I can't believe what I just heard Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas say on Keith Olbermann's show. If the Democrats ever need a declaration of war on the Progressive movement, they ought to hire Moulitsas to pen it. Markos says that Dennis Kucinich's criticism of the Democrat's bloated, distorted, and horrible deal with the GOP that they are now passing off as a "first step" in HCR qualifies Kucinich as a self-serving, Naderite, traitor to his constituents who will be personally responsible for 45,000 people a year dying due to lack of insurance. What a total crock.
Every once in a while one of the Democrats seem to set their thinking to "stun" and cough up the patently false and dangerously disingenuous lie that Ralph Nader caused the Bush Presidency. Frequently they will take it even further and claim that Nader is responsible for 2 wars, torture, the Bush tax cuts, the Supreme Court, and every other rotten thing that George W. Bush did.
Today was Markos Moulitsas' turn. Markos took the microphone on MSNBC Countdown and tore into Dennis Kucinich as All of the Above. He even went further to say that Kucinich should face a primary challenge if he doesn't vote for the bill.
Now look. There's a lot of misinformation and disinformation floating around, and it ought not to be coming from so-called "progressives" like Markos Moulitsas. I don't know what you've been smoking, Markos, but whatever it is that has you pumped up to where you think you're some kind of semi-deity in the world of leftie politics, don't bogart, my friend.
Let's talk about your Nader comments first. Ralph Nader has the right, as does every other American, to seek political office. The fact is, he has been working to help preserve the rights of Americans against the corporate stranglehold, (such as the one some Progressives love to complain about vis a vis the Democratic Party establishment) for the last 40 years. Yes, it's true that Ralph Nader was on the ballot in most of the states in the 2000 election. Yes, it's true that some people in Florida voted for Nader. What is absolutely NOT TRUE, a complete fabrication, an outright lie, and a lame excuse for what should have been a slam-dunk for Gore, is that Nader somehow "cost" Al Gore the election because he took votes away from Gore. Listen up, Moulitsas. The votes belong to the people who cast them, not to any political party. Nader didn't make Gore lose, Gore just lost. If you're looking for someone to blame, look at the Gore campaign who let the press run with the flip/flop-exaggerator story line without ever challenging it. Blame Katheryn Harris and Jeb Bush and Howard Baker and Ted Olson. Blame the right-wing-stacked Supreme Court. But for you, who is supposed to be one of the articulate spokes-people for the Democratic left wing to go on national TV and blame Nader, and then go on to say he is responsible for what Bush did, well, that's unforgivable. I believe you owe the Progressive wing of the Democratic Party an immediate and sincere apology, and I think you'd better do it fast because the giant whooshing sound you hear is people like me wondering why the hell I ever spent one minute or one dime electing Democrats and leaving the Democrats in the dust.
As to your attack on Dennis Kucinich, he is one of the few Democrats who has been clear and consistent in their views on HCR. Last night on Countdown he articulated his position clearly, succinctly, with supporting information, and frankly better than anything I've ever heard out of you or any other apologist for the bill as to why anyone should support it. Your side has been reduced to saying "We should vote for it because it's a step in the right direction". No. A step in the right direction would have been to pass a bill that dealt with the emergent problem of 30 million uninsured (or 40 million, or 45 million, the Democrats change the number every whipstitch). That would have been a step, another one would be to have had a reality-based discussion about how to solve the health care crisis in this country that included everyone's ideas. Your guy Obama keeps saying he's open to everyone's ideas. Not really. He's never been open to single payer, which Dennis Kucinich and 90 other House members co-sponsored in January 2007 as H.R. 676, the Medicare for All bill. You should read it, if you have a chance, Markos. It's not too long, it's only 27 pages.
For you to be blasting away at Kucinich with both barrels with the frenzied barrage of BS tonight was just astounding. I have to admit, my jaw dropped.
But not nearly as far as my opinion of you as a serious player in the world of blogging and commentary. Frankly, I hope Countdown never has you back and I will start pushing that as soon as I get done typing this sentence.
-Wexler
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Day 2
After reading through the comments and responding to some, two things have become apparent.
First, the Democrats have been extremely successful in propagandizing the left about Ralph Nader. I would put it to you that most of the people here who are demonizing Nader have never read one of his books and are probably 30 or younger. The vilification of Nader for exercising his rights as an American citizen to promote a political idea and run for office is inexcusable. And it's misguided and plain wrong. The Democrats will never be able to fix what's wrong with their own party if all they can come up with are excuses and fantasy-land story lines.
Second, the scare tactics of proponents and opponents of HCR plus the political and economic cognitive dissonance from those we trusted to deal with this problem have confused people and driven many of us to a point where it's become a binary choice. That choice: either pass a horrible bill or lose the opportunity to fix health care forever. This is beginning to depress me because my theory that Americans lack the political sophistication to deal with more than 2 choices at a time seems to be proven more and more as our politics becomes more and more binary and our politicians drop all pretense of nuance.
Since I am a new poster here, I guess I was taken aback by the ferocity and personal attacks of some of the posters. My reaction to THEM has caused me to react to EVERYONE with similar tone. I shouldn't have done that, but I'm not apologizing to anyone so please don't get the wrong idea. I may consider it, but I'm waiting for Markos to apologize to those of us who spent dollars, shoe leather, and unrecoverable time working to elect Democrats who went straight to the corporate teat and started sucking. He had no right to say what he did about Dennis, who is one member of the Democratic Caucus who stands out as a true American hero.
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Day 3
I took some time yesterday to compose and send a complaint letter to Countdown regarding the use of Markos as a commentator. If you would like to do so, their address is
countdown@msnbc.com
Coincidentally, last night's Countdown (Wednesday)included an extended interview with Bill Maher, who not only shares my view of the Democrats but also their handling and results of the health care reform effort. Maher spoke in general terms but did specifically mention the failed strategy of locking out single payer from the beginning. He also named the Chamberlain-esque surrender of major parts of the policy without a fight, to the point where the bill is weak, flawed, and of questionable if any value to solving the problems addressed.
The next hour, Rachel Maddow had as her interview Michael Moore, who lambasted the weakness and cowardice of the Democrats, who took an election mandate, huge majorities in both houses, and a real crisis as an opportunity to equivocate and turn tail. Moore also agrees with my position that the bill is so badly flawed that there is questionable value in passing it. But the worst part of it is that the bill leaves 15 million Americans uninsured. So to those of you below who wail righteously that this bill is better than doing nothing because of the 30 million with no insurance, you ought to change your tune. It ought to be "We need this bill because it only leaves 15 million Americans without insurance, even though they will be mandated to purchase it and there will be no price controls."
The President has taken the stump to proclaim his new health care reform message: "The time for talking is over. It's time for a vote." His stump speech contains the blatant lie that "everybody has had the chance to present their ideas."
It's inconceivable to me that the Democratic Party has been dumbed down to the point where what has transpired during the last year passes for public discourse on health care reform. It's inconceivable to me that Max Baucus threw away his Democratic majority of debating HCR within the full committee for a secret negotiation with an equal number of GOPERS and Dems. It's inconceivable to me that we have a Democratic Party machine that now views passing this deeply flawed bill as a matter of their political survival, the country can go fish.
On second thought, no, it's not. I have to keep reminding myself that the Democrats are in deep with Big Health, as I pointed out last summer on my website. This explains a lot.
http://www.stopdubya.com/...
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Day Whatever
Michael Moore was on Keith Olbermann's show last night, hosted by Lawrence O'Donnell who is filling in for Keith due to his father's passing.
Moore defended Dennis Kucinich's position on the health care bill and excoriated the rest of the "Progressive" Caucus for backtracking on their pledge not to support any bill which doesn't include a public plan. He went further, saying that if he (Michael Moore) was in Congress, he wouldn't vote for the bill either. Or, he might vote for it if President Obama went on national TV and pointed out every rotten concession that the cowards on the left have given to the GOP for their non-votes. You know, little details like the bill leaves 15 million people with no coverage, important provisions don't begin for 4 years, there are no price controls on insurance, etc etc.
That's a "start"? Nope. It's THE END. This bill may get signed into law, but it will not work and when the Dems lose control of the government in the midterms, the GOP will make extra special sure it never works. At some time in the near future, the bill will be repealed and America's great Health Care Reform experiment will have failed.
Thanks, DEMOCRATS, for nothing. Especially thanks to you who blindly believe the notion that
Democrats = good
Every other party = bad
Look what you have accomplished. You elected the biggest majority in the House and Senate in decades and a Democratic Party President, and you're still in Iraq, escalating Afghanistan, Gitmo is still open, Americans are still being spied upon illegally by our own government, there are rumblings about attacking Iran, nothing has been done to stop the very practices that cut off our economy at the knees in 2008, and so on and so on. The Democrats are a friggin' joke. They are GOP-Lite, a kinder, gentler form of corruption and grabbastic, nihilistic greed.
I saw today that Obama is going to be interviewed on Faux News. Great. What's next? Is he going to call in to Rush Limbaugh?
You can't blame this on the GOP and you can't blame it on Nader. You OWN it.