The assassination of President John F. Kennedy on Nov. 22, 1963, became a defining moment for our country: ’Peace is the necessary rational end of rational men…we have no more urgent task’

Bobcesca.com, Nov 22

Thanks to Bob Cesca for posting this video. It’s difficult for me to realize that forty-six years have passed since this great tragedy.  Nearing five decades later, how do Barack Obama’s words resonate with the message of John Kennedy. –Marvin

‘The most important topic on earth—peace.  What kind of peace do I mean and what kind of peace do we seek?  Not a pax Americana enforced on the world by American weapons of war.  Not the peace of the grave or the security of the slave. . . genuine peace, the kind of peace that makes life worth living, the kind that enables men and nations to grow and to hope and build a better life for their children; not merely peace for Americans but peace for all men and women . . . not merely peace in our time but peace for all time. . .’

Video: http://www.bobcesca.com/blog-archives/2009/11/morning_awesome_735.html (watch the last 2 ½ minutes)

**********

If all we do is scream at each other. . .

Mike Taibbi, True/Slant, Nov 20

Taibbi so aptly captures the raging frustration of  the first ten months of the Obama administration in this piece (never mind that it has Palin in its title): What better example for the current generation than that provoked by the obstructionists who will fight ‘anything Obama’ with the hope of gaining seats in a mid-term election. –Marvin

At the end of this decade what we call “politics” has devolved into a kind of ongoing, brainless soap opera about dueling cultural resentments and the really cool thing about it, if you’re a TV news producer or a talk radio host, is that you can build the next day’s news cycle meme around pretty much anything at all, no matter how irrelevant . . . It doesn’t matter what the argument is about. What’s important is that once the argument starts, the two sides will automatically coalesce around the various instant-cocoa talking points and scream at each other until they’re blue in the face, or until the next argument starts. . . and while some of us are old enough to remember that once upon a time, these arguments always had at least some sort of ideological flavor to them, i.e. the throwdowns were at least rooted in some sort of real political issue (war, taxes, immigration, etc.) we’ve now got a whole generation that is accustomed to screaming at cultural enemies as an end in itself, for the sheer dismal fun of it. Start fighting first, figure out the reasons later.

http://trueslant.com/matttaibbi/2009/11/20/sarah-palin-wwe-star/

************

Sen. Wyden wins big healthcare concession

Jeffrey Young, Nov 22

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) have taken a long stride toward locking down the support of Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.).

The three senators announced an agreement Friday on an amendment that would allow many more people who get health insurance at work to opt out and instead purchase coverage on the new health insurance exchanges the bill would create. More important to the debate on the healthcare reform bill that would kick after Thanksgiving — presuming Senate Democrats unite to clear a procedural vote Saturday evening — is that the deal could quiet Wyden’s frequent complaints that the bill as introduced would do too little to offer consumers more health insurance plans from which to choose or to create a more competitive insurance marketplace that would drive down healthcare costs.

“As I have long said, empowering Americans to choose the health insurance that works best for them and their family is the single best way to hold health insurance companies accountable,” Wyden  said in a statement.  “While this is just one step in the direction of guaranteeing choices for all Americans, it is a major step because – for the first time – it introduces the concept of individual choice to a marketplace where it has long been foreign. This is a significant step toward real reform.”
Go to: http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/68897-sen-wyden-wins-big-healthcare-concession

***********

We need more Dems like Bennet and fewer like Lieberman.–Marvin

Michael Bennet: I’ll Lose My Seat to Support Health Care

Sam Stein, Huff Post, Nov 22

Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.), a freshman Senator who is fighting to hold his seat in 2010, said he would support health care reform even if it cost him his job.

Appearing on CNN’s “State of the Union,” the Colorado Democrat was asked whether he would vote in favor of the legislation even if “every piece of evidence tells you, if you support that bill you will lose your job.”

“Yes,” Bennet replied, succinctly.

Appointed to the seat after President Obama tapped former Colorado Sen. Ken Salazar (D) to be his Secretary of the Interior, Bennet may have a tricky reelection race. He faces a challenge from the progressive wing of his own party for the nomination, even though his state has only recently trended Democratic.

Bennet’s vote on health care was at one point in time uncertain. But that was months ago. Now the politics seem to dictate that championing reform is smarter than attacking it.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/22/michael-bennet-ill-lose-m_n_366780.html

*********

Ask yourself two big questions: What the Passage of Health Care Legislation Means for the Future

Mike Lux, Huff Post, Nov 20

Being into the whole history thing enough to have written a book on it, I tend to take a long view on the big policy battles we fight today. As I wrote the other day, no piece of legislation ever gets to perfection, and on plenty of them you can have a perfectly legitimate debate even over the most well-intentioned bill over whether it does more harm than good. In addition to the actual policy particulars, lawmakers have to weigh (if they care about political survival) a wide range of other factors, including the political implications both nationally and in their home districts, the symbolism of what they are doing, how the interest groups and donors that matter the most to them are impacted, and how the media nationally and back home are treating the issue. Trying to factor in all these things is intense, and it is understandable that politicians sometimes have trouble making up their minds.

For reasonably progressive-minded advocates and lawmakers on a huge issue like health care, after you factor in all of the above, at the end of the day you also have to ask yourself two very big questions. The first iswhether the passage of this legislation sets the stage on other issues for better or worse things to come. The second is whether the legislation, even with all of its flaws and compromises, creates a platform to build on in the future.

I know that all of you think I’m writing about health care, and I am. But I think these two questions are equally applicable to the other big fights looming immediately in front of us- climate change, financial reform, immigration, maybe (hopefully) a jobs bill, Employee Free Choice Act. In every single case, progressives are going to have to make difficult decisions re the compromises they will be forced to make. On none of these issues will we be able to get what we want, and some of the tradeoffs will really suck. But as we are debating the policy pros and cons, we also need to keep those two big questions in mind.

Read the whole piece: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mike-lux/two-questions_b_365261.html