Conservative pundit, David Frum, is getting a lot of air time lately by taking a position contrary to that of the most active and visible elements of the Republican Party / conservative movement in this country. He asks: What would it mean to “win” the healthcare fight?
And the answer is not good for anyone, really, and especially not good for conservatives and the Republican Party. But not good for any us. We are one country, and we sink or swim together.
For some, the answer is obvious: beat back the president’s proposals, defeat the House bill, stand back and wait for 1994 to repeat itself.
The problem is that if we do that… we’ll still have the present healthcare system. Meaning that we’ll have (1) flat-lining wages, (2) exploding Medicaid and Medicare costs and thus immense pressure for future tax increases, (3) small businesses and self-employed individuals priced out of the insurance market, and (4) a lot of uninsured or underinsured people imposing costs on hospitals and local governments.
We’ll have entrenched and perpetuated some of the most irrational features of a hugely costly and under-performing system, at the expense of entrepreneurs and risk-takers, exactly the people the Republican party exists to champion.
Not a good outcome.
I agree with him, but I would add some other reasons why it would not be good if the current tactics led to the defeat of healthcare.
This campaign is stirring up something truly ugly, and it is unlikely that ugliness will go away.
It is stirring up racism - largely targeting Obama - and bringing us close to politics of real lynching. Today I saw a young man walking down the street of a reasonably liberal area wearing a t-shirt that said “America for White People.”
And where does that ideal come from? Try this website if you want to know in praise of Hitlerism, with its motto: America: founded by White, built by whites & for whites only!
By the way, Jews are not white according to that website. Don't get too comfortable with your conservative friends, David Frum. They have friends who are not nice at all.
Think of the ideals of fascism as displayed on that website when you hear the chant: “Give us back our America.” at the healthcare town meetings.
The claim that Obama is a new Hitler was made during the 2008 election and made by a Black minister at a Black church. Link to ATLAH
But not only there. Here is a video by cylon85912 from October 4, 2008. (pop up ad will appear or try to appear depending on your browser).
cylon85912 may also be responsible for the image at some of the anti-Democratic heathcare legislation that shows Obama looking like a cross with the joker.
CNN story on the Joker - Obama link.
By the way, cylon85912 also has problems with women, whom he refers to as femizazis.
To get back to David Frum’s article, book, and interview on Bill Moyers show this week, conservative forces are opening up the possibility of leading us into dangerous waters. Opportunists are stirring up unthinking, reactive disgust with government and in particular democratic government. And that, I fear will leave us open to an acceptance of fascism. There are confused and worried people out there for whom fascism is - oddly enough - both the ideal and
the enemy as seen in its linkage with Obama.
Those who love democracy and our country need to stop the actions that are leading us down this dangerous path. Now. Stop. Now.
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