Watch as Lawrence O’Donnell presses Republican Congressman Culberson on his claims that health care reform is socialist, telling him he needs to vote to repeal Social Security and Medicare too…and keeps pressing him through the whole segment.
I wish more people would be asking the Republicans which other “socialist” programs they want to repeal and forcing them to answer. 1932? WTF?
That’s a beauty. Saw the clip yesterday and got goosebumps from watching. Culberson was left with ‘you do not know who I am!’ and non-sequiteur answers questioning MSNBC’s viewership.
Wasn’t that great? It was the Fox-style approach, used on a Republican, and then he whines about it and cries “You don’t know who I am”.
We know exactly who you are, Mr. Culberson. An opportunistic hate-mongering a-hole who works for the insurance industry.
Exactly the right way to address these punks.
Socialism, ha ha ha.
Building a road is socialism. Building a road and selling it to someone to charge tolls is capitalism. Ask Rick Perry.
“Building a road is socialism”.
Very true Bob, yet very very few average people will accept this. Even many so called liberals refuse to acknowledge it.
Over the last 40 years we have been conditioned, mainly by the media, that socialism is a governing system, not an economic one. So most people see socialism in a ‘take over’ sense. So when you mention roads, water, sewer, power lines, police, fire departments, they get a blank look on their faces. I once had a very old dear friend, a wing nut through and through, go ‘C’mon! I consider those civilization, not socialism!” DUH!
Most American’s absolutely refuse to believe EVERYONE is a beneficiary of socialism. They think they are little islands of ‘pure’ capitalist in a sea of graspers for their wealth.
All of the above is why the claim ‘It’s not in the constitution!’ at town halls. They are confusing the bill of rights with an economic system. Of course socialism IS in the constitution. The ‘taking clause’ in the 5th amendment limits imminent domain use, but does not exclude it.
For the majority of American’s to not understand the basic concepts of ‘for the greater good’ is a national disgrace. And I see no way of gaining ground on the issue for many many years.
IMO it is how American Empire will fall. We will be last at the party, and will no longer be competitive on a national level.
In other words, we are too stupid to grow culturally.
nalbar
When I explain the above on construction sites I am considered a crazy extreme reactionary.
That’s just FOX News bullying in reverse, and it does nothing but demean our political culture. O’Donnell wouldn’t let the guy finish a sentence, and was clearly turning the interview into a juvenile food fight that doesn’t advance our understanding of the issue. If this represents political discourse in our country, then we are beyond salvation. I don’t see anything to cheer about here.
O’Donnell is a top tier interrogator and it is harsh watching his premise of ‘answer the question yes or no and then explore your perspective’ in action. But the alternative is never getting an answer but instead a mouthful of spin.
Culberson wouldn’t answer the question, and the reason why he wouldn’t answer the question was obvious.
He wanted to ride the anti-socialism horse but wouldn’t respond to what he would do with socialist programs like Social Security and Medicare. There wouldn’t have been any argument if Culberson hadn’t been a dishonest weenie. I know that “Republican” means “dishonest” these days, but if the guy is going to lie he shouldn’t be allowed to lie. And O’Donnell is right, Culberson is a liar.
Um, isn’t that about like insulting the integrity of a prostitute? This is political discourse in our country, and we have been beyond salvation for a long, long time…
I thought Culberson won that debate in the eyes of an average viewer. O’Donnell looked like a jerk.
In the eyes of the average viewer you are a liberal fascist.
And it wasn’t a debate. It was Culberson refusing to answer a question for six minutes.
Mary, Mary, quite contrary how does you’re garden grow?
Sorry. I just couldn’t resist. Nor could you.
I dunno… I watched part of this clip yesterday and had to stop mid-way because O’Donnell’s yammering was irritating me. I think his attack would have been more effective if he had spoken more slowly, clearly and concisely. Instead, it just looked like hectoring. Yes, the Repub looked like a bumbling idiot but O’Donnell looked like an asshole. I disliked both of them equally.
I did not feel it was “beautiful”. He had some very creative room to use martial skill, as when Culberson said he was a Jeffersonian republican – that would have been interesting. I felt it was a bruising street fight with republican tactics and that doesn’t ultimately feel good or right to me. Granted, he had him nailed on basics like medicare and social security, but he lost overall to brutality and interruption.
O’Donnell was magnificent.
Obama needs to take a lesson and start calling assholes like Grassley liars and hypocrites.
Passion will win the day here. Obama’s “deer in the headlights” management of this debate will avail us nothing.
We throw 787 billion at the banks last year. We could insure 40 million people for 30 billion dollars.
Bank bailout – 787 billion (?)
Iraq War – 600 billion (?)
Bush taxcuts to Oligarchy – approx 3300 billion or 3.3 trillion
Bush added 4.6 trillion to the national debt. We could have insured our 40 million fellow citizens for 115,000 years. These are estimates but you get the idea.
WTF is wrong with the Republican party? They call this socialism? Hey Fuck You how about that.
BTW: Reagan and Bush I added 4.3 trillion to the national debt. Another 100,000 years 40 million people could be insured.
I watched several town hall health care food fights this past week. One woman shouted that she did not want her children saddled with the debt of this health care proposal. Another young woman, who stated that she had two children, talked about getting this country back to what our founders intended. An elderly woman the week before, asked why 80% of Americans who are happy with the status quo should pay for the health care of the other 20%. A man was heard to complain about how we were going to pay for health care without raising taxes.
After due reflection I find that these comments, and the many others like it, come from people who come by these thoughts honestly. Their beliefs truly come from a place within their hearts where these deeply held convictions motivate their passions. Whether their passions are colored by being anti-Obama, pro-Republican, anti-everyone but themselves, narcissistic, conservative, totally capitalistic, anti-socialistic, etc., really does not matter. What matters is that the vast majority of such people who hold such views will not have their mind changed. They already developed such long standing deeply held views that run along the line of “I’ll take care of me, you take care of you,” no matter how irreconcilable their view is with their behavior.
Let’s take an example. Many of these folks send their children to public schools. Here in Florida, for the most part, grades 1 through 12 are real property taxpayer funded. So, if a single 40 year old, with no children, owns a home worth $500,000, and the next door neighbor is a couple with 5 children in public schools, who own a home of the same value, guess who is paying an unfair share for whose children to go to school. That 45 year old pays an unequal share for those socialist programs, as fire, police, parks, libraries, roads, and other “publicly paid for and provided for service, that real property taxes pay for. Do you think any of the “I’ll take care of me, you take care of you,” crowd will complain about the unfair tax, the free education, the debt, and the who is going to pay for it problem when they get these benefits?
Then they ask to name one government program that works. How about the mint? Any complaint there? I think the post office and the postal delivery man does a great job! Let see those people tell us how they think our military does a crappy job! Or, how about those men and women who got us to the moon, or space walked, or got the Hubble out there? Or the incredible advances the NIH has brought us?
The fact is that no government in the world operates perfectly. The other fact is that government does have obligation to provide for the health, welfare and safety of all Americans, and health insurance companies do not. The only obligation insurance companies have is to their shareholders; and, to do that, they must do two things: collect billions in premiums, and fighting like hell from giving them back. While doing those two things, sick insureds are least of their concerns.
Fire departments, police departments. Do you want to give your credit card information before they respond?
You want the towns to get out of the road business and sell them to private owners as toll roads?
Gee whiz, all the tears over O’Donnell’s impoliteness.
Maybe he could have done a little better, but to be honest, Culberson talked over O’Donnell, kept talking about MSNBC’s ratings and gave us the “don’t you know who you’re talking to?” crap when he was refusing to answer the question.
Perhaps O’Donnell could have asked, “Is the reason why you won’t answer my question because you know that the vast majority of Americans like Medicare and Social Security and they are socialist programs?”
That way Culberson would have had to explain why socialism isn’t socialism when the people want it.
Elvis was 42 when he died on this date 32 years ago
Whatever happened to sideburns?
Speaking of successful socialistic programs how about sanitation, clean water, vaccinations of all kinds, anti polio programs not to mention public health efforts against all kinds of communicable diseases like AIDS, swine flu, typhoid, typhus fever, diphtheria, tuberculosis, whooping cough, smallpox measles, etc, etc.
Face it, without the efforts of our state and national governments our life span would quickly deteriorate. Without Medicare and Social Security the elderly would once again be at extreme risk. I think it’s time our media begins to inform the electorate of these basic health issues rather than misleading it. How else do we maintain our democracy?
The Brutal Truth about American Healthcare-
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/08/15