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(Newt - Would you buy a used promise from this man?)

Gingrich:"Think about a party whose last stand is to frighten 85-year-olds, and you'll understand how totally morally bankrupt the modern Democratic Party is,"

Oh?

In case you forgot - the Republicans did try their hand at Health Care reform in 1995. Then it was Medicare and the intention was to gut it, although they (as always) offered no details. They were quick to lob fear into the monologue - as they seem so willing to do at every opportunity.

Below is a summary (h/t Jon)

G.O.P. ANNOUNCES PLAN TO OVERHAUL MEDICARE SYSTEM

By ROBERT PEAR

Published: Friday, September 15, 1995

House Republican leaders unveiled their proposal to redesign Medicare today,
but it was surprisingly short on details and had none of the expected
financial incentives for elderly people to join health maintenance
organizations or other private health plans.

The package is supposed to cut projected Medicare spending by $270 billion,
or 14 percent, over the next seven years, and Republicans had hoped to
achieve much of the savings through greater use of H.M.O.'s and other forms
of managed care.

They said affluent beneficiaries should pay much higher premiums, but they
acknowledged that they were still struggling to achieve the savings they
need to meet their self-imposed goal.

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( . . and not to the happiest place on earth either!)

In 1975, the big concern (post-Watergate) was where our consumer society was heading. Ralph Nader, riding the crest of the Consumer bandwagon was actively pursuing the development of a Consumer Advocacy Agency, geared toward safeguarding the people of the U.S. against unsafe water, unsafe cars, unsafe food and anything else seen as endangering our society.

Then, as now, it was met with a lot of resistance and fear. Fear that all these regulations would indeed hurt and doom our society, our economy and our free enterprise system, not improve on it. Trying to protect the American people from unscrupulous business practices was seen as a dangerous red flag in the eyes of the Republican leadership.

As part of its continuing series of National Town Meetings, broadcast by NPR, a debate and Q&A session took place on April 23, 1975. It featured Ralph Nader - Consumer advocate and Senator Carl Curtis (R-Nebraska).

It is interesting to note the level of desperation Curtis addresses the Meeting, citing dire consequences to even our Foreign Policy should such legislation become law.

Ralph Nader:

"The Consumer Advocacy Agency deals with such things as dangerous drugs, flammable fabrics, unsafe cars, gouging energy prices, contaminated food, and these are the areas that will be the province of the consumer agency. It also doesn’t regulate a thing. All it does is just make the government agencies, hold their feet to reason, and data. And if they can’t support their procedural and substantive courses of action, then this agency can take other agencies to court. That’s all. And that’s enough for big business."

Carl Curtis:

"I hold in my hand a letter from the National Council of Farmer Cooperatives, vigorously opposing this act. They say is will disrupt emergency food aid to foreign nations through the beneficial PL-480 Assistance Food Program, and thus seriously affect U.S. foreign policy. I’ll illustrate how that can happen: The Consumer Advocacy Agency can challenge a decision to send some food abroad, on the ground that any food that is shipped out of this country, it will effect the price here. They can drag that on for a long time."

As I've pointed out in the past, and as I've shown with posts dealing with the question of Health Care, the wages of fear and distortion are enormous. The resistance towards anything that opposes the status quo is almost immediately met with the threat of dire consequences. Consequences that are not based on anything remotely resembling facts.

But it is all fear. It is sometimes the only card those about to lose power can play.

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Even Joe Scarborough who spends his mornings fear mongering day in and day out doesn't think the GOP's new web ad trying to make the public afraid of the President is "helpful". Or at least not until it's campaign season again..lol.

GREGORY: Let me talk about tactics on another issue, that's the issue of national security. Here is a Web ad released this week from Republican leader Boehner and Representative, Representative Pete Hoekstra talking about safety. Watch this.

(Clip from advertisement)

GREGORY: Is that the tone that Republicans should be striking now?

SCARBOROUGH: No. How's that? You wanted a short--no, that is not the tone we should be strike--it seems very discordant right now. The president has, has just gotten in. We can disagree without being disagreeable right now. You will see ads like that perhaps the last month of the 2010 campaign, but right now Republicans need to keep their head down, they need to come up with a policy, a conservative blueprint for where they want to lead this country on the environment, on a lot of other issues. No, I don't think that's helpful.

GREGORY: All right, we're going to leave it there. Thank you both very much.

One of the hallmarks of the militia movement of the 1990s was the way it inspired violence: by essentially loosing the moorings of their followers from reality by promulgating a toxic brew of conspiracy theories, right-wing historical revisionism, and a bevy of false "facts" and claims against government officials and liberals generally. Chief among these, of course, was the belief that Bill Clinton and the New World Order were coming to take their guns away -- which, of course, he never did, though he did manage to pass an assault-weapons ban.

So when we point out the toxic effects of the revival of this kind of irresponsible rhetoric, it's because there's a real history behind it. It's not mere presupposition to point out that fearmongering that promotes palpably false and distorted claims often brings violent results; we already are too familiar with this causal relationship from experience.

The difference between the 1990s and now? When I was hearing talk like this then, it was coming out of the mouths of the Bo Gritzes and John Trochmanns -- the leaders and fanatical ideologues who drove the militia movement.

Now, it's coming out of the mouths of people with mainstream media programs: Glenn Beck, Bill O'Reilly, Lou Dobbs, Michael Savage, Ann Coulter.

Media Matters has compiled a video documenting how rabidly the "Obama wants to grab our guns" meme has been broadcast to the True Believers of the American Right including Beck -- who reiterated his belief the Monday after the Pittsburgh shootings:

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Jon Stewart takes the Republicans to task for their fear mongering over the closing of Gitmo.