Cogitamus

A Winning Coalition

Bob McDonnell, Republican candidate for governor in Virginia, is busily disavowing his masters thesis at Pat Robertson's diploma factory, Regent University.  (The school where one must sign a paper indicating that you accept Jesus Christ as your personal savior as part of the admissions process.)

McDonnell denounces working women, feminists, cohabitators, homosexuals, and fornicators in his magnum opus, arguing for public policies against each.  Now I don't know about you, but to me that group sounds like a majority coalition.  

My initial reaction was that this was a fun story that would make McDonnell sweat.  But after reading the excerpts in the TPM link, I am beginning to think it might well be fatal to his candidacy.  Seriously, this is full-on wingnuttery of the most fanatical kind.  McDonnell has spent many years perfecting a guise of reasonableness (not unlike Bush's compassionate conservative pose), but I think this is going to be absolute poison in Northern Virginia where, to date, McDonnell has polled surprisingly well.  Once the fornicators get a look at the wingnut within I suspect that they will not be amused.

Talk about Missing the F#%king Point

And other observations.

- Allegedly intelligent economist, former Bush adviser, and Columbia faculty member Glenn Hubbard argues in a New York Times Op-ed piece that Obama should forget about universal access to coverage and instead focus on "real" health care reform -- which evidently is related to the high cost of care relative to the value of the services received.  How splendid it must be to be a Republican economist.  You can reduce 45 million uninsured people to being a mere side show and not the crux of what reform is all about.  It is moment's like these that really confirm the pointlessness of talking to these people -- even the ones with brains have no hearts and no souls . 

- Pot/kettle hall of fame time for Charles Grassley.  

- Matt Bai can try and make this seem all complicated and shit, but in fact it pretty much comes down to racism.  Oh that and a bunch of selfish old folks who like socialism for themselves but not for anyone with darker skins.  Or else they're too fucking stupid to realize that Medicare and Social Security are socialism in spades. Either way, fuck 'em.  With a little luck a death panel will be pulling the plug on their sorry collective asses over the next election cycle. 

- Worries about Obama's popularity really need to be put into some perspective.  As this link shows, Reagan's approval ratings fell into the mid to high 30s in early 1983, but by November 1984, he was able to win one of the greatest landslides in American history.  It is very hard for a president to maintain high popularity in an economy that is shedding jobs at a frightening clip.  1982 had seen unemployment in the U.S.approach 11% with predictable impact on Reagan's numbers.  There are two important things for Obama to focus on -- the first is very simple:  How popular is he compared to what the other guy has to offer?  In this respect, I remain pretty sanguine.  The second issue, however, is one of enthusiasm and energy for the mid-term elections.  Like Ezra Klein, I find this concerning.  Low turnout by Democratic constituencies frustrated by the tepid stances of this administration and Congress could result in a similar phenomenon to that experienced in 1994, when energized right wingers turned out in droves for an otherwise low turnout election.  I don't think it will be anywhere near that bad, but it could be bad enough to blunt any chance at a progressive agenda for the remainder of Obama's time in office. 

- Speaking of the perils of low turnout by Democrats, it is quite possible that we will lose the two gubernatorial elections this November taking place in Virginia and New Jersey.  If this happens, it will be hyped into an enormous story, although I am pretty sure it is of limited significance.  One thing that desperately needs to be done in Virginia is make clear that Bob McDonnell, the Republican candidate and current Attorney General, is a wingnut of the highest order.  Every woman in Virginia, particularly Northern Virginia, where McDonnell is inexplicably polling decently, needs to see this article.   

Time to go to work.   

Saturday Night Song of Obsession

"Lazy Eye" - Silversun Pickups

Jane Galt's Got a Gun

Roy makes my head hurt again.  Reading the latest travesty by Megan McArdle (yes burning a flag is just like carrying a gun to a presidential event), I was struck once again at how being a right winger remains the ultimate affirmative action gig in the world.  Seriously, in what universe could someone who is as big a dumbass as this Upper West Side twat score a gig at the Atlantic absent the big thumb on the scale that accompanies having right wing views?  (See also Douthat at the NY Times and Goldberg at the LA Times -- it is hard to evaluate which world view is more jejune -- McArdle's ahistorical libertarianism rooted in the kind of vicious abstraction that anyone over the age of 16 should long have gotten over or Douthat's nostalgic 1950s Catholicism that never quite existed, the philosophy of a 12-year old who finds girls scary, icky and alluring -- neither seem like they have ever lived among flesh and blood human beings -- Goldberg is just a lazy legacy pick who thinks the Abraham Lincoln Brigade were the fascists and Franco the freedom fighter; no one with a three digit IQ and an ounce of good faith could really take him seriously.)  If these people were liberals, they would be making copies or fetching coffee at any mainstream publication.  But since they are right wingers who are relatively young, walk upright, can more or less write in complete sentences and have shed their prehensile tails, they get the choice media real estate. 

[The McMegan media assault has opened a new front with a sometime gig on "liberal" NPR's "Marketplace" where she is treated as some kind of expert on economics.  I swear to God if my kid wasn't in the car with me the other night I might have just driven into a tree to make the banal disingenuousness cease.  (Maybe NPR should consider a show called "Workplace" which would focus on the 90% of Americans who really don't give a fuck about the "numbers.")] 

Let me explain the issue so even McArdle can understand it.  The guns that people bring to these events are designed to kill people -- that is their sole purpose.  When I strap one on and wear it to an event I am saying to my fellow citizens "if you fuck with me, I am willing to kill you."  The gun is not designed to stimulate debate, it is designed to end it.  It is not a symbol of civil liberty, it is an instrument of solipsistic incivility saying rather clearly that I intend to have the last word -- and not in the way that Megan imperiously proclaims from her perch on high in her blog post.

Can you imagine, by the way, the reaction of right-wingers if liberals had taken to showing up armed outside of events held by George W. Bush, say in a manner that looked like this? (The comments on this link are priceless -- thank God we live in a post-racial society.)

And how freakish does it look to every other democratic nation on earth when we permit clearly disturbed people with guns to come near presidential events?  

.  .  

Personal Thoughts on Ted Kennedy

There has been so much written already about Ted Kennedy and his triumphs and tragedies that it's probably futile to try and add anything.  But I nonetheless feel the need to give it a shot given my great admiration for the man.

JFK was assassinated a couple of months before my fourth birthday (one of my earliest memories) and Bobby met the same sad fate when I was eight (a major part of the generalized madness that appeared to be the norm when I was a little kid), so Ted was the only Kennedy who I really got to see as a real world politician rather than an iconic victim.  Not surprisingly, my initial sense of Ted was that he didn't measure up to his mythic siblings .  But as the 1970s wore on and liberalism became increasingly besieged, Kennedy showed himself to be in many respects more politically courageous and principled than either of his brothers.  I remember as an 18-year old being thrilled at his admonition to Democrats at their 1978 mid-term convention to not be afraid to "sail against the wind," a refreshing contrast to the tepid, themeless Carter presidency.  I attended his announcement for the presidency at Faneuil Hall in Boston in 1979, happy to see him "primary" Carter's feckless ass.

Contrary to some of the portrayals that I have seen this week, I do not believe that Kennedy sought the presidency at this time as some sort of reflexive obligation to fulfill the Kennedy legacy.  I truly believe that he was fighting an ideological battle that he deemed essential to saving the soul of the Democratic Party.  As we all know, it didn't work out too well.  Kennedy suffered a stinging defeat in a campaign where often he did not perform all that well as a candidate (until he no longer had a chance -- then he seemed to hit his stride, culminating in his tremendous speech to the 1980 Convention.)  

It was in the wake of this defeat and the rise of right wing Republicanism, that I think Kennedy genuinely achieved greatness.  Of course, he had already had a consequential career as a legislator and party leader up that point, playing a major role in everything from voting and civil rights, immigration reform, the adoption of Medicare and Medicaid, and the deregulation of the trucking and airline industries. 

But during the Reagan years and thereafter, while liberalism endured 28 years in the wilderness, Kennedy showed what it is to fight the good fight every day, year after year.  Moreover, he not only fought the fight, he won a remarkable number of battles during this time, by dint of sheer hard work and a mastery of both policy and procedure.  

The advent of the Reagan era just a couple of weeks before my 21st birthday was a bitter pill for me.  Moving to DC a year later and remaining here ever since meant a nearly daily reminder of living in a benighted age, one whose darkness still threatens to envelop us once again.  To say that this environment was discouraging is a laughable understatement.  Throughout, however, Kennedy gave us an example of what it is not to give in and not to be defeated.  He won improbable victories, he thwarted his enemies, and he did so with zest and good humor, all the while staying true to deeply held principles. How could you wallow in pessimism when this man who had faced more tragedies than any twenty people should have to endure -- a guy rich and famous enough that he could have easily said fuck it and phoned it in -- showed up every damn day and tried to make the country a better place?

I got to know a few of his staffers over the years and although it is said that no man is a hero to his valet, I found his people to be devoted to and protective of him -- happy to serve on a staff where excellence was appreciated and where the boss was dedicated to things bigger than getting reelected. 

Kennedy understood that the way to be an effective deal maker was to never negotiate against yourself -- to start from a strong position and try to carve out common ground where needed.  He never embraced bipartisanship for its own sake (ask Robert Bork), but rather when it would substantively advance his cause. 

To labor as he did for forty seven years and to retain that enthusiasm for justice and the work of trying to achieve it in the face of all that went wrong for both him and the country was a remarkable thing.  We may well not see its like again in our lives --so take a moment this weekend and pay tribute to an exemplary life.   

Drive US-Based Airlines Out Of Business

Jumping off Amanda's post about the horrible way airlines treat their customers, I can't remember the last time I flew on a plane.  My family used to fly at least twice a year to visit family; now we drive.  It's simply more comfortable to drive 950 miles one way than it is to go through the pointless "security" circus and then get abused by a poorly-run corporation for several hours, only to arrive in El Paso, 100 miles away from my actual destination.

When I went to Netroots, 850 miles away, I drove again even though I went by myself - even though driving became more expensive than flying after adding in the hotel stay on the way there (I couldn't leave early in the morning) and the extra meals I purchased on the road.

This rational actor in the market has decided that his comfort and dignity are worth quite a bit of money.

Within 5 years or so, once we figure our son is old enough to get something out of the experience, my family will start taking trips outside the US at least once a year.  When I book the flights, I will do everything in my power to get on a foreign carrier as soon as I possibly can - Chicago, Dallas, wherever I can hop on one I will.  I will never fly an American-flag carrier outside the US again, a policy I started after one trip to and from Korea, and which I followed when I lived in Korea and we flew back and forth a couple of times a year.

American-flag airlines, with the possible exception of Southwest, are poorly-managed, failed corporations that continue to exist only because they receive constant and massive bailouts from American taxpayers.  I may only be one person responsible for the booking habits of four people total, but I will continue to do my best to deny these failed companies my business and encourage others to do the same. 

Capitalism, at least in the form we're currently experiencing, is a failed experiment.  Not only does it not produce optimal outcomes in every situation, it is very close to producing, as a matter of design, suboptimal outcomes in every situation.  It's time to reintroduce the heavy hand of regulation in every market, every industry.  I'm tired of seeing crooks dressed in Brooks Brothers suits given free reign rein, dammit, to steal from me.

A Dose Of Good News

Missouri has one of the lowest juvenile recidivism rates in the country.  This year, "370 of the juveniles who went through the Division of Youth Services graduated from high school this year compared to just 40 children when the program began in earnest in 1983, according to state officials."

Further, the adult prison population in Missouri, while not shrinking, is not growing at the same rate as the nation as a whole.  Three planned prisons were not needed as a result of this, and the administrators of the adult criminal justice system attribute that directly to the Missouri Model created and implemented in the juvenile system.

So what are they doing?  Cleaning up facilities, letting kids wear clothes and attend classes, emphasizing counseling and rehabilitation rather than satisfying this society's savage punishment-lust - such as they do in Arizona, where the crazed sheriff of Maricopa County, Joe Arpaio, makes his prisoners of any age live in tents, wear demeaning clothing and spend their time doing hard labor.  Arizona doesn't follow the Missouri Model, and their juvenile recidivism rate is 28 percent over three years, over three times the rate in Missouri.

The CNN article linked above does include quotes from "critics [who] argue the Missouri model's residential centers are too soft on juvenile delinquents and that some youths may never become law abiding citizens."  This in spite of the fact that Missouri's "juvenile delinquents" are already becoming law abiding citizens at greater rates than states where punishment is the end and only goal. 

Again and again, measures that conservatives decry as being "too soft" are shown to be the most and sometimes only effective way to deal with our problems and challenges.  Pursuing terrorist suspects with police work?  Too soft.  Rehabilitating criminals, especially juveniles and non-violent offenders?  Too soft. 

But these approaches simply work, and Missouri - no liberal enclave - is to be congratulated for its success.  Let's hope all 50 states manage to follow in Missouri's footsteps.

The Cause Endures - Ted Kennedy R.I.P.

I awoke to the sad news of the death of Senator Edward M. Kennedy this morning.  Ted Kennedy has been at the center of the fight for social justice in this country for nearly fifty years.  I cast my first ever presidential vote for him in the Massachusetts primary in 1980.  I am deeply saddened at his loss and immensely troubled at the cruel irony that his departure comes at the moment when his dream for universal health care is both within reach and in grave danger.  Maybe though, this will give President Obama an impetus for greater passion in pushing Kennedy's Senate colleagues to give him a fitting memorial, one that transcends empty rhetoric extolling his contribution.

I am on my way on a 400 mile round trip today to try and persuade two union health plans with whom I work to merge together, so will be unable to comment further until this evening.  I will try and give much more complete thoughts this evening on this immense loss for all of us. 

  

Tuesday Trivia

I never finished my farewell from Netroots posts.  I''ve been both really busy and having a great deal of difficulty writing for some reason.  But I did want to share a couple of impressions, as well as acknowledge the wonderful time spent with Deborah and Stephen and Cogblog friend Minstrel Boy-- a good time was had by all   (Other than the convivial time at Chez Cogblog, the highlight of my trip was the pub trivia contest at which I joined up with a motley crew dubbed "The Dirty Fucking Local Bloggers" which included author, "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me" panelist, and all around man about town Charles Pierce -- a very funny guy.)  

- It was interesting to feel the difference in the proceedings between last year and this year.  Last year, of course, was all about the election -- it gave everything a manic and focused energy that was palpable throughout.  Now that "our side" has won and is tackling the messy issues of governance, the feeling is quite a bit different -- I think it would be fairly described as a combination of sober determination mingled with frustration and more than a bit of anxiety.  Unlike our right wing counterparts, we are an unruly lot who do not fall easily into line.  Thus, the critiques of Obama (and even more so the Democratic Congressional leadership) are sometimes blistering and, perhaps, even a bit unfair.  (The wingers, on the other hand, fell slavishly in line behind Bush, regardless of what he did, until the point where they found him to be deadweight and managed the neat act of writing him out of "conservative" politics.)  The overall impression that I had was of people ready to do battle, but having their energy sapped by uncertain and lackluster political leadership.    

- Speaking of which -- Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen is pretty much a mendacious idiot.  But there is more than a kernel of truth to this column.  If he is going to succeed on health care, Obama needs to step us his passion level by several notches.  He needs to be more visceral and less professorial.  I know he has these skills in his repertoire, but they have been severely lacking as of late.  Obama needs to name the villains in the piece, i.e. insurance company executives and right wing Republicans, and he needs to make use of the abundant anecdotes available to make the case for how broken the health care system truly is.  There is no law that liberals have to be bloodless in making their case -- trotting out the many gut wrenching cases caused by the present health care system is not only fair, but essential.

- And speaking again of WaPo, their seemingly daily effort to make me scream reached a kind of apotheosis this week when they published a piece by Howard Kurtz wondering why it is that all of the great MSM journamalism hasn't killed zombie lies about health care, which Fred Hiatt then complemented by turning over his Op-Ed page to policy giant Michael Steele, who set new records for lies in one column.  Hiatt's strategy of turning his page over to the likes of Steele, Palin, Bolton, and Wolfowitz, to go with regulars Krauthammer, Will, Gerson, Samuelson, Broder, and torture apologist David Ignatius, makes me think he is selling his Post stock short.

An Open Letter To Apple About Iphones And iTunes

Dear Jackasses,

I'm writing this to you to clear up some things about iTunes and my iPhone, specifically ringtones.  It seems to me that if I want my iPhone to fart, vomit, make a sound like a stream of urine into a toilet, scream, wail, grunt, moan, bark, meow, roar, shriek, play clips of bad songs on tinny speakers, speak like a hillbilly, get sarcastic or produce a cacophony of electronic noise, no problem. 

However, if I would like for my phone to ring, I have to go into various ringtone albums and hunt, line by line, for something that approximates what a phone should sound like.  Apparently 99% of your clientele, despite advertisements to the contrary, have no jobs or friends and can therefore make their phones sound however they want.  Those of us with jobs, though, must unfortunately wade through literally thousands of bad - not to mention racist and sexist - jokes and digital versions of bodily exretions in order to find the one or two rings that could be considered appropriate for a professional context.  Or one that involves other human beings at all.

And once we manage to find these diamonds in the rough, we have to pay another $.99 to convert the ringtone which was specifically purchased from an album of ringtones for use as ringtones into a ringtone.  And then, because iTunes is a fucking piece of shit designed by a team of lobotomized monkeys on meth, it still won't sync.

Is that your take on the situation as well?  I'd love to hear your input, if you can find anyone that works there intelligent enough to read the foregoing to the rest of you.

Thank you.

Stephen Suh

The Disloyal Opposition

This is a must read post by Roy Edroso, the best writer and clearest thinker on the internets these days.  He encapsulates the entire gamut of right wing madness currently ongoing against the duly elected President and Congress of the United States and makes the case for the fact that these people are simply unwilling to accept that their political viewpoint is not in the majority. Or not in charge -- I am pretty sure that they don't really care if they are in the majority or not.  But, as Roy notes, what is most telling in all this, is that the Republican leadership is complicit in the madness, continually giving encouragement to the violent and the irrational -- a core part of the GOP's constituency.

It is fascinating (in an infuriating sort of way) to watch the right wing clowns write the rest of us out of America.  Thus, you have a Republican Congressman claim that if the Democrats pass health care reform without Republican votes, they are doing so without the support of America.  Now you would think after the drubbing that the GOP has received in the last couple of elections that they would understand that they are not, in fact, synonomous with America.

While Roy tackles the disloyalty issue, Joe Klein has a pretty good piece about dealing with the party of crazy as the opposition.  Klein's piece, like much he has written over the last year or two, is a well done dissection of the madness that plagues the GOP.  However, Klein feels compelled to point out that we dirty fucking hippies on the left have had our problems too -- even if they are of a qualitatively different nature than those on the right.  Indeed, Klein largely points to issues where we have been right and he wrong -- although he has been whipped into shape by constant critiquing from the left, you get the sense that he can't quite forgive the presumptiousness on our part.

Rick Perlstein reminds us that craziness and the GOP have long had a historically cozy relationship, but that the difference now is that the mainstream media is incapable of either ignoring or firmly debunking the crazy.  (Tonight on Fox -- What kind of universal health care would Hitler have favored?")  As he so memorably puts it, "in America, the crazy tree blooms in every moment of liberal ascendancy."

The Washingtn Post, on the other hand, remains irredeemable, with an editorial about the need for we on the left to give up on the public option.  What is the matter with us, after all, that we can't figure out that we don't have the sixty votes in the Senate that we need.  (And no, God forbid that the Post pressure wise men like Max Baucus, Ben Nelson, and Charles Grassley to get on board.)  The Post, in a profound act of projection, basically implies that liberals only care about the public option because it arouses conservative ire.  I wonder if they consulted with Post contributors like Sarah Palin, Paul Wolfowitz, and John Bolton, before penning this editorial.  Watching that rag crash and burn is going to be a delight.

Why Are The Villagers So Willing To Insult Themselves?

It's no surprise that the Bush administration used their silly terror alert system to influence an election and for other domestic policy goals - either to distract us from something dumb they did or to bolster sagging approval numbers until they got so low nothing could be done. 

Atrios puts it succinctly:

And just so it's clear: using the threat of terrorism to try to achieve political goals is, you know, what terrorists do.

Perhaps you can think of other examples, current examples, of how the right-wing in this country engages in terrorist threats and acts as their first option for every policy debate.

But I digress.  What really gets me about this - because I've become desensitized to Bush administration excesses and criminality - is how willing some journalists are to completely debase themselves in order to maintain their perverted worldview.

Case in point:  Marc Ambinder.  He admits that he and pretty much every other journalist was wrong about the terror alert system, and that the people who were skeptical of it were right.  But he can't leave it at that, instead offering up an incredibly sorry defense of why he would choose to give the Bush administration the benefit of the doubt.

Our skepticism about the activists' conclusions was warranted because these folks based their assumption on gut hatred for President Bush, and not on any evaluation of the raw intelligence.

There was plenty of "raw intelligence" people could, and did, use to evaluate the terror alert system.  That intelligence wasn't HUMINT or SIGINT from the CIA or NSA, but simple observation of the Bush administration and, you know, what day of the week it was.  In other words, all anyone needed to do was pay attention.

What's happening here is that Ambinder is publicly calling himself a bigoted idiot, someone who doesn't have the intellectual rigor or moral wherewithal to suspend his prejudices for one minute to look outside the window and confirm that yes, the sky is indeed blue, water is actually wet and the terror alert system was an intentionally vague propaganda tool to keep Bush in power and the American people in line.

Again and again the DC villagers intentionally portray themselves as ignorant, bigoted, shallow, unintelligent and narcissistic savages. 

But they're not hippies.

The big backoff: No, you weren't imagining the sudden downplaying of the public option

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Heal or No Heal - Medicine Brawl
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Healthcare Protests

In response to a pair of condescending and dishonest comments denying that the White House, earlier this week, appeared to be backing off from and downplaying the importance of a government-funded public option in the health care reform bill, I can think of no better or more succinct reply than the above clip from Monday's Daily Show with Jon Stewart.

In it, President Obama is shown in Colorado last weekend, when he stated:

"All I'm saying is though, that the public option, whether we have it or we don't have it, is not the entirety of health care reform."

Contrast this with previous statements--just weeks earlier--by White House officials and the President himself:

WH Press Secretary Robert Gibbs on July 17, 2009:

"Increased choice and competition drives down the prices for other insurance--that's why a strong public option is necessary."

Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sibelius on July 21, 2009:

"What we need is a level playing field, but a public plan, side-by-side with private plans to make sure costs come down."

President Barack Obama on July 20th, 2009:

"I've been very clear about the fact that we should have a public plan."

Subsequently, as you saw in the Daily Show clip, all three officials, on or around August 15, did what can only be termed a group-floating of trial balloons to see how people would respond if the insurance companies got their dearest wish and the public option were taken off the table. So no, readers, you weren't imagining things, and for once, this wasn't a media-created meme. The White House actually did start to back down on the one remaining cornerstone to real health-care reform: a government-funded public plan. And the reactions around the blogosphere (and even among those interviewed by the traditional media)--as expected, and gratifyingly en masse--ranged from bitter disappointment to disgust and outrage, with many accusing the White House of giving in to the opposition, plain and simple.

Which charge is entirely justified, I think. If America is truly led by a government of the people, by the people, and for the people, as opposed to one that's of, by, and for the corporations--in this case, the insurance and pharmaceutical industries--the President cannot possibly countenance this shameless capitulation to the opposition. And nor can we.

UPDATE: kathy a. points to this USA Today piece in which Robert Gibbs calls all of this a "media overreaction" and says the public option is still on the table.

Good.

Captian Ineffective

Neil strikes again!

Sooner or later people in DC are going to realize that you don't want to get on Neil's bad side.

Oh, For A Congress Of Barney Franks

I love this guy.  It does amaze me that a sitting member of the US Congress refusing to grant dignity to the delusional rantings of intentionally ignorant, misinformed, bigoted rageaholics is actually newsworthy.

Once again, I'd be perfectly happy to create an entirely non-taxed class of Americans if they would only agree to refrain from partaking of any government services at all.  Short of that, I'd even be happy to allow anyone that wants to opt out of a national health insurance plan, just as long as they are restricted from receiving any health care for which they don't have the full cost already in their bank account.  They can pay up front or not receive care - even in the ER or from an ambulance crew.  That would be fair, right?

Bloggers And Unions

Like digby and Mike Stark, I'd like to thank the unions - SEIU, AFSCME, AFT, AFL-CIO and probably others I'm missing - that did so much to make Netroots Nation so successful.

I am totally convinced that healthy economic growth for the USA can only happen when we start to make things again - when we start growing our own food again instead of monocrops and start producing tangible items that get used. Further, sustained, healthy growth for the USA can only happen with a vital, powerful labor movement.

At times various liberal bloggers have wondered if the time for labor unions has passed, if perhaps we need to look for other models. I won't bother finding links, because each and every one of those posts is utter bullshit - even the posts and comments I wrote along these lines.

So-called "free trade" does no one - no one - any favors, excepting of course the very few at the very top of the economic heap.  It does not benefit Americans and it does not benefit the workers around the world and their nations, not in any meaningful, long-term way.  Trade can be global without necessarily favoring only the extremely wealthy.

So bloggers and other online activists need to make it their #1 priority to get involved, somehow, with the unions in their area.  No organizing, no campaigns, no programs of any kind should be undertaken by just the blogosphere or just the unions.  We need each other, each other's expertise and different areas of passion.  If we put the influence of the blogosphere and unions together, perhaps we will finally find that we are strong, that we can affect legislation for the good instead of watching others continually sabotage good policy for their corporate masters.

Whither Real Health Care Reform? A Public Option Open Thread

Is not this David the king of the land? Did they not sing one to another of him in dances...?

This weekend, President Obama sent out signals--and they're troubling, weak-willed, worrisome, and inexplicably conciliatory signals, if you ask me--that the important Public Option element of the health care reform package was in danger of being dropped altogether:

“The public option, whether we have it or we don’t have it, is not the entirety of health care reform,” the president said. “This is just one sliver of it, one aspect of it.”

For Mr. Obama, giving up on the public plan would have risks and rewards. The reward is that he could punch a hole in Republican arguments that he wants a “government takeover” of health care and possibly win some Republican votes. The risk is that he could alienate liberal Democrats, whose support he will also need to pass a bill.

To my mind, having the ability to ditch one's lousy, inadequate, and invariably overpriced private policy and insure oneself through this so-called Public Option--a government-run insurance-providing entity that would offer affordable coverage for everyone while also serving as a formidable competitor to the for-profit insurance corporations--has always been the cornerstone of real health-care reform.  Indeed, it is the only cornerstone remaining after proposals for a single-payer system were all but annihilated by various "special interest groups" (read: paid lobbyists for private health insurance corporations and Big Pharma, and the "jes' folks" people who love them and organize to shout down any and all proponents of reform).

Now this.

It's utterly unacceptable, President Obama, to betray Americans this way.  If you cave on this--if you bow to Big Insurance, Big Pharma, and the assorted rightwing blowhards, and give up the Public Option while trying to convince us all that some patchwork system of "cooperatives" will somehow suffice--well, you've lost me, sir.  And I think you will have lost the support of many millions of others, too, Americans who worked hard to elect you because you promised change.

Every other civilized nation in the world, in one way or another, takes far better care of its citizens, having long ago determined that when it comes to this one matter--health care--giving the profit motive exclusive dominion simply leads to denials of care and poor outcomes.  So why does America not look after its own this way?  Are we less worthy--less deserving--of this fundamental care than the citizens of Germany, Sweden, Canada, or France?  Of course not!

Readers, comments are open; please weigh in, and we'll forward the whole lot to the White House later this week.

Greetings from Netroots: Big Dawg turns on the five-alarm charm

President Bill Clinton firing up the Netroots crowd in Pittsburgh last night; litbrit's camera stops wobbling just long enough to capture the excitement

We had to sit through a seemingly interminable series of opening acts--some of whom were more compelling than others--but our patience was rewarded when President Clinton took the stage and, after apologizing for the gruffness of his voice and blaming it on the extensive airplane travel he'd been doing lately, delivered a wonderful address, covering everything from health care reform to gay rights to the possibility of a long-term progressive reign.

Of course, Yours Truly is not a very patient girl, and if you make me wait (and wait and wait) for things I've been looking forward to, I am going to be forced to amuse myself by doing things like making origami animals out of the Very Serious Political Pamphlets people leave on tables, surely intended for purposes other than being turned into origami animals; traipsing back and forth to the well-stocked bar for, er, refreshments (Sir C, Stephen, and Nick Beaudrot are Jack Daniels guys, Minstrel Boy did the mature thing and stuck with ginger ale, and I represented my home state by drinking Cuba Libres with extra lime); rummaging through the bag of "goodies" we'd been handed at registration (at this convention, "goodies" = one t-shirt, an assortment of buttons, a couple of booklets I haven't yet read so I can't tell you what they're about, and a packet of non-GMO corn chips. Really, Netroots organizers--whither Cheetos?); and eventually, having fully assimilated the aforementioned refreshments, offering up the odd Cogitamus-style riposte to lines that, let's face it, ranged from stating-the-bleeding-obvious ("Reforming health care policy has been a long process, but we can't give up now!") to downright stupid. To wit:

Penultimate (or was it the seventh-to-last?) Speaker: "Bipartisanship still matters; now is not the time to turn our backs on the opposition."

Litbrit (allegro con molto brio): "YES IT IS!"

Guess whose line got the louder cheers in our quadrant of the auditorium?

Also at litbrit.

Democrats Called Bush A 'Poopyhead' So It's All The Same

A man took a sign to a town hall in Maryland that said "Death to Obama, death to Michelle and her two stupid kids."

But Michael Moore is fat, MoveOn sponsored a video contest, blogs say "fuck," etc., etc.

Netroots - (Almost) Live Blogging

I am attending the "Is There a New New Deal?" panel with Chris Hayes of the Nation, Rob Johnson, former Soros fund manager and Senate Banking Committee staffer, and Maya Rockeymoore, formerly Chief of Staff for Congressman Rangel and now head of a DC-based not for profit.  The topic is whether there is a need for a new New Deal and assuming there is (which we all do), how could it be brought about.

Hayes describes the fact that the government under the New Deal was really good at solving problems through direct governmental action, from building tunnels, roads and bridges to the FDIC to responding to natural disasters.  The tunnel, in fact, was a metaphor he used for governance -- that the New Deal bore straight ahead in its quest to solve problems, whereas we now feel the need to travel the road indirectly -- pour the federal largesse on the banks, the pharmaceutical companies, the insurers, and other elite business institutions and hope that some of this trickles down to the public at large, see e.g. Medicare Part D and TARP, among others.    

Rob Johnson, who seems to be a truly smart man, discussed the fact that the economic theory that you and I are intimidated by is based on a lot of assumptions that simply aren't true. His advice -- do not defer to the putative expertise of today's economic ruling class.  Johnson denounced the Blue Dogs and the people who tell us what we can't afford, i.e. health care, infrastructure, etc., while noting the irony of the government bail out of the financial institutions and their wealthy investors that got us into this mess in the first place.   

Maya Rockeymoore picked up on the theme of money going to financial elites rather than directly aiding troubled homeowners.  Although supportive of the New Deal and saluting its enduring legacy, Rokeymoore also pointed out the manner in which the New Deal frequently omitted African-Americans from its embrace, through such means as excluding agricultural and domestic workers from participation in programs like Social Security and the use of criteria by agencies such as the FHA to essentially keep blacks from obtaining the benefits of cheaper home loans.  Rockeymoore also made the case for what a new New Deal would try and accomplish.  

The panelists were remarkably eloquent and passionate.  It was really am impressive performance -- lively, smart and well-informed.  The recurring theme was that the incestuous interplay between the highest levels of government and elite financial institutions like Goldman Sachs, coupled with disingenuous and oblivious economists, and a media that has bought every foolish assumption perpetrated by the free marketeers, stands in the way of genuine recovery and productive investment in the bulk of the American people.  

I would like to see an emphasis placed on getting every American back to work with the exception of Amity Shlaes, who I would prefer to see selling apples on the sidewalk.

(Smug right wing fuck John Fund of the Wall Street Journal is in the room looking like an utter stiff in suit and tie.)

[Postus interruptus due to battery failure.  Now back in the penthouse of Cogblog world headquarters after the Netroots soiree at the Warhol Museum -- feeling like a Steeltown boy on a Saturday Night.  Great speech by Bill Clinton tonight too, about which more tomorrow.]

Which Is Worse?

I'm sitting right behind Duncan Black at a panel on how to deal with jargon when blogging on economic issues - why he isn't on the panel is beyond me - and is it worse than I'm feeling all fluttery being near the great Atrios, or that I'm refraining from talking to him because I don't want to seem like a fanboi?

Feel free to vote your preference and make fun of me in comments.

Nora ancora

Cogitamus Party Central At Netroots

Here is the view from our window. 

The CogBlog crew knows how to do a convention, bitchez!

The responsibility for Death Panels should remain where it is right now: with the private insurance companies

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Healther Skelter - Obama Death Panel Debate
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Spinal Tap Performance

This is simply brilliant. (Note to Comedy Central: more Samantha Bee, please.)

Bring back "free speech zones" for teabaggers and townhall violence-inciters

***SATIRE WARNING***

AstraZeneca will happily supply Breast Cancer Cupcakes to go with all that fenced-in teabagging, as long as they won't get cited for HIPPA violations.

While commenting at Stephen's post lamenting the escalating violence at healthcare reform townhall meetings, I had a great idea: Free Speech Zones!

I wrote:

Why not have FREE SPEECH ZONES for the loud, violence-inciting assholes who seem to be there to shriek about everything BUT healthcare reform? I mean, that's what Bush did. Let's fence off an area nearby, but separate from, the townhall itself, where people who want to ask actual questions and engage in on-topic, reasoned discussion can do so. Meanwhile, the Obama-Wants-to-Kill-Your-Mama folks can wave their signs and make good use of their freebie BlueCross/BlueShield bath-towels and AstraZeneca hand lotion when they're jerking off to Rick Scott videos to their hearts' content.

We can even re-use the same chain-link fencing and razor wire.

Make that Occam's razor wire: simple, obvious, effective.  Problem solved, proving once again that Mama knows best.