Daily Topics - Tuesday March 23 2010
By Louise
Hour One - Why should the United States be the only country in the world that allows for profit health care? Economist Dr. John Lott http://johnrlott.blogspot.com
Hour Two - Why are the Republicans calling for a return to slave breaking?
Hour Three - How can America best support both Israel and peace in the region? Hadar Susskind Director of Strategy and Policy at J Street www.jstreet.org
Comments
#2
Someone on MSNBC in the last 24 hours said that there were only 20 hours allowed for debate in the Senate.
#3
In the 1970s and 1980s, there are a number treatises on the evolution of the idea of white supremacy . . . In European terms, the story goes like this:
When the “fair”-haired, “fair”-skinned Vikings took over Normandy, they killed the men folk, set up compounds and bred themselves a new generation. Their compounds became castles and their women folk remained largely locked up inside. The lack of exposure to the sun resulted in alabaster skin marked only by the blue veins running under their skins. The folk working in the fields . . . Grew darkened skin (not from sun exposure) from touching the dirt . . .
Fair was equated with ruling class and wealth and virgin purity and safety and yada-yada . . .
Dark was equated with dirty, poor, serfdom, labor and yada-yada . . .
This is yet another turn of recessivist Monarchists versus progressive/liberal Democrats that we have been fighting since the Founding Fathers began the Great American Experiment.
#4
#5
If white supremacy isn't real...how do you explain Pamela Anderson? :)
"The republicans lost face on the health care vote, but they found it on the way to the bank." harry ashburn
#6
BREAKING NEWS!
"Washington State Republican Attorney General Rob McKenna has agreed to give up his taxpayer subsidized health insurance for the duration of his lawsuit, which seeks to torpedo a carefully-crafted attempt to get health insurance to thousands of Washington State residents.
"It would be hypocritical for me to accept health insurance that Washington State residents are forced to pay for," said McKenna in a written statement, "When I am trying to keep them from getting health insurance themselves."
#7
@ harry //how do you explain Pamela Anderson?//
Pamela Anderson is evidence that Science is Supreme (specifically, silicon-based medical science)
#8
Health care for all? How about for the Iraqi victims of Depleted Uranium?
Even if the wars that the US is engaged in were legal or necessary, the method of warfare is clearly beyond the legal norms.
#9
Depleted Uranium: A War Crime Within a War Crime
Destroying Iraq's Future, Its Children
by William Bowles
#10
Give me a break. I just listened to it and would not make it out if I were not listening for it.
#11
Olbermann's take on the right-wing nuts in his latest Special Comment is excellent: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35990654
Here is an excerpt:
Certainly you [Republicans] must recognize the future is with the humane, the inclusive, the diverse— it is with America. Not the America of 1910, but the America of 2010. Discard this dangerous, separatist, elitist, backward-looking rhetoric, and you will be welcomed back into the political discourse of this nation. Continue with it, and you will destroy yourselves and whatever righteous causes you actually believe in, and on the way you will damage this country in ways and manners untold.
#12
#13
Caller Ramon just validated the Demint/Demented theory.
#14
@Zero G re; DU: yeah, I've seen more than once on the MSM incidental reports on Iraqis who happen to have 3 out of 4 children with birth defects; and nobody questioning a connection.
"Sarah Palin?...well...she's no Dan Quayle!" -harry ashburn
#15
@Zero G: re DU: have you seen the postings on Thom's message board?
#16
I wonder how many racists here in America have had to go to the Emergency Room for primary health care because their blood pressure has been through the roof since Obama was elected?
Poetic Justice, or just Irony?
#17
FOX making a big f---ing deal out of Biden's "big f---ing deal" comment is just par for the course. When the substantive facts run counter to their right-wing bizzaro world alternative reality, they can always be counted on to kick up some dust to help distract their brainwashed viewers from the truth that's staring them in the face.
Ed
#18
I'm a little more pro-Israel than some folks here, but I am concerned about so-called "provocative" acts that Palestinians will use as an excuse to continue to refuse to move on the issue of a peace agreement. One other reason why there is no movement is that Abbass has to deal with a sizable minority on the West Bank (not to mention not having any authority in Gaza) that supports Hamas and its quest to "destroy" Israel. It almost seems as if Abbass is content to keep his little fiefdom rather than take chances on upsetting Hamas supporters--which he has done for years.
#19
What I'm wondering is...how the hell can FAUX news blame the health care vote loss on illegal aliens?
#20
@harry,
No, I must have missed those. (DU postings)
Well, I don't think many are talking about returning the lands the US took from Mexico during the Polk regime, but it does make one pause when we are able to say "illegal Mexicans" in what was formerly Mexico...
#21
I truly believe that anarchy and democratic (small "d") failure is the goal of today's Republican Party.
#22
@harry ashburn
Regarding FAUX news. They can blame the health care vote on illegal aliens for the same reason they can spout all their other nonsense. They say whatever crap comes to their feverish little minds, because they are not burdened with any sense of civic duty, commitment to logic or allegiance to the truth.
Ed
#23
@Zero G exactly. That holds true in all of the US we took from Mexico, including California, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona...
In my view, the "illegal aliens" are just trying to go home.
#24
The Republicans have reduced their party to a emotional, visceral and reactionary group of angry pathetic members. They have reduced their strategy to all or nothing, and their tactics to gimmickry. They no longer have good leaders as representatives, they're just cheerleaders for piss poor values.
#25
Thom: "the Republicans... are looking like the haters."
As Randi and Oprah both say: "When someone shows you who they are, believe them."
Ed
#26
@Nels: you are absolutely wrong! you said :"they’re just cheerleaders for piss poor values.". You forgot the apostrophe between "piss" and "poor:". i.e. "piss-poor".
“If Stupidity got us into this mess, then why can’t it get us out?” – mark twain
.
#27
@Ed in Redondo
“When someone shows you who they are, believe them.”
So why do some folks have trouble with the fact that Obama has been shown to be a corporate toady and warmonger?
#28
@harry, that's an hyphen, Apostrophe was a Zappa album...
#29
I know this off topic, but here's an article about Google ending its censorship in China.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405274870411730457513796080399389...
#30
Subject change. Sorry.
If corporations are people, and the 13th amendment says, "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude" does that mean all shareholders are now breaking the law? Does that mean no person can own a corporation in the US because no one can own another person?
#31
If DeMint did not intend for his statement to be construed as racist, he should apologize for being insensitive as Dan Rather did.
#32
No leaders in the black community thought this was worth pursuing, so why would the media pick it up? That's usually where these things originate. Obviously the senator wouldnt deny it either, because that would just bring it to their attention and turn it into an issue.
#33
@Zero G.
"So why do some folks have trouble with the fact that Obama has been shown to be a corporate toady and warmonger?"
Speaking just for myself, I had no illusions when I voted for Obama that he was no Bernie Sanders progressive. I knew he was a DLC corporate stooge and the shape of his health care reform just reconfirms that. That said, for all his shortcomings he was and remains 1000% better then the Republican alternative. The country was drifting quickly into fascism under Bush. Under Obama that drift has largely been arrested. Now it is up to us as progressives to start pushing the nation's ideological pendulum back to the left from it's 30 year rightward swing. The way to do that is by taking our own Democratic party from the Blue Dog conservatives by mounting hard primary challenges in the next few election cycles.
Ed
#34
I want to say that Jim Demented is a racist. Making a comment one year and another comment a year later to me is not racism.
What is racism? To understand racism a person needs to study a pattern of behavior. You study the person's ongoing verbal language and a person's body language.
Jim Demented is a RACIST!!!
#35
Ed,
Best of luck to Marcy Winograd...
#36
@jack
"No leaders in the black community thought this was worth pursuing, so why would the media pick it up?"
Why the corporate media would "pick it up" I don't know. They apparently think their corporate interests are better served by fanning the flames of such racism. That said, I do know why they ought to "pick it up." They should focus on it because it is part of a much larger and clearly intentional pattern of escalated Republican race-baiting and racial code-talking that has been going on ever since Obama announced he was running for president. The fact that the Republicans are using tactics right out of the nazi playbook here in America ought to be a matter of deep concern to all Americans. It ought to be the sort of thing that a free press would take note of.
Ed
#37
There is no doubt in mind that DeMint meant break as in 'bend to my will'. DeMint as in demented (Spanish transliteration) made me laugh -- closer to the truth is De Mint as in 'of money' (likely the actual French etymology). Some of my ancestors were French who came to the Carolinas after the French Revolution. Hmmm with a name like DeMint I guess he comes from a long line of royalists I bet there are a lot of slaves in the soil that fed his family tree. Economic royalist applies to DeMint now after he went to Honduras as soon as Zelaya was deposed and deported. I am pretty sure that DeMint went to visit the former residents of the Carolinas (textile mills) who are still part of the Senator's current corporate constituency.
I agree with the caller who said the key question is racist vs supremacist where a racist thinks that black people are very different people and the supremacist thinks that black people aren't even people. The racist is constrained and conflicted by empathy, law and the Constitution while the supremacist feels free to act out in the most horrible ways (like in the Deep South, Tsarist Russia, Nazi Germany, Darfur, Congo and the internal partition of Iraq). The racists have a million years of evolution and their upbringing to shake and we should all wish them well with their internal battles. The supremacists are as hateful, selfish and evil as people can get - they are so gone to their fear of 'the other' that they project their darkest impulses on other people's motivations as an the excuse for acting out those impulses themselves. And they will do it in the most unconscionable ways. Remember Rosewood!
#38
@Zero G.
"Best of luck to Marcy Winograd…"
Thanks, I was just out last weekend campaigning for Marcy. Jane Harmon is going to be a tough nut to crack, but we are guardedly optimistic. Since the 2002 redistricting, the 36th CD is a whole lot more liberal then it's present representative...
Ed
#39
Here are three paragraphs from Father John Dear's recent article, "Washing Feet."
When the demagogue Glenn Beck urged Christians recently to quit any church that used the words “social justice” or “economic justice,” he betrayed the depth of our cultural darkness. But poor Glenn Beck cannot even imagine the church’s true political calling to be a disarmament movement, a revolutionary community of active nonviolence in resistance to war and empire.
I can’t help but mourn sometimes about how far we are from grasping the Gospel’s call to nonviolence. Among the media and government, even priests and the laity -- few understand. The church, I submit, is called to be the community that loves enemies, speaks against war, makes peace, and takes up the cross of nonviolent resistance to systemic injustice and empire.
“I have set the example,” Jesus said, “and you should do for each other exactly what I have done for you.”
#40
The far-right fringe!
http://www.opednews.com/articles/The-Far-Right-Fringe-Arme-by-Mary-Shaw-...
#41
Empire on the ropes!
http://www.opednews.com/articles/America--An-Empire-On-The-by-Allen-L-Ro...
#42
Fifteen facts and China
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2010/03/23/15-facts-a...
#43
Hi,
While listening to Thom's show today, I tuned in especially to the discussions regarding health care providers and their obligations to provide care.
Well, such a subject came up in Central Massachusetts a few years ago. A person feared he was suffering a heart attack and followed hospital signs to get help. The signs he followed were for a for-profit hospital chain. That chain refused him service and told him to go to a nearby nonprofit hospital. Nonprofit hospitals, to maintain their nonprofit status, often are required to maintain 24x7 emergency room care and are obligated to never turn anyone away.
That person then -while indeed suffering a heart attack!- drove himself to the nearby nonprofit hospital and checked himself into the emergency room. This nonprofit hospital then saved his life.
This whole incident caused some consternation in the community, let me tell you! It highlighted the cold heart of the for profit hospital and how they wouldn't even call an ambulance for this person.
I'd have to dig to find the articles related to this incident (it was reported in the Worcester Telegram), but I'm sure I can find them- given time. My point is that I do not believe that for profit hospital organizations are obligated to grant care to whomever asks for it, unlike nonprofit health care providers.
Dave
#44
There is a discussion of the horrible racism going on by Thom. I just signed an on-line petition with ColorOFChange.org to send to the GOP leaders telling them to condemn bigotry and hate among their supporters and to make it clear that they will not tolerate fear-mongering and coded appeals from their officials.
#45
whoooooops. I just posted a comment with a dangling participle in which Thom looked like the person committing the racism. Sorry for making you into a dangling participle, Thom!
#46
are you kidding me,was listenin bout 2:30 and a guy called in and said he had a black co worker get mad at him for kicking his chair.then the guy said he thinks the black guy got upset because blacks were kicked during the civil rights movement,WHAT..im black and thats the last thing i would have thought about, if he was kicking my chair the only thing i would have been thinking is dumb ass stop kicking my chair
#47
Getting health care through a disability is a nightmare for the newly disabled. http://www.texasvoiceforhealthreform.org/2010/03/16/stories-mario/
My niece's husband discovered he had cancer when he finally went to the emergency room with back pain. He was immediately declared disabled, but... there is kind of a donut hole in coverage. I believe the above link explains it.
#48
Two things struck me right away about the DeMint comment that this episode focussed on which no one else seems to mention:
A). Waterloo happened to Napoleon, wasn't this very similar to, but a tad more believable than, calling Obama Hitler?
B). As a white Wisconsinite who first encountered the idea "break" in basic training, while trying to figure out what it was my African, Filipino, and Hispanic American, drill sergeants were looking for as an indication that i was broken, i took away what i consider something more important than a racist reference to Obama.
To me it was a racist reference to DeMint himself, and all those who do not ridicule him.
Whether it is a horse or slave, or the voluntary submission to authority of an volunteer enlistee, breaking is what the man in the position of authority does to those who serve him, so he can remake them and their actions to his desires or percieved needs.
Entirely aside from the racist implications of "break" itself, DeMint was effectively saying that he, or his constituency, was in charge of Obama.
A man like DeMint would call it treason if someone said that about Bush while he was in the highest office in the land.
Sure, both men actually work for all of us, or really, for those who vote for them, but the President decidedly does not work under the direction of the minority leader of the House.
It is not only ignorant, and treasonous, to imply so, but in this case ignoring such obvious disingenuity on his own part is blatantly to be wearing the blinders of racism, or, at the very least, to pretend to be.
In a very similar vein, even Thom, Lisa, Amy, Rachel, and Kieth, all missed the same implication of DeMint's more recent remarks the last couple days.
By saying how dare these people assembled vote against the American (US) people who elected them, DeMint implies that one or more of the following states apply:
1). He knows, or is in charge of, what the Americans want, despite his party having been soundly trounced, despite widespread election tampering in their favor.
This being the case would reveal him as an idiot. Having achieved his office makes this degree of idiocy unlikely.
2). He is such a megalomaniac that he thinks he can dictate what the American people want, far to foolish to take seriously, but dangerous enough to merit consideration.
3). Only racist white people that vote for the sound of the dog whistle are actual, real, amerikkkans.
#3 seems to me the more likely implication of both the earlier, and more recent episodes.
There is a huge degree to which this is disempowered racism in deep denial.
It seems (subjectively) fair to the racists to say there is no more racism, they have gone to the extremes of idiocy to ignore the source of their own strongest political and emotional motives for which they dance to the corporate industrial fascist tune.
How can we blame them for thinking this means racism is solved? now that they hate people for things like poverty and lack of eurocentric education, religion, and values, that just happen to happen to many black (read non-white - it's all the same) people (and most of themselves as well - duh! - doh!???).
DeMint knows what amerikkkans think, because most of us, who are not like him, don't actually count as "real" amerikkans, and that includes all us n***** lovers like Thom and myself who just happen to look like the lord blessed them with being white (probably because of Satan somehow?).
Does DeMint actually believe this? who cares! being that stupid only would make him slightly less dangerous to his enemies and very slightly more dangerous to everyone else.
I thought it was genius for that one caller to pose the question, is Obama not already broken?
Regardless of one's personal view, it is a great question.
I strongly feel Thom revealed a very unimaginative lilly white core to his otherwise well educated and considered intellect when he dismissed this idea out of hand and did not take it seriously enough to actually ponder it, much less let the caller elaborate.
Then i would expect that from someone so in denial about the actual powers that be, that, although familiar with the Green Party Platform, he still thinks that reforming the Dems is the best a progressive can hope for.
Other otherwise apparently very intelligent people like Michael Moore, Dennis Kucinich, and even Ron Paul and Ralph Nader, don't get the point of building another institutional political body to create actual opposition to corporate monied politics, so it should cease to surprise me when this happens, but it doesn't.
Not to seem too harsh on you Thom, even with those two little hiccups, i would vote for the Thom Hartmann Party, or any party that you present as an alternative to the republicrats. Gee, i'd even probably vote for you on the Repug or Dem ticket for laughs, unless running against a Green, because i think you have great potential.
The only thing you seem not to know is my favorite line from my favorite writer:
Lao Tzu; "wisdom knows nothing"
It's hard to be humble when you know as much as you do, even harder not to be ignorant of what you are ignorant of.
Very glad to see you often celebrating new understandings as you did today, but also still watching you miss the deeper points of reality again.
Allness Is Being
Love
#49
"I still want the Public Option, and I want to see Medicare age dropped, automatically every year by at least one year (essentially everyone will get two years closer every year, at that rate)."
Awesome idea Nels!
#50
(this page should allow inline comments on comments)
'cuz this community rocks -
Nels has it right:
"we got an inch, lets keep working for the mile (and when we get close to that, we’ll adjust to the horizon).”
How do you respond to the kleptocracy constantly moving the goalposts? move them yourselves!
How to respond to their framing?
don't!
oops:
"I think all Obama has to do to keep congress under the control of Democrats now is to start a strong debate on WallSt regulation."
drinking the kool-aid are we? how long would he live if he opened that can of worms do you think?
Mathboy has it right, those who show up run the show. Wrong party implementation, but important conceptually!
Quark, she might not think about it much, but i appreciate my lol, thanks.
harry, "assuming, that is, that there is still a brand made in USA, therefore eligible to run."
the supreme court did not say that corps(es) running campaign ads had to be from any given country. All the fridge needs is to have it's manufacturer sponsor it. Not like Arnie was born in the USA, eh?
Quark, the first good informative point with reference:
"“DeMint Honduras Trip Planned In Defiance Of U.S. Policy”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/02/demint-honduras-trip-plan_n_307632.html"
thanks again... but:
"The Clinton State Department did little to demand the return of the rightfully elected President Zalaya"
who are you supposing runs things there?
especially things like coups?
"http://globalresearch.ca/PrintArticle.php?articleId=18241"
ooh ooh, actually reliable info!!!
Good job Ed
Richard L. Adlof, that's what Thom said, but your added details are interesting and believable.
http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=18278
much appreciated also
Nels, "I wonder how many racists here in America have had to go to the Emergency Room for primary health care because their blood pressure has been through the roof since Obama was elected?"
the more interesting question is how many of those have lost their mortgages as a result?
Mark K, yea, all those filthy Palestinians who refuse to just die, and all the ones who think drinking water is cool, and those who want to build houses, or have children that live nearby, and all those poor fools waiting on a permit to visit their olive trees or dig a well (& all the poor fools who think the majority vote getting their guy elected is actually what democracy is all about in a US empire).
Zero G,
"Well, I don’t think many are talking about returning the lands the US took from Mexico during the Polk regime"
wasn't that just a bit before the Geneva Convention?
Quark,
"I truly believe that anarchy and democratic (small “d”) failure is the goal of today’s Republican Party."
that's the dictionary meaning of anarchy (syn. for chaos) not the Greek's, nor radical's (as in root, the root of radical), nor anarch's meaning, of an-arch-y (as in not hier-archy - in reality chaos promotes the rule of the biggest stick which is what hierarchy is).
Zero G.
"“When someone shows you who they are, believe them.”
So why do some folks have trouble with the fact that Obama has been shown to be a corporate toady and warmonger?"
Zero G.
"that’s an hyphen, Apostrophe was a Zappa album…"
great stuff
Tim,
"If corporations are people, and the 13th amendment says, “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude” does that mean all shareholders are now breaking the law? Does that mean no person can own a corporation in the US because no one can own another person?"
That is a truly awesometageous idea that is totally new to me
(now i know exactly why i'm writting/reading all of this)!!!
Ed in Redondo (aka DancingBear),
"I knew he was a DLC corporate stooge and the shape of his health care reform just reconfirms that. That said, for all his shortcomings he was and remains 1000% better then the Republican alternative."
that makes about as much sense as one thousand per hundred...
"It ought to be the sort of thing that a free press would take note of."
unless the press is crypto fascist just like the dems; facism is largely defined by corporate socialism, and so is the US mainstream "press" [corps(es)], especially the one's charging top dollar for our candidates to use our airwaves.
LeMoyne,
"they are so gone to their fear of ‘the other’ that they project their darkest impulses on other people’s motivations as an the excuse for acting out those impulses themselves."
well put
Gerald Socha,
who would Jesus bomb? (see my DeMint comment below)
pzilla,
http://ColorOFChange.org
thanks
emile,
he may well have kicked the chair because he was a dumbass in the first place
i can't believe you read all of this, maybe you started at the end as i often do?
DeMint,
"You are opposing the will of these voters, and that is unconsionable!"
and that is more unconsionable then when you "saved" the "babies" in the womb from my tax dollars,
while spending much more on bombing babies, thier mothers, thier entire families, homes, hospitals, bridges, schools, and thier lands,
with phosphorus and DU? (which i adamantly oppose yet help pay for) how?!!!
Thom,
that line about student loans was worded oh so perfectly!
i love the way you worked in student stipends and the word INVEST!
Thom's Blog Is On the Move
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From Cracking the Code:
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From Unequal Protection, 2nd Edition:
"Beneath the success and rise of American enterprise is an untold history that is antithetical to every value Americans hold dear. This is a seminal work, a godsend really, a clear message to every citizen about the need to reform our country, laws, and companies."
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"Right through the worst of the Bush years and into the present, Thom Hartmann has been one of the very few voices constantly willing to tell the truth. Rank him up there with Jon Stewart, Bill Moyers, and Paul Krugman for having the sheer persistent courage of his convictions."
When I first ran into it I fell for the Lynch letter hoax myself. It is a compelling and logical articulation of the power that divide and conquer tactics can exert over the powerless. It is the sort of document that one would be inclined to believe must exist somewhere given the bloody history of what the strong have done to their weaker fellow humanity throughout the centuries. But as the article I posted above points out, when you look closely at the actual "Lynch letter" document, it fails to stand up to the detailed examination as it is clearly a forgery dating to the early 1990s.
Ed