Last Hurrah for America’s Racist Simple-Minded Reactionaries
Almost every sizeable American city has a street named after Martin Luther King, Jr. Have you ever driven on Sheriff Bull Connor Boulevard?
If tonight’s House vote on health care reform goes the way everyone is predicting, the vile shit-spewage coming out of the neckdrooling teabirther community is just the frantic shrieking of a drowning man going down for the third time.
And what’s the difference between the redneck sheriffs and Ku Klux Klan thugs of the 1960s and today’s teabaggers and HMO patsies? This isn’t a riddle; I mean — I’m asking. Anyone know?
For instance, check out this picture of yesterday’s racist demonstrators in Washington, D.C. Oh wait, that’s the wrong picture. The white robes gave it away; yesterday’s inbreds weren’t wearing them.
OK, here’s another picture of a recent teabagger gathering, where they — oops, wrong picture again. The fire hoses were the giveaway. The teabaggers weren’t using any.
Gee, no fire hoses, no white robes — today’s inbreds really ARE just a little bit better.
If tonight’s House vote goes the way it should — and if it doesn’t, I’ll be making this guy look sober — these past twelve months of teabuggering might fade into a distant memory. A footnote.
Years from now, when most Americans have affordable health insurance — and insurance companies aren’t allowed to drop you because you had the nerve to go and get sick — everyone will be saying “People were against this? What were they thinking? Who WERE these people?”
And there won’t be any streets named after them.
posted by Tom Harper @ 1:56 PM
25 Comments:
Another similarity, as they gear up for post-passage of the bill. This today...
"Many states cite the 10th Amendment, which says "powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states," as proof that the U.S. government cannot set their healthcare laws."
Sound familiar? States rights argument revisited.
jadedj: Ah yes, the Tenthers. They're not as loud and boisterous as the birthers and teabaggers, but they're out there. There was also a group of Biblehumps trying to say the new Hate Crimes bill violated the Tenth Amendment.
Tenth Amendment, huh. Well, let's see how UnitedHealth, Wellpoint, Aetna and some others would like being restricted to operating in a single state, so as to not be engaged in interstate commerce. Let a bunch of Republican state attorneys general pull that crap, and the national GOP is likely to experience a sudden loss of blood-money pressure.
Hey, with a little luck, it might even be fatal. :)
The #1 street name in America used to be Main St. and #2 used to be Oak St.
Today the #1 street name is MLK.
I don't get your point.
You have nothing to worry about, in 5 to 7 years private health insurance companies will be out of business.
Done! problem solved!
Don't worry, the Reich Wingers will never go away. Fascism will always be well nurtured in the Corporate Police States of Amerika.
The vote went our way but there are still a lot of hurdles to be jumped and a lot of damage that can still be done. Until people actually begin receiving services by the millions, nothing really counts.
SW: Now don't go confusing rightwingers with facts and logic. If they were able to see the larger picture, they wouldn't be able to compartmentalize and pretend every issue is self-contained and unrelated to anything else. They like to pretend the Tenth Amendment (and the First Amendment, and all of their "limited government" rhetoric) is something they can pick up when they need it, dust it off, use it for one specific purpose and then put it back on the shelf.
A fantasy world is very comforting for them.
Joaquin: My "point" was just a question. Have you ever seen a street named after Sheriff Bull Connor? For that matter, there probably aren't too many George Wallace Streets either (but I'm guessing).
Yes, you're probably right about the demise of private insurance companies. They'll probably go the way of UPS and FedEx. You may remember those 2 private delivery companies from days of yore. They went belly up after that commie post office came along and ruined the free enterprise system.
Dave: But there's a bright side. Without the Reich Wingers, we wouldn't have anything to blog about.
Thomas: Yes, there's definitely a lot more hurdles to jump and a lot more work to be done. Yesterday's vote was more of a treading water kind of thing. If we had lost it would have been disastrous. The fact that we won just means we can keep treading water.
Eh Tom, the USPS was in-place way before FedEx and UPS were started.
Those 2 companies blossomed by providing next day package delivery, which the USPS wasn't doing.
Now, imagine if today, the USPS confiscated Air Force planes to provide individuals and small companies of 50 employees or less with free package/document delivery, and then penalized larger companies for not using their service. How would FedEx and UPS do now?
Obviously, if you're fine with the federal government putting private insurance companies out of business and monopolizing health-care, then I'm sure you're cool with the 'imaginary' FedEx/UPS scenario.
The "Tenthers" I love it. I'm sure lawyers working for red states are staying up nights, looking for a misplaced comma, a coffee stain, anything at all that will give cause to challenge this landmark legislation.
No offense, but it is hard to take you seriously when your rhetoric is no better than that of the Tea Partiers whom you so glibly stereotype with the same caricatures that you ascribe to them. Your points may be well-intended but your delivery defeats them.
Not all tea partiers are racist and not all who oppose health care "reform" are against people having affordable access to health care (more like they are against the policy as it has been proposed). The intentions behind the idea of "affordable" access to health care is commendable, but the implementation is not yet proven to work and government entities do not have a stellar track record of managing any process in an efficient or reasonably effective manner. Finally, along that same line of thought, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Just saying...
Joaquin: Regardless of who was "in place" first, that's one of many examples of private and public entities competing with each other and surviving. Private schools vs. public schools, private security companies vs. police departments; I could go on and on but you get the idea.
The constant argument from the Right is that private companies will always do better than those inept faceless government bureaucrats. And that argument totally contradicts their simultaneous argument that government-paid health insurance will drive private insurance companies out of business. Put those 2 statements side by side and they cancel each other out.
Millions of people are appalled at the idea of medical care and coverage being provided by inept bureaucrats, but these same people, the first chance they get, will drop their private insurance company and switch to that inferior government insurance? All righty then...
Holte: A coffee stain, there you go. That smudge is actually a semicolon and not a comma. The entire meaning has been altered. Void!
Chopstick: So don't take me seriously then :)
I'll admit I've gotten a lot more shrill and venomous these past few weeks. I've gotten beyond fed up with these HMO-financed protesters who pretend they're "grass roots" citizens' groups. And those people, or their leaders and organizers at least, have to be smart enough to know that if they yell out racial slurs and other insults, the media will be picking that up and using it to tar their entire movement.
That happens at all demonstrations. If it's an anti-war protest, the cameras will zoom in on the protesters with the longest hair and the most insulting banners. If it's a gay rights rally, the cameras will show a few guys wearing lipstick and carrying purses, and ignore the thousands of other marchers who look just like everyone else.
Have we forgotten that the Bush Medicare Bill handed over Medicare to the Insurance Companies and they are now on the Government Payroll?
They are not going anywhere
Erik
Erik: ssshhhhh -- they've forgotten :)
Quick - name 10 of the assholes who killed reform under Clinton (without looking on wikipedia first).
(crickets)
Yep, there ya go, Tom, bolstered your point for you :)
Bee: Wait, I can name some of them, let's see...uhhh, there's, uhhh...
Joaquin wrote: ". . . in 5 to 7 years private health insurance companies will be out of business."
If that happens (crosses fingers), it will be because they carried on with business as usual.
SW: Or to paraphrase, if it happens (which I sincerely doubt) it couldn't have happened to nicer people.
It's embarrassing. It's appalling, and it makes me sad that American politics has delved into such disrespectful, hyperbolistic discourse. What happened to civil disobedience? What happened to thoughtful discussion and compromise? Those were rhetorical questions, by the way.
(sigh)
Tom, I will accept a legitimate argument, but what you are saying is pure nonsense.
The USPS is not competing with FedEx and UPS. The USPS has been running in the red for decades, and have the total power of raising rates at will. The USPS has no stockholders to answer to. They are accountable to no one. They aren't driven by market forces. So how are they competing? They are in 'business' because they are a government funded monopoly. An inefficient, bloated, and out of date monopoly.
Listen, I do a lot of work for the USPS in the third-party disposition of real estate assets and trust me, I know what I'm talking about.
I won't say that all gov. bureaucrats are inept, but when you look at their track record, in just about every field imaginable, their failure in delivery of service and fiscal accountability is abysmal. Pick a department, a government agency, a city or a municipality and what do you find? That's right, it's not a pretty picture is it?
Tom, can you blame people for being scared to death about the gov. providing health-care? Look at the track record.
The government is today the largest provider of health insurance in the US. Medicare, Medicaid, SCHIP and the VA are all run by the government.
If you want to see the future of American medical health-care, and the delivery of medical services.............look at the VA
Oh, and speaking of the USPS
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703312504575141932505872768.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_MIDDLENexttoWhatsNewsSecond
How's that for competition and delivery of service?
The USPS stopping the Saturday delivery wouldn't bother me at all. Personally, I like to enjoy my Saturdays, so not getting a bill in the mail would make them more enjoyable.
I still mail stuff snail mail, and invariably, it ends up at its destination. I've got no complaints.
UPS, on the other hand - Mr. Bee had a computer delivered. It had to be signed for, so he had to take a half-day off of work. It never showed up on the scheduled delivery date. He went online, found that it was in the warehouse 45 minutes away, so he scheduled online to pick it up at the warehouse the next day. The next day, he goes down to the warehouse, it's on the f'ing truck. Another 2 hours missed from work. Finally, on the 3rd day, he took another day off, missing another day of work (thank goodness he's salaried, eh?) and finally got the damned computer delivered. So, as far as Private is always better than Public, bullshit.
Bee: Interesting anecdote. So you're saying, OMG, that the private sector isn't God? That loud thud you just heard was the sound of Joaquin having the rug pulled out from under him.
Tom: Right?? LOL
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