Are Americans a Broken People?
POSTED BY: SignyM
UPDATED: Tuesday, August 18, 2026 03:15
VIEWED: 19858
PAGE 11 of 29
Quote:
Originally posted by citizen:Quote:
Originally posted by rue:
Slow efficient heart - good contractility, good emptying. Higher BP - you might be salt sensitive, which is sometimes caused by higher uric acid levels.
On second thought - what's your pulse pressure ? (difference between systolic (higher) - diastolic (lower)) ?
I can't remember, to be fair though last time I had it checked it was at the minor injuries ward after I had just fallen through my loft and landed in the kitchen.
Still got the scars where that board tore the skin off my side. Apparently, so the nurse told me, Rib wall injuries hurt.
No shit.
ouch... I am sure a fall like that would have an effect on the heart rate, and probably the blood pressure too
Hope something broke your fall, short of the floor
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Well, Citizen
If your heart rate was slightly lower than normal and your BP sightly higher than normal after THAT - my unofficial unprofessional diagnosis is - you're extremely healthy !
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Silence is consent.
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The underlying divisions in the healthcare debate
By Glenn Greenwald
Ed Kilgore has a very perceptive analysis in The New Republic about the underlying (and largely unexamined) ideological and strategic differences among progressives that are at least partially driving the rift over the health care bill. He argues -- correctly -- that the current debate "displays a couple of pretty important potential fault lines within the American center-left" that have manifested in other disputes as well. That was the principal point of this much-maligned Daily Kos post observing that many (but not all) of the progressive bloggers most vehemently demanding passage of the health care bill also supported the Iraq War. As the author of that post (Jake McIntyre) explicitly said, his intent wasn't to suggest that those individuals shouldn't be listened to because of their Iraq position six years ago (that would be an invalid and unfair claim), but simply that -- as Kilgore says -- there are underlying and significant differences in strategic and ideological outlook driving the health care debate that have been present for some time but are typically ignored.
Shared contempt for the Bush administration (at least once Bush and the Iraq War became discredited) largely obscured these differences when Bush was in office. The desire to undermine the Bush GOP and dislodge that movement from power subsumed all other objectives and united people with vastly different political outlooks and agendas. There is still a shared revulsion towards the Palin/Limbaugh Right, but that faction is too marginalized and impotent to serve the same function. With the unifying force of Bush/Cheney gone, the divisions Kilgore describes are now vibrant and increasingly potent. In addition to health care and Iraq, roughly the same progressive fault lines are seen over the bank bailout, escalation in Afghanistan, Obama's economic team, tolerance for Obama's embrace of Bush/Cheney civil liberties polices, and even the reaction to Matt Taibbi's recent Rolling Stone article on Obama's subservience to Wall Street.
There are many reasons for the progressive division on the health care bill. There are differences over the narrow question of health care policy, with some believing the bill does more harm than good just on that ground alone. Some of it has to do with broader questions of political power: if progressives always announce that they are willing to accept whatever miniscule benefits are tossed at them (on the ground that it's better than nothing) and unfailingly support Democratic initiatives (on the ground that the GOP is worse), then they will (and should) always be ignored when it comes time to negotiate; nobody takes seriously the demands of those who announce they'll go along with whatever the final outcome is. But the most significant underlying division identified by Kilgore is the divergent views over the rapidly growing corporatism that defines our political system.
Kilgore doesn't call it "corporatism" -- the virtually complete dominance of government by large corporations, even a merger between the two -- but that's what he's talking about. He puts it in slightly more palatable terms:
To put it simply, and perhaps over-simply, on a variety of fronts (most notably financial restructuring and health care reform, but arguably on climate change as well), the Obama administration has chosen the strategy of deploying regulated and subsidized private sector entities to achieve progressive policy results. This approach was a hallmark of the so-called Clintonian, "New Democrat" movement, and the broader international movement sometimes referred to as "the Third Way," which often defended the use of private means for public ends.
As I've written for quite some time, I've honestly never understood how anyone could think that Obama was going to bring about some sort of "new" political approach or governing method when, as Kilgore notes, what he practices -- politically and substantively -- is the Third Way, DLC, triangulatin
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Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
Where have I insulted you?
You don't have to...directly. you've got Mike and Rue to do the enforcing. Your insult is to assume that no one but you has any understanding of how the world works.
You have no doubt that your worldview is the correct one; stangely enough, just as the folks who had the geocentric point of view felt. You have no doubt that you're right. I, on the other hand, tend to doubt pretty much every philosophy that says "you must". I don't trust folk who have all the answers, since folks such as Hitler, Chairnman Mao, and Carrie Nation thought they had "The Answer".
You scare me, since I see your world as nothing but mass conformity to the rules that you, and those like you, have decided everyone should live by. I'd much rather have a fucked-up mess than your 'utopia'.
"Keep the Shiny side up"
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Quote:
Originally posted by GinoBiffaroni:
One thing that give me hope
years ago, when this board started I brought up many of the issues we still discuss today, and was faced with a wall of " America is the best country ever " and we can do no wrong crap.
Now, after eight or is it nine? years of Bush I think many Americans are starting to see America the way people outside the US see it
kind of a geopolitical 12 step program
your starting to admit there is a problem
Yep, been there many times in the past few years. It was actually quite confronting to read the inherent racism within the 'God's own country' BS that I was faced with.
I remember doing a hypothetical scenario a few years ago on another board about 'what if China gave US the ultimatum that if it didn't disarm it's nuclear arsenal by set date, that they would invade, bring down the government and execute the President.'
Got some damned interesting reactions along the lines how the US people were unique in the world and, unlike other countries who had submitted to their invaders, would unite and fight to the last man standing, unlike people in other parts of the world which were, let;'s face it, not made of the same grit and determination.
Now I never really said that such a scenario was likely or possible, but I was bemused by the reaction of many posters, left and right viewed, I might add, who really felt that the US people a were superior to all others on the planet, even if they didn't directly state that.
Anyway, the other constant galling aspect of communicating with so many Americans on the Internet is the UScentric view of world history. America won the war, it seems, the whole war, and quite single handedly. The Eastern front didn't exist, it seems or didn't count. I love Band of Brothers, but it does make it seem like the only ones who were doing anything significant were the Americans.
Oh and there were no Americans in the Great Escape, they just put them in the film otherwise American audiences wouldn't have watched it, because who cares if a bunch of Brits, Canadians, Australians, and Europeans did something brave, it doesn't count.
And the whole issue of healthcare, how many times have I read how universal healthcare cannot work because it's never been done, because seemingly, no where else in the world exists.
So if being 'broken' means that the sense of ultimate superiority has been cracked, I think it's probably not a bad thing, not without pain, but you know what they say - no pain no gain - at least that's what my masseur says to me when she wraps my legs around my ears.
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Quote:
Originally posted by Geezer:Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
Where have I insulted you?
You don't have to...directly. you've got Mike and Rue to do the enforcing. Your insult is to assume that no one but you has any understanding of how the world works.
Yeah, it's not like YOU ever tried to convince anyone that you have an understanding of how things work, right? I mean, aren't you being insulting just in making a statement like that?
As for "enforcing", you make it sound like Rue and I are in communication with Signy on a regular basis, laying out our "master plan" of how we're going to hammer down the nail that is Geezer. Sorry to spoil your delusions, but no such thing has ever happened. I'd have the exact same validity if I were to argue that you use Wulfie and Auraptor to do your "enforcing", just because they share your political views.
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You have no doubt that your worldview is the correct one...
Do you run into a lot of people who are utterly convinced that their worldview is the WRONG one? How's that working out for ya?
Quote:
You have no doubt that you're right. I, on the other hand, tend to doubt pretty much every philosophy that says "you must".
Even if they say "You must let the free markets decide"? Or "you must allow capitalism, because it's the only way that could ever work!"
Quote:
I don't trust folk who have all the answers, since folks such as Hitler, Chairnman Mao, and Carrie Nation thought they had "The Answer".
I'd add Nixon, Reagan, and a couple of Bushes to that list as well, along with some guy named Greenspan.
Quote:
You scare me, since I see your world as nothing but mass conformity to the rules that you, and those like you, have decided everyone should live by. I'd much rather have a fucked-up mess than your 'utopia'.
Well, you've definitely got your wish. If there's one thing that can't be argued, it's that you've got one fucked-up mess, and it definitely isn't "utopia"...
And besides, you're a right-winger; you should be used to fear by now. It's really all you've ever had to work with.
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Quote:
Originally posted by rue:
Well, Citizen
If your heart rate was slightly lower than normal and your BP sightly higher than normal after THAT - my unofficial unprofessional diagnosis is - you're extremely healthy !
Heh, thanks. The floor did break my fall, but it had lino on it so that's got some bounce.
I was mainly just trying to get something in a direction other than how much everyone but Geezer sucks here.
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Quote:
Originally posted by citizen:
I was mainly just trying to get something in a direction other than how much everyone but Geezer sucks here.
Did you pick that shade of paint or did it pick you? I know it's hard to tell from the context, but... it may be what weakened the ceiling... just sayin'.
Scifi movie music + Firefly dialogue clips, 24 hours a day - http://www.scifiradio.com
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Quote:
Originally posted by pizmobeach:Quote:
Originally posted by citizen:
I was mainly just trying to get something in a direction other than how much everyone but Geezer sucks here.
Did you pick that shade of paint or did it pick you? I know it's hard to tell from the context, but... it may be what weakened the ceiling... just sayin'.
It was there when I moved in
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Quote:
Where have I insulted you?- Signy
You don't have to- Geezer
AH! So I DIDN'T insult you! So you're lying when you said...
Quote:...? And this from the guy who posts a personal attack the very first thing, with no discussion at all? Curious, Geezer, how it works out that you wind up accusing people not what with they've done but what you've done.
and anyone who disagrees with any iota of the party line gets, not actual discussion, but insult.
Quote:I'm in no way responsible for what Mike and Rue post. Not my style. And I would continue to post as I post, with or without them.
you've got Mike and Rue to do the enforcing.
Quote:Of course I think I know how the world works. Would I be posting what YOU think, or what someone else thinks, or something I don't think is true??? And since I'm not about to tag every single statement with "I think" or "IMHO", just imagine that in front of my posts there is a phrase which says... "Signy thinks that..."
Your insult is to assume that no one but you has any understanding of how the world works.
No, my "insult", such as it is, is that I DO discuss. But I insist that you give me rational, factual reasons to change my mind. Because I am willing to change my mind, but only if you literally force me. The "insult" is that you have not been able to do so bc my philosophy yours, and that frustrates you. And since you have no rational argument to force me to change my thinking, you resort to personal insult.
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