Farewell. The Flying Pig Has Left The Building.

Steve Hynd, August 16, 2012

After four years on the Typepad site, eight years total blogging, Newshoggers is closing it's doors today. We've been coasting the last year or so, with many of us moving on to bigger projects (Hey, Eric!) or simply running out of blogging enthusiasm, and it's time to give the old flying pig a rest.

We've done okay over those eight years, although never being quite PC enough to gain wider acceptance from the partisan "party right or wrong" crowds. We like to think we moved political conversations a little, on the ever-present wish to rush to war with Iran, on the need for a real Left that isn't licking corporatist Dem boots every cycle, on America's foreign misadventures in Afghanistan and Iraq. We like to think we made a small difference while writing under that flying pig banner. We did pretty good for a bunch with no ties to big-party apparatuses or think tanks.

Those eight years of blogging will still exist. Because we're ending this typepad account, we've been archiving the typepad blog here. And the original blogger archive is still here. There will still be new content from the old 'hoggers crew too. Ron writes for The Moderate Voice, I post at The Agonist and Eric Martin's lucid foreign policy thoughts can be read at Democracy Arsenal.

I'd like to thank all our regular commenters, readers and the other bloggers who regularly linked to our posts over the years to agree or disagree. You all made writing for 'hoggers an amazingly fun and stimulating experience.

Thank you very much.

Note: This is an archive copy of Newshoggers. Most of the pictures are gone but the words are all here. There may be some occasional new content, John may do some posts and Ron will cross post some of his contributions to The Moderate Voice so check back.


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Thursday, August 13, 2009

Katy Abram, Lawrence O'Donnell and cognitive dissonance

by Jay McDonough



Katy Abram became famous a couple days ago when she spoke at Sen. Arlen Specter's town hall meeting in Pennsylvania, protesting and equating with socialism the current efforts to reform health care, the "systematic dismantling of this country", and asking Specter what he would do to "restore this country back to what our founding fathers created according to the Constitution".



Lickety split, Katy Abram was a media phenomenon and all over cable news.  From Sean Hannity's fawning adoration to Lawrence O'Donnell's passive aggressive takedown.  



I see both Crooks and Liars and Think Progress have already posted the Abram/O'Donnell interview, but there's a portion of the discussion that's not been mentioned.  Here's the abridged interview:




I have some trouble with the way O'Donnell conducted the interview, but Katy Abram is a great example of the caricature modern Republicans/conservatives have become; all emotion and no facts.  All passion and no understanding.  All huff and puff and no consistency or coherence.



But I was left confused by Ms. Abram's comments beginning about 3:50 into the above YouTube video.  There she acknowledges that there are Americans who are unable to afford health insurance and opines that the founders hoped fellow Americans would "take care of those who were doing without". 



I would like to believe that too.  Now, there are a couple ways that that kind of generosity can occur.  I suppose folks without insurance could stand outside the supermarket and ask passerby's for donations to their insurance fund.  Or some central, national entity could collect funds that would then be used to provide "those who were doing without" with fair and equal health care.



I wonder which approach Katy Abram believes the founders would endorse.



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3 comments:

  1. Ron BeasleyAugust 13, 2009 at 11:46 AM

    Since Ronald Reagan there has been a concerted effort to dumb down the population. The Republicans can only win if there is population that is undereducated when it comes to history and civics and incapable of critical thought. The corporate news networks just make stuff up and the population believes it. FOX is the worst but they are all guilty.

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  2. HootsbuddyAugust 13, 2009 at 1:28 PM

    You're right, Ron. But I can recall from the first time I was politically aware how many times I heard people say at election time "I can't believe so many people don't even bother to vote. It's pitiful."
    It was true, of course, but that low percentage of indifferent people, ignorant and wise alike, for some reason felt detached, and that whatever the results of an election things would be okay. For those of us who know better, that's as irresponsible as drunk driving, but indifference is closer to trust than distrust in elected representatives.
    What is at work now is a plague of fear and anxiety. It is irrational, based on lies and distortions deliberately set in motion by those with ulterior motives, but that does not make the fear any less toxic, real or less dangerous. If that level of fear, anxiety and mistrust is not calmed in the next few weeks and months I fear for the future, not only of health care reform but other matters as well.

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  3. kirkrrtAugust 13, 2009 at 10:18 PM

    The way O'Donnell conducted the interview was pretty tame compared to anything that passes for interviews on talk radio or Fox News.
    He is following the current fad, but wasn't antagonistic.

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