Of Right-Wing Lies and the Obligation To Be Informed
I never, ever, ever, thought I would be coming to the defense of right-wing liars, but I have to do so a little bit with regard to this truly astounding talk, coming from a townhall meeting in New Hampshire (emphasis mine):
The Wall Street Journal had an interesting item today on President Obama’s town-hall event in New Hampshire. It noted, among other things, the gathering of protestors outside the event that “verged on a street brawl,” with “opposing forces lined up like screaming armies on either side of the street.”
One of the protestors, in particular, brought a unique perspective.
Diane Campbell of Kingston, N.H., held a sign with Mr. Obama’s face superimposed on a Nazi storm trooper, a sign, she said, that was made by her chronically ill mother.
Her mother’s hereditary autoimmune disease is treated with expensive transfusions of gamma globulin, paid for by Medicare. Her sister, Louise, was born with no arms and one leg, and is also covered by Medicare, the government-run, health-insurance program for the elderly and disabled.
“Adolf Hitler was for exterminating the weak, not just the Jews and stuff, and socialism — that’s what’s going to happen.”
Now, my goal is not to pick on Diane Campbell, whom I do not know. She’s quite clearly confused, though, and has come to believe some ridiculous lies. Campbell has apparently been so enraged by the right-wing nonsense she’s been told, she feels entirely comfortable going out in public with signs comparing the president to a Nazi, and telling a reporter, on the record, that health care reform is comparable to Hitler’s Holocaust.
But let’s not overlook the irony of Diane Campbell’s situation. Government-run, taxpayer-financed health care has kept her mother alive. Government-run, taxpayer-financed health care provides treatment and care to her sister. Based on the descriptions, it’s safe to assume the costs associated with treatments for Campbell’s mother and sister are enormous, but taxpayers and a socialized health care system pick up the tab. What’s wrong with that? Not a thing.
Except, of course, that Diane Campbell is now trying to convince people that health care reform is both radical and dangerous.
I’m reminded once again of something Josh Marshall said the other day, about a different right-wing protestor: “[L]et’s all collectively throw a little cold water on our faces and just realize that this is some really crazy stuff. The health care debate is now being driven by a perverse nonsense feedback loop in which the Palin/Limbaugh crowd says all sorts of completely insane lies, gets a lot of … how shall we put it, impressionable people totally jacked up over a bunch of complete nonsense.”
That is all too true. But note the corollary that is implicit in what Josh and Steve wrote: The media personalities, lawmakers, and other far right Republican political operatives who are getting all these “impressionable [euphemism alert] people totally jacked up over a bunch of complete nonsense” could not do this successfully if those “impressionable” people did not allow them to do so.
My point, if it’s not already clear, is that, as unscrupulous and cynical as certain Republicans are being in pushing transparent lies and distortions on the gullible and the uninformed, there is really no excuse for anyone to be that gullible and uninformed. Taking calculated advantage of widespread ignorance on the subject of health care reform is contemptible — but it’s inexcusable to be so uneducated about your own country’s political, social, and economic policies that you don’t know the Medicare benefits that are keeping your loved ones alive are the same “socialistic” government programs you scream against in the street; or that you believe Rush Limbaugh when he says that Barack Obama is adopting the policies of Hitler and the Nazis by supporting a euthanasia proposal that does not, in fact, exist.
Democracy requires an informed citizenry to function — indeed, to survive. We don’t all have to be health care experts or policy wonks, but we do have to have a basic working knowledge of the U.S. political system — enough to know, at minimum, that Medicare and Medicaid are government programs, and that government programs are not synonymous with socialism or communism — and we do have to use the diverse information sources available to us to become at least knowledgeable enough to know that there is no euthanasia provision in the Democrats’ health care reform plan, and that it’s obscene beyond words to compare either the Democrats’ or the Republicans’ health care reform proposals to the genocidal policies of a regime that murdered millions, including the vast majority of Europe’s Jewish population.
24 Responses to “Of Right-Wing Lies and the Obligation To Be Informed”
I agree. I wish both left-wing and right-wing extremists would stop it.
I've unfortunately seen plenty Bush is Hitler signs as well. Plenty of crazies for everyone and they will never go away.
What appears to be important for the Republican / conservative leaders is that they are not the ones encouraging the crazies. Some of them appear to be, and that's the bad part. (OK, now I will have to defend and clarify this last statement. I have not seen evidence myself that any important conservative voices are publicly labeling Obama as Hitler. What I AM referring to is comments from people like Beck claiming that Obama hates white people, Palin's claim of death panels, and such.)
If I remember correctly, it was Mr. Obama who wanted to rush this thing through so fast that NO ONE, not even Congress, would be “informed”. Where did the transparency go?
Kathy,
Part of being informed is remembering over the past several years how woefully inadequate Medicare has been. This was brought home to me recently in a conversation with a college student whose dad is a chiropractor. For years, he has accepted Medicare, but now he no longer takes it. Gradually, it has become a paperwork nightmare for doctors, as claims are submitted then rejected extremely picky “mistakes.” What good is a government program if it seems rigged to avoid paying out? Now imagine that it was the only choice available. At least now, that same chiropractor can accept patient with other forms of insurance that – while far from perfect – at least don't involve as much red tape.
Again, there is a simple remedy to the GOP/MedMob disinformation campaign. Publicly air Obama [so all the news will have to report on it whether or not they want to] hosting a town hall where actual people who were shafted by private insurance tell their graphic tales and name names of insurerers who “adjusted” their deceased relatives right into the grave, or a wheelchair or without vital organs or limbs. Just get them out there. Have about a dozen or so speak each week maybe even. It could be the weekly health-crises address. Spam the citizens with actual truthful accounts to counter the disinformation.
Then march out the small business owners to graphically discuss their nightmares one by one in having to let valuable employees go due to health concerns or concerns over skyrocketing premiums. One by one with names and again, naming insurerers responsible. Let everyone hear the rest of the story..from their neighbors and friends.
Camille Paglia, no conservative or even a centrist, has strong opinions on left-wing shills like KKK above:
http://www.salon.com/opinion/paglia/2009/08/12/…
“The ethical collapse of the left was nowhere more evident than in the near total silence of liberal media and Web sites at the Obama administration's outrageous solicitation to private citizens to report unacceptable “casual conversations” to the White House. If Republicans had done this, there would have been an angry explosion by Democrats from coast to coast. I was stunned at the failure of liberals to see the blatant totalitarianism in this incident, which the president should have immediately denounced. His failure to do so implicates him in it.”
I'm not stunned when a so-called “moderate” blog gets colonized by eff-tards like an ancient Marxist fossil and turns TMV into just another agitprop archipelago of the gulag where leftist journalists share lies and new tropes on how to insult the American majority [70% of whom are satisfied with their current health program.]
Read Paglia, if you can stand her take-no-prisoners critique of the man she voted for last November and his ridiculous pandering to the worst of the leftist MSM & their outliers. The independents are going against Obama and his approval is dropping like a stone.
Keep up the agitprop, KKK, and it will happen even faster.
Uh you got it completely backwards, 70% want to scrap the current system and want public options. Nice try though, speaking of taking over a website and injecting patently false information. The scores of people in the independant camp I talk to are overwhemingly THRILLED to see Obama take on MedMob.
Is your theory if you lie enough it will become true? The irony that you should project your dysfunction onto your targets…shame on you..
Great post Kathy. Contrary to the nonsense fomented by some and accepted as gospel by others, ignorance is NOT bliss. People like Daveinboca seem to only see things through a red haze and therefore never see the big picture. What's the point of putting an opinion out there and then sabotaging it with an adolescent sensibility? Ah well…
Why not? It's true. In his own words, Obama even hated his white relatives. He said so.
And, if you are smart enough to read the language of the bill, it clearly states that they will save money by withholding care for certain people with certain conditions.
And if you study the philosophies of 3 the people advising Obama, you will know they wrote reams of information about it, not just passing comments where they extolled the virtues of euthanasia, eugenics and giving the best care to only those who could produce for the 'state'.
This man and his administration are one helluva nightmare and people know it.
Medicare is broke but leave it to these crooks to want to break us further for this pie in the sky plan.
The plan is to break America… and he's doing it on behalf of the super rich elitist utopians who want a 'managed society' and who put this nobody in office.
All the major polls show we are the majority, sorry.
You can make it look like youre more, because you bussed in from NY the astroturfed people whom you gave tshirts, lunch, and paid them by the hour, in part by our tax dollars! We have video.
We on the other hand, were not helped by the GOP in anyway and no one is paid using taxpayer money to create more government!
Perhaps what the woman was railing about was that her family COULD afford the treatments and private insurance. She's really against the waste of government spending and wants to reduce costs.
In which case she should receive a letter saying that the government has considered her views and really appreciates that she wants to cut down on wasteful spending. Therefore any government paid coverage for her family members is terminated immediately.
Didn't McCain want to send $5k (was it pretax) to people to help them cover their costs of insurance? If so, we can give her $5k to help with her costs of insurance, and then tax it.
Problem solved and everyone gets what they ask for.
Wasn't that easy?
Silhouette & JS should check out the August 12 Gallup and perhaps put a damper on their hallucinatory delusions. You're the one making things up, S-boys, and I can't wait until November, 2010, when as in 1978 & 1994, Congress will revert to a sane mode of activity. ObamaCare is in free fall and Camille Paglia is spot on calling out the delusional leftist morons infesting TMV nowadays who are implicated in CP's post:
“The ethical collapse of the left was nowhere more evident than in the near total silence of liberal media and Web sites at the Obama administration's outrageous solicitation to private citizens to report unacceptable “casual conversations” to the White House. If Republicans had done this, there would have been an angry explosion by Democrats from coast to coast. I was stunned at the failure of liberals to see the blatant totalitarianism in this incident, which the president should have immediately denounced. His failure to do so implicates him in it.”
Although in the two S-boys above, the issue is more of a mental than an ethical collapse.
First we had BDS, now it's ODS. But lets look at what HotAir and the SecretServive have to saty about threats to the POTUS:
http://hotair.com/archives/2009/08/11/matthews-…
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/north…
Funny, I only see two K's in this author's name, Daveinboca. Nice job with the ad hominem attacks. Plus the “eff-tard” bomb. Thanks for the civil tone.
Is this a town hall meeting or something? Geez.
I stand by Sil today.
“If I remember correctly, it was Mr. Obama who wanted to rush this thing through so fast that NO ONE, not even Congress, would be “informed”. Where did the transparency go?”
This (along with the defective nature of the House legislation and the ineptitude with the rushing to cobble it together, while at the start deliberately neglecting the _cost_ of it all) was already hinted at earlier this year, with the Lysenkoist (PC global warming) climate-related legislation and the appearance then of our President, who neurotically agitated for its quick passage, over objections if necessary.
Why avoid (actually, hide or obscure) it and rush it through to passage? (Why stagger and stumble hurriedly to clumsily craft garbage legislation and satisfy diseased demands, like this, in the first place, too?)
This is the key point related to the commonplace growing public opposition in this country to the health care effort, more at the forefront, sloppier, more unseemly, and more stupidly rushed than anything before it.
The point is wasted on the low-IQ herd who demands this legislation be rushed through without examining, much less questioning or opposing [gasp] anything in it, but it remains the central point.
“ignorance is NOT bliss”
The Dems exploit the ignorant and convince them that they'll be given bliss.
Checkmate.
“near total silence of liberal media and Web sites at the Obama administration's outrageous solicitation to private citizens to report unacceptable “casual conversations” to the White House”
Silence, hell — they've been willing accomplices (predictably) and extended their der Sturmer treatment of a number of protestors (most of which were not the least controversial) in a handy generalization to in effect mischaracterize the majority of the US public (and its growing rejection of the current developing fiasco by Washington).
It was so bad that even when a true extreme-fringe-left critic of the plan (who wants Medicare for All and who wants nothing to do with insurance company involvement of any kind, even under federal control) was put on the air earlier this week, the loudmouth lib host kept interrupting her and even scoffed at her (loudly).
When someone earlier in the week from _Huffington_Post_ appeared and said she voted for Obama and so did her relative but both of them have serious concerns now about the health care effort, especially after questionable conduct by the Dems earlier this year, they got interrupted and others took over the broadcast. (PC approved message content only!)
They only lower their reputation again among better people when they do this.
“Didn't McCain want to send $5k (was it pretax) to people to help them cover their costs of insurance? If so, we can give her $5k to help with her costs of insurance, and then tax it.”
OK, but why not just reduce the amount sent in the first place, unless you prefer the deliberate addition of the complexity with the separate taxes, as well as continued care and feeding of the Internal Revenue Service?
(Note that the same comment applies as well to taxing of, for example, Social Security benefits and in these times, unemployment insurance, to note something else.)
What I've written before is worth mentioning again here: there's nothing hard about reforms. Begin with going to “community rating” (which is an appealing attribute of Medicare for All and other government health care schemes) on a state-wide, region-wide, or nation-wide basis. Have uniform, reasonably limited (mainly catastrophic-care only; prescriptions could be a separate plan, too) minimum benefit packages.
Where the money is concerned, the GOP could ape the Dems in the most rational ways, with subsidies for lower-income people (strict limits on this, not 400% of poverty level, etc.) or the favored GOP gimmick, a tax credit (full deduction, ideally) for health care expenditures (of all kinds, not only insurance). The GOP could also try one step up from that, giving money to people, but dedicated for a specific purpose, a solution the Dems should widely seek for all kinds of social-engineering goals: a voucher system for health insurance. (I'm surprised the “stimulus” didn't include vouchers for mortgage and rent payments.)
Meanwhile, Daveinboca and DLS continue to labor under the shared delusion that insulting language and/or Nazi references lend weight to their arguments. If they can't grasp the downside of that simple concept, why on earth would anyone think they had a prayer of understanding something as complex as healthcare reform?
Katty, any comment on the fake doctor appearing to support healthcare and hug Sheila Jackson Lee at her townhall?
http://hotair.com/archives/2009/08/13/video-oba…
http://lonestartimes.com/2009/08/13/obama-camp-…
or about the bogus AARP support claim Obama made?
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2009/08…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=67QyPo_uOfA
or about those remarks about doctors?
“The President's remarks are truly alarming and run the risk of damaging the all-important trust between surgeons and their patients.
We assume that the President made these mistakes unintentionally, but we would urge him to have his facts correct before making another inflammatory and incorrect statement about surgeons and surgical care.”
I guess its no wonder the Public trusts Republicans more on healthcare now than they do Democrats
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/…
No you don't want to talk about those things do you? Ok so go back and spew about right-wing lies now like a good little liberal thread starter.
– The American College of Surgeons
a similar rebuke about administration misinformation had been sent earlier as well:
http://www.facs.org/news/acsresponse2presobama….
[...] her Tampa town hall on health care, Congresswoman Kathy Castor is trying it again. … Of Right-Wing Lies and the Obligation To Be InformedGreat post Kathy. Contrary to the nonsense fomented by some and accepted as gospel by others, [...]
Hmmm, no response to my post about Medicare? Come on Sil and others. If you want a public plan, you had better defend the public plan that already exists. Otherwise, do you just want to extend the major problems of Medicare to the whole population, not just retirees? As it now stands, doctors are backing out of Medicare in droves, because they have to pay extra help to wade through all the paperwork, only to receive a paltry (and shrinking) reimbursement, or else end up in a bureaucratic feedback loop and get no reimbursement at all. Yeah, that's what we all want, right?
Funny how all the Western industrial countries have a national system and out perform the only private system(USA)). If the public option is so bad, why doesn't Australia go back to the USA model?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_care_in_Canada
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_care_systems
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Australia 81.1 4.7 2.8 9.7 2,999 8.8 17.7 67.0
Canada 80.4 5.4 2.1 8.8 3,678 10.1 16.7 70.0
France 80.9 4.0 3.4 7.6 3,449 11.1 14.2 79.7
Germany 79.8 3.8 3.5 9.8 3,371 10.6 17.6 77.0
Japan 82.4 2.8 2.1 9.3 2,474 8.2 16.8 82.7
Sweden 80.8 2.8 3.5 10.7 3,202 9.2 13.6 81.7
UK 79.1 5.0 2.5 11.9 2,760 8.4 15.8 87.0
US 77.8 6.9 2.4 10.5 7,290 16.0 18.5 46.0
1 Country 2 Life expectancy 3 Infant mortality rate
4 Physicians per 1000 people 5 Nurses per 1000 people 6 Per capita expenditure on health (USD)
7 Healthcare costs as a percent of GDP 8 % of government revenue spent on health 9 % of health costs paid by government ?
Meanwhile, Daveinboca and DLS continue to labor under the shared delusion that insulting language and/or Nazi references lend weight to their arguments. If they can't grasp the downside of that simple concept, why on earth would anyone think they had a prayer of understanding something as complex as healthcare reform?
The irony here, of course, is that our Congressional leaders (and the administration, to a lesser extent) are engaging in the same sort of tactical error- demonizing their opponents and pretending that their opposition is faux, or based on misleading information. So with the obvious downside of that strategy (you insult the very people that you need to convince), how on earth are we to believe that these Congresscritters could possibly understand something as complex as healthcare reform?
And shouldn't they (the ones whose hands we are placing these decisions in) be held to a slightly higher standard than blog commenters?