Who Is IOZ?: Occam's Butter Kife

Monday, September 07, 2009

Occam's Butter Kife

I admit, if you think that Democrats want to reform health care in America, it is all very confusing.

32 comments:

NutellaonToast said...: I think some of them do and some of them don't and that their actions might not even reflect this or that desire due to political circumstances.

Whoops, I mean "they're all craven evil people!" I mean, look at a guy like Al Franken, who clearly has spent his entire career sucking up to corporate interests and clawing his way up to the top, one ass kiss at a time!

Yeah, reductionism!

PS. Yes, I should say the same thing when people attack "conservatives."; 12:33 PM
Anonymous said...: Kife?; 1:02 PM
Anonymous said...: Oh, and way to go, NazionToast -- now here comes Dennis Perrin to tell us about what a demented fucklord Franken was behind the scenes on SNL.; 1:06 PM
The Promiscuous Reader said...: NutToast ... let's see, that's right, you are the brain-damaged one, aren't you?; 2:25 PM
Jim said...: Well of course the Dems want to reform health care. They just don't want to change anything about it.; 2:36 PM
nony said...: You're not dealing with morons here.; 2:39 PM
mtraven said...: I think we can assume that Democrats, if they can be said to want anything, want to be re-elected. The linked-to post is pointing out that the current trajectory of the health reform debate is likely to interfere with that primary goal. Maybe that's not true, but it doesn't have much to do with what "Democrats want".; 5:31 PM
drip said...: They do want to be re-elected and their behavior will not interfere with that because the changes that they make to the healthcare system will enrich their clients or constituents or overlords or whatevet the fuck they call the people that give them money.

And Toast, if Al Franken is not a craven evil person, he is going to feel very lonley.; 5:51 PM
Christopher M. said...: The Democratic Party's priority, as an institution, is to pass a bill that primarily serves to reward, protect and sustain their backers in the for-profit health care industry, but which they can simultaneously dress up with the vague label of "reform." This is why for years they've been telling their base to give up on single payer, and proposing various ungainly Rube Goldberg plans to extend insurance coverage while maintaining the massively-subsidized private insurance industry that feeds their campaign coffers.

This is also why Democratic Party mouthpieces like Matt Yglesias and Ezra Klein have been working overtime for the past month or so to explain to their readership why the public option, once championed by these same writers as the most incredible innovation since anal sex, is suddenly superfluous. Keep in mind that the plan that included the public option was itself an incredibly conservative, watered-down corporate giveaway - and what we're now being asked to applaud is considerably more vile than that.

People like Atrios and Josh Marshall have internalized the notion that all Democrats have to do is get tougher, because their real problem is that they keep caving in on the things they believe in. It doesn't even seem to occur to them that this plan - this atrocity that "solves" the health care crisis by mandating those too poor to afford health care to sign up with Blue Cross and Blue Shield - is exactly what Obama wanted all along.; 6:04 PM
Anonymous said...: I think we can assume that Democrats, if they can be said to want anything, want to be re-elected.

Which is pretty much all we need to know. Why do you think that scag Pelosi took the Constitutional impeachment mechanism "off the table"? The Dems couldn't have asked for a better foil than the Bush/Cheney gangster syndicate -- why let a little thing like "rule of law" interfere with the practically certain '08 sweep?

Nobody has summarized the Dems' entire governing philosophy more succinctly than that great American, Dick Cheney: "It's our turn."

On the flip side, if I were a politically active anti-abortion type, I might wonder what the hell I have to show for several decades of fealty to the "Party of Values". The "holocaust" of abortions doesn't seem to have been banished from these shores...
-- sglover; 7:48 PM
Kafka said...: I'm afraid IOZ is right

Aging Boomers have their SS, Medicare and Prescription Drug Benefit. They're showing up at town halls to say there just isn't enough left over for everyone else (they just say it with toothbrush mustaches). What a shitty generation. They had their fun with sex and drugs and my generation gets Crack and AIDS. The tyranny of the majority...; 8:13 PM
Jim Wetzel said...: "On the flip side, if I were a politically active anti-abortion type, I might wonder what the hell I have to show for several decades of fealty to the "Party of Values". The "holocaust" of abortions doesn't seem to have been banished from these shores ... "

Sglover, that's me, and I did indeed start wondering exactly that, back around 1990. Haven't voted 'pubbie since. Spent a dozen years or so tossing votes to libertarians as a harmless way of getting rid of them, then realized that voting is, in fact, a really, truly, pathetically bad idea.; 9:46 PM
Anonymous said...: So, apparently the response of Keith Olbermann and others at Daily Kos to Van Jones being forced to resign is to... go after Glenn Beck?

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/9/6/777880/-Send-Me-Everything-You-Can-Find-About-Glenn-Beck

What is this supposed to accomplish exactly? Even if they somehow get him fired won't Hannity or someone else lead the charge next time?; 10:35 PM
Christopher said...: I say this to my dad all the time; it's getting hard to see any explanation for the actions of the Democratic party other then that they just don't want to fix health care.

On the other hand, a while ago I remember a while back reading an article on the Palestinian elections we held, where somebody said, essentially, "we told the Bush administration that if we had an election now Hamas would win, but they didn't seem to listen. We started to think that they must have some reason for wanting Hamas in power".

For a long time I also thought that the Bush administration must be good at something, must have some hidden reason for the seemingly stupid things they did, but eventually I just had to accept that they were, in fact, just a bunch of dicks.

So what I'm saying is that it's also slightly possible that the Democratic Party is just criminally incompetent.; 12:53 AM
Enron said...: Or maybe the way things are are the way they want things to be.; 1:26 AM
mtraven said...: I thought the prevailing tone over here was a knowing cynicism, yet you're upset that politicians want to get re-elected? I am confused.

To repeat, all Atrios is doing is trying to hold the politician's feet to the presumed electoral fire. Perhaps he's naive to think he'll succeed, but I can't see anything wrong with making the effort. Beats smirking.

This post started out with the notion that there is something that "Democrats" "want". That, to me, sounds naive. There are thousands of Democratic politicians and they all want all sorts of things. They got elected, for the most part, because they are willing to put the necessities of office-seeking over and above whatever their personal wishes might be. That's just the way the world works. The good ones know how to turn their idealized wants into some form of reality, usually involving painful negotiation and compromise.

Since most of them are not that good, it is the job of the actvists and electorate to convince them that doing the right thing is also in their self-interest.

Many commentators here seem disappointed that their representatives are not crusading moral heroes. Now, THAT's naive.; 1:53 AM
Christopher said...: This post started out with the notion that there is something that "Democrats" "want". That, to me, sounds naive. There are thousands of Democratic politicians and they all want all sorts of things.

You're the second person in this thread to say this, that there are so many Democrats with so many differing needs that you just can't generalize about them.

I'm sorry, but, why not?

The term "Democrat" is not some arbitrary label that Ioz invented; it's an actual group with members who identify themselves as such. I always thought they called themselves "Democrats" to indicate something of their political beliefs.

If Democratic politicians have nothing in common, if the party has no ideals and no political goals, then what on earth is the point of it? Why even have it?; 2:48 AM
Arkady said...: "I thought the prevailing tone over here was a knowing cynicism, yet you're upset that politicians want to get re-elected? I am confused."

Perhaps I can help.

Politician: It's time! It's time to reform health care!

Voters: Hurray!

Politician: But first, I need a word with my sponsors.

Voters: Huh? We thought we were your sponsors... We did vote for hope'n'change, after all.

Politician: My friends, it is what it is and it was it was and so shall it be until this child you see before you (produces child from a sack) enjoys what should be coming into being. We all want this. You did vote for it, and I want you to have it. Health, yes we can. Care, yes we must. But there are realities, and now you idiot liberals better shut the fuck up before I have your foundations defunded.

Voters: Dude! No, wait, that wasn't the deal!

Atrios: Give him a chance people, give him a chance! Politics is very complicated.; 2:54 AM
IOZ said...: I'm sorry, Christopher, but why is it exactly that you think a Hamas victory in Gaza was anything other than the intended effect, the desired outcome for both the US and Israel? It certainly achieved exactly what they hoped to achieve.

Meanwhile, yes. Let us not generalize about political parties. They're people, man.; 7:30 AM
Christopher M. said...: What is this supposed to accomplish exactly?

It would be really, really satisfying, for a start.; 7:56 AM
SteveB said...: Aging Boomers have their SS, Medicare and Prescription Drug Benefit. They're showing up at town halls to say there just isn't enough left over for everyone else (they just say it with toothbrush mustaches). What a shitty generation.

Didn't Obama say that any health care reform had to "pay for itself", and that one of the main sources for "savings" was going to be Medicare? Members of a particular interest group complaining loudly when they're about to get the shaft is how democracy is supposed to work.

But sure, it would be great to see millions of seniors saying, "Government-funded, single-payer works for me, and I want everyone to share in this wonderful benefit!" But it wasn't seniors who took that option off the table.; 9:26 AM
Montag said...: Many commentators here seem disappointed that their representatives are not crusading moral heroes. Now, THAT's naive.

no. by Occam's Butter Knife, the more naive claim would be that democratic politicians are ineffective moral heroes. the simpler explanation of why they are so consistently ineffective might be that they are not trying.

the belief that politicians "represent" the "electorate" might be considered naive.

'disappointment' doesn't even come into it, for me anyways.; 11:21 AM
nony said...: What if, watching the Dems fuck the left over once again and hearing the subsequent wailing and gnashing of teeth, you find yourself with renewed disappointment with mankind and disenchantment with human endeavor?; 2:34 PM
Montag said...: the human endeavor is what it is, nonny.

the dude abides.; 2:44 PM
Anonymous said...: If you think the American State can reform health care, you're confused already, never mind the Dems.; 3:03 PM
Enron said...: To be disappointed, one must have hoped for something.; 3:59 PM
Solar Hero said...: After clicking on "very confusing" and seeing you'd sent me to the Blue Asshole, I was almost certain you had cleverly copied his Forrest Gump headline -- but the post is labeled "Unpopular." Did he change it? Some of these bloggers are sensitive....; 6:22 PM
SteveB said...: If you think the American State can reform health care, you're confused already, never mind the Dems.

Must be all those other States (like the Canadian State and the French State), that, while not exactly reforming health care, actually manage to provide health care. How confusing! Why can't all States be the same?; 6:47 PM
Anonymous said...: These States were made for smashin'!; 8:03 PM
Charles F. Oxtrot said...: To repeat, all Atrios is doing is trying to hold the politician's feet to the presumed electoral fire. Perhaps he's naive to think he'll succeed, but I can't see anything wrong with making the effort. Beats smirking.

In every marital relationship damaged irreparably by the husband's physical abuse of his wife, the battered spouse doesn't find your comments very instructive, she begins smirking at her husband's promise to stop beating her.

She doesn't imagine the smirk stops him from beating her senseless. It's just the response she has, because she knows he's lying.

I hope you can understand the analogy, Mr Purity.; 8:13 PM
Anonymous said...: Why can't all states be the same? Why, they already are, SteveB, obv. What possible differences could there be between America and France, to say nothing of their states! Of course France's solution should work, just transpose that shit. By magic, or whatever; 8:10 PM
SteveB said...: Well, of course by magic. How else?; 9:58 AM

Monday, September 07, 2009

Occam's Butter Kife

32 comments:

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