Why Aren't Progressives Disrupting ObamaCare Town Halls?
I'm afraid too many liberals and progressives are still under the "he's one of our own" illusion and refuse to see the reality of this administration's actions and only listen to it's words.
Hecklers Unite!
"Many progressives are getting all bent out of shape over the "brown shirt" rabble organized by health industry PR firms to disrupt the so-called "town meetings" being organized all over the country by Democratic members of Congress.
What they are conveniently forgetting is that these are not really "town meetings" at all, at least in the sense of the town meetings I grew up with, and started out covering as a young journalist in Connecticut--that is, meetings called and run democratically, with leaders elected from the floor, open to all residents of a community.
These "town meetings" are really nothing but propaganda sessions run by members of Congress who are trying to burnish their fraudulent credentials as public servants, and trying to perpetrate a huge fraud of a health care bill that purports to be a progressive "reform" of the US health care system, but that actually further entrenches the control of that system by the insurance industry, and to a lesser extent, the hospital and drug industry.
ObamaCare is to health reform what bank bailouts are to financial system reform, which is to say it is the opposite of what its name implies.
The right-wing nuts who cry that ObamaCare is introducing euthanasia for the elderly and infirm, or that it is socialism, are ignorant wackos, to be sure, but they are right about one thing: Americans are about to be royally screwed on health care reform by the president and the Democratic Congress, just as they've been screwed by them on financial system "reform."
The appropriate response to this screw-job is the one the right has adopted: shut these sham "town meetings" down, and run the sell-out politicians out of town on a rail, preferably coated in tar and feathers they way the snake-oil salesmen of old used to be handled!
This is not about civil discourse. This is about propaganda.
The Obama administration and the Democratic Congressional leadership have sold out health care reform for the tainted coin of the medical-industrial industry, and are holding, or trying to hold, these meetings around the country to promote legislation that has essentially been written for them by that industry--legislation that will force everyone to pay for insurance as offered, and priced, by the private insurance industry. What a deal for those companies--a captive market of 300 million people! There will be little or no effort to control prices, and the higher costs will be financed through higher taxes, and through cuts in Medicare benefits.
This isn't "reform." It's corruption, pure and simple.
Any mention of a system that works--single payer--the system we already have in the form of Medicare for the elderly and disabled, and the system that has proved successful for almost four decades in Canada-- has been systematically blocked and censored out of the discussion. Every effort has been made to bury an excellent bill, HR 676, offered up by Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), which would cover every American by simply expanding Medicare to cover everyone.
The only proper response at this point is obstruction, and the more militant and boisterous that obstruction, the better.
Instead of opposing the right-wing hecklers at these events, progressives should be making common cause with them. Instead of calling them fascists, we should be working to turn them, by showing them that the enemy is not the left; it is the corporations that own both Democrats and Republicans alike.
The only proper approach to the wretched health care legislation currently working its way through Congress at this point is to kill it and start over. At these "town meeting" staged events, Obama and the Democrats need to hear, in no uncertain terms, that we don't want no stinkin' ObamaCare. We want Medicare for all."
added - Obama's deal with drug makers would make Cheney jealous
"The White House has yet to entice any members of the Axis of Evil to the negotiating table, unless Billy Tauzin counts. The former Louisiana congressman doesn't head a rogue state, but PhRMA, the drug-industry trade group whose name is itself a swear word for liberal Democrats.
Tauzin cut a deal with the White House that is keeping PhRMA out of its customary place in the pantheon of Democratic hate groups -- for now. President Barack Obama goes out of his way to praise the drug industry. Tauzin has visited the White House half a dozen times and has committed to a $150 million advertising campaign on behalf of ObamaCare. He's become the "good German" of the health-care debate -- that is, the good $2 million-a-year drug-industry lobbyist.
Tauzin agreed to pass along $80 billion in savings over 10 years. It wasn't clear what exactly PhRMA had gotten in return until congressional Democrats began to run afoul of the unacknowledged provisions of the deal. It turns out the White House had committed not to impose more than $80 billion in savings, not to have the government set prices in the Medicare prescription drug program, and not to import cheaper drugs from Canada.
Obama had strongly endorsed the last two measures in last year's campaign. Of course, little that Obama said last year bears on how he governs. But his turnabout on insider dealing would be hilarious if Obama's shifts hadn't become so commonplace that they've lost their capacity to amuse."
Hecklers Unite!
"Many progressives are getting all bent out of shape over the "brown shirt" rabble organized by health industry PR firms to disrupt the so-called "town meetings" being organized all over the country by Democratic members of Congress.
What they are conveniently forgetting is that these are not really "town meetings" at all, at least in the sense of the town meetings I grew up with, and started out covering as a young journalist in Connecticut--that is, meetings called and run democratically, with leaders elected from the floor, open to all residents of a community.
These "town meetings" are really nothing but propaganda sessions run by members of Congress who are trying to burnish their fraudulent credentials as public servants, and trying to perpetrate a huge fraud of a health care bill that purports to be a progressive "reform" of the US health care system, but that actually further entrenches the control of that system by the insurance industry, and to a lesser extent, the hospital and drug industry.
ObamaCare is to health reform what bank bailouts are to financial system reform, which is to say it is the opposite of what its name implies.
The right-wing nuts who cry that ObamaCare is introducing euthanasia for the elderly and infirm, or that it is socialism, are ignorant wackos, to be sure, but they are right about one thing: Americans are about to be royally screwed on health care reform by the president and the Democratic Congress, just as they've been screwed by them on financial system "reform."
The appropriate response to this screw-job is the one the right has adopted: shut these sham "town meetings" down, and run the sell-out politicians out of town on a rail, preferably coated in tar and feathers they way the snake-oil salesmen of old used to be handled!
This is not about civil discourse. This is about propaganda.
The Obama administration and the Democratic Congressional leadership have sold out health care reform for the tainted coin of the medical-industrial industry, and are holding, or trying to hold, these meetings around the country to promote legislation that has essentially been written for them by that industry--legislation that will force everyone to pay for insurance as offered, and priced, by the private insurance industry. What a deal for those companies--a captive market of 300 million people! There will be little or no effort to control prices, and the higher costs will be financed through higher taxes, and through cuts in Medicare benefits.
This isn't "reform." It's corruption, pure and simple.
Any mention of a system that works--single payer--the system we already have in the form of Medicare for the elderly and disabled, and the system that has proved successful for almost four decades in Canada-- has been systematically blocked and censored out of the discussion. Every effort has been made to bury an excellent bill, HR 676, offered up by Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), which would cover every American by simply expanding Medicare to cover everyone.
The only proper response at this point is obstruction, and the more militant and boisterous that obstruction, the better.
Instead of opposing the right-wing hecklers at these events, progressives should be making common cause with them. Instead of calling them fascists, we should be working to turn them, by showing them that the enemy is not the left; it is the corporations that own both Democrats and Republicans alike.
The only proper approach to the wretched health care legislation currently working its way through Congress at this point is to kill it and start over. At these "town meeting" staged events, Obama and the Democrats need to hear, in no uncertain terms, that we don't want no stinkin' ObamaCare. We want Medicare for all."
added - Obama's deal with drug makers would make Cheney jealous
"The White House has yet to entice any members of the Axis of Evil to the negotiating table, unless Billy Tauzin counts. The former Louisiana congressman doesn't head a rogue state, but PhRMA, the drug-industry trade group whose name is itself a swear word for liberal Democrats.
Tauzin cut a deal with the White House that is keeping PhRMA out of its customary place in the pantheon of Democratic hate groups -- for now. President Barack Obama goes out of his way to praise the drug industry. Tauzin has visited the White House half a dozen times and has committed to a $150 million advertising campaign on behalf of ObamaCare. He's become the "good German" of the health-care debate -- that is, the good $2 million-a-year drug-industry lobbyist.
Tauzin agreed to pass along $80 billion in savings over 10 years. It wasn't clear what exactly PhRMA had gotten in return until congressional Democrats began to run afoul of the unacknowledged provisions of the deal. It turns out the White House had committed not to impose more than $80 billion in savings, not to have the government set prices in the Medicare prescription drug program, and not to import cheaper drugs from Canada.
Obama had strongly endorsed the last two measures in last year's campaign. Of course, little that Obama said last year bears on how he governs. But his turnabout on insider dealing would be hilarious if Obama's shifts hadn't become so commonplace that they've lost their capacity to amuse."
posted by nolocontendere at 5:33 AM
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