This morning, bloggers across the liberal blogosphere thought of memorializing Senator Kennedy by naming the health care bill after him. This is fitting and natural, since health care reform was the Senator’s premier issue. Moreover, he continued to work toward its passage this year, as he was dying, as long as his body allowed him to work.
There is an impulse to honor the dead by erasing the sharp edges of their life. To ensure they belong to all of us, and in doing, deprive them of the dignity conferred by their actual choices, their lonely stands, and their long work. But Ted Kennedy didn’t belong to all of us. He didn’t even belong to all Democrats. He was not of the party that voted for more than a trillion in unfunded tax cuts but cannot bring itself to pay for health-care reform. He was not of the party that fears the next election more than the next failure to help America;s needy. Rather, he belonged to the party of Medicare and Medicaid, the Americans With Disabilities Act and the Children’s Health Insurance Program, the Civil Rights Act and immigration reform. He belonged to the party that sought to advance the conditions and opportunities of the least among us. He was, as Harold Meyerson says, “the senior senator from Massachusetts and for all the excluded in American life.”
And he still is.
Be sure to read all of Ezra’s post, and also this one, which includes links and videos.
A few hours ago the Right began a pre-emptive strike to prevent the passing of Senator Edward Kennedy from impacting the health care debate. The meme going around is that we liberals are shamelessly using Edward Kennedy’s death to push our agenda. There was a trackback, now deleted, to a prominent rightie site attached to my last post. I’m being slammed for writing,
I had hoped Senator Kennedy would live to see a health care reform bill signed. If Congress does pass a decent bill, I hope they name it after the Senator.
… as if wishing to memorialize the senator is somehow out of bounds, just a cheap ploy to score a legislative win.
I’m not going to link to any of the hate posts out today. Just know that few of them are holding back or making any pretense of respecting the dead. Then ignore them.
A National “March for Healthcare” is being organized for September 13. I’d like to see a big turnout. See also Steven Pearlstein’s column today.
Republicans seem determined to preserve the uniquely American system under which health care is rationed today — on the basis of employment status and ability to pay. According to the respected Institute of Medicine, this market-based approach to rationing has held the number of untimely deaths each year to a mere 18,000 uninsured souls. Thanks to Medicare, all of those victims are younger than 65, but apparently that is the kind of age-based rationing that real Republicans can embrace.
The struggle continues.
Ted was, to Ezra’s point, a “party of one!”
He stood for something. He stood for a lot of things like equality, decency and fairness, unlike the rest of today’s Democratic politicians who stand for nothing except re-election.
When you stand for nothing, you are worth nothing…
So, stand up! Help us. We put you in office to help us, the American people, not global conglomerates.
Stand up and prove your worth. Because if you don’t, you will show us that you aren’t just worthless, you’re worse than worthless!
“… as if wishing to memorialize the senator is somehow out of bounds, just a cheap ploy to score a legislative win.
This is somehow bad, when naming the local airport, a federal office building and plaza, and I belive a section of interstate highway, after Ronald Reagan while he was still alive was somehow good?
I’m having a hard time wrapping my head around the idea that we now live in a world with no Ted Kennedy.
Over at redstate.hate they are using the push to name the bill after Sen. Kennedy as an exuse to spew the lies and hate that they love so dearly. So if knowone suggest the bill naming they would be celebrating the life of a great American political icon?
Dave S: let’s go further with the things they have or want to name for Reagan — his name is on an aircraft carrier, they want to add him to Mount Rushmore, they want to change coinage and put him on the dime… if they could, I think they’d probably want to rename Washington DC. But to remember a Kennedy… no, that’s unacceptable. Remember IOKIYAR.
Mentioning Reagan’s name in concert with Sen. Kennedy is an insult to his (Kennedy’s) good name. Reagan was a fucking buffon, an ignorant man puppet, a lifeless shell of a man with no devotion to anything, just a bought and paid for professional shill, a useless human being!
I never do this, but since the topic has turned to Reagan, I wrote this on another post and I feel I can copy it here:
You know, I’ve changed my mind about putting Ronald Reagans face on coins.
The best way to show people what this assholes philosophy (or that of his puppeteers) did to the dollar is to put his f’in face on the dime.
And then put his ass on the nickel and tell us to kiss the ass on the nickel every time we use it, or else the dime won’t be worth 5 cents if we don’t. This way, Reagan’s economic policy will be evident for all to see. Heads, they win, tails you lose.
And you can kiss ass all you want, it still won’t turn your nickel into a dime. And they won’t give a shit anyway. They’re too worried about hoarding their dollars by taking your dimes to worry how many times you kiss Ronnie’s f’in ass on the nickel.
Children, I call this class, “Republican Economic’s 101.”
In the follow-up class, 102, you’ll learn how they use the brown coin, the penny, and use that to make brown people beg for a few of them so that they can make enough to kiss Reagan’s ass on the nickel, so that the dime…
Never mind, just, take the class!
“[L]iberals are shamelessly using Edward Kennedy’s death to push our agenda.”
And he would have heartily approved.
Remarkably, Ted Kennedy – unlike others of the powerful in government, the financial world or the corporate world – never abused his power as a prominent senator, never worked tirelessly for his own self-agrandizement. This, maybe more than anything else, set him apart.
How much strife would have been avoided through the years if others in the three ‘worlds’ would have followed his lead.
PurpleGirl – you’ve reminded me what Reagan said when viewing one of our redwood trees – “If you’ve seen one, you’ve seen ’em all.” How fitting to name one of California’s parks after him it would have been? Or, after John Wayne died a bunch of Orange Co. buttinskis pushed to name the local airport after him which must have made him turn in his grave given that he fought for years to get the airport moved – his house was right under the airport’s flight path.
felicity — yes, you’re right. There’s a group dedicated to get one monument of some sort in every state and every county in the country named for Reagan. It’s an incredible list. Steve M linked to this list at No More Mister Nice Blog.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_honors_named_for_Ronald_Reagan
Yeah, the Republicans don’t name things for political reasons.
I’m having second thoughts about naming any health care reform bill after Senator Kennedy until we know what’s in the bill. Given his lack of leadership on the legislation and the overall lack of a spine by the rest of the Democrats, there’s a very good chance the bill could be more of an insult to Kennedy than a fitting memorial.
We in Houston, Tx. have to live with George Bush International Airport, otherwise known as the “big airport.” Thank heaven the abbreviation is still IAH!!!!! Flying home is hard enough.
Purple Girl,
Wow thats quite a list, what a waste, although the peoples republic of Massachusetts had a great one:
Massachusetts
The Annual Boston College Ronald Wilson Reagan Memorial Pig Roast
Yes a memorial PIG roast, how fitting!
Others mentioned conservatives’ hypocrisy about putting Saint Reagan’s name on everything possible; I’ll only say thanks for the link to the 9/13 Health Care march. I hope this gets touted far and wide and that there’s an overwhelming turnout – but I fear that due to the Dems failure to build a mass groundswell, turnout might be a bit tepid. I hope I’m wrong.
Put Reagan on the nickel, because that’s what he thought the minimum wage should be.