Single What? Female...

Healthcare Happens

it is not a perfect bill by any means, but after presidents fighting for this for over a hundred years, this is indeed a start. We have something...
And the republicans are absolutely freaking...
But they have been freaking for awhile...like since Obama got into office, but really, they made Obama's hardcore push for healthcare reform one of the most divisive issues ever, to the point of outright crazy.

I understand being a sore loser, I went through that for eight years with George W. in office. I called him an idiot, clueless, ignorant; many folks called him and his administration fascists, liars, rich elite white men out of touch with the American people who manipulated them into an unjust war...

So I can see why the GOP might come back calling Obama a fascist, a socialist, pushing "socialist healthcare" on the nation, being elitist and out of touch with what the American people really want. We may think it's wrong, just like they thought the dems and various progressive protesters were wrong about the Iraq and Afghanistan. But here's where I think things differ.

First - War is one thing, healthcare is another. War messes not only with foreign policy, but people - people who volunteer to fight for our nation. These people die, civilians die, countries are destroyed and take years to rebuild, and those soldiers/contractors/reporters/civilian aid workers come home and need both mental and physical care thus when politicians lie and get us into a war that not only kills our people but our economy, people are going to be rather vociferous in their opinions.
Healthcare is...it's our HEALTH. Since the days of Teddy Roosevelt, presidents and their administrations have been trying to fix the perpetually in-flux healthcare system. Why this has been so difficult is beyond me - and beyond various other nations as well. Don't we all want better healthcare? Don't we all want to be able to see good doctors, take better care of ourselves, and be able to afford it? Wouldn't we all like to actually deal with a qualified human being rather than random people with scripts and voice prompts? And have it easier to get care on a weekend (don't make me go into my needing to talk to a doctor/go the ER on a Sunday - except to say thank you to the St. Luke's people who got me in and out of the ER in an hour and twenty minutes rather than the nine hours I had to deal with previously at a different hospital) We can;t agree on THIS?
Okay, I understand worrying about abortion funding. While I am pro-choice and would like everybody to be, I know this is a divisive issue and can understand the arguing about that. I can even understand worrying about cost. We are in a recession, unemployment is still very nigh (hello! still funderemployed here!), and we have a deficit so high it feels like an imaginary number. But...

is this really the issue about which you just want to start scaring people about with things like "death panels", sky rocketing costs and the government forcing socialist medicine on you?

Apparently, yes it is.

They couldn't get Obama on anything else, so they decided healthcare was going to be the Waterloo to bring him down, so they pulled out all the stops on the talking points - "They are ramming this bill down our throats!" they conservatives said (for 17 months), then there were big numbers and the outright fear - Big government is out to get you! But then, it started getting ugly...
The GOP was already going above and beyond on all this forcing fear upon the masses with claims that the government was not only going to kill your grandmother, but make your great-grandchildren pay for all this. The Tea Party movement started with reasonable folks worried about taxes and too much government, but sadly, they started going beyond that. They started not only calling Obama Hitler, a Socialist and a fascist, but then the hate speech started up.
And these folks have been encouraged by pundits like Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Lou Dobbs and others who a) are still looking for Obama's (on record) birth certificate, b) think Obama's a Muslim and that that's a bad thing and c) have issues with black people, foreigners and anybody who does not look like them.
They have been fanning the flames of fear, hate and have been bringing out the worst side of the American people. At the 9/12 rally, there were folks who had signs referring to Obama as the "monkey in the white house" (graphics included), claiming Muslims were taking over the world and were all terrorists, with pictures of Obama as Hitler, Osama Bin Laden, called him the n-word, etc etc etc.
As mentioned in a previous entry, Glenn Beck had to add to the fire by saying Obama "took" his name to relate to his "radical" Muslim and African father, rather than be American. Rush Limbaugh made (what he considered) a joke about Obama having to find another "Massa" now after the Eric Massa farce.
And then, the day of the vote, the hatiest of the hateful in the Tea Bagger - I mean, pardon me, Tea Party movement, came out to spit on one Congressman, shout the n-word at a few others, and call one more a gay slur. Apparently, three gentleman also surrounded a wheelchair bound guy with Parkinson's, threw dollar bills at him and told him he has to "work for his own healthcare now rather than get the "free ride".
Really, GOP? Are these the kind of people you want to hang with? To have voting for you? To encourage and call "great Americans"? Really?
Being the "party of NO!" has it's drawbacks...as in, you can't say "yes" to anything, when you've already said that you are going to say "no" to it; otherwise you are a weak liberal flip-flopper. (why think about something and change your mind or compromise when you can just change the rules of the game and make it look like you meant to go that way anyway?)
It also sadly keeps you from saying "yes" when folks ask you to tell the most extreme of the tea party folk to stop with the hate speech and violence and be more reasonable. Because, of course, if you say yes to that. again, you'll look weak, like you're against free speech and like you want to take away everybody's guns.

Call me crazy, GOP, but I so would not want to have these kind of folk supporting, voting or working for me...

I would love to say to them, be reasonable and stop encouraging this kind of talk...but then again, I know that such encouragement got the GOP and the Tea Party right where they are now...and while they got there ugly, they got there...and it's hard to slow the crazy train...

KEEP PAYING ATTENTION !!!

Peace --Alex

posted by funkweee @ 6:32 PM