Right-Wing Rage the Latest Outbreak of a Preexisting Condition
By Jon Perr Saturday Aug 15, 2009 1:00pm
There's nothing new under the sun, especially when it comes to the frothing at the mouth right-wing rage over health care reform. But thanks to the 24/7 media's transformation of politics into just another form of entertainment, delusional Birthers, deceitful Deathers, raging Teabaggers and town hall intimidators are dominating press coverage of the debate. And it's all a recurring symptom, Rick Perlstein argues in the Washington Post, of a nation in which "crazy is a preexisting condition."
In his instant classic Nixonland, Perlstein documented how Richard Nixon, "a serial collector of resentments," fanned the flames of racism, anti-communism and the budding culture war not only to take power in his time but to help produce a bitterly divided America in ours. Now in his Washington Post op-ed, Perlstein makes clear that we've been here before.
The repeated outbreaks of "black helicopters" in the 1990's, the National Indignation Convention in 1961, cries that the Civil Rights Act would "enslave" whites and countless other episodes of seeming conservative madness, Perlstein reminds us, result from the combustible combination of authentic fear and manufactured outrage:
So the birthers, the anti-tax tea-partiers, the town hall hecklers -- these are "either" the genuine grass roots or evil conspirators staging scenes for YouTube? The quiver on the lips of the man pushing the wheelchair, the crazed risk of carrying a pistol around a president -- too heartfelt to be an act. The lockstep strangeness of the mad lies on the protesters' signs -- too uniform to be spontaneous. They are both. If you don't understand that any moment of genuine political change always produces both, you can't understand America, where the crazy tree blooms in every moment of liberal ascendancy, and where elites exploit the crazy for their own narrow interests.
But Perlstein's cautionary tale is not merely one of the more things change, the more they stay the same. In its pursuit of entertainment over objective truth and conflict over common sense, he suggests, today's media environment rewards extremist claims and behaviors it once shunned:
It used to be different. You never heard the late Walter Cronkite taking time on the evening news to "debunk" claims that a proposed mental health clinic in Alaska is actually a dumping ground for right-wing critics of the president's program, or giving the people who made those claims time to explain themselves on the air. The media didn't adjudicate the ever-present underbrush of American paranoia as a set of "conservative claims" to weigh, horse-race-style, against liberal claims. Back then, a more confident media unequivocally labeled the civic outrage represented by such discourse as "extremist" -- out of bounds.
The tree of crazy is an ever-present aspect of America's flora. Only now, it's being watered by misguided he-said-she-said reporting and taking over the forest. Latest word is that the enlightened and mild provision in the draft legislation to help elderly people who want living wills -- the one hysterics turned into the "death panel" canard -- is losing favor, according to the Wall Street Journal, because of "complaints over the provision."
And so it goes. In 2009, the woman who clobbered Adlai Stevenson with a picket sign 46 years earlier would have ended up on cable news. As for the future prospects for health care reform legislation, Perlstein looked back. "Good thing our leaders weren't so cowardly in 1964, or we would never have passed a civil rights bill," he laments, "because of complaints over the provisions in it that would enslave whites."
(This piece also appears at Perrspectives.)
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in Congress. :(
I hope that this (that there's always been a tree of conservative crazy) means we will survive all these nuts falling out of it right now...
bribees. We have no "ethical brakes." Some people in this country think that if you pass up an opportunity to advance yourself, even if to do so hurts others, you are stupid not to do it anyway.
people...
video of 5,000 people standing on the street yelling "Ni88er" at the presidential motorcade, it would get on TV.
I suspect it's gonna get easier to find the crowd ready and willing to do it, too...They were pretty close to it last year, at the McStain/Palin rallies...
When I was young no one had healthcare insurance, we paid our healthcare providers for our healthcare, and everyone could afford it. I say everyone needs to cancel their healthcare insurance companies and negotiate with our doctors and other healthcare providers.
Really? A friend of mine recently tried to get a doctor to look at what he thought was an ear infection and he went to 4 different doctors. The price ranged from $150 to $500 just to stick a scope in his ear.
That's not just crazy, it's criminal!
the medical malpractice insurance fiasco and the Medicare Part D rip-off. They should be put out of the business with respect to anything that has to do with health care. If the politicians were not being paid off by the industry, they would already be out of business. Can you see them giving us all the finger right this minute? And laughing as they do it?
Can you afford that if you needed it?
I know I couldn't, but 1,000 people chipping in $75 could. It's good if 1,000 don't need knee surgery.
So here we are at the no man's land that the founding fathers envisioned, but hoped to avoid : not the takeover of U.S. democracy by an evil tyrant, but the systematic dismantling of checks and balances and representative government by a minority of demagogues who have "useful idiots" who work against common sense and their best interests to keep the greedy in or near power .
The test is to see if the sane can fight for democracy as hard and as dirty as the rest can fight for their paranoia . And any deal without a public option is surrender.
America. Soon to be totally global.
Like so totally globular...
This clip sums up why Beck cannot be taken seriously. What an idiot.
http://progressnotcongress.org/?p=2545
Watch and marvel at the wonderful world of ignorance.
In the words of Bugs Bunny: "What a maroon!"
Pontius Pilate to Jesus: "Look you seem to be a nice Jewish kid from ... where izzit? ... Nazareth? But you gotta quit fuckin wid da moneychangers, cause I get a piece of dat action, see? So stop dickin' with 'em. And especially you gotta swear off this Son of God, King of the Jews shtick. Ain't but one king aroun jeer, and you're lookin' at him. So lay off that stuff, and we can put this whole thing behind us, you and me. On the other hand, I got a couple of thieves I'm gonna do in tomorrow; and you can join 'em if you want. Your call kid. Now whose yer daddy?"
good one.
From DemRapidResponse channel on YouTube:
What You Won't See On National Cable News...
Has allowed the illiterate, the uneducated and those who fail to be inquisitive to be easy prey to the far right-wing wacko fundies.
When I went to college I was told, "Here you will not simply be taught WHAT to think. You will be taught HOW to think." I was taught that a diversified reading list of BOOKS should be my life long professors.
Americans like Sarah Palin and her witch exorcising pastor from Kenya, Rev. Muthee (the "speaking in tongues" wacko) and all of of her ilk (roughly about half of the population of the United States I'm afraid) believe that the Book of Revelation was written by St. John and is a prophecy of where we are headed right now. "The End Times". These are the same people who voted for McCain/Palin and who listen to the right-wing, hate-filled MSM.
These people have been BRAIN WASHED!!!! Then fed a crock of bullshit by a bunch of wacko preachers who actually are on a mission to fulfill ALL the prophecies in Revelation so that "The End Times" will come.
They actually say that The Bible must become the Constitution for the entire planet! They go to places like Uganda (because Revelation said "all the corners of the world must receive the word of "God") and they teach these hungry, illiterate, naked , homeless people that they do NOT need clothes, or homes or books or educations or health care. They are TAUGHT that all they really need is The Bible because "the end times are upon us."
We are dealing with a dangerous CULT that actually had it's tentacles deep into The Bush White House and had it not been for the fact that McCain was stupid enough to say, "THE FUNDAMENTALS OF OUR ECONOMY ARE SOUND" during an economic meltdown, we might be discussing Vice President Sarah "Muthee" Palin right now.
Somebody should interview (and film) all the kooks who are disrupting meetings and denouncing the right to basic health care to every American and find out how many of these morons actually believe we don't need health care because The End Times are near anyhow!
We should all be worried about being SAVED!!!!, not about what we're going to do when we have a heart attack and have no way to pay for care.
BTW, in a documentary I just watched, various theologians who are considered to be...gasp!!...intellectuals!!... agree that the book of Revelation was probably NOT written by St. John at all, but rather by a refugee who traveled to Greece after the fall of Rome and ate some "magic mushrooms" that are abundant near the cave where he wrote about "monsters, rivers of blood, fires, plagues, locusts with crowns etc., etc., etc.
Bad trip?
Just try telling all this to the guy holding the "Obama as Hitler" sign.
Just goes to show you how easy it is to whip up all these brainwashed "christians" into a frenzy. It's so easy to teach someone how to hate another in the name of God!
you want to know how bad it's getting, see Jeff Sharlet's new book about the 'C' street gang's religious manifesto. The christian crazies are at least as bad as the muslim crazies. Religious zealot's have been one of the biggest problems humanity has had since looong before jebus. My ex kidnapped my kids to raise them in one of those speaking in tongues, healing touch holy roller cults. I couldn't do a thing about it because in this area (oklahoma) its prevalent enough to be almost normal. The religious right wingnuts have been behind every republican since Reagan and have been duped and commandeered by the wall street types to get behind 'the corporate message' and keep the power where they want it. Listen to Chomsky for just a little while to see what a power grab the elitist's have made.
Oklahoma is half-run by Oral Roberts' relatives. You have my absolute sympathy.
manufactures mass consciousness. Always has since the advent of TV.
It's Howdy Doody Time
Any participant who speaks at one of these TownHalls should be REQUIRED to answer two questions:
1) Do you have health insurance?
2) Are you satisfied with it?
THEN they can ask their question.
most who are satisfied with their health insurance have never filed a claim.
Are you responsible adults or are you wimps? Don't let yourself be intimidated by a lot of orchestrated yelling. Stand true to the people who elected you.
I have to say it again. Sorry.
One thing that has not been discussed is the $800,000,000 or $1,000,000,000 or whatever it is, The amount that has not been paid for yet. This amount is OVER 10 Years. The Republicans like to use the 10 year figure because it sounds so much bigger. In fact it is bigger. It is 10 times bigger. Remember this when they are throwing around these huge numbers...
Maybe the Republicans are still angry about that. After all, the south is the main hotbed for the birthers isn't it?
are liberals going to have to fear for their safety from these nuts?
In the past. Right now. In the future. "Always."
Over here...hey you!...Ya you, Rethuglican Healthcare industry planted shit disturber! Got some info for you. No, it's free.
Healthcare compared
Health spending as a share of GDP
US 16%
UK 8.4%
Public spending on healthcare (% of total spending on healthcare)
US 45%
UK 82%
Health spending per head
US $7,290
UK $2,992
Practising physicians (per 1,000 people)
US 2.4
UK 2.5
Nurses (per 1,000 people)
US 10.6
UK 10.0
Acute care hospital beds (per 1,000 people)
US 2.7
UK 2.6
Life expectancy:
US 78
UK 80
Infant mortality (per 1,000 live births)
US 6.7
UK 4.8
Source: WHO/OECD Health Data 2009
Imagine that one, huh? "Best healthcare in the world" my *ss. Most expensive ripoff in the world is more like it. Now take your fake anger and turn it towards the politicians, who's wallets are getting fat by the current system.
Money spent does not equal 'best' or 'better'.
... that after the GOP sinks healthcare reform they're going to militate for the repeal of Medicare. Let them talk themselves out of that one.
going after guns. And will make tobacco illegal.
the real and most up to date healthcare stats....just to show how much serious reform is needed in many places, including the US:
http://www.who.int/whosis/whostat/EN_WHS09_Ta...
2000....19.5%
2006....19.3%
So the US government spends less now than they did in 2000. Nice. And Rethuglicans say government putting money into healthcare is unaffordable? What percentage of total government spending goes to the military and the two fake wars?
Also, according to this report, Canadians spend an average of $3900/year on healthcare...US? $7000!!
Want to save money and lives? Seriously go to government run insurance, and get the vulture insurance industry completely out of it.
... after seeing all these right wing screwballs going over the top... maybe a death panel is not a bad idea! :-)
I tried to explain to some local reactionaries that Obama's plans to euthanize the elderly was a complete lie. It's only the GOP elderly that will be euthanized. Went right over their heads.
from people whose favorite flavor of chips is lead-based paint?
In this region, those right-wing bogeymen actually were TVA helicopters from Huntsville and Muscle Shoals running cocaine. They made the mistake of dumping their wholesale cargo in Watts Bar Lake with one of the family in-laws watching. Gossip abounded, and Bill Clinton pulled the entire fleet down, allegedly for "maintenance inspection"..
Probably Steve White's contingent, still working after their crooked leader was ousted.
Shame some of that cocaine money couldn't be put toward ash pile cleanup.
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