Alternative Strategies

[strange_person]

The core of rationality is to base conclusions on evidence, rather than your own preconceptions, right? Figure out what your real goals are, and then do whatever it takes to achieve those goals. After all, "if it's stupid but it works, it's not stupid."

http://www.thepaincomics.com/weekly060215.htm

[Ashes]

Your alternative strategies are very tempting, strange_person. Very tempting!

[strange_person]

[Relee]

What I want to know is who is paying to PUSH healthcare reform. It wouldn't have gotten this far if the powers that be didn't want it to happen.

[Anna]

It isn't better here in Germany.
BUT, - the pharma industries still makes a lot of money, and acts with very, hm, dark power, lobby and the usual stuff.
It is really frightening.
So, what can we learn?
Everyone can have a health insurance and the industry still makes money.

Tell that to your guy's in Washington, no problem at all, tell that to the lobby, tell them: it can work like in europe and everyone is satiesfied.

And tell the people at the streets, no one will die, except you want to, (remember the death penalty?)

You americans didn't notice, to have some social thoughts doesn't infect you with comunism, otherwise, I'm sure your old Senator "St."McCarthy had stopped the american revolution 1776, just for the fear of comunism, even this wasn't invented at these years.
You are to hysterical.

Dear bosses of the U.S.medical pharma industries, you can still making money, think about it, just talk to the managments at your european sections, and learn.
So support the healthcare reform, it doesn't hurt, you've got a nice publicity, because you help people, and get money, money, money....

[Idiot Glee]

What I want to know is who is paying to PUSH healthcare reform. It wouldn't have gotten this far if the powers that be didn't want it to happen.

That would be various left wing organizations, a major section of the democratic party, the arc of history, Jesus Christ on a cloud hailed by trumpets... It goes on.

[Idiot Glee]

You americans didn't notice, to have some social thoughts doesn't infect you with comunism, otherwise, I'm sure your old Senator "St."McCarthy had stopped the american revolution 1776, just for the fear of comunism, even this wasn't invented at these years.
You are to hysterical.

A few things:

1. The war of independence was only minimally revolutionary.
2. Communism has significant antecedents predating 1776

1. The war of independence began when the British Parliament continued to lay taxes on continental colonies without allowing representation in parliament. It was not a class war, or a revolution establishing a new form of government; King George III exercised little real authority, but parliament was the real head of the country. Parliament was largely controlled by the same merchant class that in America was represented in the Continental Congress (the precursor of modern US Government).

The merchant class in the US went to war over grievances caused by a lack of representation in the British government, not because they were culturally or politically distinct.

2. Stateless communism (the nominal goal of communist parties) is a natural state of pre-civilized (before the settlement of cities) human cultures.

Communism as a goal of a movement can be easily traced to the time of the English Civil War (or Revolution, it did result in the ultimate destruction of absolute crown authority after all) and the agrarian 'Diggers'. This movement (which appears to have a lot in common with earlier peasant revolts) suffices as a pre 1776 example of a communist movement.

The Marxist and Internationalist "Proletarian" revolutionary Ideas came later, but communism as a concept predates 1776.

[Coda]

I subscribe to the theory that the "no taxation without representation" thing was just a casus belli we used to justify going to war, but the real rationale was simply the overbearing presence of a monarch who was trying to rule lands he didn't understand.

[Shackler]

Anna, are you aware that McCarthy is widely considered a villain in the United States?

[draque]

Dear bosses of the U.S.medical pharma industries, you can still making money, think about it, just talk to the managments at your european sections, and learn.
So support the healthcare reform, it doesn't hurt, you've got a nice publicity, because you help people, and get money, money, money....

They have essentially 100% control of the (legal) drug market over here, Anna. They wouldn't make nearly as much if they were to let go of that death grip. Staying afloat is much different than floating on money, and when you're able to do the second, the first isn't something to shoot for any longer.

[Ashes]

Anna, are you aware that McCarthy is widely considered a villain in the United States?

It's true.

[Jennifer Diane Reitz]

What I want to know is who is paying to PUSH healthcare reform. It wouldn't have gotten this far if the powers that be didn't want it to happen.

Obama couldn't have gotten elected, some say, without promising health care reform, which most voters desperately want. If he wants to be reelected for a second term, he needs, politically, to appear to fight for this, even if he fails.

Having started, his political credibility (power, his political Dick) is on the line; to be dominant, he need to prove he can do this, so this is also an issue.

Unfortunately, he got a lot of money from the pharmaceutical industry, so he has a bit of conflict going on - which is why he is doing all of this 'bipartisan' crap instead of just trying to ram it through - which he can't really, since most democrats also owe the pharmaceutical industry too - so this way he can claim he fought hard, but it was 'those darn conservatives', and get everyone off the hook, while appearing to fulfill his campaign promise.

And most people will buy this, I feel certain.

[Idiot Glee]

By the look of it, at the very least, we'll be getting better regulation of insurance.

Remember, besides all the bribes and such, there is a very personal dimension to politics: A right wing machine has attacked Obama in unprecedented and very personal way.

They've red-baited him calling him a socialist. Race-baited him, questioning his birthplace. They've accused him of killing grandma, which must hit home hard, given that his grandmother died less than a year ago after a long hard fight, and his mother died of cancer in the midst of insurance games. They've called him a liar in a joint session of congress.

He's from Chicago, a town of brutal politicking. After all this, I think the seals are broken, the trumpets are sounded, and the horsemen are riding. This is happening partially out of public demand, partially out of personal offense. He may not get perfect reform, but he will get some serious damn improvement.

It's personal after all.

[Relee]

What I want to know is who is paying to PUSH healthcare reform. It wouldn't have gotten this far if the powers that be didn't want it to happen.

Obama couldn't have gotten elected, some say, without promising health care reform, which most voters desperately want. If he wants to be reelected for a second term, he needs, politically, to appear to fight for this, even if he fails.

Having started, his political credibility (power, his political Dick) is on the line; to be dominant, he need to prove he can do this, so this is also an issue.

Unfortunately, he got a lot of money from the pharmaceutical industry, so he has a bit of conflict going on - which is why he is doing all of this 'bipartisan' crap instead of just trying to ram it through - which he can't really, since most democrats also owe the pharmaceutical industry too - so this way he can claim he fought hard, but it was 'those darn conservatives', and get everyone off the hook, while appearing to fulfill his campaign promise.

And most people will buy this, I feel certain.

I don't know. The way it's working, from what I'm seeing, doesn't seem like an act, or even an attempt, but more like a whale rising to the surface and knocking over a ship. It might not be perfect but there will be some kind of health-care reform, I'm quite sure.

Even if I'm wrong, all this debate in the U.S. about healthcare reform has got us here in Canada fixing our broken system. It's kind of terrible that you guys look up to us when we consider our own medical system to be flawed and in desperate need of change.

[Idiot Glee]

I don't know. The way it's working, from what I'm seeing, doesn't seem like an act, or even an attempt, but more like a whale rising to the surface and knocking over a ship. It might not be perfect but there will be some kind of health-care reform, I'm quite sure.

Even if I'm wrong, all this debate in the U.S. about healthcare reform has got us here in Canada fixing our broken system. It's kind of terrible that you guys look up to us when we consider our own medical system to be flawed and in desperate need of change.

Everything is flawed, everything. Some things are more flawed, and some things less flawed.

[Coda]

I think there was a little psychology going on with that speech. I think he's arguing for more than he knows he can get so that he can later appear to make concessions to opposing viewpoints while still getting something through.

[strange_person]

I think there was a little psychology going on with that speech. I think he's arguing for more than he knows he can get so that he can later appear to make concessions to opposing viewpoints while still getting something through.

It's not a new trick. The republicans did that kind of thing, legitimizing an extreme form of their own stance to slant the field. Think of that whole 'teach the controversy' bullshit campaign against evolutionary biology.

[Tychomonger]

Wait these shirts were serious? http://controversy.wearscience.com/

[strange_person]

They're parodies of an all-too-real debate strategy.

[Alfador]

What I want to know is who is paying to PUSH healthcare reform. It wouldn't have gotten this far if the powers that be didn't want it to happen.

Obama couldn't have gotten elected, some say, without promising health care reform, which most voters desperately want. If he wants to be reelected for a second term, he needs, politically, to appear to fight for this, even if he fails.

Having started, his political credibility (power, his political Dick) is on the line; to be dominant, he need to prove he can do this, so this is also an issue.

Unfortunately, he got a lot of money from the pharmaceutical industry, so he has a bit of conflict going on - which is why he is doing all of this 'bipartisan' crap instead of just trying to ram it through - which he can't really, since most democrats also owe the pharmaceutical industry too - so this way he can claim he fought hard, but it was 'those darn conservatives', and get everyone off the hook, while appearing to fulfill his campaign promise.

And most people will buy this, I feel certain.

I don't know. The way it's working, from what I'm seeing, doesn't seem like an act, or even an attempt, but more like a whale rising to the surface and knocking over a ship. It might not be perfect but there will be some kind of health-care reform, I'm quite sure.

Even if I'm wrong, all this debate in the U.S. about healthcare reform has got us here in Canada fixing our broken system. It's kind of terrible that you guys look up to us when we consider our own medical system to be flawed and in desperate need of change.

Well hey, maybe we should work together. If you fix your system and we take notes, we'll make our own system better. Hopefully.