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mstaggerlee,
Thanks for the info. on "insurance" vs. "care" reform. :-)
How funny was it to listen to that FAUX news A-hole say "I don't want to interrupt you," while he was busy TALKING OVER the President of the United States?
Ron,
Next question — WHAT middle class???????Good one. I suggest that you start with a definition. If it is income earners between 40 and 60 % of the population then it is easy to see that we have about the same MC. Maybe you can do better than Thom that can write a whole book and not even define "middle class" when supposedly it is "screwed"...
godknows
How about “income?” God knows, though, since Reagan, income for the middle class has continuously deteriorated.Not really. Unless you cut out transfer payments and benefits like health insurance.
@mstaggerlee,
Never would I underestimate congressional cowardice, but it was easy to ignore the uninsured when they were just the poor who generally don't vote. Now we are seeing the formerly middle class who were used to being insured going without.
@mstaggerlee, btw thanx for letting both the blogs people are commenting on today, know that the other bloggers are on one or the other. I considered blogging on the weekly blog, but I've already started my thread here.
@mstaggerlee, true, but I'd say the man-man-on-the-street isn't a Neocon, he's just Neoconned. This blind followers are just that, blind, deaf, but not dumb (stupid, foolish though).
@ZeroG - Never underestimate the cowardice of our elected representatives. If they see something as a 3rd rail, they won't come within half a mile of it.
Hi friends,
I have been moving, and not able to post but the d-days are here for healthcare reform. Who do we write to over the next few days to be most effective? Does anyoe have a list compiled that we can share on facebook, with our email lists, on our blogs, etc. Where do we write to make our words count the most over the next few days?
Thank you,
Loretta
@Nels - The Neocon POLITICIANS understand it.
The Neocon man-on-the-street doesn't ... he only knows what FAUX news tells him. :(
@Nels,
I echo that concern, also I reject the idea that if this fails the subject won't be touched for another 10-15 years, because the status quo just cannot stand.
No, Carl, I don't wonder at ALL if Dubya or Darth Cheney bothered read anything by Dar Jameil.
I wonder if Dubya or Darth Cheney bothered to read ANYTHING AT ALL!
Kucinich and the Media
by David Swanson | March 18, 2010 – 10:03am
When I worked for Dennis Kucinich’s presidential campaign in 2003, he routinely won the most applause at debates but was minimized or entirely left out of the next day’s stories in the corporate media. This meant that peace, and fair trade, and single-payer healthcare were left out too. At one debate at the University of New Hampshire, Kucinich pushed back.
Ted Koppel of ABC opened the debate with questions about endorsements. The second round of questions was about standing in the polls. The third was about the campaigns’ bank accounts. One had to wonder when, if ever, the debate would touch on, you know, what the candidates intended to do if elected. Kucinich cut Koppel off, saying:
“I want the American people to see where media takes politics in this country. We start talking about endorsements, now we’re talking about polls and then talking about money. When you do that you don’t have to talk about what’s important to the American people.”
More: http://smirkingchimp.com/thread/david_swanson/27424/kucinich_and_the_media
My main concern about the Health (rather its "insurance" or "care") reform bill, is after its voted on, will debate continue, or will it be considered done by the majority?
I fear that once its passed, it'll be years before a significant amount of congressmen will go near the issue again.
@mstaggerlee, explaining the points to a neocon isn't the problem, its getting them to admit to it, (they already understand it, they just don't care) that's the problem.
Kucinich and the Media
Dennis Kucinich | Media
by David Swanson | March 18, 2010 - 10:03am
When I worked for Dennis Kucinich's presidential campaign in 2003, he routinely won the most applause at debates but was minimized or entirely left out of the next day's stories in the corporate media. This meant that peace, and fair trade, and single-payer healthcare were left out too. At one debate at the University of New Hampshire, Kucinich pushed back.
Ted Koppel of ABC opened the debate with questions about endorsements. The second round of questions was about standing in the polls. The third was about the campaigns' bank accounts. One had to wonder when, if ever, the debate would touch on, you know, what the candidates intended to do if elected. Kucinich cut Koppel off, saying:
"I want the American people to see where media takes politics in this country. We start talking about endorsements, now we're talking about polls and then talking about money. When you do that you don't have to talk about what's important to the American people."
More: http://smirkingchimp.com/thread/david_swanson/27424/kucinich_and_the_media
@Quark re: insurance reform vs. care reform -
Reconciliation can ONLY be used for BUDGETARY issues. Health Insurance reform IS a budgetary issue. Health Care reform is NOT. So that's where we are now.
@Kim Kaufman - MoveOn polled it's membership last week regarding support for the health care bill. MEMBERS overwhelmingly opined that ANY step would be better than no movement at all.
Can an organization be co-opted by a majority of it's members? I don't think so.
Grayson’s 3 1/2-page “Medicare for All” Bill Gets Huge Support – Part 2
Rep. Alan Grayson’s “Medicare for All” petition to sign:
http://www.wewantmedicare.com
Grayson’s 3 1/2-page “Medicare for All” Bill Gets Huge Support – Part 1
Rep. Alan Grayson has presented a short bill opening up Medicare to everyone. Video:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31510813/ns/msnbc_tv-the_dylan_ratigan_show#...
Health “Insurance” vs. “Care” Reform
This morning, I heard Pres. Obama refer to this health reform legislation as “health INSURANCE reform.” This is what I have been calling it for some time now, but this is the first time I’ve heard Obama call it what it is (tho, of course, there is not ENOUGH reform.)
Michael Moore on the Current Health Ins. Legislation
Video:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31510813/ns/msnbc_tv-the_dylan_ratigan_show#...
OK, hardheads...I will repost from the other blog.
Pardon the interruption, but I want to take a moment for my weekend sports interlude. I have to admit that Ari Fleischer wasn’t the best selection to handle Tiger Woods’ PR in advance to his return to golf (just look at the mess he made of Mark McGwire’s “rehabilitation”), but on the other hand, I think most people are ready to move on. Unfortunately, there are still hundreds of sports commentators who just want to draw the Woods’ salacious saga on, and on, and on. Tiger Woods’ appearance at the Masters should be seen as a boon to the sport, but most commentators seem to have chosen to see it as a negative. He hasn’t behaved “contritely” enough for their tender sensitivities, he hasn’t groveled in the mud enough to satisfy them. It isn’t enough that the press has taken its pound of flesh, waxing frenzied and insuring that Woods has lost tens of millions of dollars in endorsements. Funny how Michael Jordan’s dalliances with at least one porn star didn’t cause sponsors to abandon him; it certainly helped that the media didn’t dwell on it. Perhaps there is a different dynamic at play between Jordan’s principle audience (black), and Woods’ (white). “They” made Woods a star, and because he exceeded expectations further than they could accept, “they” can unmake him too. For myself, if Elin has “forgiven” him, I’m willing to move on; after all, I have my own life to worry about.
Meanwhile, Woods’ fellow (white) golfers insist that there has been “great” golf being played in his absence, except that if that’s the case, hardly anyone knows about it. And how can it be “great” if they don’t have to test themselves against the best golfer of the last ten years and who may continue to frustrate frustrated white golfers for another ten? I wouldn’t give a damn about golf it wasn’t for Woods (because of golf’s elitist image), and now I might even watch an LPGA event if Paula Creamer is in the top four on the leaderboard (because the LPGA operates on such a shoe-string budget, it can’t afford to deploy more than two television cameras). When Woods’ returns for the Masters, TV ratings will undoubtedly go through the roof. That’s good news for golf, but “bad” news for his fellow golfers, and that is why they are trying to con the ones who still care into their way of thinking that everything is “great” without Woods in the picture.
Last Friday I mentioned baseball player Torii Hunter’s remarks about Latino players. He hasn’t been the only one making numbskull comments on this matter; one can always count on Gary Sheffield, who recently dissed Latino players as being “easier” to control than black players. "Where I'm from, you can't control us. You might get a guy to do it that way for a while because he wants to benefit, but in the end, he is going to go back to being who he is. And that's a person that you're going to talk to with respect, you're going to talk to like a man.” I suppose he means that if you spent your youth on the inner city mean streets “earning” respect by exuding a whiff of violence, saying “Yes sir” to The Man who pays your multi-million dollar salary when he asks you to behave only works until you get your guaranteed money upfront. Or he might be talking about the guys who if you don’t how sufficient “respect” for their manhood, they’ll ask you to at least respect their “little friend.”
(At this point I’d like to mention to those prima donnas who work for UAL who also like to talk trash, that I am quite prepared to lob some key-stroke missiles their way, even if they are union and not on the clock. When I watch them on the ramp, it reminds me of the old jokes about how many people does it take to screw-in a light bulb.)
Ozzie Guillen called out Hunter on his remarks, but most commentators dismiss him as “crazy” even when he does make perfect sense. Seventeen of the top 50 salaried MLB players are Latino, so they are hardly keeping salaries down. The fact of the matter is that African-American (as opposed to Latinos of African descent—those “imposters”) participation in baseball has declined as participation in football and basketball have increased. 75 percent of NBA players are black (with European players increasingly replacing white American players), and nearly 70 percent of NFL players are. The question is why. Outside of soccer, baseball is the most popular sport in many parts of Latin America, and baseball is actively supported by communities and even countries. This is not so in many inner-city environments. Baseball requires greater community support than other sports. For basketball, all you need is a hoop and a ball; for football, a vacant lot and a ball. But a pick-up game of baseball requires a sandlot, a bat, a ball and eighteen gloves and kids who have the patience to learn particularly skills. You can play an informal game of basketball or football without a referee or an official; in baseball, an umpireless game is likely to cause chaos. High schools in inner cities, besides lacking facilities, are rather less interested in providing the resources necessary if interest in baseball is a distant third to football and basketball.
Once again, Latinos are being unfairly scapegoated for merely filling in the void for declining interest in participation by other groups. The real problem has to do cultural shifts, lack of resources, and lack of community commitment.
@Nels -
Yup - I believe you have encapsulated the issues quite nicely.
Now - Go forth, and try to explain those points to a Neocon. :(