If Orrin Hatch were any slimier, he would have slid right out of those multiple chairs he occupied on multiple talk shows yesterday. The man positively oozed deceit, almost laughably so.
But it was also clear that what he was selling had been poll-tested and focus-grouped with the usual GOP rigor, which means the peddled product was confidently designed to scare the unholy bejesus out of the largest possible number of the oldest of lowest information voters.
Medicare's 38 trillion dollar unfunded liability was Hatch's shibboleth on CNN's "State of the Union," and again on ABC's "This Week," deployed like shamanistic garlic against any health-care reforms whose heretofore absence have helped to get Medicare in the situation he was deploring. Somehow the two were hazily linked, but not; it was reminiscent of the Bush administration's unremitting coupling of "Iraq" and "9/11."
At one point, on "State of the Union," Hatch sandwiched a disembodied Boo! between "concern" about "the public plan ... or what I call the Washington-controlled government plan" and "concern" about the "national debt" with, "And -- and our senior citizens are scared to death."
He just sort of dropped that in there, a tidbit of geriatric panic-inducement void of any context, except the understood type already generated in Palinesque and Grassleyite terms. If the national debt doesn't get you, those death panels will. GOP integrity, always integrity.
Which had been previewed, rehearsed, and thoroughly worked over the day before, too, by Sen. Mike Enzi, in the Republicans' weekly radio address. Congressional Democrats, he said, are scheduling woeful reductions in Medicare spending -- wait, wouldn't that be good, considering its 38 trillion dollar unfunded liability? Oh never mind -- that "will result in cutting hundreds of billions of dollars from the elderly to create new government programs."
One must concede that the Dems really stepped in it this time. What Enzi, and Hatch, are rattling bones about has nothing to do with legislative reality or any senior's actual health care, but there is nothing in this political world easier to demagogue than those two little words, "Medicare cuts." But Democrats -- no strangers themselves to demagoguing Medicare -- opened the door, and the Republicans walked right in.
Seniors vote in staggeringly high percentages -- and, unlike the briefly interested youth of 2008, they do so in midterm elections as well as presidential, which only further bloats their margin of importance in 2010. One can almost hear the hardening of reform's arteries in teetering Blue Dog districts and, even more critically, purple states.
"I heard a lot of frustration and anger as I traveled across my home state these last few weeks," said Enzi to a national audience on Saturday, without mentioning the two-way gestation of what he prays is national frustration and anger, as impregnated by up-and-coming demagogues like Sen. Jim DeMint, of South Carolina. While Orrin Hatch slips and slides, DeMint merely slithers.
The senatorial atrocities of Huey Long and Joe McCarthy ain't got nothin' on this guy. Both were first-term "back-benchers" when pursuing a high-profile issue to stake their attention-grabbing careers and presidential aspirations on, which, strongly implies the NY Times this morning, is precisely what DeMint is doing with health care, and in a similarly scurrilous manner.
For instance "Taking questions from a friendly crowd of 500 people here [in Spartanburg, S.C.] the other day," reports the Times, "Mr. DeMint did little to correct their misimpressions about health care legislation but rather reinforced their worst fears. When one man said the major House bill would give the government electronic access to bank accounts, Mr. DeMint told him the bill was never about health care. 'This is about more government control,' he declared. 'If it was about health care, we could get it done in a couple of weeks.' " (Aside from DeMint's reinforcement of paranoid ignorance, didn't they -- his party -- have 12 years?)
Naturally, none of the above comes as a surprise. Republicans are only doing that one singular thing they actually know how to do with exceptional skill: make a general muck of necessary advancements in American civilization. Nor, despite Republican progress in retarding progress, according to public opinion polls, does any of the above indicate an improvement of their political position: only about 20 percent of the public has faith in Republicans' ability to improve health care.
What is revealed daily, and grindingly, however, is just how godawful difficult real change is. Reactionary voices of doom nearly always possess a disproportionate advantage equal to the task of at least preserving the status quo -- and Republicans have this modus operandi nailed down to both an art and science.
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The usual rigor
"poll-tested and focus-grouped with the usual GOP rigor"
You mean like the Social Security bamboozlepalooza tour, the Theresa Schiavo intervention, the Bill Ayers affair, the very successful efforts to ‘speak to’ African-Americans and Hispanics, and, most of all, the wildly popular and successful impeachment of the now universally reviled Bill Clinton?
Thanks to you PM, Karlin, Krugman... we can't say we didn't know
Deeply enlightening. But it is even worse than you say. THEY DO IT ON PURPOSE. Frank Rich exposes this in "THE WRECKING CREW." Each penny's worth of Social Justice is a penny out of the coffers of the CORP(ses) and Elite. Thank you PM. 1920/30's Germans, nice folks like us, they DID NOT STAND AND STOP their eqivalent mob in time. Will we? NOW is the time to do so. September's fight is about a whole lot more than just Health Care. This is The Fight for The American Soul. All who are living and all yet to be born depend on our courage and commitment and vision and ACTION - today. Civil War of 2009 has broken out, or is it to be a CIVIL ROUT?
Still comparing Obama to Hitler? You're one president too late!
Again I say, the irony of your name escapes you.
All of the actions of the U.S. Government, which paralled 1920s-30s Germany, from allowing 9/11 to happen to the revoking of habeous corpus and the rule of law, happened during the Dubya/dick years.
And what about the Democrats' sins?
"and Republicans have this modus operandi nailed down to both an art and science."
But on the other hand, the Democrats excel at blaming Republicans for obstructionism and use that as an excuse to write laws that cater to big business instead of doing what is right by WE THE PEOPLE.
The real problem is the upper 1% plutocracy and multinational corporations legally bribe our representatives, both Republican and Democratic alike, through the K Street lobbyist pimps. Rahm Emanual even admits his goal is to capure as much corporate bribe money as possible.
That's change you can believe in that remains the same! WE THE PEOPLE HAVE BEEN SOLD OUT, AGAIN!!!
We must end unconstitutional "corporate personhood" and their democracy destroying agenda. Also we must end this ridiculous two party system that only exacperates conflicts and confrontation. WE THE PEOPLE must now institute a system of direct, collaborative government that relegates our mutinous, treasonous representatives to figurehead status.
Carpenter does not read Buzzflash
Here's a "modus operandi" for you! One of today's headlines in Buzzflash:
PEER: "President Obama’s choice to run the Office of Surface Mining signifies that campaign promises to end environmentally destructive coal mining practices, such as mountain-top removal, will be abandoned, according to Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). Placating the coal industry is evolving into the central plank of the administration’s environmental agenda." 9/1
You can't blame this one on the Republicans. Perhaps it can be blamed on the big bully Progressives for ganging up on poor Obama and cutting off their financial suppport to Blue Dog Dino-Fascists.
Poor, poor Obama, he only wants us to listen to what he says and ignore what he does, which is to bring us change we can believe in that remains the same.
The non-corporate alternative.
"The real problem is the upper 1% plutocracy and multinational corporations legally bribe our representatives, both Republican and Democratic alike, through the K Street lobbyist pimps."
How true! And these corporate shills put up obstacles to third parties even getting on the ballot, in every state, making it an uphill climb to compete with them.
Fortunately, thanks to Ralph Nader's efforts in 2000 and the Green Party in 2004, this work has already been done; the Green Party has the infrastructure in place in all 50 states. The Green Party doesn't accept corporate money, which makes them resistant to the corruption of the corporate parties.
Just 5% of the vote will get the Green Party matching Federal funds, enabling them to compete with the corporate parties. This fact is suppressed by the corporate media, making it appear that the Green Party would need a hopeless 51% to make progress.
Taking on the entrenched corrupt parties is an incremental process. Success in an election inspires even more people to support the non-corporate alternative next election.
True, voting Green won't solve our corporate problems in the next election. But neither will voting Democratic. In the long run, voting Green will raise issues the corporate parties won't, and will restore true representative democracy. Voting Democratic won't do any of that.
Your $43 million in matching
Your $43 million in matching funds isn't SQUAT even if you could get it, and it will be Independent Ralph Nader who will be running against you Greens tooth and nail like he did in 2004 - with no chance of winning it himself - but just to spoil it for you because you refused to nominate him in 2004 and instead nominated one of his 2000 campaign managers. What are you going to do with $43 million in matching funds - $43 million in matching funds is absolutely pointless.
Voting Green is useless. Change campaign finance laws first!
Did you not comprehend my comment?
It does not matter which political party any politician belongs to when the K Street lobbyist pimps have billions of dollars in bribe money at their disposal.
How can anyone in Congress resist all of that money, especially when they are outnumbered by the K Street lobbyist pimps by a factor of 10 to 1? Not a day goes by when each and every congressperson gets solicited by the pimps.
The solution is to outlaw all private campaign contributions. And we must end the unconstitutional practice of allowing "corporate personhood", which only serves to undermine the Constitution and destroy democracy in the U.S.
Voting corporate is useless!
Did not comprend the fact that the Green Party doesn't accept ANY corporate money?
Maybe you're so used to seeing political parties that are corporate-funded that you missed this.
From the Green Party:
"The Green Party of the United States does not accept contributions from corporations, labor organizations, or corporate Political Action Committees (PACs)."
Source: https://secure.democracyinaction.com/Greens/shop/custom.jsp?donate_page_KEY=26
You've actually underscored the urgency of getting a political party that is resistant to corporate corruption into office. (I agree with you about "corporate personhood", but it looks like the Supreme Court is soon going to make things worse.)
Until laws are changed, voting Green is also useless!
Did you not comprend the fact that the K Street lobbyists will indeed corrupt members of the Green Party with the billions of bribe money at their disposal?
I know you want to build up your Green Party candidates to be the most moral people since Jesus. But I have yet to meet a candidate from any party who could walk on water. Meaning, they are subject to tempation just like anyone else.
How long has the Green Party been in existance? How many member of the Green Party have national recognition, or even state or regional recognition? ZERO!
What does that tell you about the relevancy and effectiveness of the Green Party? Another ZERO!
We don't need another ineffective third party, and the voters agree. To solve the problem of mutinous congress people selling out to the highest bidders bent on destroying democracy, we do need to eliminate ALL private campaign contributions and rescind "corporate personhood".
That is the only long term solution.
FUD: Fear, uncertainty, doubt
We have over 200 Greens in public office, that have won elections at the local level. They're representing the Ten Key Values (http://www.gp.org/tenkey.shtml), which are shared by Green politicians AND Green members.
You're probably not used to a political party that actually STANDS for something. Corruption from a Green would stick out like a sore thumb.
Your hypothetical tales of mythical Green corruption are FUD, reminiscent of "death panels".
============================
As I said, building a new political party is an incremental process, and requires voting for Green candidates no one has heard of, and who aren't going to win. This is a necessary step all political parties must go through. Dismissing the Greens because of this step is resigning the struggle to take our country back from the corporations.
Voting for Democrats is playing their rigged game, which you'll never win. They sold us out during the Reagan years. They sold us out during Clinton/Gore (remember NAFTA?) They sold us out during Bush (remember impeachment-off-the-table?).
Democrats have historically gone corporate on us without any repercussions. They reasoned that liberal/left voters had nowhere else to go. Thanks to the Greens, we now have a place to go. This will be a factor in every Democrat's political calculations once the Greens regularly get 4-5%.
200 local Greens, but none on the state or federal level?
As I said before, there is no Green politician with national or regional name recogintion.
At present on a national level, Greens are less relevant than the out of power and irrelevant Republican Party.
Assuming the impossible, we don't have decades to wait for the Greens to come to national prominence.
Again, the solution is to change the corrupt system, and not to shuffle the politicians around within the corrupt system.
Our politicians should be beholden to WE THE PEOPLE and not to K Street lobbyist pimps.
Answers
Let's take your points one at a time.
As I said before, there is no Green politician with national or regional name recogintion.
As I said before, "This is a necessary step all political parties must go through. Dismissing the Greens because of this step is resigning the struggle to take our country back from the corporations."
At present on a national level, Greens are less relevant than the out of power and irrelevant Republican Party.
<same answer>
Assuming the impossible, we don't have decades to wait for the Greens to come to national prominence.
1. The Greens would influence Democrats the first election they achieved 5%. A Democrat would know selling out the public interest would cause more people to leave for the Greens.
2. As a race between a Democrat and a Republican gets closer and closer, our power grows out of proportion to our numbers. 2-3% could flip the outcome, and the Democrat wouldn't want to risk alienating Greens.
3. Continuing to vote Democratic will result in more corporate control of our former democracy in decades. The decades will pass regardless of how you vote.
Again, the solution is to change the corrupt system, and not to shuffle the politicians around within the corrupt system.
Changing the corrupt system would be nice. How do you propose to do it if you can't match the tens of millions of dollars the corporations give the two mainstream parties? We don't have that kind of money. Your suggestion is unrealistic. We do have our votes. And substituting Greens for republicrats isn't mere "shuffling".
Our politicians should be beholden to WE THE PEOPLE and not to K Street lobbyist pimps.
And people in Hell should have ice water. That's not the case, and you're not going to change the Democrats by voting for them. A simple example: Clinton, Gore, Kerry, and Obama ALL think NAFTA is great (among other things), and wouldn't think of repealing it. How's your strategy of consistent Democratic voting working out for you?
Changing the system and making politicians represent citizens' interests are all good, but meaningless if we can't make it happen. Voting Green will make it happen.
Voting who?
Green what?
End of story.
And furthermore...
...since the Greens actually STAND for something (the Ten Key Values), the personality of the actual Green candidate isn't as relevant: When you vote for a Green, you're voting for the Ten Key Values.
So Greens don't need to get the photo ops of kissing babies to give the public a perception of their personality. Bush kissed babies -- look what that got you!
Not at all, you're voting
Not at all, you're voting for a chance at $43 million in matching funds which is A) is meaningless and B) Independent Ralph Nader will split your 5% so that you don't even get it.
International Greens
Huh? Not sure what your point is. Even a couple of million would buy A LOT of advertising time. Ralph Nader is an excellent candidate, but when he can no longer run his "party" will disappear with him. We need an organization that will transcend any individual. That organization is the Green Party.
By the way, did you know there's a Green Party in every country in the world? And they all share the same 10 Key Values. This makes the Green Parties ideally suited for the international coordination needed to stand up to the multinational corporations.
No other party anywhere has this unified purpose and reach. The Green Parties aren't going anywhere; they're the future. Think about it.
Demogogery or what?
Just for a moment, consider what would happen if Mr. Hatch was actually right. Is it permissable to cause havoc with the health care system considering the downside risk? What if you were nthe person needing say, a liver transplant under the new health plan, but because of rising costs and decreased government reciepts, AKA taxes, liver transplants were defunded? And what woyuld happen if 5 percent of the nation's physicians said, "Oh to heck with it, I think I'll retire early." And what if the increased tax burden of paying for the health service causes employers to lay people off (during a recession) and you lose your job? Or, you have a great plan and the new health plan is crapola by comparison. Because of the Law of Unintended Consequences, this is too big an issue to be pushed through without a lot of deliberation by Democrats, Republicans and the American People. To put this in perspective, the Social Security Act of 1965 took a couple of years to get through Congress and only covered Senior Citizens and later, disabled people. The writer opined that the elderlyu are fearful and uninformed rabble. They have been the beneficiaries of the 1965 Act so what do they have to fear? That the health plan will not pass? Nope.