I think Grayson was justified to use "holocaust".

[Barack_America]

Personally, I think it's dangerous to set that word aside, as if the horrors that occurred under Nazi Germany can never happen again.

They can. The fact that something so horrendous has already happened in human history does not spare us repetition.

45,000 Americans die every year from lack of health care coverage.

45,000

Using that figure, nearly 750,000 Americans have died since we last addressed health care reform in 1993.

Three-quarters of a million Americans. (that we can count, I might add)*

If the abomination that is our health care system is not OUR nation's holocaust, then what the hell is?


*How many Americans do you figure have died from lack of proper mental health care, a problem that affects even "insured" Americans?

[Barack_America]

1. I'm going to be the first person to argue with myself.

And note that we've already had at least one holocaust, in our treatment of Native Americans.

And we've also likely already had a second holocaust with our treatment of African Americans.

Hopefully health care will be our last.

[zonkers]

27. The holocaust reference is fine. A real strertch is comparing Grayson's remarks to

Joe Wilson's.

[Whisp]

32. and Iraqi's, South America.....

pretty well murder all over

[Barack_America]

34. I was trying to stick with American soil.

But, yeah, there's a pretty damned good reason we are not popular around the globe.

[cali]

2. it was a mistake. Specifically, it's a distraction

it's going to get harped on to that extent that everything else he said will be lost. that's my only problem with his having used the term.

[Captain Hilts]

8. Exactly. It doesn't take a political debate anywhere we want it to go. nt

[Raineyb]

33. Right. Wouldn't want strong language to connote how deadly serious

this all is. Nope. Better to use nicer language and appeal to people's better nature.

:sarcasm:

[Captain Hilts]

35. The word becomes the date. FYI - I don't have health ins. nt

[joeybee12]

44. How about genocide? How about using harsh words that aren't

associated with a specific historical event?

[Barack_America]

10. Or maybe it could bring attention to the failure of our health care system...

...potentially being a holocaust?

Feelings regarding Grayson and why he chose to use the word aside, I think the numbers show that point is debatable.

[cali]

28. oh c'mon you know better than that.

Americans aren't psychologically or emotionally or intellectually capable of seeing it as a holocaust.

[Barack_America]

30. We're arguing different things.

You are arguing that it was not politically smart and I am arguing that it was justified.

These are not the same things.

[mzmolly]

42. One good distraction deserves another.

;)

[Iggo]

3. It was hyperbole....

....meant to get people's attention. And it did.

[redqueen]

4. He used it to draw attention to anti-choicers' hypocrisy.

The fact that he used their word for aborted fetuses and that he said we should care about people after they're born says it all.

He's rubbing their faces in the fact that they don't care about living Americans who suffer from lack of access to healthcare or limited access to healthcare due to private insurers' death panels.

I'm glad he said it... I just hope other progressives have the sense to pick up the ball and run with it and not start screwing up the message. In all probability most will reflexively start apologizing for his using the word, too. *sigh* Fucking cluelessness. Most dems just cannot seem to get off their back foot.

[Barack_America]

11. Good point.

That very well could be why he used it.

[G_j]

5. those who would rather argue about a word

than acknowledge the unnecessary deaths of 45,000 people, are disingenuous to say the least.

[Christa]

6. I have no qualms with him using the word

if any terrorist kills 45,000 Americans per year we would be up in arms about it.

As it is now, the Health "Care" System are killing Americans the same way a plane into a building, a bomb or WMD will.

Time to declare them the enemy.


*

[Hepburn]

16. +1...n/t

[Captain Hilts]

7. That was his only mistake. nt

[laughingliberal]

9. I'm okay with it. Losing almost as many people anually as we lost in the entire war in Viet Nam

We lost around 50,000 troops over the course of our involvement in Viet Nam. A generation took to the streets in protest. We ran a president out of office over it. And now we can't seem to stir up any interest in 45,000 Americans dying from a problem we could solve. Greed and evil, plain and simple.

[G_j]

13. perhaps we could build a memorial wall, ...every year

good post

[Barack_America]

23. And with the govt. jobs and benefist that memorial would provide...

...maybe we could get our yearly number of dead down to 44,000.

[laughingliberal]

31. Great idea!

Think of it-a memorial wall built every year with the names of the uninsured dead on it. Washington would soon run out of room for walls. And it would be a shame on all who work to defeat real reform. I like the way you think!

[G_j]

37. there is no reason why they shouldn't be honored w/ a memorial. nt

[Stables2010]

12. it was a good tactic, but unlike the gop we have policy to back it up

got to fight Fire with fire, its the only thing these numskulls understand.

[Nye Bevan]

14. Why piss people off unnecessarily?

Don't we want to keep as many people as possible on our side?

There are plenty of other ways to make the point.

[mikelgb]

18. pissing people off gets attention and if done right can get things done

you're still here

there are plenty of other people who appreciate and get the point that he made


and if somebody is so butthurt and pissed that they think they should leave, here let me help: Fuck you, go away, we didn't need your hand wringing ass in the first place.

[Hepburn]

15. Abso-fucking-lutely.

It's about the destruction of a class of people based on certain characteristics. In this case, it is a class of people who might take profits from those who think they instead deserve the wealth. Same as Hilter saw the Jews in Germany.

JMHO

[izzybeans]

17. It's not inappropriate just inaccurate, but a good jab at the

right.

The term means "sacrifice by fire" so it applies to more than the genocide of WWII. If anyone knows the Greek term for "sacrifice by neglect" then that term is more accurate in this case.

Limiting the term to mean only the genocide of Jewish people during WWII is inaccurate. A Holocaust occurred then but it has occurred to other peoples in other places as well.

If you go with full range of semantics of the term then mass casualties by bombing is also Holocaust, because they are collateral damage and burned up in the fire.

[Barack_America]

21. The definition is debatable.

OED also has:

2. transf. and fig. a. A complete sacrifice or offering. b. A sacrifice on a large scale. c. Complete consumption by fire, or that which is so consumed; complete destruction, esp. of a large number of persons; a great slaughter or massacre.

[izzybeans]

24. Either way Grayson has nothing to apologize for, IMO.

Market Based Genocide might have been a better term for it. But given the ridiculous rhetoric coming from the right this little episode might have stolen back the direction of the debate.

Doing nothing is the ultimate death panel. It's amazing what the right gets away with and then how much they piss and moan when the tables are turned.

[cali]

29. the dictionary definitions are moot in this debate. it's what people

think of when they hear the term. And they think of piles of skeletal corpses and gas chambers. that's the indelible image.

[joeybee12]

45. I agree...

...it is associated with a specific historical event that is painful for many people...not wise to use it.

[LibDemAlways]

19. Mental health care is virtually non-existent where I live, an hour

from a huge metropolis. Resources are so limited and the waiting lists so long that the likelihood of a person receiving proper diagnosis and treatment is about nil. I speak from experience as I had to deal with this issue over the summer. The patient died by the way, and "Psychosis" was listed as a contributing cause on the death certificate. It's shameful.

I have no problem with the word "holocaust" being used. People are dying in huge numbers due to willful neglect. It may be hyperbole and not entirely fitting with the dictionary definition, but I can live with it.

[Cass]

20. Grayson was right on the money.

We need more like him who can so skillfully choke their opponents with their words.

He took the words the right wing uses and turned it right back on to them. They use the term holocaust in their anti-abortion rhetoric, and in his apology to the dead he specifically mentioned that we should also care about people after they are born which was a slap at anti-abortion fanatics. The right also invoked the holocaust in their opposition to health care reform this summer with all their talk of killing grandma and death panels.

FWIW, I thought Rachel harping on Grayson last night for his use of the word was ridiculous. I love her but she missed the train on that one big time.

[no_hypocrisy]

22. While many people believe there is and was only one "Holocaust"

(upper case), one can make an argument that just stating "A lot of people are dying needlessly because of the actions or inaction of a handful of other people" doesn't have the same impact. We've become inured to "people dying" and our sense of outrage muted, even desensitized.

[ljm2002]

25. I agree with you on this...

...and I also think that, even if one of us does not agree, we ought to hold our fire. Here we have a brave Congressman who is putting himself out there and playing effective offense, and already he is getting sniped at by his own side due to his use of the word "holocaust" (a word that is routinely used by the anti-choice crowd when talking about abortions).

Personally I think he chose the word for that reason: to use the word in a more appropriate context, and to point out that caring for people should happen even after they are born. I applaud him.

[area51]

26. More than that die each year.

100,000 people die each year due to lack of healthcare in the U.S. But who cares except for the families of the deceased?

[Donald Ian Rankin]

36. If 45,000 a year is accurate then it's not comparable to the Holocaust.

The holocaust killed somewhere between 10 and 100 times that many people per year. If you look at it per capita, 90% of European Jews died in the holocaust; 45,000 is about 1 in 2000 of the American populace.

Also, I think that trying to equate "killing" with "failing to save the life of" is specious, but that's a slightly different issue.

One can make a case that the state of health-care provision in Africa is comparable to the Holocaust, but even that is pushing it slightly (but only slightly - death tolls from the likes of Malaria and TB, both of which are preventable, really do run into the millions per year, not to mention AIDS); I do not think one can sensibly make that comparison in the USA.


The Holocaust was *big*.

If one wants to shock, one can draw comparisons with e.g. the Vietnam war (60,000 Americans dead over several years, along with a few million Vietnamese) or with 9/11 (3000 dead).

If one wants to actually illuminate, one can draw comparisons with comparable figures in other first-world countries (and unlike the above, that's actually a sensible thing to do rather than a rhetorical trick).

But one can't compare this with the Holocaust; not for ethical reasons but due to simple maths.

[Barack_America]

39. No one is comparing it to "THE Holocaust". He said it was "a holocaust".

It seems what we're really debating here is if anyone can ever use the word "holocaust" except when describing "THE Holocaust".

I say we should be able to because retiring it seems to suggest that mankind has also retired the capable of that level of evil. We clearly haven't.

I suspect, as other posters on this thread have noted, that Grayson used the term "holocaust" to call out the hypocrisy of those on the right who commonly throw around that word with respect to abortion rights. They fight tooth and nail for fetuses, yet many of the same people are fighting tooth and nail against healthcare for actual people.

[butterfly77]

38. The media throws a damn fit..

everytime this word is used as though it only fits one group of people..

[Zoeisright]

40. Absolutely.

The number of Americans killed by health insurance companies is appalling. If it isn't a holocaust, what is it?

[asdjrocky]

41. What else would you call people being slaughtered by major corporations?

They are leading us to our deaths with the help of Congress.

[cali]

43. plenty of things and slaughter isn't the correct term either

in any case, it's become a huge distraction from Grayson's points.

[voteearlyvoteoften]

46. Sometimes it's necessary

Sometimes it's necessary to use strong language to wake people up.
Give the man credit for having a vocabulary.