"This is, of course, a political victory for President Obama, and a
triumph for Nancy Pelosi, the House speaker. But it is also a victory
for America’s soul. In the end, a vicious, unprincipled fear offensive
failed to block reform. This time, fear struck out."
--Paul Krugman
(Thanks, Zorro, for the article. It can be read here.)
26 comments:
Profoundly beautiful and edifying words appropriately spoken in a triumphantly yet troubling time!
Ah, yes, Pam.
Krugman says it right but I wonder if he even goes far enough. The outrageous and disgusting behavior of not only the vicious protesters but some of the Republican members of Congress is something to remember even after the storm dies down. The current that runs along under that behavior is aloways there to lie, subvert and destroy.
Excellent comment, DB. The fact that no Republican leader will come out and condemn what has been occurring since last summer really says a lot. The current about which you spoke obviously run deep and wide. The Republican who yelled "baby killer" at Bart Stupak in the Chamber yesterday is reminiscent of Joe Wilson's comment during the State of the Union address. I heard some Republican analysts making excuses for these comments because of the intensity of the issue. There is absolutely no excuse for grown men behaving so badly. They are most certainly not good leaders or good role models for those who are coming after them. This is what disturbs me.
I agree with you both. The Republicans have been perpetually campaigning since well before the election was over and they realized Obama would be elected. And they have tapped into that underlying ever existing current spoken about and are too cowardly evil to address it. They want it to work in their behalf and at the same time don't want to take the blame for digging it up.
Issues of race are difficult for those who are not honest with their feelings to express, Pam. I think that there are perhaps those who don't like the Tea Partiers because they expose their feelings to a greater or lesser extent. These wouldn't want you to marry their daughters but they certainly don't want you exposing their inner thoughts and fears. So, the movement couldn't really take off because to align with the Tea Party would be to acknowledge your own racist ideology. I am certainly not saying that this is true for all on the Right or Left. But I think it definitely present in American psychology.
Zorro - You make a good point. It would be Gingrich and seemingly quite a few others. I loved with Hoyer said yesterday about his relationship with Clyburn for some 50 years. I also appreciated that he condemned the protesters and stood up for his friend who was so dishonored. Hoyer is a good man and so is Clyburn.
Here are immediate benefits of the health care bill. Now, why isn't this good again?
Because a Republican president didn't think of it.
I'm generally a positive guy. I try to accept others, I hope they will accept me. I gotta say, I am having trouble accepting these people who call themselves representatives of the people. You bet, I'm talking about the sour grapes republicans. Rules are for others, not them. Civility is for others, not for them. Kindness and fairness..... well, you get it.
My big hope for our country and my kids future is that we (as a country) will move beyond this. Am I naive? Is that just wishful thinking? I sure hope not.
If I may respond to Scott, many thought we were passed it. Recent events show that we aren't. It is the nature of backward thinking people to pull things back. You can't expect people to stop being racists if that's what they are. There will always be racists or haters of one group or another. What we can hope for is that eventually people will coem to recognize those feelings in themselves as being diseased.
DB
Beautiful comment, Scott. Thank you. Good to have you here.
Pam - I think you have a point. What is really bad is that I don't remember the Democratic leadership behaving so poorly. Consider Rep. Joe Wilson screaming "you lie" to President Obama during the State of the Union or Rep. Randy Neugebauer calling Bart Stupack, "baby killer" during the health care debate last night in the Chamber. I also watched Rep. Michelle Bachmann and others cheering the haters on last night during the debate. Honestly, do you ever remember in recent history such behavior by elected officials? Even after the very contentious 2000 election, the Democratic leadership in my recollection did not react so disrespectful and negative. David Frum, the Republican analyst and speech writer for George W. Bush, spoke truth in an interview that I heard today made an excellent point. I paraphrase: "We wanted health care to be President Obama's Waterloo and went with the extremes in our Party. Now, it is our 'Waterloo.'" This is because the Republican leadership continue to follow the politics of hate, fear, and opposition during this presidency. Hopefully, the American people will see this movement for what it really is. Dick Armey, former Republican Majority House Leader and Tea Party organizer, has been strangely silent. His organizatiaon Freedom Works is the one that organized all of the negative astro-turfing last summer during town halls. It was most certainly not grassroots.
Judith, I have read accounts of the early congresses where the contentiousness between parties was so severe tht they actually used to come in to the chnber and beat each other with canes. And there were duels. It is written that John Adams, while he was Vice-President, gave up presiding over the Senate because of the disgraceful behavior of the members. So now the attacks are verbal, but no less vicious.
In many nations, including Great Britian, it is not unusual for speakers to be heckled by the opposition while giving a speech. Rarely is it taken seriously by the media as it appears to be in this country.
No, I can't recall the Democrats ever behavning in the same way or to the same degree as some of the Republicans have over the recent debate, but then I also can't remember the Democrats being such sore losers as the Republicans are.
There is a lot of ungliness, nastiness and hatred hiding under the tables of governement waiting for the chance to come out. We haven't seen the end of it.
We are struggling with health insurance today because
in 1972, the democrats turned down Nixon's plan because the didn't want him to get credit for it. Granted, the stakes were not as high back then. Health insurance was still affordable (and for the most part administered by non-profit organizations).
Still, what is going on now is over the top.
Yes, DB, during the early days members of congress actually dueled. And, yes, the British parliament with all of their "with all due respect to the honorable member, etc" battle in the House of Commons with words. I have often watched and laughed. It somewhat of a spectacle. But, our modern history calls for civility in the House of Representatives and that kind of bantering is not our tradition. What we are seeing is completely out of order according to the rules of the House. DB, I have never seen such whining in all of my years of following politics with my mom since I was a kid. McCain, McConnell, Boehner, Pince, Ryan, and Cantor are all whining. (McCain is just becoming so very sad.) But the sad things is that these remembers, to my knowledge, did not include one amendment of the over 250 that are included in this bill. Lugar, Snowe and Collins, Republicans that I admire have been mum on the health care issue of late and on the hate that we have recently witnessed.
Zorro - You are right. That was a horrible missed opportunity and Kennedy lived to regret it. He said so. Just sorry that he is not here now to see this monumental step towards reform. Anytime issues are done purely for political reasons we can probably be assured that the outcome will not be good. You mentioned non-profits. Many hospitals today remain non-profit, but as we know there is a lot of profit in non-profit. Blue Cross Blue Shield is a non-profit organization. I think the tax credits they receive have to be looked at in relation to the benefits they give on a continuum basis.
According to what I heard the other day, Blue Cross was non-profit. They had a mission of offering anyone affordable health insurance. Initially, health issuance providers were non-profit. During the 1970's, for profit health insurance started to dominate because they would drop 'expensive' customers and therefore had lower priced insurance plans for healthy people. This put a lot of stress on the Blue Shields of the world, because their customers trended to the people who could not get insurance through the for-profits. Eventually, most of the non-profits converted or went out of business.
Yes, I can see how that has happened. The interesting thing is that insurance, of any kind, makes profit by receiving premiums and not paying out. Along with Blue Cross Blue Shield for health care, another major non-profit insurance company here in Michigan is American Automobile Association aka AAA.
Hey, the latest Harris poll of Republicans show...
1. 67% say Obama is a socialist
2. 57% say he's a Muslim
3. 45% say he's not born in the US
4. 24% say he may be the antichrist
5. 18% have double digit IQ's
(Actually, I made up #5, though it's more believable than the others.)
Judith, I am sad too that Ted Kennedy is not here to witness this giant step forward.
I have heard repeatedly that the President is Muslim. Let's not forget how the same people wanted to nail him to the tree when they said he was associated with Rev. Wright who was his pastor for 20 years. But those too lazy and ignorant to research the facts believe this garbage. And of course you can not obtain a driver's license or any official documentation without a birth certificate. And the anti-Christ is too ridiculous to comment on any further.
Oh, John, I'm laughing so hard that I'm actually crying. You are too funny! Isn't that list just ludicrous? It's just unreal. You gotta laugh!
Pam - I would like to believe that Senator Kennedy saw it coming. It was as if he passed the torch to President Obama. After all, he backed him in the beginning of the campaign when Hillary was the front runner. Yeah, I think he knew that the time had come for health care reform. It was so good to see him at the inauguration. Wasn't it? Great point about President Obama being a Muslim and his membership at Trinity. He couldn't have gone to Reverend Wright's church for 20 years and been a Muslim too. It's just nonsense. John's number five is probably point on with these people. LOL!
If only stupid people thought stupid things, we wouldn't have any problems.
People who believe Obama is a socialist are thinking stupidly. But many of these people are not stupid.
Daves joke about low IQ is funny, but sadly its not true. Some people who spread the falsehoods about Obama know its untrue and do it to get an effect. But many of the people who believe this crap are intelligent. That is the big problem as I see it.
And stupid people don't always have stupid thoughts.
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