Facts: A Democrat's Weapon »
Posted By Progressive 4 months, 1 week ago in Political OpinionFor the Democratic Party, the health care debate has become an exercise in fact checking. As misunderstandings of President Obama's health care plan for a public option (which only exists in loose form) abound at town hall meetings across the country, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has focused its efforts on fact-checking the statements of health care's reform's opponents--more so than spreading any pro-reform message of its own. Last week, the DCCC built a website, HealthCareFactCheck.com , incorporating fact-checks on health care "myths" propagated by Republicans from PolitiFact and FactCheck.org (along with a few pro-reform talking points for good measure).
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Progressive
There are only two kinds of people who are really fascinating: people who know absolutely everything, and people who know absolutely nothing. -- Oscar Wilde
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hyperbola4 months ago
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Frankly this is no longer about health care. It is about racism and control by corrupt oligarchs.
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Red-Baiting and Racism: Socialism as the New Black Bogeyman
By allowing the right to throw around terms like socialist to describe the President and socialism to describe his incredibly watered-down, generally big business friendly approach to health care, while not recognizing the memetic purpose of such arguments is to ensure that the right will succeed in their demonization campaign. To respond by pointing out how the plan really isn't socialist, or how Obama really isn't a socialist misses the point, which was never, in the end, about economic systems or philosophies: none of which the folks on the right raising the most hell show any signs of understanding anyway. This noise is about race. It is about "othering" a President who is seen as a symbol of white dispossession: dispossession of white hegemony, white entitlement, white expectation, and white power, unquestioned and unchallenged from the darker skinned other. This is what animates the every move of the angry masses, individual exceptions notwithstanding. Unless the left begins pushing back, and insisting that yes, the old days are gone, white hegemony is dead, and deserved its demise, and that we will all be better off for it, the chorus of white backlash will only grow louder. So too will it grow more effective at dividing and conquering the working people who would benefit--all of them--from a new direction.
http://www.propeller.com/story/2009/08/12/red-bait...-
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antibrainwasher4 months ago
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Exactly right H. "Socialist has become repug code for the "n" word.
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How many, in these senile ignorant mobs are non'white faces? Same as at the Caribu Blumber ralies.....none.
You can't fix red state stupid, you just have to wait until the wind changes direction, these principle-less racist and cowards are whipped up by faux noise and AM radio racists. They won't last.
They mostly over 50 as well, a dying putrifying rotting collection of wrinkled flesh and senility.
If they want to bankrupt the country with insurance monopoly greed, to make that "socialist" in the white house look bad, that uppity "socialist", and pass the disaster to their children, then what does that say about these selfish cowards. -
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beavith14 months ago
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you've said this before.
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i don't know where its coming from.
in my humble estimation, barring the Gates fiasco, american politics have become more and more color blind.
white hegemony? picking on Obama because he's black?
what the heck are you talking about? if this post is about trying to rally the left around the flag because of 'race', the author (and you) do us all a great disservice.
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thoughtforsale4 months ago
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What I, as a German, find even more disgusting, is that the Republicans abuse terms connected with the Nazi regime and even dare comparing President Obama to Adolf Hitler. Drawing these parallels is so absurd that I start wondering about the state of mind of some GOP´s! Not every governmental intervention means introducing socialism, and who is informed about the gains of the NSDAP, would never come to the idea to connect them with something like a health care reform. All social efforts this party made, were made for ideological reasons only!
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rbiii4 months ago
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Here's the bottom line:
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If the President and the leading Democrats would have had their way, there wouldn't have been anything to fact check because the reform bill would have already been law.
So now the Democrat excuses boil down to this: There's no final bill yet so the claims aren't accurate. Technically true, but the claims are based on the initial drafts of the legislation they wanted to pass before the August recess.
If that doesn't raise the red flag of "WTF are they trying to do?", you're an Obot lemming.-
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Charlson4 months ago
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rbill, it might be a fairer fight if your side would stick to facts and the truth instead of made up crap and lies. Almost every argument your side uses can be debunked with a little bit of research and fact checking. But that still doesn't stop you serial liars from continuing to muddy the waters with your **** poor lies and fear mongering.
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tchef4 months ago
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I haven't seen a claim made by the Republicans yet that isn't easily debunked. If the Republicans don't like what's being proposed why don't they come up with a real plan themselves and submit it? I haven't seen anything. And I don't mean a plan like their 19 page budget with no numbers in it.
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tchef4 months ago
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The Republicans have nothing to offer. That's why they offer nothing. They had 6 years of total control and did nothing useful. The only thing they accomplished was to mire us in two wars and spend the budget surplus that Clinton left them with.
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dgoodii4 months ago
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FACT - no one is misunderstanding Obama's health care plan. He has not written a bill with his IDEAS in it. He speaks of his ideas, but not the actual bills that are written now. He has no actual plan on how to accomplish what he wants to see changed in health care.
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Charlson4 months ago
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Why, then, do the Republicans and corporate insurance companies call the health care reform bill proposal Obamacare? Your statement is specious at best and a blatant lie at worst. The president may ask or even demand that Congress pass a bill with his ideas in it, but Congress WRITES the bill and it has to go through several steps before both Houses passes their final version of the bill. Then the president can sign that bill into law or veto it if it doesn't meet his criteria.
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dgoodii4 months ago
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You got the point. Congress is the problem, they no longer are real American citizens in a place of honor. Obama has not said one thing about the parts of the bill he likes and those he does not. This is party politics he will not stand on principle if it is against a fellow Democrat, not sure he has any. They continue to look for ways to control their serfs, while not upholding their oath to the constitution and their constituents.
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Obama has stated in the past that he had problems with the Constitution, that it did not grant the government what it must provide. To answer that, it is to provide nothing more then it says in the Constitution. Health care and health insurance are not one of their granted powers.
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