Eugene Robinson: Tea Party Bigotry Can’t Stop History

[babylonsister]

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/tea_party_bigotry_cant_stop_history_20100322/

Tea Party Bigotry Can’t Stop History

Posted on Mar 22, 2010

By Eugene Robinson

snip//

If the attempt at intimidation had any effect, apparently it was to stiffen Democrats’ resolve. Sunday, after hearing a call to action from Lewis, the Democratic leadership walked that same route arm-in-arm while the tea party demonstrators booed and jeered. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, striding next to Lewis, carried the oversized gavel that had been used decades earlier to mark final passage of the bill establishing Medicare. Taking literally the advice of Theodore Roosevelt, the first president to call for universal health care, she spoke softly and carried a big stick.

When the House began its final debate, there was already the sense that history was about to be made. On one of her many trips between the House floor and the speaker’s office, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla.—a cancer survivor—said that fighting for health care reform was one of the reasons she ran for Congress. “It’s going to be hard to forget this day,” she said.

When I asked Rep. Bobby Scott, D-Va., to put the vote in perspective, he smiled and said: “Years from now, we’re all going to look back and say that this was one of the days when we were worth a damn.”

Hour by hour, the mood on the Republican side of the aisle—buoyed for most of the day by the tea party hootenanny outside—seemed to deflate.

At the White House there was elation after the final vote. Obama’s much-criticized strategy of pushing forward on health care despite the economic crisis had been rewarded with a historic victory. His tactic of letting Congress shape the legislation had been vindicated. His promise of change had been given new substance.

Even with the “fixes” that now have to be approved by the Senate, the health care bill is something of a mess. But it’s a glorious mess, because it enshrines the principle that all Americans have the right to health care—an extraordinary achievement that will make this a better nation.

It may take years to get the details right. The newly minted reforms are going to need to be reformed or at least fine-tuned, and those will not be easy battles. But the social movements that allowed Obama to become president and Pelosi to become speaker proved that the arc of history bends toward fairness and inclusion.

Needed change must not be thwarted, even if some people find it hard to accept. Obama’s epitaph was right: “We did not fear our future. We shaped it.”

[jaxx]

1. I love Gene Robinson.

Bob Herbert had a good column today too and I don't always agree with him, but he was spot on this time.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/23/opinion/23herbert.html?th&emc=th

[babylonsister]

2. Thanks for that link. I like Herbert a lot, too,

though, like you, am not always in agreement. But this is good...people need to review rethug history. Sounds downright ugly. When they say 'the more things change, the more they remain the same', they weren't kidding!

A party that promotes ignorance (“Just say no to global warming”) and provides a safe house for bigotry cannot serve the best interests of our country. Back in the 1960s, John Lewis risked his life and endured savage beatings to secure fundamental rights for black Americans while right-wing Republicans like Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan were lining up with segregationist Democrats to oppose landmark civil rights legislation.