WoodyCPM's Comments (373)

“I see the Obama cultists have arrived here. Did you people even read Westen's piece. You're the ones who need to wake up.”

“Oh no, don't tell them. Let them find out on their own.”

“So you admit then do you that the majority of Americans have no morals.”

“Says who?”

“they all swear that. They've been swearing that since Andrew Jackson was Pres.”

“My comment was not intended as a criticism of YOUR ability to separate fact from fiction. It was aimed at those who insist they're the same thing because that's what they want to believe. But stepping in this stuff is like stepping in *#)($)#. If you can find the pony in that, then go for it.”

“It is hardly possible to separate a fact from an opinion or a feeling about this subject. Usually, there's nothing but feeling. The facts are, well, inconvenient to a discussion about this kind of behavior. We don't care about no stinkin' facts, we want somebody's head on a platter.”

“Good luck with trying to interject rational thought into this discussion. I realized a long time ago that it is impossible in the United States to have a grown up conversation about sexuality with regard to adolescents, particularly if one of the partners is older than the adolescent. It does not matter the context, the surrounding issues, the emotional realities, the cultural assumptions, even lord help us the facts, let alone any actual long term impact, nothing, absolutely nothing is allowed to mitigate or interfere with the moralists crusade to judge and punish. This is one of those things that makes human beings come completely unhinged and start to react in a totally mindless, lizard brain way. It is one of those sure fire things that allows people to fully exercise their self-righteousness, their ego needs for the purest unrestrained moral condemnations and judgment. The feelings of the highest moral purity are stoked to the max with this subject. People LOVE this stuff, all the while insisting they hate it because of the emotional payoff for them in reviling and genuinely despising another human being with complete social approval. The objective is to pile on. Absolutely nothing else in the human pantheon of human failings and frailties comes close.

Watch, now, as I'm attacked as an apologist for child rape. One, two....
The complete lack of any comment about Polanski's behavior one way or the other in my comment will be taken as an endorsement of it.”

“No, you are mixing two topics. Cars and people. We're talking about health. Your health care providers, insurers and practioners should all be called into service in getting and keeping you healthy. If you're a smoker, it's in the interest of the insurance company to help you quit. If you're an alcoholic or drug addict, it's in the interest of the insurance company to help you get sober. We should stop using the health care system to punish people for being flesh and blood. That you might go through life without ever having to deal with addiction, or obesity, does not make you morally superior. It make you lucky, especially since a genetic component has been found to influence who becomes addicted to some substances and who doesn't. But sooner or later, even without that, nearly everyone is going to experience some kind of illness, which can come in all kinds of unforseen ways. Some people have been able to smoke into their eighties and still not get sick from it. Some people who have never smoked, or never been addicted to anything have heart attacks at a young age or develop cancer. I'm not advocating that people smoke, but illness is not as clear cut as you would have it. There are any number of communicable diseases that, given your logic, an insurance company could argue was caused by your choices.”

“I agree, but short of riots in the streets, and I'm not kidding, short of that, we won't get universal, single payer health care in the United States for a very, very long time yet.”

“People are not cars. You buy car insurance in case something happens. You should be able to have your HEALTH insurance HELP you maintain your health so that you stay healthier longer and therefore end up costing less to the insurance industry over time.”

“Dr. Angell, is it possible that the legislation will be revisited over and over again for tweaking and fine tuning as its full impact becomes obvious? Once it's signed into law, there will be an army of analysts pouring over every comma of it. Even before it's due to take effect, won't we be able to fix it? What we are ending up with is exactly what I feared last year when it was first put forth in the presidential campaign. I said then that we'd end up with a Rube Goldberg system that no one could understand but that was aimed at further enriching the insurance industry.”

“That's absurd. We don't have debtors' prison in the U.S.”

“You're exactly right. One of the reasons that the Republicans won big in VA and NJ was that the Democratic base collapsed. They're dispirited by the way things are going. The Obama Administration has paid way to much attention to helping the banks and not enough attention helping workers and middle class people. I want this health care thing settled. I want to see it passed and then fixed later with new legislation. But it needs to get wrapped up. We've had enough debate about it. Then I want to see what the Obama Administration turns to then. They've got a long laundry list of things that are still waiting to be cleaned up from the Bush years: the environment, banking regulations, ending the wars, retooling the national security state to intelligently protect against any would be terrorists, closing the secret prisons, ending the unlimited power of the Executive, gay civil rights.”

“Sources, please. You seem to have masked a lot of caveats with your "(and lots of statistics)" parenthetical statement. What's in that?”

“The study was corrected for those factors you name. The changes that are being legislated to our health care delivery system do not amount to a "government run health care" system. That is the bogus argument from the critics of health care reform. The right is all for government so long as the policies are in favor of business to exploit workers and pollute the environment, and support the military in whatever boondoogle and wasteful spending they can find to engage in no matter how ultimately harmful it is to the country. They also want the government to use its power to block women's access to abortion rights and prevent gay people from marrying the person they love. That's the kind of society that the right wing has brought us. Whenever the government turns its hand toward helping common, ordinary working class and middle class citizens, the right starts its smear and obstructionist campaign against the government as being incapable of ever doing anything right.”

“Why can't we get any action? Because the People are not in control. The banks are. Which is what Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln warned against.”

“We should keep up the fight to get the best bill we can, but we're not likely to get everything we want. Hopefully this legislation can be amended after the next election to improve it before it goes into effect. We'll need to work harder to elect more progressive Independents, Greens and Democrats.”

“Hopefully you turn out to be right about staying in power long enough to fix what's wrong with this legislation. Let me point out that the final bill has not been voted on yet, so your scolding Jane about being wrong is a bit premature. The public option can still be stripped out of the final bill. It ain't over till the bill is on the President's desk. We're not there yet. Maybe in another month.”

“Please stop. You're are confusing the wingnuts with the facts. Their heads will explode.”

“As I gaze into my crystal ball, I see the big banks continuing to get bigger while Congress continues to slither and squirm and hedge and hem and haw and hum the banker's tune. "Money! It's a gas!" Nothing fundamental or necessary will happen until there is more pain among the general public. We'll need another meltdown, a bigger one, we'll need unemployment at 20-30%, we'll need a teetotal, died-in-the-wool, certified DEpression announced on CNN before we get any meaningful movement toward reigning in the banks. To be sure there are and will be those who will put up a fight and a fuss about what's happened and there will be calls for reform and rumblings and recriminations bouncing around Congress, but the gas will seep slowly out of the balloon from fatigue and boredom and the whole reform "movement" will end with a thud. Congress, and the people, are so corrupt, that it will take a 10.00 earthquake to shake the sleaze and slime from the body politic before anything changes, much. We will continue to have 9-10% unemployment for a long, long time to the point where it will eventually become tolerated and accepted as to what is expected in any "free" economy. The bankers will get their hired help in the Congress and the Universities and on TV to peddle the new propaganda about it and soon enough the sheeple will come to accept it.”

“And then he went out the door and the era of civil rights and equality for all went out with him. Vietnam ruined not just Vietnam, it ruined us too. We've never gotten it back. The rich and the right took over and for forty years have walked all over the good things that LBJ did. No one remembers that about LBJ, what we remember is how colossally wrong he and his advisors were about Vietnam. All the wasted lives and all the wasted resources and we didn't have squat to show for it. Afghanistan is a repeat.”

“Americans have no wit Arianna. All these earnest dissenters to your tongue in cheek advice to the VP....Americans have no wit. None.”

“The unions in Europe are still very strong. The workers are not afraid to go on strike if the government doesn't pay attention to their needs. If that fails, the workers, i.e. The People, are not afraid to take to the streets. They throw a fit. Governments can be and have been brought down in Europe by the workers demanding change. The workers in Europe understand where they are in the stream of the economy and what realistically they can expect to achieve in their lifetimes. But they will not tolerate the wealthy, through the government, exploiting their labor and wealth and leaving them destitute. Not like here in America, where we can not worship the wealthy enough.”

“The Unions in America are weaker than the Teabaggers right now. They have no power. They represent only a fraction of the workforce. This is primarily due to the systematic neutering by the union bosses of the democratic socialist spirit and language from the union movement. Those who truly championed the interests of working people were demonized and shunned and hounded out of the union movement. Then there was no longer a movement, there was only union membership dues. And then Reagan came along and smashed what was left of them.”