JustUs's Open Salon Blog

Not feeling so sanctimonious lately

Sat, 8 Jan 2011 11:01:52 -0500

January 8, 2011

Now I read that last post and I feel about as far away from that angry, righteous, idealistic, impassioned person as I do from my college self. I don’t know, something kind of popped a day or two after that diatribe. I realized we (“we”, I think of “us” as the non-insane, but of course, this is the kind of “Our martyrs are in heaven, your martyrs are in hell” thinking that soaks the world in blood), “we” had already lost that fight I was so angry at the President for not putting up. Our national politics is not really related to logic any more (if it ever was, I used to take for granted that it was, but you can tell how naïve I am), and not really related to earnest good will on the part of the participants. The real players make use of the earnest good will of the people on their side, and they don’t recognize as legitimate any earnest good will on the other side, so the whole thing is theater, really.

However, the theater needs to be played effectively, or people really will die, as they did and are doing in droves in Iraq and Afghanistan because the Republican theater was more compelling, apparently, than logic or earnest good will. People really will suffer if the wrong theater prevails, as they did and are doing because their money and jobs disappeared thanks to unregulated pirates who gambled with other people’s money and are still living in their mansions in my very county and threatening to move to Hong Kong if we raise their taxes even a teeny bit. People really will suffer, as they have done and will do because the Republican theater about death panels and liberty from the tyranny of having any decent, reliable health insurance is apparently more compelling than dealing with or even talking about the problem. Democrats – not inherently wiser or more virtuous than anyone else BY A LONG SHOT but in our times the least insane of the available political options – have no theater. This costs lives. But this tax deal, with the howling sanctimonious purists like me playing our role to the hilt (we didn’t even think of it as a role, this is what gives the mob parts the greatest drama, like the utterly sincere screamers at the health care town meetings), gave President Obama a little theater. Now he gets to be at least the person who actually knows how to give something up to do something for the country.

That is a thin leg to stand on, but he had no leg to stand on otherwise, Democrats just cannot get any effective acting, lines, action, scenery or lighting going. Why this should be so, this complete inability to impart a message even when the message is at least mostly factual, I don’t know, and I don’t care in the same way any more. Republicans are the real enemy, they are a weird little cult that has enchanted the land, and the show they put on is beloved by many a voter. Whether Democrats or Independents or even any remaining Republican sane people or any political organization whatsoever can unstop the ears and wake the enchanted remains to be seen. Maybe President Obama will figure it out, maybe he’s doing all this on purpose. God bless him, I hope so, he’s the only one we have on the stage at present.

But they STILL should repeal their own health care first!

President Obama, Mesmerized

Tue, 7 Dec 2010 11:12:28 -0500

Didn’t he look hypnotized when he made his statement about the tax cut “compromise”? Or maybe like they’ve been slipping him low doses of that radiation poisoning they gave the Russian guy in London a couple of years ago? I’m sure it’s not that dramatic, probably only humiliation and heartbreak. I know the feeling.

It’s not just that they’re calling it a “compromise” – what did the Republicans give up? Doesn’t one side get something in a “compromise” or a “deal”? I guess what the Democrats got was that they were graciously allowed to extend unemployment benefits. That was mighty big of the Republicans.

But the part that really made me wonder who that guy was and what they’ve done with President Obama was how he tried to make tax cuts for the rich sound like a good idea.

He didn’t say, “I think tax cuts for the rich are a terrible idea, but the Republicans have me and the whole country by the shorts, so there’s nothing I can do about it. By the way, so you know, there’s a lot worse coming, next they’re going to threaten your physical security by blocking the START treaty and I’m going to tell you right now, there’s nothing I can do about that either. But I saved unemployment benefits, not because any of those people will vote for me or thank me for it, but because I’m a good person and frankly, that was all the Republicans were prepared to give me, anyway. Yes, I know, they are even more insane than they used to be and now they don’t even try to hide it, they rub my nose in it every day, but they are the bi- in bi-partisanship, and lately I find that I believe in bi-partisanship a whole lot more than I believe in any of those idealistic little notions you progressives are whining about. Turns out that was all just one more luxury we can’t afford any more. Stop that crying or the Republicans will give you something else to cry about!”

He didn’t say that, even in a nicer way. No, he said tax cuts for the rich are good for the middle class, good for the economy, good for business, good for the country, good for the world, good, good, good! Apparently he was wrong about the Bush tax cuts while he was campaigning. Apparently we were wrong about them when we voted for him so he could end them. He, and his apologists today, the ones who apparently won the argument in the White House, are talking about us, all President Obama’s former deeply committed supporters, as if we should just grow up.

Fine. I’ve grown up. I thought I was a moderate, but apparently that’s another word the Republicans have turned inside out. The Bush tax cuts are not a “moderate” idea. They were another of the dramatically, globally, massively proven wrong Republican ideas that brought death and destruction to my country, like starting the Iraq war and going into denial about the Afghanistan war and letting rich, clever financial people make their own rules and go their merry way with most of the money the rest of us worked hard and played by the rules to get. All that happened because the last President was not too bright and way too weak to do anything to stop the cocksure bullies around him, and because Democrats are unwilling or unable to fight or think their way out of a paper bag. One thing has changed dramatically. This President is very bright.

Maybe if we count to three, he will wake up.

This New GOP Congressman Should Take the Pledge

Wed, 17 Nov 2010 10:11:21 -0500

On October 25 I wrote that we should all demand that candidates running against health care should pledge that, if elected, they will give up their own generous taxpayer funded health care plan, as a matter of principle. So now they're elected! And they really, really need to take the pledge, this bozo first:

Incoming GOP congressman wants his free government healthcare now!

Here's the pledge:

“As you all know, during my campaign for Congress I made it clear that I consider the recent health care reform law un-American. So if it's un-American for other Americans to get decent health care not entirely subject to a for-profit company's business objectives, naturally it would be un-American for me to accept the extremely generous health care plan paid for by taxpayers, to which I am now entitled. I pledge that I will never take one dime of public money for my health care.

I am sure one of the insurance companies who so generously helped to fund my campaign will now be only too happy to make me an excellent deal on a private policy, and will stick with me through thick and thin, no matter how catastrophic the illness or injury that might befall me or a member of my family during my term of office or afterwards, or how wildly expensive the treatment starts getting, because, as we have recently been reminded, corporations are exactly the same as individual humans, mainly motivated by compassion, loyalty and personal warmth.

But I am a Republican, and I don’t really need any help from anybody. Did Thomas Jefferson need any help? He got in his crops and had a fabulous garden and still had time to found a nation. I don’t even really need insurance of any kind, and you can’t make me. I am going to stand with all those courageous Americans who will be liberated when we repeal that Islamo-Stalinist individual mandate thing, free and happy and proud to pay for any medical expenses completely out of our own pockets. We eat right and exercise and maintain healthy weights, what could go wrong? Anyway, I would not have run for Congress if I thought money would be a problem.

Any public money that might have been spent providing me with health care should be returned to the treasury, but I would prefer it not to be used for anything except tax cuts, and I mean for everybody, we can’t be fooled into determining who’s rich and who’s not merely by looking at how much money they make. The only truly American place for tax revenues to go in a democracy is into subsidies for wealthy people and multi-national corporations, because they provide all the jobs for the rest of you. Or I'm sure they will start to provide you some jobs now that they've gotten me mine.

Taking tax money from billionaires for any national public purpose is very, very wrong and should be avoided at all costs. We call that redistributing wealth. Taking your tax money and directing it to billionaires gives you much more bang for the buck. We call that taking back our country! It is not redistributing wealth because, seriously, on your paycheck, that is not really “wealth.” The more tax cuts we can give to the top, oh, let’s say one percent, the more opportunity your children will have in the future as chauffeurs and landscape maintenance personnel. If you don’t understand this distinction now, believe me, now that my friends and I have our blessed mandate, you soon will.

So, not for myself but for you and your children and their futures as American bodyguards and personal assistants and housekeepers (rich people have lots of houses, jobs, jobs, jobs!), I am categorically rejecting a generous, well-organized, efficiently run health insurance plan with hundreds of thousands of satisfied users and a number of different public options. So help me God I pledge to do my utmost to make sure none of you will ever have one, either.”

Republican Candidates: Repeal your own health care first.

Mon, 25 Oct 2010 12:10:34 -0400

I think we should ask Republican candidates who are running against the new health care law to pledge that if elected they will not accept the generous public option health care plan offered to all members of Congress.

If publicly funded health care is so wrong, so catastrophic, so contrary to capitalist values and ruinous to democracy that no American should ever have it, then the Republicans should be proud to pledge that they won’t accept it, either.

As a taxpayer, I do not mind contributing to health insurance for representatives who are truly attempting to provide decent, affordable health care for everyone else, too. But I do object to contributing to free public health care for Republicans who are trying to repeal and discredit any attempt whatsoever to protect health care for other people.

They can give the money to deficit reduction, or maybe to help veterans of the wars that weren't paid for back when big deficits were considered patriotic. No law or regulation needs to be changed, it should be strictly voluntary for representatives to opt in or out of public health care options (which is more of a chance than they gave us). I should think it would be a matter of honor for these people who despise government's role in health care to reject it totally for themselves.

So, also, should demanding this pledge be a matter of honor for voters who identify themselves as Tea Partiers or others radically opposed to public funds being used to help the public.

But the pledge is not just for the Republicans posing as radical extremists, or the ones who actually are radical extremists but are too dim to realize it. The pledge should also be taken by the Republicans posing as just reasonable, common sense folks. The one running in my district, for example, says he only wants to substitute his nice, quiet (toothless, tiny) little reforms for the current law which “taxes the insured to pay for the uninsured.” This is one of those typical deft Republican distortions designed to convince people they're not getting anything from health care reform, they’re just paying for poor people -- as if "the insured", be they rich, poor or in-between, can't turn into the "uninsured" as fast as you can say “diagnosis”, which they can, if you let the insurers make all the rules. But if the Republicans don’t believe that, let them take the pledge.

I’ve been thinking about the wording of the pledge. How about something like:

“As you all know, during my campaign for the Congress or Senate I have made it clear that I consider the recent health care reform law un-American. So if it's un-American for other Americans to get decent health care not entirely subject to a for-profit company's business objectives, naturally it would be un-American for me to accept what I am told is an extremely generous health care plan paid for by taxpayers. I pledge that I will never take one dime of public money for my health care. (I do intend to keep the very large pensions and other free benefits that would continue for my lifetime. I am trying to overthrow many major parts of the government, but certainly not that part.)

I am sure one of the insurance companies helping to fund my campaign will be only too happy to make me an excellent deal on a private policy, and will stick with me through thick and thin, no matter how catastrophic the illness or injury that might befall me or a member of my family during my term of office or afterwards, or how wildly expensive the treatment starts getting, because, as we have recently been reminded, corporations are exactly the same as individual humans, mainly motivated by compassion, loyalty and personal warmth.

But I am a Republican, and I don’t really need any help from anybody, did Thomas Jefferson need any help? He got in his crops and had a fabulous garden and still had time to found a nation. I don’t even really need insurance of any kind, and you can’t make me. I am going to stand with all those courageous Americans who will be liberated when I repeal that Stalinist individual mandate thing, free and happy and proud to pay for any medical expenses completely out of our own pockets. We eat right and exercise and maintain healthy weights, what could go wrong? Anyway, I would not be running for Congress if I thought money would be a problem.

Any public money that might have been spent providing me with health care should be returned to the treasury, but I would prefer it not to be used for anything except tax cuts, and I mean for everybody, we can’t be fooled into determining who’s rich and who’s not merely by looking at how much money they have. The only truly American place for tax revenues to go in a democracy is into subsidies for wealthy people and multi-national corporations, because they provide all the jobs for the rest of you. Or I'm sure they will start to provide you some jobs just as soon as they are able to get me mine.

Taking tax money from billionaires for any national public purpose is very, very wrong and should be avoided if at all possible. We call that redistributing wealth. Taking your tax money and directing it to billionaires gives you much more bang for the buck. They – I mean “we” – call that taking back our country! It is not redistributing wealth because, seriously, on your paycheck, that is not really “wealth.” The more tax cuts we can give to the top, oh, let’s say one percent, the more opportunity your children will have in the future as chauffeurs and landscape maintenance personnel. If you don’t understand this distinction now, believe me, once my friends and I are elected, you will.

So, not for myself but for you and your children and their futures as American bodyguards and personal assistants and housekeepers (rich people have lots of houses, jobs, jobs, jobs), I am categorically rejecting a generous, well-organized, efficiently run health insurance plan with hundreds of thousands of satisfied users and a number of different public options, and if I am elected, so help me God I pledge to do my utmost to make sure none of you will ever have one, either.”

You first, Republicans. Pledge to repeal your own publicly funded health care before you start repealing ours.

Virtual Bumper Sticker of the Day

Wed, 20 Oct 2010 16:10:12 -0400

13 days til Election Day

"Please vote November 2: Electing crazy people to Congress would not be helpful."

My theory is that if all normal non-insane people voted, we wouldn't have a problem. On the other hand, many normal non-insane people have contracted raging cases of political insanity, so maybe my theory is unduly optimistic.

Here is a wonderful list of political slogans on wikipedia, including but not limited to US presidential campaign slogans. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_political_slogans

I think my favorite pair so far are “In your heart, you know he’s right”, the Barry Goldwater slogan in 1964, and “In your guts, you know he’s nuts”, the “unofficial” alternative slogan.