Calling Out Sedition.

At Campaign for America's Future, Sara Robinson says if it looks like sedition and acts like sedition, maybe we should call it sedition. (h/t to Talk to Action):

These two events are a wake-up call for progressives. They're telling us that it's time to openly confront the fact that conservatives have spent the past 40 years systematically delegitimizing the very idea of constitutional democracy in America. When they're in power, they mismanage it and defund it. When they're out of power, they refuse to participate in running the country at all -- indeed, they throw all their energy into thwarting the democratic process any way they can. When they need to win an election, they use violent, polarizing, eliminationist language against their opponents to motivate their base. This is sedition in slow motion, a gradual corrosive undermining of the government's authority and capacity to run the country. And it's been at the core of their politics going all the way back to Goldwater.

This long assault has gone into overdrive since Obama's inauguration, as the rhetoric has ratcheted up from overheated to perfervid. We've reached the point where you can't go a week without hearing some prominent right wing leader calling for outright sedition -- an immediate and defiant populist uprising against some legitimate form of government authority.

Moderates and liberals are responding to this rising threat with feckless calls for "a return to civility," as if all that's needed to put things right again is a stern talking-to from Miss Manners. Though that couldn't hurt, the sad fact is that we're well past the point where it's just a matter of conservatives behaving like tantrum-throwing spoiled brats (which they are). When a mob is surrounding your house with torches and telling you they intend to burn it down, "civility" really isn't the issue any more.

At that point -- and we're there -- criminal intent and action become the real issues. Progressives need to realize that the right began defiantly dancing back and forth over the legal line, daring us to do something about it, quite some time ago. And it's high time we called it out -- and, where appropriate, start prosecuting it -- for exactly what it is.

What is Sedition?
Before we start throwing around inflammatory terms like "sedition," it's essential that we understand the strict definition of the word -- and use it carefully and precisely, lest it lose all meaning.

(That's what happened with the word "fascism," which has been distorted into meaninglessness by hyperbolic overuse on the left and willful redefinition on the right. Once a word is abused and distorted this way, it's very hard to recapture it and restore its original meaning. And that's no small thing, because losing the word makes it functionally impossible to even discuss the political idea the word represents. Worse: as Orwell told us, when we no longer have the language to describe what we're dealing with, we also lose our ability to deal effectively with fascism at all. That's a real danger with loaded words -- so, please, let's be extremely careful about how we brandish this one.)

Here's the defining line we need to hold on to. People who promote subversive ideas, no matter how dangerous those ideas might seem, are completely protected under the First Amendment. Even calling for the overthrow of the government is protected (though not benign, as we'll see later, because it creates justification, permission, and incitement to seditious acts). That's why the conservatives have been safe -- so far.

It's only when those people start actively planning and implementing a government rebellion that it turns into criminal sedition. In this case: the weird rantings on the Hutaree website -- not seditious. The group's allegedly operational plans to assassinate a police officer, ambush the resulting funeral, and thus bring on a national militia uprising -- absolutely seditious, if the charges stick.

This bright-line distinction, which has been part of American sedition law for the past 50 years, parallels closely the line drawn by terrorism analysts in sussing out which groups are benign and which ones are headed for trouble. As I've noted before, one of the cardinal signs these experts watch and listen for is a fundamental shift in rhetoric. In the early stages of dissent, groups establish the lines of conflict by obsessively focusing on their enemies and loudly denouncing their essential evilness. You hear this kind of talk in politics all the time these days. It's always ugly, but not inherently dangerous.

Moving Legislation Farther to the Right And Calling It Rights.

Tampa Bay Online reports that a number of new bills regarding "abortion and the unborn" are being proposed in a new wave of anti-choice legislation. Modern liberal presidents, of which one could argue we've really only had two since the legalization of abortion in 1973 (and another could argue that they weren't ultimately that liberal) have always triggered a conservative backlash. We're seeing that now with the Tea Party and the disarray of the Republican party as it searches for it's base and works to regroup.

That patients' rights is a focus of such regrouping and "appeal to the base" is no surprise since the current president is focusing on health care reform. How successful these bills are depends on how attentive the public is to such discriminatory efforts.

Though Republican efforts to limit women's rights (and elders') are nothing new, I expect we'll see a giant push at the state level like the Tampa Bay article reports. The interesting nature of these renewed efforts is the way in which Republicans have adopted "women's rights" language to portray their legislature in a pro-woman light. Conservative groups have long worked to claim ownership of "real American values" and "patriotism" and "individualism." Now they're working to co-opt the language of rights by claiming to ally with older concepts of civil rights activism. Glenn Beck encourages Tea Party protesters to act like Martin Luther King Jr.; Sarah Palin works to portray herself as a liberated woman even going so far as to champion her choice to have a down syndrome child as she works agains women's choice; "pro-life" activists like Jill Stanek have warped statistics to propose that abortion equals black genocide; and the conservative Coalition for Patients' Rights works for discriminatory legislation regarding health care reform.

What's happening in Florida is in line with what's happening across the country. Republicans are appealing to (racist?) anti-government sentiment among ultra-conservatives by introducing increasingly conservative (big government) legislation. It doesn't make sense when examined closely and while it's nothing new, it is increasingly couched in benign language about women's and individual rights.

Here's the interesting clip:

About half of the bills come from legislators running for re-election, in a year when Tea Party activists and other GOP malcontents are challenging candidates to prove their conservative credentials. At least one bill was scheduled for a hearing early in the session, by a Republican committee chairwoman who is running for governor.

John Stemberger, of the Florida Family Policy Council, said he's delighted to see this year's show of pro-life initiative. Lawmakers' votes and sponsorship of at least some of the bills, he said, will factor prominently in the guide to political candidates his organization compiles each year for socially conservative voters.

"There's a frustration, I think, in the social conservative community, that Legislature has not been responsive," he said.

Political scientist Darryl Paulson who is a Republican, speculated that "many of these politicians are engaging in symbolic politics," appealing to their base.

Most of the sponsors insist their bills are not intended to interfere with a woman's ability to get an abortion, though all are Republicans who oppose the procedure.

The GOP's New ACORN? AARP.

From talkingpointsmemo:

On Monday, we reported on the House GOP's plans to target AARP in the health care reform debate. Republican leaders say AARP is supporting changes to the Medicare system included in Democratic health care reform bills because they would result in more sales of AARP-branded insurance. They claim that "backroom deals" between executives of the AARP and Democratic leadership -- deals the GOP say are designed to protect the executives' high salaries -- led to the group's pro-Medicare reform rhetoric.

Yesterday, the message gained traction the right wing commentariat. AARP flatly denies the claims and says it's beginning to feel a little like the GOP's new ACORN.

"Oh, absolutely," an AARP official told TPMDC. "They're using their standard methods to target us."

Yesterday, right wing blogs and publications picked up the story. Michelle Malkin retweetedthe House GOP talking points on the topic andHuman Events published a story echoing the GOP claims. Malkin and the conservative magazine focused on the corruption message, highlighting the "back-room" dealing.

The GOP has gone further than rhetoric as well. Rep. Dave Reichert (R-WA) claims to have launched an investigation into AARP in his home state. Reichert says his "ongoing" investigation focuses on whether AARP should be classified as an insurance company because of its revenue from royalties the group gets from licensing its brand for insurance products. AARP says it's not aware of the investigation, and Reichert suggested to reporters Monday that it was essentially stalled. But the question of whether AARP is an insurance company or not is at the center of the GOP messaging on the group

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Obama's Got Work to Do, Says Joe Barton (R-TX)

Speaking of the Heritage Foundation, Republican Representative from Texas, Joe Barton, is a guest blogger over there, writing about Obama's health care objectives:

The president also said that “not a dollar of the Medicare Trust Fund will be used to pay for this proposal.” What the House is doing is rather different. H.R. 3200 cuts $400 billion from the Medicare program to finance this new proposal. A Republican amendment directing that any savings to the Medicare program be used solely to improve the access and affordability within Medicare was defeated with just one Democrat voting for it.

So it’s hard not to conclude that contrary to what the president said he wants, many Medicare dollars will be used to pay for the Obama health care program.

The argument Barton makes is worked out through some pretzel logic. Republicans know that their constituents - older, white - support Medicare and therefore they tip-toe around a position of supporting the entitlement, making it more efficient, and denigrating Democrats for trying to achieve health care for all Americans, even the brown ones. They also know that health care reform and the president are very popular.

Barton goes out of his way to not slight Obama; rather he saves his vitriol for congress:

President Obama has made some forthright and specific promises about what his health care package will and will not do, but simply saying so doesn’t make it so. He has a big job ahead convincing his congressional supporters to match their actions to his stirring words. I hope he succeeds, and I’m ready to help him.

This sort of cooperative mouth service would carry father if Republicans actually were willing to look at true compromise, not their own unhelpful version thereof. Putting a foot down and expecting your opponents to meet you there is not compromise.

Racism, Corporate Profit, Cynicism Define Republican Amendments to Health Care Reform.

Dana Milbank writes today at the Washington Post about the cynicism, unabashed capitalism, racism and denial of facts that underlie recent Republican amendments to the Senate Finance Committee's health care reform.

Consider Hatch Amendment F-7, which adds "transition relief for the excise tax on high-cost insurance plans for any state with a name that begins with the letter 'U.' " There's only one state that begins with the letter U, and that's Utah, home state of the amendment's sponsor, Sen. Orrin Hatch. He wanted to send a message that the Democrats were being "arbitrary."

Or consider Kyl Amendment D-6 (Modified 2): "An amendment to protect the First Amendment rights of health plans." Kyl, it seems, was concerned that the Medicare authorities had cracked down on Humana, a Medicare contractor, for sending out a letter to its Medicare recipients warning that health-care reform could harm "millions of seniors and disabled individuals."

Milbank gives a truncated run-down of the nearly 300 amendments that he says would "represent a most curious piece of social policy" and are being made in lieu of a full Republican proposal for health care reform. With his tongue in his cheek, Milbank writes,

Some of the Republican amendments are based in principle. Hatch, for example, sponsored an amendment spending $50 million on abstinence education, and another making sure that no money goes to support physician-assisted suicide.

Odd principles, indeed! It's no secret that abstinence education doesn't work and actually increases the rate of STD infection and pregnancy. And physician assisted suicide is only legal in three states at the moment.

It's no secret that Republicans have chosen the path of obstruction over sensical policy-making. Their base has been reduced like a rich sauce to a crazy, overzealous crowd. None of them have the balls to come back to reality. And because the Democrats have a ball problem of their own, the Republicans have been allowed to control the health care reform debate from their factless, racist, capitalist, unrealistic position.

Fifty million uninsured, poor, black, brown, underprivileged, disabled, infant, elderly and terminally ill will pay the proverbial price to the insurance industry. Which is just how the Republicans want it.

The Republican Party is Dead. Long Live the Republican Party.

Frank Schaeffer, son of the iconic Francis Schaeffer, one of the "thinking fathers" of the Religious Right, has a review of Max Blumenthal's latest, Republican Gomorrah - Inside the Movement that Shattered the Party. Schaeffer writes:

Republican Gomorrah is the first book that actually "gets" what's happened to the Republican Party and in turn what the Republicans have done to our country. The usual Democratic Party and/or progressive "take" on the Republican Party is that it's been taken over by a far right lunatic fringe of hate and hypocrisy, combining as it does, sexual and other scandals with moralistic finger wagging. But Blumenthal explains a far deeper pathology: it isn't so much religion as the psychosis and sadomasochism of the losers now called "Republicans" that dr ives the party. And the "Christianity" that shapes so much "conservative" thinking now is anything but Christian. It's a series of deranged personality cults.

The Religious Right/Republicans have perfected the method of capturing people in personal crisis and turning them into far right evangelical/far right foot soldiers. This explains a great deal that otherwise, to outsiders, seems almost inexplicable--the why and wherefore of "Deathers" "Birthers" et al. Blumanthal brilliantly sums up this pathology as:

"...a culture of personal crisis lurking behind the histrionics and expressions of social resentment. This culture is the mortar that bonds leaders and followers together."

How can a rag-tag party like the Republican party be doing so well right now? They've kept health care reform on the skids (taking single payer off the table immediately), rallied the wackos to make some big noise at town halls, caught Obama flat footed on issue after piddly issue (like addressing school kids). And as a country: we still act like women's reproductive rights are up for compromise; the NRA has more pull in congress than the majority leader; it's perfectly common to discuss the horrors of the government pulling the plug on grandma but not the benefits of getting insurance agencies out of our health.

We all could go on and on. Somehow the Republicans are doing something very right. Even their prospects for 2010 are being touted! How can they pull out one more ridiculous after another - to the detriment of our nation's advancement? Schaeffer promises that Blumenthal shows us how.

Republicans' Seniors Scam.

From Ellen Goodman at truthdig:

When exactly did the Republicans start operating one of those marketing scams that target the elderly?

It was bad enough when Sarah Palin told a bald Facebook lie that there were “death panels” in the plans to reform health care. It was worse to see Iowa Sen. Charles Grassley flunk the “pants on fire” test as he seconded this myth. Republicans planted the fear that President Obama wants to “kill Granny.” Now they want Granny to kill health care reform.

I understand the marketing. Seniors were the only age group that Obama lost in last year’s election. He was change they didn’t believe in. Now polls suggest the folks covered by Medicare are the least likely to think health care reform will help them. In Gallup polls, almost 40 percent think it will worsen their care.

Then last week Republican Chairman Michael Steele began to sell a “Seniors’ Health Care Bill of Rights”—a pitch that contained no rights but an awful lot of frights. He targeted folks like the white-haired South Carolina man who furiously insisted at a town hall meeting: “Keep your government hands off my Medicare.” (Memo to the fact-checkers: Public Policy Polling reports that 62 percent of Republicans also think that government should keep out of that government-run program!)

Steele promised, among other things, to outlaw “any effort to ration health care based on age” and “prevent government from dictating the terms of end-of-life care.” I would stipulate that neither of these things is in any version of the bill, but that would just reduce my chance of being invited on Fox News from zero to none.

He also promised to “protect Medicare”—presumably from the plan to save $500 billion out of a projected growth in its spending. He did not mention that the proposals would also close the “doughnut hole” in prescription drug coverage, provide subsidies to low-income seniors and give the Medicare trust fund five more years of life.

This is not just a robo-call to enlist senior citizens in making this Obama’s “Waterloo.” Republicans are basing the sales pitch on the idea that expensive care is the best care and that what elders really want is more. In health care, that translates into endless doctors visits, tests, procedures and maybe even more ventilators.