ZOMG! HELLTHKARES SOCILIZM! TEH SKAI IZ FALLINZ!

Town hall meetings have been angry hot beds of populist outrage... the charges?

"The systematic dismantling of this country"

"You have awakened the sleeping giant."

"I don't want this country turning into Russia, turning into a socialized country."
(insert quivering rage)

and WHO is doing this to our PERFECT UNION?

TEH LIBRELS AN BARACK OBAMA!
(HEZ A NATZI SEKRIT MUSLIN JOO you know!)

(cue shrieking.... and twilight zone music)

or will they?

Who is the source of these accusations?
"the same pundits and conservative media outlets that were central in defeating President Bill Clinton’s health care proposals 16 years ago, including the editorial board of The Washington Times, the American Spectator magazine and Betsy McCaughey..."

Mandatory Sex changes! Death Panels! Forced ABORTIONS!
A GOVRNMENTZ TAK OVR OF HEELTH CARE! ZOMG!

TEH LIBREL PLAN TO ENSLAVE SEAN HANNITY... I MEAN HUMANITY!

Ohhh... the stupid, it burns!

All this Lunacy is rooted in GOP and industry WHARGARBL. So many seem to have forgotten that it was the GOP that lead the country into ruin, started the handouts to the banks, lied and started a unnecessary war, slashed civil liberties, and consolidated power, punished dissent by making wild accusations and smearing individuals, and yet the citizens who are raging at these town halls are accusing Obama of "dismantling the constitution" and turning the US into socialist state.

Of course when pressed they can't get much further than their vague talking points that they happily parrot from industry goons, GOP operatives and fringe zealots.

Thursday, on NPR's Morning Edition a women being interviewed at a Maryland town hall claimed "I'm the real thing" "I wasn't sent here by anybody" then preceded to use the exact same talking points.... Dismantling the Constitution... socialism!... blah, blah, blah....

I'm not sure what's worse— so much AGGRESSIVE STUPIDITY, or the Democrats utter inability to dispel such obvious misinformation and general LUNACY.

The mainstream media isn't helping by giving the most extreme of these air time instead of trying to sort out the real concerns from the hysteria.
[read: hysteria translates to better ratings]


There ARE serious concerns...
the administration hasn't revealed the actual details of the plan (Big mistake) and this makes it very hard to know what the details are. The bottom line is everyone should be able to get care when they need it and not be forced into permanent debt as a result.

The current system is what people should be outraged about!



One thing is for sure, Obama's attempts at bipartisanship have UTTERLY failed...

Joan Walsh at Salon sums it up:

"I admire Obama's desire for conversation, consultation and, if possible, bipartisan support for his agenda. But it's been clear since early in his term that the GOP marching orders are to thwart him whenever possible. I didn't really think Chuck Grassley would craft a healthcare bill more palatable to me, but I thought possibly he'd help Obama get a bill that would attract some Republican support.

I never cease to amaze myself by my naiveté and unwarranted optimism. I think it's time for Obama to use his political capital to whip the Democrats, including the nippy, yippy selfish and untested Blue Dogs, into shape. If he compromises with the likes of Chuck Grassley after Grassley betrayed him, he can give up the rest of his agenda -- and maybe even a second term. But I trust Obama to know that he's been punked by Grassley, and to act accordingly."

and Paul Krugman observes
"I warned that [Obama's] vision of a “different kind of politics” was a vain hope, that any Democrat who made it to the White House would face “an unending procession of wild charges and fake scandals, dutifully given credence by major media organizations that somehow can’t bring themselves to declare the accusations unequivocally false.”
So, how’s it going?

Sure enough, President Obama is now facing the same kind of opposition that President Bill Clinton had to deal with: an enraged right that denies the legitimacy of his presidency, that eagerly seizes on every wild rumor manufactured by the right-wing media complex.

This opposition cannot be appeased. Some pundits claim that Mr. Obama has polarized the country by following too liberal an agenda. But the truth is that the attacks on the president have no relationship to anything he is actually doing or proposing."

And what is the GOP plan? well, the closest thing looks like a joke but a few months back they presented this (supposedly)...

For Reals???

The people speak!

Tom Tomorrow

Seriously?

"War and corpses the last refuge of the rich"
(I saw a WWI poster that used a line like this, but I don't remember the exact wording or attribution)

We can't trust one source for news anymore. We have to look at actions and read multiple reports and check the sources and have an understanding where those sources are leaning to get even a rough idea of where the truth is...

even the words "truth" and "Facts" are being abused....
We must find a civil place to have a real dialogue...
if this continues to devolve it could lead to violence, or at the least, we will still have no real reform on healthcare.