SeriousBlack's Comments (1085)

“Excellent post, Roey. Absorbing, informative and insightful.”

“Good observation - and, I THOUGHT Obama was really smart. If he really is that smart, how can he not see that he could come out looking like a hero in all of this really easily... All he has to do is determine the (at least) 51 senators who would vote for this, call them all into the white house for a meeting, have them guarantee that they would in fact do so (with Reid presiding), then hold a press conference in which he says, "ok, here's what we're going to do to provide quality health insurance coverage to every American AND drive down costs through competition... yadda yadda yadda...", then have Reid conduct the vote and sign it into law. DONE.

Bam. Obama the savior and hero.

Heavy sigh.”

“"And we don't have a public health system because?"

Because conservatives and Republicans are misguided, ideology-over-reality idiots. That's why.

No sane person can read a concise, cogent article like this and be on their side of the issue. (The operative term being "sane".)”

“"It's estimated that the bonus pool of just one of these big banks would have been enough money to prevent or significantly delay foreclosure for all 2.3 million people who lost their homes last year."

Pretty sick, huh? And I get static for talking about how much I worry about the FUTURE of our country.

THIS is the country we ARE. LIVING. IN.

Heavy sigh.”

“I'm beginning to think that it is the psychological phenomenon known as denial. They simply can't wrap their minds around the epic fail that is coming down the tracks at them, gaining steam every day. Heavy sigh.”

“LOL - Singing "Ironic" by Alanis Morissette... Pretty mindblowing, eh?”

“I don't think it will happen within a few years, but I do worry about it (SEVERE civil unrest, maybe even violent revolution) being a real possibility within a few decades.

I mean, if even after electing someone like Obama and having majorities in both houses of Congress, the most serious problems of our society cannot be addressed in any significant way (the subject of Les Leopold's blog; health care reform; Afghanistan; the economy; corruption in government; immigration and race relations; the tendency of conservatives to become ever-more-extreme psychotic, torturing nutcases; etc. etc.), then all I see is slow but steady decline of our country and our way of life until conditions are no better than a banana republic. At which point the violence will begin and our country will be history.

I hate to say it but having grown up in the 60's and 70's, the United States is already almost unrecognizable to me after the damage the Bush administration did. I had glimmers of hope that Obama and the Democrats could bring us back from the brink, but... we can all see how THAT'S workin' out. At least so far...”

“I agree with everything you say, Les.

However, trying to propose that "wealth redistribution" is what should happen makes it dead in the water. Even just uttering the phrase makes about 30% of the population go bonkers (and if recent history is any guide, there will evidently always be at least another 21% of the population that are either too stupid or uninformed to resist the bonker-ness (with the possible exception of Obama being elected).

So, like the health care reform debacle and the Afghanistan debacle, it is becoming apparent that we are all, in fact, screwed.

How sad that the 30-to-40% of us on the progressive/liberal/left that have a grasp on reality and can see the truth, can only stand by and fret while Rome burns (i.e., while the United States slowly disintegrates because of stupidity, inertia, greed and corruption).

I suspect that the way we feel is like the minority of the population on Easter Island who at some point had surely figured out that cutting down all the trees to use in rolling huge religious stone statues down to the water's edge was slowly destroying the ecology of the island's environment and would eventually kill them all, but whose protestations fell on deaf ears.”

“Not a bad idea and very innovative!”

“"We've got to build a new economy on a strong foundation of basic investment in education and training, in 21st century infrastructure, and in research and development"

Robert, you left out some other very important things: (1) Rebuild the manufacturing base (of ALL things manufactured, not just certain things), (2) Junk "free trade" and establish strict tariffs, (3) put INTO LAW extensive and strictly-enforced BUY AMERICAN laws on at LEAST all federal, state and local governments, (4) Campaign finance reform, (5) Revoke the ludicrous corporations-have-the-same-rights-as-persons krapola.

THEN, in conjunction with the other good points you bring up, we might have a chance in the long term. Without most of these, I doubt that the United States will be in much better shape 20 or 30 years from now than we are now.”

“"For those of you who want one payer or socialized medicine (same thing), please live in one of those other countries that have it for a while. I have. The US health care system by far and away beats those other systems."

Right - and I lived on Mars for a few years.”

“It is just too easy to pick off your arguments.

There are PER.CEN.TA.GES, and there are AB.SO.LUTE numbers.

Makes a bit of a difference when you consider one or the other.

I.E., if 15% of Americans DON'T have health insurance, that seems like, oh, such a SMALL number, hunh?

Only problem is, in absolute numbers, that's TENS. OF. MILLIONS. of Americans.

And apparently you have no problem with a society in which TENS OF MILLIONS of its citizens can't get access to health care.

Sumpn' wrong with that picture, hoss.”

“A. And if you don't live in a state like that? Tell us how many states do. Then tell us if it makes sense that everyone in the United States can move to the states (AND find jobs in them).

B. Getting your freakin' car repaired is not the same thing as people's HEALTH. If you can't see a basic point like that there's something wrong.

Your many attempts at putting out these isolated arguments, none of which hold up to much scrutiny, are a waste of your time.”

“What a ridiculous point. Oh, ***I*** just happened to work for companies with health plans that didn't have pre-existing condition clauses (a litle hard to believe you've had 5 different health plans without them, btw).

And if you canNOT find another job with a health plan like that? AND you have a pre-existing condition?

THEN. WHAT?

Try making some logical sense in your posts instead of regurgitating ideologically-driven nonsense.”

“Please send more money than you can afford to the private insurance companies. Let THEM decide who gets what. Great idea.

Figure it out, man.”

“Arianna. Chill.

While almost everything you say may be true, you are overlooking the fact that if Joe Biden were to actually resign, the resignation in and of itself would be so harmful to Obama's administration (not the least of which would be how it would allow the right to claim even more rabidly, the de-legitimization of his administration) that that would FAR outweigh any "point" that might have been made by the resignation.

For pete's sake.”

“Okaaaaaaay... But still, in our current health care system, what "option" or choice does DFranz have when his Cobra runs out if he is still unemployed? Hmmm?”

“Oh - And masterful job of regurgitating red herring and strawman arguments, by the way.”

“Is the CURRENT health care system the health care system YOU want?

A simple yes or no will suffice.”

“Cute Steven, but not harsh or accurate enough.

Traitors.

And for the righties who squawk at that, are you really gonna try and tell me that if Dallas had been up for the Olympics during Bush's administration and liberals had exulted in Bush's failure to make that happen, that that is not what YOU would have been calling THEM?

Really?”

“Great column Chris - I just have to quibble with one thing that a lot of people (including you) have gotten wrong, though.

Grayson did not compare the 44+ thousand people dying each year due to lack of health insurance to THE holocaust. He said it was A holocaust.

Come on people, use your brains. I'm getting so tired of the dumbification in the media of so many issues that have nuances.

It is possible for someone to use the word holocaust in the way it is defined in a generic sense in the dictionary. Reference: http://www.thefreedictionary.com/holocaust definition one.

The term first appeared in Middle English in the 14th century. So, it obviously wasn't referring to World War II's event called THE Holocaust from the 14th century to the 1930's, correct?

For anyone to think that Grayson, a Jew himself, was consciously and purposely comparing the 44+ thousand people dying each year due to lack of health insurance to THE holocaust, is disingenuous and only serves as desperate attempt to deflect, in ANY pathetic way, attention from the debacle that is the current American health care system and the fact that the Republicans have NO answers NOR desire to help the American people.”

“"... how do we ensure that it yields change for the better?"

Very simple. Ignore Republicans.”

“Pretty desperate debating tactics to have to go all the way back to the 1970's.

Imagine people in 1929 debating their economic problems and one of the debaters saying, "but... but.. but in the 1890's blah blah blah!"

Come on now.”

“All conservatives are capable of understanding are absolutist ideologies.”

“Kindly point out to me where Michael Moore says anything about "collective ownership".

That's what I thought.”