Friday, August 07, 2009

Remember Grant Park? It was Not a Mirage; it was a True Turning from Death to Life, That is Why We are Engulfed by Rising Madness & Deepening Menace

To talk about these town hall events as some organic outpouring of average American folks who have concerns about health care is to be willfully blind as to what is really going on-which is professional P.R. operatives generating exploitive, manufactured, strategically deployed outrage in order to line their own pockets. These P.R. spinmeisters get paid a lot of money for doing it. The corporations they work for get to kill legislation that would hurt their profits. ...
This is professional, corporate-funded, Republican staffed P.R., and it should be reported as such.
Rachel Maddow, Rachel Maddow Show, 8-5-09

I warn you all ... Every poll, every analysis, every vote, every region of this country supports health care reform, and the essential great leveling agent of a government-funded alternative to the unchecked duopoly of profiteering private insurance corporations. Cross us all at your peril.
Because, Rep. Ross, you are not the Representative from Blue Cross.
And Mr. Baucus, you are not the Senator from Schering-Plough Global Health Care even if they have already given you $76,000 towards your re-election. And Ms. Lincoln, you are not the Senator from DaVita Dialysis.
Keith Olbermann, Special Comment, MSNBC Countdown, 8-4-09

We do not live in a functioning democracy - republican, direct, or otherwise ... Right now, we're watching six U.S. senators (from some of the most sparsely populated states) and seven Commerce Committee Blue Dog Democrats hijack the health care debate. Together, these 13 tyrants represent just 13 million people - or 4 percent of the total population. And they are obstructing a health care bill for the other 300 million of us. David Sirota, Health Care's 13 Tyrants, Huffington Post, 7-31-09

Remember Grant Park? It was Not a Mirage; it was a True Turning from Death to Life, That is Why We are Engulfed by Rising Madness & Deepening Menace

By Richard Power


Yes, six months into the journey, the election night celebration in Grant Park seems very far away, and sometimes it even seems as if it was a mirage. But it wasn't.

Like many of you, I am unhappy with some of what Barack Obama has done and much of what Barack Obama has not done. But I think I understand where he is and what he is doing. He is not playing chess, or basketball, he is playing poker. And he is a very good poker player. We shall see sooner than later if he is good enough to win while playing against a house that has marked the cards.

In the last few days there have been two events of profound existential meaning that bode well for the future, in spite of the fierce struggle ahead.

A "wise Latina" has ascended to SCOTUS.

And in the process, the tragedy of John McCain deepened; the man who chose Sarah Palin to run for Vice- President of the United States, voted against Sonia Sotomayor. Pathetic. A once intriguing politician who drank the kool-aid too late. Yes, Karl Rove did break him in South Carolina in 2000.

And within the same news cycle, we learned that unlike McCain's legend which has been swallowed up in the Jonestown of the Cult formerly known as the Republican Party, the legend of Bill Clinton has a lot of life left in it.

With his high-stakes humanitarian mission to the Hermit Kingdom to bring Laura Ling and Euna Lee home, Bill Clinton has reminded us that there is more to Achilles than his heel. (Do you remember the origin of the phrase, "Achilles' Heel"? It is, after all, not about weakness; it is about strength. Achilles' mother, the Goddess Thetis, dipped him into the River Styx to give him immortality, except that she held him by the heel of one foot, and so that one small area of his physical body was still vulnerable to attack; i.e., he was otherwise invincible in battle.)

Meanwhile, the toxic sludge that has been poured into the open fields and flowing rivers of our national psyche for thirty years has yielded a bitter fruit -- an ugly, roving mutant mob terrified of its own shadow; a shadow, which, of course, it is projecting wildly on all those it encounters.

Consider some headlines from just the last several days:

Video: As freed journalists return Dick Morris tells them they should have stayed in North Korea

Inspired By Glenn Beck, Protesters Overwhelm Town Hall Meeting With ‘Cat Calls’ And ‘Banging On Windows’

Beck Jokes About ‘Military Tribunals For All Those Currently Serving In Washington’

VIDEO: Right-Wing Rage Cultivated At McCain-Palin Rallies Being Harnessed To Oppose Obama’s Agenda Today

Cornyn: GOP ready to capitalize on Americans’ ‘fear’ and ‘anger’ in the 2010 elections.

Crowd laughs and applauds at Rep. Akin’s comment about lawmakers almost being ‘lynched’ at town halls.

Poll: Plurality of Republicans want more media coverage of President Obama’s birth certificate.

Rep. Perriello: Coal Fraudster Impersonated Women’s And Seniors’ Groups As Well

Grassley Uses Kennedy’s Brain Tumor To Spread Fear Of Rationing

Barack Obama faces 30 death threats a day, stretching US Secret Service

If Obama as President and Pelosi as House Speaker did not indeed embody meaningful change the resistance to their agenda would not be so vociferous or so desperate.

Keep moving forward. Keep your eyes open, especially the ones at the back of your head.

Here are three important video clips. View them if you have not already done so, and share them with those among your friends who need some perspective on where we are and what is going on here.

NOTE: If you are reading this post via the The Latest from Words of Power e-mail newsletter, click on the hot links, but if you are viewing this post on the blog itself, just click on the embedded videos.

Laura Ling speaks after being freed from North Korean prison



Rachel Maddow: Big Money Pulling the Strings of Protests



Keith Olbermann Special Comment On Health Care Reform



See Also

While the Economic Royalists, & Their Enforcers in Politics & Media, Live the High Life, Will "We, the People" Fade into Oblivion?

A Call for Unity -- Strong, Loud, Pushy, Relentless, Quarrelsome Unity; Make No Mistake -- They are Still "Hunting the President"

While the G-8 Stumbles, Weak & Conflicted, There is Clarity on the Streets of Tehran & in the Minds of James Hansen, Jane Hamsher & Joe Stiglitz

From Darfur, West Virginia, Downtown Jakarta, California & the Congo -- a Collective Cry for Freedom on Independence Day 2009

Richard Power's Left-Handed Security: Overcoming Fear, Greed & Ignorance in This Era of Global Crisis is available now! Click here for more information.

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