“Health care nays spark 3rd party” leads off page 8 of the Times this past Monday. The article is from The Washington Post and is subtitled “Progressives target 3 Democratic congressmen who sided with Republicans” In it, North Carolina reporter Philip Rucker opens with “Frustrated liberals and labor organizers are taking aim at the Democratic party …” And as to the spoiler effect of a third party, there is this gem: “Organizers say they are so fed up with Democrats who did not support health-care overhaul that they simply do not care.” Well, I’ll be. This report has a pomegranate of facets, two at least, make that three or more if you add Richard’s move against Murray. Here’s the one that juiced my pomegranate: Assuming that North Carolina liberals and labor are not stupid, why should they attack those three Democrats for voting against a patently lousy health bill? The answer to this facetious question is: A) The tarheels only appear to be staunch supporters of the administration and actually want the Republicans...

Yesterday somebody I had known for a long time came to me with a problem. He had just watched the 2007 video of US soldiers shooting civilians from a helicopter, He said he felt terrible and could do nothing about it. He said he had to talk to somebody. I said start talking. He told me that he’d led a sheltered, a-political life until three years ago when he got an email from an activist in Portland seeking volunteers for a campaign to get signatures for some legislation. Apparently one of the environmental groups he had been supporting had sold his name. He’d agreed to approach a local political party. His pitch to them, while rejected, led to his joining their support for a candidate opposing Cantwell’s reelection bid. That campaign in turn had been organized by a coalition in Seattle many of whose members now became his friends. Over the next few years the email postings of that coalition layer by layer pried off his illusions about the United States. In result he actually hit the streets for a year...

To find ill-behaved "right wing"  mobs and nice, hard-left-against-the-stop, progressives both denouncing Obama's health bill is a paradox.  An attempt to resolve follows. The tea baggers'  message is that the government should not be in the business of providing healthcare. The hard-lefter's  message is that this bill leaves health care firmly in the control of the insurance industry. How in the world, one may ask, does a bill that further entrenches the insurance industry seem to the right wingers to be socialistic? It is put that the tea baggers are a decoy invented by the pro-industry forces in the administration to make the single payer/public option people think the bill is a step in that direction. 

In support of the contention that the bill leaves control with the industry note for example the wide approval of the bill by the European financial sector. 

As to the substance of the bill, here is Liberal's comment: "What's wrong with extending basic, preventative health care to a larger segment...

That way I can be sure civilization is still operating when I go. Until then I will keep up my hobby of throwing darts at simple minded pundits like the one who writes for the PEN. Today heershe got my attention by exhorting us to go to Facebook and annoy our Friends with a political message. Heershe got my attention by stating flatly that Facebook is far more powerful than television in controlling people. More hits daily than Google! Realizing this, we must use FB immediately to urge our Friends to get a certain bumper sticker. Rise, supine progressives, here at last is your aegis! Wield your new power!

No, I will not go to Facebook, because lack of Facebook is not what got us into trouble. We are in trouble because we communicate by computer instead of by cracker barrel. Besides, riding around in a car with a sticker that says corporations are not people is not communicating anything to anybody. Perhaps the PEN would like to have it explained that we are losing a class war against an entity so powerful...