Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?
-Matthew 7:16
If there is one reason to take solace after the passage of the government insurance industry bailout disguised as "health care reform", it is watching the wingnuts squirm and squeal like an army of stuck pigs. We may not have won much, but these porcine punks lost, and lost big. Let their rallying cry be "Kill the Poor!" Let them show what they are really about, death merchants hired by captains of industry to deny life to those peasants who have not the providence of life to be wealthy enough to afford to live. The mask is off, the ugliness is on the increase. We can take some pleasure in the defeat of actual reform, by watching the defeated Napoleonic Army of Wingnuts march forlornly along, dreaming of future victories while still safely in exile.
7 comments:
I like your biblical quote. It sums up the situation precisely.
Are the Repubs howling because they suffered an ignominious defeat, or because this health care reform law has sufficient "goodies" in it, as one pundit described it, to give the Dems a political edge?
Gone are many of the health insurers bread and butter tactics--lifetime caps, and annual caps.
Gone are denial of coverage because of preexisting conditions.
Gone is the perogative to spend as little as they choose of what they take in, in premiums. I understand that they must now spend as much as 80% on health-related expenses, and return to the insured anything less than that, that wasn't spent.
Gone is the ability to raise rates without justification. With the passage of this law, a rate increase must be justified and approved.
Sure it's not perfect, but now that it's law, it can be improved upon. It's hard to improve upon nothing, and nothing is what the Repubs were aiming for, and failed.
The violence that has ensued from the passage, and the threats against those Congresspersons who were key to its passage, should serve to make independents rethink their support for candidates offered up by Repubs, or teabaggers in the Fall.
Wingnuts won't go down quietly, you know?
Already they're scrambling to bring law suits to test the constitutionality of this new law.
If they fail here, too, victory will be sweet.
There's two main reasons why I can't celebrate yet. One is that the barbaric practice of putting corporate profits ahead of human life is still very much in place. So we remain the least civilized industrialized nation in the world.
The other is that the debate has been so shifted to the rightwing side of the spectrum that we can't even have a real debate. A watered down, center-right policy is being labeled "socialism" by a lunatic fringe of extremists that have been pushed into the mainstream by their corporate backers. We can't accept this debate on its face because it does not reflect actual mainstream public opinion on this and other issues as borne out in numerous polls. The major media remains an instrument of corporate control, responsible for selling trillion dollar wars and defeating necessary reform of domestic policies. True progressive/liberal points of view are continuously excluded from their coverage.
@Ernesto: "True progressive/liberal points of view are continuously excluded from their coverage."
Unfortunately, you're right. When Sara Palin, stumping for John McCain, or speechifying before the Teabaggers, gets full media coverage from all three major cable news networks (CNN, FoxNews, MSnbc), you know we've entered the Twilight Zone of politics.
But they all get to crow about how fair and balanced they are.
Sara stumping for McCain in Arizona is not a national-interest story, and neither is a fire-up-the-base with lies and distortions speech before a fringe political group.
What makes these networks so interested in Palin, who, at best, has fewer, a whole lot fewer, followers than Hillary Clinton?
A poll shows that 71% Americans don't find her suitable, nor qualified to be president. Even 56% of Republicans, presumably her staunchest supporters, don't want her to run for president, not to mention 66% of Independents.
Why do media outlets keep building her up?
"Why do media outlets keep building her up?"
She is photogenic and her private life is filled with made-for-TV drama. That is all that is required for the tabloid news divisions of the major networks, which pander to the seemingly insatiable appetite for celebrity fluff devoid of such boring and mundane things such as issues, facts or science.
What's weird is that when Palin was chosen by McCain, C-SPAN ran a repeat of the Alaska's governor debate and I was impressed by her performance. It gave no indication of the many slow-motion trainwreck moments to come during her debates and interviews in the 2008 campaign.
@Ernesto: "She is photogenic and her private life is filled with made-for-TV drama. That is all that is required for the tabloid news divisions of the major networks...."
Good point!
No wonder Americans are so ill-informed! But, at the same time, we aren't demanding better.
A ratings-driven, profit driven world is destroying those values that we hold dear, or we say we hold dear.
"What's weird is that when Palin was chosen by McCain, C-SPAN ran a repeat of the Alaska's governor debate and I was impressed by her performance."
It was a good performance. It's as though there're two Sarah Palins--the fiery Alaskan version, and this chameleon version that attempts to absorb whatever political backdrop she's thrust in front of.
"A ratings-driven, profit driven world is destroying those values that we hold dear, or we say we hold dear."
I plan on writing something about that soon, specifically how it is ruining artistic expression along with so many other quality of life issues. I'm ready to see a new society born that values things beyond just material.
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