Instead of spending time at a Town Hall meeting discussing a complicated and serious issues with a wide variety of proposed solutions, we end up with people yeling falsitudes abot”the government euthanizing me” and the always popular “I have a friend in Canada … ” tale (it amazing how many conservatives who love to mock everything about Canada now seem to have so many friends there).

Hicks, provides my example as there is nothing under consideration that equates to what exist in Canada or the UK. Nothing!! Some of the bills include a public insurance option (note the word option) available in the market (like the US Postal Service, compared FedEx, DHL or UPS). However, many analyst would tell you that is unlikely to be included in the final bill.

Ironically, no one ever discusses the proposed health insurance exchange set up by the government where the coverage is provided by private insurers at lower rates than are now generally available under rules that require insurers to offer coverage to anyone regardless of health condition (a very moderate program position, as it lessens burden of government rules). Of course, that would require a listening and discussing an issue rather than talking about “my friend in Canada…”

Danton and Robespierre wrote the book on it. Too bad the Revolution chewed them up and spat them out.

Now that issue is entirely different than Americans in need of healthcare, and the only TRUE reform would be to remove the insurance companies from the mix.

* 14,000 people PER DAY in America lose their health care.
* 60% of personal bankruptcies are due to medical bills.
* 47 MILLION people are without health care coverage.
* Americans spend twice as much as any other health care system.
* America's mortality rate is among the worst in developed nations.

Isn't it time for Reagan's “ME GENERATION” (give ME tax cuts, give ME less regulations, give ME less government, give me a gun and bible, give ME a break, give ME a brain, etc) who only think about themselves, to just shut up.

Isn't it our patriotic duty to help our fellow countrymen? Isn't it time for Americans to start conducting themselves more the America's Greatest Generation – the World War II generation?

shannonlee wrote: “I'm not on the right, I just think Pelosi is a moron. The work of hundreds of people doesn't make her intelligent…she just happens to have seniority.”

Pardon my assuming that you were on the right. As your “She's a moron” remark is exactly the same as the current wingnut talking point you'll surely understand where my error came from. Also since the Speaker of the House sets the legislative calender (what bills are heard and when) your “The work of hundreds of people doesn't make her intelligent” comment sounds like you're not very familiar with the workings of House of Representatives.

Again, what (other than you think that she is a moron) are your problems with Speaker Pelosi?

http://recessrally.com/

here's link to the site to help organize the disruption of the national conversation on healthcare reform. Note the logos of sponsors on the bottom of the front page.

Now, here's the link to Rachel Maddow's transcript from last night, where she explains who many of these “grassroots” sponsors are and the people behind them.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32315185/ns/msnbc_t…

It's not narrative, it's truth. Trying to say all the reform-negative voices behave like the klaxoning fools is a narrative, but that's no good.

For your larger point, yeah, one has to get into the specifics of what's actually going on. If a person asks a well-informed question that challenges the speaker's talking points with facts and doesn't let them avoid the question, that's the ideal. If a person interrupts the speaker only for the sake of interruption and doesn't allow any conversation to take place, but instead insists simply on yelling the talking points they've been given, then they are helping no one.

So again [sigh] (cool eh DLS?) Here's the Legislation of the 111th Congress. These are bills that have been signed into law… passed waiting Senate action… or, adopted as house policy under the leadership of Nancy Pelosi… Please review the legislation and tell me again what (other than a talking point) is you concern with Speaker Pelosi?

First, paca, that's the narrative that's being put out about what's going on but Mikkel's post gives a different perspective. The interruptions are sometimes just interrupting the BS talking points that the Congressional Rep is spouting, and asking him to answer actual questions- and in most cases when this happens, the Congressman is struck dumb without the ability to actually answer.

And as for people not being able to learn what is in the bill- don't you think people should actually take the time to read? That's half the problem- people want to be spoonfed, and when you ask for spoonfeeding, a politician will feed you whatever vague, nonanswers he thinks you want to hear.

There's nothing wrong with going to an event like this to actually make the Congressperson defend his position, and if he proves unable to do so then that's his problem.

In cases where people really don't allow a response, I agree with you- but again, look at a variety of sources at clips and see if you think that's going on in all of these cases.

“Can you believe how those people act? That Side has no class or respect for others. Must be a bunch of Nazis. I hate them all.”

That's all we'd get. We love such tactics when used on others but never on ourselves.

Lol wut.

“I wish in hindsight I'd tried to get involved to stop that debacle, and I'm certainly not going to remain quiet while we pour more gasoline on the fire.”

You know what they say, hindsight is 0-20/20.

There's a big difference between letting the perfect be the enemy of the good (which is what you're pretending this is) and trying to block legislation that would take a bad situation and make it far worse.

Why should they do as you say? You know you can't have perfect legislation, you know the current system hurts people and the economy every year, you know the problem will become greater as time goes by and you also know the GOP is at best no better than the DNC at actually making good legislation with no ideological luggage. You're asking for more than you think.

The polls were in 90 % favor of Bush, who later was at 20 % when they realized who he was and the war in Iraq turned out as poorly and uselessly as the minority at the time predicted. This slim majority who might feel some sort of rumbly sensation in their tummy when they hear all the bumf about the current reform – how good of a perspective on and grasp off the issue do they have? One side is guilty of not bothering to spread information, the largely is generally guilty of spreading disinformation.