The My Of It

Listening to the harangue over the health care reform squabble, I can't help thinking---even I saw a few episodes of West Wing, I who do not watch television, so of all the Lefties out there who probably hung on every second of that show, why is it so hard to grasp how things don't get accomplished in D.C. ? Yeah, it was fiction, but it was, in my opinion, pretty accurate in terms of the culture. But people complain and wonder why Obama doesn't just "ram his reforms through." Well. The man is a consensus builder. We just got done with a president who wasn't. Obama has not yet been in office a year and already people are ready to jump ship because he's not the second coming of FDR. How thoughtless, ill-informed, and shallow supposedly intelligent people can be. It should not be surprising, yet... First off, instead of presenting his reform package, he handed it to Congress---which is where all the arguing was going to happen anyway. Suppose he had presented a package. What is happening now would have happened anyway, and then he would be directly blamed for having drafted a lame plan. His plan would have been eviscerated and Congress wouold then proceed to draft something possibly worse than what it emerging now since Obama's plan would have been discredited through failure. As it is, the plan being touted is All Congress's. Anything wrong with it, it's on them. Obama has been arguing that regardless what happens, things have to change---which is frightening. With the stimulus package, things were already broken. With health care they are merely on the verge. Secondly, he's got lots of balls in the air just now. A lot. Most of them are disasters he inherited. Now, the metaphor has been used before, but that doesn't make it any less true---this country is a Big Ship and you don't turn it around on a dime. If you do that, you break more than you fix. Maybe that's what needs to happen, and sometimes we've had leaders who did that when there was but one maybe two major things that needed to be tended to. But that's not the case just now. Everything is in a mess. I'm not going to fault the man for failing to meet impossible expectations. Let's assume he did just start "ramming things through" and taking a dump all over Congress in the process, and things would inevitably get worse. For the ideologues who are displeased with what they perceive as half-measures just now, he might be a hero. Maybe, but quite certainly he would be a one-term hero. The Republicans could make good book on a spectacular failure and be right back in power, at least in Congress, and then what? So I think it a stupid thing to start bailing on him this soon into his term when he is possibly the most unifying, certainly the most intelligent and well educated president we've had since...hm. Here's what's going to happen. Congress will put together a lame package. It will pass. Then likely as not it will fail. The system will collapse. On its own. Then the big fix will come in. Congress will be discredited and Obama will be able to present a plan with legs and the public will back it because they will already have seen what happens when the really necessary steps are not taken. Right now, the reality is that health care costs too damn much.

Continue ReadingThe My Of It

The Wagons are circling!

While reading the Wall Street Journal this morning (courtesy of my hotel) I was appalled, but unsurprised, to read two extremely partisan opinion pieces on Obama's healthcare proposals and the 'reaction' to them. In a piece entitled "The Health Care Grail", William McGurk clearly criticizes the White House, who "yesterday unveiled a new White House Web site accusing critics of scaring Americans 'with half truths and outright lies'". Unsurprisingly, Mr McGurk makes no mention that this is indeed a valid, and independently substantiated, criticism of the astroturf campaign against healthcare reform. Instead he attempts to make the case that this administration's healthcare reform proposals are a "Doctrine" and that "the president and his allies see disagreement over health care as less a political dispute than the trampling of sacred doctrine"

Continue ReadingThe Wagons are circling!

When language fails

"War is what happens when language fails." --Margaret Atwood Yesterday the New York Times ran a piece by Sheryl Gay Stolberg about the recent disruptions to town hall meetings that were convened to discuss health care reform. Stolberg points out that this sort of "activism" subverts the democratic process. It is aimed not at furthering, but at overwhelming public discourse:

The traditional town hall meeting, a staple of Congressional constituent relations, had been hijacked, overrun by sophisticated social-networking campaigns — those on the right protesting so loudly as to shut down public discourse and those on the left springing into action to shut down the shutdowns.
(I once tried to discuss the first Gulf War with a dittohead, back in the day. He shouted at me for fifteen minutes; every now and then he yelled, "What do you say to that?" I couldn't say anything, it would've been like shouting into a full force gale.) Meanwhile, Snopes has an email making the rounds that claims that Obama's proposed health care reform bill mandates "euthanasia counseling" for seniors. Another pleads, "Please do not let Obama sign senior death warrants." Health care reform is just one front on a larger American skirmish, of course; one that's been going on for most of my lifetime. I was a child of the 60's, when social upheaval was just as marked as it is now. But in the 60's, the country was in good economic shape. And the outrage then really did originate at the grassroots. Today, tough economic times and the specter of America's gradually waning superpowers have intensified the culture wars. So have the right-wing media, which love to whip up hysteria, religious fanaticism, and paranoia--anything to further their political agenda. The town hall shoutfests, like the teabag protests earlier this year, may be Astroturf, but they tap into real, and fairly widespread, fear and rage. Lies, misinformation, and attempts to obstruct civil discourse make good-faith dialogue difficult if not impossible. How far will they go, and how do we overcome them? And if we can't, could the U.S. descend into another civil war? (Surely not. That's my imagination working overtime, fueled by my own paranoia. Isn't it?)

Continue ReadingWhen language fails

More GOP Astroturf?

I watched Rachel Maddow last night, and one of her segments focused on the disruption of recent Democratic Town Halls by 'grass roots activists'. Her piece exposed the activists as following an agenda designed by a DC lobbying firm. In many ways this is worse that the Tea Party fiasco, since that was unfocused and generally laughable kookery. This, however, is targeted directly at health-care reform, and appears to be heavily funded by lobbyists for that industry (indeed, Rachel mentioned that some firms were sending 'representatives' to every state). I also happened to see many of the same clips on Fox & Friends this morning (forced upon me in the hotel gym). F&F 'reported' the 'protests' as legitimate outpourings of anger against the 'government's plans for healthcare reform'. I was surprised. Not! Think Progress has more on the Lobbyist memo.

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The next generation of protests continues in Iran

I have been following the political news regarding Iran at various websites, including Windows on Iran, a site maintained by Dr. Fatemeh Keshavarz, a professor of Persian and Comparative Literature at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. According to Windows on Iran, the protesters are still optimistic:

A young friend returning from Iran recently reported that an amazingly high percentage of people continue to wear green wristbands on a daily basis. Strangers passing by on the street, make “V” signs for victory, smile, and carry on with their daily activities. According to her, the nightly chants continue, and despite the pressures and the presence of police, there is a sense of hope.

Image by Windows on Iran (republished with permission) The political persecution continues. As reported by ALI AKBAR DAREINI: Iran began its first trial of the post-election crisis on Saturday, a mass court case against more than 100 activists and protesters accused of plotting a "velvet revolution" to topple clerical rule. Some of the most prominent politicians of the pro-reform movement, including a former vice president, were among the defendants brought before the court in gray prison uniforms. One of the recent posts by Keshavarz details the loud protests that are continuing, though the protests have evolved logistically to avoid harassment and arrest by the Basij Officers.

Demonstrators are careful to for small, loud, and fast groups who can protest and run before the riot police moves in. Here is one such demonstration happening near the Iranian state-run TV and Radio.

In the meantime, what is the American corporate media reporting about Iran? Fox News reports on the ongoing trials of the protesters (CBS too). Most American news site home pages reported that three American tourists were arrested after accidentally crossing over into Iran from Iraq. PBS reports nothing about Iran on its home page. Iran was a country that many prominent conservatives insisted on "bombing" in order to effect political reform. If the bombs were dropping, we'd have non-stop stories and photos of American military leveling portions of Iran. Coverage is scant, however, because the reform, which has endangered to lives and careers of many thousands of Iranians, is progressing without the backdrop of exploding American armaments.

Continue ReadingThe next generation of protests continues in Iran