Hightower writes: "As we've seen in their incessant, pigheaded attacks on the health-care reform law, their minds are not merely fogged up with extremist anti-government theories, they're impervious to rational thought."
Texas' progressive political curmudgeon, Jim Hightower. (photo: JimHightower.com)
Pigheaded Republicans
29 July 12
Pigheaded Republicans are so focused on repealing Obamacare that they've failed to offer an alternative.
ere's some useful advice from an old country saying: Never try to teach table manners to a pig - it doesn't work, it'll wear you out and it just annoys the pig.
The same advice goes for anyone who thinks they can teach even a bit of common sense to the preening political ideologues who've taken over the Republican Party and the U.S. House of Representatives. As we've seen in their incessant, pigheaded attacks on the health-care reform law, their minds are not merely fogged up with extremist anti-government theories, they're impervious to rational thought.
They failed to defeat Obamacare in 2010, despite trying to scare old people with mindless lies about "death panels." Now they're trying to repeal the law by getting people to swallow their hogwash that it contains "a massive tax hike on the middle class."
Really? No. One, it's not massive; two, it's a payment for direct benefit that people will receive, namely decent health-care coverage; three, very few people will have to pay the so-called "tax" at all; and four, many people and small business will get tax credits and federal assistance to offset the cost of coverage.
Their greatest failure, however, is that they offer no alternative to Obamacare. During the debate on their latest attempt to repeal the law, a Democratic lawmaker asked for a copy of the GOP's health-care plan so he could read it aloud to other members. Silence in the chamber.
The Republicans' political slogan has been to "repeal and replace" Obama's reform, but they've dropped the replace part, saying they can't offer an alternative until they complete the repeal.
No surprise - I doubt this bunch can walk and chew gun at the same time. Though they're a tenacious bunch! Maybe not tenacious, more like dogmatic, obstinate and obtuse, too. Pigheaded - yeah, that's it.
So, once again, on July 11, GOP lawmakers threw a group hissy fit on the floor of the House over the Affordable Care Act that Obama and the Democrats passed two years ago - a law the Supreme Court has just recently ruled to be constitutional. The House Repubs hate, hate, hate that law. So, all 244 GOP members pursed their lips in a collective pout and voted in lockstep to outright repeal the blanket-blank ACA. That'll show Obama who's boss, they crowed!
Well, not really, since their "repeal" won't pass the Senate, much less get past the president's veto pen. But these pouty solons aren't really interested in legislating - they're into political peacocking, putting on a show for the fans in the far-right-wing bleachers. And apparently it's an interminable farce, for this was the 31st time that they've voted to repeal the law!
Thirty-one replays with the same do-nothing result. Don't they have real work to do? At some point (probably back at about vote number 20 or 25), they crossed over from appearing ideologically steadfast ... to just plain stupid.
They snidely assailed the health-care reform as "Obamacare," as though that's a pejorative. But as the law has begun taking affect, more and more Americans are liking it a lot, because it produces real benefits for us. Start with the 30 million people who get help in affording prescription drugs, plus all of us who get some relief from the gouging and constant denial of coverage by monopolistic insurance giants, and Obamacare becomes a label of pride.
If I were him, I'd run on it - and go after the petty politicos who're trying to take away the benefits it provides for people.
National radio commentator, writer, public speaker, and author of the book, "Swim Against The Current: Even a Dead Fish Can Go With the Flow," Jim Hightower has spent three decades battling the Powers That Be on behalf of the Powers That Ought To Be - consumers, working families, environmentalists, small businesses, and just-plain-folks.
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Imagine the poor US with this group in charge.
Yeah, just imagine, James, an America under these pigheaded bastards. Imagine no health care, substandard support for education, the elderly, our youth, the infirm, public employees, a crumbling infrastructure, and legislation directed against women, minorities, other religions, and the LGBT community, with more tax breaks for the rich. That's what we'll see in a government presided over by the robotic PUPPET, Willard Mitt RoMoney under the guidance of Grover Norquist and the Tea Party.
When I think of the worst, the Tea Partier who always comes to mind is the Illinois congressman, Joe Walsh - the big mouth chickenhawk deadbeat dad, who's running against Tammy Duckworth, the double amputee veteran. Walsh says she's not a true hero. And, while we're on that subject, just how did RoMoney - who can't wait to send other people's children off to war - and his 5 strapping sons evade military service? His comment was that his sons were doing their patriotic duty by helping him in his campaign (LOL). And how did RoMoney manage to write off $77,000 on his taxes against his wife's dressage horse, Rafalca, which is competing in the Olympics? Word is that $2,000 of that amount is for health care for the horse, while the average American spends a little over $1,500 per year.
Obscene, pigheaded, pea-brained, vile, REGRESSIVE robots!!!
I disagree with you vehemently, Ma'am! The word I choose is "TOXIC" vice simply "moot.".
The horror is investment class money has been used to buy off the majority of the Democratic Party for the same purposes, and the Democrats we have elected to office, so-called "Moderates" and "Centrists" choose to live in the world of high finance, "doing business," for-profit thuggery.
But we have only ourselves, We the People, to blame. We have allowed ourselves to become complacent. We have allowed them to take over, remove civics from the schools, abdicated our power to the corporations for the promise of "convenience"; like George W. Bush said, "Leave the running of the country to us. You just go shopping." We have allowed ourselves to become complacent almost to the extinction of the America the world knew and loved and in its place we have lifted up a murderous, imperialistic America that the world hates, including ourselves.
The proposed first step to achieve that objective is to file multiple class-action lawsuits seeking to reverse two absurd Supreme Court decisions: Santa Clara ("corporations are persons"), and Buckley ("money is speech"). Success will require one of the five conservative Justices to again step forward and go down in history as a true American patriot, as did Chief Justice Roberts recently in upholding Obamneycare.
As the cases advance toward the Supreme Court, widening public awareness of them will propel a tsunami of public pressure, outcry, and support from the over 80% of American citizenry who are disgusted with the legalized corruption of our politicians by the obscene amounts of money-in-politi cs. Past Supreme Courts have been responsive to public opinion.
Once those decisions are reversed, the liberated Congress would be enabled to enact legislation in the public interest, such as to provide for public financing of elections, free airtime for candidates, universal health care, raising needed revenue from those who can best afford to provide it, and exerting world leadership in preventing and mitigating global warming.
You can e-mail me via the Web site shown on my RSN Profile Page.
Reply
The problem is with dumb, uneducated, bitter, white males who feel they no longer have the unfair advantages that they had pre-1968 and have ever since been voting for every "hollow fraud" every sociopath, every "venereal character" carrying the banner of the GOP who promises them;albeit in subtle code words and "dog whistles;a return of their unearned pre-1968 privileges. To have in their own words "white skin count for something again". The miserable bastards still have most of their privileges intact but can't see that; through the fog fear cowardice and insecurity. If they were not exactly as I have described, they would not have voted en masse for Reagan; who promptly started dismantling the labor unions for the benefit of the corporations. They would not have voted 54% for McCain although he chose a running mate who could barely sound intelligible and who knew as much about ANYTHING as a junior high school graduate. They will keep voting; in the south and in the mid-west;they will keep voting with their emotions and insecurities and numerous fears of "the other"; rather than with their brains; until the whole edifice comes crashing down our collective ears.
We are not getting our money's worth.
But in the end, it's our fault for putting these people into office without properly vetting them for their histories like voting records, personal affiliations and philosophies.
I'm glad I didn't vote for Hillary Clinton. Not too long ago she left the Methodist Church that her family belongs to and joined the Presbyterian Church. Every far Far Right NeoCON whackjob Reich-winger belongs to this extremist church; think John Knox; the ranting repressive provincial misogynist.
Is it life imitating movies, or movies imitating life? Or some combination thereof?
Listen to Limbaugh. Listen to Hannity. Listent to any of the right wing talk-show jocks. They are literally grasp[ing at straws, and still, those people who stand to lose the most under a 1%-run-GOP administration are buying their hate-and-fear rhetoric as gospel.
Go figure.
White males want to own an unfair advantage over others everywhere and they are willing to make any and all sacrifices to get it. It's about them being able to put their egos on parade and not get dinged for it; in fact, garner adulation for it, and if they can get that rush by sacking other countries or their own country, so be it. This certainly would explain why they support the biggest money drain going, the Defense Budget, while they scream their heads off about deficit spending, getting deeper into austerity and cutting spending everywhere else. Only their ego involvement can explain their schizophrenic approach to living life and the bigger picture.
May as well be positively quoting the Koch broz on sniveling about oil subsidies.
Your solution "Kill Obamacare"
Typical, just typical of the far-right that its solution to a shortage of doctors is to provide medical care to fewer people.
The "liberal" solution, the rational solution is to train more doctors and other medical personel.
The projected shortfall in three yeas is 62,900... OK we'll have live with that and work around it, but in FIVE years we could graduate a new and larger cohort of medical doctors and well before 2025 we could have educated all the doctors required.
BTW this is the same bizarre mind-set that has turned working people, the primary beneficiaries of labor unionization, against labor unions. The "thought process," using the term loosely) appears to be "That Union worker makes way more money and has better benefits than I do. I'm jealous. I'm going to vote for people who will take it away from him." Wouldn't they be better served to think "Those Union workers make way more money and has better benefits than I do. I'd like to live as well as they can. I should look into unionizing my workplace. I know it will be a fight, but my family is worth it."
If all medical education were free we'd get all the doctors we could possibly want. But the problem is, the Righties have made being a doctor a get-rich-quick scheme/scam. There are certain areas of human living that should not be allowed to become for-profit schemes and medicine is one of them. Only people with the correct attitude toward medicine should be allowed to practice it and the doctors should not think of themselves as beholden to the Republicon Party first, as so many of them do now.
In case you didn't notice, "Obamacare" was just tweaking what we already had without going for a totally new approach as the majority of Americans wanted.
Yes, it is true; the fewer people who can afford healthcare, the fewer doctors we will need. If only 1% of us could get healthcare, then there would be no problem!
Of course, if you look at the graph http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2012/07/29/health/policy/29doctors-graphic/29doctors-graphic-articleInline.jpg , "what we had" promises a shortage of 32,000 doctors by 2015 and 105,000 by 2025, accounting for the majority of the "double that by 2025". "Obamacare will cause", in reality, only a one shot shortage of 30,000 doctors when those millions of new people first get healthcare. Of course, that brings up the question of why exactly is the AMA so ticked off about that 30,000 when they seem OK with the impending 100,000 shortfall, which just happens to support high salaries for secondary and tertiary medical specialists?
Not really an emotional filter, more a "tripwire." setting off broad societal- wide emotional explosions. That is what is needed.
Any suggestions anyone??
As for getting through the reality filter, this is what advertising is all about; why it works and why it makes money.
"You've come a long way, baby." Says the voice over to a Virginia Slims cigarette ad showing a willowy model dressed in evening gown and dripping with diamonds.
"Marlboro Country for a Marlboro man." Says the voice over for Marlboro cigarettes (THE most popular cigarette in America; and the leading cause of cigarette generated cancer,) pictures a he-man on top a sturdy mount surveilling hundreds of head of cattle on thousands of acres of America.
"Eastern Airlines/The Wings of Man"
"The Men of Texaco"
"Nobody is Second Class on Southern Airlines"
Braniff: "The End of the Plain Plane"
Diet Pepsi: "Slip into Something Irresistible."
McDonald's: "You Deserve A Break Today."
Muriel Cigars: "Hey, Big Spender."
The facile effectiveness of advertising is really a terrible comment on how malleable the American mind is in the hands of corporate puppeteers.
Besides, the AMA's statement is no different than a fox stating that he's being discriminated against when locks are put on the hen house doors - I don't believe either one.
also, calling republicans pigheaded insults pigs(and they're smarter than most animals...which really makes the term ill-fitting)(So rry Jim, but I did love your article).
Bottom line: OBAMA CARES!!!
AND the FED should fund the expansion of medical schools, so they would be spitting out new DR's in 50% higher numbers than they do currently.
Don't even try to say that the "quality" of the Docs will go down, there are plenty of competent people that could be Docs.
As for shortfall of doctors, if anything like that happened, they would only do what they have already been doing: importing them from foreign countries. The AMA has no conscience about what it does to this country; they are only in it for the money. We the People are only the excuse they use for a bill in their thought and financial equation.
As for the "empty suit in the White House", the only thing that really bothers you about that suit is that it is filled with a person of color.
And if you are in financial pain, you have no one else but yourselves to blame for supporting people who have turned America into a Banana Republic. Stop voting for the Regressives and vote for Progressives if you want beneficial change.
The Rethuglican't have never done anything for working Americans (even my European grandmother said so,) other than blow smoke up the collective nose of old white males looking to be a Big-man-on-camp us; a Society Swell.
Passing a bill to learn what is in it was applied to the GOP's PATRIOT Act under George Bush the Inept, and a Republican Congress (55 Republicans in the Senate and 223 in the House).
Depends on how you define "this."
If you ask people if they like Obamacare, they are against it. BUT if you ask if they like the features in Obamacare, without attributing them to Obamacare, they are ALL for them. Every one of them. Even two-thirds of Republicans are for them.
It's the same as polling people on their political philosophy. If asked if they are "liberal... or "conservative" the majority will say they are "conservative" or "center right." But when asked about policies the overwhelming majority of Americans do not support "conservative" policies and do support "liberal" policies.
It's all about labeling and "conservatives" are very very accomplished at convincing voters that they have the better label. Unfortunately, "conservatives" have proven themselves incompetent to run the country. Not surprising really... they believe that "government is the problem." It's stupid to think that letting people who don't believe in government will or even can run a government well.
Carbonman, the GOP God Reagan first uttered those words "government is the problem" while he was dismantling the Air Traffic Controllers union. He must have been great, right? His name is plastered everywhere. In my hometown, Cincinnati, there's a highway named after him. I - and many others - still call it by it's old name. They can run a government allright - right into the ground. Can you imagine where we'd be if the Bush Recession had happened a year earlier? More tax cuts right? How do we manage to put complete idiots in control of our country? You wouldn't allow Bush to drive your used $3,000 car for fear he'd wreck your last means of getting to work. But we gave this guy a $3,000,000,000, 000 economy and - with "Deficits Don't Matter" Cheney in the passenger seat - he drove it off a cliff. Kinda like Thelma and Louise, huh? With America crumbling around our ears, Bush was MORE than glad to give the keys to Barack Obama.
Did you fill the tank, George?
It points up the Limbnaughesque b-washing for certain buzz words, but no in depth understanding of the substantive kind.
But how could it be otherwise? Education has been gutted and the Right-wing talkers have sold the south and the mid-west on "homeschooling" which TRAINS people to read, write, do math and regurgitate historical chronologies, but don't truly EDUCATE in the application of information and scenarios, preferring to have the "thinking" for the Right be left in the hands of the Limbnaugh, Beck, Savage, Drudge drug/alcohol/mo ney/power/ addict paid hacks.
Wish I could get as hyped as you appear to be re. Obamacare. But, reality is, we here in the U.S. are still the only advanced country in the world to not have healthcare for all as a human(e) right. Single payer care for all Obamacare is not.
The nurses have it right when they say HEALTHCARE NOT WARFARE. Please tell Pres. Obama (who I now call Oh Bomb Ah) that continuation in constant warfare mode, even if soooo profitable for the military/indust rial/terrorism complex 1%ers and their villainaire minions, is simply more of the same old Bushwhacking and Kochsucking we've endured here and around the world since being lied into a war in Iraq.
HEALTHCARE NOT WARFARE !!!
If humans engage 'dialectically' ('both-sides') in formal open equal-time recorded & published dialogue as our primary means of interaction, then war is over. Any 2 friends or belligerents who engage dialectically can nip discord in the bud.
Mohandas Gandhi's 'Satyagraha' (Hindi = 'truth-search') was based in the practice of engaging both-sides in open dialogue. Gandhi would ask, "What are your best intentions and how can we help you achieve these?" Considering that; British Forces (including a large Canadian contingent) had massacred many thousands of Indians for such crimes as picnicking together on religious occasions, Gandhi still included everyone in this process. Gandhi noted that; war, murder, weapons, oppression are the path of cowards afraid to speak their truths together with another.
Activists who'd like to foster dialectic process merely have to engage in formal dialogues with both friends & perceived opponents & publish these in social or other media. People are drawn to dialectics because truth is so important. We don't need to await institutional players or approval. Start with anyone who's willing to speak their mind on any subject & we're off to the races. https://sites.google.com/site/indigenecommunity/structure/1-both-sides-now-article
So many people in all walks of life, are in it for the ego, for the adoration of their fans, or for the money and power. Everything changes when a person's desire is to get to the truth.
The main requirement for getting to the truth, as Anthony de Mello pointed out in his book "One Minute Wisdom," is not an overwhelming passion for it, but an unremitting readiness to admit one might be wrong."
Most people have learned to believe that it is important to have the courage of their convictions. In truth, the greater courage involves examining one's convictions to see if they are baswed on truth, and allowing others to examine them as well.
For people whose self-image is dependent on having a certain belief system, self-examinatio n will make them nervous, if not afraid. If they can't get past the fear, they'll find it hard, if not impossible, to look at information that differs from what supports their self-image.
As has been said, most people love the lie that saves their pride, but never an unflattering truth. To change that, we must make people believe, if possible, that we are their friends, and that we have their best interest at heart.
Romney has promised to repeal Obamacare. Which only proves that a stopped clock is right twice a day, and opportunists are ready to exploit weaknesses.
After we have voted for the lesser evil in the fall, let's all work to replace the Obamacare sham with true universal Medicare For All.
Take the private insurance industry out of the loop, improve Medicare, and expand it to cover all age groups.
Almost all other industrialized countries have done this. As a result, their health care costs run about half of ours, and their outcomes(infant mortality, length of life, etc.) are much better than ours.
Instead, Obamacare (PPACA) insures the nearly 30% cut that insurance companies take from every health care dollar by guaranteeing their place at the operating table. And the Democrats have endangered their reelection by backing this unpopular plan designed by the industry everyone knows causes the most loss of blood. Even with this scheme, there will be tens of millions without adequate health coverage; some will choose to pay the fine and others will be forced to buy policies with the flaws and shortcomings we have grown to expect from these privateers. Their interest is private profit, not public health. Bankrupcy courts and resort to ER will still play a role under Obamacare.
The only thought they have is "lower taxes for the wealthy, make war and borrow to pay for it, screw the middle class and poor, let the good times roll."
Do you hear any other thoughts from them?
Their whole goal continues to be to defeat the black president and their choice is Romney with his shiny suits, neat hair, white face and smooth and well-rehearsed lines. That's tragic since he has been totally dishonest and insincere with the American people. No, in fact, he is a total fraud and liar! And the GOP is anti-people and owned by the 1%.
The time has come to make the POTUS a national election by the people...not put the power in a few "battleground" states. One National Hand Marked Ballot uniform throughout the nation.
Limit the length of the campaign and provide national airtime for the debates.
The civic minded roll of a citizen in our Constitutionall y Limited Representative Democratic Republic (tks to Thom Hartmann AND give that handle some thought)is to apply the common sense of the American people seasoned liberally with morals, ethics, reason and hard nosed assessment of the actions of the above mentioned sesspool of players.
They are stealing our money, our commons and our very souls with psychotic and sociopathic killing of people and entire countries around the planet...I challenge ANYONE to call that hyperbole!
"the common sense of the American people seasoned liberally with morals, ethics, reason and hard nosed assessment of the actions of the above......."
I must admit I roared with laughter about this one. "common sense of the American people"?. We haven't demonstrated any such thing in decades. Our "common sense" elected Reagan, George W. Bush,almost elected McCain and Sarah "giant amoeba"Palin and now about to elect the mother of snake oil salesmen Mitt Romney? Ha! common sense indeed....bah humbug!!
How close are you to taking over $250,000 in interest (instead of working for it) that paying the rates that we managed during far better growth that you feel you were being robbed any more than the hundreds of millions of us that lost 40% of our wealth? We also pay a lot more percentage in payroll taxes.
There is too much 'preaching to the choir' going on here. He certainly knows what he is talking about; I know what he as talking about, and I would venture to say that 90-95% of the commentators and readers on RSN know what he is talking about, and agree with him.
So what is new? Tell me something I don't know, or some way to get the attention of the pigheaded GOP! Maybe they should be made aware of the concept of ham hocks and bacon, two things that make sense, and have some use when the pig body is separated from the pig head.
There is one thing that Mr. Hightower did mention in his article that sounds ominous and prescient. With regard to the GOP Congress, he used the phrase 'voted in lockstep' to describe their behavior.
This sounds too much like Germany in 1936 for my taste in democratic forms of self governance.
This is the one theme that is not brought up enough.He is so on the money with this.Until we stop the rich from donating money to our corrupt puppet leaders,it doesn't matter who is prez,the ship is going to keep sinking.It is very sad how low we have sunk,how most americans walk around clueless.I worry for my little girls future.
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