It’s now clear the White House is committed to a slow political suicide, but if they keep this up, it’ll be a fast suicide. Dean is the biggest obstacle to Obama’s re-election – all he has to do is enter the primary and the Democratic party will be split beyond repair.

So, what do you expect him to say? How about leading a BLOG effort to email the White House 1,000,000 names of those who beileve HealthCare is NOT about Dean, it’s about Obama running away from his promise of “HOPE”, it’s about Obama squandering a once in 30 year opportunity to effect real change for the great majority of Americans.

Have you heard anything from Wendell Potter? Wondering what he is saying? Have not heard.

The name he chose for anything without a robust public option was the
Insurance Industry Profit Protection and Enhancement Act” Looks like he was spot on sounds like what we have

The Senate bill doesn’t cover any Americans. It makes Americans who don’t buy insurance from corrupt cartels criminals.

How is that progress?

Where is all the competition for insurance companies in this legislation?

I thought I remember. No I know I remember that one big difference between Hillary’s and Obamas health care plans was that Obama DID NOT SUPPORT MANDATES.

Obama seems to think that forcing millions more people pay protection money (sorry, buy health insurance) to an industry of bandits without competition will lower costs instead of simply increasing profits. Who’s irrational?

They decloaked themselves.

Back in 2004 this talking point, “Dean is irrational,” appeared to be a GOP talking point although we suspected there was old-school Dem machine/DLC giving it a little push.

And now we have them out of the closet using this as political cover.

How can a doctor with background in the financial industry be stupid? He’s not. So they’ll try to call him irrational instead, thinking we won’t notice.

Note how the white house … often thru anonymous sources … and democratic congressional aide sources … also often anonymous … attack people like Dorgan and Dean for fighting for principles and legislation that benefit the American people by accusing them of being self-absorbed and irrational.

Z

Fuck Robert Gibbs.

Unfair to say the Senate bill doesn’t cover ANY Americans. It covers insurance execs and their shareholders, at least SOME of them are Americans.

et tu, brute, contra me?

Anybody seen subsidy levels for different income brackets?

Wow, did Bush and his press secretary manage to attain such a level of the public’s contempt for them this early in their administration?

The complete switch in feelings about Obama from Nov. 2008 to now must be some kind of record!!!

Wendell says it’s a bonanza for the Industry, best to kill it. (on Ed, yesterday)

Re:Old School Dem: This goes STRAIGHT to RAHM. It’s the reason Howard Dean, who would have been the most logical choice as point man in this effort, is not even peripherally involved with the White House effort. I thought perhaps Rahm was chastened due to the major nature of progressive help in getting Obama elected-our web strategy, ground game, online fundraising, and all were directly due to this influence. Not to mention well organized and battle tested former Dean campaign workers like me and, oh, a bazillion others.

but Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!
He’s still his old-school self.

Send a message to traitor Joe Lieberman demanding he help enact a

strong single payer public option into law.

http://bit.ly/traitorjoe

By raising expectations and then quickly proving to be corp tools.

Kind of curious for a White House Press Secretary to have such gaping holes in his knowledge.

Jane, Jane, Jane . . .

Gibbs is the successor to Dana “Wasn’t the Cuban Missile Crisis that Bay of Pigs thing?” Perino.

*sigh*

How soon we forget.

Thanks Mr(or Ms?)Ratfood.

Even on a down day, you make me laugh again.

RD says “Laughter is the Best Medicine,” and with this huge pile of stinking shit health care bill, I just may need all the laughter I can get.

You may want to start charging for the laughs though. Hell, why not you get some of the gravy at least? Hell, if you incorporate yourself (RFI?), you might even get some mandated monthly checks sent your way.

Either way, thanks again for the laugh. ALWAYS appreciated.

In fairness I didn’t like him as a Bee Gee either.

The Obama White House learned all the lessons they needed to from the Bush White House. Namely, the media no longer practices journalism, corporations are more important than people, and enough Americans will remain ignorant, easily-manipulated authoritarians that nobody in power needs to actually do anything for the people anymore.

Our country is broken. And for once, the people who broke it don’t have to pay for it…

Wow, did Bush and his press secretary manage to attain such a level of the public’s contempt for them this early in their administration?

Actually, they did it earlier. Remember Bush’s Inauguration? Although, we were the opposition.

Wow I am with you on this.
How fast they have plummeted to the bottom of favor has got to be a record.
But people aren’t in the mood to sucking up to a Prez who said he was going to be a truth teller.
He instead turned out to be a liar big time and just as corrupt as his predecessor.
Working behind the scene to waterdown whatever help Americans need.

In theory ….

In practice, they all seem to be citizens of Some Other Planet.

Aaaahhhhhh. There is bit of sanity. Thanks, I needed that.

Michael Moore: Boycott Connecticut if Lieberman not recalled

Michael More, as great as he is in shining the light on important issues, he’s totally naive about Democrats and gaga groupie about Obama. Not very helpful!

A lot of that change just in the last week, too.

I thought I remember. No I know I remember that one big difference between Hillary’s and Obamas health care plans was that Obama DID NOT SUPPORT MANDATES. lied his ass off….

Sorry, I had to fix it.

Yeesh, Mary Landrieu just told Dean that he wants to eliminate insurance companies. She’s GOP.

Dean said that Obama ran on the public option and she denied it. Then she said that there is an option in the bill. The plan that congress has?

our old friend Glenn Greenwald on the subject today:

The evidence was overwhelming from the start that the White House was not only indifferent, but opposed, to the provisions most important to progressives. The administration is getting the bill which they, more or less, wanted from the start — the one that is a huge boon to the health insurance and pharmaceutical industry.

and, with astonishing predictive abilities, there is Matt Taibbi

Who among us did not know this would happen? It’s been clear from the start that the Democrats would make a great show of doing something real, then they would fold prematurely, ram through some piece-of-shit bill with some incremental/worthless change in it, and then in the end blame everything on Max Baucus and Bill Nelson, saying, “By golly, we tried our best!”

Make no mistake, this has nothing to do with Max Baucus, Bill Nelson, or anyone else. If the Obama administration wanted to pass a real health care bill, they would do what George Bush and Tom DeLay did in the first six-odd years of this decade whenever they wanted to pass some nightmare piece of legislation (ie the Prescription Drug Bill or CAFTA): they would take the recalcitrant legislators blocking their path into a back room at the Capitol, and beat them with rubber hoses until they changed their minds.

The reason a real health-care bill is not going to get passed is simple: because nobody in Washington really wants it. There is insufficient political will to get it done. It doesn’t matter that it’s an urgent national calamity, that it is plainly obvious to anyone with an IQ over 8 that our system could not possibly be worse and needs to be fixed very soon, and that, moreover, the only people opposing a real reform bill are a pitifully small number of executives in the insurance industry who stand to lose the chance for a fifth summer house if this thing passes.

It won’t get done, because that’s not the way our government works. Our government doesn’t exist to protect voters from interests, it exists to protect interests from voters. The situation we have here is an angry and desperate population that at long last has voted in a majority that it believes should be able to pass a health care bill. It expects something to be done. The task of the lawmakers on the Hill, at least as they see things, is to create the appearance of having done something. And that’s what they’re doing.

http://www.rollingstone.com/nationalaffairs/index.php/2009/08/19/matt-taibbi-on-health-care-reform-sick-and-wrong/

“-when asked what you do for a living say you laugh for a living.”
Bob Dylan, Advice For Geraldine On Her Miscellaneous Birthday

Yeah, I don’t think I ever got this pissed even at Clinton. I HATED NAFTA, was very disappointed when HillaryCare died, and probably the most pissed I got was when he pointed his finger at me and lied to me. But that doesn’t match this.

I think it’s because I never expected that much from Clinton. I really (rightly or wrongly) bought into the “A New Day Is Here” “Change We Can Believe In” “Yes We Can” “The Audacity of Hope”, etc. etc. etc. Then to see an asshole sell himself as man of the everyday people only to be in fact a corporate shill makes the turn much more forcefull, and fast, I guess.

I knew Clinton was a Southern Governor as good as we’re gonna get post Reagan Democrat in the White House. I expected much, much, much better of Obama.

“Yeesh, Mary Landrieu just told Dean that he wants to eliminate insurance companies”

Did Dean say ” ‘dang-diddilly-right’ I am.” Or, did he demure?

Landrieu also agreed with Chris Matthews that reconciliation couldn’t be used. Dean didn’t sound irrational when he explained how it could be done: expand Medicare. Matthews said ‘but Medicare is for old people over 65′.

Could Rahm be Obama’s handler? I read in Vanity Fair that he has a little video type screen on his desk that tracks Obama’s every move. Are the same people still in control of our govt. with a proxy presidency? Why do hillary , rahm and DOD contradict this president over and over. Don’t remember that happening with gbush. He was the company man.

I still think that hillary was the chosen candidate for ’08. The American people could not stomach four more years of clintons. Chris Mathews was saying hillary was inevitable when she was visiting diners and Obama was drawing thousand at his rallies.

Please note Obama’s facial expressions. We were all amazed at how politically astute he was when running for office. Now it is one stupid blunder after another to wipe out his base. Jimmy Carter stated that one year after he became president he realized he did not make a difference.
Today, the press sec. clinched. Howard Dean can’t be bought. So he is irrational. Disgusting.

Proxy president would be Rahm. Obama is just the one WE supported. Keeps the rioting down.

Just out of curiosity, what are the best arguments for passing the current health care legislation?

In other words, what is still in it that would actually be more progressive then the way things are now?

It seems to me if the bill is killed outright that means we keep the status quo. Isn’t that just what the health care industrial complex wants?

Or is the “mandated insurance” even more valuable to the insurance industry?

Alas, try as I might to be even more pessimistic, there is still a part of me that sees this as a win-win proposition for Wall Street and a lose-lose even more proposition for us.

Is this the wrong way to look at it?

Dr. Dean is many things, as is Mr. Gibbs’ boss. Exuberant is one of them. Irrational is not, most especially not about health care and health reform.

As a former practicing M.D. – unlike Mr. Gibbs, the White House harpies, Joe Lieberman and ConservaDems in the Senate – Dr. Dean knows what he’s talking about. The rest of them are advocating political choices that make them wealthy and more likely to receive corporate support for their re-elections. For them, those goals are, but need not be, in conflict with improving access to health care.

Gibbs is trying to evoke the “Dean scream.” This is fdirty politcis as proacticed by the Obama adminstration and approved by Barack Obama.

Trust Matt Taiibi to nail the situation. No taxation without representation. The rest of the phrase is “All else is tyranny.”

The backgrounds of the handlers and appointees may be far more important to understanding the entrenchment of the status quo than even that of the President himself; although in O’s case he’s Mr. Status Quo to the hilt.

What are our chances of killing this trojan fish, in the house? Are those 40-odd “No P.O.—no pass.” votes still in hand?

The Senate bill doesn’t cover any Americans. It makes Americans who don’t buy insurance from corrupt cartels criminals

Maybe Obama will have Eric Holder hunt them down as terrorist sympathizers. They ought to be easier to track down than Osama bin Laden.

Dr. Dean was so respectful and clear on Good Morning America. He explained clearly why his stance was “kill the Bill”

Who am I going to trust Lieberman and the Dem party that wants that INsurance money or Dr. Dean and Wendell Potter, Jane, Glenn Greenwald. You folks are not profiting in any way by saying “kill the bill”

And what about those mandates that Obama was against?

http://rawstory.com/2009/12/howard-dean-kill-senate-health-bill-start-reconciliation/

There are some good things in the bill.

It WILL cover more people than are covered now (though nowhere near everyone and at a much too high a price, IMO).

There are some better regulations on the insurance company. Such as disallowing the practice of rescinding (not renewing your policy after you’ve made a large claim), disallowing not paying based on pre-existing conditions, supposedly forcing them to pay more for actual health care as opposed to ads/lobbying/profits/exec salaries/etc. (though I’m still not sold it does what some have said it does). A few more I’m forgetting.

It will (in theory) open up SOME markets to more competition with the exchanges.

It has some new requirements for preventive care being part of a standard policy that is good. There is (I think) some funding for some community health clinics in there (again I think).

I’ve probably forgotten a few. If so, sorry.

It was a finely-aimed smear meant to punish someone with the temerity to rock the boat now that Obama’s long-term plan to sell us into slavery to his corporate paymasters is finally about to reach fruition.

Just when I thought this administration could sink no lower…

When 8 years of Republicanism fails to deliver on the Corporate wish list; call in the Democrats!

We just want a little competition for Christ sake. I thought they were all about competition

the whole fight has to be around the mandate. they keep saying they are going to “cover 30 million people”. that is the lie that needs to be exposed. as we all know they arent going to “cover” 30 million people they are going to tell 30 million people they have to buy insurance outof thier own pockets or pay a fine, or go to jail i guess. thats the big fucking lie and they will do anything at this point to make sure this robbery is carried out.

Just got the an nifty little email from OFA asking me to call my senators to ask them to support this POS. They had a neat little “report your call” button that I pecked to tell them I called the CPC to ask them to vote this bill down.

http://advocacy.barackobama.com/healthcare/campaigns/16/call_scripts/42/call_sessions/new?district=CA06&postal_code=94903+&source=20091216_MS_B_DO

Just in case anyone wants to tell OFA about the activism y’all have been doing…

Attempt to deflect all you want Gibbsie (Chuck Todd pulled the same thing). It’s not “health care” per se which is leading to O’s downfall. It is the fact that O, along with the despicable RE, set the entire country up to have the rug pulled out from under them, knowing he was going to trash single payer/public option/medicare buy in.

That is sadistic and vicious.

Gibbs is the same guy who got up and told the Big Lie that the White House had not pressured Reid to cut a deal with Lieberman. Within minutes, Senate staff had pointed out Rahmie’s visit to Reid’s office – a matter of public record. Why was he there? Delivering Candy?

Gibbs is a bald-faced Liar, and he should apologize to Dr. Dean.

thanks I believed…I was fooled

Someone needs to remind Gibbs that embracing an either/or fallacy is irrational.

Obama is trying to hide the fact that there are bills in the House and Senate that would do so much more at a much lower cost (i.e. achieve some measure of real reform) and is telling the American people that they have to pass this bill, or the crisis will get worse.

Simplistic either/or fallacy worthy of George W. Bush trying to sell the world on his War on Terror.

What Obama and Reid needed to do was lead.

If the choices boil down to passing this bill or nothing, then they’re actually saying that they’re incompetent and weak and that they’ve failed as leaders.

I think these feelings are intensified because many of us worked hard to get Obama and Dems elected.

We may have had varying degrees of “belief” in him, various “reads” on what his past “record” would tell us about his future, but we were willing to work to get a DEMOCRAT elected. [Hell, this was not a "personality cult." I would have worked just as hard to get Hillary elected.]

When you think about the huge numbers of voters who turned out, the numbers of Republicans that went down to defeat, the well-spring of desire for change after the 8 years of catastrophe of Bush, it’s not Crazy Land to think that something good could happen.

I don’t detect a lot of starry-eyed 20-somethings here. We knew it wouldn’t be easy, although who can claim they predicted how totally bat-shit crazy the Republicans would turn out to be.

But we expected EFFORT from the Democrats. We expected a good fight for the right causes. We didn’t expect that Obama would go down the list of Bush’s fault and try to mimic every one of them:

* secrecy in govt — check
* continuation of wars in Iraq & Afghanistan, with extra bonus surge – check
* no action on DADT and other issues — check
* destruction of a whole range of civil liberties — check
* meeting behind closed doors with corporate rapists, and excluding citizen victims from the discussion — check

Oh crap, where is Hugh with his list when I need him? But you get the idea.

It’s the Double Whammy of dashed expectations PLUS a huge list of bad things we never thought we’d see from Democrats that’s caused both the rapidity of the fall of Obama’s “popularity” and the intensity of the negativity.

OFA just emailed me asking for money. Wrong day for that, Bucko. I replied:

You must be joking.

I am so disappointed with the current state of the bill that I’m with Governor Dean: Kill this bill and start over.

Your administration has given away nearly every hard-won legislative gain, and has wound up with a bill so compromised that it’s nothing but a bailout of the insurance industry. Nothing to do with people’s health. Nothing to do with protecting ordinary Americans from poverty because of illness. Nothing to force insurance companies to cover everyone and actually pay out claims. Drug company profits have been locked in for no good reasons, at the cost of impoverishing the sick. Nothing to force competition on the insurance companies.

I will not support this.

I will not donate to D candidates who do.

Furthermore, I wil not vote for Barack Obama again unless he delivers on the promises he made in the 2008 campaign. He got my vote because of those promises.

He is breaking the deal and I will not accept it.

Who do you guys think you’re kidding anyway?

– Hmmm
Oakland, CA

Just out of curiosity, what are the best arguments for passing the current health care legislation?

“If we don’t pass this one, we’ll have to wait another fifteen years before Congress looks at it again.”

Defeat that bogus argument, and the rest will fall.

And the punchine is: It bounced!

This is the Spam Firewall at smtp.barackobama.com.

I’m sorry to inform you that the message below could not be delivered.
When delivery was attempted, the following error was returned.

: host
filterca02.rightnowtech.com[216.136.229.62] said: 550 No such user
(obamabiden@mailwc.custhelp.com) (in reply to RCPT TO command)
Reporting-MTA: dns; smtp.barackobama.com
Arrival-Date: Wed, 16 Dec 2009 16:34:35 -0600 (CST)

Final-Recipient: rfc822; obamabiden@mailwc.custhelp.com
Action: failed
Status: 5.0.0
Diagnostic-Code: X-Spam-Firewall; host
filterca02.rightnowtech.com[216.136.229.62] said: 550 No such user
(obamabiden@mailwc.custhelp.com) (in reply to RCPT TO command)

Wow! Lieberman gets thanked by the President, Baucus gets to stand behind the President on the dias yesterday, and Dean is irrational. I see the administration is a good judge of rationality, ie., rational men are sociopaths for money and power.

It seems to me if the bill is killed outright that means we keep the status quo. Isn’t that just what the health care industrial complex wants?

I don’t think so.

I think the current Senate bill is far, far better for insurance companies and drug companies than the status quo.

As Dean pointed out yesterday, the insurance companies wrote this bill. And I don’t think the reports of their high-fiving while shouting “we won” are all that exaggerated.

So, take them on a one by one basis and write law, but don’t give us a basket full of shit with effectively the same ‘taxation without representation’ in the form of a mandate, which gave this country it’s raison d’etre!

I think they are pining to test their newest crowd suppression / DARPA weened technologies.

Senator Snowe we have been witness to “decades of inaction” By the time we get an affordable health care system…the empire may have crumbled

We need a progressive candidate to run against our own Democratic President! Who wudda thunk it?

Crikey OFA is busy today. Wonder who is giving money and making calls?

Oh, yeah, that’s their MO: send us money; we refuse your input.

Go back to the OFA page and hit “unsubscribe.” Then a little box will come up wherein they’ll ask for “reasons.”

Cut-n-paste your magnificent letter.

BTW: I’ve taken to filling in a fake e-mail address when I do these unsubscribes. That way I get to hear from ‘em again and can “unsubscribe” + nasty comment again.

It WILL cover more people than are covered now (though nowhere near everyone and at a much too high a price, IMO).

Maybe that’s the Medicaid expansion and the subsidies, tho’ you can expect the subsidies to lag behind policy inflation and you can expect the government to rob something else to pay for the Medicaid expansion.

There are some better regulations on the insurance company. Such as disallowing the practice of rescinding (not renewing your policy after you’ve made a large claim), disallowing not paying based on pre-existing conditions, supposedly forcing them to pay more for actual health care as opposed to ads/lobbying/profits/exec salaries/etc. (though I’m still not sold it does what some have said it does).

Yeah, me neither. Look at 1) actual loopholes in the bill, 2) mandated penalties for noncompliance, 3) enforcement mechanisms.

It has some new requirements for preventive care being part of a standard policy that is good. There is (I think) some funding for some community health clinics in there (again I think).

All of which could be handled in a separate bill. Let’s kill this one!

At this point I’m hoping this will be President Obama’s Waterloo.

-G

Kill the Health Care Bill, Save 31 Million
seaclearly.wordpress.com

Partial Reality: Howard Dean: “This is essentially the collapse of health care reform in the United States Senate. Honestly the best thing to do right now is kill the Senate bill, go back to the House, start the reconciliation process, where you only need 51 votes and it would be a much simpler bill.”
Corporately-Compromised Response: Sen. Durbin: “I disagree with Dr. Dean. I think if he would sit back and look at 31 million Americans who would have health insurance as a result of this bill. How do you say to them: “‘Sorry you cannot have health insurance. We think this bill can be better.’”

Yes, “31 million [more] Americans would have health insurance” – because, as voiceless and powerless serfs, they would be Compelled into buying Private Policies. Right now, you could say to them: “Sorry you cannot have health insurance” – because you cannot Afford it. Yet, that’s not a problem with the Corporately sponsored Senators or Representatives. That’s your problem, “because, hey, [they’re solving] the health care crisis! Now, everyone will have health care!” No Single-Payer. No Public Option. Not even an allowance for people between 55 and 64 to buy into Medicare. No competition for private insurers. No re-importation of drugs from Canada (because of another secret White House deal with Big Pharma). Then, finally, Sen. “I can be bought, often” Lieberman and his allies can be pleased with the outcome. “Is This the Best We Can Do?” Again, no. But, now that a majority of the New Majority have revealed themselves for what they actually are, and who they really serve, we can take a step back and see more Truth of how the meek and their circumstances are regarded by the elite. Mantra: Kill the Health Care Bill, Save 31 Million. Kill the Health Care Bill, Save 31 Million.

Obama, like his predecessor, speaks only to the uneducated and ill informed. Shameful and insulting.

Brilliant. I want to have the opportunity to tell them off again too.

Did the same thing [used phone numbers OFA provided and "reported" that I asked both senators to vote against the Senate bill].

FWIW, Akaka’s office was really nasty and hung up on me. And I was a polite caller!

Oh, I’m in total agreement. I’ve been calling and emailing my Senators for two weeks begging them to kill it. I’m with ya!

This isn’t like 1994, Leen. People are far more pissed off now than they were then, and they know far better than they did then that the Republicans will not help them.

Don’t forget “thanks for voting for us, suckers!”

What a pathetic [souless] job it must be being a flack for a president like Obama. Out on the campaign trail your job is to explain why candidate Obama will change health care as we know it. Now your job is to explain why it still is.

As though absolutely nothing has changed at all!!!

Doesn’t Gibbs have a family, friends, loved ones who glare at him from time to time and demand to know why he lets himself be used like this.

Didn’t he follow the Scott McClellan fiasco duing Plamegate?

Please note: if I ever get that pathetic here, you all have my express permission to hunt me down and, among other things, ship me off to Dr. Kervorkian.

I was hoping for another Kennedy and we got another…well, I was gonna say Nixon, but he did get us out of a war…I was gonna say Johnson, but he did pass the Great Society programs…I was gonna say Truman, but he did integrate the military…who’s left?…has to be someone who was pro-military and a great orator who got elected to fix the economy…hmmmm…uh oh…another…I can’t say it…oh no…another…Reagan?
Ouch!

yes, dean is irrational – just like the rest of the voters who supported the Dims november 2008 and thought he really really truly was going to bring about change…

he’s a corporate lawyer… his CoS is a multimillionaire who, in nov 2006, made a concerted and self-trumpeted move to plug the Dims into the K Street lobby (yes the same one the Dims had spent much of the previous six years berating the repugs about…) and enjoy all that corporate money in order to stay in power…

meet the new boss… same as the old boss… we live in a single-party corporatocracy where the political class support the interests of their corporate masters at the expense of the other 99% of us…

Thanks for that. I called 6 Senators today, but did not follow the OfA script ; ) I can’t tell you how good it felt to tell them I chewed out both of my Senators for voting down the Dorgan amendment and then called another 4 asking them to get rid of the individual mandate or kill the bill. Yes indeedy, I enjoyed reporting those phone calls very much : )

It’s progressive, all right: It’s progressing us self-sovereign citizens back to serfs.

It’s progressing us back to the good ol’ days, when a man was the king of his castle and his wife was his property–until his overlord comes knocking for tribute and/or military service.

You’re familiar with droite de seigneur: the right of an overlord to take a bride’s virginity on her wedding night? Maybe Team ObamaRahma think screwing us is their god-given right.

The obscene Obama/Lieberman charade reeks of backroom deals between powerful men of so-called “nobility”–our corporate overlords and their princelings in government. Forget democracy, it’s our new corporatocracy. emptywheel has a superb synthesis, calling it “neo-feudalism.”

As background:

Feudalism–
term that emerged in the 17th century and has been used to describe European economic, legal, political, and social relationships that existed in the Middle Ages. Derived from the Latin word feudum (fief) but unknown to people of the Middle Ages, the term feudalism has been used most broadly to refer to medieval society as a whole and most narrowly to describe relations between lords and vassals. It also has been applied, often inappropriately, to non-Western societies where institutions similar to those of medieval Europe are thought to have existed. The many ways feudalism has been used have drained it of specific meaning, however, and caused some scholars to reject it as a useful concept for understanding medieval society.

Feudalism in its broadest sense has been understood as the entire interwoven fabric of medieval society. As described by Karl Marx and subsequent Marxist scholars, it is the stage in history that preceded capitalism and, as such, involved the entire social and economic structure of medieval Europe. Also known as manorialism or seignorialism, feudalism in this sense is a mode of agricultural production based on the relation between lords and the peasants who worked their own land and that of the lord. The peasants owed labour service to the lords, who provided military protection and also had extensive police, judicial, and other rights over the peasants. In this view, feudalism came to encompass all aspects of social organization and was characterized as a system that was both oppressive and hierarchical.

According to a narrower and more technical definition that is, nonetheless, more widely used, feudalism involves the exchange of allegiance for a grant of land (fief) between two people, usually men, of noble status. Although its roots have been traced to practices that existed in the Roman Empire and during the age of Charlemagne (742–814), feudalism thus defined may be said to have emerged in the 11th century. At that time, public authority broke down, traditional institutions were unable to maintain order, and private castles were built. During this so-called feudal anarchy, private relationships were established among the nobility in which weaker nobles attached themselves to stronger ones. To forge an alliance or settle a dispute, a fief was granted to the lesser noble in exchange for a vow of homage and service, often military. Feudalism was therefore a means to restore social order or at least limit the excesses that resulted from the collapse of public authority.

[Source: "Feudalism." Encyclopedia Britannica, Standard Edition. Chicago: 2008.]

“And other rights”–that’s rich. Among them, droite de seigneur. Now why wouldn’t ‘the Eeb’ mention that bit of relevant history?

Heard Snowe say that during the Senate hearing that I attended. What a an incredible hypocrite. She and her cronies stand in the way of moving forward for 40 million Americans to get on the health care bus.

I was trying to rub in the contradiction

double ouch

I’ll go with Dean any day. It’s Obama I’m finished with.

the media no longer practices journalism, corporations are more important than people, and enough Americans will remain ignorant, easily-manipulated authoritarians that nobody in power needs to actually do anything for the people anymore

Man, that about sums it all up, alright.

But:

The government still does more for the rest of us than either Wall Street or the more reationary Republicans want it to. That’s the danger. That these forces will come up with ways to shrink the safety nets even more.

And we really don’t know how far Obama Inc. will go to help them, do we?

Remember, it was Clinton “who changed welfare as we know it”; it was Clinton [and Rubin] who scuttled Glass-Steagall.

The DLC Democrats are Republicans. And both are deeply embedded in Bilderberg.

During summer of 2008 when the Independent From CT went to the R Party Convention in Saint Paul and pushed the knife in good and twisted it a few times for good measure on the Ds that was rational evidently.

It must have been rational because Barack Obama just left the knifing of the D Party done by Joe Depends Lieberman go unpunished and heck the D Party tripped over itself in WashingtonDC to give Joe Depends the chairmanship of Homeland and lots of political sway in D Party matters despite his knifing at the R Party Convention of D Party.

So along comes this Great Kabuki HCR which Barack Obama has clearly been gaming from the getgo to have it work out where it is here in December 2009 and despite several D Party hacks doing the dirty deeds to sabotage this HCR has not sent Gibbs out to maul them.

Joe Lieberman has been showboating and shouting “look at me!” for weeks now and as Glenn Greenwald puts it across home plate in his usual manner it is plain to see Lieberman is doing this to position HCR where Obama and his CoS SOB Emanuel wanted it from getgo.

Howard Dean may not be perfect but sending out Gibbs to maul him today while letting Joe Depends Lieberman cruise around the Capitol with his reptilian smile leading the way is the real reveal on Obama WH inside politics. Barack Obama tells Rahm Emanuel what to do. Its not the other way around. Or is it? Either way Gibbs shoots his mouth off in Obamas service.

Lieberman does not appear to be in crosshairs of Obama WH displeasure.Ever.

For those Obamabots who want to believe otherwise they really ought to get off the Kool Aid.

The blindness it produces is not becoming. Really.Is.Not.

You won’t find may, especially here, who would prefer McCain were prez. As bad as the economy is can you imagine how bleak our current situation would be with that knucklehead in the White House! Picture him with a Republican congress! As bad as Obama is, it could have been a lot worse.

Our government doesn’t exist to protect voters from interests, it exists to protect interests from voters.

That’s what conservative folks like George Will and David Brooks have been preaching for years. Beware the rabble in denim.

That’s the very impetus for the existence of the Bilderberg Group.

And Obama is an intellectual cut from the same patrician cloth.

I try very hard to remain logical and not give in to despair, yet all I can think today is that they won and we lost. On every front. There will be no meaningful health care reform, there will be continued deregulation. All corporations are free to attack us in any manner they please, and there will be nobody to defend us. Ironically the enormous amounts of money the corporations are spending to keep us desperate and in bondage have been extracted from the humble citizens of this country. Bernanke mentioned during his confirmation hearings that politicians can easily remedy all of our financial woes by simply repealing all entitlement programs, you know such as Medicare, Social Security, etc. The only comic relief if this happens might be the outrage of the teabaggers, when they realize they too have been betrayed. The small percentage of very rich people does not really need a middle class, all they need is enough people to act as their servants. Welcome to the age of total domination by the corporations.
My present plans include paying off my mortgage as rapidly as possible, stepping up my exercise program, consuming a healhtier diet, avoiding the doctor at all costs, and praying like hell that I don’t get sick. Happy New Year!

No kidding. Remember the fundamentals of the economy are strong?

If McCain had won we’d be talking about how the insurance company profits could be increased. Oh, wait…

Seriously, though, McCain would have put us deep into a depression and deliberately cut every safety net to insure nothing would impede the velocity of the fall.

As bad as Obama is, it could have been a lot worse.

Perhaps not. McCain had no entree to destroy the democratic party from within.

Just on EDshow, Ned fucking Lamont sounding just like another politician, compromised too soon?!

Such as disallowing the practice of rescinding (not renewing your policy after you’ve made a large claim), disallowing not paying based on pre-existing conditions,

But I hear the insurance companies will be allowed to charge those with preexisting conditions 2 or 3 or more times more. In other words, effectively eliminating them as unable to afford the coverage.

This is my concern with “improved regulations” like that. On paper it is an improvment while in reality down on the ground it’s just another con.

John Kerry, another top down Presidential Corporate Valet. Voted against Dorgan’s Pharma amendment. People, people – wake up already!!!

I suspect that progressives will become a much more powerful bloc after this trechery plays itself out.

When 8 years of Republicanism fails to deliver on the Corporate wish list; call in the Democrats

Bingo, that’s what I pointed out onanother FDL thread:

The voters have a plan:

1]

Vote the Democrats out of office…reelect the Republicans

2]

Vote the Republicans out of office…reelect the Democrats

3]

Vote the Democrats out of office…reelect the Republicans

4]

Vote the Republicans out of office…reeclect the Democrats.

This will stop when either a viable progressive party comes into existence or voters in the Democratic Party elect viable progressives to lead the party.

At 60, alas, I am almost certainly too old to ever encounter either one. For you younger folks, though, I’ll be pushing for you in the next life.

Well, if there is one, of course

From your lips to God’s ear :)

“If we don’t pass this one, we’ll have to wait another fifteen years before Congress looks at it again.”

Defeat that bogus argument, and the rest will fall

That’s true. The mainstream media [protecting their health care industry advertising profits] peddles this all the time. As though it were literally impossible to start over again on health care.

But starting over is only realistic if progressives can elect a Congress that will start over. Otherwise, everything really does stay the same.

A lot of “good” Senators (no, I’m NOT saying Kerry is one of the good ones) voted against it.

Here’s the reason, and I understand it, and frankly, it is a little harder choice IMO. I think I still would voted for it if I were Senator, but I can’t get as up in arms on this one as I can on all the other kabuki.

By voting against the Dorgan amendment, the PHARMA industry agreed to close the “donut hole” in the Medicare Part D program. This donut hole is real, and it is painful for those it hits.

By voting for the Dorgan amendment, all Americans would conceivably save lots of money on their prescription drugs BUT the donut hole would remain, meaning those very real old folks suffering that very real financial hardship would continue to.

It’s not quite as black and white as say…. SINGLE PAYER. IMO.

Obviously, the best of all worlds would be to just close the donut hole AND vote for the Dorgan amendment, but that would require billions more in public financing and we all know the President said he would not sign any bill that “added one dime to the deficit.” (One of many of his mistakes).

You’re super cool and quite young still. It will happen in your life time, because the bubble is by now out of their control – won’t be pretty when it pops, thou.

Thanks, mauimom, that’s exactly what I did. And it felt great.

Go read upstairs one level.

That was a false choice!! Don’t buy into such crap. The thing to do would have been to shut down the donut hole, and lower prices on Pharmaceuticals!

I think the current Senate bill is far, far better for insurance companies and drug companies than the status quo

Viscerally, I suspect this is true too. I just suspect in turn that progressives are so enraged at the whole charade of health care “reform” [and those that plotted it from the get-go], they are more interested in boiling them in oil than figuring out what the most realistic alternative is.

I know: whatever that means.

Which forces us to speculate: How realistic is this? Can it happen?

Is there a Eugene McCarthy out there in the Democratic ranks? Who?

And this is another war we are talking about. McCarthy went after Johnson on the war in Vietnam. We need a progressive who will go after Rahm Obamarman in the war against Wall Street.

Suzanne had a diary up with a link to send a message to the White House too, in which she sent a message and asked all of us to do the same. Last time I looked, several had. Maybe you (and Mauimom, and others) could go there and also send something.

I’m not sure they actually read the stuff we right, but I do feel somewhat certain they monitor the number of responses they get. Perhaps a concerted effort like the one Suzanne has going might get at least some attention.

Anyway, I didn’t link it (sorry, I have to go through hoops to be able to get into The Seminal and don’t feel like it right now), but the name of here Diary was “I want my vote back.” It’s worth a read even if you don’t want to also send a letter.

Obama, like his predecessor, speaks only to the uneducated and ill informed.

More dreary still, the uneducated and ill informed actually think they mean what they say.

And for those who don’t? Well, they actually think BeckWorld and Sarah Palin speak to [and for] them instead.

Jesus, is this a fucking nightmare or what!!!

Peerhaps this has been mentioned up thread, but this administration has a history of dissing Dean.

Especially when it comes to Rahm.

Yep, fish rots from the head.

WHY wasn’t Dean named head of DHS?

Senator Sherrod Brown is a man who has stood up for blue collar America for a very long time. We know Kucinich is the real deal. Few can come close.

“If we don’t pass it, here’s the guarantee,” Obama said. “Your premiums will go up, your employers are going to load up more costs on you … Potentially they’re going to drop your coverage, because they just can’t afford an increase of 25 percent, 30 percent in terms of the costs of providing health care to employees each and every year.”

I want to hear affirmative guarantees attending the passage: your premiums will not go up, etc…

they know far better than they do now that the Republicans will not help them

Even if this is true [a pox on the bullshit of both parties!!] what is their alternative?

Until progressives come up with candidates to fill that void, the void will be filled by more of the same, well, bullshit.

I just tried to call Barbera Boxers San Francisco office again to tell her to vote NO or lose my vote and support forever.

I couldn’t get a human. The recorded message says “due to the high volume of calls…” their messages are full.

In other words…she’s getting an earfull from the base and everyone’s in a rage about being sold out by the Dems.

I think any Dem who doesn’t run to join up with a Progressive caucus and VOTE Progressive…is toast next year.

I sorrowfully bid her my farewell in an email. Their tag-team tactics unsupportable!

Ha! Gibbs calling Dean “irrational” shows that he and the administration have just turned the Orwellian corner of truthiness and Newspeak.

Has anyone noticed how pale and drawn Obama, Summers, Gibbs, et al. look whenever they show up these days?

They look like a football team that is losing in a blow-out, and they are not even at the half!

Meanwhile, the other team (Lieberman, Baucus, Nelson) are smiling!

My dear sainted grandmother always told me to be very careful when pointing a finger because then you got three fingers pointing back at you!

So outlaw the immoral vampire health insurance companies and make their stupid profits go away, and with them all the perverse profit motives that distort the administration of medicine.

This white house has gone to great lengths to demoralize them same “Irrational” supporters who got their SELLOUT FOR SALE! asses into power. I’ve never seen a democratic administration so hostile to the very same people they claim to represent. It is truly, truly amazing. Furthermore, this president and his administration are so detached from reality to think that a year from now the base is going to rally around Democrats. My god, Obama like Bush is way in over his head.

I believe the current bill working its way in the senate is what the president wanted in the beginning. He had no intention to want a public option in any bill.

This is not something that I will be able to forget come election time. It is a betrayal of the progressive base that Dean represents.

It is uncalled for considering that they have NEVER stooped to that level against any one else who spoke against the reform bill. Not any Republican, not a DINA, no one.

And it is ungrateful. Had it not been for Dean and his 50-state strategy, Obama wouldn’t have super majorities in both houses and control of the White House.

I would seriously like to formally revoke my vote for Obama as President.

The WH must think that Obama can give us all another speech & we will all fall back into line & support this disgusting, (did i say disgusting?) bill.

The WH is now trying to spin this disaster-bill as just a platform upon which we, someday, can build real good reform. No, the time to deliver is NOW. NO public option, no more support. No expanded medicare buy-in, no more support. No real insurance & health-care industry reform, no more support.

Forget that tired old line, Dont let the perfect be the enemy of the good. How about this … the bad is the enemy of the good.

A lot of folks that Obama was the perfect…..

JH wrote:

“Hey, remember that time when Robert Gibbs called Joe Lieberman “irrational?”

Yeah, neither do I.”

In calling Dean irrational, Gibbs is claiming Dean is failing to take the appropriate means to his own ends. Dean’s end is to cover the uninsured, and Gibbs claims that this bill does that to a significant extent. I don’t agree with Gibbs, but you can see why it would be politically expedient for him to claim this.

On the other hand, nobody could seriously call Lieberman “irrational” in the same sense. Lieberman’s end is obviously to wreck healthcare reform entirely, and the means he has chosen toward that end seem to be succeeding quite effectively. Lieberman isn’t irrational, he’s just evil.

Robert Gibbs has become the new Tony Snow. He can go join Tony in hell.

Just got the an nifty little email from OFA asking me to call my senators to ask them to support this POS. They had a neat little “report your call” button that I pecked to tell them I called the CPC to ask them to vote this bill down.

http://advocacy.barackobama.com/healthcare/campaigns/16/call_scripts/42/call_sessions/new?district=CA06&postal_code=94903+&source=20091216_MS_B_DO

I just did the same, and it felt GOOD!!!!!!

Had it not been for Dean and his 50-state strategy, Obama wouldn’t have super majorities in both houses and control of the White House.

but then obama could have blamed everything on the republicans because there weren’t enough dems in congress. maybe obama holds dean responsible for the lack of plausible deniability?

Somehow more have to.

There are NO, cost controls in this bill. None. Nada. Nothing. Zip. Zilch. This is a throw the entire country in the deep freeze of debt and the rest can go bankrupt and be homeless and that’s what they get for being stupid and poor. /rant.

I am gonna buy insurance stock so that the dividends can pay for my mandatory insurance premiums.

Kill the Senate’s so-called Health Care Reform Bill and go to Reconciliation! Get rid of Lieberman, Gibbs, etc.

There is an incredible depth of despair, sadness, betrayal, and very tangible anger bubbling forth in many comments here at FDL and in many conversations we may have with friends and family. But although many folks offer supportive and inventive ways to deal with the total screwing we as citizens are receiving, I have not heard one single suggestion that seems to carry the somber weight of validity and clarity of purpose that will bring light at the end of this dismal tunnel.

I think a lot of us perhaps dreamed and ventured out on that proverbial cosmic limb to work our asses off and get this Obama Corporate Bot elected…internally denying the fact that perhaps he was not the real deal even if most of his cards were clearly on the table. Well here we are…Obama, Rahm, Reid, Pelosi, LIEberman…the whole cabal as REAL and frightening in their deception as that asshole Bush and his henchmen. So where do we go from here?

If a revolution of some form is the elixir to elevate the pain…HOW? WHAT? and WHEN? I personally think we have been so mesmerized by the banal stupidity of how this country operates while we have been spoonfed so much bullshit, that we are incapable of staging a fight or a revolution. Sorry to say…I think we will just turn over and go back to sleep until the CORPORATE prison keepers are knocking at our door…hauling us to the gulag for not bending over far enough!

Negative and depressing…HELL yeah…but let’s talk solutions, not pipedreams! I am too sedated with disappointment to think of any!

It’s easy to blame Rahm, but don’t forget he works for POTUS, not the other way around. We should have realized how bad Obama was on this when he tried to install slimeball Tom Daschle as Health and Human Services Secretary. Glennzilla posted a good analysis of this today, showing how this is exactly the bill Obama wanted. OK, maybe it’s Rahm advising him on this, but he moved to the far right as soon as he was inaugurated (see DOJ state secrets lawsuits). He’s doing this to both increase executive power and get more money from the Health Denial industry for the Democratic Party.

Unfortunately this probably means the Republicans will get a majority in both houses (maybe even 60 in the Senate?) and maybe the Presidency as well in 2012.

That’s exactly right and was the first thought in my head when I read (and later heard) Gibbs insulting remarks (“no rational person”) aimed at Howard Dean. They want to marginalize Dr. Dean. And Chris Matthews set out to help them do that today.

Dean is a lot of things but irrational is not on the list. I’d love to get a chance to support Dr. Dean for president again. How about 2012?

Frankly, they are scared to death of Howard Dean. And that’s why they are trying to destroy him like they did in 2004.