Why Does Elmo Hate America?

…such barbarians. Whither the vegetables? At least *most* animals are put out of their misery before being chopped up and cooked for dinner, lobsters excepted. That's it; Atkins diet rules for now on. Thanks, Amy.

My mother always taught me to brainwash all fruits and vegetables before eating them.

You are probably right. This praise from "talking vegetables" on Sesame street could be used to create raucous from someone who wants some time in the news. Worse still, it could create another "political posturing" point for some politician who just wants to shift public attention from the germane issues at hand (in this case, Healthcare reform) and instead focus on the person of the President and First lady. Who knows?

Sarah Palin and "Death Panels" hysteria got a lot of "traction" despite it's absolute lack of connection with counseling or anything else in the proposed Healthcare plan for that matter. So, "Talking vegetables spreading communism and brainwashing us" might be the next "hysteria" foisted on us by anti-healthcare reform politicians and their ever ready talking heads.

A few months ago, I would have laughed at the thought that this could even be possible. Now, I just wait and see. Anything is possible these days.

LM

http://theblindspotsofgod.wordpress.com/

Contrary to the First Lady's claim, not all vegetables start out as tiny seeds in little packets. Just look at the House Republican Caucus.

First this:
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Then this.
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Now Elmo??? This is VERY CREEPY!!!
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"Yes, yes we can"

Soon as this continues it will be just like this...
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or even this...
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Opps, this should have been the 2nd video above.
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Sorry, but I am sure you intellegent liberals can figure it all out.
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Commenters:
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Yes, yes, yes, we know that the rightists say crazy things & are wild conspiracy theorists. They have no say in anything. Having f*cked the country up so badly, they have no credibility with the electorate. Less than a quarter of the country even self-identifies as Republican these days ( http://www.esquire.com/features/data/red-states-blue-states-0709 ).
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The populist right is out of power, period. We can pat our liberal selves on the back now, and cheerlead ourselves to death yelling "We hate THOSE PEOPLE! We hate THOSE PEOPLE! They are STUPID! They are STUPID!" over and over again to our hearts' content.
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So why are things going so badly for liberals now --health care reform being an immediate and prime example-- on the governing front, if everybody knows how loony the angry fringe right is?
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There's just no excuse anymore, is there?
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It's not that the right is so big and bad and powerful that we're forced to laugh at them and be pissed at them from the sidelines, right?
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We're getting screwed right now on every issue we care about, every issue we voted Democrats into office to fix, every problem for our country that's big enough to require government to solve (or that Republican government got us into).
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So who is screwing us?
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It's not Democrats as a whole who are doing this, because there are plenty of good, liberal Democrats in Congress who are with us, their constituents, and who know that the right course for our country is not where we're headed. Barney Frank comes to mind. Russ Feingold comes to mind. There are plenty of others, too.
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We know that there are some Democrats who represent us, and others that don't, who are screwing us. There are Democrats who are left-liberals, and then there are Democrats who are...something else.
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So who are these "something else" Democrats, and why are they so different from us, their base?
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They call themselves "New Democrats" ( http://tinyurl.com/y88xqh4 ):

In the politics of the United States, the New Democrats are an ideologically centrist faction within the Democratic Party that emerged after the victory of Republican George H. W. Bush in the 1988 presidential election. They are identified with more moderate social/cultural positions and neoliberal fiscal values.[1][2] They are represented by organizations such as the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC), the New Democrat Network, and the Senate and House New Democrat Coalitions.

So who exactly belongs to this radically centrist group?

The Senate New Democrat Coalition (SNDC) was founded in Spring 2000 by Senators Evan Bayh (IN), Bob Graham (FL), Mary Landrieu (LA), Joseph I. Lieberman (CT) and Blanche Lincoln "to provide a unified voice in the U.S. Senate for progressive ideas, mainstream values, and innovative, market-based policy solutions."
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By December 1, 2001, the SNDC became "the strongest and most unified Democratic group in the Senate. With long-time leaders like John Breaux (LA), and a strong class of freshman from the class of 2000 -- including Jean Carnahan (MO), Tom Carper (DE), Ben Nelson (NE), Bill Nelson (FL) and Debbie Stabenow (MI)," SNDC's ranks expanded to 20 members. [1]

Sounds like just about all of the people who we can reliably expect to vote against us, doesn't it?
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Ben Nelson? Blanche Lincoln? Remember yesterday's public option vote in the Finance Committee? Do these names ring any bells?
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Did you catch that last little blurb in there about New Democrats' purpose "to provide a unified voice in the U.S. Senate for progressive ideas, mainstream values, and innovative, market-based policy solutions."?
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See?
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They're not voting to keep the whole, horrible, twice-as-expensive-as-the-rest-of-the-world private health insurance system intact because they're forced to do it by the crazy, nobody-cares rightists, they're doing it because they believe that they're supposed to vote for that kind of solution. Yes, they may be more or less corrupt, yes, it just happens to be that their positions help with corporate fund-raising (so does being a conservative, by the way), but really --when it comes right down to it-- they believe in a political ideology that's different from ours. They're philosophically opposed to what we want. They're centrists.
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Now here's the interesting part:

In 2003, Barack Obama (at the time serving in the Illinois State Senate), asked the Democratic Leadership Council to remove his name from its New Democrat Directory. He said that his name had been added without his knowledge, and that he was removing his name because it implied membership in the DLC, which he had never joined.[14]
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In March 2009, Obama told a White House gathering of 65 members of the New Democrat Coalition that he is a "New Democrat."[15]

So Barack Obama is an ideological centrist who doesn't want to be confused with the Clinton wing of that cadre, but who is a solid Blue Dog nonetheless.
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We need to come to terms with the fact that Barack Obama is not going to fight for the kind of government we want --the kind of government that confronts the power of industry on our behalf-- he's going to fight for "innovative, market-based policy solutions", just like the rest of the New Democrats in the Senate.
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Barack Obama and his people aren't displeased with the health care reform process because we're upset, they're unhappy because their political philosophy tells them that Republicans have to like what they're doing, otherwise it's just wrong, otherwise Obama can't "unite the country". That this is a crazy thing to expect or want to do doesn't enter into it, they believe these crazy things --Obama believes in these things. It's who he is, politically.
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Barack Obama is not a liberal.
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In fact, none of the Democratic leadership in Congress are left-liberals like us. That's why they keep not doing what we elect them to do. That's why we keep getting screwed time and again.
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So my main point here is this:
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As difficult as it may be to restrain ourselves, we need to stop chasing the shiny objects being waved in front of our faces.
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Amy Sullivan and the rest of them can get up here all year long and wave the "Look at the crazy rightists!" flag, but we have to stop saluting it, don't we?
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As tempting as it is to yell out "Look at how great we are compared to them!", as satisfying as it may be to debunk rightists' non-reality-based ideology, as much as we'd like to focus on the easy target of our wrath, they just aren't the people who are screwing us.
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The crazy rightists aren't powerful enough to be our enemies, but the radical centrists are.
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The centrists are very, very dangerous to our country, folks. The right didn't deregulate the financial sector to our nation's ruin, the centrists did. The right isn't screwing around with "uniquely American solutions" to the detriment of ordinary people, the Senate is.
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...And as hard as this may be to deal with emotionally, the facts are that the right isn't making deals with PhRMA (or other industry players about whom we may not yet know), Barack Obama is.
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The easiest way to control our outrage at this sorry state of affairs is to continually pit us against the rightists. Do you know how the House Progressive Bloc is threatening to vote against health care reform without a public option? They're able to make that credible threat even though they only have 60 votes because they're threatening to vote with Michelle Bachman and the crazy rightists, that's why.
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We must stop hating and demonizing the rightists just long enough to consider that the centrists are openly stabbing us in the back. We must stop jumping up and down when the latest, sneering "Aren't those conservatives nuts?" button-push (like this one from Amy Sullivan) comes out.
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We must stop acting like trained f*cking seals, people.
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Please, please consider that it may be your job, your duty as a member of the reality-based liberal community to focus our attention where it counts these days, and to stop wasting our time and effort denouncing 21% of your fellow citizens.
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Can we do this? Can we keep our eye on the ball? Can we stop blaming the right for all of our nation's ills, and put the screws to where they really belong: the center? Can we, using the internet to communicate-- make this attention shift in enough time to bring enormous pressure to bear on Congress and Rahm/Obama, to make the tea-partiers look like Code Pink?
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If we don't get the health care system we deserve, can we make the centrists pay for their wrong-headed, ideologically stupid failure of governance? Can we put them out of business in 2010? Can we then talk about 2012?
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Can we stop fixating on the lunatic right long enough to solve the real problems caused by the New Democrat centrists?
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Yes, we can, Commenters.
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Yes, we can.

"Why does Elmo hate America"?

Answer: Evidently, for the same reason Michelle "For the first time in my adult life, I am proud of my country" Obama hates America. He's an angry, bitter, race-obsessed, militant leftist.

Next question, Time magazine?

Does Michelle "For the first time in my adult life, I am proud of my country" Obama teach Big Bird and the kids on Sesame Street how to perform her terrorist fist bump?

You know who I feel sorry for? The deluded Young Republican who marches off to college, armed with wingnut talking points, and gets his (or her) ass handed to him (or her).

Seriously. Can you imagine the beat down that an undergrad would get in a poli-sci course trying to argue that Obama is "indoctrinating" children a la Hitler?

"Professor! It isn't just the lesson plans! What about Michelle Obama on Sesame Street?"

Back in my day, Young Republicans were pretty annoying, but they actually tended to take pride in debate skills.

[sound of emptying head from TMI]