Cheering Death

by Dick Mac

When President Obama put forward a somewhat sensible health care policy, the Tea Party spent tens of millions of dollars whipping-up fear and hatred among their following.

Although the Tea Party has no alternative suggestions about how to fix America's disastrous health care system, they are opposed to anything President Obama puts forward, even if it will help them.

Now that the election season has started for the Republicans, the candidates have been "debating" on television.

One of these "debates" was sponsored by the Tea Party.

Health care was a topic.

A scenario was put forward about a man who died of a curable illness. He died because he had no health insurance.

The Tea Party cheered. They cheered the paradigm that if you cannot afford health insurance, then you should die of your illness.

None of the candidates spoke-up. None of them suggested that perhaps we shouldn't let the uninsured die, and die miserable deaths, because they have lost their health insurance.

Susan Grigsby has recorded a video about the story of her brother, a man who worked all of his life, until he was discarded by his company at age 55, never found another job, and died without receiving available treatment for his illness. At 55 he wasn't ever going to find another job, he had no insurance, and he was ineligible for current federal programs.

So, he died.

And the Tea Party cheers his death.





MoveOn.Org Takes On Cheer For Death Of Uninsured With Hard-Hitting Campaign (VIDEO)

Discussing the Salazar Event - Bemused By An Internet Discussion

by Dick Mac

Yesterday's blog entry discussed the statement made by Red Bull New York (RBNY) about Ricardo Salazar, the referee for RBNY's Sunday night match against Portland.

Salazar made a questionable decision to eject Thierry Henry from the match after he had a less-than-friendly interaction with an opponent. Both players were pissed-off about a play, and each responded poorly to the other. However, only Henry was ejected, while his opponent was allowed to finish the match.

I insist that this official is, and always has been, an ebarrassment to all referees and sports officials in every sport; he consistently makes bad calls, favors one team over another, and allows opinion and the search for personal glory to inform his decisions.

The original article appeared at the RBNY site, and was linked to their Facebook account; so, anybody connected to the team via Facebook could comment, and the thread used all the features of a Facebook discussion.

I posted:

Wow! What an amazing statement. I have never seen a team speak-out so clearly and succinctly about officiating.

Salazar is an embarrassment, and should never work another MLS match. His officiating is consistently bad.

Hours later, another reader replied that Salazar bore no responsibility for the call:



A short exchange followed, where I insisted that Salazar was solely responsible (AR refers to Assistant Referee):



The person who was ostensibly defending Salazar then did something odd and the thread looked like this:



The other person deleted all their previous statements, then announced that the discussion was done.

I am no expert debater, and many will tell you that my emotionalism more often than not clouds my ability to effectively present my arguments; but I never just dismiss the other person with a pronouncement that the discussion is over. That is just plain rude!

I have heard of this sort of thing happening on the internet, but had never actually had it happen. Oddly, it happened twice yesterday (the other incident is too insane to merit discussion).

The internet is a debating landmine: we do not see each other and are accountable to nobody, so we can say whatever we want with impunity. I have been guitly of it, and have had to apologize (publicly and privately) on more than one occasion for statements I made on the web. This notion of removing all traces of a discussion before dismissing the other person is new to me. So, I had to share it with you!

Democratic Presidential Debate

CNN and youtube.com sponsored and hosted a presidential debate last night. The questions were posed via youtube.cim video by ordinary (or, extraordinary) citizens.

This is the most innovative debate since the Nixon-Kennedy debates were televised. Subscribers to youtube.com created video questions to be posed to Democrats hopefuls. See the video questions here.

Mary and Jen, of Brooklyn, NY, asked about gay marriage. Only Dennis Kucinich answered the question correctly:


Or view the video at youtube.com here.

Since Kucinich seems to be the only candidate smart enough to understand the Constitution and its role in ensuring dignity for all Americans, he is the early front-runner to get my endorsement for the Democratic nomination.

Visit the Kucinich website here and send him money.

It's a good idea to let citizens use the internet to ask questions of the candidates.

I hope it continues for a few weeks. Eventually, conservatives like Clinton and Obama will figure out methods to co-opt the process, but it will be an important process until then.

Dick Mac Recommends:

A People's History of the United States
Howard Zinn