Regarding the House Gerrymander

It's been pointed out many times lately that the TeaBaggers in the House are running the show because they are all in safe seats and nothing at all can dislodge them short of revolution -- something that's not going to happen, at least not from the left.

Their districts were gerrymandered by Republican legislatures following the 2010 census; at this point, there's no way to rearrange the district boundaries until after the 2020 census. Isn't that special?

But the political failure, which isn't generally noted, goes back to the 2010 election, not the census, in which the Democrats basically ceded state level and many local level elections by not contesting seats or not contesting them vigorously (like funding Democratic candidates). This was one of the starkest signs that the Dems -- who had gained such majorities in the 2008 elections -- were simply giving up.

We may want to consider one day why the Big Wigs and Pooh-Bahs of the Party did this. From my perspective, it was a calculated and deliberate move, with full knowledge aforethought what it would lead to -- exactly where we are, with a government shutdown and looming federal government debt default, both engineered and implemented for one main reason: to have the ability and wherewithal and reason to "restructure" government along the lines of and in the interests of the corporate owners and rulers.

This is the End Game of the sequence of actions that became clear when the Supreme Court lawlessly intervened in the election of 2000, following, of course, the ridiculous spectacle of the Clinton Impeachment.

The High-level Dems in my view threw the election of 2010 for the purpose of enabling the Rs to manage their minority take-over gambit as smoothly as possible -- and as soon as they were able.

Here we are.

Heavy Efforts Under Way to Promote "Fusing" TeaParties with #Occupations

Now there's an idea I bet nobody's thought of. (/s)

I was just watching the Livestream of Slavoj Zizek answering queries in Liberty Plaza in New York, and he was talking about watching the TeaParty unfold on teevee two years ago. He said he was struck by the fact that a conservative singer entertaining a TeaParty rally in Texas was saying the same things about corporate control of the political and electoral system as the Occupiers are. He urged Occupation activists to set aside their preconceptions about the TeaPartiers (well...) and listen to them carefully. There should be some way to combine forces...

The other day, there was an editorial and an op-ed in the Sacramento Bee expressing the same sentiment. The 'baggers and the Occupations were addressing the same concerns about corporate control of government, so they should combine forces.

Then I just saw a Think Progress report #OccupySacramento from Lee Fang, and he finds somebody in the crowd who's expressing the same sentiment.

I've talked to some of the folks on the ground about this pretty intense effort on the part of parts of the establishment to see the Occupations amalgamate with the Tea Parties, and to say the least, most are not amused.

Which is not to say that individuals who are disenchanted with the direction the phony-populist Tea Party movement has taken wouldn't be welcome at an Occupation. The notion of openness is taken very seriously, as is open discussion, and participatory democracy. There's no problem with a former TeaPartier speaking their mind or urging some course of action, but there can be a big problem if some of the corporate sponsors of the Tea Parties and/or their political and marketing consultants try to worm their way in to the Occupations.

I've said it before, and I'll keep saying it, that as long as the Occupations adhere to the principles of participatory democracy as practiced in the General Assembly process, it is impossible for any single individual or interest group to hijack the Occupations. So even if numerous former Tea Partiers were to join up with the Occupations, they couldn't take it over -- unless everyone, literally, were a Tea Partier.

Meanwhile, it's this special: The New York Times editorial board endorses #OccupyWallStreet. Wonders never cease.

(And watch out, People. This is almost as serious as getting your picture on the cover of Rolling Stone!)



Note: Geezers Rule!

------------------------------

UPDATE: Jesse La Greca was on This Week today, and there was a good deal of intro video from the Sacramento Occupation. The panel of course was finding common ground between the Occupations and the Tea Partiers. I believe what we have here is a media "meme." I wonder how that happened.


Then there was the Chris Hayes gabfest with Naomi Klein, Van Jones, Maria Hinajosa, and various others.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

If you listen to the talkie-talkin, you'll realize what they're trying to do. They are trying to find some way to split off a portion of the Occupier Movement with some financial inducement, whether it is foreclosure relief or student loan relief or something that will force the movement to dissipate and eventually disband.

I'm sure this is the kind of talk that's going around through all the halls of power: "What do we have to do to kill this thing?"

Same as it ever was.

[Picked up both videos over at Digby's Place. Go give her some love. She's apparently feeling out of sorts... For those who don't know, I was "unbanned" at some point, but since I've been hammering the notion of what's really going on with the Occupations, as opposed to what the media says about them, it is taken as some sort of a threat by the Powers That Be yonder. Bizarre.]

The Republicans are Running Scared?

Of their TeaBagger Brownshirts and their Leader, La Palin?

I don't think so. Not even close. TeaBagging has been the most effective tool the Republicans have used to revive their dying hopes of electoral relevance after the disastrous eight years of the Bush/Cheney Regime.

TeaBagging has done its work by using that tried and true Bush/Cheney tactic of Doubling Down against resistance. It works surprisingly well. So well, in fact, it's a wonder the Democrats don't try it now and then just for shits and giggles.

When Herself goes out on the hustings, the ravening TeaBagging mobs can't get enough of her.

The most telling thing about it all is that TeaBag candidates beat less radicalized candidates all the time (though not always), and the more "radical" the candidates seem to be, the more they are admired and appreciated, even if they don't win.

They move the discussion.

That is something Democrats and the so-called Progressive Movement simply haven't been able to do more than once in a very great while. It's been the critical failing of the Democrats and the so-called Progressive Movement all along. Seemingly forever, now, the erstwhile "Left" in America has been doing little but reacting to whatever OUTRAGE!!!!™ the Rightists wish to commit at any given time. There are always so many OUTRAGES!!!!!™ the Left doesn't have time, and doesn't have much of an inclination in any case, to move the discussion in the other direction.

Not only that, but the so-called Progressive Movement can't choose candidates appropriately and can't get them elected in critical cases. Holy Joe Lieberman is still in the Senate; Bought-and-Paid For Blanche Lincoln will be there until she is defeated by the Republican candidate in the fall. But her "Progressive" primary rival would have been just as defeated in the fall if he'd won the primary anyway.

This is an absurd situation given the fact that Americans are not for the most part the radicalized Rightists that the TeaBaggers are, and they are politically more inclined to the more Liberal wings of the Democratic Party.

But the Democrats simply can't routinely mount or voice the kind of exciting brawling campaign the Rs have become experts at, and they don't even want to mobilize activists, let alone radicalize them. Consequently, we get the "Enthusiasm Gap".

The notion that the Republican Establishment is running scared of their own creation is a comforting one. It fits right in with the iconic Frankenstein storyline. But so far, this "fear" looks more like a strategic move to put the Dems off-guard.

No, I think the Rs rather like the success of their little operation, and they're not about to run scared. If it ever comes to that, they'll simply crush the TeaBaggers and toss them in the trash.

It's happened before.

"Small But Powerful Political Group"

I just did a quick search of NPR programming for references to "Tea Party" and found there were stories and references every day, sometimes several times a day, and so it has been for weeks.

What's the matter, aren't enough sharks in the water? And the missing white girl has already been rescued, right? So, like last summer, when the TeaBagger Rage was all over the media, especially in connection with their disrupting of congressional town halls, parading around with their guns and their "Obama=Hitler" signs, and their constant threats of insurrection if not outright revolution, we have daily TeaBagger updates on NPR (and one assumes the other media, which has nothing to report about the sharks and missing white girls, either) to keep the pot stirred.

But the story embedded above starts out by describing the TEA Party (to use their own term for themselves for once) as a "Small but Powerful Political Group," and I got to thinking about that. Why?

Why is such a small group so... powerful?

Of course NPR won't address that fundamental question, nor will the other media that constantly highlights the TeaBaggers and their Power. How is it that large political groups on the "left" are ignored by the media and are granted no power whatsoever?

How is it that a tiny group of malcontented white folk -- mostly well-off white folk -- are granted free rein to do what they will and given constant coverage for every little thing they say and do?

Of course it's summer, and during the summertime, the media is on vacation. Vacation time means fluff rules, and last summer, like this summer, the fluffing has been focused on the TeaBaggers, who, for reasons no one can quite understand, are able to dominate political coverage like no other fringe faction since the days of Jerry Rubin, Abbie Hoffman and the Yippies.

Except for the fact that the TeaBaggers don't have the theatrical skill and the sense of humor the Yippies and the others who protested in the '60ss and '70s did, the TeaBaggers are like a dark reflection of previous protests, and their supposed focus -- to the point of obsession -- on the Constitution is something of a mirror image of the "Constitutional Redemption" urge of Martin Luther King and the Civil Rights Movement and the subsequent anti-war and anti-draft movements and their offspring social and economic justice movements.

It all grew out of a sense of promise that was implicit in the Constitution. The Free Speech Movement 1964-65, which was the trigger for the student rebellion that swamped campuses nationwide, was based on the Constitution. The Free Speech Movement was the offspring of protests against the House Un-American Activities Committee Red baiting in San Francisco two years before, again based on the Constitution and its promise of free speech and association, for example.

The TeaBaggers aren't focused on the promise of the Constitution, they're focused on how the Constitution can be interpreted to restrict freedom for the many while offering free rein to the few. Their vision of the Constitution is that of the Confederate Constitution with its focus on property and its protection and defense -- especially property in slaves, but not exclusively so.

TeaBagging is Opposite World from the liberationist movements of the past.

But it is just as captivating to the media.

Documenting the Atrocities

Jeebus, the Hysteria.

The stark raving madness surrounding the now-admitted-by-everyone to be a pretty much ideal Republican Health Care Insurance Reform measure so infected the public square and the blogosphere that I just stayed away. The Crazy is catching, and I simply did not want to play.

When you have an amiable drunk like Dick Armey stirring up the masses to Rise and Revolt, and he's the only one doing it, then you know the situation is well out of hand -- and well out of your hands. When Men of Principle like the perpetually peevish Dennis Kucinich can be -- ahem -- persuaded to go along with what is arguably The Best Republican Health Insurance Reform measure evah, then you know the fix is not only in, it has been in for months if not years.

And the hysteria over it just won't quit.

This is politics in America today, and when things get this wild, even though all the Stakeholders are pretty well satisfied, then you know it's all for Show, a Show that is meant to keep the People entertained while their betters abscond with more of their loot.

That nearly the entire blogosphere fell into it and two sites that I frequent -- or used to -- FDL and dKos -- went balls-to-the-wall with rivalry and hysteria, mutual anathema and fury, simply confirmed to me that "Health Care" was being used as a business leader by both of them, with the primary desire and function to increase revenues for their proprietors.

Much as Dick Armey has very successfully done with his "Freedom Works" TeaBagger outfit.

TeaBagging is now the model. First they made it OK to bring up the R-Word, "Revolution". Now they make it OK to be bat-shit insane, and mostly to value myth and falsity over fact to make their point.

The shape and outline of the "Health Care" was set very early on last year, by April or May, and was all but complete by June and July. After that, everything was theatrics piled upon theatrics, and jockeying for attention by all and sundry. It really troubled me that it was being done this way. I still don't know whose bright idea it was to let things devolve into such a continuous goon show, but there you are. "Day of the Locusts" -- and it wouldn't end. It just kept going and going and going...

Couple of things happened, though, that made it almost seem smart (well, that remains to be seen...): 1) the factions pretty much exhausted themselves in virtual combat with one another and with The Powers That Be; 2) the bill that has been (is still in fact being) cobbled together comes across as "Moderate" compared to the foam-flecked fury it has unleashed among the commentariat and the proles. Moderate and wise, considered and responsible, a celebration of the Public Interest, the "Health Care" seems (almost) Just Right. Or something like that.

There is very little energy left to fight the Power, or to fight this fait accompli... or to do much of anything.

Jane posted her Manifesto over the Betrayal, yadda yadda, and something jumped out at me from it: She writes about how exciting and rewarding it was to cover what was going on. As a Journalist. New Media and all that. And then she refers to how difficult it was and frustrating it was to take what she learned as a Journalist and turn it into political action -- ie: to be a Player.

And how the next step has to be this or that to turn political knowledge gained as a Journalist into successful political action as a Player Without Portfolio. Basically to be as influential as any high priced lobbyist on K Street. Or as influential as any other noisy media outfit.

What is the point of Documenting the Atrocities if you can't use them for... good? Well, for what you want.

And this is the core difficulty among political bloggers. They want -- in some cases desperately -- to be Players on the political field, and they want to Win. (cf: Markos, Arianna, Aravosis) They believe that being Journalists is the way to Glory and Winning on the Field. Documenting the Atrocities (in the form of constant Media Criticism) is one of the core functions of the Blogosphere in general, and it is a sure way to -- eventually -- gain Notice. And Notice, somehow, is supposed to translate into Power.

Only it doesn't, not really, when it comes to Blogging. So called Progressives got nothing out of the "Health Care," not even a wink and a nod. At best they got a kick in the nads and a slap in the face, and a demand for their lunch money to boot. And like always, they pay up. It's their role and their function. Surprisingly, Jane has not yet gone into Kali-mode demanding the Heads of all who thwarted her again. Especially the Head of Obama Himself. But one shouldn't be surprised to see her turn when the situation is ripe.

Interestingly, some Republicans are complaining that they got "Nothing." Interesting especially because the measure is for all intents and purposes a Republican measure, barely recognizable as anything but a pay-off to vested interests at the crippling expense of the Public -- the way it is supposed to be in Republican Land.

It's arguably better in that regard than the Republicans on their own could possibly have made it. So what are they crabbing about?

Oh, I see.

They couldn't and didn't do it.

Someone else had to be brought in, Young Mister Obama.

That's the deal.

That's what they're crabbing about. And they will never forgive him for it.

Never.


Note: somebody at the Signing just said, "Thank you. 36 years trying to do this..."

Well, there you are.

In Which Matt Taibbi Smacks Some TeaBagger Face

http://trueslant.com/matttaibbi/2010/02/02/we-the-tea-partiers/

The issue, of course, is that the TeaBagger "Movement" are a creature of the very same Corporate Interests that own and control the Government they are so intent on dismantling.

It is a brilliant political ploy on the part of Dick Armey and his confederates that will no doubt be studied well into Eternity.

They didn't take over an insurgency, they created it. From Day One.

Resist!!!!

"Shouting at the TeeVee"

Mad As Hell
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Network was made in 1976; plus ça change, eh? And yet, in 1976, Paddy Chayefsky, Sidney Lumet and Peter Finch radically suggested that you turn off your teevee, go to the window and SHOUT your rage at the way things are, let the rest of creation know that you're mad as hell and you're not going to take it any more. Not that you'll actually do anything beyond the SHOUT, but that's another issue.

Now today, of course, the theory is you should never turn off your teevee (or your computer, for that matter) 'cause you might miss something important that Chris Matthews has to say, and if you bother to do any shouting, then do it AT your teevee and your monitor. Brilliant!

Interactivity, don'tchaknow. Shout at your teevee, sign another online petition, call your representative in Congress assembled and give them a piece of your mind (you bet!), post another furious blog entry, send money to one of the Progressive causes, call it a day.

And repeat.

Endlessly.

This loop has been playing without let up since the Impeachment of William Jefferson Clinton, the event that triggered the creation of the Online Progressive Movement. "MoveON", eh?

But it never does move on. It goes around and around and around on a Mobius Strip. Endlessly. Repeating the same actions and reactions, (peacefully) protesting the same wrongs, petitioning for the same redress of the same grievances over and over and over again. The only way to sustain it, of course, is to endlessly recruit newcomers who never knew what was "wrong" or what they could "do."

There are changes to be sure, but they are not changes brought about by shouting at the teevee, nor do many of those shouting and protesting recognize the radical changes being instituted right in their faces.

The Bush Regime, for example, was the most radical and destructive imposition of authority by the White House and Washington, DC, without popular support, in our nation's history. The Bushevik radicalism proceeded with lightning like speed, transforming our economy into a kleptocracy and our government into an Autocracy in only eight years, shredding the Constitution and pissing on the remnants, while people continued shouting at their teevees and computer monitors.

To no effect.

And as long as your shouting and venting and ranting has no effect, what is there for the Powers That Be to worry about?

The lesson of the failure of the anti-Iraq War demonstrations in 2002 and 2003 should be stark and learned well. They were, after all, the largest physical movements of humanity in a cause the nation and the world had ever seen. Well, if they were seen. And here's the clue: the 2002 demonstrations weren't covered at all by the mass media and the 2003 demonstrations, though covered, were continuously mocked and denounced by the Powerful, at home and abroad, and declared "failures" (and CommiePlots, since their organizers were (at least ostensibly) the handful of actual Communists still in existence) despite their numbers -- which were never honestly reported anyway.

Tens of millions marched and carried signs all around the world. It had no effect at all.

But for all indifference of the Powerful to the mobilization of tens of millions against the Iraq War, their utter disdain for the pathetic shouting and petitioning of the masses that passes for "activism" today is even more instructive.

You see, the Powerful have determined through repeated experiment that the masses will do nothing they need pay attention to to thwart the plots and plans and designs of those who rule and rob us.

Nothing.

They will simply continue to shout at their teevees, sign online petitions, send money to "Progressive" causes, candidates and enterpreneurs, and wonder why things keep getting worse, why Congress doesn't pay any attention to them, and why the White House acts as if the Busheviks are still in charge.


They'll lose their jobs, their houses will be foreclosed, their retirement savings pilfered, they'll wind up in bankruptcy -- and they still won't be relieved of debt. This has already happened to millions upon millions of Americans, and millions upon millions more are in the pipeline for the same treatment.

And still they do nothing those in Power need pay any attention to.

Instead, a phony pseudo-populist "Movement" is channeling "resistance" energy into the same Corporatist Power the Teabagger "Movement" is ostensibly "resisting." Participants, for the most part, being none the wiser. Teabagging is a brilliant ploy by the Powers That Be to ensure that no popular movement can arise to interfere with or thwart them. The whole idea of "movement" and "resistance" has been co-opted right out of the gate.

The Teabaggers will have a General Strike, to boot, to protest "giving" the Wrong People "health care." They will probably have another one to protest "giving" old folks Social Security and Medicare.

Is this a great country, or what?

There is no "movement" on the Left, and given the co-option of the terminology and much of the action of protest and resistance by Rightist Teabagger mobs, there can't be one on the Left, not that there ever would have been anyway. So-called Progressives do not "progress." They are locked in place, kind of like that protest "march" in New York that was not allowed to actually... march but had to stay in place, each block of protesters separated from every other, surrounded by police, and forbidden to move in any direction -- defiance being met with overwhelming (and often horse mounted) force.

Under the circumstances, the apparent victory of the Globalists and Corporatists is a lock.

I've mentioned Democracy and specifically Social Democracy as the real and ultimately successful counter to Corporatist/Globalist Autocracy, but then the question is whether a Social Democracy can even begin to come into being in the context of Corporatist Victory. If we accept that Victory is real, then how can you get to Social Democracy?

In other words, can the victorious Corporatists be induced to sponsor Social Democratic alternatives?

According to my Magic 8 Ball, "Absolutely!"

So... Where are the Robocops?

The other day, I posted about the Teabaggers going all loop-de-loo at various congressional townhalls, and I said I had some admiration for them getting off their duffs and actually making their voices heard. As misguided as they were and are.

But it occurred to me that there was and is something distinctly odd about the fact that these Teabaggers are going around shitting on these Congressmembers and shutting down their townhalls, and it's not the fact that they are being incited by the likes of Beck and Limbaugh and Hannity or that they are being used as tools by the same insurance cartel that's screwing them and everyone else.

It is odd that there is only a minimal police presence at these events, and there have been almost no arrests (for the all purpose "disorderly conduct," let alone the direct threats and incitement and violence), nobody's been tasered, gassed or bludgeoned, and there are no Robocops whatsoever.

Compare and contrast with last year's overwhelming police presence at the Democratic and Republican National Conventions in Denver and St. Paul last summer.

The video above is of one incident in St. Paul, in which peaceful street dancers were confronted with a phalanx of police who gassed and clubbed and arrested them.

Dozens of people were preventatively detained, people who had done nothing illegal, and some of them were charged with "terrorism."

Homeland Security, the FBI, and god only knows what other agencies of the National security state were deployed en masse to shut down legitimate, protected protest, through interaction with local and regional police forces acting in concert.

Nothing like that is happening now.

I admired the protesters in Denver and St. Paul because they were getting off their own duffs and putting themselves at substantial physical and other risk. Hundreds were arrested, thousands gassed, and all of them had their civil liberties massively impaired by an overweaning and frequently brutal police presence. So far as I know, nothing more radical than breaking a window and overturning a newsrack or garbage can (all of which could well have been done by provocateurs) was attempted by the crowds protesting at the conventions.

Yet here we have dozens of congressional townhalls throughout the country being beset by howling mobs, mobs whipped to a frenzy by right wing talk radio and television hotheads (who call themselves "entertainers"), who threaten and intimidate, and otherwise disturb the peace, proudly. What they were intending, and who their organizers were were all known well in advance, and what they have done has followed the plan laid out long ago. Yet so far as we know, there is no National Security State investigation and surveillance, there is no preventive detention, no mass arrests, no Robocop presence, hardly any police presence at all.

Clearly an order has gone out for the authorities to stand down. The Teabaggers apparently know they are at no risk whatsoever. They can do as they will. And they are doing it. While the police just watch.

If they are there at all.

What a wonderful example of Authoritarian America's disparate enforcement of "rules", "law" as it is known.

And even stranger than the absence of police and authority at these townhalls is that Americans just accept that DFHs will be subject to the full power of the authorities whenever they gather to protest, whereas the salt of the earth, good American right wing wackos can do what they want whenever they want and nothing at all will happen to them -- except cheers from their sponsors.

Interesting.

Summer Obsession

The Teabaggers are having a grand old time venting their collective spleen at every congressional townhall they can hie themselves to before the end of summer. The spectacle has captured the attention and the imaginations of newscasters everywhere -- including throughout the lefty blogosphere -- to the point where even President Clinton going to Pyongyang to rescue those journalists was drowned out.

The Teabaggers are the New Summer of the Shark. Or maybe it's Chandra Redux.

I actually harbor a bit of admiration for the Teabaggers, because they have at least got themselves off their ample duffs, got away from the computer and the teevee and got out of the house and got themselves down to the local food bank or community center or parish hall or wherever their rep (or somebody's rep) is holding forth and they are discommoding the powerful, disrupting business as usual, and OUTRAGING!!!™ calm and rational wonk types who delight in navigating the intricacies of Health Care Reform Legislation. It's all good.

Participatory Democracy, eh?

Now, of course the Teabaggers have been sold a bill of goods, and they are obviously and sadly being manipulated for the benefit of the Insurance Cartel, but despite that, they have shown themselves quite capable of making a stink and shutting down the kind of crap that Our Congress is trying to peddle regarding the so-called "reform" of health care coverage now wending its way through the hallowed halls.

And despite the fact that the Teabaggers are essentially deep in error about the details of what they are railing over, at least they have the moxie to rail.

Because light entertainment is a staple of the summer rerun season on the teevee, these loudmouths are dominating everything -- much as the Sharks did, much as Chandra did (not to speak ill of either, you understand.)



What fun, eh?

The fact that millions of people could peacefully assemble all over the world, could march and carry signs opposing the invasion of Iraq and be ignored by the major mass media, or that tens of thousands of people who turned out in a rainy-freezing Washington DC in January, 2001, to protest the inauguration of W were made to disappear, or that the continuing struggle of single payer advocates to even be heard in the "Health Care Debate" is consistently overlooked is beside the point.

The point, this summer, is the Teabagger rage, its astroturf character, and how deeply passionate all these ill-informed but very dedicated lunatics are. Entertainment!

The mind would reel if these... characters... will really have any effect on what emerges from the Congressional sausage maker. And I don't think they really will. Assuming that Congress is actually able to agree sufficiently to pass something -- and it looks like they will be -- my sense is that it will be basically a "universal" health care coverage mandate, requiring individuals to purchase private health care coverage with the premiums taken as a payroll deduction from every worker's salary. There will be no "public option" -- whatever that means -- in any rational sense, everything will be handled through the Insurance Cartel.

This will be very expensive and very inefficient, but it will accomplish two primary goals of the makers of this reform: "universal" coverage and restrictions on denial of coverage and payment for treatment.

The deal was essentially agreed to between the major stakeholders months ago. The outlines were set then. The Cartel will receive a huge revenue injection (almost all of which will be paid by policy-holders, not "taxpayers") through the individual mandate to have coverage, and in exchange, the Cartel will agree to stop their more egregious practices of denial of coverage and rescission. There. Done. That's it. Have a nice day.

Like Medicare Part D, this will actually be "something better than nothing." It will help many who now fret that they will go bankrupt if they get sick, or who can't get health insurance at all. Premiums will still be outrageous, but some sort of arrangements will be made for a "subsidy" based on income. In other words, no one will be expected to pay more than a set percentage of their income for health care coverage, and the lower your income the lower the percentage, until at some point your coverage is essentially free (as in Medicaid now).

This is not the dreaded "socialism" or "government takeover" of healthcare the Teabaggers are frothing over, it's not even a step in that direction, but it does modify the current balky and over-administrated system to -- finally -- cover almost everyone, for the first time in our history.

So what if it costs 30% more than it needs to and will still bankrupt the already bankrupted nation? That's a feature, not a bug.

On the other hand, all of it may fall apart after Labor Day, it's just all too difficult, or the Summer Shark may be followed by something too awful to contemplate (like the summer of 2001 was, we may recall.) You never know.

But for now...

Rage on, Teabaggers! Rage on!

Re: Teabaggery

(Picture lifted from FDL --  I think. But who can recall? So many things...)

Organized by FOX "News" and a couple of right wing think tanks, hundreds of thousands turned out on April 15 -- some in clever little 18th Century get ups -- to protest "taxes and spending" by hollering about immigrants and the price of tea and hurling their teabags hither and yon. 

It was the Feel Good uprising of the season, kicking off the Insurrection and Rebellion activities to come.

Or something.

Ten thousand protestors were expected locally; news reports had it that around 5,000 assembled -- still a throng, though hardly a mass movement. They were harangued by radio personalities and FOX "News" presenters, by Republican state representatives, and by anti-taxers from far and wide. I half expected them to come armed -- as they proudly did during the 2000 Election Recount Protests (yes, they were protesting counting the votes, harangued and whipped to a frenzy by many of the same radio personalities and teevee stars), where gun-waving and flag-waving seemed to get equal emphasis. But so far as I know, armaments were mostly kept at home, and the protesters seemed to be having more fun than trying to raise hell.

Of course they said that about the Boston Tea Party, too. So I wouldn't put too much stock in how much "fun" appeared to be under way.

The Left Blogosphere, of course, made a point of mocking and deriding the Teabaggers, and of course they made much of the endless double-entendre "teabagging" provides. The form of "teabagging" I'm familiar with -- a sort of frat-house hijink in which the balls of the teabagger are placed on the head of or in the mouth of a sleeping -- or passed-out-drunk -- brother as a gentle form of good spirited insult -- seemed almost the appropriate metaphor for the actions of the multitude on Teabagging Day, for it seemed they were out more for highjinks than not. These people are not used to taking to the streets, after all, so most of them don't know the correct protocols, don't have the right gravitas for serious marches and sign carrying and full-throated chants. It's not really in them.

The problem for me with the Left Blogistan mockery of all this was the fact that there is still little or no recognition within the higher reaches of the so-called "progressive" blogosphere that the middle and lower classes -- regardless of their political orientation -- are drowning in debt, and their condition and position is made exponentially worse by all the trillions of dollars pledged and paid to those who are already among the very richest in our land (and overseas). There is little or no recognition that in all the frenzy to bailout and stimulate coming from Washington, very little -- indeed, almost nothing -- is being directed toward relieving that enormous debt burden the masses are struggling under, and in fact, that burden is increasing with every bailout.

Part of what the Teabaggers are responding to is the fact that essentially all the money in the whole wide world is being handed over to those who already have more money than God, and people like the poor schmuck in his 18th Century Revolutionary get up have to pay for it. 

Nobody is taking the schmuck's side at all -- except FOX "News" and the various right wing interests that are always on the look out for opportunities and found one in the inchoate rage of the masses.

Masses and rage that the Left (so-called) has avoided like the plague. The Left that never misses and opportunity to miss an opportunity...

I could go on, but we have to get to the Torture Memos before the weekend is out, and -- OT -- there are home hospice care issues that have tended to keep me well away from my own bloggery more often than not.