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Health Care
This would be funny if it weren't the saddest, most frustrating, most infuriating thing I've ever seen. A reporter wanders the grounds of the 9/12 Tea Party protests in Washington D.C. and mostly lets these outraged citizens hang on their own words.
Best footage I've seen of the insanity yet.
We need Obama to find a way to ban this kind of thing. Maybe it can be regulated as a safety concern, or an environmental thing. And don't give me that "free speech" bs - there need to be limits. This is just insane. People shouldn't be allowed to do this sort of thing.
And to think these people have the intelligence to sort through the issues and actually vote. It is important to allow for free speech and I can't say that stopping this is a) leagl or b) would change anything. The best thing for the Administration is to let these good people speak their mind to reinforce why the "moral majority" must be kept from ru(i)nning our country.
In all fairness, I too have laid awake at night wondering who all these "czars" report to, and how much money they make. But, mostly, I wonder where the f**k they buy those awesome hats. And for that matter, is Jason Kay from Jamiroquai in fact a czar? So many questions. I'm going to need a bigger sign.
Fuckin kommies, eat shit and die! When you were throwing your feces all over W and that pallin dudette and basically at whoever tried to talk some sense into you, it was OK, it was freedom of speech. Now, when your opposition reacts to your bullshit, you suddenly want a BAN on these kind of protests. Why don't you scum-vermin-subhuman-good-for-nothing-parasitic-tapeworms go fuck yourselves and fuckin' die, ha?
FUCK ALL YOU HIPPIES GO HUG A TREE AND KILL YOUR SLUTTY FRIENDS BABY.
^LOL^
xxx and MALTA, your guy lost. Obama is president now and even though he has a lot of Bush's mess to clean up, he's still trying to make things right for the poor who have been short-changed for too long. Hopefully he will give illegals a quick path to citizenship and lock in a democratic majority for good. It looks like the game is about to CHANGE - get used to it.
Republicans or conservatives pride themselves on getting higher education and thus deserving to keep the money that the earned through their education. However this video makes me ashamed to associate myself with the likes of these people. In a word: IGNORANT. . . OK 2 words: IGNORANT & SHAMEFUL... may I also add selfish and greedy too?
Remember when it was easy to know where you stood?
That's how I feel, anyway. For the last few years, I wouldn't have had much trouble picking out which bumper sticker was for me, and I suspect the same was true for many Americans.
You were for invading Iraq, or you were against it. You were pro-choice or pro-life. You thought the Republicans were criminals for protecting the rich from taxes; or you thought the Democrats were a bunch of pinkos out to take away your God-given right to get rich yourself somehow.
And — by election time, at least — you were for Obama, or you weren't.
Now, the Big Issue is health care: and it's a lot trickier.
Are you pro "public option?" What does that even mean? Is President Obama even pro-public option, or what? (He named it last night, to much applause, only to quickly say he was open to alternative ideas â including, presumably, no public option.)
Do you insist that any health care plan passed by Congress be deficit-neutral? If so, why? Aren't we getting something for our investment? And what exactly was your fiscally tough stance on the last eight years of military action in Iraq?
By insisting that all Americans carry mandatory minimum insurance, is Obama forcing big government on you? Or is he protecting your wallet from the costs associated with people who who wind up getting their health care at the emergency room?
Personally, I don't know where I stand on plenty of these and other questions, because frankly, I don't know how to weigh various consequences against each other. And I know I'm not alone. But behind these very complicated questions are a few more fundamental ones that are, perhaps, a little easier for most of us to answer.
Should the government make sure that no American is left without any protection if he or she gets sick? Should the government force insurance companies to stop rejecting/dropping consumers with pre-existing conditions? Should we, as Americans, help pay something to make sure fellow Americans have basic protection from physical calamity?
For me, the most important word in this debate isn't cost (which appeared at least 25 times in the president's speech, by my count), but a world that appeared only once, and which had to be delivered by a dead man.
It came when Obama quoted from a posthumous letter by the late Senator Ted Kennedy: "What we face ... is above all a moral issue; at stake are not just the details of policy, but fundamental principles of social justice and the character of our country."
A moral issue.
Before we can start figuring out whether a collection of health care co-ops is preferable to a public option, or whether tort reform (my head spins at the very sound of such phrases) needs to be part of the package, I think we need to ask ourselves whether this is, in fact, a moral issue.
Because if it is — if the real question here is whether it is right that Americans might not be able to get care when they need it — well, at least that's a start.
I think it is a moral issue. I say so because I have friends who are uninsured, friends who were dealt unfortunate and expensive diseases — and because the American dream is one of "liberty and justice for all."
When we profit in America, we profit from each other, and we benefit from the opportunity that our collective society creates. I think justice dictates that we take care of each other, too.
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| nj.com |
*CP was asked to change the title of this post; since the event was open to all â and therefore un-"crash"-able â we said ok.
Muffled applause, shouts and cheers could be heard above the fiddle band playing at West Philadelphiaâs Millcreek Tavern last night as seventeen Obama supporters congregated in an upstairs room to watch the president deliver his health care speech at a "watch party." The event was coordinated by Organizing for America, the post-election incarnation of Obamaâs political machine, which now exists to promote the presidentâs agenda.
These were not, obviously, people who needed to be sold on the president's health care proposals. They beat Nancy Pelosi to the applause several times, and booed the dour Republicans. The harshest criticism levied against the speech was that it had not occurred early enough to avert weeks of misinformation and congressional inaction.
"It was indeed a speech that, had it been given months ago, would have prevented some of the vacuum, some of the distortions,â said attendee Dennis Jaffe.
Part of the idea of such an event is of course to rebuild â or re-harness â the record-breaking volunteer base that fueled Obamaâs presidential campaign, which at its height enlisted approximately 2.5 million volunteers.
Organizing for America hasnât attracted quite the same following. Alison Hirsch, who arranged last nightâs watch party, admitted that "weâre building back up again.â
Most who volunteered for Obamaâs presidential campaign still support the president â but taking the time to volunteer on his behalf is another question.
Elliott Griffin, a student at Temple University, discovered this firsthand while trying to get former Obama volunteers involved in Organizing for America over the summer.
In a "sign of the economic upturn,â Griffin rather optimistically said, two or three out of the hundred people she called each day had been unemployed during the campaign but now had jobs — and hence could not resume their volunteering activities. Then there were the occasional former volunteers who, alienated by the lack of a single-payer option in Obamaâs health care plan, didnât want anything to do with Organizing for America.
"I got both people who would say, âIâve been waiting for you to call, where have you been?â as well as people who were so drained from the election they didnât want to pick up another phone,â recalled Griffin.
She won one new potential volunteer last night. Jaffe didnât volunteer for the presidentâs pre- or post-election campaigns, but after last night, he said, he hoped to get more involved.
"This is an extraordinary, extraordinary opportunity,â he reflected. "And thereâs still such a huge lack of understanding [of] the proposal.â
Health care or not, Iâm partisan to a president that can lower my taxes and fix what the housing market "greedâ created⦠Just get the job market back up and avoid more scamsâ¦
I hope that this health care bill is as good as the president says it is.
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