The Years Of Writing Dangerously
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Thirteen years ago, as I was starting to experiment with this blogging
thing, I wrote the following: [T]he speed with which an idea in your head
reaches th...
Via Matt Yglesias, more of the hypocrisy and nonsense of the Right - crybabies and liars, always looking for some reason to claim offense - in this case regarding the President's Passover message. (Image via Lady That's My Skull.)
"Welcome to the club of states who don't turn their back on the sick and the poor." - French President Nicolas Sarkozy, on a visit to the U.S. (Via TPM)
On Monday morning, I hadn't heard about the "Baby Killer" shout in the House of Representatives while Bart Stupak was speaking. I had tried to avoid watching Sunday's final floor debate on the bill. I was confident in its passage by that point and didn't want to get riled up, and I wanted to finish up the weekend with my kids, not distracted. My wife turned on the television briefly, and there was Eric Cantor ranting, and I made her turn it off.
So the next morning when one of my colleagues came by and was commenting on how crazy and ignorant the Republican representatives were, I commented that I thought it was mostly calculated crazy, rather than just plain stupidity. Now, I don't necessarily believe that. Or, to be more honest, I actually do believe they are stupid, but are even more motivated by malice and hatred. Maybe that's shrill, but whatever. The evidence unfolds before us in waves these days.
He couldn't understand my hesitance to call them nuts. Really, I was just trying to be balanced and even handed, and not assume the worst. But watching some of the crazy from Sunday, and watching the post-passage crazy, the threats against elected representatives who voted for reform, the calculated support for such violence by the GOP representatives, and on and on, well, it's hard to be balanced when there's a herd of elephants standing on on side.
Take John Boehner's lunatic rant from Sunday.
See, this was the kind of thing made me believe it's all a performance. Boehner is completely full of it here, and his words are completely disconnected from reality, but it seems to me he's just trying to stoke the flames (which is evil, but not lunatic or ignorant, since he really has to know exactly what he's doing and the impact of what he's doing), to play on the stupidity of what unfortunately comprises a huge chunk of America. I came to my conclusion that this is all a big, nasty, dangerous performance - but a performance - simply because Boehner (of the "treacherous path toward government-encouraged euthanasia" breed of hypocrites) is an asshole and has a history of being completely full of shit, and I already know that, so assuming Boehner's dishonesty is the logical inference.
Remarkably, these clowns cannot even figure out what side they're coming from. They're so concerned about possible Medicare reductions? Riiiight. Message consistency means nothing. Toss as much against the wall and see what sticks. And they rightfully have so little respect for their audience that they have no concern about the cognitive dissonance inherent in the anti-government right betting on an argument that the Democrats are trying to dismantle a government program, all in order to prevent the Democrats from passing a governmental regulatory overhaul.
It's uberfunny and telling that Boehner's co-crazies were confused about the right answer to "Have you read this bill?" Uh...no...? Um...yes...? Um ... ok, hell no we haven't! Better to proclaim your ignorance - rather than be able to actually explain what the bill actually, you know, does - because our theme of the moment is them Dems forced this on us.
The Senate only passed the bill last fucking year, tools; but nobody was able to read it! None of this is about honestly believing in anything; it's about personal and political destruction, it's about power, and it's about manipulation.
Barney Frank is absolutely right. This health care battle is a proxy for all that the right-wing populists hate, which is a long and sorry list. So of course they hurl racist and homophobic insults in their "health care" town hall meetings and in the halls of congressional office buildings; of course they make abortion an issue; of course this is like D-Day. How dare you commie socialist Nazi corporatist free-love hippie anti-Christian tree-hugging terrorist-loving baby-killing sodomites try to take away our America!
These are small minded people who think that America belongs to them and that any change is a threat to them, that see America as a zero sum game where anything that helps someone else is necessarily taking things away from them. So, expanding access to health insurance must be harmful to everyone who currently has access (partially explaining the GOP's dishonest invocation of Medicare).
Similarly, same-sex marriage is a threat to "traditional" marriage (though I'm struggling to understand the apparent fact that it's ok to have secret illicit gay sex outside of your marriage, as long as you're married to someone and publicly proclaim you homophobia), because traditional marriage cannot survive if gays can have a sanctioned, monogamous relationship. Or something. Acknowledging a human role in climate change undermines the idea that a higher being controls our lives. The list goes on and on. Take your pick.
You're either with us or you're against us. The fight and the anger is about keeping what's mine, and you damn well better keep your un-American hands off of it. It's about fear of the other. It's why McCain called Barack Obama "That One."
It's about cowardice and hate and ignorance. And evil.
It's the Party of Palin, and jackasses like Boehner and Cantor and Palin are only too happy to play along.
Newt perfectly summarizes the way Republican's think:
Calling the bill "the most radical social experiment . . . in modern times," Gingrich said: "They will have destroyed their party much as Lyndon Johnson shattered the Democratic Party for 40 years" with the enactment of civil rights legislation in the 1960s.
Civil rights and ensuring equal access to health care. Mistakes both.
President Obama today will achieve passing the most significant piece of legislation since the Civil Rights Act. That's perhaps a bit hyperbole. Certainly, the Clean Water Act and other legislation deserve a prominent place among the important laws of the past 50 years. But, nothing since the Civil Rights Act has required the investment of political and social capital, and faced such a rabid, dishonest and morally bankrupt opposition - despite conservative claims to be grounded in moral principle, and culminating in a no-bones-about-it racist and homophobic outburst of the kind of vitriol that barely hides under the surface of almost all GOP (and make no mistake about it, the tea partiers are the heart and soul of the GOP) populism - than health care reform.
I cannot say that I was a huge proponent of doing this, now. Health care reform - or rather health insurance reform or, as I branded it last year, "health security" - was a key and fundamental and essential policy goal - but I worried about the timing. I hashed out my concerns and my internal debate on these pages. Still remembering the Clinton initiative, I believed that health care reform was a land mine, and that Obama's political skills would be best initially served by focusing on closing Guantanamo, on ending Don't Ask Don't Tell and repealing the Defense of Marriage Act, of moving the U.S. away from the use of fossil fuels.
I feared that a bruising battle over heath care - insurance - reform would doom his ability to do those other things, and more. Better, perhaps, to make HCR a second term issue.
Yet here's the thing. Political capital is meant to be spent. Elections are not won to simply decide how to win the next one. Majorities exist to be used. And if you pass on the opportunity to make fundamental and lasting change when the opportunity presents, the time may never come again. Nothing is guaranteed.
President Obama understands this, and America will have to as well.
Moreover, President Obama is also making progress on those other initiatives. We may hear ongoing "Progressive" complaints about the speed and effectiveness of those initiatives, but look - progress is hard, especially in this toxic environment. It requires a lot of hard work, but also a lot of care, to make sure not only that it is done right, but that it gets done at all. It requires patience and persistence, and patience and persistence are the hallmarks of this President.
Expect a very busy seven months until the mid-term elections. But also expect to be patient on each of the the issues. The issues that confront America are not simple ones that yield easy answers. And this is not a President who rushes into action in order to be shot down on the front lines.
Today is an historic day, and this is an historic President, and not for where he came from. Everyone who voted for Barack Obama should be proud of their President and of themselves. From his careful, deliberate, patient posture to his respectful courting of those concerned about abortion restrictions (Bart Stupak) to the my-way-or-no-way so-called Progressives (Dennis Kucinich), he has achieved something that, despite the unrealistic fantasies of much of the left upon his election, was by no means ever certain and which has never been achieved. It's another first for Obama, but more than that, it's a first that really matters, that isn't just symbolic.
And he didn't do it alone. I want to be careful and not overlook something - someone - very important here, who was President Obama's equal and partner in this process, so let me make this point. Despite the misogynistic hatred of Nancy Pelosi that pervades our discourse, Pelosi is proving to be one of the great Speakers of the House. She deserves immense credit for getting this done, and done smartly. From the perspective of policy and process, she has been everything for which the Democrats could have been hoped.
This is the time we've been waiting for.
UPDATE: Matt Yglesias, this morning: "Nancy Pelosi is perhaps the greatest progressive Speaker of the House that we’ve ever had."
Compared to the health care system I would like to see, this bill doesn’t cover enough people, doesn’t do enough to control costs, doesn’t do enough to emphasize prevention and public health, and is too soft on the health care industry. But relative to the status quo, this bill covers a lot of people, helps to control costs, emphasizing prevention and public health, and reigns in the health care industry. The reasons to be disappointed with this bill are all reasons to be disappointed with the status quo, and the disappointing nature of the status quo is a reason to be enthusiastic about this bill. What’s more, if the bill passes you can pass more bills in the future! If it fails, politicians won’t want to touch health care again for decades.
“The difference between a moral man and a man of honor is that the latter regrets a discreditable act, even when it has worked and he has not been caught.” – HL Mencken
I don't know about you, but I'm fed up with listening to the GOP complain that a process that has taken a year lacks proper deliberation and is being jammed down their throats, or that using the reconciliation process to tweak the Senate bill after the House passes it is unprecedented and unethical. It's a crock, and the fact that the media keeps playing dumb and playing along is absurd at best. So it's good to see E.J. Dionne tackle the nonsense head on.
Republicans, however, don't want to talk much about the substance of health care. They want to discuss process, turn "reconciliation" into a four-letter word and maintain that Democrats are "ramming through" a health bill.
It is all, I am sorry to say, one big lie -- or, if you're sensitive, an astonishing exercise in hypocrisy.
The only news there is that someone is willing to point it out.
"The whole modern world has divided itself into Conservatives and Progressives. The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of the Conservatives is to prevent the mistakes from being corrected." G. K. Chesterton
"If the counsel of the Judeo-Christian tradition had been followed, Tillikum [the killer whale] would have been put out of everyone's misery back in 1991 and would not have had the opportunity to claim two more human lives. Says the ancient civil code of Israel, "When an ox gores a man or woman to death, the ox shall be stoned, and its flesh shall not be eaten, but the owner shall not be liable." (Exodus 21:28) ... But, the Scripture soberly warns, if one of your animals kills a second time because you didn't kill it after it claimed its first human victim, this time you die right along with your animal," - Bryan Fischer, director of Issue Analysis for the American Family Association.
What Glenn says. Look, you may not like Alan Grayson's style - he's aggressive and a smart-ass and fed up. If you don't like it, fine. But he's got a solid grip on reality. To compare him to Michele Bachmann? Now that's crazy.
UPDATE: Let's compare and contrast. Here's proposed legislation from Alan Grayson, to allow medicare buy-in.
Michele Bachmann's principal contribution to health care reform? Introducing the "death panel" lexicon to the floor of Congress. For good measure, carbon dioxide is beneficial to the earth. The census is dangerous. And gays are targeting our nation's youth.
I've been calling them the "so-called Progressives." Ygelesias rebrands them as the "rejectionist left." In either case, Yglesias is right on point with this comment:
There’s always time, if a bill passes, to try to fight to change it for the better. You just don’t vote “no” on a major expansion of the social safety net simply because you feel you’ve been slapped in the face. In many ways, public option supporters have been slapped in the face while annoying moderates have been mollycoddled. And yet, the result of the process is a good bill that will make Americans better off. When faced with a bill like that, you vote for it.
So NPR informed me this morning that Bart Stupak is leading 11 other Democrats in the House to oppose passing the Senate's health care reform bill over their opposition to abortion. I had to bite my tongue and not yell at the radio about that - as well as NPR's ridiculous portrayal of the GOP's ability to derail reconciliation - because I was driving the orchestra class carpool to school.
But...what the F? OK, Stupak and his 11 lemmings are schmucks, hiding behind the abortion argument as their way to avoid voting for health care reform and get on the good side of their conservative districts. They're cowards. What's new?
So what's NPR's excuse? Don't they have the sense to say, what's objectionable about the Senate bill? Can't anyone call the bluff of complete bullshit artists? Just like with everything else, they just report the sound-bitten arguments of the politically motivated, and fail to fill anything in with, you know, context, facts, information, serious enlightenment.
Bart Stupak cannot vote for HCR because of his moral highground over abortion? Where does the reform bill provide for financing of abortion? How does the Senate bill or President Obama's policy in any way change the current U.S. policy? Anyone? Anyone?
Could those intrepid NPR reporters explain what this is all about?
Sanford, FL (March 3, 2010) - The Central Florida Zoo & Botanical Gardens’ 63 year-old female Asian elephant Mary died late Tuesday evening March 2. Bonnie Breitbeil, Director of Animal Collections said, “This is a very sad occurrence. For her advanced age, Mary was a healthy individual with age-related illnesses, and due to her age, our staff monitored her activity hourly. A necropsy is being conducted to determine the specific cause of death. Staff is deeply saddened as we feel we have lost a very dear friend. Additionally, elephants, just like people, go through a mourning process and Maude has been able to say goodbye to her following her death.”
Joe Montisano, CEO said, “Mary was a favorite among Central Florida Zoo guests and staff and a great animal. Her life was dedicated to educating children-of-all-ages about Asian elephants and certainly for a large percentage of our guests, who will never see an elephant in the wild, she represented that connection. She was a great ambassador and touched the lives of many people in her years on the planet. We will miss her.”
Mary was born in 1946 at the Nehru Zoological Park. She came to the U.S. in 1952 with the Polack Bros. Circus. She retired from the circus in 1956 to the Dallas Zoo before coming to the Central Florida Zoo in May 1983 where she was the matriarch of the group despite Maude outweighing her by 3,000 pounds. Mary was the third oldest Asian elephant on record at an AZA accredited zoo in the U.S.
Mary touched many people’s hearts throughout the years and zoo guests have enjoyed the annual birthday celebrations and seeing Maude and Mary during weekend elephant demonstration and encounters. Mary has a special place in the hearts of her animal keepers having enjoyed interaction with them especially having her stomach rubbed and sneaking up on new keepers.
“As with any geriatric animal, the Zoo has been preparing for this day for many years and the expertise gained from caring for Mary at her advanced age will contribute to the zoological community’s care of geriatric elephants, said Montisano. “Additionally, our staff has been working closely with the Association of Zoos & Aquariums (AZA) and the Elephant Species Survival Program (SSP) to look at the best option for Maude as we move forward.”
The Asian elephant is an endangered species due to centuries of hunting and habitat destruction. They inhabit the grasslands and jungles of Southeast Asia from western India east through the Malay Peninsula and Sumatra. Elephants are herbivores and feed on hay, grains, fruits, and vegetables. Asian elephants can live up to 60 years of age, can attain a weight of 11,000 pounds and can reach heights of ten feet at the shoulder.
Donations in her memory are being collected at the Central Florida Zoo and will be sent to the Elephant Conservation Program to help endangered elephants in the wild.
-zoo-
For more information contact:
Shonna Green Director, Marketing and PR 407.323.4450 ext. 115 501.258.8707 cell shonnag@centralfloridazoo.org
The Central Florida Zoo & Botanical Gardens is a 116-acre private, nonprofit organization dedicated to the conservation of wildlife and to engaging and educating our guests by sharing knowledge and celebrating our natural world.
Ezra Klein discusses the postal service as a dying industry, which I think is right, in the modern era of emails and PDFs and electronic banking and such. We're not there yet, given the potential break-downs in the system - what happens if my DSL goes down or the battery on my (new!) iPhone dies? But, the time for moving toward a more limited physical mail system is approaching.
Still, the selfish contrarian in me wants to know how limited mail delivery would affect me, particularly in light of the specific events in my life. To be more precise, I subscribed for Netflix today, and I really like the idea of a one-day turnaround on my DVDs - that World's Greatest Dad should be arriving in tomorrow's mail! (Really, that's what I picked for my first movie from Netflix? Really.)
OK, I know the answer there is to just stream the movies through the computer or directly to my television - which is wildly more efficient than DVDs by mail, assuming sufficient bandwidth - but then how would I have a witty riposte in my post about the postal service?)
UPDATE: Well, that's a weird and disturbing - and very funny - movie. Williams is fantastic. "Bruce Hornsby" is really tall.
Via Matt Yglesias, more of the hypocrisy and nonsense of the Right - crybabies and liars, always looking for some reason to claim offense - in this case regarding the President's Passover message. (Image via Lady That's My Skull.)
I cannot say that I was a huge proponent of doing this, now. Health care reform - or rather health insurance reform or, as I branded it last year, "health security" - was a key and fundamental and essential policy goal - but I worried about the timing. I hashed out my concerns and my internal debate on these pages. Still remembering the Clinton initiative, I believed that health care reform was a land mine, and that Obama's political skills would be best initially served by focusing on closing Guantanamo, on ending Don't Ask Don't Tell and repealing the Defense of Marriage Act, of moving the U.S. away from the use of fossil fuels.
I don't know about you, but I'm fed up with listening to the GOP complain that a process that has taken a year lacks proper deliberation and is being jammed down their throats, or that using the reconciliation process to tweak the Senate bill after the House passes it is unprecedented and unethical. It's a crock, and the fact that the media keeps playing dumb and playing along is absurd at best. So it's good to see E.J. Dionne tackle the nonsense head on.
A friend sent me this from today's news:
Ezra Klein discusses the postal service as a dying industry, which I think is right, in the modern era of emails and PDFs and electronic banking and such. We're not there yet, given the potential break-downs in the system - what happens if my DSL goes down or the battery on my (new!) iPhone dies? But, the time for moving toward a more limited physical mail system is approaching.
