Today's Safe Word: Discipline the Party!

Evidently, I am batshit crazy. All the time I spent assuming I was merely crazy, uninterestingly so, I labored under a misunderstanding. I have been batshit and now, disappointingly, can no longer use the term. If you have an alternative I can use, please let me know.

In the meantime, let's discuss the Senate Health Care Bill. I hate it; I also want it to pass. (A benefit of being batshit crazy: I can hold very contradictory thoughts in my head.) As Glenn Greenwald points out, the bill is tantamount to growing corporatism; however, as Paul Krugman points out, the bill does a great deal of necessary good. Plus, the Senate bill is not the final word; differences between the House bill and the Senate bill will be hashed out in committee. Considering the fact that the House bill is considerably better and more progressive, passing a Senate bill now makes it possible that Congress will end up creating a much better final bill than the Senate bill.

But what bothers me is the intense amount of anger toward progressives for railing against a shitty bill. I understand John Cole's frustration with Howard Dean over at Balloon Juice; I agree with it. That said, the politicking around this bill follows the same ridiculous pattern that every Democratic piece of legislation follows: whenever the progressive/leftist/whatever you'd like to call it-wing of the Democratic party pushes legislation that's broadly popular (single payer, the public option), they get shat upon by Obama's White House and their ideas diluted to nothing. So when they criticize the final legislation, they're supposed to know their place and keep quiet. But on the other hand, when "centrist"* asshats like Ben Nelson and Joe Lieberman keep objecting to the legislation for utterly unprincipled and illogical reasons, the Democratic leadership caves to their arbitrary objections and opts for reform that most people don't support.

And so it goes for every piece of crucial legislation, all in the name of party discipline. Look: I campaigned for Obama knowing he wasn't that progressive, but there's got to be a fucking limit to how far right the Democratic Party swings. They cannot define themselves by the Bush standard or tea partiers. But, of course, they will, unless we find some way to Discipline the Party!

*There aren't big enough scare quotes for the idea of "centrism."

Today's Safe Word: Abortions for some!

"Abortions for some, miniature American flags for others."  --Kang/Bob Dole

Nebraska Senator Ben Nelson (pictured here with Joe Lieberman) has been all over the map regarding health-care legislation in the U.S. Senate. Because he represents less than one percent of the U.S. population (1,783,000 out of over 300 million), it strikes me as a wee bit odd that he has so much say over whether or not health-care reform passes. The biggest roadblock for him (other than his seeming need for attention)? Abortion. That's right, the Democratic Senator from Nebraska refuses to sign any health-care reform bill if it doesn't explicitly bar federal funding for a legal procedure that saves the lives of women. So if you're pregnant and the fetus threatens your life, pay for it yourself. And if you can't, then good luck. If you're a victim of rape or incest, then pay for it yourself. And if you can't, good luck.

Of course, Nelson won't admit that barring federal funding for abortion essentially establishes a two-tiered system. People who would gain health coverage under the new bill don't have health coverage because they can't afford it. If health-care reform were to pass with a ban on funding for abortion, the bill would deny care to women who need it and cannot otherwise afford it.

Aside from his opposition to funding legal medical procedures, Nelson also agrees with noted douchebag Joe Lieberman that expanded Medicare coverage is a slippery slope to a socialist single-payer nightmare in which everyone has cost-efficient health insurance. (Lieberman opposes expanding Medicare even though he supported it all the way back in September of this year. As I mentioned, Lieberman is a noted douchebag.)

For those who desperately need health insurance, it's being held up by a guy who represents a little more than one half of one percent of our population. Ain't democracy grand?

Abortions for some!

UPDATE: There is now a Facebook group called "Joe Lieberman is a Douchebag." I hope they change it to "noted douchebag."