calimary
calimary's JournalHey, I'd go to see that!
Maybe even learn how! My kids used to do that. I could never quite get it figured out.
A couple of months ago, I got a letter from Anthem Blue Cross with a $90 check in it.
And there was an accompanying note touting how wonderful they were - 'cause they were LOWERING My PREMIUMS!!!! Out of the goodness of their hearts and their "Concern" about meeting their customers' best health-care needs!
Bullshit! They did it because they HAD TO.
That $90 check represented a dictate of the Affordable Care Act. The one that says that 80-some-odd percent of the premiums you pay in - MUST be applied to YOUR HEALTH CARE. It doesn't go to some CEO. It doesn't pay some board member's country club dues. It doesn't go toward the stock-holders. It goes directly toward YOUR OWN HEALTH CARE that YOU PAY THOSE PREMIUMS FOR.
There would have been no such thing if it hadn't been for the intervention of this awful hateful government that all the teabaggers despise. Some of them will be getting those checks too, and then what will they do? Hell, some of them will be getting access to affordable health care PERIOD, because of the ACA, the thing they so derisively call "Obamacare." THEY stand to benefit from it. And they probably won't even recognize it. It'll be interesting to see, as this rolls out and the Gotta-Placate-Ben-Nelson measures that were delayed for so long finally are allowed to take hold. The teabaggers will benefit, too. Much to their surprise and dismay, no doubt.
It's fun to watch people act out and throw tantrums and hissy-fits when they see how their world-view DOES NOT FIT with reality, and they still WANT IT TO, SOOOOOO BADLY!!!!!!
"I Want MY America BACK!!!!" yelled with sobbing and burbling from the back of the town hall meeting. "You do? Well, then, you must be a government intervention/regulation/union supporter!" 
And then the reagans arrived and Queen Nancy needed some PR image-lifting.
She'd started out almost immediately after the election, "credited" (either sourced to her or or staff) with remarks about how it'd be nice if the Carters moved out early so she could get a head start on redecorating the White House. During the campaign, she got a LOT of attention, most of it negative, especially as compared to the plain-wrap couple from Plains GA.
No. Not Nancy. She had her champagne tastes and expensive Adolfo suits and other designer wear that became her signature. She had the trappings of Hollywood and their exclusive ranch tucked away in the mountains above elegant Santa Barbara CA in her aura. She had this closed, cold, unapproachable demeanor. "How was your Christmas, Mrs. Reagan?" the press would ask from the distance at which they were corralled, in the few weeks before Inauguration Day. "Very nice." "Christmas presents?" "Yes. Nice presents" - uttered as she was closing the door in front of her and shutting them out physically as well as emotionally. Then when they were in the White House, WHILE the economy was going south, she wanted to re-do the White House china collection. She picked this ultra luxe "Reagan Red" plate design with gold leaf and a wide red border, looked like it belonged in some palace - while more and more people were losing their jobs and turning to public assistance. Ooooh, fancy new dishes for her and her well-heeled, fancy-assed crowd while more and more of the people couldn't afford enough food. The perceived insensitivity was just TREMENDOUS - at a time when the economy wasn't good and growing worse. Never mind that, as she pointed out, it was all donated (yeah, we know. Just more of your rich pals stepping in, your majesty). It GREATLY furthered the notion that was developing toward the reagans that they were this imperious, royalist, elitist cabal of "Millionaires on Parade" while the country suffered and the people went broke. And she quickly became regarded as the new Marie Antoinette. And a cold fish Marie Antoinette at that. She even wore a little pillbox-type hat on Inauguration Day that was a red wreath, that sat on her head like a little crown - a detail that didn't go unnoticed by many of us. She was off-putting to say the least!
So lyn nofziger and david gergen and a few others handling and manipulating media and imaging for the reagans (THAT was a HUGE and very critically-important division in the reagan machinery - that later begat what we now know as Pox Noise) decided she needed a public relations makeover. Give her a cause, they said! Send her out there on a mission to save the people, save the children, and make her seem warmer and more caring. Gotta Humanize Nancy! Soften up the Queen for the people! So they hit upon the "Just Say No" thing - anti drug campaign. And by Jove they sent her out there on these press and publicity junkets, where she'd actually have to say more than two or three words to the press and (ewww! hold your nose, dearie and just get through it) have to shake hands with the great unwashed, and hobknob with the riff-raff, and make it look as though she cared about them. And to some extent, it worked. People did warm up to her a little bit, after awhile. Not all of us were won over, though. It seemed pretty easy to see through, for some of us anyway. As her husband presided over the "Millionaires on Parade" business and let the corporate marauder types and the tycoons and the vultures run amok, and take as many restrictions and regulations away so the foxes could be put in charge of guarding the henhouses. That's when regulations started falling like the many-lifted jawlines and jowls of her fancy Bel Air and Beverly Hills and showbiz friends who'd always show up at your average Old Hollywood-preferred event. That's when mergers and acquisitions were suddenly America's favorite new indoor sport. That's when most of this "...and the rich get richer" shit that we're all presently suffering under got started. It's in full flower now, but its seeds were planted and carefully nurtured during the reagan years.
And the "Just Say No" campaign took hold and begat all kinds of strict new laws and enforcement crack-downs from sea to shining sea. MORE people were imprisoned. MORE people were imprisoned for longer terms because, well, we were all becoming inundated with the sloganeering of "ALL DRUGS ARE BAAAAAAAAAAAD!" Nothing ever said about alcohol, of course. But "DRUGS BAAAAAAAAAAAD" and "DRUGGIES BAAAAAAAAAAAAAD!!!" became one of the anthems of the reagan years. So you had this disproportional emphasis on throwing 'em in the slammer, up the enforcement, up the penalties. There was more interest in rehab, of course, but only rich people and celebs could afford that. Betty Ford had begun that one, but she genuinely had the common touch, and was empathetic and a very sympathetic figure, and on her watch, alcohol and substance-abuse recovery was something that appeared to be, and was, applicable across class lines. But during the reagan era, it was the perceived riff-raff that took it in the shorts. That kindness and rehab wasn't open to them. It was "throw 'em in the slammer" for them.
On edit (besides correcting grammar and syntax stuff) - And hmmmm... I wonder if just maybe somebody in that crowd was far-sighted enough, or strategically shrewd enough, to put two and two together and realize that the more people you threw in the slammer, the more felons you'd create which would mean a whole lot more people would NOT be able to vote anymore. Useful handicap for them to have if they're considered of the type of voter who would vote against them. I heard Randi Rhodes expound upon this today, and it hit me like a thunderclap!!! Her point was to tie in the lopsided numbers of African Americans who are incarcerated for felonies. And as convicted felons, guess what other penalty is imposed? They lose their right to vote. Gee... for a Machiavellian political operative who'll grab - or attempt to initiate - ANY advantage possible for a successful election result, that seems like an awfully slick and sneaky way to further reduce the pool of potential Democratic voters. I wouldn't put it past some of 'em! Remember this is the Party of kkkarl rove!
Be that as it may...
All because Nancy needed the kind of facelift that only the public relations doctors (NOT the plastic surgeons) provided.
Damn those were awful days. AWFUL. That's where all the shit began. All the shit we're dealing with now - got started during the reagan years. It felt like a hostage hold. And the press was lap-dog-ish. They'd persecuted and piled on Jimmy Carter. They worshipped and adored the reagans - well, mainly ronnie. Queen Nancy we put up with because she came along with him - in effect she had the Presidential "I'm with Stupid" t-shirt. It got extended by one term of reagan junior (bush 1), but Clinton came into the picture and showed him the door, so we had a break. Then it came roaring back with bush 2. bush 2 was the REAL reagan junior.
Sadly enough, most if not all of our present ills got started during the reagan era. NEVER was I so happy to see a regime change. That was the first time we started becoming accustomed to OUR message not getting through. They rode and handled the press like so many horses in reagan's Santa Barbara ranch corrals.
Just a REALLY SHITTY time in America. One from which we have yet to recover. And too many of us had to suffer because Nancy needed a public relations remake.
Well, that's what the jerks all say when held to account for their smart-ass remarks or deeds.
"It was a JOKE." Yeah. Sure. Takes one to know one, I guess.
Dammit, this is such a disappointment! I used to like him! Thought he was a real liberal firebrand. LOVED his aggressive oratory in the House of Reps. LOVED him smart-assing the bad guys. Really told 'em! When he AND Alan Grayson would thunder away on the House floor, it was utterly delicious! Finally some of ours are standing up and giving shit to the hugely-deserving assholes on the other team! But he's just shown himself to be a real jerk. Yet again! A narcissistic jerk. Repeatedly! When he resigned Congress there was a little part of me that was sorry to see him go - sorry to lose that voice in Congress. MAN do I feel differently! Now I hope he just stays AWAY. I feel for his wife! Don't see how he can win, unless New Yorkers are masochistic. I'm sure the Clintons are hoping he goes away - that the New York City voters will put him out of all our misery!
Just made me think of John Edwards. Particularly painful because he was the only guy talking about the Two Americas - one of them being the very poor. Only guy in the preliminaries who made that a major issue in his campaign. And HE turns out to be a selfish jerk, too.
I think that's exactly it. I suspect on Election Night 2008, most of the country patted itself
on the back and flattered itself and congratulated itself that it was "over" that silly racism thing - that those silly "lefties" still make such a damn big deal about. I mean - look what we just did, they said. We have a black President now. Yay us! Get a load of us, willya? Ain't we big and broadminded now? Everybody cheer - we've come a long way, baby.
NOT.
I think when many of them woke up the next morning, as one can do with a hangover following a big bad bender the night before, the cold hard truth started to sink in. Uh - wait a minute. Whothehell is THAT? If it didn't happen on the morning after Election Night, it sure as hell sank in by Inauguration Day, when all the outward signs reinforced the truth. There went the white folks, the bushes - helicoptering out of town, NO LONGER in power. That couple staying behind, waving them off - whothehell is that? And why don't they look like me? WHAT???? WTF do you mean THEY are in charge now??? THOSE people? OMG! NO! IT CAN'T BE!!!! SAY IT AIN'T SO, JOE!!!
I think that's how it went down in the minds of too many knuckle-draggers in America. Just that simple. They woke up from the celebratory bender of the nation as most of us were almost deliriously happy finally to be RID of fucking bush/cheney, and to have a DEMOCRAT replace him, and one who had opposed the war, and a community organizer at that! And yeah, a black guy and his black wife. The white couple next to the two of them were the SECOND-IN-COMMAND. NOT Number One. NOT at the top of the ziggurat. This time, the white couple were the "Second Couple," and the black guy and black lady with them were NOT there with them to take their coats and nod deferentially and then quietly make themselves scarce back in the kitchen and butler's pantry. You know, in their "proper place."
I think that corner of America woke up on one of those Mornings After and gagged. Acid reflux like nobody's business. The cold hard truth hit them like a speeding freight train, and they realized they just couldn't deal with this. It was JUST. SO. WRONG!!!!! WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!! And then, as any spoiled snot-nosed three-year-old brat-child would do, they threw a temper tantrum, and started acting out. Those here and elsewhere who've noticed it's getting worse, and louder, and meaner, and more vicious and vitriolic than ever - maybe more offensive and horrible and shameful than anyone here can even remember, are just documenting it, really. At least that's how it looks, to me. None of their tantrums have worked so far in getting rid of that "other" who doesn't know his proper place, so they do what screaming brats do everywhere when their shitty behavior isn't checked. They turn up the volume. They get louder, they stomp their widdle feet harder and slam their bedroom doors harder, they misbehave more - and more viciously and with MORE meanness. And it grows and expands the longer the situation they don't like continues unabated. It'll keep up until they get their way - and NOTHING so far has worked for getting their way. NOTHING they do makes it - or rather him - go away. They were sure they had him beat in 2012. And they cheated and gamed the system and stacked the deck as best they could to deny him votes in as many ways as they could think of. And nothing worked.
That's why you're seeing the increase in nastiness, dirty tricks, attempted cheating, more insults, more lack of decorum, more desperation, more and louder pouting and whining and name-calling, more hostile and mean-spirited and even threatening language, more stunts, more amping it up. Now, for example, some of the more reckless are talking impeachment again - they gonna haul that crap back out now? Is this their limited-intellect, knee-jerk default strategy for the last two years of the Obama administration like they resorted to during the last two years of the Clinton administration. Oh, look. The two-termer is three-quarters done. He's a Dem. The clock says end of third quarter means it's time to start impeaching the President. Back then, too, they were out of options. They'd spent tens of millions of dollars (which was astounding back then), thrown everything and several kitchen sinks - and bathroom sinks and toilets and matching bathtubs at BOTH Clintons (even Chelsea was targeted by some, and she was a young girl back then) and nothing got them removed from the White House. The persecution never ended. And that's a good word for it. Persecution. It's what they're doing to President Obama, too. Except they're making it racial. And not in a good way. Which is taking the "adding insult to injury" strategy to a nauseating and shameful extreme!
I think we're seeing a group of people acting out against evolutionary circumstances, and an inevitable moment of great change, when their world as they knew it was suddenly up-ended. They want white-dominant America. And the time for that is passing. Things change. People change. Things evolve. Populations shift. Generations flourish, then age, and then pass - replaced by others coming up after them who aren't their clones. Communities and influences and trends change. Things Change. That's just how it is. And we have people in this country who are afraid of change. They bleat and cry about wanting their America back. They want things the way they used to be (what they think used to be - you always remember what you want to remember). And that's just not the way it is. So instead of accepting change and rolling with it, they fight and resist and yell and scream and throw tantrums. Like the spoiled adult-size three-year-olds they seem in actuality to be. They want it to be okay to be racist - to feel that way about someone not like you - to feel a superiority complex of some weird sort. It just isn't that way and these folks don't want to accept that truth. Hence the bubble they've built by entities like limbaugh and Pox Noise to insulate themselves from the real world.
The same type told us, after Selection 2000, to Get Over It. Well, they should, too.
I've wondered about that myself. We can't sustain this, our ourselves, at this rate.
But sometimes I find myself thinking - a world without humans would probably be able to heal itself...
Welcome to DU, big_dog!
Glad you're here. I always enjoy throwing the "don't mess with Texas" crap back in their faces.
Very sweetly, I say ...
"Well, I'm from California...
"We're bigger'n you.
"Our population is bigger'n yours.
"Our Congressional delegation is bigger'n yours.
"Our Electoral College delegation is bigger'n yours.
"Our Latino population is bigger'n yours.
"Our economy is bigger'n yours - in fact if CA was a country, we'd be among the top ten economies Of The WORLD.
"Our tourism is bigger'n yours.
"Our entertainment industry is bigger'n yours.
"Our agricultural industry is bigger'n yours.
"Our media markets are bigger'n yours.
"Our surf is bigger and better'n yours.
"Our beaches are better'n yours (and cleaner).
"Our blondes are better'n yours.
"Our cooking is better'n yours.
"Our winemaking is better'n yours.
"Our technology is better'n yours.
"Our style and our fashion are ALL better'n yours.
"Our wilderness areas and national parks are better'n yours.
"Our weather is TONS better'n yours!
"Hell, even our bimbos are better'n yours (hellooooooo Kardashians!)!
"And our governors are better'n yours. Our present governor is compassionate and brilliant and educated by the Jesuits and would NEVER find himself in a public forum where he got so tongue-tied and brain-farted that he actually said 'OOPS!', and even the asshole before him was the FUCKING DAMN TERMINATOR. (Beat THAT! Who'd you have before this latest swaggering ding-dong of yours, george w. war criminal?)
"As I said - I'm from CALIFORNIA. And I'll mess with Texas ANYTIME I DAMN WELL FEEL LIKE IT!!!!!!"
My car was keyed back in 2005 - because I had anti-Iraq War bumper stickers, Dean for America
stickers, and a "bush KNEW" sticker in my back window. On the inside. Where none of them could be torn off. So instead of vandalizing my stickers, the fuckwad vandalized the side of my car.
Sorry, I couldn't hear you. I have a banana in my ear,
and a weiner on my cell phone...
Not fast enough.
Funny that so many of them would embrace the very party that wants to yank all their retirement/Social Security/Medicare/pensions and other stuff they seriously depend upon - out from under them.
I feel that same bewilderment about a friend of mine - a woman, a union member, a mother of a daughter of childbearing age, a single parent, a parent who's relieved that at least her younger child will be covered under her insurance plan til he's 26... and yet she STILL votes republi-CON...
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Current location: Oregon
Member since: 2001
Number of posts: 81,220
