President Obama's speech on health care Wednesday kind of fouled up my whole timing for the next few days on this blog. I had not actually planned to write about it. I had a couple of farm ones set to go; and then three that went nicely together-- (1 my take on Republicans;(2 on the news media today; and (3 on Democrats-- they were all cynical and irritated. He took the wind out of my sails.
It seems to me that temporarily at least Obama's speech is a game changer. He did reach out again to Republicans by crediting one of his proposals to John McCain and another to the Republicans in general. His ideas seemed pretty moderate to me and did speak to the American character which I would like to think we still have.
I could still be irked at the Republican legislators who sat on their hands during the speech, pretty much sour looking expressions with one even yelling out something rude to prove he's one of the birthers and deathers, I guess (what is with the South to produce these people? He's not an ordinary citizen attending a town hall but someone who should know the facts about health care).
Still is it possible that Republican people will have listened to this speech, seen the need to do something to change the status quo on health care, a problem that anyone who pays attention knows is growing? If it is, would my writing my irritation (and I have plenty of that based on many things this summer besides health care) put out more negative energy?
I don't know. I mean it doesn't take many Republicans to change the situation and get a real program for taking health care out of the fear category and making it something we can all quit talking and writing about. A definite Hallelujah moment. Obama's explanation of his view of a limited public option (one that would not be subsidized by the government but would have to pay its way but without excess profits) should seem to be the compromise many had not thought possible.
Reform won't ever get the vote of the Eric Cantors, who cannot even bother to really listen as they text their clever put downs. People like him are pandering to the Rush Limbaugh segment of the population and have nothing to gain from looking for real solutions-- not on Obama's watch. They feel they have plenty to gain by keeping the problem out there to be an Obama failure (instead of recognizing it's a failure of 50 years).
Regarding those three previously scheduled posts, there would be a kind of satisfaction in writing my vitriol. I get it out of my system. Maybe my readers get it out of theirs as they read and agree-- or read and get the chance to express their disagreement. Still...
Next week we are taking a short vacation to Eastern Oregon. When I leave, I like to have a bunch of things prescheduled. I do this because I have so many ideas that it's easy to do, but also because I personally like it when I go to someone's blog and something new is there. Where I write an idea blog more than a journal blog, prescheduling is usually perfect.
Anyway I liked Obama's speech. I liked his proposals. I liked it when he said-- "I am not the first president to take up this cause, but I am determined to be the last." I liked his appeal to the better side of our character. Maybe we can be the generation who finally fixes what has been going wrong. You think?
And I have a couple of days to think about what do about those blog rants. :)
(Incidentally, Farm Boss took the photos of the frogs at Finley on Monday. I heard them and saw them but thought not a big deal and said, 'hey, you take them.' He saw the potential which I also saw when I saw the photos and ended up feeling like Naomi from Old Lady of the Hills that they are my favorite from that day. They also seem appropriately symbolic for this post, so here's another of them.)
Gail Collins's take on it-- So Much for Civility was as always worth reading.
ReplyDeleteI saw that Gail Collins early this AM. I tell you I believe that if Obama weren't a man of color all of this kind of vitriol and hatred would not be happening! There is something so sickening about this INCIVILITY! It truly makes me sick to my stomach.
ReplyDeleteI hope you have a wonderful time away, Rain...And know, I love reading how you feel about all of the things happening in our country now.
Another sweet picture of those Frogs! Tell FramBoss "Thanks", from me....There is something so dear and vulnerable about Frogs....and again, I love seeing so very many all together!
So the Congressmen that boo'd Bush during his speech were doing that because they were racists and did not like the fact that a white man was president?
ReplyDeleteThis has nothing to do with race and it disgusts me that any criticism of anything that Obama (who is half white) does is played off by the left as racism. The man was elected president of the United States by a bunch of white people who are now supposedly racists. He wanted to be and was elected to be president for all Americans. If he only wanted to be president of a certain ethnic group he should have stayed in the Illinois legislature because the Chicago area seems to be one of the most racially segregated areas I have ever seen.
The democrats were all fine with the politics of personal destruction when Bush was President and now that there is a Democrat president suddenly it all supposed to be peace and love. You cannot have it both ways. Even though the Dems in Massachussets are trying to have it both ways and change the law they put in place to keep a republican from getting John Kerry's senate seat now that they have a democrat governor. Amazing the hypocrisy.
As for Massachusetts. They will have a special election in January if you paid any attention to what's going on. this is purely about a temporary seat where they could have a vote on health care, could have their voices heard.
ReplyDeleteIt's ironic how the party of patriotism likes to take away people's representation as you tried to do as long as possible in Minnesota. Some patriots
There is no comparison between Bush and the treatment Obama has received. Bush won a contested election based on the Conservative supreme court handing him the victory. He lost the popular vote. He was accepted anyway and when 9/11 came along, he was widely popular with right and left. AND then came what he did with Iraq. He told us we could have a war and a tax cut and that was a lie. He told us there were necessary reasons for that war. It was a lie whether he knew it or not.
ReplyDeleteThat is NOTHING like Obama who was elected by a majority of the population and the electoral college. Obama ran on exactly what he is doing. This issue of health care was what he said he wanted and what the majority of people voted to have happen until they began to be frightened by right wing lies.
I thought I would put off my rant on the right wing with a hope that maybe they would seriously look at what is happening right now. They have not and the rant is scheduled for while I am gone. I am going to try and leave comment moderation off and hope that both sides will voice their opinions on the various issues as I may not be able to post. Although if I come on and see anything really ugly (something I haven't had here in a long time), then I'll have to put back on moderation which is a shame as a good debate is beneficial.
The more it goes along, the more it's hard for me to even find fault with Democrats given the way the right wing defends their disgusting individuals like Wilson who was either misinformed about the bill or lied. He's a low level nutcase who the far right just elevated to hero status. No wonder our country is in the mess it is.
Never has a legislator called a president a liar in an address like that. He played to the right wing fringe and he has them supporting him.
I just hope right wing thinkers aren't still 50% of the population in 2012 because heaven help us all if you nominate someone like Sarah Palin or maybe Cheney who got us where we are today. I am so disgusted I can barely type.
Regarding racism being a factor, you are closing your eyes to reality. The ones where it's an issue are not the ones who voted for Obama to begin with. They are the ones who said they could never vote for a black (and plenty said that). I am not saying everyone who voted against him was a racist but there were definitely those who said it was a factor in polling. I definitely feel it's a factor today in a lot of the nuttiness and if you don't, I think you aren't looking or listening.
Race will always be a factor in human nature, but Obama is not much different than when they said a Catholic could never be elected president until Kennedy won. Many people did not vote for him just because of his religion. But most of the country rallied behind him once he was president. I am not comparing Bush to Obama. He is our president now, but every time there is any criticism of him it is played off as racism. Are we no longer allowed to criticize the presidents policies. Many polls show that a majority of Americans like Obama, but a majority of Americans disagree with most of his policies.
ReplyDeleteI do not know anything about Wilson. He was out of line by blurting out during the speech, but many people agree that there is no way that the Dems can expand service and cut costs and not grow the deficit all at the same time. You say we can not fight a war with our current taxes but you think somehow we can add $3 trillion more in healthcare costs.
I have never heard anyone say it will be $3 trillion; so guess that's coming from the right wing but suppose it was. You favored tax cuts and a war that added up to that much and the war is not over yet. If it does cost that much, will it be because we give health care to those who would have died without it? Will it be because the insurance companies keep increasing their profits? The only way to keep them from that is the public option. And as Obama defined it, it would only be open to those who do not have insurance right now and it would have to pay its own way, not be subsidized. It simply would not have the high profit margin that the corporations now are enjoying.
ReplyDeleteI am amazed that people would defend tax cuts for the wealthiest, wars that make no sense and yet worry over working class people (and that is who this is for as Medicaid already covers the poor) getting medical assistance. What is that all about?
I don't always call it out as racism. I recognize that some can dislike left wing policies, but have you heard what these people say at their rallies? You are the one kidding yourself if you don't realize that some of this is coming out of racism. NOBODY likes saying that. It's a horrible thing to imagine but this country has had plenty of it. I was born when blacks couldn't drink at the same drinking fountains as whites. A lot of the worst of this is coming from the same places that no longer can do that but the inner feelings of racial prejudice are still there.
You want to give people like Wilson the benefit of the doubt. I suspect you might want to read up on his record first.
it's a very difficult time and worse now than even when Bush was in power and that amazes me as I thought that was bad. But talk like that if we have health care for the working people of this country it will lead us to being Nazis, what is that but nuts?
You might want to skip those political blogs coming because I am very angry about what I am hearing and seeing and I am speaking my mind. I know it doesn't do any good. I don't think right wingers even listen to the facts. I put up links here. I put up things like what the Constitution really says and it never changes anything. On it goes and I don't know where it will end but it's a very ugly and violent time and it doesn't seem to me it will get better until the right wing starts operating on logic and that talk of Nazis is not logic!
Enjoy reading your posts on the US Health reforms Rain, helps to keep me informed.
ReplyDeleteWhat angers me has been how anti reformists have used the UK NHS to paint a picture of a lack of choice. Medicine and doctors are, as far as I am concerned about health. And health or lack of it is not an individual choice. My best friend of 30 years died last June from pancreatic cancer. She left a 6 year old daughter and a husband. Our health service did all that was possible for her.
So what I get angry about is hearing about people having unnecessary cosmetic surgery on the NHS.
I am an immigrant to this country (UK) and I came here to train as a nurse. And since the day I arrived the NHS has been available to me, whenever I needed it, for that I pay a monthly contribution; and it is doctors who make the decisions and not a company who has to balance their profit and loss at the end of the year.
What gets too much media attention is the political naysayers, thinking only, I imagine of their next election prospects, and I see little of what ordinary Americans think. Though I have read that 70% of Americans back reform.
There is, of course, more on Joe Wilson now but this one ties into the question of whether racism is a factor in those who so detest Barack Obama being president and why they might feel that way. Joe Wilson's Rebel Yell. It does not state more than is fact and right wingers probably will see it very differently than left wingers.
ReplyDeletethanks for your information, AineLivia. It's hard for Americans to get the truth right now.
ReplyDeleteIt takes some vision to see that our defecit will not be increased by Obama's plan. It takes believing that most people now unable to buy private insurance will buy the public option bringing a tremendous pool of income from so many people. there is also in the works but not often talked about, a reorganization of how providers work to become more effectiveserving more people. The free market is bring these changes. Doctors for example, hand out sheets stating the preventive care that they are responsible for and they explain the responsibilities of patients.
ReplyDeleteIt also assumes large growth in the economy and no growth in any other area of Federal Spending. Like that is going to happen.
ReplyDeleteBecause I have a page that tells me how many views something I wrote received, I came across this one from 2009, when Obama first discussed his health care plan, and I more or less thought it was great. Well, that was back then before we all knew what the plan was. The idea we need to deal with health care is still a real issue to me but, in my view now, the Obama plan as it actually rolled out was a disaster and has not made any of this better.
ReplyDeleteI don't know that I've changed so much for what I believe or want to see done; but I have definitely seen who I don't believe will ever do it-- and that's the Democrat party. That is why in 2018, Ranch Boss and I ended a lifetime of being Democrats to be Unaffiliated. I feel it's not so much that I changed as that the party left me!