The Climate of Love
In an extraordinary outburst on the House floor, Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN) invoked the Holocaust to attack Republicans on health care and compared rhetoric on the issue to the work of infamous Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels.
“They say it’s a government takeover of health care, a big lie just like Goebbels,” Cohen said. “You say it enough, you repeat the lie, you repeat the lie, and eventually, people believe it. Like blood libel. That’s the same kind of thing. And Congressman Cohen didn’t stop there.
“The Germans said enough about the Jews and people believed it–believed it and you have the Holocaust. We heard on this floor, government takeover of health care. Politifact said the biggest lie of 2010 was a government takeover of health care because there is no government takeover,” Cohen said.
Bankrupting the Federal government and the several states, while taking doctors and patients out of the decision loop? That’s lovey-dovey. Wanting to not do those things? Fascists!
So let me say it right now, since I’m branded a Nazi no matter what: Congressman Steve Cohen is a lying, unprincipled smear-job artist with a fetish for state power.
But I won’t be calling him any names.
Sometimes the choice is between profanity and dishonesty.
If I was on the floor of the House today, I would say the following:
They told me that the only way I could know what was in this bill, was to pass it. Well, it was passed and now I know what is in it. That’s an unfair process to me and to my constituents and to all of the American people. It should never have been handled in that manner. It was an insult to this House, to the spirit of the rules by which we guide ourselves and more importantly, by the overwhelming demand of the people we seek to represent.
The manner in which this bill was passed was a slap in the face to every American, whether they thought it was a good idea, thought it was a terrible idea or, like most everyone, including all in this room who failed to even read it, did not know.
The manner in which this was handled was a disgrace to the 111th Congress and it cried out for remedy and for the chance to rectify a horrible mistake. That mistake was not promotion of Obamacare, it was the promotion of IDon’tCare.
The attitude that one party “won” and that elections “have consequences” was not merely aimed at the defeated party. It seeped into the notion that everyone we represent was not important to the process. That this was “our” House and we will do with it what we damn well please.
It is not our House. It is not our Senate. It is not our White House. And, the people do matter.
To have passed a bill of this magnitude by reconciliation, to have blocked meaningful debate, to have stifled the voice of the people, to have engaged in kickbacks and bribery, to have snuck in the back door, through a dark back room and secret hallways, something that is now trumpeted as being of such monumental importance, is not only incongruous, it’s shameful.
They say that our request to give the public this “day in Court” so to speak, is fruitless, meaningless, unworthy.
I say, to NOT give them this day, with EVERYONE given a chance to speak, would render all that we do here meaningless. We are here to do the people’s business. And we must remind ourselves to not arrogate to our own little cliques the imperial and haughty notion that they don’t matter, that they don’t belong in the discussion. That we, somehow, always know better than they, what is “good” for them and that they should sit down, shut up and just be grateful that we deign to care about them at all.
They not only belong in the process, they are the reason for the process.
It is being suggested that everyone today who wishes to remedy this gross malfeasance wants to take something away from certain of our citizens. That is far, far from the truth. Today, finally…finally…we give back something to ALL of our citizens. The right to be heard and the firm commitment to never slap their faces again as was done by our immediate predecessors.
Elections do indeed have consequences.
Let’s hope this last one has taught us humility. To listen. And to remember, this is not our House, it is theirs.
Brilliant, common sense brilliant! Run for office!
So much for civility from the Democrats … not that I really expected it to last.
Representative Cohen just Godwinned Congress? Sweet!
Ouch. Makes you wonder what those sorts of Dems think the Right-wing Hate Machine really does.
Manic Progressive Sheila Jackson Lee said on the House Floor that REPEALing the Health Control bill violates both the 5TH and 14TH amendments because repealing the Health Control law denies people the right to health insurance.
Manic Progressivism is incurable.
“Congressman Steve Cohen is a lying, unprincipled smear-job artist with a fetish for state power.”
He’s worse than that, Steve. He is an unscrupulous graverobber who does not hesitate to exploit the memory of 6 million of his brethren to get his 15 minutes. Besides that, his actions fall right into the rhetorical stereotypes set up by the Aryan Nations and similar groups; that powerful Jews will use the Holocaust as a cynical tool to manipulate the public.
Cast this vile man out!