Is Carter right?

Now I don't really have an opinion because I haven't even thought about it before and even if it was true I don't really trust the American media to tell it how it is.

There's certainly seems to be a lot of attacking going on with few alternatives being offered.

Its like everyone agrees the system is farked but no one's prepared to sit down and nut out a solution.

So what do you think?

How would you prove that this debate is more about race than it is about health?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8258011.stm

Oh and if he is right he just achieved legendary status in my books for calling everyone out on it.

Jimmy Carter is a top cat in my books. I'm glad he calls stuff how it is like this.

same

americans really know how to show off their ignorance

No he is not right, this issue has very little to do with racism.

The tea-baggers are a bigoted bunch imo.

Hence the 'birther' controversy.

Why else are they shouting, "I WANT MY COUNTRY BACK!!"..? back from who exactly? Elected officials of the white house?

For fucks sakes, they kept their kids away from school 'cos he was going to give a speech about why staying in school is a good thing

Nope, nothing racist about teh rabid right at all...

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/images/obama-witchdoctor-muck.jpg
:/

I think there is likely an undercurrent of race to the hysterical absurdity. But that's just tied into the general hysterical ridiculousness of the Republican party at the moment.
I'm fairly certain that the ridiculous opposition would have been just as strong had Hillary done it.

it would then be sexist G-Dub

how good is fox news currently

socialists are going to destroy the world

The right isn't some large homogeneous block you can generalize, about.

If you think it is, you misunderstand the diversity of the political spectrum.

The reasonable, 'intellectual' conservatives are being over-run by the Hannity-watching, Limbaugh-listening frothing-at-the-mouth, hysterically paranoid right...

The ones that <3 Palin, basically

I guess the wingnuts are whipped up by the fact that the minority-loving of the Democrats is writ so large. But I think at it's heart it's more about them being Democrats than it is about them being black or female. I suspect it would have been almost as bad under Kerry. Although perhaps not actaully...

And yes, they need to move Fox News to inbetween the Comedy Channel and Cartoon Network

^Correct but it's also because the Media love to focus on them specifically. Just remember what you are reading in the media, is not necessarily indicative of the facts on the ground. America is extremely heterogeneous and this manifests itself throughout the political spectrum.


Regarding this specific issue:

You do have racists

You have the paranoid conspiracy theorists

You have people concerned about the deficit (we can’t afford healthcare et al.)

You have people arguing strictly about principle (health care should not be a right and we want freedom to choose)

You have constitutionalists who reject democracy (remember America is a Constitutional Republic not a strict Democracy)

Libertarians just against big government in general regardless of what the issue is (the movement is much larger over there)

Republicans (Neo-Cons et al)

Amongst various other minority groups…

Some of the above are subsets of each other and some of them are not. It’s a big mix. Smearing them all as racist is convenient and nothing more.

via Public Address, an interesting take on the "intellectual heft" behind Glenn Beck and therefore the new media-driven wingnut right.

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2009/09/16/beck_skousen/index.html
When he died in 2006 at the age of 92, Skousen had authored more than a dozen books and pamphlets on the Red Menace, New World Order conspiracy, Christian child rearing, and Mormon end-times prophecy. It is a body of work that does much to explain Glenn Beck's bizarre conspiratorial mash-up of recent months, which decries a new darkness at noon and finds strange symbols carefully coded in the retired lobby art of Rockefeller Center. It also suggests that the modern base of the Republican Party is headed to a very strange place...

Most of my American friends who are libertarian, hate Glenn Beck and mock Fox News. For those unaware Fox News has been a great source of contempt for the Ron Paul movement. But this isn't just about the Ron Paul movement, watch this from Reason TV (a different right wing source). Note the variation of people being interviewed and why they are protesting.

So you all accuse them of being racist, but where were the comments about sexism when Clinton was being vilified during the primaries?

Fucking hypocrites

Im sure you can find groups of idiots in any activist movement - you have to been passionate about something to protest and its easy to be pissed off with something when you dont know the whole story.

Basically we know that 61% of americans are well intentioned but ignorant idiots.

Somehow they ended up with a half decent leader for once.

heh its funny how they are complaining about excessive government spending now but where were they when Bush was spending billions of dollars on an unjustified war in Iraq?

And now Obama comes in and wants to start spending money on something crazy like fuking health care and they get all uppity.

Doesn't add up I'm afraid. Uneducated fools if you ask me, easily manipulated by a few vocal leaders with their own agenda.

Obama sure as hell didn't want to come to office and sign a 900 billion dollar stimulus bill first up, he did it because there was absolutely no choice and if he didn't there was very a real chance things could have got a lot worse for the yanks with many of those protesting against health insurance for poor people finding them selves to be the poor people in need of it.

There's just far too much self interest in America. Too few see the big picture or just don't care.

That's a little ignorant on your part Rips, many of them HAVE been there during Bush's term. Just because the media doesn't report on it, doesn't mean it hasn't been going on.

Actually it was in the media but it wasn't coming from these people and they sure weren't marching in the thousands about it.

Like I said extremely odd issue to pick on in relation to spending.

They could have done this years ago in relation to Iraq or the war on drugs or the ridiculous bonuses they have been paying out to execs.

1. What about the Ron Paul movement then?
2. The movement has indeed grown but they have always been there protesting against the Patriot Act et al.
3. This isn't just about health care, it's about a variety of different issues - re you're pick on comment is just ignorant.
4. They have been protesting ridiculous bonuses being paid out to execs, for instance see Ron Paul movement.
5. Obama has continued the bailout policies and did not need to.
6. Watch the video I posted which will signal to you some of the diversity involved in the movement.

Rival you must admit the current attack lines have crystallised around healthcare and the opposition that is getting me the highest turnout and media coverage is a pretty unhinged one. Doesn't mean that there isn't variety in such a complex issue but we're talking about those lines.

It's pretty hard to defend the implementation of a public health-system of some form given the awful consequences a focus on private insurance has given to the US. So the nutjobs go to "COMMUNIST!" and "DEATH PANELS!" because they don't have a well argued counter.

The people in the Tea Party movement are not all about Health Care, to slander the entire movement as racist as crazy nut jobs et al, is just ignorance and nothing more. Worse, it makes them react even stronger.

Furthermore, being against public spending towards health care, is not just about the act itself, it's about NOT BEING ABLE TO AFFORD IT.

http://www.usdebtclock.org/

It's amazing how far people (including many on this forum) will take principles regarding health care even when the empire is on the verge of collapse.

In addition, what America has is not a free market health care system, it is an oligopoly which has been created because of Government interference, which has made it compulsory for private health insurance. Watch what Peter Schiff says in my other thread about why the prices are so high. The people blaming the markets are clueless.

Mate, all I'm saying is WE'RE not discussing the entire Tea Party movement (nor Jimmy Carter) - just the people that are most vociferous in their denouncement of public health options. If you want to go for it, but that's not the topic at hand.

The topic at hand is about the vocal, organised, Beck-esque opposition.
If they can't afford to keep people from getting sick becayuse they lose their job then maybe they need to readdress spending priorities or taxation levels - the fact that it's OK to have the jobless poor dying because the deficit is too large is abhorent.

I am in favor of incremental reform, I would much rather they pulled out of their wars and fixed their economy. If this means keeping some public services going until they get back on top of things, then I would be in support of that.

At the end of the day, they have one hell of a bloody mess to clean up and the vast majority of it has been caused by the Government and special interest groups lobbying congress.

If I was in America I would have been marching in this movement while you all slandered me on this forum with false labels. At least take some time to understand the political right, it's laziness just to focus on the racists, nut jobs and paranoid, which are a small minority of this movement.

omg rival -- read g-dub's last post.

we're being very specific as to who we're criticising.

it would also be nice if the ron paul brigade were more vocal in their opposition to the beck, hannity, limbaugh faction of the right, as david frum and some other right-wing thinkers have done in recent times.

They have been Gummi, they keep getting denied equal air time and have even been cut out of Fox News completely on occasion.

Look up some of the Ron Paul documentaries on You Tube.

The Tea Party movement may have had roots in Ron Pauls stuff, but it was pretty quickly overtaken by the special interest groups you (rightly) despise and by people who had ZERO idea what they were arguing for. For gods sake, one of the key protest lines was "No Taxation without Representation" - they have no idea! To even compare it to the Boston Tea Party shows a complete lack of understanding of basic history and/or democracy!

I don't doubt your personal belief in liberty and small Government, but that specific movement was in the end driven by the nutjobs and those of a vested agenda.

All the movement has is You Tube.

Ron Paul has nothing to do with the special interest groups, which in the case of health care, are the private insurance companies that have growth to epic proportions because of government intervention. They have it sweet at the moment, they (acting in their own self interest) don't want their privileges taken away.

I don't know why they would rally behind the Tea Party Movement though G_Dub? If Ron Paul gets into power 2012, all those special interests will be eliminated as he removes corporate interference from the state, maybe even at the cost of his life. He has little friends in Washington, all he has is grass roots support.

They took it over from him - there was very little about Paul's involvment in the wider coverage of the Tea Party's. It got taken on by Limbaugh, Beck, Gingrich et al as a political tool to beat the Democrats with.
Sorry mate, but the Tea Party movement (surely you can see the absurdity in the name, right?) wasn't about the Liberterians in the end.

I don't know how much it has been overtaken, but there are idiots in its ranks, especially in regards to environmental policies which I have attempted to educate people on. Peter Schiff is actually trying to distant himself from the Ron Paul people a little, and is running on a platform of reform rather than Revolution. Anyway, you know politics, any opportunity to hijack a movement. I'm not about to stop supporting the genuine people who share my political philosophy though.