This video has been seconded as a duplicate; transferring votes to the original video and killing this dupe - dupeof seconded with isdupe by Tymbrwulf.

Thank you for the heads up. Fixed.

In reply to this comment by Zifnab:
*dead

>> ^ghark:

You want to know what's wrong? All the media coverage of this stuff drowns out the coverage of the people actually trying to make a difference based on rational ideas.
In pretending to be all supportive of the "good guys" they are just feeding right into the Republicans hands.
Let the cops deal with it and get on with some real content.


The Keith Olbermann show is pretty much 100% about scoring political points, and making the opposition look stupid, dangerous, or simply wrong. Which is not terribly hard to do, and can sometimes be entertaining.

But my point is, you shouldn't tune in to him if you want to hear stories about "people actually trying to make a difference based on rational ideas". Maybe try NPR?

Tags for this video have been changed from 'bill, maher, keith, olbermann, president, barack, obama, health, care' to 'bill maher, keith olbermann, barack obama, health care' - edited by geo321

Keith Olbermann's response to Jesse Ventura's assertions about his "conservative" politics can be found here:

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2010/3/9/844642/-Ventura-Low-Way

Your video, Keith Olbermann: An American Cry for Help, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

>> ^Stormsinger:
And -this- is perfect example of why I continue to watch Olbermann, in spite of his insistence on using stupid voices when he doesn't have a real issue to discuss.


could not have said it better myself.

>> ^chilaxe:
Good. Well, if you run for office (lord knows we need it), you've got my vote


Heh, I'm not sure I could ever run for office. If I do, I'll hold you to that.

>> ^NetRunner:
>> ^chilaxe:
That's good to hear that there are left vs. left debates. However, are these mostly just folks on the far-left of the political bell curve 'pushing harder even if it means we lose'? As long as that's the dominant liberal paradigm, they don't seem to me to be reliable societal partners who can be reasoned with.
Not really. I mean, right now, that's where the nastiest fights are, but that's because you really have a simple binary choice to make when it comes to HCR right now -- either you want House Democrats to pass the Senate bill, or you want them to vote against it. You can say other things when you talk to them, of course, like "you should be working on eliminating the filibuster", or "after you pass the Senate bill, they can pass amendments to it via reconciliation", but ultimately you need to address the straight up for/against question on the Senate bill.
Generally speaking, I would say that most of the left vs. left debates start from the liberal premise that government action can have a positive effect on individual and collective freedom. Great, so what goals do we have? What policies or laws would achieve them? Which issues should get the most attention? That's usually most of the debating space.
To me, it seems easy to build a cohesive coalition around negative action -- like cutting taxes and regulation no matter what it's for -- but trying to get liberals to coalesce around a particular health care plan can be challenging, even when we've got a common set of goals (reduce costs, make coverage available to everyone, make coverage reliable).
There's plenty of debate when you get into details and mechanics on how you accomplish those things.
It seems to me like it must be boring to be part of a conservative movement. You've got one, universal answer to every question: cut the size of government. To me, that seems like the soul of anti-intellectualism. Even conservative "intellectuals" seem to spend most of their time either inventing philosophical arguments to support their predilections, or saying that liberals suck because they sometimes get things wrong.


Good. Well, if you run for office (lord knows we need it), you've got my vote

>> ^chilaxe:
That's good to hear that there are left vs. left debates. However, are these mostly just folks on the far-left of the political bell curve 'pushing harder even if it means we lose'? As long as that's the dominant liberal paradigm, they don't seem to me to be reliable societal partners who can be reasoned with.

Not really. I mean, right now, that's where the nastiest fights are, but that's because you really have a simple binary choice to make when it comes to HCR right now -- either you want House Democrats to pass the Senate bill, or you want them to vote against it. You can say other things when you talk to them, of course, like "you should be working on eliminating the filibuster", or "after you pass the Senate bill, they can pass amendments to it via reconciliation", but ultimately you need to address the straight up for/against question on the Senate bill.

Generally speaking, I would say that most of the left vs. left debates start from the liberal premise that government action can have a positive effect on individual and collective freedom. Great, so what goals do we have? What policies or laws would achieve them? Which issues should get the most attention? That's usually most of the debating space.

To me, it seems easy to build a cohesive coalition around negative action -- like cutting taxes and regulation no matter what it's for -- but trying to get liberals to coalesce around a particular health care plan can be challenging, even when we've got a common set of goals (reduce costs, make coverage available to everyone, make coverage reliable).

There's plenty of debate when you get into details and mechanics on how you accomplish those things.

It seems to me like it must be boring to be part of a conservative movement. You've got one, universal answer to every question: cut the size of government. To me, that seems like the soul of anti-intellectualism. Even conservative "intellectuals" seem to spend most of their time either inventing philosophical arguments to support their predilections, or saying that liberals suck because they sometimes get things wrong.

>> ^NetRunner:
>> ^chilaxe:
I could get behind liberalism if there was a movement within it to hold accountable those fellow liberals who sabotage the cause.
Liberals have plenty of sites like 'Crooks and Liars" or Mediawatch to keep an eye on the excesses of conservatives... why can't they do the same to keep an eye on the excesses of fellow liberals?
Such a movement is certainly under way. I think Chris Dodd would have been primaried if he didn't resign (incidentally, you should rent Michael Moore's Capitalism -- he trashes Dodd pretty nicely in there and raises more than a few doubts about Democratic resolve). Charlie Rangel is a popular target too. Tim Geithner and Larry Summers, etc.
If you want a liberal taking Democrats to task with no holds barred, try Glenn Greenwald's blog. I read it occasionally, but most of the time I find him far too depressing.
I don't read Firedoglake anymore, because they've, IMO, gone off the deep end (Jane Hamsher was pushing people to work together with the tea parties to kill HCR once the public option got stripped), but if you're looking for progressives critical of Democrats, they're another good resource.
Personally, I'm a big fan of DailyKos. It's probably the biggest progressive community on the net, so often it's the battleground upon which most left vs. left fights are played out. The main content is geared towards organizing activism and electoral strategy, and commentary on the day's political events, but the Diaries are usually a grab-bag of all kinds of interesting topics, not all of which are political.
They're starting to shift from a focus on "more Democrats" to "better Democrats", but I'm not sure how many opportunities we'll have for that in 2010. Most of those that they've talked about are House races, or Arlen Specter's ongoing primary.


That's good to hear that there are left vs. left debates. However, are these mostly just folks on the far-left of the political bell curve 'pushing harder even if it means we lose'? As long as that's the dominant liberal paradigm, they don't seem to me to be reliable societal partners who can be reasoned with.

That might sound very uninvolved, but I think any intellectuals who go into politics (i.e. not Moore, Olbermann, Huffington etc.) will find that the tail wags the dog: if intellectual figures don't tell the liberal masses what they want to hear, the masses will just find figures who will. Olbermann saying "I'm not a liberal; I'm an American" seems to be a good example of that kind of permanent intellectual simplicity.

I suppose this is an inevitable macrohistorical problem... perhaps any intelligent species on any planet would face it... the necessary legacy of human evolution is that the kind of interest in cognitive complexity that's advantageous in a complex modern society wasn't sufficiently advantageous during the last 10,000 or 100,000 years to be widespread today. In other words, any collection of social norms that must appeal to 50% of the population can only achieve a limited level of intellectual accuracy.

The take-home lesson for me is: that means an individual with a greater level of intellectual accuracy can out-predict them, and thus position themselves in the right place at the right time (for whatever opportunity is targeted).

>> ^chilaxe:
I could get behind liberalism if there was a movement within it to hold accountable those fellow liberals who sabotage the cause.
Liberals have plenty of sites like 'Crooks and Liars" or Mediawatch to keep an eye on the excesses of conservatives... why can't they do the same to keep an eye on the excesses of fellow liberals?

Such a movement is certainly under way. I think Chris Dodd would have been primaried if he didn't resign (incidentally, you should rent Michael Moore's Capitalism -- he trashes Dodd pretty nicely in there and raises more than a few doubts about Democratic resolve). Charlie Rangel is a popular target too. Tim Geithner and Larry Summers, etc.

If you want a liberal taking Democrats to task with no holds barred, try Glenn Greenwald's blog. I read it occasionally, but most of the time I find him far too depressing.

I don't read Firedoglake anymore, because they've, IMO, gone off the deep end (Jane Hamsher was pushing people to work together with the tea parties to kill HCR once the public option got stripped), but if you're looking for progressives critical of Democrats, they're another good resource.

Personally, I'm a big fan of DailyKos. It's probably the biggest progressive community on the net, so often it's the battleground upon which most left vs. left fights are played out. The main content is geared towards organizing activism and electoral strategy, and commentary on the day's political events, but the Diaries are usually a grab-bag of all kinds of interesting topics, not all of which are political.

They're starting to shift from a focus on "more Democrats" to "better Democrats", but I'm not sure how many opportunities we'll have for that in 2010. Most of those that they've talked about are House races, or Arlen Specter's ongoing primary.

>> ^NetRunner:
>> ^chilaxe:
I think there's an endlessly rich intellectual world lying beneath the surface of politics, but all we ever see of it is the borderline anti-intellectualism of folks like Arianna Huffington arguing that it's actually good for liberals that Van Jones got pushed out of the White House, because he's too awesome to be constrained by such a job.

I really wish someone in a more mainstream media outlet would tap into the intellectual side of governance and political theory. It can be found all over the web (and I like to think in this particular corner of the web), but it's utterly lacking on TV. I suppose Bill Moyer's Journal occasionally dips into that realm, but I'm not sure if there's anyone but me watching that show.
I'm no fan of Huffington either. Huffpo is a decent news site, but Arianna herself seems devoted to making liberals look hysterical.
Oh, and as to your comment about progressives needing to embrace incrementalism, I agree to a certain point. I think it's important that we have people trying to shift the Overton window to the left, but I'd rather they sound more like Anthony Weiner and Alan Grayson than Michael Moore (though Moore is a good guy to have on our side too).
What I don't think we need is this whole segment of the progressive movement that's decided that the only way to move the Overton window to the left is to constantly badmouth Democrats, largely using the exact same attacks the right uses. I don't get that, but I see it happening all over the blogosphere. Lotsa people who claim to be on the left who can't do anything but talk about Obama being a secret Muslim Republican, and Rahm Emmanuel selling us out, etc.
I don't get it, do they think that driving Obama's unfavorables up is going to move the cause forward?


I could get behind liberalism if there was a movement within it to hold accountable those fellow liberals who sabotage the cause.

Liberals have plenty of sites like 'Crooks and Liars" or Mediawatch to keep an eye on the excesses of conservatives... why can't they do the same to keep an eye on the excesses of fellow liberals?

Next time Michael Moore says he's going to sabotage the healthcare debate by framing it as the US vs. Communism, organize liberals to boycott his short-sightedness. That's a kind of attitude of accountability and honor that I think has broader appeal to moderates.

>> ^Xaielao:
And that is yet another example of why John Stewart is the best in his field. Not to mention the 'MAN'!


"To be the man, you've got to beat the man."
~Ric Flair

That's not saying Olbermann is the man, he's gone down hill over the past few years, Stewart is just awesome though. Maybe a little props to Olbermann for manning up on getting called on his shit. You'd never see Hannity, Beck, or Limbaugh do something like that. Those guys believe they're infallible.

>> ^Opus_Moderandi:
>> ^dannym3141:
>> ^mizila:
Talk about maturity!
>> ^dannym3141:
You're an idiot.

Fight fire with fire i'm afraid. Next time someone makes a sweeping generalisation about a group of people from all walks of life, i'll give them a evidence based bullet point debunk of why they're wrong. That'll make a difference, right?

it's "i'll give them 'AN' evidence based bullet..."


What is this... youtube? C'mon...