Congress voted against funding a cure for cancer just to block a win for Biden

Optional@lemmy.world to politics @lemmy.world – 1383 points – Congress voted against funding a cure for cancer just to block a win for Biden
usatoday.com

Even though this would be a win for all Americans – and humanity – it apparently did not outweigh the politics of making a Democrat look good. This is the definition of party over country.

I'm a doctor.So is my mother. When she got cancer, I realized how little that mattered.

Republicans have stated budget cuts need to be made with an ever-growing debt. But where was this attitude when tax cuts for the wealthy were on the table in 2017? They don’t have to look at patients in the eye and break the devastating news that they have cancer. They don’t have to treat cancers that block intestines or drown a patient’s lungs in fluid.

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Americans, where the fuck did you stray off the beaten path? I hate this timeline

Arguably all the way back to Nixon, but definitely by Reagan.

This. Reagan in particular just lovedb nothing more than knocking the supports out from under bridges. Fucking old bastard.

I’d say when FDR replaced Henry Wallace with the more right-leaning Truman.

Wallace wanted to pass a civil rights bill.

Truman dropped nuclear bombs on 2 civilian cities and was more interested in kick-starting the red scare than expanding upon the programs and policies FDR clearly laid out in his last days on literal record as president with things like a proposed 2nd Bill of Rights.

WW2 was all about bombing civilian cities.

London, Dresden, they were all targets. Bombs and war were much less precise then. Taking out manufacturing capability was a valid tactic and part of that meant killing workers.

The stuff passed during Nixon's presidency was mostly not bad, because he had a progressive congress and knew it was good for his public image if he went along with their stuff (and took credit for their successes), but Nixon realized Southern Strategy, and his presidency perhaps marked the start of descent into incivility and absurdity in politics. He was a piece of shit in every regard imaginable, but he wasn't an obstructionist afaik.

Reagan is where policy took a SHARP dive, straight into the ground. He was the next step which was allowed by Nixon turning national politics into a rapid-fire shit-spewing competition.

I won’t necessarily speaking on policy, but more-so as a time-frame of when certain lines were crossed.

With Nixon, the Nixon Goes to China moment could be argued was the point in time which ultimately lead to massive off-shoring/out-sourcing that gutted America’s manufacturing industries and set the middle-class on its downward spiral.

Then there was his prolonging of the Vietnam War for his political benefit, at the cost of needless soldiers lives.

Then there’s the whole Watergate fiasco, which directly led to the founding of Fox News.

Calling opening relations with China as a negative is a bad take.

The companies that sold out the skeleton of the USA, by screwing the employees to pay shareholders and executives, are to blame for the current situation.

Was the EPA also a negative move to you?

Nixon, Reagan, HW Bush, W Bush, Trump. Did I miss one?

Reagan led the charge but there was also folks like Gingrich and Armey doing stuff like the Contract with America (Heritage Foundation endorsed) and pushing to never let the dems have a win, and always oppose whatever they do.

I'm of the opinion that sunshine laws also fucked things up but that's a whole other discussion.

I'm of the opinion that sunshine laws also fucked things up but that's a whole other discussion.

I apologize for steering the conversation toward another discussion, but I'm unfamiliar with the Sunshine Laws so I did a quick search:

"Sunshine laws are regulations requiring transparency and disclosure in government or business. Sunshine laws make meetings, records, votes, deliberations, and other official actions available for public observation, participation, and/or inspection. Sunshine laws also require government meetings to be held with sufficient advance notice and at times and places that are convenient and accessible to the public, with exceptions for emergency meetings." (https://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/sunshinelaws.asp, Sept. 2023)

Again, I'm not familiar but, I'm not seeing a problem with transparency and advance notice to ensure transparency. What particular issues do you have with Sunshine Laws?

Sunshine laws for congress (Such as the Legislative Restoration Act of 1970, and the Government in the Sunshine Act of 1976) mandated transparent voting and meetings. I think you can readily imagine the issues that could come about if your own vote was public, in the case of congressional voting some things change but importantly it means that a lobbyist can nearly guarantee a return on investment. It should come as no surprise that the amount of lobbying groups and money in lobbying has massively increased since the various Sunshine laws passed. It also has led to increased partisan voting since now the parties can give the boot to someone crossing the aisle.

https://congressionalresearch.org/Citations.html

http://web.archive.org/web/20150506161647/https://www.forbes.com/sites/mikecollins/2015/03/28/buying-government-with-lobbying-money-2/

I think the JFK assasination pretty clearly shows the MIC/CIA et al has been firmly in control since the 50s.

We fought ourselves over slaves. Think stuff like this has always been in our blood. The world wars just made us look good for a while.

I think this hits the nail right on the head.

For a while now I've been pondering this very thing. I can't prove it conclusively, but I honestly think this goes all the way back.

$0.02: The USA was started as a bunch of colonies, and we're co-cohabiting with lunatics that think this still is one. Over time, territory expanded westward up to and through the Civil War. This was done by the kind of people that came to a foreign land, saw it was full of people already, and decided to completely upend that whole situation for their own benefit. You know, the whole "screw them, got mine" world outlook. This is also an ethos that is completely compatible (if not required) with owning people (slavery), secession to maintain that ability, spilling blood over it, and continuing to punch down on "people not like us" for a 150 years since losing that fight. In a sense, we're up against colonists, the values they espoused, their great-great-great-offspring, and people in their community that keep those values alive.

And when you FUCKING WON you did the thing I would never do. The South would have been a smoldering pit of cinders in my timeline. I'd have decorated the halls of the white house with the hides of the plantation owners.

You've learned nothing in all these years except how to be polite to the scum you beat until they inched their way back on top of you. It's truly one of the most vile tales in human history.

This is why I celebrate the legacy of John Brown. One of the greatest American heroes of all time, considered a terrorist by our government for murdering slave owners freeing their slaves and then arming those slaves to go free more.

John Brown is my hero. We need more of him today.