or Powell's or me• • •
"Mike and Jon, Jon and Mike—I've known them both for years, and, clearly, one of them is very funny. As for the other: truly one of the great hangers-on of our time."—Steve Bodow, head writer, The Daily Show
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"Who can really judge what's funny? If humor is a subjective medium, then can there be something that is really and truly hilarious? Me. This book."—Daniel Handler, author, Adverbs, and personal representative of Lemony Snicket
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"The good news: I thought Our Kampf was consistently hilarious. The bad news: I’m the guy who wrote Monkeybone."—Sam Hamm, screenwriter, Batman, Batman Returns, and Homecoming
January 24, 2011
Thanks, Dad
Back in 1961, Ronald Reagan recorded a record for the AMA explaining how national health insurance in general, and Medicare specifically, would destroy America:
REAGAN: One of the traditional methods of imposing statism or socialism on a people has been by way of medicine.What can we do about this? Well, you and I can do a great deal. We can write to our congressmen and to our senators. We can say right now that we want no further encroachment on these individual liberties and freedoms. And at the moment, the key issue is, we do not want socialized medicine...
[I]f you don’t do this and I don’t do this, one of these days we are going to spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children, what it once was like in America when men were free.
Later as president, Reagan of course stopped any progress toward national health insurance in its tracks.
Here in 2011, Ronald Reagan's son Ron is 52 years old. And soon he and his sick wife won't have health insurance:
He wends his way to a University of Washington hospital, where Doria, a psychologist, is undergoing treatments for a mysterious degenerative ailment that first hit several years ago. Ron emerges from the hospital holding Doria's left arm while she leans heavily against a crutch in her right hand. They inch forward slowly...They argue their worries are not unlike the average American's. Although Doria is working, Ron isn't employed these days. He worked as a television political commentator and radio host, but his show on Air America, on which he tended toward liberal flame-throwing, ended a year ago amid the talk radio network's bankruptcy. The couple were relying on his union health insurance. But now that he's got no gig, the insurance expires in a few months. He's not sure what they'll do then.
—Jonathan Schwarz
Posted at January 24, 2011 09:27 AMNicaraguans and Salvadorans did not die in vain. Next stop: Mount Rushmore?
Posted by: Dennis Perrin at January 24, 2011 11:47 AMAnd that, I suspect, is exactly the way the Prez would've wanted it, whether he'd have admitted it or not. "Well, Ron Jr., if you decided to become a bank president instead of a ballerina, maybe you'd have health insurance today."
Object lessons are important. And if the whole economy has to crater, to protect The Way Things Ought to Be, then so be it.
Posted by: Mike of Angle at January 24, 2011 01:30 PM
The sins of the fathers visited on the children once again.
Mike
What that Prez would've wanted would've depended on who he last spoke to. Ya know, he wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed. If he hadn't got all those Salvadoreans and Nicaraguans killed, I wouldn't hold so much against him.
Posted by: N E at January 24, 2011 04:02 PMOh well, at least America is safe.
Posted by: cemmcs at January 24, 2011 05:06 PMSUNSET THE PATRIOT ACT, call John Boehner @1-202-225-0600. Lets return to OUR CONSTITUTION.
Posted by: Mike Meyer at January 24, 2011 05:08 PMIronic that Ronny's kid and daughter-in-law have worse healthcare today than Hudson Austin.
http://www.spicegrenada.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2271:austin-and-cornwall-land-state-jobs&catid=500:may-29th-2010&Itemid=143
Posted by: bayville at January 24, 2011 06:36 PMI believe the operative phrase is: BETTER DEAD THAN RED.
Posted by: saurabh at January 24, 2011 08:19 PM"Traditional methods"?!? I didn't know that there were actually traditional methods for imposing "statism" and/or socialism that involved healthcare. I though it was more related to banks, property ownership, and the workforce.
Oh, well, Ronnie never was a stickler for fact.
Posted by: Liebchen at January 25, 2011 07:03 PM"...when men were free."
Free to lie down in the street and die like an animal, if that's what you meant.
Christ, what a nasty piece of work Reagan was.
Posted by: BigHank53 at January 27, 2011 12:27 AM"He wends his way to a University of Washington hospital,..."
Yes--but when he wended, was he FREE?
Okay, then!
Posted by: Dean Taylor at January 27, 2011 11:12 PMmore from the WaPo article:
"Ron says he disagreed with his father on numerous political issues, though he felt his father 'meant well.' The biggest point of contention was over Ron's belief that the administration did not protect the environment."
Regarding the "meant well"delusion, as well as the unkind-to-the-forests concern, here are excerpts from just one disclosure (the number is legion) of Herr Reagan--aka Vlad the Impaler--from a 9 April 1986 article by Chomsky. First, the genocide in Guatemala:
"In 1963 it looked as if there might be a danger of a democratic election. When they thought that Arevalo was going to be allowed back into the country and that might have meant a democratic election, Kennedy supported a military coup to forestall that. This act initiated a really huge massacre, maybe ten thousand people or so were killed in the late 1960s.
"At that point there was direct U.S. support. U.S. Green Berets were involved. According to the Vice President of Guatemala, U.S. planes, based in Panama, were carrying out napalm raids. Things were then quiet for a little while but in the late '70s it got serious again and since that time, maybe since about 1978, current estimates are that about a hundred thousand people were killed, with U.S. support throughout.
"I should say that among the other lies that you read constantly one is that under the Carter Administration military aid to these Guatemalan Himmlers was terminated. That's false. In fact, U.S. military aid continued just barely below its normal level right through this time.
"Under Reagan, support for what at that point even the conservative Guatemalan bishops were calling genocide, became absolutely euphoric. The worst of these monsters, Rios Montt, who was in charge, for example, during the incident that I mentioned before. Reagan described him as a man totally committed to democracy who is getting a bum rap by human rights groups" [Chomsky; stress added].
..and, on the Reagan-underwritten genocide in Nicaragua:
"Why Reagan Hates Nicaragua: 'The Threat of a Good Example'"
"In January 1981 Reagan was sworn in as President. The massacres in El Salvador escalated, in sadism and scale. Direct U.S. participation increased. The U.S. Air Force, flying from Honduran bases, coordinates air strikes against Salvadoran villages. Night attacks, much more accurate attacks given the U.S. participation, have increased the kill rate among defenseless villagers and fleeing peasants. These horrors continue.
"The reaction to them here is interesting. They have led to a mounting applause in the United States as the terror has seemed to be achieving some results. And in fact it is a success. It has very largely succeeded in destroying the popular organizations, as it was intended to do. The threat of democracy has been overcome. Correspondingly there has been great awe and high regard for our achievement there. It is one of the most sordid episodes in American history" [Chomsky; stress added].
Ron---PLEASE--buy books; read them; leave the fucking house cats alone...Doria Palmieri doe not deserve to suffer because her father-in-law was a fucking socio-path who bull-shitted his way into 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. But, for God Almighty's sake, Ron--read some fucking books, man. Blood flowed in torrents because of your frigging...father. Do your self a HUGE favor and "come out"--i.e., be the first Reagan to acknowledge his..."misdeeds", let us say.
http://www.chomsky.info/articles/19860409.htm
Besides, it was GWBush who pushed for Medicare part D, not some Democrat. So the partisan fight over socialized medicine is about partisan fighting more than about socialized medicine.
Posted by: jerry at January 29, 2011 02:58 PM
