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The truth behind the public option, from Brave New Films

The Truth Behind Public Option

Still outsourcing the important debates to the comedians (...part 3)

Here's video of Al Franken -- who only recently made the switch to being a politician since spending some 40 years as a comedian, author, and then radio host -- doing what we very rarely get to see our elected representatives doing: talking good, grownup sense to a crowd of confrontational, obviously talking-point-fed constituents.

Watch this, and make a birthday-wish that all those non-comedian Democratic politicians will stop getting so damn tongue-tied when it comes to managing hostile crowds, and that they bring home some of Al's mojo.

Franken Talks Down Angry Mob

THIS is what I consider evil -- P.S. ...

As a follow-up to the previous post, I'd like to say that I would be just as angry at the Democrats if they were doing the same thing.  Angrier, in fact.  But, they're just not capable of being that minipulative.

I'm willing to be proven wrong, though:

I dare anyone to come up with a single piece of propaganda from the Democratic Party that manipulates as shamelessly, that push-polls as undeniably, and hawks as many completely made-up straw-man arguments as that RNC "survey" does.

If you can find something, I'll be genuinely shocked -- that thing is really something special.

And no fair going back 50 years to when the tables were turned and the Democrats were racists and the Republicans were all fiscally-responsible.  I'm talking "current incarnation" of the parties -- say, since Nixon.

THIS is what I consider evil.

To me, one very good definition of the word "evil" is the notion of using this kind of voter-manipulation to squash an honest movement to provide better insurance coverage for the sick and the injured:

A reporter for the Washington Independent found the following question in the Republican National Committee's "2009 Future of American Health" survey.  Yes, this is from an actual, official piece of correspondence from the offices of the fricking RNC, the "Party of Lincoln" itself:

Rnchealthcaresurvey

..."possibility!?!?"  They choose to call it a "POSSIBILITY?"  Man, I really wish I was making this up. 

Sweet Mother of All That Is Holy, I don't even know where to begin ... this is not some Nigerian spam-mail, it's the actual PR-arm of the "Grand Old Party" pushing outrageous, made-up "possibilities" solely for the purpose of freaking people out and keeping them from being able to think rationally about this debate.

And that little bad-boy shown above is only the worst one.  All but two of the other questions are similarly leading and manipulative.

This is yet another glaring example of the Republican party going the extra mile to shamelessly misinform the underinformed, and to scare people into believing anything they tell them... and not only that, but to do it OUT IN THE OPEN, and in ways that 100 years ago would have gotten them all run out of town with torches and pitchforks for being such charlatans and shysters.

Certainly you can see for yourself that that question is manipulative.  But what's worse, the implications it pushes are also very, very irresponsible:

If any of their constituents actually, seriously believes that the health-care reform bill is an effort to kill off people based on their political affiliation (?!?!), then the best thing the Republican Party could do for them is ship them a nice little tin-foil hat with maybe a trial-sized prescription for some Thorazine.  But the worst thing you can do as a leader is to indulge (or, God forbid, incite!) their paranoia.

... in official letterhead with freaking Michael Steele's signature at the bottom, for crying out loud!

But then, I'm suggesting we introduce ethics and personal responsibility into the national dialogue again, and Republican politicians have shown how they feel about that again and again.

These people are not fit to be leaders.  End of story.

Five myths about health-care around the world

... or "outsourcing it to the comedians, part 2."

The fabulous funny folks over at the Stephanie Miller Show (my morning radio show of choice) read a refreshing piece entitled "Five Myths about Health-Care Around the World" on-air yesterday.  It's refreshing because it's exactly the kind of reasonable rebuttal that's missing from the regular media -- to all the emotional manipulation and "socialism-hitler-death-panels" nonsense that's being pushed by insurance companies and Republican news stations.

Would it kill the regular news to read reports like this on-air?  Or are they afraid viewers will change the channel if they start treating us like adults?

But I digress ... the clip is six minutes long, but it's chock full of good information.  Take a listen!

Case4reform

Once again, we've outsourced the most important debate to the comedian

If you haven't yet had the pleasure of watching a Jon Stewart interview, you really should catch his latest one with health-care critic Betsy McCaughey (pronounced "McCoy").

Ms. McCaughey is a chairperson on some board-or-other that opposes the current health-care reform legislation, but more importantly, she is credited with being the woman who came up with the "Death Panels" myth popularized by known serial-fabricators Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck.  This is the myth which says that because the health-care reform bill encourages "end of life counseling", it somehow wants to euthanize your grandmother.

... Ugh.  It's just such an ignoble, manipulative lie, I feel icky even typing it.  But Ms. McCaughey almost seems to believe it herself, and -- to her credit -- turns out to be probably the toughest debate opponent Stewart could face on the issue.  But amazingly, Jon (a comedian, I must reiterate) ultimately manages to hold her feet to the fire and show how specious (i.e. "bullshit") the claim really is.

In the Daily Show tradition of going overtime on their most-important issues, this one went way over the usual 5-10 minutes and the rest had to be posted online.  But fabulously, TDS has made it available unedited and in its entireity:

Jon Stewart - Betsy McCaughey interview / debate, Part 1

Jon Stewart - Betsy McCaughey interview / debate, Part 2

How the media is helping us lose perspective

Update:  I've heard a lot of people complaining that those critical of the heath-care bill are being called "right-wingers".  And I agree that this is unfair -- it is certainly not my intention to do make such a blanket statement.  What I am saying here, though, is that right now the loudest segment of the bill's critics -- the ones who are, sadly, getting the most media attention -- are not disagreeing "in good faith", but are instead trying to shut down the entire discussion and/or pollute the debate with outrageous exaggerations and bogus claims.  Those critics who do have legitimate objections are unfortunately, for the most part, also being shut out of the debate by these people.  And the media are not brave enough to blow the whistle on this phenomenon -- which they are well aware of.  - R.

I'd like to bring your attention to some very good reporting that was (once again) brought to my attention by one of my favorite blogs, the Mahablog.  It's a link to an excellent op-ed from the LA Times about how unfortunate all the health-care coverage has been, and why journalists prefer reporting basically these two things:

1) controversial statements (as in "wildly inaccurate") from irresponsible voices like Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh & Glenn Beck, and

2) footage of hysterical, clearly under-informed town-hall participants acting like scared children and shouting at their elected representatives

and unfortunately, report very little of

3) the facts of the health care problem and the legislation in question.

In my opinion, it boils down to journalists being afraid to appear like they're taking sides on this important issue.

Unfortunately, theirs is a difficult job.  Because while the politicians on one side are more or less honestly trying to write good legislation to help fix this very sticky problem, ... those on the other side have shown again and again that they are only interested in shutting down the debate and being emotionally manipulative and frequently out-and-out lying when they don't get what they want - which is, of course, to give the insurance companies everything they want --

So if that's the scenario you have ... if you're a journalist and you point out the fact that one side is (clearly) lying and the other is apparently just trying to do the right thing, you run the risk of sounding like you're not being objective, when really you're just doing what journalists are supposed to do  -- and that's being the grownup in the American conversation.

The whole article is here.  It's about a page, so it's really worth the read.

Passing this along...

... from the Mahablog, who just posted links to four great pieces on why we need to reform health care in the U.S.

These stories, she says, are specifically tailored to those "who think health care reform will erode the quality of health care in America".

Have a nice read ...

T.R. Reid, “5 Myths About Health Care Around the World”

Ed Pilkington, “Dying for affordable healthcare — the uninsured speak”

Stephen Amidon, “Why I love Britain’s socialized healthcare system”

Paul E. Barber, “My Brain and the Ontario Health-Care System“

Apparently simple-mindedness is some kind of virtue now.

... Or so Peggy Noonan would seem to believe.

In this week's Wall Street Journal opinion page, which is typically just political pornography for the super-rich (sorry to be graphic, but it is), her highness Ms. Peggy Noonan, a very famous syndicated conservative columnist who has never, ever had to go without health care, ... penned an editorial against health-care reform that couldn't sound more like Marie Antoinette's "let them eat cake"-inanity if she'd tried.

Her central thesis (not making this up) is that health-care reform is hard to understand, and therefore will never be a good idea to enact -- pretty much in any form -- and that Barack Obama should just apologize for attempting to fix things and quietly let the Republicans take back the government.

Another "columnist" of sorts, actually a blogger at Wonkette who I happen to like a lot, read her column and had some choice words to say about how "hard to understand" health care reform is.  Since he says it better than me, I'll include an excerpt here:

How about this: Basic health coverage for all, and protection for the already sick. There is plenty to criticize in Obama’s meandering inability to emphasize these simple goals, but if those two simple objectives mean nothing to you, or bore you — you, the political columnist whose job is to understand these concepts — then you are a sociopath. You are apathetic to the unnecessary and costly deaths of your fellow citizens under the current system, which even the most basic reform plans under consideration would do much to alleviate. If you care about lower- and middle-class people dying under a poorly regulated for-profit health insurance system, you can spend the 15 seconds it takes to learn what “single payer,” “public option,” “insurance marketplace exchange” (doesn’t she just mean “insurance exchange?”) mean. These are important terms, and not difficult at all, but you dismiss them as “gobbledygook” that no one should bother to learn on one’s own, because the president should explain it to everyone personally, with small words, in a children’s book. We know that this is how you and your fellow advisers were forced to explain every policy issue to Ronald Reagan, but he’s dead now, so grow up. And stop writing poison.

Finally, anyone who tries to argue that Obama would find political reward by abandoning health care reform now and “regrouping” for another year or two is either wrong or lying — usually both! — and does not have the country’s best interest at heart.

Not very constructive, admittedly, but then neither is the argument that millions of hardworking citizens of the richest nation on earth should just suck it up and go bankrupt just to keep their ailing relatives alive.  All in the name of "keeping government out of business"--even though it's already there, providing subsidies to corporations that don't need it.  But more on that later ...

If you want to read the whole thing, Peggy's column is here, and Ken Newell's response is here.

Have a nice day and please -- STAY WELL.

Fifteen minutes of the Barney Frank town-hall meeting

As a citizen who is often intimidated by the prospect of speaking logic and reason to low-information voters (i.e. the "concerned citizens" that are currently turning these health-care townhall meetings into kindergarten free-for-alls), ... I found this (much longer) chunk of Barney Frank's now-famous town-hall appearance very educational:

http://www.necn.com/Boston/NECN-Extra/2009/08/18/Rep-Frank-condemns-those/1250643022.html

If you don't have 15 minutes to watch it, check out the 1-minute highlight from the Larry King show, two posts down from this one.