A flash from the recent past that is very relevant today...

Bill Moyers on the health care debate, Democrats, and Afghanistan

"These narrow interests win no matter how many Democrats are elected, no matter who controls the levers of power."

Glenn Greenwald

Aug. 29, 2009 |

Bill Moyers was on Bill Maher's show last night and spoke about the core failures of Democratic Party in the context of both the health care debate and the ongoing escalation in Afghanistan.  The whole discussion is really worth watching (at least until HBO intervenes, the entire 30-minute interview can be seen in 3 parts:  here, here and here; HBO is re-running the show throughout the weekend on this schedule), but I want to excerpt several key parts, including his very complimentary featuring of this post I wrote on Thursday regarding Democrats:

On what's really happening in the health care fight:

MOYERS:  I don’t think the problem is the Republicans . . . .The problem is the Democratic Party.  This is a party that has told its progressives -- who are the most outspoken champions of health care reform -- to sit down and shut up.  That’s what Rahm Emanuel, the Chief of Staff at the White House, in effect told progressives who stood up as a unit in Congress and said: "no public insurance option, no health care reform."

And I think the reason for that is -- in the time since I was there, 40 years ago, the Democratic Part has become like the Republican Party, deeply influenced by corporate money.  I think Rahm Emanuel, who is a clever politician, understands that the money for Obama’s re-election will come from the health care industry, from the drug industry, from Wall Street.  And so he’s a corporate Democrat who is determined that there won’t be something in this legislation that will turn off these interests. . . .

Centrist Democrats = Corporate Sellouts
posted by Ari Berman on 10/28/2009 @ 09:45am

Every time I hear about Joe Lieberman's latest apostasy, I think, Oy vey! There he goes again. More Joementum.

Remind me why we still call this guy a Democrat? Sure, Lieberman caucuses with Democrats in the Senate--Joe is nothing if not opportunistic and who wants to be part of a lowly Republican minority?--but I think he forfeited his right to call himself one when he almost became John McCain's VP and campaigned stridently against an Obama presidency. Yet somehow he managed to keep his chairmanship of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. Gotta love those Senate Democrats--they always find a way to reward someone for stabbing them in the back. See Baucus, Max.

Pelosi's Not-So-Robust Public Option

posted by John Nichols on 10/29/2009 @ 12:02pm

The public option was always a compromise for serious supporters of health-care reform, who -- like Barack Obama when he was running for the Senate in 2003 -- knew that a single-payer "Medicare for All" system was what America needed to provide health care to everyone while controlling costs.

But, in the reform legislation debuted Thursday by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the compromise was even more compromised than had been expected.

Pelosi says the legislation is "historic," and celebrates the fact that is does still include a public option -- a component many pundits had said was destined for abandonment.

But, while there is a public option, it is anything but robust.

Progressives believe Pelosi has bent to far to the right.

Related: Senate Passes $636 Billion Military Bill"

ABC News: Is the U.S. Preparing to Bomb Iran?

DoD Contracts for Oct. 2, 2009

McDonnell Douglas Corporation of St. Louis, Missouri was awarded a $51,900,000 contract to provide Massive Ordnance Penetrator Integration on B-2 test aircraft. At this time $32,150,000 has been obligated. 708 ARSG/PK, Eglin Air Force Base, Florida is the contracting Activity. (FA8681-09-C-0280,P00002)

Massive Ordnance Penetrator Integration = Bunker Busters

Pepe Escobar: It's Bomb, Bomb, Bomb Iran Time

Connecting the Dots: The Axis of Evil Closes in on Iran's Nuclear Sites, while the G20 stamps on our Civil Rights

In the great global chess match, the Axis of Evil exchanges pieces with Russia towards a check-mate on Iran, while Afghanistan is set to be the proving ground of an open-ended military strategy.

The G20 crowns itself queen of the global economy, as our civil liberties are pawned off the board for the illusion of security.

If the audience is the human masses, they seem blithely disinterested in the high-stakes moves on the board and only vaguely aware that beneath the board itself Mother Nature is shaking the table, rattling the Earth and making waves.

September was yet another episode in the slow motion collision of humanity's tragic history and reality.

Wolcott brings up some good points about the Dems lack of use of Lakoff-ian framing with the health care issue (their use of visually "creative" terms like "health care reform" and "public option") and their complete lack of response to attacks against Obama's speech to our school children. How much are the Dems paying their lame-ass consultants? And why aren't they hiring people like Lakoff, Krugman, etc... instead? How many more times will they snatch defeat out of the jaws of victory before they realize what they are doing is wrong?

--Bill

I'll Be So Glad When This Summer of Love Is Over
James Wolcott - http://www.vanityfair.com/online/wolcott/2009/09/there-are-times-when-the.html

There are times when Democrats remind me of the episode of Seinfeld where, after a slapstick chain of mishaps, Kramer finds himself pinned against the wall like a soldier about to be executed as a tennis-ball machine bops one ball after another off of his head, until he groggily collapses and slides out of frame. The history and velocity and modus operandi of conservative attacks on elected Democrats are out there in the screaming daylight open and yet time and again they find themselves in a passive, stationary, unprepared position, getting pounded into mush, going down in--well, it's too early and wimpy to talk about defeat. But stale defeatism is definitely loose in the air.

Here's a link if you want to give Rob Miller some dough:
http://www.actblue.com/entity/fundraisers/19079

Challenger to "You Lie" Congressman Cashes In After Speech
posted by Ari Melber on 09/10/2009 @ 12:52a

The words "you lie" will live in infamy for Joe Wilson, the overheated Republican Congressman who shouted at President Obama during his address to a joint session of Congress on Wednesday. Beyond criticism and a swift apology, the incident has already provided a fundraising bonanza for Wilson's opponent, Rob Miller, a Democrat and Marine Corps veteran.

Yes, I know, it's almost unfathomable that I would post 2 George Will articles in the same week!

One Way Or Another, Leaving Iraq
By George F. Will - Friday, September 4, 2009

Since U.S. troops withdrew from Iraq's cities, two months have passed, and so has the illusion that Iraq is smoothly transitioning to a normality free of sectarian violence. Recently, Gen. Ray Odierno, commander of U.S. troops there, "blanched" when asked if the war is "functionally over." According to The Post's Greg Jaffe, Odierno said:

"There are still civilians being killed in Iraq. We still have people that are attempting to attack the new Iraqi order and the move towards democracy and a more open economy. So we still have some work to do."

Time to Get Out of Afghanistan
By George F. Will - Tuesday, September 1, 2009

"Yesterday," reads the e-mail from Allen, a Marine in Afghanistan, "I gave blood because a Marine, while out on patrol, stepped on a [mine's] pressure plate and lost both legs." Then "another Marine with a bullet wound to the head was brought in. Both Marines died this morning."

"I'm sorry about the drama," writes Allen, an enthusiastic infantryman willing to die "so that each of you may grow old." He says: "I put everything in God's hands." And: "Semper Fi!"

"My vote against this misbegotten war (Iraq) is the best vote I have cast in the United States Senate since I was elected in 1962."
Senator Ted Kennedy

Ted, center, with brothers Robert (left) and John

Statement from the Kennedy Family

“Edward M. Kennedy – the husband, father, grandfather, brother and uncle we loved so deeply – died late Tuesday night at home in Hyannis Port. We’ve lost the irreplaceable center of our family and joyous light in our lives, but the inspiration of his faith, optimism, and perseverance will live on in our hearts forever. We thank everyone who gave him care and support over this last year, and everyone who stood with him for so many years in his tireless march for progress toward justice, fairness and opportunity for all. He loved this country and devoted his life to serving it. He always believed that our best days were still ahead, but it’s hard to imagine any of them without him.”
Released August 26, 2009 at 1:20 a.m.

"My brother was the first President of the United States to state publicly that segregation was morally wrong. His heart and his soul are in this bill. If his life and death had a meaning, it was that we should not hate but love one another; we should use our powers not to create conditions of oppression that lead to violence, but conditions of freedom that lead to peace."

Sen. Kennedy's first Senate floor speech on the Civil Rights Act of 1964:
http://tedkennedy.org/ownwords/event/civil_rights

A Village Fairy Tale: Coming From a Pro-Gun State Explains Health Care Opposition

By David Sirota - OpenLeft, 7/21/09

Taking a moment away from my book and column-writing, I just want to make a really important point that we all need to remember about the so-called "Blue Dogs" and "conservative Democrats" who are working their asses off to prevent real health care reform.

The Villagers in the D.C. media (ie. the power-worshiping pundits and journalists who preen around the nation's capital telling the Rest of Us what to think) continue to incessantly claim that "Blue Dogs" and "conservative Democrats" come from "moderate districts," and this is supposed to clearly explain their opposition to health care reform and progressive taxation to pay for said health care reform. If you've turned on a television, radio or computer, or if you are one of the few still reading newspapers, then you've been subjected to this meme repeatedly over the lats few weeks. And this meme is propaganda at its worst - or, propagandists might say, at its best.