Month: June 2012

Where is the Tea Party?

by digby

I’m sure you are dying to know:

Tea partiers told TPM this week there was some chatter following the decision about a national rally to pressure Congress to overturn the health care law — but grassroots activists and corporate-funders alike seem to agree that’s a bad idea.

FreedomWorks, the Koch brothers-funded group responsible for many of the tea party’s largest rallies, is hosting a strategy call Saturday afternoon with tea party activists to plan the initial next steps of the grassroots health care fight. Group campaign organizing director Brendan Steinhauser told TPM that FreedomWorks plans to target key battleground states with big organizing efforts. The federal holiday next week is the big kickoff.

That should take us through the dog days of August.The Kochs will undoubtedly come through with some advertising to support their message. Rumors are that they and Ameican crossroads have bought up just about every minute of available airtime in swing states. It’s already a hot summer and it looks as though they want to make it as miserable as possible.

Tea Party Patriots urged its members to find out where their members of Congress will be while on recess next week and flood “every parade, town hall, civic speaking engagement they plan to attend.”

It’s an old tea party tactic reminiscent of the town hall battles of 2009. It’s clear the Tea Party Patriots want to recapture that spirit, starting on July 4.

“When you see them, ask them 2 questions ON VIDEO: a. ‘If elected will you repeal government-controlled health care in full in early 2013 so that the taxes increases are not implemented and we maintain control of our doctor-patient decisions?’” reads the email. “b. ‘If elected will you vote to balance our budget in 5 years without raising taxes and actually have the fortitude to stick to the budgeted spending?’”

I think we should show up too and start yelling incoherently like their martyred hero:

Here’s the chant for you to memorize:

Behave yourself! Behave yourself! Behave yourself! Behave yourself! Behave yourself! Behave yourself! Behave yourself! Behave yourself! Behave yourself! You are freaks and animals! You’re freaks and animals! Behave yourself! Behave yourself! Behave yourself! Behave yourself! Behave yourself! Behave yourself! Behave yourself! Behave yourself! Behave yourself! Behave yourself! Behave yourself! Behave yourself! Behave yourself! Behave yourself! Learn to behave yourself! Stop raping people! Stop raping people! Stop raping people! Stop raping people! Stop raping the people! You freaks! You filthy freaks! You filthy filthy filthy raping murdering freaks!

Catchy, ain’t it?

I am human and I need to be loved. Just like everybody else does

by digby

Via Salon and Alternet, I see that the godless atheists are under attack again:

In a widely disseminated and discussed opinion piece, Anglican minister Rev. Gavin Dunbar made an interesting and even compelling argument that grief is necessary for love and humanity… and then went on to argue that, unless you believe in God, you have no reason to care whether the people you love live or die, or even to love them in the first place.

Again: I wish I was joking. I quote:

The new atheists proclaim their gospel with the fervour of believers: God is dead, man is free, free from the destructive illusions of religion and morality, of reason and virtue. But then a someone dies, suddenly and cruelly, like the young man known to many in ..[this] parish [in [Eastern Georgia] who was killed in a freakish accident last weekend. And his death casts a pall of grief over his family, his friends, their families, his school, and many others. Yet if he was no more than an arrangement of molecules, a selfish gene struggling to replicate itself, there can be no reason for grief, or for the love that grieves, since these are (we are told) essentially selfish survival mechanisms left over from some earlier stage in hominid evolution. Friendship is just another illusion. But of course we do grieve, even the atheists. And in so grieving, they grieve better than they know (or think they know).

The grieving atheist cannot provide any reason why he grieves, or why he (rightly) respects the grief of others.

Read the whole thing for an explanation of what the “new atheists” really do believe, which is quite interesting. But for me the answer to the question is fairly simple. Everyone grieves because they are going to miss having the person in their lives. It’s the loss to themselves that makes them so sad.

However, if one must take it to another, more philosophical or spiritual level, it seems to me that the atheist has far more cause to grieve than the believer. After all, the atheist believes that’s the end of the line, curtains, fade to black. The believer, on the other hand, should not just not grieve, he should be happy. They believe their loved one is in heaven, where everything is perfect.

I’ve actually often thought it was somewhat selfish of believers to grieve with such energy when according to their beliefs, the person they purport to love is in a better place. (In fact, one could even make the argument that there’s little point in life itself, when the big payoff lies beyond the grave. It’s the atheists who value life — it’s all they’ve got.)

Anyway, I’m being somewhat flippant and will probably regret it. Read the piece, it’s very serious about all this. But it’s true that the religious folks who believe that atheists don’t have any cause to grieve or care about love or life don’t know what they’re talking about. Atheists and believers may not agree on much when it comes to the existence of God or an afterlife, but they are all human. They should be able to at least agree on that much.

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QOTD: from the black kettle files

by digby

“Nancy Pelosi is a dingbat.“

— Sarah Palin, in an interview on Fox News.

No, that is not a joke.

Very cogent critique, as usual.

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“Who is gonna make it? We’ll find out in the long run”

by digby

Krugman quoting DeLong

Of course, we historically-minded economists are not surprised that they were wrong. We are, however, surprised at how few of them have marked their beliefs to market in any sense. On the contrary, many of them, their reputations under water, have doubled down on those beliefs, apparently in the hope that events will, for once, break their way, and that people might thus be induced to forget their abysmal forecasting track record.

I would guess that people who are secure in the knowledge that they suffer no professional sanctions, loss of reputation or discomfort in their own lives by simply waiting for “the market” to eventually right itself, however cruel and painful that is for most people don’t feel any pressure to admit wrong.

You-know-who:

The long run is a misleading guide to current affairs. In the long run we are all dead. Economists set themselves too easy, too useless a task if in tempestuous seasons they can only tell us that when the storm is past the ocean is flat again.

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Ezra explains why the White House isn’t going to run on its health care accomplishment:

If the Affordable Care Act is ever going to become the popular piece of law that its supporters hope it is, it’s not going to be because Democrats finally figure out the magic jingle necessary to sell it. It’s going to be because it sells itself by providing insurance to 30 million Americans. But it doesn’t really start doing that until 2014. The question for the law’s supporters is how to keep it alive until then. And the answer, at least in the White House, is simple: Reelect Obama.

I see the logic from a political perspective. Mitt Romney will surely do his best to dismantle the reforms if he wins, therefore, to protect the reforms it’s important to have Obama in office when they are slated to take effect. And since the “plan”, to the extent people understand it, which isn’t very much, is unpopular, I’m guessing the Republicans will do whatever they can to ensure the people continue to be as misinformed as possible.

There are several problems with this. The first is that implementation is only 2 years away now and a large portion of the people who are going to be immediately affected — the working poor and those who currently don’t have health insurance, don’t have a frigging clue about what they’ll need to do and what effect this law will have on them. At some point someone’s going to have to tell them. Maybe this outreach is being left to the exchanges which don’t exist yet, but I’m guessing that it’s only in certain places where that they’re going to be up to speed to inform the public of the plan. I hope they’re working on it all over the country or we’re going to have a very lousy buy-in in 2014 and that could result in some very unhappy people and some unpleasant headlines on April 15th 2015.

Saturday morning music, courtesy Bach and Respighi

by David Atkins

A little change of pace for everyone this Saturday morning to lift the mood and spirit, courtesy of J.S. Bach and Ottorino Respighi. Below are two versions of Bach’s famous and extraordinary Passacaglia in C Minor.

A “passacaglia” is an old Spanish musical form best noted for its use of ostinato, or sequentially repeated melody, usually in the bass line. Bach’s famous C Minor passacaglia repeats this melody with variations no less than 21 times, with 12 variations on a related fugue theme interlaced as well.

The first version here is played masterfully by Ton Koopman as Bach originally wrote it for solo organ. It’s one of the greatest pieces ever written for the organ. Listen for the simple 16-note melody that begins the piece, and for the mesmerizing repetition of that melody line again and again even as the higher treble notes increase in rhythmic and melodic complexity.

It’s such a powerful piece that numerous later composers arranged it for a full orchestra. Probably the most famous of these orchestrations was created by Ottorino Respighi, commissioned by Arturo Toscanini. Respighi’s orchestration is magnificent and somewhat more accessible to a modern ear than Bach’s original, while still capturing the beautiful simplicity of the passacaglia form.

Here it is:

I’ve had Bach’s ostinato base line from the Passacaglia as an earworm for the last several days, but I don’t mind. It’s a gift worth sharing. Enjoy your Saturday!

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QOTD

by digby

Anti-abortion zealot Penny Nance of Concerned Women for America:

“Women want to make their own decisions when it comes to their health care, with the support of their families and their doctors. It’s preposterous to suggest the government would do a better job at deciding what is best for us and our loved ones.”

I’d be impressed if I thought she was doing it consciously. But I honestly think she’s an idiot.

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What now?

by digby

In the wake of the ACA decision, Howie featured a great dialog yesterday on DWT with several progressive congressional candidates who also happen to be doctors, David Gill, Lee Rogers, Sayed Taj and Manan Trivedi. The entire discussion is well worth reading, but I thought I’d just share one part of it — the “what do we do now” part of it:

Dr. Taj:

The Supreme Court’s ruling on the Affordable Care Act and the individual mandate means that those of us that support reform of our health care system must now act to build on what has been done and improve it. For one, health care costs are a major contributor to the federal deficit that must be reigned in if we’re to put our nation on a stable fiscal foundation. The individual mandate is the centerpiece of the ACA and projected cost reductions would have been impossible without a larger insurance pool. It would have meant increasingly less take-home pay for middle class families to pay for the same or worse coverage. There’s a lot we must do to improve the legislation.

The decision gives us the opportunity to keep reforming and designing a better system. Polls have shown widespread public support for a universal health care system and this is the window of opportunity for our leaders to act. A recent report by economist Gerald Friedman shows that this would “save as much as $570 billion now wasted on administrative overhead and monopoly profits.” While there are costs involved with insuring millions of uninsured and underinsured we’d save much more by eliminating middlemen and simplifying the system as a whole, especially by eliminating the incentive to deny care for larger profits. Even with its virtues, the ACA doesn’t do nearly enough to bring down long-term costs or correct the deeply rooted problems of our health care system.

Dr. Rogers:

I think the whole panel would obviously agree that we need doctors at the table making healthcare decisions. Not bureaucrats or lawyers. This decision draws attention to the good parts of Obamacare and the bad parts. Most of us can agree that eliminating pre-existing conditions to qualify for insurance, allowing adult children to stay on parents insurance, and extending coverage for preventable diseases are good things. Where Republicans and Democrats disagree is how to pay for it. Healthcare is so important for the well-being of our nation, that it should be a high priority. We’re wasting a lot of money on a war which we already won, on military aid to wealthy nations, on redundant nuclear weapons systems when we could already destroy the planet multiple times over, on putting nonviolent drug offenders in prison instead of in treatment, giving away billions in subsidies to big oil companies, and many other things that should take a back seat to making sure our citizens have access to quality, affordable care.

The Supreme Court ruled that the federal government has the Constitutional authority to regulate nearly all aspects of healthcare including a provision that requires citizens to purchase health insurance. People who have benefited from the law will continue to benefit. That’s the good part. The bad part is that the law still needs to be fixed. No law is perfect, but this one benefits the big insurance companies like no other. It mandates you purchase a product but has no cost controls on that product. We need to put patients first, not big insurance companies.

Dr Trivedi:

The problem with the ACA was that it was too complicated and did not do enough to rein in healthcare costs or hold the insurance companies accountable. The SCOTUS decision still allows for an opportunity to pursue a much more simplified system, like a Medicare buy-in, which would provide competition in the marketplace and provide patient consumers public and private choices. This coupled with a much greater focus on comparative effectiveness research, so we can better figure out what works and what doesn’t work, would be a system that covers everyone, brings costs down and improves the quality of healthcare for everyone.

Dr. Gill, direct and to the point:

We need to once again push for Improved Medicare for All.

It would be helpful to have these people in the congress, don’t you think?

You can contribute to Blue America candidates Gill and Rogers, here.

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From the bipartisan deathwatch files

by David Atkins

Another day, another reminder that the partisan divides in our politics aren’t some artificial result of dueling political parties, but rather a reflection of our deeply divided electorate:

Increasingly, the 2012 presidential election appears to be dividing along a pair of fault-lines.

The first is demographic: old versus new America.

President Obama’s reelection depends increasingly on a coalition of minorities and younger voters, the same groups that helped put him in office. Their overall numbers are increasing, but the president’s ability to turn them out this year at anywhere close to 2008 levels remains in doubt (at least among Latinos and younger whites; the black vote is virtually certain to be there again for Obama). Their potential explains why Democrats have sought to portray the election as the future against the past.

Mitt Romney, meanwhile, is likely to become president only if he can improve on John McCain’s performance among whites, who represent a declining share of the U.S. population. The GOP candidate’s recent campaign swings have been through areas where whites make up a disproportionate share of the population — including portions of the old Midwest Rust belt and southwest Virginia. A potential key to mobilizing conservative whites: voter drives by Christian organizations to sign up millions of unregistered evangelicals; one of Romney’s biggest advantages over Obama, according to the Gallup Poll, comes from religious whites, who favor the Republican by better than 2-to-1. But Latinos have yet to warm to the GOP candidate, favoring Obama by 2-to-1 in several polls.

The other divide of surpassing importance in this year’s presidential election is geographic: it’s the gulf between a relative handful of “battleground” states, which are already getting pounded by campaign commercials, and the rest of the country, where most of America lives and which has largely been spared.

America isn’t so much a country as an uneasily balanced melange of two very distinct cultural tribes, each with its own norms, entertainment and assumptions about the basic facts of the world. And while many people find that scary, it shouldn’t be. The rising demographic is the one with a better morality and a better sense of objective reality.

What is more disconcerting is that presidential politics increasingly plays out in only a handful of states that don’t truly reflect the national experience. It’s long past time to fix that.

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Critical thinking for dummies

by digby

Meanwhile, back in the states:

The 2012 Texas Republican Party Platform, adopted June 9 at the state convention in Forth Worth, seems to take a stand against, well, the teaching of critical thinking skills. Read it for yourself:

We oppose the teaching of Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) (values clarification), critical thinking skills and similar programs that are simply a relabeling of Outcome-Based Education (OBE) (mastery learning) which focus on behavior modification and have the purpose of challenging the student’s fixed beliefs and undermining parental authority.

As a top commenter on a Reddit thread wrote about the language, “I was absolutely sure this had to be an elaborate fake … .” It’s not.

We at Teacher think this may be a kind of first. While the push for accountability via standardized testing—which the current Democratic administration has stood behind—has frequently been characterized as potentially undermining instruction in critical thinking, blatant opposition to teaching students to think deeply has not often (ever?) been a part of the policy conversation.

But it’s been the implicit goal of authoritarians forever.

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