Kucinich as Nader
Is Dennis Kucinich about to become the Ralph Nader of health care reform? This is how one political website is spinning it. A solitary progressive Congressman threatens to stand up for progressive values on health care, and he gets tagged with the Nader label. Well, the joke's on them. Some of us consider that one a badge of honor Kucinich can wear with pride. What I wouldn't give for a chamber full of Ralph Naders in the Congress.Blue Dogs can pitch their fits over "socialized medicine," federal funding for abortions, or pork funding for their home districts, but the White House is intent on caressing and cajoling them. It's the progressives that get labeled "fucking retards" by the president's chief of staff, and single-payer advocates that get called "extremists" by the president himself. Lord and Lady Progressive, this is what your Democratic party thinks of you.
Kucinich is liable to become the most dangerous man in Congress now. The liberal who threatens not to fall in line? There's no precedent for this during President Obama's term, and the media in Washington has no idea what to do the information. The Ohio Congressman is burning down their preferred Democrat-vs.-Republican narrative structure. What the hell do we do now that the liberals are protesting? We've been using the word "socialism" to describe a billion-dollar forced purchase of private insurance so this development is really going to confuse our news consumers. We've gotta find a way to dumb this thing.... RALPH NADER!!! That's it. Kucinich is Ralph Nader. That'll do.
The White House might now be forced to... gasp... negotiate with Kucinich. Compromising with a progressive Congressman who stands on the side of the majority of Americans-- it's complicated and time-consuming enough to bend over for a Republican ass-fuck on every line item of the bill and still try to maintain some public dignity. Now we've gotta worry about our base too, the people who put us in office?! It's as if some people out there are unwilling to back a health care bill-- any bill imaginable, regardless of how heinous-- just so that we can declare a political victory.
---
In addition to being America's most important political reporter, Rolling Stone's Matt Taibbi is also a crack sports columnist. Exhibit A is this article from Men's Journal about the great narcissists in the athletic world. Can you think of anybody big he forgot besides Curt Schilling and Lenny Dykstra?
---
That's some 'Lost'-type shit there: The earthquake that rocked Chile a week ago caused the Earth's axis to shift three inches. People react.
posted by CM @ 4:36 PM
4 Comments:
"It's complicated and time-consuming enough to bend over for a Republican ass-fuck on every line item of the bill and still try to maintain some public dignity."
So anal sex = lack of dignity? If you're really trying to be progressive, nix the homophobia. Italics don't diminish your responsibility for the tone.
I labored over that tone-- buttfucking analogy and all. I'm trying to keep this narrow, dank alley of the web distanced from the safe, inoffensive middle ground of the current American debate.
Believe it when I say it matters more to me that our purportedly-progressive chief executive publicly states that "marriage is between a man and a woman" than it does that another dude, maybe a Republican, maybe even one of their higher-ups, might be telling a "fag" joke in a locker room somewhere, or some other such social discourtesy.
We live in a political climate increasingly overrun by superficial outrage. It's deadening our ability to see the big picture just as the commentators and the politicos are counting on us NOT to see the big picture. Eye on the ball.
Language often is the ball. And the big picture.
Fair enough.
Post a Comment
<< Home