MSNBC's Dan Abrams completely blows this opportunity to point out precisely what is behind the far right's out of bounds attacks on Barack Obama in this lame interview of Republican congressman Jack Kingston of Georgia. First he lets the congressman repeat the charge that Michelle Obama said she was proud of her country for the first time in her adult life when he knows what was actually said, taken in full context, was that she was proud of the American political process for the first time. And he wasted half the interview on a minute point about the congressman wearing a flag lapel pin.
Much more egregious is the fact that he lets the congressman get away with calling things like using Obama's middle name repeatedly and pointedly, just a little back and forth "banter". Which is really all Abrams engaged in with this guy when he should have nailed him. This is a classic smoke screen the right uses by bringing up something that they know is incendiary and claiming that it is, or should be innocent. Using arguments like, well, that really is the guy's middle name and, we use other people's middle names. Or we show other politicians on diplomatic trips in the garb of other nations. When we all know that the intent of pointing these things out is to make an association with Obama and symbols that people fear.
This is all about the politics of fear and the problem with it is that it causes fear in people, some of whom are hateful, some of whom are violent, and some who are completely mentally unhinged. It is not the simple innocent fact that his middle name is Hussein or that he dressed in middle eastern clothes on a diplomatic trip. It is the attempt and intent to draw a parallel between him and terrorism in a way that could inspire a nut case to do something that could hurt the Senator or other innocent people. It is the repeated use of his middle name and that photo in an attempt to make people who may be a little on the edge question him in their minds. To make them ask, why does this guy keep pointing out his middle name is Hussein.
It's something old people, especially from the south, used to say when I was a kid; throwing a rock and hiding your hand. Pretending you did nothing when you have the worst intentions. It's getting as close as you possibly can to hate speech and still being able to deny it. It should never be tolerated or soft-balled in the way that Abrams did. Dan, you have to hammer these people because this is the same thing as using code words. We see it in the heated undocumented worker debate where supposed innocent speech by people like Lou Dobbs results in an increase in hate crimes against Latinos. And I don't mean in any way to compare Abrams to Dobbs. There's no comparison, but he let this guy off the hook. In fact in my next post I give Dan well deserved credit for what he's doing to expose the corruption involved in the Don Siegelman case. One of the most important stories not being covered enough at this time.
-Fight the Powers.
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32 comments:
Has Barry Obama changed his middle name? Or is it against the rules to call him by his name?
I agree that this silly crap is exactly what drives politics these days. And one of these three idiots will get elected.
Hey, thanks for your comment on my blog.
It's not the middle name, of course, but the innuendo behind emphasizing it. Until now I did not know Clinton or McCain's middle name. BTW, you're welcome.
Are you claiming that calling Barry by his middle name implies reference to his being raised as a Moslem? It really doesn't matter to me what anyone calls him, it is his love affair with fascist ideals that bothers me and the refusal to answer a simple question on the campaign's info line.
I find it impossible to believe that someone who follows politics would not know that Hillary's middle name was Diane and that she did not change her last name until Bill ran for President or that John McCain was third in the long line of great Naval men, named John Sidney McCain. That is beginner's knowledge to the candidates and their beliefs and integrity.
Did you read my post? Of course that's what constant repetition of Obama's last name is meant to do. To raise doubts about him and paint him as Muslim or in sympathy with them. It's a classic of the Republican dirty tricks handbook, to put out innuendo and claim it's innocent.
How many times have you heard anyone in this or any campaign, mention any candidate's middle name? You could count them on the fingers of one hand. You almost could have believed that Hillary's middle name was Rodham (of course her maiden name). And though she's dropped it, that's been used to remind people of her feminist past and keeping her maiden name.
Using Barack's middle name is typical politics of fear from the far right and this time it may backfire.
So we are now calling Moslems "bad?" I thought that from the direction our education system was sprinting that studying Moslem habits are correct and that pointing out Barry Obama's Moslem past was a good thing?
I'm just not getting the gist of your argument or your objection to Barry's middle name. I mean clearly Barry started playing UP his heritage when he started calling himself "Barack" instead of "Barry." "Barack" means lightening in Hebrew. "Barry" means guy who played Greg Brady.
Sometimes I honestly think Republicans have their own brand of logic. I never said being Muslim was bad, I said the intent of the people using his middle name was to smear Obama in the eyes of people who fear extremist fundamentalist Muslims and terrorism. Dude, comment all you want, I appreciate them, but this is really waste my time, twist my words, and use every rhetorical device possible to obscure the truth kind arguing that is draining. Try coming up with a real honest argument my friend. Or maybe you've been doing this kind of arguing so long you wouldn't recognize one. You and I both know what these people are up to. Please stop trying to smokescreen it. It's obvious.
Since we both agree that continually pointing out his middle name is silly, I am trying to help your argument and it needs help deperately. The Barry Backers are the ones that are not letting this issue die, and the Right is making fun of it. We laugh at the Left, there is no substance there other than a desire to move to some sort of collectivism, which is suicidal and has been proven a failure whenever it has been tried.
No one on the right actually pays attention to the Leftist media, the New York Times is irrelevent to any person that has an IQ of fifteen, the Left is the side that keeps this issue alive and it points out the silliness of the Left. I want a reasonable debate with adults and cannot find one with anyone that finds Senator Obama compelling. I might as well talk about Legos.
From your comment on my blog, I thought that you actually understood my satire, I guess that I was wrong.
No dude, sorry, I missed the satire. Though it is pretty funny that the right is calling anything the left is proposing a proven failure when you look at the current administration. It could be their motto.
Personally, I think any of the MSM is increasingly irrelevant, right or left. So we might find some agreement there. Unless you're going to tell me that the media on the right is any different and to be taken any more seriously. In fact people who've only got 15 IQ points to spare, shouldn't use them on the MSM, because you're bound to loose 5 just by listening to them.
I would appreciate anyone pointing to one single thing at which the Bush administration has failed. Please remember that he is the President, not a Congressman.
Economy, doing fine until the Dems took over the purse strings. Even though the Reps were spending like crack whores.
War, swimmingly even now and the Dems continue to vote to stay the course no matter how many times they say otherwise. Look at the votes.
Healthcare, I think that I have pointed out the overwhelming success of our system too many times to number.
Sorry, give me a topic, I cannot find one.
Is this satire again? Am I missing it? As far as health care goes, see Sicko. When people with health care are dying of diseases that are curable so insurance companies can make a profit, I don't think that's an overwhelming success.
Uh oh. If there is one thing you cannot use in an intelligent debate, it is the opinion of a moron. "Sicko" is a movie, and it is fiction. Jon Stewart is a comedian. There is nothing, not one single thing that "Bambi" or "The Lord of the Rings" or "Police Academy" can contribute to the debate either.
You know, oddly enough, my last post today was completely debunking the people that are quoting the WHO report. They are just repeating the things other people have heard.
There are so many things wrong with what you just said I was momentarily stunned. I didn't know where to begin. Maybe with the least obvious. Without conceding the point that Sicko is fiction, it is not just because you say it is, there is a very lot you can learn from and that can be contributed to an intelligent debate from fiction. You can have an intelligent debate on life's mortality and developing into maturity based on Bambi. In fact fiction can at times be more truthful than facts when facts are used to mislead and fiction leads one to a larger truth.
So, without attempting to address everything wrong with what you said, I have to ask, did you even see Sicko? Do you know what assertions are made? Did you realize that people are flatly denied health care by insurance companies based solely on the bottom line and those people often are very sick and many of them have died? The health care system in the US is far from superior.
I watched Roger and Me, I watched Bowling for Columbine and then stopped. Michael Moore is a fraud and to even suggest that his movies are "documentaries" is insane.
Are you in the United States, I did not check your IP? There is not one person in this country that does not have access to medical care, and that includes criminal aliens. Did you refuse to read the WHO report that everyone cites or would you rather learn from Bambi? Like I said, that was the last post on my blog.
And how exactly does an insurance company deny healthcare? They are insurance companies. In the same vein, I wouldn't call a roofer to repair my computer either.
You are losing me here. I can't make sense of anything that you are typing. Should I just drop the conversation?
Insurance companies refuse to pay for treatments that people in other countries that have true universal health care could not be denied. And yes, people are denied specific treatments that could save their lives. Sure you can walk in to county hospital and they'll treat you for something. But if you need a specific treatment and it can save your life, if you can't pay for it, you won't get it.
Or you may loose your house to pay for it. In Canada you would get it. In England you would get it. In France or even Cuba you'd get it. Life saving drugs are a fraction of the cost in those countries. People here are choosing between eating and paying for their meds. So they get sick or die because they can't afford their medicine. Yes, I'm in the US. In California. Wrote a comment on your last post.
Alright dude, went to Blockbuster, joined up, and got Sicko. You read the material and found it lacking. I have to eat some mushrooms to get in the right frame of mind for my punishment.
Relax, the whole thing will be entirely painless. You may feel a slight pinch as he tries to take 9-11 clean up workers to Gitmo, that's all.
Good for you man. I'd like to hear what you think afterward.
I am writing my post on this now. You really shouldn't direct anyone toward this movie anymore. I took seven pages of notes of supposed facts and took just seconds to discredit almost every one.
He even makes no bones about how silly this movie is.
I look forward to checking out your post. I'm sure there'll be a few things to discuss. And I'm sure I'll probably be recommending Sicko again. But we'll see.
It's done, but I must retire for the vening. I have an early day tomorrow, I do appreciate the company today though. I was lonely. Ha!
Same comment (below) I left on your blog Two Dogs, leaving it here also for continuity of the thread:
Two Dogs, the only fact you refuted out of your 7 pages of notes you left out of your post was this one, answered below.
From the Sicko Truth Squad, http://www.michaelmoore.com/sicko/checkup/:
SiCKO: Cuba has a lower infant mortality rate and a longer average lifespan than the United States.
* The 2006 United Nations Human Development Report's human development index states the life expectancy in the United States is 77.5, and is 77.6 in Cuba. Human Development Report 2006, United Nations Development Programme, 2006 at 283. http://hdr.undp.org/hdr2006/pdfs/report/HDR06-complete.pdf.
* According to the United Nations Statistics Division, Population and Vital Statistics Report, the rate of infant deaths per thousand in Cuba is 6.2 per thousand, and in the United States is 6.8. "Table 3, Live births, deaths, and infant deaths, latest available year, June 15, 2007."
http://unstats.un.org/unsd/demographic/products/vitstats/serATab3.pdf
Other evidence is presented anecdotally in order for us to see the real impact of our health care system on real people. Otherwise it would just be the endless presentation of statistical facts, which would not make a very interesting documentary would it?
Funny you mentioned nothing about the doctor who testified before congress about how she was encouraged and rewarded, like hundreds of doctors are who work for the insurance companies, to deny health claims that should be granted. And the people who are denied the money for treatment die because of it. But then, the deaths of those specific human beings is only anecdotal and hence inconsequential.
But from the comments here I am being enlightened and now understand that Michael Moore is wrong because he's fat (but what does that mean for Rush Limbaugh?), and leftist (I guess you have to be both to be wrong).
Is this supposed to be a parody of people like Rush, Lou Dobbs, Billo and the like? Present little evidence and half fact between invective and angry ranting? Is that what's going on here?
Rev, I wish that you would read a little more into my blog before calling me out as being like Rush, Bill O'Reilly and the like. I cannot stand Bill, a Leftist that masks his own opinions for money, shit any political bent for that matter, has no integrity at all. O'Reilly is far left and his act on his show is an act, check his past out, it is really simple to do. Rush is commercial radio and he is an entertainer, I haven't listened to Rush since he got big and has forty-five minutes of commercials per hour, it might as well be QVC. Here's my reply to your comment on my blog, for continuity here.
You used Moore's own website to back up his claims? I stated in my post, I just went to Wikipedia, any moron that thinks Cuba has a longer life expectancy than the United States, probably thinks their per capita income is greater, too.
Come on, man, you appeared to be better than that and then to use the UN?
I tried fifty different spellings for Dr. Linda Penoit (my assumption) and couldn't find a damn thing regarding her on the entire webby thing. She was not convincing to me, she looked like she was trying to stay out of jail.
Most of these folks were completely unbelievable, Becky Welky the insurance refuser was probably the worst.
Tarsha Harris, the woman that got sued after the fact, with the yeast infection, was fullllll of shit.
Lee Iner, the insurance "hitman" was unbelievable as well, the guy looked like an actor, no, a professor from an Ivy League school.
Julie Pierce, the woman that lost her husband to liver cancer was believable, but something wasn't right about that.
Enough from my notes? How about the 1962 recording of Reagan on socialized medicine, the Nixon tapes approving HMO healthcare, Tommy Douglas being the father of Canada's healthcare system, Adrian Campbell having cervical cancer and going to Canada, Glen Hollinger the doctor reading his denials, first thing: Adam sewing his own knee up, Larry and Donna Smith from Denver moving in with their daughter, and her husband going to Iraq to work, Frank, 79 working in a grocery to pay for medicine, the subliminal flash of Newt Gingrich, calling out Dick Armey, Haley Barbour, and Bob Dole, the "marshmellow peeps", damn, how much more do you want? Propaganda, plain and simple and you know it, you just ignore or refuse to admit it.
How about the staged shouting thing at the water side of Gitmo? You know DAMN well that didn't happen. Man this movie was a MOVIE.
I found "fat" mentioned one time in the comments on my blog, I did not mention it, and can say this, Moore has gained a million pounds since he made this movie.
Rev, you simply must recognize that movie for what it was, a boring movie. There is a post on my blog after my movie review that goes even further to discredit the "content" in Sicko. Now, do not get me started on Roger and Me, I might not be able to stop myself. His uncle and his father were the heads of the union there and he paid for R&M by suing Mother Jones (I think) for the remainder of his salary. Moore is scum.
I didn't compare you to Billo, et. al. You said your blog was satirical, I was just trying to guess who you were satirizing.
Because you have difference sources than mine for life expectancy doesn't make yours right and mine wrong. You give no reasons to invalidate my sources. But even if we use your source, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_life_expectancy, the difference in life expectancy is just over a year. Not bad for a communist island nation against a modern industrialized 1st world nation. More importantly take a look at these stats about what we spend on health care vs. Cuba. They have the lowest cost per year of life, http://ucatlas.ucsc.edu/spend.php.
The doctor you couldn't find from the documentary with all your exhaustive research is Linda Peeno, M.D. Google her, she's out there.
As for the rest, you present no evidence save for your feeling that they are all lying. I'm afraid that's not enough of a reason for me to doubt them. Do you really think if all these people didn't exist or were lying that the MSM would have been all over Moore like a cheap suit.
He's a big man with a huge target on his back. There's no way he'd have gotten away with faking an entire, Oscar nominated documentary. To suggest so is absolutely and thoroughly ridiculous. If you want me to take you seriously, you'll have to do better than that. Honestly.
Yep, found her. Kentucky has suspended her license to practice medicine, every other article ten pages deep on Google is about her being in Sicko. Still researching. You could help me out here, obviously you know why no one will offer her license to practice, is it because of her alledged fraudulous actions as a physician?
You say her license is suspended, but offer no link. Don't know what you're talking about, but if you assert something supply evidence, or from this point on I'm going to ignore you. Not here to research your part of an argument.
To me what's relevant is a system that does precisely what she says it does. It denies claims to people who need medical care because it is a for profit system. The decision of whether and how to treat a patient should be made by that patient's doctor based on that patient's diagnosis and available and effective treatments according to the prevailing wisdom of the experts in the field.
The system is inherently flawed. That's the argument. Not Linda Peeno license status or your opinion about who is credible based on no evidence.
Rev, I published 1000 words with links and everything. You and I are of opposite political opinions, there probably will never be a compromise, it is a stark difference in our philosophys. I do not want my success tied a single other human being on Earth and you want to be part of a collective. I believe that profit is the ONLY thing that produces success and you believe profit is bad, you believe exactly what Peeno believes and has lectured on for her entire career, while she was NEVER practicing medicine. And with the e-mail that I received from Blue Cross this morning, a full 100% of what she has published has become false. I believe that she has committed perjury and should be jailed for her crimes, but that is just me.
You didn't include a link for your allegation that Peeno lost her license to practice medicine in KY, still haven't. And, I never said I thought profit was bad. I said profit should not be involved in the process of providing health care. Some things transcend profit. A policeman should not provide protection based solely on who it benefits him the most to protect. Neither should a fireman. Nor a doctor. Yes, I'm sure we will probably always disagree.
And how on earth, in America, the capitol of capital, does being against profit in health care make me more a part of the collective than you? Almost everyone in America believes in profit or we would have had universal health care a long time ago with the rest of the industrialized world and some of it that's not so industrialized.
Rev, the word "ONE" in the second sentence of my post is a pdf of the Kentucky Board of Medical Licensure disciplinary action, that suspends her license. Her name is the next to last on the first page. The word "ONE" is a different color from the rest of the words, that signifys a link.
Does it stun you that already over 45% of US citizens healthcare is provided by tax money? Does it surprise you that the only incentive for research is profit, well execpt for NIH and I cannot find one single drug or procedure that they have patented? Does it surprise you that the US Spends more on research than all other subsidized healthcare countries?
There are just no facts to even try to promote universal healthcare, it is drastically more expensive and the quality of healthcare is much much worse. Sicko is a MOVIE, not unlike Daredevil, with absolutely no factual basis whatsoever. I know you WANT to believe it, but you are wrong.
Are you patronizing me with this link stuff? Just paste a web address to your source or the post on your blog, in the comments, jeez. I know what a link is. But we've gone back and forth here a thousand times and I've lost track of which post it is. I was asking, not meaning to be testy here, for a link in the comment that refers back to the point you're making and something to back it up. Or I have to go to your blog and search for the word ONE???
Like this figure "45% of US citizens healthcare is provided by tax money." No link to back it up in the comment. I'd like to trust you on it, but I don't and I'm not going to waste all my time googling all your extraneous, possibly erroneous assertions.
Same with the rest of your "facts" in the last comment. You say that Sicko is just a movie. Your opinions, without facts, are just the opinions of a blogger. So there we have it.
Sorry, I thought that you had read my post.
Peeno's Suspension: http://kbml.ky.gov/NR/rdonlyres/B3995F52-0F62-4DC0-9BD8-D0161EDBFF61/0/February2007pdg.pdf
US moocher healthcare: Quote "American health care is provided by a diverse array of individuals and legal entities. Individuals offer inpatient and outpatient services for commercial, charitable, or governmental entities. The healthcare system is not fully-publicly funded but is a mix of public and private funding. In 2004, private insurance paid for 36% of personal health expenditures, private out-of-pocket payments were 15%, while federal, state, and local governments paid 44%."
Above is from: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hus/hus06.pdf
As far as Sicko is concerned, I watched the entire credits, nothing, not one reference for his "documentary." "Gimme Shelter" qualifies moreso.
And I saw something today that said that Cuba spends 236 dolars a year per person. Doesn't that scare you to death?
And why does Cuba actually keep two different statistics for life expecntancy, I haven't seen that with other countries?
Peeno's suspension was for not completing continuing medical education requirements. The licensure board's link is in the pdf. You can look up the status of any doctor on the site. Not a big deal, especially if she's not practicing at the time.
Not sure what your point is with the funding of health care, but nice stats.
What Cuba spends on health care is not scary, it's probably because they don't pay inflated costs for drugs and other care we do to drug companies who have their research funded by the government and charge us for it all over again, making huge profits off the sick. Point about what Cuba pays for prescriptions was made in Sicko.
Cuba's two stats are probably, I'm guessing, from two different agencies and from different times. But hell, I don't know.
All Sicko's facts are documented on Moore's site, http://www.michaelmoore.com.
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