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Awww A Puma with a Pen

[info]okpulot_taha wrote:

Mary Dejevsky titles her article, “A mean streak in the US mainstream” and subtitles with “The US tolerates more inequality, deprivation and suffering than is acceptable here”.

No, we Americans are significantly more hardy and determined than our British counterparts. Our expectation is our peoples will stand on their own two feet and make their own way through life.

Right about here she lost me.  If there was ever a nation that proudly stood up after being held aloft by someone else and said “see how I did this myself” it’s America.  The worlds first almost entirely immigrant culture, created through domination and civil war, American Culture is anything but “doing it for yourself”.  There is hardly a single business in America that can be said to be both massively successful and individually driven.  Corporations are the ultimate expresion of profit-driven collectivism and are the anti-thesis of individual accomplishment.  This is what America is known for, but they will shoot you down for suggesting otherwise, which is the OTHER thing America is well known for.
Your British culture is born of aristocracy, born of two distinct classes; the ruling class and the impoverished ruled. I am writing of your cultural beginnings not so much of culture today.
Because there is no Aristocracy in the USA?  Sure.  The Hiltons, the Waltons and the Buffets might embody otherwise.
Our American culture is born of hard work, sacrifice and challenging struggles. Our beginnings are of independence, freedom and personal survival. Like your British culture, much has changed with our culture over the centuries.
Some people will work their asses off their entire lives and never be able to afford decent health care.  The End.
Your British peoples inherited a cultural thinking of being submissive to authority. Our American culture inherited a cultural thinking of being the authority. You are the subjects and not just in royal deemed name only. We are the rebels in charge of our lives. You British allow your royal family and your Anglican church to decide for you what is appropriate and what is not. We Americans, on an individual basis, decide what is appropriate and what is not; we value freedom much more than you British.
Considering you’ve never been to England, I’ll assume that you have no familiarity with Soccer hooligans, binge drining, Asbos and so on, so you may be forgiven for this, but only by Jesus.
You write of national health care. Here in America there are two major factors at play. One is Americans do not want our decision making taken away from us; we are to decide what is in our best interest. Other factor is economic fear. Americans are having a very rough go of it, Americans are suffering a lot of financial pain. A national health care program carries a lot of costs and we expect those costs to appear as massive tax increases. You British well know how we feel about Tea and Taxes.
You have no idea how society works and imaginge that the “Tea Party” had anything to do with anything.  Witholding taxes and shooting the kings soldiers, that’s something to do with something.  Old rich white dudes dressing up as natives to throw tea off a boat hardly smacks of heorism.
I am a traditional American Indian. Should you want to experience your “mean streak” notion give us traditional Indians a try. In my culture, you will either survive and contribute to our tribe or be banished from our lands if not simply killed. We are known for being harshly pragmatic.
See above, re: Old White people.  Your people  are also known for living on State Funded and assisted reserves paying no taxes and being the subject of much fretting on the left and outright scorn from the right.  Don’t you already get free health care?

David Vitter Wants to Destroy Canadian Health Care

Vitter was asked at a town hall meeting about the fact that he opposes government health care, but supports re-importing prescription drugs from, as a constituent said, “countries that have socialized medicine.” Vitter has campaigned in the past on re-importing drugs from Canada.

My ultimate goal,” Vitter explained, “is to use that (re-importation) to cause that (pricing) system to collapse.

Dear Ms Mathyssen,

Congratulations on your election last fall, I am very glad that you were elected in my riding as your responses to my questions of last summer were very persuasive and matched my own values and goals well.

As I’m sure you are aware, politics to the south of us often dominate our news cycle; often to the detriment to coverage of local and national Canadian politics.  The healthcare debate south of the border is of particular interest (having lived in the US for a number of years on a work visa, I have a strong appreciation of our local system).  However, this video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P1-X_J2qAGE) shows a Senator from the US discussing attempting to damage the Canadian Health Care system directly.  I feel very strongly that this demands and apology from the senator and would hope that the Prime Minister could be motivated to request an official apology from the Senator.  This is a serious affront to relations between our two nations and was not said in jest or to make a point, Sen. Vitter is making a direct threat to Canada’s sovereignty and this should be redressed.

Again, I thank you for your service on behalf of London-Fanshawe and Canada as a whole and wish you the very best of days forthcoming.

When even fact checking won’t save you

People such as scientist Stephen Hawking wouldn’t have a chance in the U.K., where the National Health Service would say the life of this brilliant man, because of his physical handicaps, is essentially worthless.
–Investors Business Daily commenting about the Health Care of Lifelong Brit Stephen Hawking

People in the US who have no real exposure to Universal Health Care of any stripe always want to tell you about how bad it is; and therefore by comparison how awesome (51st in the world) American Health Care ™ is.

It’s just that it’s so not the case.  The only advantage one achieves in the States over a place with Universal Health Care is the CashKey system.

The CashKey system works like this; with enough cash no door is locked to you and no barrier can really stand in your way.

So if you want a new knee or some extra skin cut loose; toss some money at a doctor (or a hospital board member) and you’ll get right into an operating theatre that day.  Maybe you have a benign (but painful) tumor, cash money, cash money.  Money money, dolla dolla bill y’all!

That’s all well and fine; but doesn’t that set up a tiered system that places profit over health care?

Well, yes.  Yes it does.

So, what about Sir Hawkings?  What about him?

Had Mr. Hawkings been born into a family without cash or to Middle Class parents without Health Insurance, how would Stevie Hawkings be doing now?  Why not ask a disabled homeless person about their life?  How about all those folks in Appalachia with no doctor (because there’s no profit in serving those poor areas, get it)

How about this mind-blowing statement;  if your school received government money to educate you; you have an obligation to serve society as a whole.  It’s as simple as that.  If your education was in any way funded by cash from taxes or public funds; then you spend at least the first part of your career serving the public good and paying back society.

But there’s no money in that, is there?

In which I debunk John Doe

Uninsured Gladney agitating against health care reform is reminiscent of those unemployed guys in Ohio who were strong supporters of George Bush against John Kerry. It did not matter to them that they were out of work and on the dole, or that they did not have health insurance, or that their brothers or brothers-in-law were in combat in Iraq: What really mattered to them was that George Bush believed in god, George Bush opposed gay marriages and abortions, and George Bush supported their right to own guns.

Fucking idiots.

Posted by: Doran on August 10, 2009 at 10:18 AM | PERMALINK

That’s because they know they out of a job with or without John Kerry. Empty promises fail to impress (see Barack Obama).Posted by: Jondoe on August 10, 2009 at 10:20 AM | PERMALINK

Umm, what?  Did Obama get into office and then say, “bwa ha ha,  no more politics and decision making for me.  Time to break out the records and get to Dancin’ in this here White House!”

Is that what happened?

Or has the Obama White house faced Republican and Conservative Democrat Oppostion to every single thing that he has proposed.

If you live here in Reality; you’d know it was the latter.  Over there in crazy town the White House is hosting a 2h-hour George Clinton and Jay-Z concert and nothing is getting done because the President goes to bed at 10 PM and isn’t fond of reading.  Right?

My Long Form Response to yet another Jingoistic Email

Not only is this Pure Unfiltered Bullcrap, but on it’s face it’s irrefutably false:

1.  The Iraqi “mess” was started by the English in the middle years “oh so long ago” after the First World War, one can be forgiven for not knowing basic history, but if it wasn’t for the Interference of the English Monarchy, there would be No Iraq.

2.  After the first Iraq War for Kuwati oil (don’t kid yourself that it wasn’t about oil, that’s all Kuwait has)   The Baathist regime in Iraq was essentially caged, and caged animals do what they do and start feeding on themselves.  Bravo!

3.  Then The British PM and George Bush Colluded to create any evidence they could to jsutify simply going into Iraq and “restoring order”  You’ll note the nice scare quotes I tossed onto that once since while The Hussein Regime was far from benign the Islamic Regime that is slowly coming in is sure to be much more Benevolent.  Right, All those tolerant Tolerant Shia Regimes all over, right?

So Bravo and three cheers for the volunteer armies who found themselves guarding oil derricks and shooting kids in their own neighborhoods.  Putting boot to ass for the cause of George Bush’s hubris and restoring the Great Satan to it’s vaunted and and long forgotten role as meddler and occupier in the Middle East!  Hip Hip Hooray!

Three Cheers for the Career soldiers who are little more than pawns of politicians who (for the vast majority) wouldn’t stand on the front themselves and say Boo!

Hip Hip Hooray for the Boys and Girls who are getting blown to bits for a few drops of oil and the Right to a nice Theocratic Regime in the former Mesopotamia.

Raise a glass for the very real possibility of a returned Caliphate in the middle east, made possible by the Soldiers of Freedom and the tanks of Liberty!

Then take your Jingoistic bullcrap and stuff it in the coffins with every boy and girl killed by some other boy defending their own country from Oil Hungry losers who treat National Defense like “Gi-Joe”

By the by, only the US omitted over One Hundred thousand troops to Iraq, the UK committed less than 30,000.  Hundreds of Thousands? That was an overestimate.

Cheers’ Good job doing the bare minimum to “support the troops” How about, instead of forwarding emails, you take a car ride down to the Veterans Hospital and spend an afternoon volunteering in the Psyche ward, those PTSD kids are a scream.

On Sat, Jul 18, 2009 at 3:58 PM, Ned Wardrop <> wrote:

Angela Shaw

— On Wed, 15/7/09, Shaw, Angela <Angela.Shaw@ wrote:

From: Shaw, Angela <Angela.Shaw@l
Subject: FW: Read this as i did!! and yes i agree!! 100%
Date: Wednesday, 15 July, 2009, 11:56 AM


scotlandc4e


Iraq

Hit the nail on the head!
An incident occurred in a supermarket recently, when the following was
witnessed….


A Muslim woman dressed in a Burkha


(A black gown & face mask) was standing with her shopping in a queue at the
checkout. When it was her turn to be served, and as she reached the cashier, she made a loud remark about the
Scottish Flag lapel pin, which the female cashier was wearing on her blouse
The cashier reached up and touched the pin and said, ‘Yes, I always wear it
proudly. My son serves abroad with The forces and I wear it for him’.
The Muslim woman then asked the cashier when she was going to stop bombing
and killing her countrymen, explaining that she was Iraqi.

At that point, a Gentleman standing in the queue stepped forward, and
interrupted with a calm and gentle voice, and said to the Iraqi woman:


‘Excuse me, but hundreds of thousands of
men and women, just like this lady’s son have fought and sacrificed their Lives so that people just like YOU can stand here, in
Scotland , which is MY country and allow you to blatantly accuse an innocent check-out cashier of bombing YOUR countrymen’. ‘It is my belief that if you were allowed to be as outspoken as that in Iraq, which you claim to be YOUR country, then we wouldn’t need to be fighting there today’. ‘However – now that you have learned
how to speak out and criticise the Scottish people who have afforded
You the protection of MY country, I will gladly pay the cost of a ticket to help you pay your way back to Iraq ‘..


‘When you get there, and if you manage to
survive for being as outspoken as you are here in Scotland, then you should be able to help straighten out the mess which YOUR Iraqi countrymen have got you into in the first place, which appears to be the reason that you have come to MY country to avoid’…


Apparently the queue cheered and applauded.


IF YOU AGREE..
Pass this on to all of your proud Scottish friends..
I just did…………..!!!

Support Our Troops…..

scotlandc4e


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The most Naiive Republican evers!

I’ve said before that Republicans aren’t too good at protests because we are just too polite, but maybe it’s time we stepped up to the plate EACH time anyway. Maybe we can stop this leftwing hate machine.

As a reminder, Governor Palin is a Tea Party supporter; Andrew Breitbart even basically called her the candidate of the Tea Parties. If any of our readers can put us in touch with New York Tea Party organizers, please let us know

So, if you are keeping notes: Republicans don’t get into protesting, because they are so polite. However, in the same post we see a reference to the ongoing and sometimes very impolite Tea Party protests that have sprung up around the USA.  Amazing.

Lest you think this is unique;  check out this one:

If you want to show your disgust at Pelosi, be there! Now, I’m not one for protests. I’ve been to a few (I think of the Tea Parties more as rallies), and frankly Republicans and conservatives aren’t too good at protest because we are just too well behaved. Take a look at the rest of the protest page:

(emphasis added) http://blogs.chron.com/texassparkle/2009/06/pelosi_protest.html

Why I do declare; it is so beyond us Republicans to mount an effective protest because we are simply to polite:

So Very very Polite.

Yup.

Paragons of Civility and Genteel Discourse.

Never Raising their voices in Protest; except for the most Egregious outrage, just ask the Dixie Chicks.

Not a Shining City on a Hill

Barely a burning corpse on a street these days:

No House at all
No House at all

Conclusion 8: Detainee abuse occurred during JPRA’s support to Special Mission Unit (SMU)
Task Force (TF) interrogation operations in Iraq in September 2003. JPRA Commander Colonel
Randy Moulton’s authorization ofSERE instructors, who had no experience in detainee
interrogations, to actively participate in Task Force interrogations using SERE resistance training
techniques was a serious failure in judgment. The Special Mission Unit Task Force
Commander’s failure to order that SERE resistance training techniques not be used in detainee
interrogations was a serious failure in leadership that led to the abuse ofdetainees in Task Force
custody. Iraq is a Geneva Convention theater and techniques used in SERE school are
inconsistent with the obligations of U.S. personnel under the Geneva Conventions.

Read it for yourself

In Case you aren't getting it yet

Taibbi:

What’s hilarious about the teabaggers, though, is how they never squawk about waste until the spending actually has a chance of benefiting them. You will never hear of a teabagger crying about OPIC giving $50 million in free insurance to some mining company so that they can dig for silver in rural Bolivia. You won’t hear of a teabagger protesting the $2.5 billion in Ex-Im loans we gave to GE through the early part of this decade, even as GE was moving nearly a hundred thousand jobs overseas over the course of ten years. And Michelle Malkin’s readers didn’t seem to mind giving IBM millions in Ex-IM and ATP loans at the same time it was giving its former CEO, Lou Gerstner, $260 million in stock options.

In other words teabaggers don’t mind paying taxes to fund the salaries of Bolivian miners, Lou Gerstner’s stock options, deliveries of “sailboat fuel,” the Hermes scarves on Sandy Weill’s jet pillows, or even the export of their own goddamn jobs. But they do hate it when someone tries to re-asphalt their roads, or help bail their slob neighbor out of foreclosure. And God forbid someone propose a health care program, or increased financial aid for college. Hell, that’s like offering to share your turkey with the other Pilgrims! That’s not what America is all about! America is every Pilgrim for himself, dammit! Raise your own motherfucking turkey!

And once again, Taibbi:

You know you’re a peasant when you worship the very people who are right now, this minute, conning you and taking your shit. Whatever the master does, you’re on board. When you get frisky, he sticks a big cross in the middle of your village, and you spend the rest of your life praying to it with big googly eyes. Or he puts out newspapers full of innuendo about this or that faraway group and you immediately salute and rush off to join the hate squad. A good peasant is loyal, simpleminded, and full of misdirected anger. And that’s what we’ve got now, a lot of misdirected anger searching around for a non-target to mis-punish… can’t be mad at AIG, can’t be mad at Citi or Goldman Sachs. The real villains have to be the anti-AIG protesters! After all, those people earned those bonuses!

Don’t know about you, but given the choice, I’d rather be an elitist than a peasant any day.

Shamelessly stolen from Rising Hegemon