The Tea Party, and Know-Nothing Politics

Once again I find myself cobbling together a blog post out of something I wrote on Facebook. In this case, a response to this article: "Reminder: 44 Percent of Tea Partiers Are on Medicare". It (partly) attacks the hypocrisy of this movement, specifically wondering at the end, "Cutting government spending is all well and good when it's happening in the ghettos; what happens when austerity comes to their door?"

Someone responded to the posting of that link, first saying that it is wrong to paint the Tea Party as one homogeneous movement (point taken... after all, that's how they view everything), but also adding that "in this instance, if they've paid into Medicare over their lifetime there certainly is some significant rationale for wanting to see that returned in some fashion."

Absolutely. But that proves the hypocrisy rather than disproves it.

The underlying hypocrisy(*) is this idea that the Tea Party believe in that the government is some vague, shapeless boogeyman... and this leads them to believe even the most mundane things (ie. the census) are conspiracies to rob them of freedom.

Yes, Medicare is a service that they (and we) have paid in to our entire working lives... and they want it. Why? Because it's a much better deal, and much more efficient system, than private insurance.

And that is the point. This is what government does- it provides services to us that we want (whether police, firefighters, roads, schools, libraries etc on a local level... or entitlements, the EPA, military, FDA, Pell Grants, etc on a federal level), and we pay for those services in the form of taxes (which are at a post-WWII low). This is not oppression, or some Orwellian conspiracy. It's just basic governance in a modern, first-world nation.

Part of people's aversion to government is not taking into account the many things it does for them-- that we take for granted-- believing instead in the boogeyman version that the GOP has manufactured through top-rate spin ("job creators" is my new favorite buzzword). See this chart to see how big that disconnect is:



Of course, government-- like any entity, public or private-- is not perfect. Ours has made some very bad choices in the last decade. The answer to that, though, is to fight to make government better and more responsive to the needs of the many... not to try and kill it by attrition, which has been the Tea Party governing philosophy. Moreover, a movement that fights to elect people who privatize/corporatize vital public services and continue America's upward redistribution of wealth can hardly be called "populist" by any honest definition of that word.

To me, the Tea Party is simply a mix of misdirected populist anger, and a rebranding of old Birch Society or Know-Nothing right-wing politics. That it has gained such a strangle-hold on our national politics is as much a failure of the left (to form its own populist movement) as it is a success of the right.

[*And that's ignoring the hypocrisy of a Republican Party which ran to the left of Democrats on Medicare in 2010 (by misrepresenting, once again, the healthcare reform bill) and then voted en masse in 2011 to support turning it in a privatized voucher system. Spoiler alert: They're planning the same trick again for 2012.]

"Who the hell wants higher texes?"

Hey, look! I'm updating this again!

The looming expiration of the Bush tax credits is the hot topic right now, and I feel I should weigh in, to some degree. It's funny... much like his pledge to close the Guantanamo prison and some other things, simply letting the Bush tax cuts expire is one of those things that President Obama took for granted when he won the election, and assumed would be a political breeze (because he was naive enough to believe that, just because he won by a landslide, that the GOP would allow him to govern). And-- now faced with actual political fights over these things-- the Democrats are freaking out.

(As an aside, it is one of the more frustrating different standards between the two parties. Watching all these crazy GOP candidates surge higher this year with each progressively wingnutty utterance, one is reminded that-- among other examples-- Obama's nominee to head the Office of Legal Counsel at the Justice Department was torpedoed simply because she was non-apologetic in her opposition to the torture and civil liberty abuses of the Bush years. Etc.)

Anyway, a friend of mine posted a link on her Facebook to this video showing how Fox News purposely edited a clip from an Obama speech, making it seem as is he is desiring to raise everyone's taxes, when in fact he was discussing the facts of what the Bush tax cuts were designed to do. Someone commented to the link-

even in context this still sucks. Who the hell wants higher texes and even though it is not his fault, he is the president and should be able do do something about it. blaming it on the previous administration is just a cop-out.

Someone replied to that-

Frank, are you also outraged about the massive deficit?

He replied, in turn-

certainly. I am outraged by our government in it's entirety.

Damn you.... government!

I couldn't help myself. I had to respond. Here's what I wrote-

"blaming it on the previous administration is just a cop-out."

When Bush and the GOP Congress *wrote* the Bush tax cut law earlier this decade, the law was written *with* the 2011 expiration in it by design (because federal law does actually have certain guidelines for deficit-ballooning stuff like this). So "blaming" the previous administration for this isn't a "cop-out"... it's a fact.

Again, the Republicans designed the Bush tax cuts to expire in 2011 themselves. Now, because they want a cudgel to beat Democrats with, they are lying and making it seem as if that expiration is something the Democrats are doing. That is a lie, plain and simple.

It is also-- beyond all the lying-- hypocritical to be complaining about the deficit incessantly like the GOP is now doing, and then to also defend the Bush tax cuts, which were the single biggest contributor to the current deficit over the past decade (even more then the wars and bailouts, etc). To put it in a more current context, the GOP complains about the economic recovery package and the health insurance reform bill... well, a renewal of the Bush tax cuts will add more $$ to the deficit than those two bills *combined*. Either they care about deficits or not. Can't have it both ways.

Also, the only people who will be affected by this are those making $250,000 or above. Are they saying protecting their tax cuts is worth doubling the deficit? And the tax rate that would be reinstated with this expiration is that of the Clinton-era... an era of much greater economy than now, and a tax rate *lower* than Reagan instituted.

The other lie is pretending they want to keep these cuts to help jobs. Well, these cuts have been in place since 2003... and unemployment has steadily risen ever since.

The right-- if temporarily, politically hard-- thing to do is to let the Bush tax cuts expire, as they were designed to do. I hope, but am not optimistic, that the Democrats have the balls to let that happen.

These are the facts. And they are the only weapon that the Democrats really need to win this battle. But in an election year where the louder candidate gets to win, it seems the Democrats aren't willing to risk their fates with merely some facts on their side. Hope I'm wrong.

America Goes Insane

I have put this blog on indefinite hiatus-- too busy, got a life, etc-- but have still been posting some of my political thoughts on Twitter (@blueduck37). Still, I left this blog with a note that if there was a topic anyone wanted me to write about, to just ask. That stands.

Ahab asked the following: "What are your thoughts on the controversy surrounding Cordoba House (which right-wingers have christened 'the Ground Zero Mosque') in New York City?"

An excellent question, and I am happy to answer. First, some disclaimers. I live in New York City (Queens). I was at the Trade Center on 9/11. I am an atheist. I am a liberal Democrat. I am an ACLU member. I like freedom.

The controversy over a planned cultural center-- the Park 51 project, aka Cordoba House-- run by Muslims in downtown Manhattan is one of the most disgusting displays of jingoism we have seen in America in some time. It involves several horrible themes... general mob mentality, the idea that the First Amendment applies less when its specific execution makes people uncomfortable ("Everybody knows America's built on the rights of free expression, the rights to practice your faith, but come on", states GOP House bigshot Eric Cantor), and, of course, post-9/11 Islamaphobia (fueled by the idea that all Muslims bear some connection to, or responsibility for, those attacks). Americans believed/hoped that such sentiments would wash away with the end of the Bush-era, and that an Obama presidency would automatically mean improved relations between us and the Middle East, and this controversy is a reminder that nothing comes easy, and that we still have a way to go.

As an aside, kudos to the Republicans who have stood up against this faux-outrage-- Joe Scarborough, a few former Bush staffers, etc-- and a big thumbs down to the top Democrats too cowardly in an election year to say or do the right thing.

To me, the key thing to this whole debate is how much of it is built on a series of lies and distortions. The so-called "Ground Zero" "mosque" is neither... merely a community center (with Jews and Christians on its board... how many Christian or Jewish groups can say similar?), several blocks away from the site, on the site of an old Burlington Coat Factory. It is no more a "mosque" than a YMCA would be a church if it had a prayer room. Not that it should matter if it were a mosque, of course. There is, of course, already a mosque within blocks of Ground Zero, which predates the World Trade Center-- as well as all of this, closer to the right-wing's favorite political prop 'hallowed ground'-- and one inside the Pentagon. And the Imam at the center of all this-- whom the right has tried to paint as a radical-- is an official ambassador in the effort to build better relations between the U.S. and the Middle East, and the effort to take on actual radicalism in those areas. But these facts don't fit the narrative, so away they go.

Moreover, there was no real, widespread controversy over the center until it was created in the same way that ACORN temporarily became America's greatest villain last year (and here's some facts on that). Last December, for instance, right-wing pundit Laura Ingraham-- no moderate-- interviewed the Imam's wife on Fox News. The two had a genuinely civil back and forth. "I can't find many people who really have a problem with it," Ingraham says of the Cordoba project, adding at the end of the interview, "I like what you're trying to do." That is, of course, until the crazies got their hand on the issue.

The credit for this whole hysteria largely can be traced back to one woman... Pam Geller. Who is Pam Geller? She is one of the right's biggest Islamaphobes and has been staging stunts like this for years. A conspiracy theorist and a racist (don't take my word on that... click the previous link, and make up your own mind), she sees creeping Sharia law in every shadow she comes across. She took her anger at the project and, over the course of 2010 turned it into a national issue, with help from outlets like the NY Post/Fox News and folks like Newt Gingrich and Sarah Palin. Behold the birth of a scandal.

The right, of course, not only will not acknowledge that, but has tried to paint their opposition to the project as being merely rooted in respect for the memories of those killed at the Trade Center site on 9/11. It's not about Islam or mosques, they say, but merely about the location and its sacredness (how they get away even with that much without admitting that they equate all Muslims with 9/11 is beyond me). I came across an article by Pat Sajak (a far-right conservative in real life), for instance, defending the anti-Cordoba attacks, stating that he hasn't "heard any mainstream suggestions that mosques shouldn’t be allowed to be built. This... is a location-specific issue". That, of course, is total BS. A few outlets-- including NYC's own The Daily Show-- have compiled news reports from around the country, from Staten Island to Kentucky to California, of mosques being protested because of their... well, being mosques. This has nothing to do with location, other than the location here giving opposition to this particular building extra emotional punch to the protesters.

(Still think it's not about race/religion? Watch what happens a Puerto Rican, a worker at the Ground Zero site, gets mistaken for a Muslim at a protest this past weekend. Such odd behavior from a group of people supposedly concerned with sensitivity.)

This is not an abberation, of course. Even ignoring larger history, the GOP just in the recent past has a record of taking insane memes and going mainstream... freedom fries, Terri Schiavo, death panels, etc. American politics is often enslaved to whatever made-up emergency the right has zeroed in on.

The right, of course, will happily note that polls are on their side on this issue. That part, for the record, is true (ignoring, of course, the other polls showing people who actually live in Manhattan are overwhelmingly supportive of the project). But should that matter? Do we put freedom up to a vote in America? Anti-Prop 8 lawyer Ted Olson asked Fox News' Chris Wallace, who was citing the CA voters' opposition to gay marriage as being disrespected by that recent court ruling, "Would you like Fox’s right to free press put up to a vote and say well, if five states approved it, let’s wait till the other 45 states do?" No one at Fox, of course, would ever agree to that. These rights are called "inalienable" for a reason... no matter how angry or uncomfortable the execution of those rights make certain people (including, at times, myself).

So much of me wishes that I-- and everyone else-- could ignore this hysteria. After all, America right now faces real problems-- an economy ravaged by years of short-sighted activities, wars that don't want to end, climate change, outdated infrastructure, etc-- and it hurts all of us when our political system hits the pause button to debate a controversy that ultimately affects no one. But this issue is a test on freedom and tolerance in America in the 21st century, and that does matter. Right now, we are failing that test. And that's worth paying attention to, and worth standing up for.

Ask Jeremy

Hey, here's an idea to reinvigorate this ol' blog (and was sort of what I was fishing for in my recent post)... post a comment/ask me a question. And I will do my best to respond. My mind is always racing with political debates and it's nice to have an avenue for them.

Also, don't forget to follow my tweeties! It's very serious dialogue!

[PS- A starting point for healthcare questions: 5 Myths About Health Care Around the World]

Camelot Ends With a Whimper, Not A Bang.

“This is the cause of my life. New hope that we will break the old gridlock and guarantee that every American - north, south, east, west, young, old - will have decent, quality health care as a fundamental right and not a privilege.”
--Senator Ted Kennedy, exactly one year ago today. Rest in peace.

I Tweet, Therefore I Am?

PS- Still soliciting feedback on what topics to discuss here. Also, I tweet @blueduck37.

With Friends Like These...

Earlier this month, President Obama called GOP Senator Charles Grassley one of his "Republican friends on Capitol Hill" who was "sincerely trying to figure out if they find a health care bill that works."

Sen. Grassley was so warmed by the President's kind words that he has since gone around stating things like how he won't allow a bill that will "pull the plug on grandma", praising Glenn Beck's new book, stating that Obama needs to be more bipartisan and focus on "getting 80 votes" (!!), and bragging to town hall attendees that his obstruction helped prevent the President from moving the bill forward earlier in the summer. Best friends forever!

The very same Sen. Grassley appeared on CBS' "Face The Nation" yesterday and was asked to explain, and defend, his grandma-killing fear tactics. Grassley explained, with no shame, that-

"I said that because — two reasons. Number one, I was responding to a question at my town meetings. I let my constituents set the agenda. A person that asked me that question was reading from language that they got off of the Internet. It scared my constituents. And the specific language I used was language that the President had used at Portsmouth(*), and I thought that it was — if he used the language , then if I responded exactly the same way, that I had an opposite concern about not using end-of-life counseling for saving money, then I was answering — [...]

...You would get into the issue of saving money, and put these three things together and you are scaring a lot of people when I know the Pelosi bill doesn’t intend to do that, but that’s where it leads people to."

So here you have Sen. Grassley admitting a) that this scary thing isn't actually in the bill, and b) that he lied to his constituents and acted like it was, because he lets them 'set the agenda' based on things they found on the internet. I don't know what is 'scarier' to me... that this man is a U.S. Senator or that the President considers him one of his "Republican friends on Capitol Hill".

[*Note: The President did say that... as an example of the lies poisoning this debate.]

It's my growing belief that Obama's achilles heel is his obsession with getting 'everyone at the table' and insisting that he can negotiate in good faith with Republicans. So many of his early missteps (the watered-down stimulus, failure to get most legislation and political appointees past the Senate, etc) can be traced back to his insistence on taking this path, regardless of the substantive legislative costs. Bipartisanship and compromise are two-way streets... but so far this year, they haven't been. I've read reports that Democrats are considering going it alone on health-care and looking for ways to pass this bill along party-line votes (we do have the majority, you know) so that we don't have to sacrifice any more substance at the alter of bipartisanship. We could only be so lucky.

My biggest fear now is that we will end up, once this process is over, with a bill that makes our health-care system worse... ie. a mandate for health insurance, but without a public option or any substantive consumer protections. And if that's the case, it will be a disaster for America in the important sense, and for the Democrats in the political sense. But hey, at least President Obama and Charles Grassley will still have their beautiful friendship. And that's what really matters, right?

President Bu...?? Can't Remember. Who Were We Talking About?

So I opened the free Metro newspaper this morning a full-page ad by the "U.S. Citizens Association", positioning themselves seemingly as a non-partisan watchdog group, explaining how Obama and the Democrats are socialists who have plotted for decades to destroy the economy and take all wealth for themselves while bankrupting 99% of America. Because when you think concentration of wealth and the destruction of the poor, you think... socialism.

It blames the collapse in our economy over the past several years on everyone from Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton and Barack Obama to other figures such as Janet Reno and Barney Frank. AND NO ONE ELSE! The ad can be read here. One could spend all day debunking every point and lie in this ad, but I shall refrain. However, by request (via comments or elsewhere), I will be happy to take on anything in this ad. I am already doing so in my head anyway.

Instead, as is my wont and obsession, I decided to research this organization (using "the googles") and discover exactly who was really behind this "Citizens" organization. My first guess? The Ron Paul loons. Apparently incorrect! Here's what I discovered: This organization-- a lobbying group-- used to call themselves the 'Better Government Association' but was sued by the real Better Government Association (a genuinely non-partisan government watchdog organization that has been around since 1923) and was forced by a court order to change their name. So now they are the "U.S. Citizens Association". The chairman of their board is a man named Ed Rollins, a Republican campaign consultant and advisor who was worked on numerous campaigns, including Reagan-Bush '84 and Huckabee '08 (but has worked with countless other far-right Republicans over the years, such as Newt Gingrich and others). It seems they also have an army of lawyers, who have refused to comment to any press inquiries thus far about the ads. So, you know, a real grassroots citizens group.

Oh, and PS... ACORN!

PS.

One final addendum for the day on health-care...

I was watching this clip of Matt Taibbi being interviewed on MSNBC's 'Morning Joe' about health-care (two plugs in one day, Matt, you owe me a kickback!) and some of the pundits objected to his criticism of the U.S. health-care system. The standard pushbacks were thrown against Taibbi... that most Americans like the health-care they get, that we have done great innovative work on this front, that many foreign people come here because our system is so awesome, and etc. I didn't think Taibbi did the best job responding to these specific points-- though they got there in the end-- so let me give my response, since they always come up.

I agree with those points in general... America does have amazing facilities and doctors (I'll leave the drugs out of this for now), and many Americans are satisfied with both. But... that's not the point and it's not the issue. The issue is that the greatness or horrors of a system is moot if you don't have access to it. And our current system of a profit-based, private insurance monopoly-- except for all those socialist old people and veterans who have a... wait for it... public option already-- is on the wrong side of that. Don't have, or can't afford, insurance? You're screwed. Have insurance? You're screwed anyway, because between denied claims and cancelled policies and increasing co-pays, countless Americans are being driven into poverty for the crime of having gotten sick. It's a corrupt system that is overly complicated and puts profits ahead of health. Nearly a third of all premium dollars go toward administrative costs, not toward paying claims and actual care. That is the issue.

The idea that since the occasional foreign millionaire may come to the U.S. to see a particular specialist (unlike the majority of Americans, who could never afford that) all this is negated is laughable. But it's part of the narrative tide we are fighting against. For every such anecdote, I can find you (very easily) a hundred of these heart-breaking stories. I'm sure the latter is more tragically familiar to most Americans too.

This is not a good system. Period. There is a reason the World Health Organization ranks us #37 in this regard. And I'll note again, in conclusion, that the idea of replacing this system was taken off the table from the start... at best, all that is being proposed is an option for something better, with some regulations here and there to help the rest. If we're the greatest country in the world, we deserve at least that much.

Yes We Can't.

Yes, I'm still neglecting this blog like a bad parent, but I still like to peek my head in every so often and make sure it hasn't choked on any blocks. Looks okay, so let's proceed!

The political debate this months leads us right back to where we were the last time I posted... health-care reform. The last time I blogged about this, my pessimism was showing, but my aura of hope remained. What have I missed since then? Of yes... America went completely insane. I'll get to that, fear not.

For me, I've been trying to stay as focused as possible on the substance of where this is all headed. This past month I thought, I can't be the only who noticed that the fight for 'universal healthcare' became 'health care reform' and now is simply 'health insurance reform'. And that's the bigger story. The Democrats-- elected to their most powerful majority in decades less than a year ago-- still endlessly bargaining away their own agenda. For all the oxygen being consumed by right-wing loons and cable news pundits and lobbyists, etc, a failure to get meaningful reform passed (if that's what ends up happening) will really be a story of a Democratic leadership that failed to actually lead, and also became a victim of the very special interests they set out to vanguish.

People like Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and Sarah Palin (and countless numbers of angry tea-baggers shaking their fists, and guns, from coast to coast) may be shameless and loud and good at what they do, but they don't hold any political office. They don't control the White House or congressional committees. But people like President Obama and Senator Baucus and Rahm Emmanuel and their colleagues do. These are supposed to be smartest guys in Washington and they are blaming their failures on a bunch of people who think that Obama forged a U.S. birth certificate so he can take over America and put us all in FEMA concentration camps and grind grandma up into soylent green. That is not acceptable when the stakes are this high.

The cynic in me wonders if, at this point, Congress wants to pass a reform bill (any reform bill) just to check it off the list, and move on. To what? That's unclear. The key question I'd ask if I were a White House reporter is this... is there any health-care bill that Congress could pass that'd be so watered-down and unacceptable to the President that he would veto it? That answer would clarify a lot.

Of course, the media has made matters worse by making the story not the issue itself, but the anger. When President Obama held a lengthy press conference on the issue, the story for the next week was about the Professor Gates controversy that he commented on in the final question of the hour. When Sarah Palin (Unemployed - Alaska) wrote a rant on Facebook about imaginary 'death panels', it immediately took over the entire debate. Etc. It's not hard to figure out why so many Americans remain uninformed about the substance.

And, finally, to the liberals who helped elect Obama... yes, we should draw a line in the sand... a public option is non-negotiable. I'm with Howard Dean on this. Without it, all you've got, after all this time and energy and political capital, is some mild insurance reforms that will likely have huge loopholes in them anyway. That's not reform, and it's worth the time and money that's being asked for it.

I still want to have great faith in Obama's leadership. But we've got over three years left (with an option for four more), and if we can't accomplish this now, under these circumstances, what can we accomplish? The answer to that would clarify even more.

Health-Care Links

Two good stories that play up the angles from which I'm following this...

NY Times: A Primer on the Details of Health Care Reform

AP: FACT CHECK: Health overhaul myths taking root

Business Week: The Health Insurers Have Already Won--
How UnitedHealth and rival carriers, maneuvering behind the scenes in Washington, shaped health-care reform for their own benefit

...and here is a must-watch segment from the last 'Real Time w/ Bill Maher' showing who's angry and who's not with all of this, and what that says about the state of U.S. health-care.

A Month Old Now...

...But still deserves to be posted. It's Matt Taibbi's story on Goldman Sachs-

The Great American Bubble Machine-
From tech stocks to high gas prices, Goldman Sachs has engineered every major market manipulation since the Great Depression - and they're about to do it again

To me, the big political story of 2009 so far (other than health-care, natch... more on that later) is how the economic collapse of 2007-2008, which was supposedly going to shake the American economic status quo to its core, has essentially changed nothing ... other than putting countless more Americans out of work. The bailouts and back-room deals of 2008 coupled with the failures this year to get any meaningful Wall Street/banking reforms passed have ensured that the same system that nearly destroyed the global economy will remain untouched. Nobody likes learning lessons and it seems that we all collectively decided not to.

And what passes for economic reporting in this country isn't helping. We have publications like Newsweek insisting that the recession is over... while simultaneously acknowledging that conditions on the ground (jobs, foreclosures, etc) haven't improved yet. So why "over"? Because Wall Street had a few bubble-licious good weeks? I'm not seeing anyone on a large forum asking these questions.

And the President who hired Larry Summers-- yes, this Larry Summers-- as his top economic adviser is supposedly a socialist.

There's that old cliche that those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it, and I think that's apt here. And when the next economic crisis hits us down the road, it will be very hard not to feel that we have no one to blame but ourselves.

Tom Ridge confirms that the sky is blue!!

Tom Ridge, reasonably sane Republican and former head of the Department of Homeland Security has-- what else?-- a new (tell-all?) book coming out, called "The Test of Our Times: America Under Siege... and How We Can Be Safe Again". Reports indicate Ridge "wants to shake 'public complacency' over security" (complacency? I still have to go through airport security in my socks and surrender my toothpaste).

They also say Ridge indicates he "was pushed to raise the security alert on the eve of President Bush's re-election, something he saw as politically motivated and worth resigning over." This is a shock to almost no one, except maybe Joe The Plumber and that blond woman from Fox and Friends. Of course, it wasn't just one incident. It was a recurring theme. Keith Olbermann took a break from yelling at stuff a couple of years ago to do a really good report on the many terror-alert 'coincidences' during the Bush years-





I am posting this because a) history shouldn't so easily forget this aspect of the immediate post-9/11 political environment, and b) it's some good perspective as conservatives (well, the extremes anyway) go nuts insisting that there is no bigger threat to freedom than an affordable public health-insurance alternative.