Who is the Real Liar?
As an Independent who votes Democratic because they represent my views on women’s rights, civil rights, labor rights, and the environment better than their counterparts, I often disagree with my Republican friends but can understand and respect their conservative views. What I can’t understand (and what I have only disdain for) are the far right extremist Republicans who are making bizarre comparisons of President Obama and Hitler (and essentially making a mockery of the holocaust atrocities).
I don’t understand how any working American who accepts Medicaid, Social Security, government disability, the role of the FDA and other government functions can then make the leap to believing that Obama’s proposed Public Option for health care is a form of socialism or fascism. If Obama is a Hitler in this context, so are the rest of the leaders of the free world whose governments all provide health care to its citizens.
Do taxpayers who oppose a Public Option understand that they are already picking up the tab for emergency room visits of the uninsured? Do they realize that a Public Option would force insurance companies to be more fair and affordable and could provide a step to improving our country’s health care system rating by the World Health Organization of only 37th in the world?
As a baby boomer who as a child pledged allegiance to the flag next to a picture of President Eisenhower, I find it hard to understand how some schools would decline to show President Obama’s address to school children in which he was encouraging them to stay in school and work hard. And when I heard that fringe groups and right wing radio personalities referred to the address as indoctrination into Obama Youth Corps, it was hard to keep a straight face.
I think it’s ironic that Bush supporters blame Obama for the deficits that Bush created and that they loudly complain to Obama about bailouts that began under Bush’s Presidency. Even more ironic is that so many Americans accepted a war promoted by the Bush administration under false premises at the cost of many 1,000’s of lives but are suspicious and adamantly against health care reform designed to improve and save lives.
When I witness a member of Congress shout “liar” to Obama during a Presidential Address to the Nation, I worry that the Rush Limbaughs of the world have infected our country’s institutions and traditions with their bully tactics. When Sarah Palin makes the ludicrous claim that Obama’s health care plans could lead to death panels to decide who will live or die, I fear that the paranoid politics of Joseph McCarthy – whose lies and witch hunts in the 1950’s spread hate and ruined the lives of many innocents – is on the rise again.
I recently heard NPR’s Terri Gross interview Max Blumenthal about his new book Republican Gomorrah: Inside the Movement that Shattered the Party. The documentary filmmaker and author, who has been covering the Christian right for the past six years, says that right wing extremists have reduced the big tent party of Eisenhower to a one ring circus. He exposes those responsible for leading the characterization of Obama as Hitler or Stalin and reveals that many of those parroting it don’t know the difference between fascism and communism, saying “the goal is to paint Obama as a totalitarian, secret communist, fascist, terrorist, Muslim” and whatever they can come up with to de-legimize him and mobilize opposition against him.
In other words, spread lies.
Blumenthal pointed out the irony of leveling Hitler/Stalin rhetoric at the centrist, consensus-building Obama, especially considering that one of the extreme right’s inspirations, R.J. Rushdoony, has “advocated replacing the U.S. Constitution and secular government with a totalitarian theocracy in which disobedient children, adulterers, witches, abortion doctors, women who receive abortions, etc., would all be executed.”
Posing a mostly rhetorical question, Blumenthal asked, “when one side is completely hysterical, conspiratorial and is leveling baseless attacks, should it be taken seriously?” Later in the interview, he answered that question saying that the extreme rhetoric of the right-wing fringe is going to become mainstream if the Republican Party echoes it and Fox News and right wing radio shows provide a megaphone for it.
Meanwhile our country is currently facing a convergence of some of the biggest challenges in modern history. The lies about Obama and those who are spreading them exasperate those challenges by threatening the integrity of our country and putting its progress at risk. ~ Colleen Redman
September 15th, 2009 1:22 pm
I couldn’t agree more!
September 15th, 2009 1:27 pm
Good article- haven’t heard the comparison
but am I missing something. I pay quite a lot for medicare????
September 15th, 2009 1:39 pm
Maybe you can help me clarify. It is only Medicaid I mean that we collect after turning 65?
I found this: http://missourifamilies.org/features/healtharticles/health46.htm.
September 15th, 2009 7:52 pm
Thanks for the dose of sanity Colleen.
It was a pleasure reading this after reading all of the local news about the Texas Governor’s race and the unbelievable idiocy that is being perpetrated in the name of rightwing politics here.
September 15th, 2009 8:19 pm
Well said! I find the hate and fear mongering truly despicable.
September 16th, 2009 12:00 am
I agree fully, Colleen. And I am living with a man who is on the other side, and it is killing me.
September 16th, 2009 4:59 am
Thank you, Colleen. That is a wonderful piece.
The comparisons are all over the news and the op-ed pages. It’s very hard to miss the hate-mongering going on. It’s absurd and deeply disturbing. Thank you for being so reasonable.
When I look at what I pay for insurance, copays, and deductibles, I wonder why I bother with insurance at all. I applaud the President for challenging the fat cats living off my hard-earned money.
September 16th, 2009 6:55 am
Excellent post and very well written. Have you sent it to any publications (Floyd Press, Roanoke Times, etc.)?
September 16th, 2009 7:26 am
I agree too, What a great article and it needs to be published. xo
September 16th, 2009 9:14 am
Well said, my friend. Thanks for using your voice.
September 16th, 2009 9:28 am
I did send it to the Roanoke Times. They are harder to get published in than were in the past since they’ve gone more local and whether they use it or not will probably depend on what else they have printed on the topic.
September 16th, 2009 9:40 am
I could not agree with you more. You know, I think this all ties into fear of the unknown, or fear of the other, unfortunately. And fear is a difficult bear to wrestle.
September 16th, 2009 7:37 pm
Thanks, Colleen! I’m glad to hear from someone I can agree with for a change. The past month or so I have found myself avoiding friends because their overly- right wing opinions are too ludicrous even to debate. In my entire life, I’ve never felt so angry about politics. I don’t have enough knowledge about lots of stuff that’s going on, yet I cringe when I hear some of the ridiculous charges the right-wingers are throwing out there. I lean to the left politically, but by no means consider myself “a liberal”, although lately tend to find myself more closely aligning with them just to distance myself from the other NUTS.
September 16th, 2009 8:24 pm
BRAVA!
September 16th, 2009 10:17 pm
The Van Jones incident got me really fired up and I started doing politics on my blog again. Not many people read my blog, but I feel that even if only one person reads something I post and starts to think then I’ve made it worth my while. I can not do nothing!! The idea that a little boy could wear a shirt that says “The Cure for Obama Communism is a New Era of McCarthyism” is just plain scary!
September 17th, 2009 7:32 pm
Well said. I’m sure that most of those rabid protestors wouldn’t really know socialism if they saw it.
September 18th, 2009 11:40 pm
Bravo!
Yes, this should be pass on to the general public, because it’s truth one can sink their teeth in!
September 20th, 2009 1:19 pm
Preach it sister…I’m with you!
September 20th, 2009 11:31 pm
You have written a masterful summary of the Democratic talking points. I see them repeated on website after website, Media Matters, Politico, The Daily Kos, but you have woven them together in an appealing manner that will give warm fuzzies to any supporter of the current administration.
I would like to meet and discuss over coffee the “lies” that you claim people are saying about Obama. Perhaps you have a source of news that I should be reading in addition to biggovernment.com/.
September 21st, 2009 12:16 am
By lies I mean that Obama is a Muslim, a fascist, a terrorist, wasn’t born here etc and that kind of general name calling that has no basis in reality. I provided the link for the interview about the book I mentioned. Maybe you should click on that. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=112683449
If my commentary (published in the Roanoke Times this Saturday http://www.roanoke.com/editorials/commentary/wb/219519 ) is the Democratic talking points, then maybe they stole them from me because these are my own thoughts that I formulated on my own.