Subscribe to RSS.
Become a Fan on Facebook.
Follow Top 10 US Green/ Yoga/ Buddhist/ Boulder Twitter.
Subscribe to Free Weekly E-Newsletter.
Have Something to Say? New Era Colorado Tells Us How.
by elephantjournal.com on Sep 10, 2009
Even if you’ve tried not to pay attention, you’ve got to agree the last month has been one weird time. It’s almost like the media has been willing to give the microphone to any nutjob willing to talk about the health care debate. We’ve heard about the death panels that will kill grandma, socialist takeovers, and the death of Medicare. Some of the crazies are even downright rude. But, as we heard last night during President Obama’s speech to Congress, “The time for bickering is over. The time for games has passed. Now is the season for action.”
Normally, we would take this moment and send you an email asking you to call your member of Congress and ask them to stand their ground on voting for a strong health care bill in the coming weeks. (Ok, well, if you’ve got a quick second, we’d love it if you made a quick phone call for the national call-in day) But, what we really want to ask of you today is to do your part to make sure the crazies don’t win. When you hear a flat-out lie, set the record straight. When you sit down at the dinner table, bring it up.
The meaningful conversations we have with our friends and family are worth a hundred of the misleading commercials and a thousand angry townhall teabaggers. And when someone tells you it’s not the time or the place for politics, remind them that this isn’t about politics–this is about the character of our country. This debate doesn’t only impact the lives of millions of Americans, but it’s a moment to illustrate what our country truly stands for. It’s not politics, it’s humanity.
This debate will be going on for at least several more weeks. And while their was a call last night for civility and honesty in our discourse, there will still be those whose main goal is only to disrupt. Old rumors will intensify. New rumors will circulate. We must hold firm. This is our chance to truly shape the future of our country.
For more from New Era Colorado, please visit their website.
For more on Joe Wilson, please visit this site.
Subscribe to our free Top-10-Blogs-of-the-Week Email Newsletter.
somehow I feel that this tactic won't really work; calling the nutjobs nutjobs…they don't care much for that.
I like Dora the Explorer. She looked into the magic crystal and smiled.
I'm not into name-calling. I think this partisan atmosphere is self-perpetuating. Joe Wilson's action was douchey—even at the height of all the Bush-hating Iraq stuff Democrats stood and applauded at the State of Union. That's how it should be. As Senator Udall says, "agree to disagree."
I agree with this post. However, I'm not sure how often the opportunity arises to respectfully debate this topic among my friends, or among people I meet in my everyday life. In my job and in random social circumstance, this topic isn't brought up. My friends tend to be like-minded on this topic–which is reassuring, but doesn't allow for a healthy debate. I'm guessing the people who listen to Fox and right-wing radio also hang out with like-minded folks.
I think the media poison spread by some becomes addictive to more than a few listeners–they can't go through their day without it. It stirs up emotions–in other words, it adrenalizes them. This becomes a kind of "rush" (pun intended). People feel something–they need a target to rail against, especially if their own circumstances aren't great. you've got to blame someone, right? Cynical politicians on the right know this instinctively, and milk it for all it's worth…
this is just speculation on my part, of course…
on the partisan thread, just got this press release in my inbox:
From: "Brian Britton" <greeley912@timberwoolfe.com>
Date: September 11, 2009 1:12:44 PM MDT
To: waylon@elephantjournal.com <waylon@elephantjournal.com>
Subject: Local TEA Party activists boarding buses for rally in Denver
Reply-To: "Brian Britton" <greeley912@timberwoolfe.com>
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE September 11, 2009
CONTACT Brian Britton 970-506-1609
Local TEA Party activists boarding busses for rally in Denver
Greeley, Col. — As experts and pundits and political alchemists try to read the withering tea leaves left in the aftermath of President Obama's Wednesday night health care address, busses across the country are being loaded with a different kind of TEA, headed for a national rally Saturday on the Capitol mall in Washington, D.C. Local activists are headed to a statewide rally in Denver.
Brian Britton of Greeley said that , "Some of our folks are headed to Washington, but most are rallying here in Denver, we are doing this to save our country, and to make clear to Congresswoman Markey that we want her to vote against Obama's trillion-dollar socialized and rationed medicine scheme."
"We support what is happening in Washington, D.C. but wanted to rally at our State Capitol and let Colorado and Washington, D.C. officials know that we are watching them," said Britton.
The Taxed Enough Already or TEA Party movement sprouted seemingly from nowhere on Tax Day, April 15th, in just about every American city, big and small. Critics at first labeled the demonstrations as Republican sour grapes in the wake of President Obama's election, and they were famously denounced as racist by comedienne Janeane Garofalo on MSNBC's "Countdown with Keith Olbermann." But the TEA Partiers didn't disappear.
They emerged again on July 4th, a few notables garbed as 1776-era minutemen. They waved flags, copies of the Constitution, and held handmade signs that condemned the trillion-dollar pricetag of government spending and snowballing debt. Again the demonstrations were paid little heed by the media. In August, they could no longer be ignored.
At July's end, Speaker Nancy Pelosi insisted that she wasn't "scared of August," but as soon as Congress broke for recess, town hall meetings were flooded by a new breed of political activist. Congressmen and senators ran for the hills away from the TEA Partiers, and a few of them were chased. Scheduled town halls were cancelled and Congressional schedules laid empty for weeks. While Speaker Pelosi denounced the mysterious political activists as swastika-bearing Nazis, her Blue Dog Democrats transformed into rigid fiscal conservatives and the "public option" seemed to die on the vine.
On Wednesday, President Obama did his best to resuscitate his unpopular health care bill, but the TEA Partiers this Saturday will bring their case against it to the White House's backyard.
I think these people will learn that these tactics will soon stop working. Or at least, I hope so. If you actually listened to Obama's speech or read the articles on his proposal, it's obvious that these Tea Party folks are completely off-base. Obama has said that he won't sign the bill if it adds one more dime to our nation's deficit. He has said that if you have health insurance that you like, then NOTHING will change for you. This bill will primarily be paid for by cost SAVINGS…that should be something anti-tax activists and fiscal conservatives can applaud. Average Americans will not see any tax increases for this bill–only the wealthy will.
Lastly, I agree that a trillion (actually 900 billion or something) sounds like a helluva lot of money. And it is. However, we have spent more than that for a few years of war in Afghanistan and Iraq. This bill will pay for the health care overhaul for 10 years with that amount of money. This debate is about where our priorities lie and the type of country we want to live in. Telling insurance companies that they can't discriminate against people with diseases isn't socialism. Providing people with more choices for where they purchase health insurance from is not socialism. And making the cost of health care more affordable for all Americans is not socialism.
I can only hope the scare tactics of these Tea Partiers won't work anymore. They're framing the debate under the premise of false information and lies.
Waylon – posts of this kind are why I read elephant. The most powerful way to effect political change is to remember that government is supposed to be 'by the people, for the people' and that it's the every day, ill-informed, prejudiced and biased amongst us who are destroying life as we know it ….
… regardless of what the issue is, it seems to be time to stop behaving like spoiled children and blaming it on somebody else.
Those in favour of change need to agitate for it in every concievable way, or move somewhere else .