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Update appears at bottom of post.
Hypocritical members of the GOP, as well as a large number of blue dog democrats, say they want freedom from interference in medical decisions. But only for men. Women are still second class citizens. Even in the 21st Century, in what was once the best country in the world in which to live.
Ryan Grim at HuffPost, one of those on whom I rely on for news coverage (also Sam Stein) posted this video in his story about the passage of the health care bill.
I only wish I could feel as excited as the members of the house seem to be. Besides the addition of that odious amendment by Stupe-Pac, there are still more hurdles: first, getting something through the senate, and then, even more formidable, steering something through a conference committee.
At this point, I choose not to be optimistic.
For now, I’ll just let Louise Slaughter carry that banner for us: (from Ryan Grim’s post)
Not even the extreme pro-life amendment could dampen enthusiasm. "We’ll live to fight that battle," said Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-N.Y.), a passionate supporter of reproductive freedom. "It took a hundred years to do health care. Nothing can dim that."
Update: Check out Taylor Marsh’s latest post at Huffington Post. She nails it.
35 Comments
Like you, I also can work up no enthusiasm for the bill in its current form. I really don’t believe the Stupakity will be removed in the conference committee. We also are hearing that LIEberman still intends to filibuster the public option. So the final version, if passed, I think will still have Stupak but not have a public option. Aaarghh!
I’m in good company– with you, Jim– in my pessimism!
I wish it were not so!
Hi Karen,
You are so right. What about women’s rights ?! With proclaming women as second class citizens, it’s clear that the US really has become a second class nation. I also feel sorry for these young teenage girls, as it now seems that teenage pregnancy has become one of the most important indicators of US health(care).
Yes, Taylor Marsh said it well but now you have to alter your title because the Dems just showed you that the title is applicable to them as well.
Both teenage pregnancies and our very poor record on infant mortality. The two are inextricably linked.
Thanks for the reminder! I meant to do that, too, when I added the blue dogs to the text at the beginning.
You are so right ! Here you have “the best health care system in the world”.
Until it does, “Be well”.
They aren’t against bureaucrats that’s just the bull they spout to fool everybody. The insurance system is full of bureaucrats that are between you and your healthcare.
The people have let the Republicans lead the retoric, and turned many of us against ourselves.
They have shown that they don’t care about people, especialy woman, but they are winning the word wars. I am afraid the people will again be so stupid to put them back in power in 2010. Everyone of them that voted against this bill should be so bombarded by nasty letters they can’t get the doors to their office open.
No matter whether this is a good or a bad bill, the fact they refused to work to make it better, and have for months been working to kill it no matter what ended up in it should tell the tale.
Instead the people are like them blaming the Dems for a bad bill, and bragging up the Repubs who did nothing to help the situation.
Then we wonder why the Country is in such a mess.
More unthinking anti-male sexism from the usual sources.
In fact if any of you had ever tried being male you might be able to think for two seconds and realise that men have a lot more problems than women do in this area. If a man wants the same reproductive freedoms that women have by law he can’t find them in America. A man, but never a woman, can be forced to become a parent by LAW. Not by some insurance lapse or a lack of money but by a judge and the cops.
Do you want to swap KarenM?
Do you want to have no rights by law and men can have the “terrible” position of having to pay for a surgery they have every legal right to have if they wish?
I didn’t think so.
So quit this whiney “second class citizen” rubbish because unless they invented a third gender recently women are treated the best of any gender in America.
I skipped one of the comments, KarenM. I hope it wasn’t armed with a salt shaker for the roll back of women’s rights’ wound.
Christians of Convenience someone said. And Progressives keep giving away the store. The political sands keep drifting to the Right. Roll back of individual and constitutional rights. Totally minimized for short term pushing anything through for political points, screw the future.
Thanks for this diary.
Of course, you’re right IR54, but I was arguing the logic of what they “say,” not necessarily what they really mean.
How can we actually know anyone’s real motives? It’s hard enough to understand our own.
Clearly, they tried to kill any true health care reform. The only reason they did not succeed is because public opinion polls made it so unpalatable, and the netroots kept stirring the pot. One has to wonder if any of the politicians even bother to watch/listen to/read the legacy media, or if they just use them to disseminate their talking points.
I suspect the latter, and that pols read the progressive blogs, as if they/we are the canaries in the coal mines, even though they like to disparage them/us.
Christians of Convenience is too generous a term, in my opinion, since they seem to obey only the Old Testament, and try very hard to ignore the New one.
I hope we get to meet some day, Libby.
Looking forward to it, Karen! :) Thanks and thanks, too, for your great spirit.
We all need to share the outrage and pull together on this. The moral numbing in this country continues to accelerate. Post-Bush, we thought there was a light at end of the tunnel. Corruption has bred further corruption, and they are still treating citizens like second class citizens, to be exploited and manipulated and thrown a crumb every so often as they give away or enjoy the pie themselves (I thought we were up to croutons, but now we are at crumbs, and even they are being taken back).
America’s War on Empathy ROARS onward.
The Old Testament has a lot of good communism in it along with the genocide stuff so don’t knock it too much.
Obviously, my conservative friends need to be defended here.
There’s no contradiction whatsoever between what they claim to be conservative values and their belief that the government should have the power to coerce women to conform to my conservative friends’ narrow-minded beliefs in a matter of conscience.
No contradiction at all.
My conservative friends are always calling for more government interference into the lives of citizens and for government to take away citizens’ constitutionally protected rights.
In fact, my conservative friends are very principled people. That’s why they will use any issue they can to score political points. [See: gay rights (DADT, marriage), Terri Schiavo.]
It isn’t over yet, according to a story in the Washington Post: Abortion an obstacle to health-care bill: Some Democrats vow to block final passage if amendment stays
Some key paragraphs:
So, apparently it really is not enough just to forbid the use of federal funds. A woman’s own funds will not be permitted to be used, either, in the exchange, at least as the bill is now written.
They’re really pushing that hypocrisy envelope…
Perhaps it really would be better in the long run, as so many in FDL’s threads have suggested, just trash this bill and start over again next year. Unfortunately, we also have to worry about the short run.
Go ahead and defend them all you want. It’s just that much more embarrassing, to my mind, at least. The party of punishment simply reeks when it comes to social issues.
I found the disgraceful display of Blue Dog Democrats Saturday to be dis-
turbing. But not to worry, the likes of LIEberman and Senator “Wellpoint” {Bayh} make the whole damn thing DOA in the Senate. Unless Obama and the Democrats man-up {or woman-up} and go budget reconcilation on this thing, this has been a ginormous waste of time. Progressives have given up enough! Nothing is better than a piece of watered down pile of shit.
I’m with “Inquisitor”, who this week-end advocated for a revolution. It’s
way past time.
Obama had to have his bipartisanship, and if the cost of that had to be throwing another of his constituencies under the bus, well that’s the way he rolls.
Hey, don’t feel bad, wipe your eyes. Yeah, I love you. But sometimes you make me so mad that I just can’t help myself. You know how that gets, I just lose control and lash out. Yeah, I know its wrong to hurt the one you love. But let’s get real. You’ve got nowhere else to go. And when I think of you leaving, well, that just makes me even angrier. And you know what happens when I get angry, right? You know that I couldn’t be made to look the fool in front of all of my super cool friends? Why would you even think that you could embarrass me like that? Why don’t you hustle your pretty tail back to the kitchen and go clean up that mess? Okay? Love you!
I don’t think this comment comes across the way you may have intended it to. Frankly, it’s a bit irritating, and not in a satirical way.
It may be a bit of a revelation to some men who have neither experienced nor witnessed such behavior in the work place, but it is all too familiar to most women.
Like I told my son, “If YOU don’t want a child, wear protection, or don’t play.”
KarenM, yeah, it is a bit rough, but sometimes the only way to help people figure out that they’re in an abusive relationship is to spell it out in so many words.
It is not me who is the abuser, but the Democrat Party. So long as you Democrats continue to take it and come back for more, my post is the most accurate description of the dysfunctional cycle of abuse.
What’s irritating is that some of us have worked for more than ten years to create a progressive, FEMINIST, alternative to the Democrat Party, and so many of those who are offended by my post, or who support Obama 101% are the ones who were at the vanguard of attacking the Green Party while doing the Republican Party’s bidding.
Your post reads like someone who is defending their abuser.
Remember, the Democrats are always ready to take you back, just so long as nothing changes.
Clearly, you know nothing about me, including my age.
All I know is that we’re up a creek w/o a paddle and our traveling companions are standing up in the canoe.
Either we name what’s going on for what it is or we condemn ourselves to further abuse.
Pay no attention to the individual mandate, look, over here, reproductive rights in peril!
Pay no attention to the lack of cost controls, look, over here, anti trust exemption “threatened” with an individual mandate.
Pay no attention to the cozy deal for pharma, look, over here, biologics for breast cancer are under attack!
If folks can’t see how we’re being intentionally divided and conquered, how these people are playing us off against one another so that they can further enrich their corporate masters, people are not paying attention.
Had you read anything else I’ve written, you might have reserved your comments for a post where they would be more relevant.
Please, just take your agenda somewhere else. It is not welcome here. Nor is it needed.
Until we refuse to be played, they will continue to play us and we will continue to be whipsawed.
I’m done here.
I’ll still be commenting, but I’m through posting. At 56, I’m too damn old to put up with being lectured.
I enjoy your posts and your POV. I hope you reconsider.
Thanks, Elliott, I appreciate that.
In fact, I do recognize abusive relationships, and there are a few too many loose cannons roaming around FDL right now, wreaking whatever havoc they can get away with, mostly in posts to do with women’s issues, where they successfully derail the discussion to suit their own agenda. Imagine that?! How is that any different than what we put up with in congress or the WH?
Life is too short to put up with it. I’ll post elsewhere and control my own comments. Apparently, a polite request is not sufficient.
Being asked to ignore bad behavior until it crosses some indefinable line is simply not good enough.
I wish the Dems would reframe the argument. Abortion isn’t an obstacle, mixing church and state is the obstacle. Allowing the beliefs of some to prohibit others’ needed health care is obscene. Abortion is a private choice. Freedom, you know.
Women’s health care should include all health services required by women. Some women will not use all of the services available whether that service is open heart surgery or abortion.
I agree CarolBeth, but the Dems that we need to have doing the reframing, are, for the most part, men. I don’t think they really get it… that this issue determines whether women may or may not participate fully in public and civic life.
And, if any of them they do get it, apparently they don’t really care.
Have you read that poem “Wishes for Sons,” by Lucille Clifton? It’s a doozy, and even she barely touches on this issue.
Thanks for the recommendation, I’ll look for it.
It is hard to have sympathy much less empathy when one has no experience in being the other gender. That’s why we strive to make the law impartial. Our refusal to prevent legal discrimination is a conscious choice.
We all have gender specific difficulties in addition to the general challenges to human health. Gender should really be irrelevant.
I still insist we must have health care for 100% of our people.
Of course, you’re right, CarolBeth, but for some reason there is a greater ability to understand others when looking up the ladder than there is in reverse. There is little to no incentive for those in power or with more power to understand the lives of those with little or none.
Or, in this case, to understand the need for gender-neutral policies. When one considers one’s own gender to be the default “standard,” why should there be a need to recognize that differences require accommodations, in order to provide a gender-neutral opportunity for everyone.
That’s why, even though I agree with you about universal health care, I don’t expect to see it in my lifetime.
Here’s a link for “Wishes for Sons.”
KarenM, How many times did I do clinic defense back when the fundies were swarming over reproductive health clinics?
Yes, the abusive relationship analogy was sharp, but given that we’re all getting kicked in the groin and nobody really has any clue as to what to do about it, the point needs to be made that each constituency in the Democrat Party is disposable at the slightest pretense.
Coming back for more after that is the hallmark of a battered spouse, and that’s appropriate because most battered spouses are women and the Democrats are battering women right now.
When we get to the point where we are more horrified by pointed words than by vicious deeds, we’ve really lost it.
What we need to do is end the cycle of abuse by not going back for more, to tell these Galts that it is going to be us who goes on strike against them, because they need us more than we need them at this point.
To moderators:
Please close these comments.