The real difference between the TEA Party and OWS

[Bfgrn]

What are you rebelling against? The Banks? Stop borrowing. Cut up your Credit Cards and Check Books. Wall Street? Don't invest.

 

[Bfgrn]

Is that what you are advocating? Revolution in a Free Society? What are you rebelling against? The Banks? Stop borrowing. Cut up your Credit Cards and Check Books. Wall Street? Don't invest.

As far as the Original Tea Party was concerned, I think they should have closed the Pubs earlier. I side with Adams.

Your belief that we live in a free society is charming.

Just because they want to make Us commodities, we don't have to buy into it. They do not control your Perspective, nor your Conscience.

Wall Street HAS made us a commodity. They control our health care. They have established REAL death panels.

Rally Against Wall Street's Health Care Takeover

I would like to begin by apologizing to all of you for the role I played 15 years ago in cheating you out of a reformed health care system. Had it not been for greedy insurance companies and other special interests, and their army of lobbyists and spin-doctors like I used to be, we wouldn't be here today.

I'm ashamed that I let myself get caught up in deceitful and dishonest PR campaigns that worked so well, hundreds of thousands of our citizens have died, and millions of others have lost their homes and been forced into bankruptcy, so that a very few corporate executives and their Wall Street masters could become obscenely rich.

But it was only during the last few years of my career that I came to realize the full scope of the harm my colleagues and I had caused, and the lengths that insurance companies will go to increase their profits at the expense of working families.

As I told the Senate Commerce Committee two months ago, the higher up the corporate ladder I climbed, the more I could see how insurance companies confuse their customers and dump the sick – all so they can satisfy those Wall Street masters.

I described for the senators how insurers make promises they have no intention of keeping, how they flout regulations designed to protect consumers, and how they make it nearly impossible to understand -- or even to obtain -- information consumers need.

I also told the Committee how the industry has conducted duplicitous and well-financed PR and lobbying campaigns every time Congress has tried to reform our health care system -- and how its current behind-scenes-efforts may well shape reform in a way that benefits Wall Street far more than average Americans.

I noted that, just as the industry did 15 years ago when it led the effort to kill the Clinton reform plan, it is using shills and front groups to spread lies and disinformation to scare Americans away from the very reform that would benefit them most.

Make no mistake, the industry, despite its public assurances to be good-faith partners with the President and Congress, has been at work for years laying the groundwork for devious and often sinister campaigns to manipulate public opinion.

The industry goes to great lengths to keep its involvement in these campaigns hidden from public view. But I know from having served on many trade group committees that industry leaders are always full partners in developing strategies to derail any reform that might interfere with their ability to increase their companies' profits.

My involvement in those activities goes back to the early '90s when insurers joined with other special interests to finance the activities of an organization called the Healthcare Leadership Council, which led a coordinated effort to scare Americans and members of Congress away from the Clinton plan.

A few years after that victory, the insurers formed a front group called the Health Benefits Coalition to kill efforts to pass a Patients Bill of Rights. While it was touted as a broad-based business group, the Health Benefits Coalition in reality got the lion's share of its funding from Big Insurance.

Like most front groups, the Health Benefits Coalition was set up and run out of a big and well-connected PR firm. One of the key strategies developed by the PR firm as the coalition was gearing up for battle in late 1998 was to stir up support among conservative talk radio hosts and other media.

The PR firm formed alliances with groups like the Christian Coalition and the Family Research Council and persuaded them to send letters to Congress and to appear at press conferences. The firm also launched an advertising campaign in conservative media outlets. The message was that President Clinton owed a debt to the liberal base of the Democratic Party and would try to pay back that debt by advancing the type of big government agenda on health care that he failed to get in 1993. Those tactics worked. Industry allies in Congress made sure the Patients' Bill of Rights would not become law.

The insurance industry has funded several other front groups since then whenever the industry has been under attack. It formed the Coalition for Affordable Quality Healthcare to try to improve the image of managed care in response to a constant stream of negative stories that appeared in the media in the late '90s and the first years of this decade.

It funded another front group when lawyers began filing class action lawsuits on behalf of doctors and patients.

The PR firm the industry hired to create that front group, by the way, had planned and conducted a similar campaign for the tobacco industry a few years earlier.

The insurance industry hired that same PR firm again in 2007 to help blunt the impact of Michael Moore's movie, "Sicko." It created and staffed a front group called "Health Care America" specifically to discredit Moore and to demonize the health care systems featured in the movie.

Among the tactics the PR firm used once again was to enlist the support of conservative talk show hosts, writers and editorial page editors to warn against a "government-takeover" of the U.S. health care system. The term "government-takeover" is one the industry has used many times over the years to scare people away from reform.

Health Care America also placed ads in newspapers. One of those ads carried this message, "In America, you wait in line to see a movie. In government-run health care systems, you wait to see a doctor."

With this history, you can rest assured that the insurance industry is up to the same dirty tricks, using the same devious PR practices it has used for many years, to kill reform this year, or even better, to shape reform so that it benefits insurance companies and their Wall Street investors far more than average Americans.

Americans need to be alert to how the industry and its allies are working to influence their opinions and lawmakers' votes. I know from years as an industry PR executive how effective insurers have been in using scare tactics to turn public opinion against any reform efforts that would threaten their profitability.


Wendell Potter is former Vice President of corporate communications at CIGNA, one of the United States' largest health insurance companies. In June 2009, he testified against the HMO industry in the U.S. Senate.

 

[Money]

From what I've been able to see on TV, the OWS chicks are much sexier.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

street shitter mentality,, show us your nazi pictures some mo.

How about the REAL Tea Party...

Is that what you are advocating? Revolution in a Free Society? What are you rebelling against? The Banks? Stop borrowing. Cut up your Credit Cards and Check Books. Wall Street? Don't invest.

As far as the Original Tea Party was concerned, I think they should have closed the Pubs earlier. I side with Adams.

He is advocating this.

 

[Bfgrn]

How about the REAL Tea Party...

Is that what you are advocating? Revolution in a Free Society? What are you rebelling against? The Banks? Stop borrowing. Cut up your Credit Cards and Check Books. Wall Street? Don't invest.

As far as the Original Tea Party was concerned, I think they should have closed the Pubs earlier. I side with Adams.

He is advocating this.

Actually the tea party is nothing new. Conservatives rallying to protect the status quo.

The only thing that changes with conservatives around the world is WHAT that status quo is.

Remember, conservatism is based on latitude, longitude and date of birth.

And parochial indoctrination.

While not all conservatives are authoritarians; all highly authoritarian personalities are political conservatives.
The Authoritarians - Robert Altmeyer, Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of Manitoba.
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When the ‘tea partiers’ say “we want our country back”, what do they mean by ‘our’?

Polls show the ‘tea party’ is an ultra-conservative group with views that are diametrically opposed to mainstream America. Among all Americans, George W. Bush has a 27/58 positive/negative favorable rating. Among the ‘tea party’ he's viewed favorably, 57/27. An almost perfect diametrical difference.

Is there any precedent in history of today’s the ‘tea party’?

The answer is YES…a parallel to the 'Tea Party" occurred in Russia in the late 1980's. Russian conservatives, the Stalinists, wanted 'their' country back. It was an alliance including xenophobic fringe groups and nationalists who yearned for what they saw as the simple values of Old Russia and the Orthodox church.

And like today’s ‘tea partiers’, they wanted their authoritarian leader back.
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February 27, 1989

Soviet Conservatives Try to Turn Back the Clock on Gorbachev's Policies

MOSCOW, Feb. 26— Russian conservatives, uneasy with the liberalization of Soviet society under Mikhail S. Gorbachev, have seized on the country's experiment in more democratic elections as a chance to fight for a return to more authoritarian ways.

While many candidates and voters say they view the elections to the new Congress of Deputies as a way to further the candor and freedoms allowed by the Soviet leader, conservatives in this city and around the country were boasting last week that they had already succeeded in blocking the nomination of several prominent people regarded as liberals.

A Disparate Alliance
The conservatives are a disparate alliance, including xenophobic fringe groups, like Pamyat, as well as large numbers of less extreme nationalists who yearn for what they see as the simple values of Old Russia and the Orthodox church.

Nikita F. Zherbin, head of the Leningrad chapter of Pamyat, delighted in the fact that Mr. Korotich had been forced off the ballot in Moscow's Sverdlovsk region, and described this as the first successful step in the conservative campaign to use the elections as a vehicle for its political ideas.

'I Am a Stalinist'
''We brought our case to the people, and the outcome speaks for us,'' said Mr. Zherbin, whose group regards the liberalization of Soviet society as a conspiracy by Jews, Masons and Westernizers.

Soviet Conservatives Try to Turn Back the Clock on Gorbachev's Policies

 

[rightwinger]

Is that what you are advocating? Revolution in a Free Society? What are you rebelling against? The Banks? Stop borrowing. Cut up your Credit Cards and Check Books. Wall Street? Don't invest.

As far as the Original Tea Party was concerned, I think they should have closed the Pubs earlier. I side with Adams.

Your belief that we live in a free society is charming.

You don't vote? You don't have freedom of speech

Your claim we don't live in a free society is insulting to all those who fought and died for a society such as ours

 

[The T]

(Photo: Powerline via Michelle Malkin)​

 

[rightwinger]

(Photo: Powerline via Michelle Malkin)​

I miss your point

Nobody opposes the right of corporations to operate. What they oppose is runaway profit supported by our government while wages for workers remain stagnant

 

[The T]

(Photo: Powerline via Michelle Malkin)​

I miss your point

Nobody opposes the right of corporations to operate. What they oppose is runaway profit supported by our government while wages for workers remain stagnant

You're just a sad tomatoe...

If they're serious? They'll cease feeding the coporate machine. Cease using anything and everything these evil coporations have produced period.

 

[rightwinger]

(Photo: Powerline via Michelle Malkin)​

I miss your point

Nobody opposes the right of corporations to operate. What they oppose is runaway profit supported by our government while wages for workers remain stagnant

You're just a sad tomatoe...

If they're serious? They'll cease feeding the coporate machine. Cease using anything and everything these evil coporations have produced period.

That is ridiculous. Nobody questions the right of corporations to exist. They only question why our government must continue to provide them support for excessive profits while workers wages are stagnant

 

[Intense]

Is that what you are advocating? Revolution in a Free Society? What are you rebelling against? The Banks? Stop borrowing. Cut up your Credit Cards and Check Books. Wall Street? Don't invest.

As far as the Original Tea Party was concerned, I think they should have closed the Pubs earlier. I side with Adams.

Your belief that we live in a free society is charming.

You don't vote? You don't have freedom of speech

Your claim we don't live in a free society is insulting to all those who fought and died for a society such as ours

Where People like you get to tell us what to do, say, and think, oh, and believe.

 

[The T]

Your belief that we live in a free society is charming.

You don't vote? You don't have freedom of speech

Your claim we don't live in a free society is insulting to all those who fought and died for a society such as ours

Where People like you get to tell us what to do, say, and think, oh, and believe.

Thier hypocrisy, projection...? Boundless.

 

[Nic_Driver]

(Photo: Powerline via Michelle Malkin)​

I miss your point

Nobody opposes the right of corporations to operate. What they oppose is runaway profit supported by our government while wages for workers remain stagnant

You're assuming there is a point.

The right is scared so they'll try just about anything to discredit the protests and the protestors. It's too little too late now but they’ll still try.

 

[rightwinger]

Your belief that we live in a free society is charming.

You don't vote? You don't have freedom of speech

Your claim we don't live in a free society is insulting to all those who fought and died for a society such as ours

Where People like you get to tell us what to do, say, and think, oh, and believe.

It is quite obvious that nobody is telling you what to believe. There is no other explanation for your bizarre views

 

[Intense]

(Photo: Powerline via Michelle Malkin)​

I miss your point

Nobody opposes the right of corporations to operate. What they oppose is runaway profit supported by our government while wages for workers remain stagnant

You're assuming there is a point.

The right is scared so they'll try just about anything to discredit the protests and the protestors. It's too little too late now but they’ll still try.

Not exactly. The Protestors need to vent. They should focus first though. Who's pushing them on, why, to what end. Couldn't their Sponsors at least provide Porta Potties? As long as the Protests are Civil, I have no serious problem with them, personally.

 

[Full-Auto]

I miss your point

Nobody opposes the right of corporations to operate. What they oppose is runaway profit supported by our government while wages for workers remain stagnant

You're assuming there is a point.

The right is scared so they'll try just about anything to discredit the protests and the protestors. It's too little too late now but they’ll still try.

Not exactly. The Protestors need to vent. They should focus first though. Who's pushing them on, why, to what end. Couldn't their Sponsors at least provide Porta Potties? As long as the Protests are Civil, I have no serious problem with them, personally.

Many of these folks can not bring themselves to protest the war because a lefty is calling the shots. They needed something to do. What the idiots dont realize is, if they had some purpose at the right venue their support would be triple if not more......

 

[Intense]

You're assuming there is a point.

The right is scared so they'll try just about anything to discredit the protests and the protestors. It's too little too late now but they’ll still try.

Not exactly. The Protestors need to vent. They should focus first though. Who's pushing them on, why, to what end. Couldn't their Sponsors at least provide Porta Potties? As long as the Protests are Civil, I have no serious problem with them, personally.

Many of these folks can not bring themselves to protest the war because a lefty is calling the shots. They needed something to do. What the idiots dont realize is, if they had some purpose at the right venue their support would be triple if not more......

Current policy is not helping people get on with their lives. These people do sense that something is very wrong. They just don't know what, or who to blame.

 

[The T]

You're assuming there is a point.

The right is scared so they'll try just about anything to discredit the protests and the protestors. It's too little too late now but they’ll still try.

Not exactly. The Protestors need to vent. They should focus first though. Who's pushing them on, why, to what end. Couldn't their Sponsors at least provide Porta Potties? As long as the Protests are Civil, I have no serious problem with them, personally.

Many of these folks can not bring themselves to protest the war because a lefty is calling the shots. They needed something to do. What the idiots dont realize is, if they had some purpose at the right venue their support would be triple if not more......

What do you expect with the gubmint educations they got?

 

[Intense]

Not exactly. The Protestors need to vent. They should focus first though. Who's pushing them on, why, to what end. Couldn't their Sponsors at least provide Porta Potties? As long as the Protests are Civil, I have no serious problem with them, personally.

Many of these folks can not bring themselves to protest the war because a lefty is calling the shots. They needed something to do. What the idiots dont realize is, if they had some purpose at the right venue their support would be triple if not more......

What do you expect with the gubmint educations they got?

We need to distinguish between Education and Indoctrination. I believe a Great Trust has been Seriously violated.

 

[The T]

Many of these folks can not bring themselves to protest the war because a lefty is calling the shots. They needed something to do. What the idiots dont realize is, if they had some purpose at the right venue their support would be triple if not more......

What do you expect with the gubmint educations they got?

We need to distinguish between Education and Indoctrination. I believe a Great Trust has been Seriously violated.

Exactly. And why my statement was worded such.