The Base doesn’t watch them, but The Base simply shouts until it is red in the face.
“That’s where the left is losing the debate: failure to innovate in the face of the same old tactics they’ve been using for years.”
I disagree. Stewart and Colbert deliver stinging rebukes in this debate four nights a week. The Base doesn’t watch them, but The Base simply shouts until it is red in the face.
“The are more conservatives than Republicans, and more Democrats than liberals.”
James, Obama/Pelosi/Reid is the left. McCain/Dorgan/Lieberman is the center. Independents are the center.
The center makes the most sense. Tax premium insurance plans. Tort reform. Safety net VA-style for the uninsured (which is a single payer system by the way).
That’s the center. That’s not an incentive for your employer to quit providing care. That’s not you getting the same care as the guy not paying their own way. That’s means testing so those who can pay something for their own care actually do.
That’s the center.
“The are more conservatives than Republicans, and more Democrats than liberals.”
James, Obama/Pelosi/Reid is the left. McCain/Dorgan/Lieberman is the center. Independents are the center.
The center makes the most sense. Tax premium insurance plans. Tort reform. Safety net VA-style for the uninsured (which is a single payer system by the way).
That’s the center. That’s not an incentive for your employer to quit providing care. That’s not you getting the same care as the guy not paying their own way. That’s means testing so those who can pay something for their own care actually do.
That’s the center.
Olivier Roy at Eurozine wrote that social alienation induces an “effort to force culture to satisfy personal ambition and private belief”.
Bob Altemeyer of the University of Manitoba dedicated 30 years studying ‘my way or the highway’ politics.
Both point out that fire and aggrandizement has become a profitable means of achieving demands. Adequate push-back is too rare and culling amoral flamers almost non-existent.
Olivier Roy at Eurozine wrote that social alienation induces an “effort to force culture to satisfy personal ambition and private belief”.
Bob Altemeyer of the University of Manitoba dedicated 30 years studying ‘my way or the highway’ politics.
Both point out that fire and aggrandizement has become a profitable means of achieving demands. Adequate push-back is too rare and culling amoral flamers almost non-existent.
Olivier Roy at Eurozine wrote that social alienation induces an “effort to force culture to satisfy personal ambition and private belief”.
Bob Altemeyer of the University of Manitoba dedicated 30 years studying ‘my way or the highway’ politics.
Both point out that fire and aggrandizement has become a profitable means of achieving demands. Adequate push-back is too rare and culling amoral flamers almost non-existent.
Olivier Roy at Eurozine wrote that social alienation induces an “effort to force culture to satisfy personal ambition and private belief”.
Bob Altemeyer of the University of Manitoba dedicated 30 years studying ‘my way or the highway’ politics.
Both point out that fire and aggrandizement has become a profitable means of achieving demands. Adequate push-back is too rare and culling amoral flamers almost non-existent.
Dan – I couldn’t agree more. Stewart’s finessed takedown last week of Bill Kristol was pure debating brilliance. Socrates wept with pride. Getting that smirking ass to admit that if the government had the ability and responsibility of administering excellent health care to veteran’s, then it had the ability to do so for the rest of us totally gave me faith. The pundits roll out these tropes, these sound bytes of incompetence and mistrust so loudly and often, that they do become part of our communal perception, and accepted realities. I get angry whenever I hear that government regulation leads to socialism. Wall Street’s meltdown was the proof of the opposite – government deregulation leads to tax-payer funded bailouts. And bonuses too, as we’ve recently learned.
Dan – I couldn’t agree more. Stewart’s finessed takedown last week of Bill Kristol was pure debating brilliance. Socrates wept with pride. Getting that smirking ass to admit that if the government had the ability and responsibility of administering excellent health care to veteran’s, then it had the ability to do so for the rest of us totally gave me faith. The pundits roll out these tropes, these sound bytes of incompetence and mistrust so loudly and often, that they do become part of our communal perception, and accepted realities. I get angry whenever I hear that government regulation leads to socialism. Wall Street’s meltdown was the proof of the opposite – government deregulation leads to tax-payer funded bailouts. And bonuses too, as we’ve recently learned.
Dan – I couldn’t agree more. Stewart’s finessed takedown last week of Bill Kristol was pure debating brilliance. Socrates wept with pride. Getting that smirking ass to admit that if the government had the ability and responsibility of administering excellent health care to veteran’s, then it had the ability to do so for the rest of us totally gave me faith. The pundits roll out these tropes, these sound bytes of incompetence and mistrust so loudly and often, that they do become part of our communal perception, and accepted realities. I get angry whenever I hear that government regulation leads to socialism. Wall Street’s meltdown was the proof of the opposite – government deregulation leads to tax-payer funded bailouts. And bonuses too, as we’ve recently learned.
Dan – I couldn’t agree more. Stewart’s finessed takedown last week of Bill Kristol was pure debating brilliance. Socrates wept with pride. Getting that smirking ass to admit that if the government had the ability and responsibility of administering excellent health care to veteran’s, then it had the ability to do so for the rest of us totally gave me faith. The pundits roll out these tropes, these sound bytes of incompetence and mistrust so loudly and often, that they do become part of our communal perception, and accepted realities. I get angry whenever I hear that government regulation leads to socialism. Wall Street’s meltdown was the proof of the opposite – government deregulation leads to tax-payer funded bailouts. And bonuses too, as we’ve recently learned.
I view Glenn Beck’s program basically as a reality show, based on the premise: Watch Glenn Lose His Remaining Mind. If you look at it from this perspective, you’ll note marked similarities to the super-popular show, “Watch Anna Nicole Take Her Life”.
I agree that respectable companies, or even companies yearning for respect, ought to clear a safe distance from the Beck train-wreck STAT. Were he engaged in actual hate speech then the authorities could of course intervene, but such intervention risks constitutionally impermissible censorship, and it’s just better to handle the whole thing through the private sector, as Jon suggests.
Besides, I don’t think that he stoops to what a landmark jurisprudentialist of the subject, someone such as Sheila James Kuehl, would call classic hate speech. Perhaps it would be better to classify his twaddle as despicable, rather than as rhetoric that hits the marks of illegal hate speech, which, among other things, must be directed as constitutionally protected “suspect classes” and must convey an intent to injure and especially to eradicate them.
I think this train-Beck just palavers antically–a weird blend of Joe Pine, Wally George, Curly the Stooge and a steadily carbonizing length of railroad fuse.
I view Glenn Beck’s program basically as a reality show, based on the premise: Watch Glenn Lose His Remaining Mind. If you look at it from this perspective, you’ll note marked similarities to the super-popular show, “Watch Anna Nicole Take Her Life”.
I agree that respectable companies, or even companies yearning for respect, ought to clear a safe distance from the Beck train-wreck STAT. Were he engaged in actual hate speech then the authorities could of course intervene, but such intervention risks constitutionally impermissible censorship, and it’s just better to handle the whole thing through the private sector, as Jon suggests.
Besides, I don’t think that he stoops to what a landmark jurisprudentialist of the subject, someone such as Sheila James Kuehl, would call classic hate speech. Perhaps it would be better to classify his twaddle as despicable, rather than as rhetoric that hits the marks of illegal hate speech, which, among other things, must be directed as constitutionally protected “suspect classes” and must convey an intent to injure and especially to eradicate them.
I think this train-Beck just palavers antically–a weird blend of Joe Pine, Wally George, Curly the Stooge and a steadily carbonizing length of railroad fuse.
I view Glenn Beck’s program basically as a reality show, based on the premise: Watch Glenn Lose His Remaining Mind. If you look at it from this perspective, you’ll note marked similarities to the super-popular show, “Watch Anna Nicole Take Her Life”.
I agree that respectable companies, or even companies yearning for respect, ought to clear a safe distance from the Beck train-wreck STAT. Were he engaged in actual hate speech then the authorities could of course intervene, but such intervention risks constitutionally impermissible censorship, and it’s just better to handle the whole thing through the private sector, as Jon suggests.
Besides, I don’t think that he stoops to what a landmark jurisprudentialist of the subject, someone such as Sheila James Kuehl, would call classic hate speech. Perhaps it would be better to classify his twaddle as despicable, rather than as rhetoric that hits the marks of illegal hate speech, which, among other things, must be directed as constitutionally protected “suspect classes” and must convey an intent to injure and especially to eradicate them.
I think this train-Beck just palavers antically–a weird blend of Joe Pine, Wally George, Curly the Stooge and a steadily carbonizing length of railroad fuse.
We clearly have socialism for capitalists. We don’t have it for the population. Morgan, you keep ignoring that the capitalist system here is gamed to the max; the fix is in, and many of us do not like it one bit.
Why do you think so many Americans embraced Communism in the 1930s and 40s? It was because they’d gotten screwed by Wall St….by capitalism…in the melt down of the Great Depression. Of course Soviet-style communism was bullshit, but it did give hope to people who had seen what runaway capitalism could yield.
Well, we’re kind of there again. The capitalists have screwed the pooch, and yet they seem to have done a great job isolating themselves from the pain that so many are bearing today. So they’re playing games in the time honored way that the right wing does so well…using scare tactics to chip away at already vulnerable people.
Meanwhile, to get back to the healthcare debate, we have a fabulous system for the rich and a shitty system for the rest compared to well over thirty other countries in the world.
We clearly have socialism for capitalists. We don’t have it for the population. Morgan, you keep ignoring that the capitalist system here is gamed to the max; the fix is in, and many of us do not like it one bit.
Why do you think so many Americans embraced Communism in the 1930s and 40s? It was because they’d gotten screwed by Wall St….by capitalism…in the melt down of the Great Depression. Of course Soviet-style communism was bullshit, but it did give hope to people who had seen what runaway capitalism could yield.
Well, we’re kind of there again. The capitalists have screwed the pooch, and yet they seem to have done a great job isolating themselves from the pain that so many are bearing today. So they’re playing games in the time honored way that the right wing does so well…using scare tactics to chip away at already vulnerable people.
Meanwhile, to get back to the healthcare debate, we have a fabulous system for the rich and a shitty system for the rest compared to well over thirty other countries in the world.
We clearly have socialism for capitalists. We don’t have it for the population. Morgan, you keep ignoring that the capitalist system here is gamed to the max; the fix is in, and many of us do not like it one bit.
Why do you think so many Americans embraced Communism in the 1930s and 40s? It was because they’d gotten screwed by Wall St….by capitalism…in the melt down of the Great Depression. Of course Soviet-style communism was bullshit, but it did give hope to people who had seen what runaway capitalism could yield.
Well, we’re kind of there again. The capitalists have screwed the pooch, and yet they seem to have done a great job isolating themselves from the pain that so many are bearing today. So they’re playing games in the time honored way that the right wing does so well…using scare tactics to chip away at already vulnerable people.
Meanwhile, to get back to the healthcare debate, we have a fabulous system for the rich and a shitty system for the rest compared to well over thirty other countries in the world.
Morgan – honest, I don’t think you calling it “the center” makes it so. I’m saying on the left is Marx. On the right is Attila the Hun. Somewhere in between is universal health care, a system that most industrialized or leading nations have adopted – except for the most powerful, most innovative and resourceful one. It can be two tiered, it can be mandated, it can be a multitude of incarnations, but ultimately its lack of being is how we should judge this current issue and initiative. It does America a disservice.
I’m not saying that Obama’s plan is the best, or most efficient, God knows it’s a complex overhaul, all I’m saying is that I find the shrill opponents to it suspect in their motivation. And I think that’s what the point of Jon’s criticism is.
I think you and I agree that a democratic approach to the dialogue is essential. All voices should be heard, and fears addressed. I just doubt that the inanities and innuendos being spouted by the pundits have the same agenda.
Morgan – honest, I don’t think you calling it “the center” makes it so. I’m saying on the left is Marx. On the right is Attila the Hun. Somewhere in between is universal health care, a system that most industrialized or leading nations have adopted – except for the most powerful, most innovative and resourceful one. It can be two tiered, it can be mandated, it can be a multitude of incarnations, but ultimately its lack of being is how we should judge this current issue and initiative. It does America a disservice.
I’m not saying that Obama’s plan is the best, or most efficient, God knows it’s a complex overhaul, all I’m saying is that I find the shrill opponents to it suspect in their motivation. And I think that’s what the point of Jon’s criticism is.
I think you and I agree that a democratic approach to the dialogue is essential. All voices should be heard, and fears addressed. I just doubt that the inanities and innuendos being spouted by the pundits have the same agenda.
Rick, look dude… I wasn’t in favor of the bailouts, or the stimulus… and this is for sure – we are not using those as an excuse for socialized health care. Period. You don’t like bailouts? You don’t like stimulus? Fine… we can partner up and support a balance budget amendment. That’ll end that kind of shit for good.
And again, the 80% who have insurance they rate they care GREAT. They are the most satisfied in the world with their care. That’s a fact. The world rankings only put us lower (#37) because the 20% have to go to emergency rooms for care – when it is a crisis.
Why did so many people embrace communism back then? Because they were fucking retarded, and didn’t have the the miracle of the Reaganism and the death of the Soviets staring them in the face.
———–
Look man, you’re skipping over the meat of the argument. The anger and frustration is the 80% AGAINST the weirdos/liberals trying to give them less to give the uninsured 20% the same level of care as they have.
It is too expensive and it is politically dumb. I’ll keep saying it… people want to open more soup kitchens, not eat in them themselves.
Rick, look dude… I wasn’t in favor of the bailouts, or the stimulus… and this is for sure – we are not using those as an excuse for socialized health care. Period. You don’t like bailouts? You don’t like stimulus? Fine… we can partner up and support a balance budget amendment. That’ll end that kind of shit for good.
And again, the 80% who have insurance they rate they care GREAT. They are the most satisfied in the world with their care. That’s a fact. The world rankings only put us lower (#37) because the 20% have to go to emergency rooms for care – when it is a crisis.
Why did so many people embrace communism back then? Because they were fucking retarded, and didn’t have the the miracle of the Reaganism and the death of the Soviets staring them in the face.
———–
Look man, you’re skipping over the meat of the argument. The anger and frustration is the 80% AGAINST the weirdos/liberals trying to give them less to give the uninsured 20% the same level of care as they have.
It is too expensive and it is politically dumb. I’ll keep saying it… people want to open more soup kitchens, not eat in them themselves.
Rick, look dude… I wasn’t in favor of the bailouts, or the stimulus… and this is for sure – we are not using those as an excuse for socialized health care. Period. You don’t like bailouts? You don’t like stimulus? Fine… we can partner up and support a balance budget amendment. That’ll end that kind of shit for good.
And again, the 80% who have insurance they rate they care GREAT. They are the most satisfied in the world with their care. That’s a fact. The world rankings only put us lower (#37) because the 20% have to go to emergency rooms for care – when it is a crisis.
Why did so many people embrace communism back then? Because they were fucking retarded, and didn’t have the the miracle of the Reaganism and the death of the Soviets staring them in the face.
———–
Look man, you’re skipping over the meat of the argument. The anger and frustration is the 80% AGAINST the weirdos/liberals trying to give them less to give the uninsured 20% the same level of care as they have.
It is too expensive and it is politically dumb. I’ll keep saying it… people want to open more soup kitchens, not eat in them themselves.
Rick, look dude… I wasn’t in favor of the bailouts, or the stimulus… and this is for sure – we are not using those as an excuse for socialized health care. Period. You don’t like bailouts? You don’t like stimulus? Fine… we can partner up and support a balance budget amendment. That’ll end that kind of shit for good.
And again, the 80% who have insurance they rate they care GREAT. They are the most satisfied in the world with their care. That’s a fact. The world rankings only put us lower (#37) because the 20% have to go to emergency rooms for care – when it is a crisis.
Why did so many people embrace communism back then? Because they were fucking retarded, and didn’t have the the miracle of the Reaganism and the death of the Soviets staring them in the face.
———–
Look man, you’re skipping over the meat of the argument. The anger and frustration is the 80% AGAINST the weirdos/liberals trying to give them less to give the uninsured 20% the same level of care as they have.
It is too expensive and it is politically dumb. I’ll keep saying it… people want to open more soup kitchens, not eat in them themselves.
James, we aren’t in a vacuum… btw, on the left you have Marx/Attila the Hun on the right you have libertarian/anarchocapitalists.
In the non-vaccum, here in American the center is right there where I drew the line. That’s where polls land. And choosing the center is about putting together a plan that the true believers on each side complain about.
“Two-tiered” would win the middle in a heartbeat. The left would hate it. So would the right. But they both could be made to eat it, because if they fight it, the center moves towards the opposition and they lose. I’d make it single payer (piss off the right) and real tort reform (piss off the left).
The middle 40% can completely dominate this entire thing.
James, we aren’t in a vacuum… btw, on the left you have Marx/Attila the Hun on the right you have libertarian/anarchocapitalists.
In the non-vaccum, here in American the center is right there where I drew the line. That’s where polls land. And choosing the center is about putting together a plan that the true believers on each side complain about.
“Two-tiered” would win the middle in a heartbeat. The left would hate it. So would the right. But they both could be made to eat it, because if they fight it, the center moves towards the opposition and they lose. I’d make it single payer (piss off the right) and real tort reform (piss off the left).
The middle 40% can completely dominate this entire thing.
James, we aren’t in a vacuum… btw, on the left you have Marx/Attila the Hun on the right you have libertarian/anarchocapitalists.
In the non-vaccum, here in American the center is right there where I drew the line. That’s where polls land. And choosing the center is about putting together a plan that the true believers on each side complain about.
“Two-tiered” would win the middle in a heartbeat. The left would hate it. So would the right. But they both could be made to eat it, because if they fight it, the center moves towards the opposition and they lose. I’d make it single payer (piss off the right) and real tort reform (piss off the left).
The middle 40% can completely dominate this entire thing.
James, we aren’t in a vacuum… btw, on the left you have Marx/Attila the Hun on the right you have libertarian/anarchocapitalists.
In the non-vaccum, here in American the center is right there where I drew the line. That’s where polls land. And choosing the center is about putting together a plan that the true believers on each side complain about.
“Two-tiered” would win the middle in a heartbeat. The left would hate it. So would the right. But they both could be made to eat it, because if they fight it, the center moves towards the opposition and they lose. I’d make it single payer (piss off the right) and real tort reform (piss off the left).
The middle 40% can completely dominate this entire thing.
Good point, Dan.
Good point, Dan.
Good point, Dan.
Good point, Dan.
On the other hand, can’t let them have all the fun. The Wavy Gravy’s of the world have a very important job in lightening the crowd at The Show.
Guerilla theatre junkies could be having a blast right now…. and they now have YouTube. There should be an anti-anti-conversation.
Where is 21st Century DayGlo when ya need it?
On the other hand, can’t let them have all the fun. The Wavy Gravy’s of the world have a very important job in lightening the crowd at The Show.
Guerilla theatre junkies could be having a blast right now…. and they now have YouTube. There should be an anti-anti-conversation.
Where is 21st Century DayGlo when ya need it?
Tax the IP income of the industries serving the market by licensing.
Charge more for using Federally-funded research for private manufacture and development.
Tax the IP income of the industries serving the market by licensing.
Charge more for using Federally-funded research for private manufacture and development.
Tax the IP income of the industries serving the market by licensing.
Charge more for using Federally-funded research for private manufacture and development.
Tax the IP income of the industries serving the market by licensing.
Charge more for using Federally-funded research for private manufacture and development.
Don’t let me get yer goat, now, ’cause I really don’t covet yer goat, but y’all’s got a real big ear for medicinal things and a little hamster ear for the First Amendment, censorship and allegations of hate speech. It’s almost like those things you just let slip on by, like dem briars couldn’t hardly fuss a critter so happy in his goober peas.
Don’t let me get yer goat, now, ’cause I really don’t covet yer goat, but y’all’s got a real big ear for medicinal things and a little hamster ear for the First Amendment, censorship and allegations of hate speech. It’s almost like those things you just let slip on by, like dem briars couldn’t hardly fuss a critter so happy in his goober peas.
Don’t let me get yer goat, now, ’cause I really don’t covet yer goat, but y’all’s got a real big ear for medicinal things and a little hamster ear for the First Amendment, censorship and allegations of hate speech. It’s almost like those things you just let slip on by, like dem briars couldn’t hardly fuss a critter so happy in his goober peas.
The topic here is not medical policy and what to about it (lest we take Beck and others too seriously), but hate speech and what to do about that. If we continue to humor the former and ignore the latter, in the end the latter will kick us in the ass. Not this time, of course, but perhaps the next time. First, let them do no harm. That is, if the AMA still permits that part of the oath. The harm here is not medical harm to our citizens so much as journalistic harm to them, and harm to journalism itself. This is more worrying than the other.
The topic here is not medical policy and what to about it (lest we take Beck and others too seriously), but hate speech and what to do about that. If we continue to humor the former and ignore the latter, in the end the latter will kick us in the ass. Not this time, of course, but perhaps the next time. First, let them do no harm. That is, if the AMA still permits that part of the oath. The harm here is not medical harm to our citizens so much as journalistic harm to them, and harm to journalism itself. This is more worrying than the other.
The topic here is not medical policy and what to about it (lest we take Beck and others too seriously), but hate speech and what to do about that. If we continue to humor the former and ignore the latter, in the end the latter will kick us in the ass. Not this time, of course, but perhaps the next time. First, let them do no harm. That is, if the AMA still permits that part of the oath. The harm here is not medical harm to our citizens so much as journalistic harm to them, and harm to journalism itself. This is more worrying than the other.
The topic here is not medical policy and what to about it (lest we take Beck and others too seriously), but hate speech and what to do about that. If we continue to humor the former and ignore the latter, in the end the latter will kick us in the ass. Not this time, of course, but perhaps the next time. First, let them do no harm. That is, if the AMA still permits that part of the oath. The harm here is not medical harm to our citizens so much as journalistic harm to them, and harm to journalism itself. This is more worrying than the other.
#1. Rush is not in recovery. Either he’s still on oxy or he has found a substitute. My guess is vicodin. You can’t be a hate-monger and recovered at the same time.
#2. Whatever Glenn Beck is on, it must be dynamite. That guy is OFF.
#3. If you want to stop corporate hate speech, start at the top. Don’t go after the yapping mouths; go after the people who sign the paychecks. Better yet, go after the members of the board. They all have names and addresses and multiple affiliations.
In the meantime, knocking off the advertisers is a fun diversion.
#1. Rush is not in recovery. Either he’s still on oxy or he has found a substitute. My guess is vicodin. You can’t be a hate-monger and recovered at the same time.
#2. Whatever Glenn Beck is on, it must be dynamite. That guy is OFF.
#3. If you want to stop corporate hate speech, start at the top. Don’t go after the yapping mouths; go after the people who sign the paychecks. Better yet, go after the members of the board. They all have names and addresses and multiple affiliations.
In the meantime, knocking off the advertisers is a fun diversion.
“This is a class war. The 80% don’t want to be even with the 20%.”
You’re a cheerleader.
The question is whether the 1% can own the other 99%.
“This is a class war. The 80% don’t want to be even with the 20%.”
You’re a cheerleader.
The question is whether the 1% can own the other 99%.
Jim Flynn,
As best I can tell, the issue here is not “corporate hate speech” (I’ve never heard of such a thing), but whether hate speech has occurred with the tacit sponsorship of corporations. Trust me, it hasn’t done, but that very well could come next. Jon’s is not a casual observation.
I get a kick out of your suggestion that folks could “go after members of the board”. That’s how we rolled back South African investment 25 years ago, one board member at a time who was committed to his or her company’s leeching off of South Africa’s set-up. The thing is, they actually did come around, most of them. And some of the politicians too. It was quite remarkable, and not a little inspiring. It may sound odd, but most people do about the best they can and wish to be understood as having done so.
These whacked persons such as Glenn Beck, however, not only don’t understand that but also exemplify its really rather insignificant antithesis. Against our First Amendment, they are fly-specks.
Jim Flynn,
As best I can tell, the issue here is not “corporate hate speech” (I’ve never heard of such a thing), but whether hate speech has occurred with the tacit sponsorship of corporations. Trust me, it hasn’t done, but that very well could come next. Jon’s is not a casual observation.
I get a kick out of your suggestion that folks could “go after members of the board”. That’s how we rolled back South African investment 25 years ago, one board member at a time who was committed to his or her company’s leeching off of South Africa’s set-up. The thing is, they actually did come around, most of them. And some of the politicians too. It was quite remarkable, and not a little inspiring. It may sound odd, but most people do about the best they can and wish to be understood as having done so.
These whacked persons such as Glenn Beck, however, not only don’t understand that but also exemplify its really rather insignificant antithesis. Against our First Amendment, they are fly-specks.
> my system is in place now… 80% HAVES.
> And #1 in Satisfaction.
> This is a class war.
> The 80% don’t want to be even with the 20%.
This would appear to imply that any other argument offered by it’s proponents is just war by other means.
As such it appears to be an invitation to be dismissed as having admitted to selfish motives void of caring for rational debate.
That’s just bad tactics – I presume one doesn’t see this Beck person or Limbaugh admitting that rational debate doesn’t interest them.
> my system is in place now… 80% HAVES.
> And #1 in Satisfaction.
> This is a class war.
> The 80% don’t want to be even with the 20%.
This would appear to imply that any other argument offered by it’s proponents is just war by other means.
As such it appears to be an invitation to be dismissed as having admitted to selfish motives void of caring for rational debate.
That’s just bad tactics – I presume one doesn’t see this Beck person or Limbaugh admitting that rational debate doesn’t interest them.
A question raised is do we have a right to health care. A right by birth? A right by citizenship? A right by … consent of the governed?
We choose to have universal health care because it is the right thing to do. The shelving of services by access to capital is the same in medicine as it is in music. That won’t change.
Childhood diseases can be better managed.
The old do not die without counsel or medicine.
The young can start a family sure that every new member gets nine months of prenatal care.
There is less fear. There is less violence. There is a better chance for every citizen to live a healthier, more productive, more fulfilled life.
What else are we doing with our money that is as important as THAT?
It’s a simple question.
A question raised is do we have a right to health care. A right by birth? A right by citizenship? A right by … consent of the governed?
We choose to have universal health care because it is the right thing to do. The shelving of services by access to capital is the same in medicine as it is in music. That won’t change.
Childhood diseases can be better managed.
The old do not die without counsel or medicine.
The young can start a family sure that every new member gets nine months of prenatal care.
There is less fear. There is less violence. There is a better chance for every citizen to live a healthier, more productive, more fulfilled life.
What else are we doing with our money that is as important as THAT?
It’s a simple question.
I would offer this as a counter to your schizophrenia argument: Agnotology, or the science of ignorance. These people aren’t crazy. Their reactions to the stimuli they’ve been exposed to follow predictable psychological patterns. All of these repugnant pundits have been using the same kind of Straussian myth creation techniques Cheney and Rumsfeld used earlier this decade to start their war. Insert some misinformation, wait for people to respond to it (read: parrot) and then use that reaction as validation of the meme they’ve spread. Once the positive feedback loop has been completed, it takes on a life of its own. Behavioral psychology is a powerful weapon in the wrong hands.
For further reading I’d suggest Coercion by Douglas Rushkoff. An excellent study of how our better judgment can be turned against us. Also includes a great dissection of the whole left vs. right, free market vs. socialism BS. It’s statist/corporatist vs. libertarian/populist, top down vs. bottom up.
Anyone else read this? Thoughts?
I would offer this as a counter to your schizophrenia argument: Agnotology, or the science of ignorance. These people aren’t crazy. Their reactions to the stimuli they’ve been exposed to follow predictable psychological patterns. All of these repugnant pundits have been using the same kind of Straussian myth creation techniques Cheney and Rumsfeld used earlier this decade to start their war. Insert some misinformation, wait for people to respond to it (read: parrot) and then use that reaction as validation of the meme they’ve spread. Once the positive feedback loop has been completed, it takes on a life of its own. Behavioral psychology is a powerful weapon in the wrong hands.
For further reading I’d suggest Coercion by Douglas Rushkoff. An excellent study of how our better judgment can be turned against us. Also includes a great dissection of the whole left vs. right, free market vs. socialism BS. It’s statist/corporatist vs. libertarian/populist, top down vs. bottom up.
Anyone else read this? Thoughts?
len,
But it’s not “a simple question”, the putative right to what we deem “health care”.
Apesofmath,
The healthcare-reform opposition are neither recognizably ignorant nor coerced. Again and again they stump their elected representatives with references to legislation that clearly they have studied but their legislators have not. Not one of them I’ve seen in action strikes me as the sort of robotic hireling one would expect to come out of, say ACORN or the bottomless wealth of a Soros. It’s ironic that the first community organizer elected President would preside over an effort to dub these people “astroturfers”. Is is too troubling to study the legislation and listen to their concerns? I just can’t imagine John Kennedy behaving this way.
len,
But it’s not “a simple question”, the putative right to what we deem “health care”.
Apesofmath,
The healthcare-reform opposition are neither recognizably ignorant nor coerced. Again and again they stump their elected representatives with references to legislation that clearly they have studied but their legislators have not. Not one of them I’ve seen in action strikes me as the sort of robotic hireling one would expect to come out of, say ACORN or the bottomless wealth of a Soros. It’s ironic that the first community organizer elected President would preside over an effort to dub these people “astroturfers”. Is is too troubling to study the legislation and listen to their concerns? I just can’t imagine John Kennedy behaving this way.
len,
But it’s not “a simple question”, the putative right to what we deem “health care”.
Apesofmath,
The healthcare-reform opposition are neither recognizably ignorant nor coerced. Again and again they stump their elected representatives with references to legislation that clearly they have studied but their legislators have not. Not one of them I’ve seen in action strikes me as the sort of robotic hireling one would expect to come out of, say ACORN or the bottomless wealth of a Soros. It’s ironic that the first community organizer elected President would preside over an effort to dub these people “astroturfers”. Is is too troubling to study the legislation and listen to their concerns? I just can’t imagine John Kennedy behaving this way.
len,
But it’s not “a simple question”, the putative right to what we deem “health care”.
Apesofmath,
The healthcare-reform opposition are neither recognizably ignorant nor coerced. Again and again they stump their elected representatives with references to legislation that clearly they have studied but their legislators have not. Not one of them I’ve seen in action strikes me as the sort of robotic hireling one would expect to come out of, say ACORN or the bottomless wealth of a Soros. It’s ironic that the first community organizer elected President would preside over an effort to dub these people “astroturfers”. Is is too troubling to study the legislation and listen to their concerns? I just can’t imagine John Kennedy behaving this way.
Hugo,
Clearly they have studied?
Applied to the majority of the town hall yellers, that’s pure unadulterated bull sh*t.
Get a grip.
Hugo,
Clearly they have studied?
Applied to the majority of the town hall yellers, that’s pure unadulterated bull sh*t.
Get a grip.
Hugo,
Clearly they have studied?
Applied to the majority of the town hall yellers, that’s pure unadulterated bull sh*t.
Get a grip.
Hugo,
Clearly they have studied?
Applied to the majority of the town hall yellers, that’s pure unadulterated bull sh*t.
Get a grip.
Fentex, appeals to selfish motives are certainly moral… and you dismiss it at the peril of your goals, because this is the winning argument with the polity.
It explains Obama’s inelegant lurch in fact:
1. he started off with universal care for everyone, but ran into people not caring that much if everyone is covered.
2. then he faced the deficit (created, mind you, precisely to stop massive new social welfare programs like this) and says we’re fixing health CARE to save money and that’ll accomplish #1. this doesn’t sound possible to the already covered.
3. he switched tracks and made it about improving the INSURANCE of people who already have it.
It didn’t have to go down like this. He could have started with… we’re going to get the uninsured out of the emergency rooms (the middle loves this), we’re going to tax plans over $20K (the middle loves this), we’re going to provide a VA-style basic care safety net that’s not as good as your insured health care (the middle loves this), we’re going to catch people who can afford private insurance and make them pay (the middle loves this), we’re not going to cover illegal immigrants (the middle loves this), we’re not going to cover abortion (the middle wants this)…. and it would have been done by Aug 1st.
I’m a libertarian and I don’t like most of the above, but I’m also able to imagine policies the middle will love. (add anything else the middle will love).
Right from the get-go, Obama should have satisfied the great middle class on the economy and health care… and used the good will to lean everybody a little more left on the environment.
He’s gotta be middle-left, not left, or even left-middle, there’s a big difference in how those arguments get made.
Fentex, appeals to selfish motives are certainly moral… and you dismiss it at the peril of your goals, because this is the winning argument with the polity.
It explains Obama’s inelegant lurch in fact:
1. he started off with universal care for everyone, but ran into people not caring that much if everyone is covered.
2. then he faced the deficit (created, mind you, precisely to stop massive new social welfare programs like this) and says we’re fixing health CARE to save money and that’ll accomplish #1. this doesn’t sound possible to the already covered.
3. he switched tracks and made it about improving the INSURANCE of people who already have it.
It didn’t have to go down like this. He could have started with… we’re going to get the uninsured out of the emergency rooms (the middle loves this), we’re going to tax plans over $20K (the middle loves this), we’re going to provide a VA-style basic care safety net that’s not as good as your insured health care (the middle loves this), we’re going to catch people who can afford private insurance and make them pay (the middle loves this), we’re not going to cover illegal immigrants (the middle loves this), we’re not going to cover abortion (the middle wants this)…. and it would have been done by Aug 1st.
I’m a libertarian and I don’t like most of the above, but I’m also able to imagine policies the middle will love. (add anything else the middle will love).
Right from the get-go, Obama should have satisfied the great middle class on the economy and health care… and used the good will to lean everybody a little more left on the environment.
He’s gotta be middle-left, not left, or even left-middle, there’s a big difference in how those arguments get made.
Fentex, appeals to selfish motives are certainly moral… and you dismiss it at the peril of your goals, because this is the winning argument with the polity.
It explains Obama’s inelegant lurch in fact:
1. he started off with universal care for everyone, but ran into people not caring that much if everyone is covered.
2. then he faced the deficit (created, mind you, precisely to stop massive new social welfare programs like this) and says we’re fixing health CARE to save money and that’ll accomplish #1. this doesn’t sound possible to the already covered.
3. he switched tracks and made it about improving the INSURANCE of people who already have it.
It didn’t have to go down like this. He could have started with… we’re going to get the uninsured out of the emergency rooms (the middle loves this), we’re going to tax plans over $20K (the middle loves this), we’re going to provide a VA-style basic care safety net that’s not as good as your insured health care (the middle loves this), we’re going to catch people who can afford private insurance and make them pay (the middle loves this), we’re not going to cover illegal immigrants (the middle loves this), we’re not going to cover abortion (the middle wants this)…. and it would have been done by Aug 1st.
I’m a libertarian and I don’t like most of the above, but I’m also able to imagine policies the middle will love. (add anything else the middle will love).
Right from the get-go, Obama should have satisfied the great middle class on the economy and health care… and used the good will to lean everybody a little more left on the environment.
He’s gotta be middle-left, not left, or even left-middle, there’s a big difference in how those arguments get made.
Fentex, appeals to selfish motives are certainly moral… and you dismiss it at the peril of your goals, because this is the winning argument with the polity.
It explains Obama’s inelegant lurch in fact:
1. he started off with universal care for everyone, but ran into people not caring that much if everyone is covered.
2. then he faced the deficit (created, mind you, precisely to stop massive new social welfare programs like this) and says we’re fixing health CARE to save money and that’ll accomplish #1. this doesn’t sound possible to the already covered.
3. he switched tracks and made it about improving the INSURANCE of people who already have it.
It didn’t have to go down like this. He could have started with… we’re going to get the uninsured out of the emergency rooms (the middle loves this), we’re going to tax plans over $20K (the middle loves this), we’re going to provide a VA-style basic care safety net that’s not as good as your insured health care (the middle loves this), we’re going to catch people who can afford private insurance and make them pay (the middle loves this), we’re not going to cover illegal immigrants (the middle loves this), we’re not going to cover abortion (the middle wants this)…. and it would have been done by Aug 1st.
I’m a libertarian and I don’t like most of the above, but I’m also able to imagine policies the middle will love. (add anything else the middle will love).
Right from the get-go, Obama should have satisfied the great middle class on the economy and health care… and used the good will to lean everybody a little more left on the environment.
He’s gotta be middle-left, not left, or even left-middle, there’s a big difference in how those arguments get made.
Dan that’s exactly why you are on the outside pissing into the tent. You claim to be against the 1%, but you are really against the 80%.
If you focused like a laser on ending bad policy (bailouts, deficits, expensive wars, sweetheart contracts, criminalizing drugs, morality police), and stopped wanting to “steal” it back from the 1% in the name of social justice – you could get more than half of what you want from the 80%, because they are rational actors.
But the 80% don’t assume the top 1% are all thieves, and the 80% know an awful lot of the bottom 20% are there for a reason.
Dan that’s exactly why you are on the outside pissing into the tent. You claim to be against the 1%, but you are really against the 80%.
If you focused like a laser on ending bad policy (bailouts, deficits, expensive wars, sweetheart contracts, criminalizing drugs, morality police), and stopped wanting to “steal” it back from the 1% in the name of social justice – you could get more than half of what you want from the 80%, because they are rational actors.
But the 80% don’t assume the top 1% are all thieves, and the 80% know an awful lot of the bottom 20% are there for a reason.
You assume that Rahm Emanuel’s brother is running the Obama Health Care team. That is just not true.
You assume that Rahm Emanuel’s brother is running the Obama Health Care team. That is just not true.
Hugo, it falls on deaf ears. (but don’t stop saying it).
They don’t want the paid ACORN organizers to be a bad thing, they just neatly put that in a box, and then convince themselves the 60 and 70 year old “protesters” are slaves to Glenn Beck, and ruining discourse.
And I know you want civil discourse, but until you figure out a way to have events held civilly but not staged managed I’m afraid we are stuck.
How exactly do you ensure SEIU and ACORN aren’t sitting in the front rows, asking all the questions, mugging for all the cameras at Democratic events they are holding? Without turning it up a notch?
How do you change the intended story arc?
Hugo, it falls on deaf ears. (but don’t stop saying it).
They don’t want the paid ACORN organizers to be a bad thing, they just neatly put that in a box, and then convince themselves the 60 and 70 year old “protesters” are slaves to Glenn Beck, and ruining discourse.
And I know you want civil discourse, but until you figure out a way to have events held civilly but not staged managed I’m afraid we are stuck.
How exactly do you ensure SEIU and ACORN aren’t sitting in the front rows, asking all the questions, mugging for all the cameras at Democratic events they are holding? Without turning it up a notch?
How do you change the intended story arc?
Stop pretending we can rely on trust… just write the policy so priority in care goes to those who can pay first. That’s the exact opposite of what he wants, and it can never be mis-interpreted.
Stop pretending we can rely on trust… just write the policy so priority in care goes to those who can pay first. That’s the exact opposite of what he wants, and it can never be mis-interpreted.
An alarming but pertinent insight from our old friend Plato:
“As empty vessels make the loudest sound, so they that have the least wit are the greatest blabbers.”
Not one of them I’ve seen in action strikes me as the sort of robotic hireling one would expect to come out of, say ACORN or the bottomless wealth of a Soros.
Are you kidding? I’ve heard several of these town hall protesters parrot Glenn Beck word for word, even use him as a source. “That’s what Glenn Beck said!”. And the repeated mention of “Death Panels”? Their arguments are clearly not their own, and they certainly have been coerced. Their better judgment has been short circuited by these appealing claims that the left is out to get them and only conservative politics can save them. This is what they want to believe and Beck has provided the appropriate myth (misinformation).
As for ignorance, I’m not exactly claiming these protesters began at ignorance, but by blaring misinformation over the airwaves these talk show hosts 2012 presidential hopefuls have created ignorance. If these protesters believe there are death panels included in this (incredibly watered down) bill, then they are ignorant. Pretty easy to see, if you ask me.
Your comparison to ACORN inappropriate since ACORN is a centralized organization. Of course the message from the members of that organization will be robotic. These protesters often claim their rage is a bottom up phenomenon and their arguments are their own, when nothing could be further from the truth. Their message is just as centralized and “robotic” as anything coming out of ACORN.
For more about this BS healthcare debate check out Matt Taibbi’s post on Newt Gingrich’s message turnaround since this whole Death Panel meme got started.
I don’t know. I just think it’s incumbent on the party in power to act as arbiter of free speech, and that the reaction to these angry townhalls has disgraced a venerable party so resentful of e.g. the Patriot Act and its chilling effect. My eye is not so much on the substance of healthcare reform as on the First Amendment issues involving freedom of speech, assembly and press.
Ken,
I’ve learned a lot from these protesters, and have been very interested to learn of their concerns regarding, for example: the House bill’s archaic and hurtful references to the “mentally retarded” (betraying legislators’ ignorance of the legislation as well as a hasty cut-and-paste job of drafting from old boilerplate); the bizarre provisions for federal end-of-life counseling sessions; the lack of tort reform; the continued emphasis on the volume of medical procedures performed over healthful results achieved; the job-killing payroll tax imposed to pay for the monstrosity. The lawmakers are not making these points; the grassroots plaintiffs are.
I keep coming back to the sagacious dictum of Mr. Justice Brandeis: “The proper remedy for offensive speech is…more speech.” Democrats can’t succeed by behaving as blackguards and slanderers of what strikes me as a remarkably diligent and well informed opposition.
I suppose I could go downtown to the Federal Building and purchase a copy of the bill from the Printing Office, but the damn thing is ten inches thick and is only the first iteration of what almost certainly will end up as a Senate bill approved in conference after Congress reconvenes. And then the real spadework will have to begin: careful attention to the promulgation of agency rules and regulations. That administrative process will involve not hundreds of pages, but many thousands of them.
Moreover, I agree with the citizen critics that the proponents bear the burden to show that the federal government somehow has suddenly become an effective agent of service delivery. But as I say, my greatest concern is for the protection of constructive dissent.
There is one difference: you are paying for ACORN to be there. Companies are paying for the Health organizers. It doesn’t change the fact that neither are really just-in-time bottom-up groups. It changes the interest for organizing, ie, motives and intent.
There are legitimate points from the opposition. They get lost in the rejection of the styles and the obvious parroting.
CodePink does it better. They are creative.
I don’t think it complex that health care reform is necessary and can help out in many ways.
Turning it into a civil rights issue regarding free speech is to separate the process from the goals and then by focusing entirely on the process, forget what the goals are. Unless there is consensus on the vital need for health care, it does become a majority rule issue and in this case, the minority can speak long and elegantly with informed opinions but will lose the opportunities to shape the outcomes.
Certainly these professionally instigated scenes are not cause to weaken civil rights. They are cause to be more diligent.
First, Apesofmath is right that ACORN was an unfair comparison I shouldn’t have made.
Second, yes, len, the system ought to be and can be changed. The White House has taken to calling it “medical insurance reform” rather than “healthcare reform”, and that’s fine with me as long as the new moniker accurately describes the forthcoming Senate proposals. But you can’t reform medical insurance without tort reform, and Democrats are reluctant to go that route. A ray of hope, though: the trial lawyers did cooperate in the tort reform attendant to California’s retooling of workers comp the year Schwarzenegger began his incumbency. Without that kind of cooperation California’s economy would be a good deal worse now; note, for example, that Safeway, the state’s largest employer, was bleeding money on workers comp costs prior to the reform.
Finally, I see that President Obama even now is holding a town hall in Colorado on the healthcare/medical insurance reform. He is taking tough questions and repeatedly has stated that “this is a legitimate debate”. I think it’s just the right thing for him to do, and the right way to handle it. I’m proud of him, and will study his answers in detail anon. Right now I have to grill pork chops.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124476804026308603.html
Safeway’s approach to medical is awesome.
Hugo,
The whole point of the majority of the noise is to make the whole thing so upsetting and distasteful, that the majority of people just want the whole thing to go away: a classic industry method of killing infant reform in the crib.
There are objectionable things in it? Oh My God! It all has to go!!!
Trouble is, those informed folk (who haven’t read the bill either) are spinning the objections. Example: mental retardation is a legal diagnostic term that is used in medicare and medicaid law and resulting federal regulations. However much members of The Arc and other advocacy groups work to have old legal language updated to use “intellectual disabilities”, the diagnostic codes are going to continue and therefore be used in any enabling legislation, just as they are in Medi/Medi regs and waivers. Those of us who are members of The Arc (formerly the Association for Retarded Citizens) continue to struggle with having our brand convey our purpose (which “The Arc” doesn’t do well) and a genuine desire to distance people with disabilities from what has become a generalized slur.
But, all that aside (though I applaud you for your understanding of the needed change) we are never shy about getting a law that supports people with disabilities regardless of the gringe worthy labels used, and are taking a very strong lobbying position for significant health care reform. There is no confusion in our minds that a significant proportion of people with disabilities are not able to qualify for federal benefits, and a larger number of those who do are seeing their benefits eyed by self interested clowns with Morgan like mentalities as a way to close the deficit. It was a major push by the Bush administration to strangle Medicaid, and I can guarantee you that private insurance companies have zero interest in picking up the disabled.
So, it refers to MR? Speaking as president of The Are of Oregon, I don’t mind it we get a bill. There is time to work on the long slow slog of changing language, less so for keeping people healthy.
So it has end of life counseling? Newt fickin’ Gingrich was fully in support of it before he was against it, so that’s just fear mongering. No tort reform: doctors v. lawyers, no politician fells any win win love there. The emphasis on trying to find cost containment by limiting endless consultations? Oregon has made that a part of our Medicaid program for years. We had endless (seeming) public input, and a very open process of prioritizing interventions and deciding what is appropriate to pay for and what isn’t. Grim at times, a big SP “Ya betcha” to that. But it’s the only way to get to needed health care with a capped budget. Morgan’s balanced budget meme in action.
Point is, create chaos and people will shun the debate. The insurance industry gets that, and the majority of objections brought up by the people you say your are learning from are crafted talking points that don’t have any purpose but to stop the process through noise over signal. Don’t get sucked in by it, Hugo, please.
Ken,
Thank you for such an informed and considered response. I promise to mull your very formidable point about the muddying of the debate, the sewing of confusion, the aversion therapy treatment. That sort of thing obviously belongs in the study of propaganda, a subject that Jon and his colleagues teach about. I hadn’t seen it coming in this immediately current context, but will, as I say, give it much more thought going forward.
More so, I’m really grateful for your official commitment to The Arc and its principal clients. Personally, I tire of the continual revision of politically correct terminology, as over the years, from the ’60s forward, I’ve counted among my friends the mentally retarded, the developmentally disabled, the mentally handicapped, the specially challenged, the developmentally challenged, the intellectually challenged, and probably several other amoebic neologisms I don’t recall, given my own deficiencies. I can’t tell you on this screen how deeply I care for us to get it right some day, much less can I express how much I agree with you that caring–more than mere care–must change, the language be damned.
Just sent a cease-and-desist letter to WalMart, which, it turns out, is one of Beck’s advertisers.
You can do it too:
http://www.wakeupwalmart.com/feature/stop-supporting-hate-speech/
Ken, I don’t think you fully appreciate what is going on at these meetings….an how people are reacting when seeing them on TV, youtube, etc.
The meetings are chock full of unpaid people who have seen Obama say outloud – I want single payer… this is a step towards single payer. No amount of dancing or blaming Beck or the insurance industry or anyone else is a good answer to good people who have seen with their own eyes and ears something they DO NOT want.
You being honest, in that you care deeply about the subject, requires that you deal with this issue head on.
As an example tort reform: you don’t get to punt with ,”doctors vs. lawyers” – you want to really cover mental health issues? You throw the lawyers overboard, you make it clear to your own team, the lawyers are in YOUR way, because if their interests are being traded away, I promise you the doctors and employers (who pay the insurance premiums) they’ll start to take your side serious.
I mean no offense here, but in life, how much you really want something, is directly proportional to how much you are really willing to sacrifice…. and winning arguments – the kind that will convince the good folks saying NO – they’re all about half-a-loaf, the other side seeing what you left on the table for them.
Morgan,
My sense (whatever that means) is that you’re right about most of this healthcare flak originating in the blogosphere and not, as Apesofmath perceives, from radio or television. It may even be that a lot of these folk who get up the nerve to take a mic in the face of a senator or house member are themselves propelled thereunto by their own blogging. Heaven forbid!
Beck loses 8 more big corporate sponsors today:
eight more major advertisers have pulled their support from Glenn Beck’s show — Wal-Mart, Best Buy, CVS, Travelocity, Allergan (maker of Restasis), Ally Bank, Broadview Security, and Re-Bath
via http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/8/17/768323/-Wal-Mart,-CVS,-Best-Buy-ditch-Glenn-Beck-(plus-5-more-companies)
That’s good, MS. I only hope that nutball gets the message.