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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
 Posted - 08/14/2009 : 23:04:22 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Grayven
Big right wing wins in 2012.....unless we prove ourselves to be wingnuts. |
What with all the talk of "death panels" and other absurdities, you already have.
Bill Maher recently complained that we now have only a single political party, a center/right party called the Democrats. We also have a big bunch of nutjobs (the Republicans). The Overton Window is being drastically jerked around these days, making 1980s-style moderate conservatism about the only acceptable position, with actual liberalism equated with socialism, communism or even fascism (that the preceeding can be true is a testament to how far out-of-whack things are). If all the shouting at the "town hall" meetings has been centrally planned by the RNC, they're brilliant politicians (even if they're evil). If it hasn't been planned, the RNC should be falling all over itself to take advantage of it, because yes, it will result in huge wins in 2012 if the momentum can be maintained (it may have started too early).
For folks reading who think that "Accomodationism" is the correct way to go with regard to getting more religious people on-board with science, I suggest you pay close attention to what's happening with the Democrats today. End-of-life counseling is being turned into "death panels" who will insist that Granny is so old and useless that she no longer deserves medication, and Congressional Democrats are replying to this outrage not by setting the record straight in no uncertain terms, but by saying, "okay, perhaps this is too contentious an issue, let's leave it out of the reform bills." They're basically saying, "here, let us help push the Overton Window further to the right."
And that's the same sort of thing that happens when people proclaim that religion and science are compatible, or that happens when lunatics like Mooney start attacking the out-and-loud atheists. That particular window gets shifted towards the religious end of the spectrum such that more and more religious views are deemed okay, with accomodating atheists leading the push, shooting themselves in the foot. After all, the window doesn't get thinner as it's shoved around, so that only moderate religious positions are in the public eye, because the fundamentalist nutjobs are over on the other side pulling on it with all their might, trying to be seen. And if the window travels far enough, the more-moderate atheists will be seen as Satan incarnate (like they once were - the Overton window got shifted over, and now it's shifting back a few hundred years).
(And yes, because he's the leader of the Democratic Party, the spinelessness we're seeing in Congressional Democrats is entirely Obama's fault, as a failure of leadership.) |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13477 Posts |
Posted - 08/15/2009 : 10:02:38 [Permalink]
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Dave:
End-of-life counseling is being turned into "death panels" who will insist that Granny is so old and useless that she no longer deserves medication, and Congressional Democrats are replying to this outrage not by setting the record straight in no uncertain terms, but by saying, "okay, perhaps this is too contentious an issue, let's leave it out of the reform bills." They're basically saying, "here, let us help push the Overton Window further to the right." |
I have been watching this "death panel" baloney very closely and I haven't heard a single democrat consider dropping "living wells" and not mandated "end of life counseling" that just happens to be in most insurance policies offered by private insurers. Who has backed down or even offered a compromise on that? All I hear from the Democratic side that the whole issue is made up and crazy. Plus, I have heard that debunking from Republicans as well.
As for Obama still wanting bipartisan agreement on the public option, he isn't going to get it so he should drop the idea. He should be strong arming the "blue dog" democrats who are really the one's holding things up...
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Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
Genetic Literacy Project |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 08/15/2009 : 12:17:56 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Kil
I have been watching this "death panel" baloney very closely and I haven't heard a single democrat consider dropping "living wells" and not mandated "end of life counseling" that just happens to be in most insurance policies offered by private insurers. Who has backed down or even offered a compromise on that? All I hear from the Democratic side that the whole issue is made up and crazy. Plus, I have heard that debunking from Republicans as well. |
The Wall Street Journal only names a single Rep and a single Dem (who are on opposite sides of the issue), but NPR sometime last week has a story about Dems who were talking about dropping the provision, which I can't find right now.| As for Obama still wanting bipartisan agreement on the public option, he isn't going to get it so he should drop the idea. He should be strong arming the "blue dog" democrats who are really the one's holding things up... |
And he should be throwing some elbows regarding "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" and a bunch of other issues, too. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13477 Posts |
Posted - 08/15/2009 : 12:54:00 [Permalink]
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Dave:
And he should be throwing some elbows regarding "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" and a bunch of other issues, too. |
Agreed. I sense that he is too idealistic. He would really like to work with the opposition. And Washington is a meat grinder. He needs to face that fact before it's too late. |
Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
Genetic Literacy Project |
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Chippewa
SFN Regular
USA
1496 Posts |
Posted - 08/15/2009 : 14:45:39 [Permalink]
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Rachel Maddow pointed out last week that Senator Grassley of Iowa has been using the fake "pulling the plug on granny" speech to his constituents and adding that he (Grassley) will bravely go in and make sure the provision is pulled from the healthcare bill. What he fails to tell them however is that in legislation three years ago he voted in favor of the exact same harmless "end of life" options in Medicare, revealing Grassley's typical political bullshit.
Aside from Rachel, Bill Maher, John Stewart and maybe Bill Moyers, the regular cable media isn't going to stir this up though some have at least reported on the drug company influences on townhall disruptions.
I agree, Obama has to now bring out his Chicago (politics) side in dealing with the rightwing creeps. |
Diversity, independence, innovation and imagination are progressive concepts ultimately alien to the conservative mind.
"TAX AND SPEND" IS GOOD! (TAX: Wealthy corporations who won't go poor even after taxes. SPEND: On public works programs, education, the environment, improvements.) |
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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13477 Posts |
Posted - 08/15/2009 : 15:11:41 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Chippewa
Rachel Maddow pointed out last week that Senator Grassley of Iowa has been using the fake "pulling the plug on granny" speech to his constituents and adding that he (Grassley) will bravely go in and make sure the provision is pulled from the healthcare bill. What he fails to tell them however is that in legislation three years ago he voted in favor of the exact same harmless "end of life" options in Medicare, revealing Grassley's typical political bullshit.
Aside from Rachel, Bill Maher, John Stewart and maybe Bill Moyers, the regular cable media isn't going to stir this up though some have at least reported on the drug company influences on townhall disruptions.
I agree, Obama has to now bring out his Chicago (politics) side in dealing with the rightwing creeps.
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Yup. And Grassley is a major dickhead. Obama should pull the plug on him and forget about bipartisanship. |
Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
Genetic Literacy Project |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 08/17/2009 : 17:30:15 [Permalink]
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Annoying? Its fucking absurd.
Do the dems have 60 people in the senate? Yes.
Do they have a majority willing to vote for a public option? Yes.
So, even if a few dems oppose a public option they can be made to vote against a filibuster.
I'm fucking sick of spineless candyass democrats.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 08/17/2009 : 19:20:58 [Permalink]
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Oh, but we wouldn't want the Dems to use the power of the majority to ram legislation through, would we? [Innocent blink] That would make them just like the Republicans! [Scary!] So instead the Dems are up to their same old tricks: rolling over.
"Vote for change" my aunt Fanny. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
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BigPapaSmurf
SFN Die Hard
3192 Posts |
Posted - 08/18/2009 : 05:09:57 [Permalink]
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| Sounds like we are assuming that all 60 Dems will goose-step into line on this, don't count on it. |
"...things I have neither seen nor experienced nor heard tell of from anybody else; things, what is more, that do not in fact exist and could not ever exist at all. So my readers must not believe a word I say." -Lucian on his book True History
"...They accept such things on faith alone, without any evidence. So if a fraudulent and cunning person who knows how to take advantage of a situation comes among them, he can make himself rich in a short time." -Lucian critical of early Christians c.166 AD From his book, De Morte Peregrini |
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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13477 Posts |
Posted - 08/18/2009 : 09:09:45 [Permalink]
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Obama has been for whatever will insure the most people and bring down costs. The public option (and not a single payer system, which really is the way to go but it's an impossible sell and not on the table. A shame.) I think what Obama was getting at is the idea that is being floated for a large health insurance co-op. A non profit member paid alternative that would not be run by the government. The problem is, no one seems to know how that would work or how it would be a competitive alternative to what we have now. There are successful co-ops out there, but they are small and therefore easy to manage. Where they operate, the members do get quality health insurance. But can they really hold down health care costs and create competitive pressure on private carriers to lower their costs? I doubt it.
So What's a Health Insurance Co-op, Anyway?
After his statements from this last weekend, I think Obama will make it clear that he favors, and push for a public option. The liberals in congress are all over him and he has already backed away from those statements saying that he was misunderstood. That's to say that if he can't be shown how a co-op will achieve his goal of insuring most people at a reasonable cost, it will not fly.
He really does need to get in there, forget about the Republicans, and lean on the "blue dogs". Idealism was Jimmy Carter's downfall. Obama should study what went wrong during the Carter administration and not make the same mistakes. Sometimes you just must go partisan, like it or not.
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Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
Genetic Literacy Project |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 08/18/2009 : 09:48:09 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by BigPapaSmurf
Sounds like we are assuming that all 60 Dems will goose-step into line on this, don't count on it.
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At least 51 of them are in favor of a public option. The problem lies in stopping a filibuster.
If all 60 members of the dem caucus in the senate won't vote to break a filibuster then Obama needs to lean hard on the holdouts. Run ads in their states calling them out, deny them access to his massive fund raising machine, get them kicked off their committees, etc.
If the dems don't learn to use power when they have it, what is the point of ever voting for them again?
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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Paulos23
Skeptic Friend
USA
446 Posts |
Posted - 08/19/2009 : 08:48:04 [Permalink]
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As a member of the Group Health Co-Op, I would like to say a few things about them.
Co-Ops work best when their members(people that are covered) are working with the Co-Op to lower costs. Taking care of yourself and not coming in for every cold and flu is just the start. Willing to do the lower cost treatment that has the same success rate as the more expensive one is another.
The problem with Group Health is people don't treat it that way, nor do they do the preventive care that Group Health is trying to promote, so they have had to transform to a more insurance like structure. Because of this Group Health has become one of the most expensive plans out there, but you get inexpensive doctor visits and even less expensive surgeries (both use to be free way back at the start of Group Health).
I just don't see the average American trying to take care of themselves to help keep health care costs down or working with a Co-Op to do the same. |
You can go wrong by being too skeptical as readily as by being too trusting. -- Robert A. Heinlein
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. -- Aldous Huxley |
| Edited by - Paulos23 on 08/19/2009 08:49:08 |
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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
Posted - 08/19/2009 : 20:53:14 [Permalink]
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Turns out that, in one strategy the White House thought to be considering, 60 senators aren't really needed. A simple majority of 51 can avoid a filibuster:| On Tuesday night, Democratic sources told CNN that the White House was considering using the budgetary procedure called "reconciliation," which would bypass the normal 60 votes to get a vote on the Senate floor and instead require only a simple majority of 51. |
This could make a quite strong health care reform bill possible.
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“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
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Great topic for skeptics missed!
